Archive for the 'Theology and other' Category

AAR, Literary Theory and the Bible

Published
by
DWM
on November 8, 2008
in Bulgakov, Culture, Hermeneutics, Literature, Scripture and Theology and other
. 1 Comment

I’m sorry we’ve been so absent lately. I know you miss us, a lot. But we’ve been really busy, and we know you’re a patient folk. Besides, we gave you that lovely Bulgakov Blog conference, and we know you still haven’t read every post yet, and you certainly haven’t read every comment made by your fellow readers. Come now, can’t you make at least one comment yourself?

This would be an excellent opportunity for me to offer my sincere thanks to everyone who contributed to the conference. Whether you made a large or small contribution, we are in your debt for what turned out to be a fascinating and thought provoking event!

In any event, we were busy. I was in Chicago with many of you at AAR. However, Aron seems to have joined that contentious group of protesters who haven’t quite come to terms with the AAR/SBL estrangement. Fear not, they’re getting back together, maybe even by 2011. Aron made up for his absence by attending the Chesterton Conference in Niagra, Ontario. Look for his paper to appear here soon once I steal it from his laptop.

I’ve recently become interested in the Bible again after reading Irenaeus’ Against Heresies and teaching the Revelation unit in my advisor’s Seminarian course a couple times.I’m currently writing a paper on the regula fidei, and at Joshua’s suggestion began reading up on some literary theory, including Northrop Frye (although I wonder what you had in mind when you made that recommendation, JADR). Anyway, I stumbled across this bit in Frye that made me laugh, and for lack of anything substantial to post at the moment, I thought I’d toss this one out there:

It took me some time to hit on the right formula for a course in the Bible. I consulted the curricula of other universities, and found that they gave courses called “The Bible As Literature,” which involved chopping pieces out of the Bible like the book of Job and the parables of Jesus, saying, “Look, aren’t they literary?” that approach violated all my instincts as a critic, because those instincts told me that what a critic does when he is confronted with any verbal document whatever is to start on page one at the upper left-hand corner and god one reading until he reads the bottom right-hand corner of the last page. But many people who have attempted to do that with the Bible have flaked out very quickly, generally somewhere around the middle of Leviticus.

- Northop Frye from Northrop Frye and Jacy McPherson, Biblical and Classical Myths

 

Bulgakov Blog Conference, Day 13

Published
by
DWM
on October 27, 2008
in Bulgakov, Creation, Grace and Nature
. 0 Comments

“A Discussion in Sophiology and Magic:  Renaissance Precursors to Bulgakov” — PART THREE

By Joshua Delpech-Ramey (The Land of Unlikeness)

The question Janet raises about whether Renaissance humanism, as found in Pico and Bruno, is really human enough, is very important to think through in terms of what we could call the application of sophiology in contemporary culture.

Pico’s emphasis on the polyvalent or indeterminate status of the human essence is not so much opposed to the Augustinian duality of divinity/humanity as the defining feature of human life as it is a setting of that duality in an epistemological situation that has complexified.  Augustine was adroitly skeptical about tying theology to the current dogmas of natural inquiry, whether it be inquiry about the difference between animals and humans or about the number of fixed stars or about any other subject of natural knowledge, including Biblical interpretation, where he advised much more caution about fixing the meaning of Biblical sense than future commentators would. Continue reading ‘Bulgakov Blog Conference, Day 13′

Bulgakov Blog Conference, Day 11

Published
by
DWM
on October 18, 2008
in Bulgakov and Theology and other
. 2 Comments

“A Discussion in Sophiology and Magic:  Renaissance Precursors to Bulgakov” — PART TWO
From Janet Leslie Blumberg to Joshua Delpech-Ramey:

Joshua,
So many rich ideas here in your own oration, Joshua:  An Oration on the Dignity of Sophia — the creaturely Sophia, that is. (As if she ever could be kept apart from the divine Sophia for very long…but we’ll try.)

