Resident Theologian
About the Blog
Figural christology in Paradise Lost
In the last two books of Paradise Lost, the angel Michael instructs Adam about what is to come. Together it amounts to a poetic summary of the whole biblical narrative, focusing especially on the bookends: the first 11 chapters of Genesis (the immediately subsequent history of Adam and Eve's progeny) and the antitype of Adam, Christ the Son of God incarnate, in whose life and work Adam finally finds consolation for the misery his and Eve's sin will unleash on so many generations of their children.
One of the most striking features of Milton's biblical precis is his depiction of figures from the "primeval history" of Genesis, those chapters between Adam and Eve's expulsion from Eden and the calling of Abram. Specifically, his language about Enoch and Noah evokes Christ, not least through its anonymous description: by not naming the person in question, Milton leaves ambiguous just who is in view. The overall literary and theological effect is a brilliant, compelling figural christology, using words apt for the Gospels' protagonist to redescribe the initial descendants of Adam, planting verbal seeds in the mind of the reader as she is led, eventually, to the figure's fulfillment in the flesh.
Here is how Milton describes Enoch:
...till at last
Of middle age one rising, eminent
In wise deport, spake much of right and wrong,
And judgment from above: him old and young
Exploded, and had seized with violent hands,
Had not a cloud descending snatched him thence,
Unseen amid the throng. (XI.664–671)
Enoch, like Christ, proclaims judgment and righteousness; escapes the violent mob by walking through their midst; and departs from the earth by ascending to God's side on a cloud. When Adam asks Michael, "But who was that just man, whom had not Heaven/Rescued, had in his righteousness been lost?" (681–682) the angel replies:
But he, the seventh from thee, whom thou beheld'st
The only righteous in a world perverse,
And therefore hated, therefore so beset
With foes, for daring single to be just,
And utter odious truth, that God would come
To judge them with his Saints—him the Most High,
Rapt in a balmy cloud, with winged steeds,
Did, as thou saw'st, receive, to walk with God
High in salvation and the climes of bliss,
Exempt from death, to show thee what reward
Awaits the good, the rest what punishment . . . . (700–710)
Again: Like Christ, Enoch is the one righteous man in a fallen world, generating hatred to the point of violence, and calling down God's judgment upon all unrighteousness. For his pains, Enoch is raised to life eternal with God and freed forever from death, at once the divine exemplar and the divine pedagogy for all humankind.
Adam next foresees Noah, and here is how Milton depicts him:
At length a reverend sire among them came,
And of their doings great dislike declared,
And testified against their ways. He oft
Frequented their assemblies, whereso met,
Triumphs or festivals, and to them preached
Conversion and repentance, as to souls
In a prison, under judgments imminent;
But all in vain. (719–726)
Noah here figures the ministry of Christ, joining his neighbors as he finds them but not condoning their behavior, instead bearing witness to another way. Not only does he meet them with the proclamation of a message of repentance, like Christ at the outset of his ministry, but he did so "as to souls/In a prison," almost word for word a transposition of 1 Peter 3:19's account of the crucified Christ preaching to the spirits in prison—traditionally interpreted as the descent into hell. Noah typifies the Son of God in both his earthly and his spiritual missions to the lost.
Michael elaborates the sense for Adam:
So all shall turn degenerate, all depraved,
Justice and temperance, truth and faith, forgot;
One man except, the only son of light
In a dark age, against example good,
Against allurement, custom, and a world
Offended. Fearless of reproach and scorn,
Or violence, he of their wicked ways
Shall them admonish, and before them set
The paths of righteousness, how much more safe
And full of peace, denouncing wrath to come
On their impenitence, and shall return
Of them derided, but of God observed
The one just man alive: by his command
Shall build a wonderous ark, as thou beheld'st,
To save himself and household from amidst
A world devote to universal wrack. . . . (806–821)
To which Adam responds in delight:
Far less I now lament for one whole world
Of wicked sons destroyed, than I rejoice
For one man found so perfect, and so just,
That God vouchsafes to raise another world
From him, and all his anger to forget.
But say, what mean those coloured streaks in Heaven,
Distended as the brow of God appeased? (874–880)
Finally, of the "peace from God, and covenant new" (867) that Adam spies, the angel replies and thereby concludes their discourse as well as Book XI:
Day and night,
Seed-time and harvest, heat and hoary frost,
Shall hold their course, till fire purge all things new,
Both Heaven and Earth, wherein the just shall dwell. (898–901)
Milton lays his cards on the table by explicitly referencing 2 Peter 3:1–13, inviting the reader to make the connection that the biblical author has already drawn: Noah and the ark are to the flood as Christ and the church are to the purifying fire of the End, which like the deluge is a consummating sign of both new covenant and new creation. Christ, as the Second Adam, is in fact the Second of all Adam's children, and thus a Second Enoch and a Second Noah, the one just and perfect man come to rescue God's good but fallen creatures from their own violence and, consequently, from God's righteous judgment. So when, on "The second time returning" (859), in the bill of the Spirit-dove is found "An olive-leaf . . . pacific sign" (860), then "from his ark/The ancient sire descends, with all his train" (861–862): all, that is, of Adam's faithful sons and daughters, delivered from death and kept safe in the fleshy ark of his true Seed's body, the church. For the church is a mother to Christ's new sisters and brothers, who, along with their first parents, are now spotless children of God the Father.
One of the most striking features of Milton's biblical precis is his depiction of figures from the "primeval history" of Genesis, those chapters between Adam and Eve's expulsion from Eden and the calling of Abram. Specifically, his language about Enoch and Noah evokes Christ, not least through its anonymous description: by not naming the person in question, Milton leaves ambiguous just who is in view. The overall literary and theological effect is a brilliant, compelling figural christology, using words apt for the Gospels' protagonist to redescribe the initial descendants of Adam, planting verbal seeds in the mind of the reader as she is led, eventually, to the figure's fulfillment in the flesh.
Here is how Milton describes Enoch:
...till at last
Of middle age one rising, eminent
In wise deport, spake much of right and wrong,
And judgment from above: him old and young
Exploded, and had seized with violent hands,
Had not a cloud descending snatched him thence,
Unseen amid the throng. (XI.664–671)
Enoch, like Christ, proclaims judgment and righteousness; escapes the violent mob by walking through their midst; and departs from the earth by ascending to God's side on a cloud. When Adam asks Michael, "But who was that just man, whom had not Heaven/Rescued, had in his righteousness been lost?" (681–682) the angel replies:
But he, the seventh from thee, whom thou beheld'st
The only righteous in a world perverse,
And therefore hated, therefore so beset
With foes, for daring single to be just,
And utter odious truth, that God would come
To judge them with his Saints—him the Most High,
Rapt in a balmy cloud, with winged steeds,
Did, as thou saw'st, receive, to walk with God
High in salvation and the climes of bliss,
Exempt from death, to show thee what reward
Awaits the good, the rest what punishment . . . . (700–710)
Again: Like Christ, Enoch is the one righteous man in a fallen world, generating hatred to the point of violence, and calling down God's judgment upon all unrighteousness. For his pains, Enoch is raised to life eternal with God and freed forever from death, at once the divine exemplar and the divine pedagogy for all humankind.
Adam next foresees Noah, and here is how Milton depicts him:
At length a reverend sire among them came,
And of their doings great dislike declared,
And testified against their ways. He oft
Frequented their assemblies, whereso met,
Triumphs or festivals, and to them preached
Conversion and repentance, as to souls
In a prison, under judgments imminent;
But all in vain. (719–726)
Noah here figures the ministry of Christ, joining his neighbors as he finds them but not condoning their behavior, instead bearing witness to another way. Not only does he meet them with the proclamation of a message of repentance, like Christ at the outset of his ministry, but he did so "as to souls/In a prison," almost word for word a transposition of 1 Peter 3:19's account of the crucified Christ preaching to the spirits in prison—traditionally interpreted as the descent into hell. Noah typifies the Son of God in both his earthly and his spiritual missions to the lost.
Michael elaborates the sense for Adam:
So all shall turn degenerate, all depraved,
Justice and temperance, truth and faith, forgot;
One man except, the only son of light
In a dark age, against example good,
Against allurement, custom, and a world
Offended. Fearless of reproach and scorn,
Or violence, he of their wicked ways
Shall them admonish, and before them set
The paths of righteousness, how much more safe
And full of peace, denouncing wrath to come
On their impenitence, and shall return
Of them derided, but of God observed
The one just man alive: by his command
Shall build a wonderous ark, as thou beheld'st,
To save himself and household from amidst
A world devote to universal wrack. . . . (806–821)
To which Adam responds in delight:
Far less I now lament for one whole world
Of wicked sons destroyed, than I rejoice
For one man found so perfect, and so just,
That God vouchsafes to raise another world
From him, and all his anger to forget.
But say, what mean those coloured streaks in Heaven,
Distended as the brow of God appeased? (874–880)
Finally, of the "peace from God, and covenant new" (867) that Adam spies, the angel replies and thereby concludes their discourse as well as Book XI:
Day and night,
Seed-time and harvest, heat and hoary frost,
Shall hold their course, till fire purge all things new,
Both Heaven and Earth, wherein the just shall dwell. (898–901)
Milton lays his cards on the table by explicitly referencing 2 Peter 3:1–13, inviting the reader to make the connection that the biblical author has already drawn: Noah and the ark are to the flood as Christ and the church are to the purifying fire of the End, which like the deluge is a consummating sign of both new covenant and new creation. Christ, as the Second Adam, is in fact the Second of all Adam's children, and thus a Second Enoch and a Second Noah, the one just and perfect man come to rescue God's good but fallen creatures from their own violence and, consequently, from God's righteous judgment. So when, on "The second time returning" (859), in the bill of the Spirit-dove is found "An olive-leaf . . . pacific sign" (860), then "from his ark/The ancient sire descends, with all his train" (861–862): all, that is, of Adam's faithful sons and daughters, delivered from death and kept safe in the fleshy ark of his true Seed's body, the church. For the church is a mother to Christ's new sisters and brothers, who, along with their first parents, are now spotless children of God the Father.
John Webster on the perennial nature of the intellect's depravity
"[W]e would be unwise to think of the depravity of the intellect as a
peculiarly modern occurrence, a collateral effect of the naturalization
of our view of ourselves. It assumes peculiar modern forms, such as the
association of the intellect with pure human spontaneity and resistance
to the idea that the movement of the mind is moved by God. But these are
instances of perennial treachery; if our intellects are depraved, it is
not because we are children of Scotus or Descartes or Kant, but because
we are children of Adam."
