Per Caritatem

As we know from Augustine’s Confessions, what proved to be a particularly important breakthrough for Augustine was Ambrose’s explanation of the “spiritual” interpretation of Scripture.  Commenting on Ambrose’s hermeneutic, Augustine writes,

I delighted to hear Ambrose often asserting in his sermons to the people, as a principle on which he must insist emphatically, The letter is death-dealing, but the spirit gives life [2 Cor 3:6].  This he would tell them as he drew aside the veil of mystery and opened to them the spiritual meaning of passages which, when taken literally, would seem to mislead (Confessions, p. 140). 

Louis Mackey, in his fascinating chapter on Augustine entitled, “From Autobiography to Theology,”[1] adds a creative variation on the spirit vs. the letter theme. 

Materialism, the violence of the letter that kills the soul, is countered by the violence with which God chastises Augustine’s carnal affections in order to save his life in the spirit.  The spirit gives life by doing violence to the letter in order to counteract the violence of the letter (”From Autobiography to Theology,” p. 23). 

Mackey goes on to say that once Augustine embraced Ambrose’s spiritual orientation to Scripture, Augustine not only views the Catholic demand for faith as sane and salubrious, but he also “sees that it is precisely the Manichaeans’ rationalism, materialism, and dualism which are diseased.  The pride of reason must be cured, and faith is the remedy [cf. Confessions VI.5.7] (”From Autobiography to Theology,” p. 23). 

According to Hegel, we abstract the notions of finitude and infinitude and tend to set these up as opposite notions.  However, according to Hegel, if you analyze the notion of absolute infinity, the infinite must include the finite or else it is itself finite.  A consequence of this reasoning results in Hegel’s claim that God must create. 

Contrast this with Scotus’ definition of the infinite: “What I call ‘infinite’ is what excels any actual or possible finite being to a degree beyond any determinate measure you take or could take.”[1]  Scotus recognizes that the notion of infinity as a perfection is not self-evident.  For example, in Greek philosophy infinity was a sign of imperfection-of that which lacked form.  That which was infinite lacked form and consequently was dominated by matter or potentiality. Interestingly, the transformation of this concept took place largely via Christians. Given the dominant Greek understanding of infinity, Scotus’ first move is to present the infinite as perfect rather than imperfect.  Second, Scotus had to move beyond the notion of the infinite understood mathematically-i.e., in extensive terms where 10 is greater 9 and so on ad infinitum.  This is to understand the infinite in a strictly quantitative sense.  Third, Scotus develops an understanding of the infinite in an intensive sense. 

If you consider a number sequence in which you can always add an additional number (the idea of 1, 2, 3., n+1…), this sequence is dominated by potentiality.  Scotus then engages in a thought experiment in which this infinite sequence is understood in act.  In other words, he asks us to imagine the sequence being finished. If we can think of the sequence as finished, we have an infinite quantity in actuality.  If we grant Scotus’ thought experience, then we have an (actual) quantitative infinite. 

Scotus then moves away from mathematical examples and speaks of entities. That is, he moves from quantity actualized to entity in terms of degrees of perfection.  Here one has to accept that it is intelligible say that one being is more complete or better than another (a human e.g., is better than a dog).  If we have the sequence A is less than B is less than C etc. and I = Infinite Being (God)-even if creatures were not created, God would persist in undiminished being and goodness.  However, it does not follow from that that creatures are nothing, but it will appear that way if you approach the sequence (A, B, C=various creatures) as additive.  In contrast, consider Aristotle’s god, who is the “best part” of the whole.  For Aristotle, it would unintelligible to say that there is god and nothing else.  Hence, the fact that this notion of the infinite applied to entity takes place in Christian philosophy is not accidental. 

For Scotus, being is a perfection which is open to degrees of perfection;  it is open to finite perfection which involves a large sequence of degrees, but with the infinite the difference is only one-and it is an infinite difference.*  

*The reflections on Scotus are based largely on lectures given by Dr. W.A. Frank at the University of Dallas.