I must choose just a few threads, out of this closely woven tapestry of yours….

So…you begin with precursors of sophiology in the German Romantic tradition; they had a direct influence on the Russian sophiologists. Then… you work your way back into the Great Unknown, back into the darkness of that more ancient tablet of the West which, according to Bulgakov, is a blank slate with respect to Sophia — at least insofar as her importance to theology is concerned. (But no one, including Bulgakov, should ever be expected to be acquainted intimately with everything, or be made to suffer indignity because of not being.)

So you say, Joshua, that the thinking of the creaturely Sophia was not absent in the West – at least among the poets and philosophers, although “at the level of systematic theology“ you accept Bulgakov’s judgment. But then I notice that after your wonderful “deregulation of nature” (Schelling’s liberation of the physical world from some of the rigid enclosures effected by early-modern epistemologists) –- that you make your transition back in time to the Renaissance not by explicitly citing Pico or Bruno as sophiologists, but instead by using Goethe’s Faust to raise a crucial modern problem, the way that knowledge has been drained of eros and set against love in our scientific, post-Newtonian thoughtworld, so that we are forced to choose one as against the other…. Continue reading ‘Bulgakov Blog Conference, Day 11′

Bulgakov Blog Conference, Day 5

Published
by
A.D.
on October 6, 2008
in Bulgakov and Theology and other
. 13 Comments

“Sophiology: Divine Sophia”
By Aron Dunlap, Temply University

In the hands of Bulgakov Sophia is described under two general forms, Divine Sophia and Creaturely Sophia. Divine Sophia goes under many names, one being that of the ousia, the Being, of the very Godhead, in distinction to the persons, the hypostases of the Father, Son and Spirit:

The first part of the dogma, that is, the doctrine of the relationship between the three hypostases with their hypostatic qualities and distinctive features, has been to a certain extent elucidated in the process of the Church’s dogmatic creativity.  But the other side, the doctrine of the consubstantiality  of the Holy Trinity, as well as the actual conception of the substance or nature, has been far less developed and, apparently, almost overlooked.1 Continue reading ‘Bulgakov Blog Conference, Day 5′

  1. Bulgakov, Sophia: The Wisdom of God, 24.↩

Bulgakov Blog Conference, Day 4

Published
by
DWM
on October 4, 2008
in Balthasar, Bulgakov and Christology
. 2 Comments

Bulgakov and Apollinarius
by Henry Karlson
The Catholic University of America

Back in 1952, Hans Urs von Balthasar had some rather shocking words to say about Christology: “And what a dryness there is in the doctrine about Christ, which likewise has made scarcely any progress since Chalcedon, where an abstract formula has to answer for the central mystery. Once again the formula is excellent, but only if it is a skeletal structure that enables the living flesh of the word of revelation to stand and walk.”1 Not many years before, Sergius Bulgakov made a similar point. While Chalcedon must be recognized as normative, it should not have ended Christological discussion. Its declaration was mostly negative: it stated who and what Christ was not, but left much room as to who and what Christ is.  The expectation was that there would be theological development. To be sure, there were few theological developments at II and III Constantinople, but they were minor, and beyond them, there really has not been any significant development in Christology.2  It was not meant to be this way.

Bulgakov believed that Christian theologians have far too long neglected this dogmatic problem. Christology, as it is today, provides answers which no longer satisfy the questions brought to it by believers and skeptics alike. Continue reading ‘Bulgakov Blog Conference, Day 4′

  1. Hans Urs von Balthasar, Razing the Bastions. Trans. Brian McNeil, C.R.V. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993), 29.↩
  2. Sergius Bulgakov, The Lamb of God. Trans. Boris Jakim (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 2008), 194-6. ↩

Bulgakov Blog Conference, Day 1, part 2

Published
by
DWM
on September 30, 2008
in Bulgakov and Theology and other
. 0 Comments