—John Webster, God Without Measure: Working Papers in Christian Theology—Volume II, Virtue and Intellect (T&T Clark, 2016), 147
—John Webster, God Without Measure: Working Papers in Christian Theology—Volume II, Virtue and Intellect (T&T Clark, 2016), 147
Ronald Knox on setting free the wings of prayer
"For myself I always think it's not much use trying to fight against this particular kind of distraction, trying to make ourselves feel every single petition in the Our Father every time we say it. No, I think it's meant to be a sort of taking-off-from-the-ground when we want to set free the wings of prayer. And therefore what I would recommend is getting hold of just one idea in a prayer like that, either the first idea that comes along, or the idea that appeals to us most, or the idea that appeals to us most at this particular moment, and hanging on to that all through our recitation of the prayer itself; the words Our Father, for example, are quite enough by themselves to key one up, don't you think? I don't see why we shouldn't just back in that idea, sun ourselves in that idea, of God's fatherhood, and let the rest of the prayer slip past us while we are about it. But with this recitation of the Pater Noster at Mass, I'm afraid it's worse than that so far as I am concerned; I don't think I try to concentrate on any single phrase in it, I just babble it out with a delightful sense that I am talking to God. With most of our prayers, I mean, we feel—at least I do—as if we were talking into a microphone, knowing that as a matter of fact there is Somebody listening, but not having the sense, the awareness, that our mind is in direct contact with another Mind. But the Pater Noster at Mass is somehow like sitting over the fire with somebody else sitting over the fire in the opposite chimney-corner, talking about a hundred things, perhaps, important and unimportant, perhaps just sitting there and not bothering to say much, but with the sense, the awareness, of somebody else's presence. If you feel like that about the Pater Noster at Mass—or about any other bit of the prayers you say in the course of the day—don't bother to disturb your intimacy with God by deliberately and laboriously thinking about this or that; just stop thinking and throw yourself into the experience of being with him."
—Ronald Knox, The Mass in Slow Motion (Aeterna Press, 2014 [1948]), 71-72
—Ronald Knox, The Mass in Slow Motion (Aeterna Press, 2014 [1948]), 71-72
A proposal regarding Christians and the Fourth of July
I first published this in 2012, and often re-publish it as July 4th approaches.
For Christians concerned with issues like nationalism, the violence of the state, and bearing witness to God's peaceable kingdom, one might expect the Fourth of July to be a straightforward call to action. An opportunity to debunk American myths; a day of truth-telling about those who suffer as a consequence of American policies, foreign and domestic; a chance to offer a counter-witness to the civil liturgies covertly clamoring for the allegiance of God's people. And there are compelling, laudable voices doing just that sort of thing today.
On the Fourth, however, I find myself wondering whether there might also be another option available. Not as a replacement of those I've listed above, but rather as another way of "being" on the Fourth that, on the one hand, betrays not an inch on the issues (which, of course, do not disappear for 24 hours), yet on the other hand is able to see the holiday as something other than just one more chance for another round of imperial debunking.
To put it differently, I'm wondering whether there might be certain goods attendant to some "celebrations" of the Fourth of July, and whether it might sometimes be a good idea for Christians to share in those goods. If an affirmative answer is appropriate to both questions, I'm wondering finally what faithful participation might look like.
For example, I grew up in a decidedly non-patriotic household. Not "anti-patriotic," mind you, but "non-." It just wasn't an issue. No flag burnings (hence not "anti-")—but no flags around to begin with. Even on a day like the Fourth, while there was probably a dessert lurking somewhere colored red, white, and blue, that was both the extent of it and about as meaningful as having silver-and-black cupcakes when the Spurs won the championship. In other words, not much. Beyond that, we didn't sing patriotic songs or wax nostalgic about the glories of the U.S.A. or thank God incessantly for making us Americans and not communists. We cooked a lot of food, had lots of people over, ate and laughed and napped and swam and ate again, and concluded the night by watching fireworks. Then we crashed.
Perhaps my experience is not representative, but in reflecting on it, I have a hard time getting very worked up by what is generically derided as hyper-patriotic, nationalistic, blasphemous, violence-perpetuating, etc. No doubt there are gatherings and celebrations which do earn those and other descriptors, and Christians shouldn't hold back in truthfully naming them for what they are. My point is merely that not all are like that. And my question is this: Might Christians' sharing in ordinary gatherings like those I have in mind be one faithful option for the Fourth of July?
While I don't see this as some kind of paradoxical subversion of the holiday, the possibility is worth pondering for at least a moment. America's particular brand of individualism and pluralism at times affords some unexpected benefits, not least of which is the notion that the meaning of common set-aside days is not a shared given but rather what each of us decides to make it mean for oneself. Thus we "do" or "do not" celebrate x holiday; or we "don't do it that way," but "this way"; etc.
Well, why can't the church—not as a day off from its witness to the God of peace against the violent idolatries of the state, but precisely as one form of it—make its own meaning on the Fourth? The meaning can be simple: Rest from work is good; time shared with neighbors, friends, and family is good; feasting with others (when done neither every day nor alone—which is generally the American way) is good. I've been part of celebrations like this that go the whole day without waving a flag, memorializing a war, comparing a soldier's sacrifice to Jesus's, or mentioning "the greatest country on Earth"—and that, without anyone present consciously intending to avoid such things! It just happened; and I suspect it did, apart from consideration of the faithfulness of those gathered, simply because of all the good being shared among and between us. Almost like an unconscious tapping-in to that ancient notion of habitual rest and feasting, only we were so preoccupied with one another's company that we forgot "the reason" we were together at all.
So perhaps that can be the understated motto for what I'm suggesting. Let American Christians across the land feel free to "celebrate" the Fourth of July, sharing in its manifold goods with our neighbors with a clean conscience; only let us do so, at every moment and with focused purpose, forgetting the reason for the season.
For Christians concerned with issues like nationalism, the violence of the state, and bearing witness to God's peaceable kingdom, one might expect the Fourth of July to be a straightforward call to action. An opportunity to debunk American myths; a day of truth-telling about those who suffer as a consequence of American policies, foreign and domestic; a chance to offer a counter-witness to the civil liturgies covertly clamoring for the allegiance of God's people. And there are compelling, laudable voices doing just that sort of thing today.
On the Fourth, however, I find myself wondering whether there might also be another option available. Not as a replacement of those I've listed above, but rather as another way of "being" on the Fourth that, on the one hand, betrays not an inch on the issues (which, of course, do not disappear for 24 hours), yet on the other hand is able to see the holiday as something other than just one more chance for another round of imperial debunking.
To put it differently, I'm wondering whether there might be certain goods attendant to some "celebrations" of the Fourth of July, and whether it might sometimes be a good idea for Christians to share in those goods. If an affirmative answer is appropriate to both questions, I'm wondering finally what faithful participation might look like.
For example, I grew up in a decidedly non-patriotic household. Not "anti-patriotic," mind you, but "non-." It just wasn't an issue. No flag burnings (hence not "anti-")—but no flags around to begin with. Even on a day like the Fourth, while there was probably a dessert lurking somewhere colored red, white, and blue, that was both the extent of it and about as meaningful as having silver-and-black cupcakes when the Spurs won the championship. In other words, not much. Beyond that, we didn't sing patriotic songs or wax nostalgic about the glories of the U.S.A. or thank God incessantly for making us Americans and not communists. We cooked a lot of food, had lots of people over, ate and laughed and napped and swam and ate again, and concluded the night by watching fireworks. Then we crashed.
Perhaps my experience is not representative, but in reflecting on it, I have a hard time getting very worked up by what is generically derided as hyper-patriotic, nationalistic, blasphemous, violence-perpetuating, etc. No doubt there are gatherings and celebrations which do earn those and other descriptors, and Christians shouldn't hold back in truthfully naming them for what they are. My point is merely that not all are like that. And my question is this: Might Christians' sharing in ordinary gatherings like those I have in mind be one faithful option for the Fourth of July?
While I don't see this as some kind of paradoxical subversion of the holiday, the possibility is worth pondering for at least a moment. America's particular brand of individualism and pluralism at times affords some unexpected benefits, not least of which is the notion that the meaning of common set-aside days is not a shared given but rather what each of us decides to make it mean for oneself. Thus we "do" or "do not" celebrate x holiday; or we "don't do it that way," but "this way"; etc.
Well, why can't the church—not as a day off from its witness to the God of peace against the violent idolatries of the state, but precisely as one form of it—make its own meaning on the Fourth? The meaning can be simple: Rest from work is good; time shared with neighbors, friends, and family is good; feasting with others (when done neither every day nor alone—which is generally the American way) is good. I've been part of celebrations like this that go the whole day without waving a flag, memorializing a war, comparing a soldier's sacrifice to Jesus's, or mentioning "the greatest country on Earth"—and that, without anyone present consciously intending to avoid such things! It just happened; and I suspect it did, apart from consideration of the faithfulness of those gathered, simply because of all the good being shared among and between us. Almost like an unconscious tapping-in to that ancient notion of habitual rest and feasting, only we were so preoccupied with one another's company that we forgot "the reason" we were together at all.
So perhaps that can be the understated motto for what I'm suggesting. Let American Christians across the land feel free to "celebrate" the Fourth of July, sharing in its manifold goods with our neighbors with a clean conscience; only let us do so, at every moment and with focused purpose, forgetting the reason for the season.
Teaching the Gospels starting with John
This fall I am teaching a course on all four Gospels ("The Life and Teachings of Jesus") to freshmen. Precedent, biblical scholarship, and the textbook I'm using all suggest going the typical route: Synoptics then John, and within the Synoptics, Mark first, then Matthew and Luke in some order, then John. Basically in presumed chronological order of their writing, with John as the odd duck coming in at the end—either adding a dose of high-level theological questions or, as semesters tend to get away from professors, getting the requisite nod and discussion but not nearly as much attention as the earlier, ostensibly more reliable and relatable (because more historical) Synoptics.
That's how I'll teach it this fall, and maybe the one after that. But I'm already thinking how to re-shape the course once I get a handle on it.
And I'm thinking I'd like to start with John.
The class is neither for seminarians nor for historians. It isn't a historical introduction to the composition of the Gospels; it's not a prep course for future pastors who will need to know the background and hypothetical redactional relationships between the books.
It's a course for freshman at a Christian university on the life and teachings of Jesus. We'll be beginning with prayer and talking like Jesus not only matters but is alive, present, at work in the world and in us. And if you believe, as I do, that Matthew, Mark, and Luke are every bit as theologically motivated, resourced, and interesting as John, then framing the course with the theological claims and questions that John raises might—might—enable more productive, more spiritually engaged, more intellectually challenging, and ultimately more rewarding interaction with the Synoptics than the other way around.