Thomas Williams argues in his article, “A Most Methodical Lover?  On Scotus’ Arbitrary Creator,” that the affectio iustitiae implies a kind of imperfection or lack and thus cannot be applied to God.  According to Scotus, both humans and angels possess wills that have two affections or inclinations: (1) the affectio commodi and (2) the affectio iustitiae.  The affectio commodi or affection for the advantageous is an inclination toward the agent’s own perfection, which in the case of a rational agent is happiness.  The affectio iustitiae or affection for justice allows the agent to transcend its own telos and to seek the intrinsic goodness of things for their own sake (not simply for the advantage of the agent).  In addition, the affectio iustitiae serves as a check on the affectio commodi which can love immoderately.  For Scotus, contra Anselm these two affections are intrinsic to the will and neither are superadded grace gifts.  In fact, with the affectio iustitiae, Scotus claims that the will would not be free because it would simply act for the agents’ own advantage in a way similar to the operation of a the appetite of a non-rational animal acts to perfect its nature. In other words, the affectio commodi would reduce to a natural appetite of an intellectual nature and would be determined, not free. Wolters seems to want to argue that the affectio iustitae is a pure perfection (perfectio simpliciter), that is, that it is a perfection with no limitations or defects-something that in all cases it would be better to possess than not possess (e.g., wisdom).  Since God possesses all pure perfections, God would therefore possess an affection for justice.  Williams, however, disagrees, pointing out that (1) God does not have an appetite for happiness as humans do, as he is perfectly happy in himself and necessarily so.  (2) God cannot love himself immoderately. (3) The possession of the affection for justice implies that the will needs to be held in check. Such a situation does not obtain in God because God does not sin.  (4) Williams also argues against the interpretation that an affectio iustitiae is that which inclines an agent to love things for their own intrinsic worth.  As Williams points out, God always does what he does for His own sake; hence, it seems that rather than an affection for justice, God possesses that which more akin to an affectio commodi.

Williams has significantly more to say in his lengthy article, on which I may blog in the future.  At this point, I am not sure that I buy everything that Williams has to say, but he does raise a number of questions worth considering.  

Wolters notes that Scotus (in his initial questions on book IX of the Metaphysics) clarifies a number of ambiguities with regard to act and potency.  As Wolter points out, concerning potency, Scotus makes the important distinction between “potency as principle and potency as a mode of being” (Wolter: 167).  Here Scotus takes principle as a sort of cause-viz., an efficient or material cause-or originative source.  Passive potency is correlated with matter broadly speaking, and active potency with some kind of efficiency.  With a number of other scholastics, Scotus expands the “notion of an active potency or principle beyond that of an agent that imparts motion to include that which gives being or existence as such to its effect” (Ibid., p. 167).  Though Scotus makes further distinctions (he is the subtle doctor after all), for our purposes the following rough sketch suffices to describe an active potency, viz., that which gives existence to something (Ibid., p. 168).  Wolter then adds that describing an active potency in this way has the added bonus of

stressing that cause is cotemporal with its effect, and that the causal action is a continuous creative and sustaining productivity, as opposed to the Humean notion that views all causality as a necessary temporal relationship between an antecedent and a subsequent event. Scotus needs this type of relationship if he is to clarify how the will as an active potency can create or elicit an action of volition or nolition, or how it can not only initiate but sustain a voluntary action such as singing or walking (p. 168). 

Here I take Wolter to be pointing out the insufficiency of a mechanistic or external view of causality with regard to free will as understood by Scotus.  For Scotus the will is self-determined (not externally determined) and at every instant (hence,Wolter’s stress on causal action as “continous creative and sustaining productivity”) has a potency to do its opposite and can refrain from acting.  However, with regard to Hume’s view, my understanding is that since he considers causality, necessity etc. to be supplied by the mind via habit or custom, free will is in a sense guaranteed because we as free agents are not part of the (supposed) causal nexus.  If I understand Hume correctly, then am I correct to see Wolter’s main point to be contrasting a mechanistic view of causality with Scotus’ understanding of the will as self-determined (and hence, by definition not externally caused)-if so, what am I missing with regard to Hume’s view to make everything that I have said above harmonize?

*A. Wolter, “Duns Scotus on the Will as Rational Potency,” as found in The Philosophical Theology of John Duns Scotus. (Ithaca:  Cornell Univ. Press, 1990), pp. 163-180.

In writing an email to a friend, the following thought occurred to me that seems worthy of further engagement, viz., might there be a number of interesting parallels between the increasing attempt to logically arrange the major theological loci into a comprehensive systematic whole [e.g., the movement from Lombard's Sentences to St. Thomas' ST and beyond] and the increased sophistication in musical notation which had the effect of diminishing the practice of improvisation and creating an image of improvisation as intellectually substandard, as well as producing sharp dichotomies (at least in the Western way of thinking about music) between our ideas of (1) improvisation and composition, (2) the composer and the performer, and (3) the musical score and the (one correct) interpretation of that score. 

