on suffering and theological hope

here's a selection from an essay I recently submitted on Johann Metz's political theology.

"For Metz, the memory of human suffering cannot be reduced to “a social history of oppression,” for the writing of that history often serves as little “more than a screen against which we project our present interests.” Selective accounts of past suffering merely serve as instruments by which the present order justifies its conduct. In this moment of justification, genuinely novel anticipations of hope for the hopeless are excluded by the trajectory of emancipation drawn in the self-interested struggle. Thus, a broad memoria passionis serves to raise suspicion about society’s plausibility structures, by exposing the way in which their historical self-accounting transforms them into “obfuscation structures.” When memory keeps the absolute meaninglessness of suffering in our minds, it “gives the lie to this whole affirmative… teleology” and calls into question of “the banality of what we take to be ‘realism’.” In the process of secularization in which humanity takes over from God as being the subject of history, the responsibility and the guilt of all history seems to “fall back onto human beings themselves.” In order to avoid this, emancipation is written merely as an abstract history of success, which finally exculpates itself by turning “one’s fellow human beings into enemies.” In this zero-sum process there is no liberation from guilt, or genuine redemption, but only the temporary redistribution of power. The memory of suffering keeps the ubiquity of guilt in mind, and therefore the hope of a redemption that is not anticipated by a linear ideological history. One problem is the limitation that arises from considering “human suffering in its concreteness…[as] the starting point for proclaiming the new form of life.” Are there not goods of human flourishing that find no negative expression in suffering, such that a consideration or memory of suffering could never discover the antithetical moment that allows the positive moment to be anticipated or emerge? Perhaps at this point, an aesthetic claim is needed to complement Metz’s political fundamental claims."

gregory of nyssa - on 'not three gods'

"As we have to a certain extent shown by our statement that the word "Godhead" is not significant of nature but of operation, perhaps one might reasonably allege as a cause why, in the case of men, those who share with one another in the same pursuits are enumerated and spoken of in the plural, while on the other hand the Deity is spoken of in the singular as one God and one Godhead, even though the Three Persons are not separated from the significance expressed by the term "Godhead,"— one might allege, I say, the fact that men, even if several are engaged in the same form of action, work separately each by himself at the task he has undertaken, having no participation in his individual action with others who are engaged in the same occupation. For instance, supposing the case of several rhetoricians, their pursuit, being one, has the same name in the numerous cases: but each of those who follow it works by himself, this one pleading on his own account, and that on his own account. Thus, since among men the action of each in the same pursuits is discriminated, they are properly called many, since each of them is separated from the others within his ownenvironment, according to the special character of his operation. But in the case of the Divine nature we do not similarly learn that the Father does anything by Himself in which the Son does not work conjointly, or again that the Son has any special operation apart from the Holy Spirit; but every operation which extends from God to the Creation, and is named according to our variable conceptions of it, has its origin from the Father, and proceeds through the Son, and is perfected in the Holy Spirit. For this reason the name derived from the operation is not divided with regard to the number of those who fulfil it, because theaction of each concerning anything is not separate and peculiar, but whatever comes to pass, in reference either to the acts of His providence for us, or to the government and constitution of the universe, comes to pass by the action of the Three, yet what does come to pass is not three things."

from the rooftop

click on the photo for full-size

on christ

Today I gave in to my vice for impulse-buying books, and treated myself to a copy of one of the most interesting books that will come out this year, called The Monstrosity of Christ.



It is co-authored by Slavoj Zizek and John Milbank. Actually, it's not so much co-authored by them, as they both have essays in which they attack the other. Here's the product description:

"In this corner, philosopher Slavoj Žižek, who represents the critical-materialist stance against religion's illusions; in the other corner, "radical orthodox" theologian John Milbank, an influential and provocative thinker who argues that theology is the only foundation upon which knowledge, politics, and ethics can stand. In The Monstrosity of Christ, Žižek and Milbank go head to head for three rounds, employing an impressive arsenal of moves to advance their positions and press their respective advantages. By the closing bell, they have proven themselves worthy adversaries--and have also shown that faith and reason are not simply and intractably opposed.

Žižek has long been interested in the emancipatory potential offered by Christian theology. And Milbank, seeing global capitalism as the new century's greatest ethical challenge, has pushed his own ontology in more political and materialist directions. Their debate in The Monstrosity of Christ concerns nothing less than the future of religion, secularity, and political hope in light of a monsterful event—God becoming human. For the first time since Žižek's turn toward theology, we have a true debate between an atheist and a theologian about the very meaning of theology, Christ, the Church, the Holy Ghost, universality, and the foundations of logic. The result goes far beyond the popularized atheist/theist point/counterpoint of recent books by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and others.

Žižek begins, and Milbank answers, countering dialectics with "paradox." The debate centers on the nature of and relation between paradox and parallax, between analogy and dialectics, between transcendent glory and liberation."

I may post some reflections, but don't count on it - you know what I'm like. And if you're wondering what on earth this book has to do with anything like the real Christianity lived by people who go to church - you're right, it doesn't. But it does have an affect on the broader issues of politics and religion, and will be a book that 'trickles' down, being debated in the academy, taught in the seminaries, preached in the pulpit, and finally lived by the people - but not in any form recognisable in the book.