It's a thought. I'd love to hear how others have taught similar courses. We'll see how this fall goes, and if my intuitions are confirmed. If and when I undertake the experiment, I'll report on the results.
That's how I'll teach it this fall, and maybe the one after that. But I'm already thinking how to re-shape the course once I get a handle on it.
And I'm thinking I'd like to start with John.
The class is neither for seminarians nor for historians. It isn't a historical introduction to the composition of the Gospels; it's not a prep course for future pastors who will need to know the background and hypothetical redactional relationships between the books.
It's a course for freshman at a Christian university on the life and teachings of Jesus. We'll be beginning with prayer and talking like Jesus not only matters but is alive, present, at work in the world and in us. And if you believe, as I do, that Matthew, Mark, and Luke are every bit as theologically motivated, resourced, and interesting as John, then framing the course with the theological claims and questions that John raises might—might—enable more productive, more spiritually engaged, more intellectually challenging, and ultimately more rewarding interaction with the Synoptics than the other way around.
It's a thought. I'd love to hear how others have taught similar courses. We'll see how this fall goes, and if my intuitions are confirmed. If and when I undertake the experiment, I'll report on the results.
"Nobody's stronger than forgiveness": breaking the cycle of fear and violence in ParaNorman
Occasionally I will re-post here on the new blog some of my favorite pieces from the old one. The following was originally published on August 22, 2012.
Did This Ever Happen to You
A marble-colored cloud
engulfed the sun and stalled,
a skinny squirrel limped toward me
as I crossed the empty park
and froze, the last
or next to last
fall leaf fell but before it touched
the earth, with shocking clarity
I heard my mother’s voice
pronounce my name. And in an instant I passed
beyond sorrow and terror, and was carried up
into the imageless
bright darkness
I came from
and am. Nobody’s
stronger than forgiveness.
—Franz Wright, God's Silence (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), p. 22
- - - - - - -
Let me begin with a thesis: The recent stop-motion film ParaNorman
is a sophisticated parable about communities' exclusion of those
labeled different than the norm, the underlying fears that motivate such
exclusionary acts, and the common resources capable of halting and
redeeming the resultant cycles of fear and violence. These resources
turn out to be the skills of telling and listening to truthful stories
about ourselves and others, the power and necessity of forgiveness (even
on the part of those once abused or oppressed, now abusing and
oppressing others), and the courage to take up these daunting tasks
peaceably -- that is, to take a stand in the face of violence, having
renounced violence oneself.
(Spoilers to follow.)
Written by Chris Butler and co-directed by Butler with Sam Fell, ParaNorman seems at the outset to be a rather straightforward "kids' movie" within a certain recognizable genre. It quickly becomes evident, however, that the story being told is not as ordinary as one might expect.
Norman Babcock is an outcast at home and at school, and for a simple reason: he sees the ghosts of dead people, regularly talks to them, and doesn't hide the fact. His dad thinks he's a weirdo, his mom isn't sure how to relate to him, and his sister can't stand him. At school people part the way for him and whisper as he trudges along; he keeps a wet rag in his locker to wipe off the word "FREAK" scrawled anew each day on his locker door. A bully, Alvin -- a cinematic Moe from Calvin and Hobbes if there ever was one -- makes his life miserable. The one gleam of light in this daily darkness is the friendly overtures of Neil, a similarly bullied "fat kid" who doesn't let it get him down. When Norman says he prefers to be alone, Neil agrees: He just wants to be "alone together."
Norman lives in Blithe Hollow, a town founded by Puritans and known for its trial and execution of a purported witch nearly 300 years ago -- in fact, tonight is the eve of that anniversary. The legend is that at her sentencing, the witch (imagined as an ugly old green-nosed hag) cursed her accusers, and that all seven of them (the judge and the jury) went to their graves bearing this curse.
A kooky uncle who can also see and speak to ghosts finds Norman and (just before dying himself) tells Norman it's up to him to keep the curse at bay, that very evening before midnight. Unfortunately, before he can figure out quite how to follow his uncle's instructions, the seven Puritan accusers rise from the dead as zombies and start pursuing Norman (albeit very slowly) and whoever is with him. As Norman tries to escape and figure out how to kill or at least send them back to the grave, he picks up a ragtag crew: Alvin, Neil, his looks-obsessed sister Courtney, and Neil's beefy but dim-witted brother Mitch. Unsurprisingly, once the town discovers the dead walk the streets, they form a mob (armed with pitchforks, shotguns, and bowling balls) and chase both Norman's crew and the zombies to city hall, where in a frenzy they seek to kill not only the zombies but Norman himself, too, for bringing this terror upon them.
An unexpected series of events, however, reveals the true nature of what is going on. The undead Puritans don't want to kill Norman or anyone else: they want their curse undone. They want peace in death, not more death for others. Norman sees the reality of what happened three centuries before: the person sentenced by the court to death for witchcraft wasn't a green-nosed hag, but a child like him -- a little girl who happened to be playing with fire (both literally and figuratively), and found out by the wrong people. Caught and punished unjustly by these townspeople so blindly fearful of her, she in her anger and fear of them in turn cursed them to their graves, so that they would never know the peace she herself was robbed of.
Now Norman sees, as do his sister and and oddball friends: The curse isn't limited to the Puritans, nor are its consequences merely to be trapped in a living death. No, the curse is on the entire town, for the very cycle of fear of the unknown and the turn to violence has engulfed the mob standing outside city hall, trying to burn the place down. And it won't end with the death of either the zombies or Norman himself. Something else, something new, has to happen.
So Norman leads his crew and the zombies outside to meet the mob where they stand. After stilling their frenzy, he tells them the story he just learned. Following Norman's lead, his unlikely fellows -- a resentful sister, an overweight outcast, a former bully, and a (later revealed as gay!) beefcake -- bear witness to the crowd that what Norman has told them is true, and further appeal to them to let go of their fear. For in fact, they have nothing to fear; the zombies don't want to hurt them, they only want to find the means to pass on peacefully.
As the truth dawns on the mob, the camera pans across their feet, as each and all drop their weapons: a club, a pitchfork, a shotgun, a bowling ball. "At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first . . ." The town lays down their instruments of violence, with eyes opened by the truth, freed from their bondage to fear of the other as threat.
But this isn't the end. The ghost of the witch, now enraged, begins to wreak havoc on the town. So Norman's parents take him, his sister, and the zombie Puritan judge to the witch's unmarked grave. There Norman engages in a climactic encounter with the witch's ghost, not with force or deception, but just as before with the crowd: with a true story. In fact, the way in which previous "ghost-seers" like him had kept the witch at bay was by reading a fairy tale to her, that is, they read her a nice bedtime story to palliate her righteous anger and get her to "sleep" for a little while longer.
But Norman knows better. That only puts a bandage on the wound, it won't heal the town's history or the witch's hurt. So he tells her a different story: her own. Though she tries to stop him in every way she can (with fantastic and terrifying powers), he re-narrates her life, without blushing or overlooking the hurt and the wrong and the injustice of it. But finally -- with what feels like his last ounce of energy -- finally he helps her to see. And she sees not only her tragic situation, but also the tragic nature of her accusers: they weren't pure evil or all powerful; they were afraid of her, hard as it is to believe. And though what they did was unspeakably wrong, to inflect on them and thus on the town what they inflicted on her is only to become a monster like them, when she could choose otherwise and free the town of its curse.
Reverting for a moment to her living form, Aggie -- for that was her name -- tells Norman of her sadness, how she misses her mom, how she was only playing with fire. Norman comforts her, but urges her to let go and be at peace, and to do so she has to forgive. Aggie asks Norman: What is the ending to the story he's telling? Norman replies that that's up to her.
After considering, the witch opts for peace; Aggie forgives those who knew not what they did, and so gives up her spirit, passing on peacefully to be with her beloved mother. The zombies, too, pass on, but not before changing from undead to dead, that is, from zombies to ghosts: they go on as themselves, the curse undone, rather than into one more mode of accursed existence.
Norman walks through the rubble of the town, listening to his neighbors' conversations. A former outcast, he surveys those once divided from him and from one another now chatting and listening and laughing with one another. Returning home, he plops in front of the TV for his usual routine of horror flicks. Typically alone with his movies and the ghost of his grandmother, his family joins him, Norman's dad even going out of his way to acknowledge the previously doubted presence of his deceased mother.
Whether in his town, with his new friends, or here at home with his family, Norman isn't alone anymore. The dividing walls have come down; the cycles of fear and violence have been broken; the weirdos and the bullies have embraced; the town knows its history, broken and redeemed. No, neither Norman nor his town nor his family is alone; no longer are they isolated from one another.
In Neil's words, they're alone together.
Did This Ever Happen to You
A marble-colored cloud
engulfed the sun and stalled,
a skinny squirrel limped toward me
as I crossed the empty park
and froze, the last
or next to last
fall leaf fell but before it touched
the earth, with shocking clarity
I heard my mother’s voice
pronounce my name. And in an instant I passed
beyond sorrow and terror, and was carried up
into the imageless
bright darkness
I came from
and am. Nobody’s
stronger than forgiveness.
—Franz Wright, God's Silence (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), p. 22
- - - - - - -
(Spoilers to follow.)Written by Chris Butler and co-directed by Butler with Sam Fell, ParaNorman seems at the outset to be a rather straightforward "kids' movie" within a certain recognizable genre. It quickly becomes evident, however, that the story being told is not as ordinary as one might expect.
Norman Babcock is an outcast at home and at school, and for a simple reason: he sees the ghosts of dead people, regularly talks to them, and doesn't hide the fact. His dad thinks he's a weirdo, his mom isn't sure how to relate to him, and his sister can't stand him. At school people part the way for him and whisper as he trudges along; he keeps a wet rag in his locker to wipe off the word "FREAK" scrawled anew each day on his locker door. A bully, Alvin -- a cinematic Moe from Calvin and Hobbes if there ever was one -- makes his life miserable. The one gleam of light in this daily darkness is the friendly overtures of Neil, a similarly bullied "fat kid" who doesn't let it get him down. When Norman says he prefers to be alone, Neil agrees: He just wants to be "alone together."
Norman lives in Blithe Hollow, a town founded by Puritans and known for its trial and execution of a purported witch nearly 300 years ago -- in fact, tonight is the eve of that anniversary. The legend is that at her sentencing, the witch (imagined as an ugly old green-nosed hag) cursed her accusers, and that all seven of them (the judge and the jury) went to their graves bearing this curse.