According to Jeremy Begbie in Theology, Music, and Time the majority of academic writings on music have been commentaries on written scores. Though this is understandable given the difficulty of reconstructing music that is not written out prior to the invention of recording devices, it has nonetheless produced an extremely one-sided view of the history of musical practices.^[1] To cite one well-known example, many music scholars have brought to our attention that even following the development of music notation, we find composers such as J.S. Bach, Handel, and Mozart highly skilled in the art of improvisation and expecting those who performed their pieces to possess this skill as well.  Tracing some of the possible reasons why improvisation’s high reputation and regard began to wane, Begbie points to the increasing sophistication of notation, as concerts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries gained in notoriety.  Even the improvised solos sections purposely crafted by composers to display the talent of highly gifted soloists were with time significantly diminished by written solos.^[2]  Although this increase in notation severely diminished opportunities for improvising in classical music, the improvisatory elements even in meticulously notated music cannot be totally removed so long as human beings are the performers.  Avid music listeners can attest that whether speaking of an individual soloist or a orchestral unit, the personalities, stylistic particularities, and interpretative nuances manifest in the actual performance a musical work all contribute a degree of creative liberty that falls within the sphere of improvisation broadly construed.   With Begbie, I tend to agree that

All this suggests that the customary picture of improvisation as a discrete and relatively frivolous activity on the fringes of music-making might need to be replaced by one which accords it a more serious and central place.  Instead of regarding thoroughly notated and planned music as the norm and improvisation as an unfortunate epiphenomenon or even aberration, it might be wiser to recall the pervasiveness of improvisation and ask whether it might be able to reveal fundamental aspects of musical creativity easily forgotten in traditions bound predominantly to extensive notation and rehearsal.^[3]

A short essay of mine entitled “What makes music beautiful” has just been posted on The Church and Postmodern Culture Blog (hosted by Baker Academic and coordinated by Geoff Holsclaw and Jamie Smith).  If you are interested, please join the conversation.

Scotus understands the will as an active power in distinction from natures as active powers involving (natural) necessity.  According to Scotus, there are two properties of the will:  (1) spontaneity and (2) contingency.  With regard to (1), the idea is that the will as an active power is an interior source essential to the self that allows for self-determination.  With regard to (2), the idea is that things change-in other words, that which is, though existing now, did not have to be. Thus, the theory of the will as articulated by Scotus seems to have a kind of causality that does not involve strict necessity.  Stated slightly differently, we might say that Scotus’ theory of the will attempts to make sense of spontaneous, contingent existence-something that many philosophers find incomprehensible or simply a contradictory notion.  In light of what I have said above, it is interesting to note that the concept of the will was not found in the ancient philosophical tradition, but was something discovered much later.  As Hannah Arendt argues, the concept of will did not simply appear but was discovered. According to Arendt, the concept was first clearly articulated by St. Paul, further expanded upon by St. Augustine, and then explicated in an exceptionally lucid manner by John Duns Scotus.  Though I haven’t read Arendt’s work on this topic, I find her suggestion extremely plausible.  Why?  The main reason is that I do not find it coincidental that the concept of the will as articulated above comes from a Christian philosopher/theologian who affirms a God who freely creates (contra any form of necessitarianism).  In other words, I do not think that Scotus would have (or could have) formulated his theory of the will had he been a non-Christian philosopher and not held a particular view (birthed from reflection on divine revelation) of the Christian God who freely creates out of love, not necessity.  

 N.b.  I am a novice when it comes to Scotus, but I am taking a course this semester at the University of Dallas called ”Scotus on the will and morality.” Consequently, I plan to post fairly regularly on Scotus and the will.

In the midst of all the theological in-house fighting these days, I often wonder where is love, where is Christ, where are those who are so consumed with the love of Christ that no matter what happens the love of Christ is evident.  In asking these questions, I see my own lack and my own proclivity to form factions.  However, there is at least one clear example that comes to mind of one who lived in and out of the love of Christ, viz., Karol Józef Wojtyła, better known as the late Pope John Paul II.  Wojtyla’s life was extremely fruitful, full of creativity, vibrant friendships, and service to others.  E.g., Wojtyla was a playwright, poet, scholar, pastor, and a peacemaker who played a crucial role in the collapse of European communism.  Having lived through Nazi occupations in his own hometown of Wadowice and the evils of Second World War, Wojtyla was no stranger to suffering.  In fact, he personally witnessed the deportations and deaths of some of his Jewish friends.  As Pope, Wojtyla himself was the target of a violent shooting act and was hospitalized.  How did  Wojtyla respond to the unjust suffering that not only his friends but he himself experienced?  He responded with love-love that this world knows not, and that comes from deep abiding in Christ.   In the case of the Pope’s own attacker, Mehmet Ali Agaca, who shot John Paul II four times (twice in the stomach, once in his right arm and once in his left hand), the Pope sought out Agca in prison in order to personally forgive him. 

