charles williams explains it all

At a recent book fair I stumbled across Charles Williams' Descent of the Dove: A Short History of the Holy Spirit in the Church in paperback for fifty cents. I call that a bargain. The first Charles Williams I read was something like three years ago, when I read All Hallows' Eve in preparation for the All Saints'/Halloween celebrations. I had only begun to learn about the Inklings (through my love of Tolkien) and had only heard vague things about Williams. Once I learned of his (non-fiction) theological writings, I was immediately attracted to the title for Descent of the Dove.

...and taking names (3)

Having indicated my suspicions that a Leibnizian-Deleuzian ontology offers itself to as many slippery slopes as a Platonic one, it is now time to turn attention to the heart of Smith’s creational ontology. I indicated that the basic attempt at a creational ontology is brought into question by two ontological events and an array of biblical aesthetic. Before I arrive at these three, let us consider the most valuable element of Smith’s argument against Radical Orthodoxy (RO).

The real value of Jamie Smith’s argument for creational ontology is that he attempts to affirm the goodness of the body, which has suffered at the hands of many theologians. The current spike in interest in theology of the body is welcome, even if the scholarship is a bit flat. One does feel that there is often a rather uncritical acceptance or else a deep paranoia of the body and its passions in Christian theology. It is not often that one finds a middle ground. Although I did not grow up in a fundamentalist tradition, a mutation of Reformed evangelicalism did exercise its influence at a crucial point in my faith development. Often enough in such a tradition the body, especially the sexual body, is feared or otherwise to be tamed and broken for the sake of the [s]pirit. Smith, having grown up in similar circles, has exactly this kind of negative appraisal of the body in his sights when he loads the ammunition for his creational ontology. One gets the feeling that it is not so much materiality, but the body in particular (as proposed microcosm of the entire material order) that drives Smith’s campaign. And so it seems the closer we come to this issue the more we penetrate to the core of Smith’s argument.

...and taking names (2.75: Herbert Excursus)

I am sorry to have to keep interjecting poets into theology (ok, not really), but I was reading George Herbert this morning and came across this gem. It seemed a fitting follow-up to Donne and a nice intimation at a response to wtm's questions regarding my Interlude.

"The World"

Love built a stately house, where Fortune came,
And spinning fancies, she was heard to say,
That her fine cobwebs did support the frame,
Whereas they were supported by the same:
But Wisdom quickly swept them all away.

Then Pleasure came, who liking not the fashion,
Began to make Balconies, Terraces,
Till she had weakened all by alteration:
But rev'rend laws, and many a proclamation
Reformed all at length with menaces.

Then enter'd Sin, and with that Sycomore,
Whose leaves first sheltered man from drought and dew,
Working and winding slily evermore,
The inward walls and Sommers cleft and tore:
But Grace shor'd these, and cut that as it grew.

Then Sin combin'd with Death in a firm band
To raze the building to the very floor:
Which they effected, none could them withstand.
But Love and Grace took Glory by the hand,
And built a braver Palace than before.


I will forego interpretation for the moment. The next post should be a nice exposition of this poem, not least the last stanza.

Pax vobiscum, y'all.

...and taking names (2.5: Interlude)

This is my playes last scene, here heavens appoint,
My pilgrimages last mile; and my race,
Idly, yet quickly runne, hath this last pace,
My spans last inch, my minutes latest point,
And gluttonous death, will instantly unjoynt,
My body, and soule, and I shall sleepe a space,
But my'ever-waking part shall see that face,
Whose feare already shakes my every joynt:
Then, as my soule, to'heaven her first seate, takes flight,
And earth-borne body, in the earth shall dwell,
So, fall my sinnes, that all may have their right,
To where they'are bred, and would presse me, to hell.
Impute me righteous, thus purg'd of evill,
For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devill.

~John Donne, Divine Poems, VI


John Donne, master of the pen as he was, was also apparently a Platonist. He, a Christian, prayed a Platonic prayer. And he is certainly not alone. I once met an old, blind Methodist minister who told me, “I have no fear of death.” (And if ever I believed someone who told me that it would be him.) “When this body wears out,” he continued, “I’ll go home to my Lord.” Well, something like that. I think he said it better, but you get the point.

What is the root of this Platonism? How can faithful Christians so devalue the body? The first answer I will offer comes from the perspective of the ninety-four-year-old Rev. Smith. As we age our bodies seem less like friends and more like hindrances. When the mind stays sharp, or in fact sharpens, while the body becomes frail and infirm, how can we not feel some division between soul and body? Well, it’s only a suggestion.

But a second answer comes from John Donne’s similar reflections. Not only does Donne experience the decay of the body, but he dares to provide a theological framework for his experience. All of this Donne provides by meditating on the moment of death. For Donne it is not Plato, but “gluttonous Death” who instantly unjoints soul and body. At the moment of death, soul and body are cleft; the body sleeps while the soul attains the beatific vision. Donne’s Platonism does not come from a lack of respect for Creation or materiality, but rather from a face-to-face encounter with Death. What is it that drives death? In Romans 5 Paul says death came into the world through sin, and all are subject to death because all have sinned. Similarly, in 1 Corinthians 15.56 Paul says the sting of death is sin. The witness of James (1.15) tells us that sin, when full-grown brings forth death. Sin is the death-bearer. This is also Donne’s claim. All the hell-born sins must have their rights. The right of sin is death; the exemption of the Christian is the victory over death.

The last four lines of the poem are the most important for our interests. We can hear in Donne’s last lines the plea for redemption from death. “Impute me righteous, thus purg’d of evill / For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devill.” Donne here wrestles with the ontological stain of sin. While the material may not be inherently evil, the world strives against the kingdom. While the body may not be intrinsically bad, the flesh ever strives against the spirit. And the Devil, that elusive figure, more believed in by agnostics than by many educated Christians, never ceases his necrophilic campaign against life.

There is (still) something not right with the world. In spite of the original goodness of Creation, the world, this material world is not as it should be. Death should not reign. Elsewhere, Donne offers us more to ponder:

I am a little world made cunningly
Of Elements, and an Angelike spright,
But black sinne hath betraid to endlesse night
My worlds both parts, and (oh) both parts must die.
(Divine Poems, V)

If Christ came to give life, why do we still die? If death has been swallowed up in victory, why does Death yet reign? Because Sin must have its say. The ontology of the world is not what it once was. The original has been marred by the deleterious death-bearer.

We, and the world, were created good. But were we also created in Sin? No. And Sin is far too deadly a thing to ignore…especially in ontology.