A kooky uncle who can also see and speak to ghosts finds Norman and (just before dying himself) tells Norman it's up to him to keep the curse at bay, that very evening before midnight. Unfortunately, before he can figure out quite how to follow his uncle's instructions, the seven Puritan accusers rise from the dead as zombies and start pursuing Norman (albeit very slowly) and whoever is with him. As Norman tries to escape and figure out how to kill or at least send them back to the grave, he picks up a ragtag crew: Alvin, Neil, his looks-obsessed sister Courtney, and Neil's beefy but dim-witted brother Mitch. Unsurprisingly, once the town discovers the dead walk the streets, they form a mob (armed with pitchforks, shotguns, and bowling balls) and chase both Norman's crew and the zombies to city hall, where in a frenzy they seek to kill not only the zombies but Norman himself, too, for bringing this terror upon them.
An unexpected series of events, however, reveals the true nature of what is going on. The undead Puritans don't want to kill Norman or anyone else: they want their curse undone. They want peace in death, not more death for others. Norman sees the reality of what happened three centuries before: the person sentenced by the court to death for witchcraft wasn't a green-nosed hag, but a child like him -- a little girl who happened to be playing with fire (both literally and figuratively), and found out by the wrong people. Caught and punished unjustly by these townspeople so blindly fearful of her, she in her anger and fear of them in turn cursed them to their graves, so that they would never know the peace she herself was robbed of.
Now Norman sees, as do his sister and and oddball friends: The curse isn't limited to the Puritans, nor are its consequences merely to be trapped in a living death. No, the curse is on the entire town, for the very cycle of fear of the unknown and the turn to violence has engulfed the mob standing outside city hall, trying to burn the place down. And it won't end with the death of either the zombies or Norman himself. Something else, something new, has to happen.
So Norman leads his crew and the zombies outside to meet the mob where they stand. After stilling their frenzy, he tells them the story he just learned. Following Norman's lead, his unlikely fellows -- a resentful sister, an overweight outcast, a former bully, and a (later revealed as gay!) beefcake -- bear witness to the crowd that what Norman has told them is true, and further appeal to them to let go of their fear. For in fact, they have nothing to fear; the zombies don't want to hurt them, they only want to find the means to pass on peacefully.
As the truth dawns on the mob, the camera pans across their feet, as each and all drop their weapons: a club, a pitchfork, a shotgun, a bowling ball. "At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first . . ." The town lays down their instruments of violence, with eyes opened by the truth, freed from their bondage to fear of the other as threat.
But this isn't the end. The ghost of the witch, now enraged, begins to wreak havoc on the town. So Norman's parents take him, his sister, and the zombie Puritan judge to the witch's unmarked grave. There Norman engages in a climactic encounter with the witch's ghost, not with force or deception, but just as before with the crowd: with a true story. In fact, the way in which previous "ghost-seers" like him had kept the witch at bay was by reading a fairy tale to her, that is, they read her a nice bedtime story to palliate her righteous anger and get her to "sleep" for a little while longer.
But Norman knows better. That only puts a bandage on the wound, it won't heal the town's history or the witch's hurt. So he tells her a different story: her own. Though she tries to stop him in every way she can (with fantastic and terrifying powers), he re-narrates her life, without blushing or overlooking the hurt and the wrong and the injustice of it. But finally -- with what feels like his last ounce of energy -- finally he helps her to see. And she sees not only her tragic situation, but also the tragic nature of her accusers: they weren't pure evil or all powerful; they were afraid of her, hard as it is to believe. And though what they did was unspeakably wrong, to inflect on them and thus on the town what they inflicted on her is only to become a monster like them, when she could choose otherwise and free the town of its curse.
Reverting for a moment to her living form, Aggie -- for that was her name -- tells Norman of her sadness, how she misses her mom, how she was only playing with fire. Norman comforts her, but urges her to let go and be at peace, and to do so she has to forgive. Aggie asks Norman: What is the ending to the story he's telling? Norman replies that that's up to her.
After considering, the witch opts for peace; Aggie forgives those who knew not what they did, and so gives up her spirit, passing on peacefully to be with her beloved mother. The zombies, too, pass on, but not before changing from undead to dead, that is, from zombies to ghosts: they go on as themselves, the curse undone, rather than into one more mode of accursed existence.
Norman walks through the rubble of the town, listening to his neighbors' conversations. A former outcast, he surveys those once divided from him and from one another now chatting and listening and laughing with one another. Returning home, he plops in front of the TV for his usual routine of horror flicks. Typically alone with his movies and the ghost of his grandmother, his family joins him, Norman's dad even going out of his way to acknowledge the previously doubted presence of his deceased mother.
Whether in his town, with his new friends, or here at home with his family, Norman isn't alone anymore. The dividing walls have come down; the cycles of fear and violence have been broken; the weirdos and the bullies have embraced; the town knows its history, broken and redeemed. No, neither Norman nor his town nor his family is alone; no longer are they isolated from one another.
In Neil's words, they're alone together.
Ronald Knox on how to think of Paul's epistles
"So let's try and think of the Epistle, always, as a personal letter sent to us from St. Paul, or one of the other apostles, who is a long way away, but still very much interested in us. Take that Epistle this morning—there's nothing there, I think, St. Paul wouldn't be wanting to say, isn't wanting to say, to you or me. 'We have been praying for you, ' he says, 'unceasingly'; of course he has; the saints in Heaven go on praying all the time, and they pray for all Christian people. He has been praying that you and I may have a closer knowledge of God's will; that you and I may live as God's servants, waiting continually on his pleasure; that you and I may be inspired with full strength, to be patient and to endure; isn't that nice of him? We feel inclined to say "Hurrah!" at the end of it; only we don't say it; we just think "Hurrah!" when the server says Deo Gratias."
—Ronald Knox, The Mass in Slow Motion (Aeterna Press, 2014 [1948]), 26
—Ronald Knox, The Mass in Slow Motion (Aeterna Press, 2014 [1948]), 26
Mary Midgley on living forever among the boys playing computer-games in the solitudes of space
"It has for some time been proposed that Homo sapiens should colonize space, and should, for convenience in this project, transform himself mechanically into non-organic forms. This project is now held to look increasingly feasible, on the grounds that computer software is the same whatever kind of hardware it runs on, and that minds are only a kind of computer software. Thus, as the eminent Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson puts it:
'It is impossible to set any limit to the variety of forms that life may assume. . . . It is conceivable that in another 1010 years life could evolve away from flesh and blood and become embodied in an interstellar black cloud . . . or in a sentient computer . . .'
"Our successors can thus not only avoid ordinary death, but also survive (if you care to call it surviving) the heat-death of the universe, and sit about in electronic form exchanging opinions in an otherwise empty cosmos. This, Dyson thinks, would restore the meaning to life, which has otherwise been drained from it by the thought that final destruction is unavoidable.
"Could fear and hatred of the flesh go further? Behind this life Bernal's prophecy, which we have noted earlier, a prophecy to which Dyson acknowledges his debt, that,
'As the scene of life would be more the cold emptiness of space than the warm, dense atmosphere of the planets, the advantage of containing no organic material at all . . . would be increasingly felt. . . . Bodies at this time would be left far behind . . .'
"Reason, in fact, can at last divorce the unsatisfactory wife he has been complaining of since the eighteenth century, and can live comfortably forever among the boys playing computer-games in the solitudes of space. Is that not touching?"
—Mary Midgley, The Myths We Live By (Routledge, 2004, 2011) 142-143
'It is impossible to set any limit to the variety of forms that life may assume. . . . It is conceivable that in another 1010 years life could evolve away from flesh and blood and become embodied in an interstellar black cloud . . . or in a sentient computer . . .'
"Our successors can thus not only avoid ordinary death, but also survive (if you care to call it surviving) the heat-death of the universe, and sit about in electronic form exchanging opinions in an otherwise empty cosmos. This, Dyson thinks, would restore the meaning to life, which has otherwise been drained from it by the thought that final destruction is unavoidable.
"Could fear and hatred of the flesh go further? Behind this life Bernal's prophecy, which we have noted earlier, a prophecy to which Dyson acknowledges his debt, that,
'As the scene of life would be more the cold emptiness of space than the warm, dense atmosphere of the planets, the advantage of containing no organic material at all . . . would be increasingly felt. . . . Bodies at this time would be left far behind . . .'
"Reason, in fact, can at last divorce the unsatisfactory wife he has been complaining of since the eighteenth century, and can live comfortably forever among the boys playing computer-games in the solitudes of space. Is that not touching?"
—Mary Midgley, The Myths We Live By (Routledge, 2004, 2011) 142-143
I've got a new piece up at Marginalia
Called "Systematic Theology and Biblical Criticism," it's a review essay of Ephraim Radner's latest book, Time and the Word: Figural Reading of the Christian Scriptures. The book is an important entry in the ongoing scholarly reflection on the doctrine of Scripture, theological interpretation, historical-critical scholarship, and revisionary metaphysics. Last month Michael Legaspi reviewed the book for First Things, as did Michael Cover for Living Church. Happy to add my voice to the mix. Looking forward to further conversations about the book.
Kathryn Tanner featured in The Christian Century
I don't know that Kathryn Tanner (meine Doktormutter at Yale) ever thought she'd be the cover story on a national magazine, but there she is gracing the front of The Christian Century. It's called "How Kathryn Tanner's theology bridges doctrine and social action," written by Amy Plantinga Pauw. It's an excellent, accessible entree to Tanner's thought, particularly the last ten years or so and the ever-present emphasis, throughout her three-plus decades of work, of the non-competitive relationship between divine and human action. Go check it out.
Pauw only hints at a possible criticism, namely the role and doctrine of the church in Tanner's thought, but doesn't explore it further. That's because she already did so in an article some years ago, which gently but less tentatively suggests Tanner develop an ecclesiology—which Tanner then did, albeit briefly, in a response to that essay. For those interested in pursuing that line of thought, two years ago I published an article in Scottish Journal of Theology called "An Undefensive Presence: The Mission and Identity of the Church in Kathryn Tanner and John Howard Yoder."
In any case: Now let's see those Gifford lectures in print!
Pauw only hints at a possible criticism, namely the role and doctrine of the church in Tanner's thought, but doesn't explore it further. That's because she already did so in an article some years ago, which gently but less tentatively suggests Tanner develop an ecclesiology—which Tanner then did, albeit briefly, in a response to that essay. For those interested in pursuing that line of thought, two years ago I published an article in Scottish Journal of Theology called "An Undefensive Presence: The Mission and Identity of the Church in Kathryn Tanner and John Howard Yoder."
In any case: Now let's see those Gifford lectures in print!
More on the analogia entis (from my inbox)
I emailed my last post to a couple friends and asked them to spot any errors. They came back with some helpful clarifying comments and questions, so let me post some of them below along with my responses.