The Pope met a horrible act of violence and hatred with the love and forgiveness of Christ.  He spoke to his attacker face to face, embraced him, and pardoned him.  This, more than any philosophical argument, apologetic method, or biblical hermeneutical approach, grips my whole being with the truth of Christianity, and it seems to have deeply touched Agca as well. When the Pope was hospitalized in 2005 with the flu, Agca sent a handwritten letter to John Paul II wishing him a “speedy recovery.” 

In chapter 3, “Certainty as the Way to Nihilism,” of his book Proper Confidence, Newbigin discusses a number of dualisms that come to the fore in Modernity, and which can (at least on a traditional read) be trace to Descartes.  The first is the dualism between the res cogitans and the res extensa. The second and third dualisms consist of a sharp division between objective and subjective, and a dichotomizing view of theoria and praxis. With regard to the second dualism, Newbigin brings Polanyi’s insights of “personal knowledge” into the conversation.   Polanyi, a Hungarian scientist turned philosopher, argued that “the objective-subjective dualism is false and that all knowing of reality involves the personal commitment of the knower as a whole person” (p. 39).  One might perhaps see Polanyi’s ability to break through the rather ossified enlightenment-inspired tradition that had come to reign among scientists in terms of approaching the issues of knowledge from a new set of questions.  Rather than ask, “how are truth claims to be justified,” Polanyi asks, “how do we come to know, and how are discoveries made?” (p. 40).  Discoveries are not typically made as a result of following a set of rigidly defined rules, as discoveries are hitherto unknown and often involve bending the rules.  As he explored these epistemological issues, Polanyi came up with the following as possible answers to the question of how discoveries in science occur.

First, one must be apprenticed to a tradition of knowledge.  Second, one must “indwell” this tradition.  As Newbigin explains,

The assumptions, the assured findings of the past, and the methods of science become part of their own equipment on which they [scientists] rely.  All this functions like the lenses of our spectacles.  While we are wearing our usual spectacles and exploring the world around us, we do not attend to the lenses; we attend through them to the things we are examining.  They function as an extension of the lenses in our own eyes, and we indwell them just as we indwell our own eyes.  Likewise when we have come to use a language freely, we indwell the language.  We don not look at the language as an object over against us; we think through the language.  By indwelling it we are able to make contact with the world around us. We are subsidiarily aware of the words we use, but we focus on the things to which they refer.  In the same way, scientists are subsidiarily aware of the tradition to which they are apprenticed, while, at the same time, they are focally attending to the object of their research.  If their work is to make progress, they have to trust this tradition, just as we have to trust the lenses in our eyes or in our spectacles.  This trust is a precondition for our exploration of the world (pp. 40-41). 

Hence, according to Polanyi, the scientific tradition itself serves a kind of “fiduciary framework” in which the scientist must trust so as to make progress in knowledge (p. 41). 

Third, in order to further scientific knowledge, one must recognize a problem and attempt to find a solution.  Here Polanyi introduces his idea of recognition as a kind of intuition that there is some kind of “pattern or harmony waiting to be found” amongst what hitherto seems to be merely chaotic empirical reality.  Such intuitions of course can turn out to be illusory, and in those cases, they would simply be abandoned or redirected.  Not only does scientific discovery involve intuition, but it also requires imagination and a kind of prudence that co-exists with risk taking.  To this, Newbigin adds,

[a]t every point along this course, there is need of personal judgment in deciding whether a pattern is significant or merely random.  None of these things can be covered by formal rules.  They all involve the personal commitment of the scientist, and it is absurd to pretend that the findings of science can be understood without taking into account all these subjective factors (p. 41). 

Fourth, the scientist’s work involves what Polanyi calls “tacit knowledge.”  In other words, much of what we know, which influences our thinking, we are not able to explicitly express (p. 42).  Fifth, contrary to the idea promulgated in the 19^th century, science will not one day be able to predict and control all events.  Such a notion fails to take into consideration the hierarchical structure of the physical world.  Here the idea is that one cannot limit the laws governing one field to that of another (e.g., the laws of chemistry cannot be limited to the laws of physics, nor can those of biology be reduced to physics).  “The exhaustive examination of the physical, chemical, and mechanical structure of the machine will not enable us to discover the purpose for which the machine was constructed.  We have to be informed either by the designer of the machine or by someone who is accustomed to using it for its proper purpose” (p. 42).

