Let's get the least difficult matter out of the way - cold, miserable January weather in Christchurch (and other parts of NZ) - not the summer we wanted but the farmers get needed rain ... and, segueing to much, much more difficult matters, we are not in a tragic situation such as Los Angeles is experiencing through these days ... nor are we at war. I am not aware that any conflicts on 31 December 2024 have ceased with the turn of the new year.
Then, thinking of a rocky start to the year, there is Trump wanting more American territory, seemingly oblivious to the ethical logic of his rhetoric: that Putin may as well seek Ukraine as Trump Greenland ... or Canada.
But I do like the joke on the internet: that Australia has announced that it has offered New Zealand to Trump as territory he might like to acquire :). It would be one way to get the longed for free trade agreement with the USA!
New Year reflections: by this I don't mean reflections on world events (though they form context for thinking about the perenniel question, What is the Good News in our day?). I do mean: thinking about the Good News, with Anglican hues, with reference to some reading I have managed to do during the holiday season.
So a bit of reading Barth's Church Dogmatics led to some enquiry into De Lubac's mid 20th century controversy with Dominican Thomists over nature/supernature (a controversy I do not fully understand, in part because it includes "This is what Aquinas meant" v "No, that is not what he meant" ping-pong!) which moved into some internet enquiries yielding some interesting articles/chapters, including the nugget of information that Garrigou-Lagrange (erstwhile chief Thomistic antagonist of De Lubac's) was a supporter of Vichy France (because it represented opposition to "modernism"). Naturally this got me thinking along the following lines ... (in no particular order of merit):
- What is it about conservative theology, whether in the early to mid 20th century in Europe or in the early 21st century in America/Europe, which leads to associated support for fascist or fascist-tending politicians?
- In different words, why are some theologians careful to question "modernism" in any given human era but seemingly careless about whom they unquestioningly welcome as allies against "modernism"?
- Can we ever be fully rational about how God works in the world? The nature/supernature controversy is (in my understanding) an issue about how God as God makes connection with creation (whether nature is "the whole of creation" or focused on nature as "humanity"), the supernatural with the natural, with the conjoined issue of whether natural desire for God exists "naturally" and if so, is God obligated to fulfil it (which impinges on God's sovereign freedom)?, or, desire for God is implanted by God through the creation of us ... briefly, there is a mystery about God's work in the world and, just may be, it cannot be explained by a combo of Aristotle's and Aquinas' propositions? Or, can it be? My own lean is towards De Lubac's suspicion of a wholly rational explanation for God's work in the world.
- Why, across a number of bits and bobs of writings about these matters was it hard if not impossible to find a fairly straightforward christological approach to the nature/supernature dilemms? That is, a Christian approach to bridging any assumed gap between nature and supernature should invoke the Incarnation (the Word became flesh) as the specific, concrete instance in which the gap is bridged and, further, recalling Pauline "in Christ" theology, is not our desire for God fulfilled by our being "in Christ" - within the very life of the One in whom all things in heaven and on earth are fulfilled?
- Conversely, just as anti-modernist politicians can be engaged in order to support a specific theological agenda, so can the Christian faith be invoked to support a certain line of political or socio-political thought (the current instance being the acknowledgement by various global pundits that Christianity has profound influence on our aspiration for "the good life" in the here and now). But, much as we Christians, feeling beleagured in secularised modern life, may relish such endorsement, is there not an ever constant need to focus on truth rather than utility? Does God exist? Is this existent God the God revealed in and through Jesus Christ? What does this God say to us and expect of us?
- De Lubac has a fascinating passage (as cited in something I read) which in his context was about (in my language) Catholic propositional theologians but which I reckon could apply to evangelical propositional theologians:
De Lubac "Disappearance of the Sense of the Sacred." pp. 233-4, (in Theology in History, trans. Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1996), cited in Randall S. Rosenberg, The Givenness of Desire: Concrete Subjectivity and the Natural Desire to See God (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017), p. 28.
- Reflecting on such a critique of a "We've got it all sewn up theology", De Lubac was mindful, as other theologians have been, as I hope I am, that the God we adore and attempt to serve, the God in whom we believe ultimate blessing is to be found, is the God of Jesus Christ - the God who in great complexity, diversity and not always rationally reconcilable disclosures is revealed through the Old Testament, the four Gospels, the Pauline and other epistles - but whom may be understood simply (if profoundly and unable to be exhausted mystery) as Love.
- In 2025, whatever rockiness, tragedy and miserable-summerness befalls us, the Good News of Jesus Christ is that God is Love, we are loved by Love itself and the best life - the Augustinian rest for our restlessness, the Thomistic beatitude we seek - is yet to be but always present in Jesus Christ, risen from the dead.