Friend #1:
I like the first half of this. I think you’re right to make the doctrine fundamentally metaphysical (with the latter allowing certain epistemological moves). I read the analogy of being in Thomas as shorthand for the whole metaphysical process of emanation and return, and with that of the corresponding epistemological moves of affirmation and negation in positive and negative theologies.
My reply:
Friend #2:
As I see it, you're basically asking the Barthians what's wrong with the analogy of being when paired with a strong doctrine of sin, esp. the noetic effects of the fall. That seems like the right question. But some quibbles:
"Third, God speaks to human beings, as the rational embodied creatures they are, thus eliciting their reply and constituting a unique relationship (compared to other creatures' relationship to God)."
If "speaks" here refers to revelation, as I take you to mean, then it is not entailed by the analogy of being, which holds even in the absence of revelation. But if God's speech refers to God speaking creation (and God said...), then this is basically the heart of the doctrine.
"...not being an epistemic principle, it is not concerned with the source or medium of knowledge of God, whether through revelation or nature or anything else."
Analogy at its most basic means that nature and indeed any existant is in principle a medium for knowing God, though we may be blind to it. Not sure if you mean to deny that here.
"...it does not make a claim to be itself a generic or universally perspicuous or philosophical doctrine: it is a Christian theological claim about the ontological conditions 'on the ground,' so to speak, that in fact obtain, conditions necessary for knowledge of and speech about the triune God to occur."
I think the analogy of being has to be necessarily true: if there are creatures, then their being is analogically related to God's. So it's not about what just happens to obtain. But it may be that we only know this necessary truth through revelation. Like the trinity: a necessary truth that we do not know necessarily but only through God's free revelation. Unlike the trinity, the analogy of being is classically held to be knowable through natural reason, though of course there is room for debate as to how much this holds of corrupted natural reason. But this much is consistent with both Calvin and Vatican I.
"Finally, the analogy of being does not make any positive claim about the human capacity for speech about God, whether it is pre- or post-lapsarian humanity in view."
I think some kind of prelapsarian natural theology is implied by the analogy of being, though I'd probably need to bring in more Christian Platonism to say why. But I also don't see the problem with that, given Rom 1, the Institutes, etc.
My reply:
–No, by speech I don't mean "revelation." I mean the twofold speaking of Genesis 1: God speaking creation into being, and God addressing humanity personally—however one wants to construe the latter.
–Yes, I'm
not meaning to deny that. Not only may we be blind to it (and need that
only be because of sin?), but God is free to choose to use this or that
existent as a medium of knowing him, or not.
–Yes, agreed about your analogy to the Trinity: analogy is necessarily true but we do not necessarily know it. And agreed about the classical claim regarding analogy's being knowable through natural reason, but apart from the effects of sin, my further claim is that it doesn't seem to me to follow necessarily from the doctrine itself that the doctrine of analogy must be knowable through natural reason. Sin levels this disagreement anyway, in my opinion, but that's my claim.
–And yes, agreed: I've never really known what's at stake in the denial (does anyone deny it?) of prelapsarian natural theology/natural knowledge of God. Particularly if natural theology is not specified such that God is somehow inactive or passive in being known.
Friend #1:
I like the first half of this. I think you’re right to make the doctrine fundamentally metaphysical (with the latter allowing certain epistemological moves). I read the analogy of being in Thomas as shorthand for the whole metaphysical process of emanation and return, and with that of the corresponding epistemological moves of affirmation and negation in positive and negative theologies.
The
second half (the Barthian bit!) raises some questions for me.
Firstly—and this is a predictably historicizing point—when you say
things like “the analogy of being makes the claim,” what exactly do you
mean? To put it bluntly, the doctrine “the analogy of being” doesn’t
obviously say anything it all. Doctrines don’t make claims.
People and texts make claims about doctrines. And particular people in
people texts make different claims about them (sometimes subtly
different, sometimes altogether different)? So, to bowdlerize MacIntyre,
which doctrine of the analogy? Whose? Thomas’? As defined at Vatican
I? Prsyzwara’s? Barth’s?
If (as I suspect) the
kind of language you use (“the analogy of being states…”) really means
something like this—the doctrine as I am interpreting it qua
constructive theologian on the basis of my reflection on Scripture and
engagement with and respect for the traditions of the Church—all well
and good, but it just seems to me that not being more explicit about
that is historically distorting. It may be that you have an implicit
commitment to a pre-Newman Catholic, or Laudian Anglican view of
doctrine and tradition, where you are making a faith claim about an
essential uniformity of doctrine across time. I think as Newman et. al.
found, it’s hard to do that given modern historical investigation into
the history of doctrines, and I hope and think that’s not your view. I
think instead what you’re saying is something more like “I think this
what is true about this doctrine, and I think it speaks to the best that
I have found in the tradition.”
With all that
in mind, the second problem I have about part two is that I think it
holds for Barth (and might also be the best way of thinking about the
doctrine), and I think it serves well as a kind of ecumenical
constructive appropriation of Thomas (which might be the Thomas that
finally matters most), but I don’t think it's what Thomas himself
thought, and again, I think it’s historically misleading. The analogy of
being in the Summa at least, which is being written as he’s lecturing
on Pseudo-Denys, is relying on a basic metaphysical scheme (from
Proclus) that isn’t specifically Christian, but Neo-Platonic in origin.
Of course, in Denys it’s already being used as a vehicle for
understanding Christian revelation, but there seems to me something
disingenuous about the claim “this is only possible by special
revelation,” when, in fact, it’s basic provenance is pagan and
philosophical. In other words, your second half has something like what
bothers me about the later Augustine (although of course he’s my
favorite Augustine too). We’ve conceded that the pagans through
contemplation in someway see God (Conf. Bk VII), and this will remain
basically consistent given a basic metaphysics and epistemology adopted
from Platonism, but we recognize too that the horizontal Christian story
of sin, fall, redemption, consummation is supposed to complicate the
picture, so that we have to go through the valley of the cross to get to
the city on the hill that we see only in the distance, etc., etc. But
the two claims sit oddly together, or, are never fully
harmonized/reconciled.
I think there are wider
problems here about the the Barthian Thomas emerging in our own day and
circles. Ultimately this is probably a good Thomas and maybe even the
one we want; the synthesis of the great theological dialectic of the
past millennium. But all this “of course Thomas isn’t doing natural theology (who
would be so naive as too do "natural theology” after reading de Lubac,
Barth, Wittgenstein, Foucault, etc.?)" is basically wrong as an
historical assessment, and relies on a different nature/grace picture to
the one Thomas operated with (this is what the Neo-Thomists had mostly
right, etc., etc.). Concretely that might mean that the historical
Thomas did think that an unregenerate pagan could attain to the
knowledge of something like the analogy of being, even given the reality
of sin and its noetic effects. That strikes me as not only
theologically plausible (Rom 1, etc.), but also historically more honest
if the doctrine does come in the first place from Proclus and the pagan
Neo-Platonists!
My reply:
You're right that (a) I'm not doing historical
theology here and (b) I'm cheating a bit by making the doctrine
palatable in a constructive way, in accordance with contemporary
concerns. Here's what I was trying to do, briefly, and let me know if
you think it's objectionable.
I wasn't per se trying to do a Barthian spin on analogy. I was actually coming from the other direction: Reading a book on Jenson by someone doing the typical Barthian anti-analogy routine, and finding myself frustrated at what felt like the usual rhetorical moves inspired by Barth without charitably articulating the best, most substantive Christian theological approach to analogy.
So this was an attempt at simple clarification, first of all: "If you're going to disagree with anything, disagree with this." My mention of Barth in the second half is then a way of saying, "It isn't obvious or clear why the Barthian has to reject all this. Say more if he still does."
Obviously I'm both reducing a lot and doing some constructive work. Doctrines don't speak or act, their interpreters do. (All praise to Dale Martin.) But part of what I was trying to do, at a simple level, was show the necessary rather than accidental commitments of analogy, ontologically construed, as well as some of the non-necessary entailments. So that, e.g., a Barthian in my view basically has to admit analogy after the fact, and it's silly to then call it analogy of faith, when you're still doing ontology, and locating it at the level of creator/creature distinction and not soteriology.
As to the provenance of analogy, I have less to say about that. Given that Denys and Thomas and their reception are (to me, clearly) modifying the Neoplatonists in their Christian theological explication, I have less of a problem with infection-at-the-source. And I should also add that the post is meant to be ambivalent about natural theology: i.e., that it doesn't seem to me that natural theology necessarily follows from a doctrine of analogy, though it can, as it has been, made complementary to it. In other words, Thomas can affirm some kind of knowledge of God apart from the revelation in Christ, but that is a logically independent claim from analogy, which secures something different.
I wasn't per se trying to do a Barthian spin on analogy. I was actually coming from the other direction: Reading a book on Jenson by someone doing the typical Barthian anti-analogy routine, and finding myself frustrated at what felt like the usual rhetorical moves inspired by Barth without charitably articulating the best, most substantive Christian theological approach to analogy.
So this was an attempt at simple clarification, first of all: "If you're going to disagree with anything, disagree with this." My mention of Barth in the second half is then a way of saying, "It isn't obvious or clear why the Barthian has to reject all this. Say more if he still does."
Obviously I'm both reducing a lot and doing some constructive work. Doctrines don't speak or act, their interpreters do. (All praise to Dale Martin.) But part of what I was trying to do, at a simple level, was show the necessary rather than accidental commitments of analogy, ontologically construed, as well as some of the non-necessary entailments. So that, e.g., a Barthian in my view basically has to admit analogy after the fact, and it's silly to then call it analogy of faith, when you're still doing ontology, and locating it at the level of creator/creature distinction and not soteriology.
As to the provenance of analogy, I have less to say about that. Given that Denys and Thomas and their reception are (to me, clearly) modifying the Neoplatonists in their Christian theological explication, I have less of a problem with infection-at-the-source. And I should also add that the post is meant to be ambivalent about natural theology: i.e., that it doesn't seem to me that natural theology necessarily follows from a doctrine of analogy, though it can, as it has been, made complementary to it. In other words, Thomas can affirm some kind of knowledge of God apart from the revelation in Christ, but that is a logically independent claim from analogy, which secures something different.
Friend #2:
As I see it, you're basically asking the Barthians what's wrong with the analogy of being when paired with a strong doctrine of sin, esp. the noetic effects of the fall. That seems like the right question. But some quibbles:
"Third, God speaks to human beings, as the rational embodied creatures they are, thus eliciting their reply and constituting a unique relationship (compared to other creatures' relationship to God)."