Lastly, though it is the case that all knowledge claims involve personal commitment, the scientist makes these “with universal intent” (p. 43).  In addition, “a valid truth claim will lead to new discovery” (p. 43).  Newbigin adds, for Polanyi, truth claims made by scientists are not “irreformable and indubitable claims to possess the truth; rather, they are claims to be on the way to the fullness of truth.  There is thus no absolute dichotomy, such as Descartes has bequeathed to us, between knowing and believing” (p. 43).  Newbigin ends the chapter by citing one of Polanyi’s most concise statements of his position.  After affirming, “the personal participation of the knower in all acts of understanding,” Polanyi says

[b]ut this does not make our understanding subjective.  Comprehension is neither an arbitrary act nor a passive experience, but a responsible act claiming universal validity.  Such knowledge is indeed objective in the sense of establishing contact with a hidden reality, contact that is defined as the condition for anticipating an indeterminate range of as yet unknown (and perhaps yet inconceivable) true implications.  It seems reasonable to describe this fusion of the personal and the objective as personal knowledge. (Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, pp. vii-viii).[1]

Reggie Kidd, professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary, blogs on the PCA’s need to discern our true enemies, unite with those who are within the camp, and allow for greater diversity within our tradition.   Click here to read the post in its entirety. 

Summarizing his findings with regard to art and human beings in the final chapter of his book, Redeeming Beauty:  Soundings in Sacral Aesthetics, Aidan Nichols says the following:

Art has been a feature of human society since prehistoric times. [...] Art discloses what we think our society is like, or what it is not like but ought to be like.  As the main expression (other than childbirth) of human creativity it can be said to take further the original creation by bringing into being new realities of intrinsic worth.  Above all, it is or can be a pointer to transcendence in three main ways.  The first [...] by making us go beyond interpretations of this or that thing or event toward an overall reading of the world.  The second was to see the world as having as its own precondition a fundamental meaningfulness beyond itself.  The third (after we had noted the possible moral effects of art in making us go beyond the limits of our present character) was that art might be regarded as a kind of epiphany of divine presence, divine light. [...] The arts reveal the human world, either as it actually is or as it ideally is.  They express the creativity of man when the artist adds to the things of intrinsic worth in the world, or the art-appreciating public makes the artist’s vision of what he has made live again.  The arts point to transcendence, not just the way the world as a whole is wonderful and presupposes a meaning greater than itself, but also by enacting divine presence sustaining the special density of meaning that art, literature, music can contain (pp. 145-146). 

Nichols then relates his findings to three aspects of the person and work of Jesus Christ.  First of all, Christ makes manifest or reveals what humanity is.  “As the true Adam, he shows us the reality of what the human species should be like and on the Cross discloses the range and power of the evil which inhibits our being as the first Adam was meant to be, in God’s image and likeness” (p. 148).  So Christ reveals what the postlapsarian world is like and (thankfully) what it ought to be like.  Second, Christ’s redemptive work transcends nature “by bringing into being a further dimension of reality,” viz., salvation and “new resources of grace and life” (p. 148).  In other words, just as art advances and elevates creation, so too does the work of Christ.  Third, in Christ the meaning of the world as a whole is revealed and points to the “Father’s wonderful plan to bring about the nuptials of heaven and earth, the uncreated and the created, in the sacrificial joy of the Kingdom.  He points to the source of the world in a pre-existing divine truth, [...] Moreover, he enacts that truth-the truth which is the Holy Trinity-in his own person” (p. 148).    Though only the Son took on flesh, the Son is eternally “co-defined by the Father and the Holy Spirit.” Hence, “Jesus is always the Trinitarian Son, essentially related to the Father and the Spirit in his work on earth” (p. 148).  In fact, the whole redeemed creation shall one day enter into the eternal dance of the Trinity, as captured in Rublev’s famous icon of the Trinity (p. 148). 

The risen and ascended God-man is the true predestined goal of all creation.  Here the capacity of artwork to be the vehicle of divine presence in the material form of words or sounds or shapes and colours is super-filled.  Christ is, then the perfect art work in the sense of that reality in whom is realized those goals that all artistic making has as its explicit or implicit ends.  Because he is infinite meaning, life and being perfectly synthesized with finite form, the cave-painters at Lascaux, or Hesiod penning his hymns, or Beethoven working on his last quartets, were all gesturing towards him through they realized it not (p. 148).