Part II:  A Brief Introduction to Sergei Bulgakov, by Cynthia Nielsen

In the previous post, I mentioned two experiences that helped bring Bulgakov back to the Orthodox Church.  In this post, we encounter the third experience, viz., the death of Bulgakov’s  four year old son in the summer of 1909.  At his son’s funeral, Bulgakov had a strong sense that “his child lived in the life of the Resurrection” (p. 602).  This experience moved him to re-read Soloviev’s works in which the theme of wisdom (created and uncreated) is prominent.  Bulgakov develops his theme of “the Wisdom of God as the foundation and goal of all earthly reality” and begins to employ it in his writings on economics and philosophy.  In his book, The Philosophy of Economy (1912), Bulgakov argues that even though our labor is toilsome, the economic process is meaningful because it participates in the Divine Wisdom.  Moreover, our struggles in nature also involve (besides pain and difficulties) joy and beauty, if we, as followers of Christ, realize that human beings possess a “hidden potential for perfection [and so must] work to resurrect nature, to endow it once again with the life and meaning it had in Eden.”1  For Bulgakov, the most mundane human activities have value and are redeemable “by the Christian message of the fall and resurrection of man and, with man, nature.  We have a common task and it is universal resurrection out of fall, bringing resurrection-life into everything” (p. 603). Continue reading ‘Bulgakov Blog Conference, Day 1, part 2′

  1. C. Evtuhov, The Cross and the Sickle, p. 147, as found in “Wisdom from Above,” p. 603.↩

Bulgakov Blog Conference, Day 1, part 1

Published
by
DWM
on September 29, 2008
in Theology and other
. 1 Comment

The Bulgakov Blog conference starts today. We begin with a piece written by Cynthia Nielsen of Per Caritatem. Cynthia was gracious enough to let us repost her excellent introduction to Bulgakov. Following her format, I will post this in 2 parts, with the second part following this evening.

An Introduction to Sergei Bulgakov, by Cynthia Nielsen

Part I

My brief introduction to Bulgakov is based on Fr. Aidan Nichols article, “Wisdom from Above? The Sophiology of Father Sergius Bulgakov”1 -an article that is worth reading in its entirety.  Bulgakov, who was to become an important 20th century theological figure in both Orthodox and Latin theological circles, was born in 1871 in a rural town in south-central Russia.  Bulgakov’s father was an Orthodox priest, and his family line included a number of priests (p. 599).  Although his early education was religiously focused, as a young teen Bulgakov underwent a faith crisis and in 1888 publicly proclaimed himself an unbeliever at the age of 18.  Two years later, he enrolled at the University of Moscow, where his interest in and commitment to Marxism grew with an ever-increasing intensity (p. 599).  Entailed in Bulgakov’s embrace of Marxism was the idea that human beings are essentially material beings, “albeit an expression of the nobility and complexity matter could attain” (p. 599).  In 1897 Bulgakov published his first work, “On Markets in the Capitalist System of Production,” and even so, he had already begun to experience some uncertainties with regard to central Marxist claims.

As Nichols explains, there were three significant experiences (two of which are described below) that played crucial roles in bringing Bulgakov back to his Orthodox faith. Continue reading ‘Bulgakov Blog Conference, Day 1, part 1′

  1. As found in New Blackfriars 85, (2004): 598-613.↩

The Wisdom of Eliot’s Turn of Phrase

Published
by
Darkness Whistler
on September 8, 2008
in Creativity, Education, Literature, Pedagogy and Theological Education
. 0 Comments

“We must not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time.”- T.S. Eliot

I have admired the greatness of Eliot as a poet, but never expected to use a bit of his work for a meditation of education such as this. However, it seems to me that this quote from Eliot is filled with profundity and enormous implications for our practice as educators and continuing students. I must say from the outset that my reflection on this quote is not an exegesis of Eliot’s poetry (though certainly such an venture is a worthy endeavor and has been embarked upon by interpreters much more able than I), but rather a contemplation of these words as they stand on their own, detached from the context of his work in which it is originally embedded.