If "speaks" here refers to revelation, as I take you to mean, then it is not entailed by the analogy of being, which holds even in the absence of revelation. But if God's speech refers to God speaking creation (and God said...), then this is basically the heart of the doctrine.
"...not being an epistemic principle, it is not concerned with the source or medium of knowledge of God, whether through revelation or nature or anything else."
Analogy at its most basic means that nature and indeed any existant is in principle a medium for knowing God, though we may be blind to it. Not sure if you mean to deny that here.
"...it does not make a claim to be itself a generic or universally perspicuous or philosophical doctrine: it is a Christian theological claim about the ontological conditions 'on the ground,' so to speak, that in fact obtain, conditions necessary for knowledge of and speech about the triune God to occur."
I think the analogy of being has to be necessarily true: if there are creatures, then their being is analogically related to God's. So it's not about what just happens to obtain. But it may be that we only know this necessary truth through revelation. Like the trinity: a necessary truth that we do not know necessarily but only through God's free revelation. Unlike the trinity, the analogy of being is classically held to be knowable through natural reason, though of course there is room for debate as to how much this holds of corrupted natural reason. But this much is consistent with both Calvin and Vatican I.
"Finally, the analogy of being does not make any positive claim about the human capacity for speech about God, whether it is pre- or post-lapsarian humanity in view."
I think some kind of prelapsarian natural theology is implied by the analogy of being, though I'd probably need to bring in more Christian Platonism to say why. But I also don't see the problem with that, given Rom 1, the Institutes, etc.
My reply:
Yes, to your summary of what I'm up to. As to your particular quibbles:
–No, by speech I don't mean "revelation." I mean the twofold speaking of Genesis 1: God speaking creation into being, and God addressing humanity personally—however one wants to construe the latter.
–Yes, agreed about your analogy to the Trinity: analogy is necessarily true but we do not necessarily know it. And agreed about the classical claim regarding analogy's being knowable through natural reason, but apart from the effects of sin, my further claim is that it doesn't seem to me to follow necessarily from the doctrine itself that the doctrine of analogy must be knowable through natural reason. Sin levels this disagreement anyway, in my opinion, but that's my claim.
–And yes, agreed: I've never really known what's at stake in the denial (does anyone deny it?) of prelapsarian natural theology/natural knowledge of God. Particularly if natural theology is not specified such that God is somehow inactive or passive in being known.
A stab at the analogia entis
The analogy of being does not analogize God and creatures under the more general category of being, but is the analogization of being in the difference between God and creatures.
—David Bentley Hart
What is the analogy of being? Here's my stab at a clear, sympathetic description.
The analogy of being is a Christian theological claim about the relationship between God and creatures and the ontological conditions of the possibility for the latter to know and/or speak about the former. As I understand it, it entails three core claims.
First, God is and creatures are;
Second, God is the creator of all that is that is not God, that is, creatures have the source and sustenance of their being in the one triune God;
Third, God speaks to human beings, as the rational embodied creatures they are, thus eliciting their reply and constituting a unique relationship (compared to other creatures' relationship to God).
The analogy of being makes the claim that the ontological condition of the possibility for human knowledge of and speech about God is this threefold set of affairs. If this is a fair summation, what follows about what it is not?
The analogy of being is not first of all an epistemic principle: it does not say how creatures come to know God or anything true about God; it offers no criteria for measuring claims about God; it does not insert itself explicitly into the process by which theological claims are made. Further, not being an epistemic principle, it is not concerned with the source or medium of knowledge of God, whether through revelation or nature or anything else. Further still, it does not make a claim to be itself a generic or universally perspicuous or philosophical doctrine: it is a Christian theological claim about the ontological conditions "on the ground," so to speak, that in fact obtain, conditions necessary for knowledge of and speech about the triune God to occur.
Finally, the analogy of being does not make any positive claim about the human capacity for speech about God, whether it is pre- or post-lapsarian humanity in view. Humans must be addressed by God—admittedly my own semi-innovation on analogy—in order to reply to him, but even once addressed, God remains the enabling condition of their speech about and to him. Moreover, after sin, all true knowledge of God may indeed be wiped out apart from wholly gracious divine revelation. The analogy of being still obtains, because humans remain creatures and God remains their creator; it is simply that the human reply to God's initial speech fails so utterly that the possibility of faithful speech is eliminated, unless and until God intervenes to make it possible again. Barth's analogy of faith may indeed enter in at this point, and it may reserve to itself exclusive claim to truthful knowledge of and speech about God—but just as the economy of grace reconciles lost creatures to God—it does not make new creatures ex nihilo—so divine revelation reestablishes and renews the proper relationship of creator and creature, so that creatures may offer their reply to God's initiating address in Spirit and in truth. But the ontological conditions never changed; and if they did not obtain, there would be no speech about God on humans' behalf.
Put differently, and in the context of theological language, the analogy of being is an analysis of how speech about God works in the first place—but note, Christian speech, from a Christian theological perspective, assuming the truth of the gospel, working within and not (hypothetically) without the event and domain of revelation. It is not a denial of the necessity of faith to know and speak truthfully about God. It is faith's reflection on how the language of faith succeeds, given that God is and believers are and that God is the creator of all, how faith's words work one way when applied to God and another way when applied to creatures.
I said it was a stab, and so it was. Where I've erred, I welcome correction.
—David Bentley Hart
What is the analogy of being? Here's my stab at a clear, sympathetic description.
The analogy of being is a Christian theological claim about the relationship between God and creatures and the ontological conditions of the possibility for the latter to know and/or speak about the former. As I understand it, it entails three core claims.
First, God is and creatures are;
Second, God is the creator of all that is that is not God, that is, creatures have the source and sustenance of their being in the one triune God;
Third, God speaks to human beings, as the rational embodied creatures they are, thus eliciting their reply and constituting a unique relationship (compared to other creatures' relationship to God).
The analogy of being makes the claim that the ontological condition of the possibility for human knowledge of and speech about God is this threefold set of affairs. If this is a fair summation, what follows about what it is not?
The analogy of being is not first of all an epistemic principle: it does not say how creatures come to know God or anything true about God; it offers no criteria for measuring claims about God; it does not insert itself explicitly into the process by which theological claims are made. Further, not being an epistemic principle, it is not concerned with the source or medium of knowledge of God, whether through revelation or nature or anything else. Further still, it does not make a claim to be itself a generic or universally perspicuous or philosophical doctrine: it is a Christian theological claim about the ontological conditions "on the ground," so to speak, that in fact obtain, conditions necessary for knowledge of and speech about the triune God to occur.
Finally, the analogy of being does not make any positive claim about the human capacity for speech about God, whether it is pre- or post-lapsarian humanity in view. Humans must be addressed by God—admittedly my own semi-innovation on analogy—in order to reply to him, but even once addressed, God remains the enabling condition of their speech about and to him. Moreover, after sin, all true knowledge of God may indeed be wiped out apart from wholly gracious divine revelation. The analogy of being still obtains, because humans remain creatures and God remains their creator; it is simply that the human reply to God's initial speech fails so utterly that the possibility of faithful speech is eliminated, unless and until God intervenes to make it possible again. Barth's analogy of faith may indeed enter in at this point, and it may reserve to itself exclusive claim to truthful knowledge of and speech about God—but just as the economy of grace reconciles lost creatures to God—it does not make new creatures ex nihilo—so divine revelation reestablishes and renews the proper relationship of creator and creature, so that creatures may offer their reply to God's initiating address in Spirit and in truth. But the ontological conditions never changed; and if they did not obtain, there would be no speech about God on humans' behalf.
Put differently, and in the context of theological language, the analogy of being is an analysis of how speech about God works in the first place—but note, Christian speech, from a Christian theological perspective, assuming the truth of the gospel, working within and not (hypothetically) without the event and domain of revelation. It is not a denial of the necessity of faith to know and speak truthfully about God. It is faith's reflection on how the language of faith succeeds, given that God is and believers are and that God is the creator of all, how faith's words work one way when applied to God and another way when applied to creatures.
I said it was a stab, and so it was. Where I've erred, I welcome correction.
I've got a new article out in Modern Theology
It's called "What is the Doctrine of the Trinity For? Practicality and Projection in the Theology of Robert Jenson." You can find it here (paywalled). And here's the abstract:
"This articles engages the theology of Robert Jenson with three questions in mind: What is the doctrine of the Trinity for? Is it a practical doctrine? If so, how, and with what implications? It seeks, on the one hand, to identify whether Jenson’s trinitarian theology ought to count as a “social” doctrine of the Trinity, and to what extent he puts it to work for human socio-practical purposes. On the other hand, in light of Jenson’s career-long worries about Feuerbach and projection onto a God behind or above the triune God revealed in the economy, the article interrogates his thought with a view to recent critiques of social trinitarianism. The irony is that, in constructing his account of the Trinity as both wholly determined in and by the economy and maximally relevant for practical human needs and interests, precisely in order to avoid the errors of Feuerbachian “religion,” Jenson ends up engaging in a full-scale project of projection. Observation of the human is retrojected into the immanent life of the Trinity as the prior condition of the possibility for the human; upon this “discovery,” this or that feature of God’s being is proposed as a resolution to a human problem, bearing ostensibly profound socio-practical import. The article is intended, first, as a contribution to the work, only now beginning, of critically receiving Jenson’s theology; and, second, as an extension of general critiques of practical uses of trinitarian doctrine, such as Karen Kilby’s or Kathryn Tanner’s, by way of close engagement with a specific theologian."
The article has its origins in a term paper I wrote for Linn Tonstad at Yale, in a seminar a few years ago in which we read the manuscript for what eventually became God and Difference, a book now receiving warranted attention from all over the place, most recently in a series of rousing responses in Syndicate. It also has a degree of overlap with Ben Myers's recent series of tweets on the Trinity (gathered together in a post) summarizing the classical approach to the doctrine over against the last century's innovations and trends. Consider my article an exercise in that sort of frumpy theology—borrowing my friend Jamie Dunn's coinage—but in this case focused on a single important figure on the contemporary scene. I love Jenson's work and it means a great deal to me, but the article identifies within his trinitarian project a problem (a significant one, I think) internal the logic of his own system. I look forward to hearing what others think, especially those who read and value Jenson's thought.
"This articles engages the theology of Robert Jenson with three questions in mind: What is the doctrine of the Trinity for? Is it a practical doctrine? If so, how, and with what implications? It seeks, on the one hand, to identify whether Jenson’s trinitarian theology ought to count as a “social” doctrine of the Trinity, and to what extent he puts it to work for human socio-practical purposes. On the other hand, in light of Jenson’s career-long worries about Feuerbach and projection onto a God behind or above the triune God revealed in the economy, the article interrogates his thought with a view to recent critiques of social trinitarianism. The irony is that, in constructing his account of the Trinity as both wholly determined in and by the economy and maximally relevant for practical human needs and interests, precisely in order to avoid the errors of Feuerbachian “religion,” Jenson ends up engaging in a full-scale project of projection. Observation of the human is retrojected into the immanent life of the Trinity as the prior condition of the possibility for the human; upon this “discovery,” this or that feature of God’s being is proposed as a resolution to a human problem, bearing ostensibly profound socio-practical import. The article is intended, first, as a contribution to the work, only now beginning, of critically receiving Jenson’s theology; and, second, as an extension of general critiques of practical uses of trinitarian doctrine, such as Karen Kilby’s or Kathryn Tanner’s, by way of close engagement with a specific theologian."
The article has its origins in a term paper I wrote for Linn Tonstad at Yale, in a seminar a few years ago in which we read the manuscript for what eventually became God and Difference, a book now receiving warranted attention from all over the place, most recently in a series of rousing responses in Syndicate. It also has a degree of overlap with Ben Myers's recent series of tweets on the Trinity (gathered together in a post) summarizing the classical approach to the doctrine over against the last century's innovations and trends. Consider my article an exercise in that sort of frumpy theology—borrowing my friend Jamie Dunn's coinage—but in this case focused on a single important figure on the contemporary scene. I love Jenson's work and it means a great deal to me, but the article identifies within his trinitarian project a problem (a significant one, I think) internal the logic of his own system. I look forward to hearing what others think, especially those who read and value Jenson's thought.
The real problem with political liberalism
"Near the beginning of the book, Tuininga takes brief notice of recent
theological critiques of liberalism, but it’s not clear he has grasped
the objections. He defines liberal democracy as a system of
representative, democratic government erected to protect rights 'in
accord with the rule of law under a system of checks and balances that
includes the separation of church and state.' Virtually none of
liberalism’s theological critics objects to these forms and procedures
as such. Their complaint isn’t against representative government or
voting or freedom of speech and association. No one advocates a fusion
of Church and state.
"Rather, they claim that such a formal, procedural description masks the basic thrust of liberalism. Liberalism’s stated aim is to construct a society without substantive commitments, leaving everyone free to choose whatever his or her . . . own may be. Liberalism’s common good is to protect society from adopting any single vision of the common good. That’s a deviation from classical and traditional Christian politics (including Calvin’s), which sought to orchestrate common life toward a common end—the cultivation of virtue or the glory of God. In fact—and this is the other side of the critique—liberal societies do have substantive commitments. The liberal state pretends to be a referee, but beneath the striped shirt it wears the jersey of the home team. Under the cover of neutrality, liberal order embodies, encourages, and sometimes enforces an anthropology, ecclesiology, and vision of the good society that is often starkly at odds with Christian faith."
—Peter Leithart. Apart from whether his treatment of Tuininga's book is accurate or fair—seeing the name, I recall that he was a T.A. for one of my classes at Emory, working on the dissertation that became this book—Leithart's articulation of the actual substantive issues operative in a Christian critique of political liberalism is as succinct and clear as it gets.
"Rather, they claim that such a formal, procedural description masks the basic thrust of liberalism. Liberalism’s stated aim is to construct a society without substantive commitments, leaving everyone free to choose whatever his or her . . . own may be. Liberalism’s common good is to protect society from adopting any single vision of the common good. That’s a deviation from classical and traditional Christian politics (including Calvin’s), which sought to orchestrate common life toward a common end—the cultivation of virtue or the glory of God. In fact—and this is the other side of the critique—liberal societies do have substantive commitments. The liberal state pretends to be a referee, but beneath the striped shirt it wears the jersey of the home team. Under the cover of neutrality, liberal order embodies, encourages, and sometimes enforces an anthropology, ecclesiology, and vision of the good society that is often starkly at odds with Christian faith."
—Peter Leithart. Apart from whether his treatment of Tuininga's book is accurate or fair—seeing the name, I recall that he was a T.A. for one of my classes at Emory, working on the dissertation that became this book—Leithart's articulation of the actual substantive issues operative in a Christian critique of political liberalism is as succinct and clear as it gets.
The liturgical/praying animal in Paradise Lost
In Book VII of Paradise Lost, Milton has the angel Raphael recount to Adam the six days of creation, and this is what he says concerning humanity:
There wanted yet the master-work, the end
Of all yet done—a creature who, not prone
And brute as other creatures, but endued
With sanctity of reason, might erect
His stature, and upright with front serene
Govern the rest, self-knowing, and from thence
Magnanimous to correspond with Heaven,
But grateful to acknowledge whence his good
Descends; thither with heart, and voice, and eyes
Directed in devotion, to adore
And worship God Supreme, who made him chief
Of all his works.
What is striking about this account is the way in which the rationality ascribed to humanity, unique among all creatures, is specified and given content. Initially it seems quite in line with classical accounts: humans are distinct by virtue of their reason. But what sort of reason, and to what end?
According to Milton, men and women are rational inasmuch as, and so that, they "correspond with Heaven," thanking God for his manifold gifts and worshiping him as the source of all, including their own, being and goodness. Which is to say, human rationality is at once the condition and the means of prayer, which is reason's telos. What sets apart human beings from other animals is that they use words to talk to and about God in thanks and praise. As Robert Jenson has it, human beings are "praying animals." Or in Jamie Smith's words, homo sapiens is homo liturgicus.
Rationality, for Milton, as for Jenson and Smith, isn't the cold logic of unbiased inquiry or instrumental reason. It is the devotion of a heart on fire for the Creator, manifested in the speech of adoration and love, awe and thanksgiving. Rationality is correspondence with heaven.
There wanted yet the master-work, the end
Of all yet done—a creature who, not prone
And brute as other creatures, but endued
With sanctity of reason, might erect
His stature, and upright with front serene
Govern the rest, self-knowing, and from thence
Magnanimous to correspond with Heaven,
But grateful to acknowledge whence his good
Descends; thither with heart, and voice, and eyes
Directed in devotion, to adore
And worship God Supreme, who made him chief
Of all his works.
What is striking about this account is the way in which the rationality ascribed to humanity, unique among all creatures, is specified and given content. Initially it seems quite in line with classical accounts: humans are distinct by virtue of their reason. But what sort of reason, and to what end?
According to Milton, men and women are rational inasmuch as, and so that, they "correspond with Heaven," thanking God for his manifold gifts and worshiping him as the source of all, including their own, being and goodness. Which is to say, human rationality is at once the condition and the means of prayer, which is reason's telos. What sets apart human beings from other animals is that they use words to talk to and about God in thanks and praise. As Robert Jenson has it, human beings are "praying animals." Or in Jamie Smith's words, homo sapiens is homo liturgicus.
Rationality, for Milton, as for Jenson and Smith, isn't the cold logic of unbiased inquiry or instrumental reason. It is the devotion of a heart on fire for the Creator, manifested in the speech of adoration and love, awe and thanksgiving. Rationality is correspondence with heaven.
Webster on Barth's engagement with philosophy
"Barth's insistence on speaking [with philosophy/non-Christian
disciplines] on his own terms is not to be interpreted as obstinate
reluctance to come out of his lair and talk to the rest of the world;
quite the contrary: in writing, as in life, Barth showed remarkable
openness to all manner of ideas, provided he is allowed to exercise
Christian nonconformity."
—John Webster, Barth, 2nd ed. (New York: T&T Clark, 2000, 2004), p. 174
—John Webster, Barth, 2nd ed. (New York: T&T Clark, 2000, 2004), p. 174
P. D. James on the sameness, the joylessness of lust
"Dalgliesh walked through Soho to the Cortez Club. With his mind still freshened by the clean emptiness of Suffolk he found these canyoned streets, even in their afternoon doldrums, more than usually depressing. It was difficult to believe that he had once enjoyed walking through this shoddy gulch. Now even a month's absence made the return less tolerable. It was largely a matter of mood, no doubt, for the district is all things to all men, catering comprehensively for those needs which money can buy. You see it as you wish. An agreeable place to dine; a cosmopolitan village tucked away behind Piccadilly with its own mysterious village life, one of the best shopping centres for food in London, the nastiest and most sordid nursery of crime in Europe. Even the travel journalists, obsessed by its ambiguities, can't make up their minds. Passing the strip clubs, the grubby basement stairs, the silhouettes of bored girls against the upstairs window blinds, Dalgliesh thought that a daily walk through these ugly streets could drive any man into a monastery, less from sexual disgust than from an intolerable ennui with the sameness, the joylessness of lust."
—P. D. James, Unnatural Causes, p. 173
—P. D. James, Unnatural Causes, p. 173
The best American crime novelists of the last century, or: a way into the genre
Four and a half years ago I decided I wanted to try out the genre of crime fiction. I was about to take a semester off from my doctoral studies for paternity leave, and I knew my academic reading would be on the wane, at least while I was caring for my newborn son during the day. I needed something punchy, new, and different that would grab and hold my attention during downtime, long walks, and seemingly endless Baby Bjorn–pacing.
So I ordered a few books: The 39 Steps by John Buchan, The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins, The Hunter by Donald Westlake, Killing Floor by Lee Child, and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carré. An odd, eclectic sampling, obviously made by an outsider. In any case, the experiment worked.
Turns out I love crime fiction.
From there, I wanted to get my hands on the best stuff out there. But the way my mind works, I wanted to do this in a particular way. First, I wanted to get a sense of the genre as a whole, particularly in its development and in the order of influences. I wouldn't read chronologically, but if I read Ross Macdonald, I wanted to know and not be ignorant of the fact that he had read and was influenced by Hammett and Chandler. Second, I wanted to read the masters, not their second-rate imitators. And third, if the author had a series featuring a long-standing character—and they nearly always do—I wanted to read that series and preferably the first entry. I knew that that would mean I might not read an author's best, or best-read-first, work, but that was fine by me. I wanted to see the genesis of their art; and should they draw me in, I wanted to read the series from beginning to end, not start in the middle.
Long story short, here's my list. (I'm an inveterate list-maker. It's a compulsive habit.) I've yet to find a comparable one online: when I do, it invariably includes British authors (e.g., P. D. James, Agatha Christie), expands the genre to include spy fiction (e.g., John le Carré, Len Deighton), does not limit itself to one book per author (e.g., Hammett and Chandler get multiple entries), and includes mysteries from every time period (e.g., Poe, Dickens).