I will begin with a memory. Continue reading ‘The Wisdom of Eliot’s Turn of Phrase’

on artistic intention and the irrelevance of a definition of art

Published
by
DWM
on September 1, 2008
in Art, Creativity and Theology and other
. 5 Comments

I realized today that I don’t care about trying to define what is and is not a work of art…. not that it doesn’t matter as a project. It just doesn’t matter to me. I’ve never been very excited about this project of aesthetics, anyway. What exactly are we trying to accomplish in so doing? David is a work of art, and fountain isn’t. The Isenheim altarpiece is a work of art (albeit religious art, so some might not agree), and the Easter Island Moai aren’t, unless of course one of them happens to be in an art museum, in which case it could be, although… blah blah blah. Don’t take my cheek as irreverence toward the fields of contemporary aesthetics or art criticism. Quite the contrary. I’m more interested in talking about the above mentioned pieces themselves, rather than stipulating whether and how aestheticians may talk about them. After all, it is, or should be, a bit of a common place that works like the above weren’t necessarily created with the kind of museum culture that we often presuppose (with the exception, possibly, of Fountain). Nor where they necessary created to be works of “art” as we understand that word. Rather, these works each demonstrate an elasticity and plurivocity in their ability to function within and without that museum culture. We might say that they function in a milieu that is significantly more robust than the one provided by the western art world.

Contrary to my position, Jerome Stolnitz maintains that the iconic status of these works depends on the disinterestedness that the museum culture preserves1. This assertion or judgment, it seems, relies on two judgments of which I remain unconvinced. First, regarding this iconic status, he presupposes that the reasons for which these works are valued is and ought to be grounded in their being works of the museum culture, or works that we value in a disinterested way. Is this in fact why many or most people do value these works? Is this the only reason why they can value these works? For instance, the Isenheim altarpiece might facilitate a new way of experiencing Mary’s role in the passion of Christ, or, in it’s original context, it can change the way in which the space is experienced, niether of which seem to be especially reliant on ways of viewing that are explicitly dependent on the contemporary museum. And thus, second, Stolnitz asserts that the museum culture fosters the right way of viewing or experiencing works of art. Why? Who decides which aspect of the artistic milieu is the one that ought to be emphasized? What does this say about the revival of urban murals? Are these murals to be viewed the way that one would view visual art in a museum? Is one detrimentally impaired in viewing an urban mural if one hasn’t been formed by the museum culture? Or, is it possible that developing an awareness of the way in which murals shape urban space, and are contextualized by urban space, can actually improve viewers’ sensitivity to museum pieces by thinking about the ways in which context and space change the our perception of works and the way in which works change our perception of space and context? In this case, the intention of the artist and the intentions of the viewers are not unimportant. Nor are they the focal point of a work because works are plurivocal, they function in ways that neither the artist or nor viewers anticipate when working from the perspective of the museum culture. They exist in a milieu of activity, intentions, contexts. Similarly, in Art in Action, Nick Wolterstorff says the only thing that works of art have in common is their varied activities, their ability to do many different things.

Thinking about aesthetics this way, how much does the status of the piece as a work of art or non-art make a difference? I don’t really have a defensible answer at this point… just a hunch that it doesn’t make much of a difference at all.

  1. “On the Apparent Demise of Really High Art,” JAAC 43 (1985): 356↩

Augustine Blog Conference

Published
by
DWM
on August 19, 2008
in Church History, Creation, Mary, Theology and other and philosophy
. 0 Comments

Hey everyone,

Cynthia posted the 7th essay in the Augustine Blog Conference yesterday, entitled “Quando Tu and The Nuptial Creation: St. Augustine’s Enduring Influence on Contemporary Ecclesiology”, written by Mary Moorman, to which I was asked to write a response that will be published on Wednesday, I believe. Please head on over to Per Caritatem and check out the proceedings of this excellent collaborative event.

UPDATE: you can read my commentary here.