My list's rules: only Americans, beginning with Hammett in the 1920s (so the last 88 years—but close enough to say "the last century"), only crime fiction (broadly defined, but excluding spy and similar novels), and focusing especially on the first entry in the author's most beloved or well-known series.
I've put an asterisk by the ones I've yet to read. I'm only about halfway done, so this is far from an authoritative list. To state the obvious, I'll feel comfortable ranking either the authors or their works only once I've actually read them all. I'll add that falling in love with le Carré and P. D. James along the way hasn't helped in finishing the list.
But in any case, here it is. I welcome suggestions of every kind: corrections, amendments, additions, subtractions, and more.
**Update #2: Added Lippman, Stout, Sallis, Holding, Goodis, Thompson, and Woolrich on Topher Lundell's recommendation.
**Update #3: Added Hitchens, Eustis, Armstrong, and Caspary on Sarah Weinman's (editorial) recommendation.
**Update #4: I've dropped the asterisks on the books I haven't read—with 15 new additions, the disproportion of unread to read was getting out of hand!
**Update #5: Added Coleman, whose first Gus Murphy book, out last year, I had forgotten to include.
**Update #6: Added Johnson, Woodrell, and Whitmer on Kester Smith's recommendation.
So I ordered a few books: The 39 Steps by John Buchan, The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins, The Hunter by Donald Westlake, Killing Floor by Lee Child, and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carré. An odd, eclectic sampling, obviously made by an outsider. In any case, the experiment worked.
Turns out I love crime fiction.
From there, I wanted to get my hands on the best stuff out there. But the way my mind works, I wanted to do this in a particular way. First, I wanted to get a sense of the genre as a whole, particularly in its development and in the order of influences. I wouldn't read chronologically, but if I read Ross Macdonald, I wanted to know and not be ignorant of the fact that he had read and was influenced by Hammett and Chandler. Second, I wanted to read the masters, not their second-rate imitators. And third, if the author had a series featuring a long-standing character—and they nearly always do—I wanted to read that series and preferably the first entry. I knew that that would mean I might not read an author's best, or best-read-first, work, but that was fine by me. I wanted to see the genesis of their art; and should they draw me in, I wanted to read the series from beginning to end, not start in the middle.
Long story short, here's my list. (I'm an inveterate list-maker. It's a compulsive habit.) I've yet to find a comparable one online: when I do, it invariably includes British authors (e.g., P. D. James, Agatha Christie), expands the genre to include spy fiction (e.g., John le Carré, Len Deighton), does not limit itself to one book per author (e.g., Hammett and Chandler get multiple entries), and includes mysteries from every time period (e.g., Poe, Dickens).
My list's rules: only Americans, beginning with Hammett in the 1920s (so the last 88 years—but close enough to say "the last century"), only crime fiction (broadly defined, but excluding spy and similar novels), and focusing especially on the first entry in the author's most beloved or well-known series.
I've put an asterisk by the ones I've yet to read. I'm only about halfway done, so this is far from an authoritative list. To state the obvious, I'll feel comfortable ranking either the authors or their works only once I've actually read them all. I'll add that falling in love with le Carré and P. D. James along the way hasn't helped in finishing the list.
But in any case, here it is. I welcome suggestions of every kind: corrections, amendments, additions, subtractions, and more.
- Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon (1929)
- Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Velvet Claws (1933)
- James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)
- Rex Stout, Fer-de-Lance (1934)
- Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep (1939)
- Cornell Woolrich, The Bride Wore Black (1940)
- Vera Caspary, Laura (1942)
- Helen Eustis, The Horizontal Man (1946)
- David Goodis, Dark Passage (1946)
- Mickey Spillane, I, The Jury (1947)
- Elisabeth Sanxay Holding, The Blank Wall (1947)
- Dorothy B. Hughes, In a Lonely Place (1947)
- Kenneth Millar (as Ross Macdonald), The Moving Target (1949)
- Charlotte Armstrong, Mischief (1950)
- Jim Thompson, The Killer Inside Me (1952)
- Margaret Millar, Beast in View (1955)
- Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)
- Evan Hunter (as Ed McBain), Cop Hater (1956)
- Chester Himes, A Rage in Harlem (=For Love of Imabelle) (1957)
- Dolores Hitchens, Fools' Gold (1958)
- Donald Westlake (as Richard Stark), The Hunter (1962)
- John D. MacDonald, The Deep Blue Good-by (1964)
- George V. Higgins, The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1970)
- Robert B. Parker, The Godwulf Manuscript (1973)
- Donald Goines, Crime Partners (1974)
- Joseph Wambaugh, The Choirboys (1975)
- Lawrence Block, The Sins of the Fathers (1976)
- James Crumley, The Last Good Kiss (1978)
- Ross Thomas, Chinaman’s Chance (1978)
- Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park (1981)
- Sara Paretsky, Indemnity Only (1982)
- Newton Thornburg, Dreamland (1983)
- Charles Willeford, Miami Blues (1984)
- Robert Crais, The Monkey’s Raincoat (1987)
- James Lee Burke, The Neon Rain (1987)
- Elmore Leonard, Get Shorty (1990)
- Walter Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress (1990)
- James Ellroy, L.A. Confidential (1990)
- Michael Connelly, The Black Echo (1992)
- James Sallis, The Long-Legged Fly (1992)
- Richard Price, Clockers (1992)
- George Pelecanos, The Sweet Forever (1995)
- Laura Lippman, Baltimore Blues (1997)
- Ace Atkins, Crossroad Blues (1998)
- Craig Johnson, Cold Dish (2004)
- Megan Abbott, Die A Little (2005)
- Don Winslow, The Power of the Dog (2005)
- Daniel Woodrell, Winter's Bone (2006)
- Benjamin Whitmer, Pike (2010)
- Dennis Lehane, Live by Night (2012)
- Adrian McKinty, The Cold Cold Ground (2012)
- Reed Farrel Coleman, Where It Hurts (2016)
**Update #2: Added Lippman, Stout, Sallis, Holding, Goodis, Thompson, and Woolrich on Topher Lundell's recommendation.
**Update #3: Added Hitchens, Eustis, Armstrong, and Caspary on Sarah Weinman's (editorial) recommendation.
**Update #4: I've dropped the asterisks on the books I haven't read—with 15 new additions, the disproportion of unread to read was getting out of hand!
**Update #5: Added Coleman, whose first Gus Murphy book, out last year, I had forgotten to include.
**Update #6: Added Johnson, Woodrell, and Whitmer on Kester Smith's recommendation.
Four writing tips for seminarians
In the spring of 2016 I served as a teaching assistant for a course at Yale Divinity School on theological interpretation of the New Testament (co-taught by Dale Martin and Kathryn Tanner. I know!). After the first month of class, the students began submitting one 3-page theological exegesis of a NT text on a weekly basis until the end of the semester, for a total of eight mini-papers. The goal—quite successful, as a matter of fact—was to offer detailed feedback on each student's writing in order to see a much improved paper #8 compared to paper #1. It was a lovely thing to see how much improvement could come in just two months.
At the beginning, however, there were a lot of problems to work out. After finding patterns across a number of students' papers, I wrote up a list of writing tips, and I thought I'd share them here. They probably lean in the direction of liberal seminarians, or at least seminarians at a liberal school—though my sense is that even the most conservative context is full of students whose self-understanding is one of liberation or progression or expansion from former, supposedly more parochial, less open-minded ways. I share my suggestions here because I think they capture a specific set of proclivities—as much intellectual as writerly—that are worth identifying and exorcising as soon as possible, being consistently damaging to rigorous and charitable theological thought.
Here they are:
At the beginning, however, there were a lot of problems to work out. After finding patterns across a number of students' papers, I wrote up a list of writing tips, and I thought I'd share them here. They probably lean in the direction of liberal seminarians, or at least seminarians at a liberal school—though my sense is that even the most conservative context is full of students whose self-understanding is one of liberation or progression or expansion from former, supposedly more parochial, less open-minded ways. I share my suggestions here because I think they capture a specific set of proclivities—as much intellectual as writerly—that are worth identifying and exorcising as soon as possible, being consistently damaging to rigorous and charitable theological thought.
Here they are:
- Avoid referring to what "modern people/believers/Christians" or some anonymous collective "we" think, assume, or believe. E.g., "modern believers find the subordination of women in the NT problematic." This is an empirical claim that is not true: some modern believers (the world over, but including in the U.S.) disagree with the claim that the NT subordinates women; others think that it does, and that that is God's will. Either, minimally, specify the group in question (e.g., "many mainline Christians in the U.S. are troubled by...") or, preferably, just state, and support, your own position on the matter (e.g., "this text/claim is troubling because...").
- Avoid fundie-bashing, that is, using conservative evangelicalism and/or fundamentalism as foils in your argument. This, because it is either too easy or too complicated: too easy, because there is always a seemingly stupid fundamentalist position available to caricature, but which is immaterial to your argument; or too complicated, because in fact many conservative theologians have sophisticated theories about theological questions, but by dismissing them rhetorically, your own argument is weakened by acting as if their arguments and positions do not exist or do not require thoughtful consideration.
- Avoid contrastive argumentation, that is, only stating your own position by way of contrasting it with some other (often 'very very bad') position. Not only is this usually unnecessary, but it also invites the question, 'Why aren't these two claims/positions compatible?' For example, 'instead of a divinely authored document, the Bible is a collection of disparate texts from different time periods' is an instance of bad contrastive argumentation, because the Bible very well could meet both descriptions, yet the claim assumes, without demonstrating, their mutual exclusivity. Best to avoid the contrast, and simply state your own claim, followed by support.
- Stay modest in your rhetoric and your claims for what your argument accomplishes. Try to be measured in how you represent your conclusions. Assume that if such-and-such theological question has been controversial for centuries, your own paper has not resolved it for all time. At best, you may have resolved some specific issue, or taken a strongly supported position on one side or the other, or pointed out the problems inherent in the side you opposed, etc.
Freud's historical-critical methods
"When I use Biblical tradition here in such an autocratic and arbitrary
way, draw on it for confirmation whenever it is convenient, and dismiss
its evidence without scruple when it contradicts my conclusions, I know
full well that I am exposing myself to severe criticism concerning my
method and that I weaken the force of my proofs. But this is the only
way in which to treat material whose trustworthiness—as we know for
certain—was seriously damaged by the influence of distorting tendencies.
Some justification will be forthcoming later, it is hoped, when we have
unearthed those secret motives. Certainty is not to be gained in any
case, and, moreover, we may say that all other authors have acted
likewise."
—Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism, trans. Katherine Jones (New York: Vintage Books, 1939), 30n.1
—Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism, trans. Katherine Jones (New York: Vintage Books, 1939), 30n.1