ad absurdum

Here come this week’s readings. Hope to say something a bit earlier this week. Sorry for jumping over Corpus Christi: I’m not that ambitious!

OK, some comments in lieu of a sermon.

I’m told that my local flower shop makes a lot of money in summer, and it’s difficult to see why. If I was attempting to charm my wife or win a heart this week, I would feel completely upstaged by the apple and cherry. It’s the blossom season in Fredrikstad, and there’s no reason to hoard flowers. No reason to take them or  argue over them. They’re extravagantly lavished by every street I walk in.

That’s basically what the week’s readings are all about: the abundance of life, and the corresponding evils of pettiness. And if there is one verse worth meditating on among these, I would say it’s probably from the Psalm: Turn my eyes from looking at vanities, give me life in your ways.

It’s a natural step from last week’s apophatic readings that taught us not to know. This week we are told what it is we don’t know: what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him. We do not know the abundance of life, we can’t see where God’s generosity stops.

This is what Paul is trying to drill into his churches: everything is yours! Why are you in a panic to fill requirements? Why are you frenetically seeking after knowledge? There is space for madness and foolishness and ignorance in God’s holiness: you are already full of God! Hence the Christian tradition’s negative theology as regards entry requirements - not by works, not by ritual, not by spiritual experience, not by knowledge.

And this is what Christ is using to drive his sermon on not resisting evil. We do not resist evil because that evil is essentially based on a stingy economy of desire and lack. People require us to carry their goods because they don’t manage to. But we do. We have all the time and all the strength in the world, because we have its Creator. There are plenty of cheeks to go around! So don’t grasp after belongings, don’t harvest right up to the edge of the field, as if you were worried whether God will provide this year. Don’t be petty.

Be perfect, you are God’s temple already. Christ is risen, death is defeated. Everything is yours, because you are already complete, as God is complete. So share it around, and don’t bother grasping for it. It’s already yours, and you can’t possess it in any deeper sense than that.

Now I thought of some other illustrations earlier, but they’ve gone from my mind at the mo. A kind of political version of this has been written by John Milbank, based on a rather shaky reading of Agamben, called “Paul and Biopolitics”. But it’s famous for being inscrutable, so take some time over it if you read it.

Well, my article on George Berkeley’s Theological colonial thought is now publised in Studia Theologica. I’ve been working on it for far too long now and have begun to disagree with myself so it’s probably just as well it’s published now. This actually went in as an annual review thing once, but in a completely different form.

As one that has verged on Foucault fundamentalism, I’m proud how little the French guy gets a word in on this.

Ok, it’s been a while since I did one of these, so here come next week’s readings. I’ve really got little to say as yet, except to note that the New Testament readings interestingly give trinitarians formulations in liturgical, or at least stock linguistic expressions. I guess this is a good argument for the idea that we instinctively get to doctrines before we do so explicitly. Hence the messy outworking of doctrine.

I think there’s something very very profound in the Isaiah text, but haven’t got my finger on it yet. But I think that’s where I’ll be concentrating my efforts over the next couple days.

This weekend, I’ll be going to a Nick Cave concert and celebrating Norway’s national day. Hopefully that will give some interesting spin to this week’s readings!

When I went to a conference on the place of reason in Theology, I gave a paper called “The Places of Unreason in Theology“. Unreason harks of course back to Foucault.

What strikes me in much Philosophy is that its contribution to its field is so negative. Foucault starts off by writing about Unreason; Wittgenstein claims to finish off all Philosophy, and so on. Something similar can be seen in other fields: Joyce writes the anti-novel; Bataille writes an Atheology.

I think we can agree that these negations of reason end up simply as developments in reason. They give arguments, are refuted, argue, offer evidence. All reasonable activities. But they argue for a reformulation of reason.

Is that what the call is arguing against when it calls for a renewed valuing of reason? Is it saying we can’t do anti-reason? And if so, does that just mean we have to continue as before?

I’m trying to get at how strange a project it is to recommend reason…

The Call for papers is now out for this conference which looks rather exciting:

I am assured that women are also welcome, but obviously shouldn’t expect to be attributed any significant role. It is still a little uncertain what these speakers will have to say in response to the pope’s (in-)famous Regensburg address, but if they do respond to it (as the papers are meant to), then it should be an extremely exciting conference.

The call for papers is interesting and thought provoking, and since I am currently considering contributing something to it, I hope to suggest some inroads to the topic over the next few weeks. Any comments, suggestions, or sneak peaks of what you might say should you give a paper on the call, would be welcome.

If nothing else, it should turn out to be a great social event for friends and associates of the Centre of Philosophy and Theology! And hey, the poster’s pretty.

As soon as my daughter’s finished with this book, I’ll be reading it. It looks good.

One of the new features is the Spoken Word line, just below the books on the right there. The principle is the same, but I include links on this one, as I only really listen to things I’ve downloaded from the net. There’s lots to be gained here, though, so take a look.

Listening to these things does help broaden my reading somewhat: I don’t just read what I have to read for my research and other related matters. I read what is available in this format (spoken word, that is, not electronically read books).

One of the interesting results of this is that I have been reading a fair amount of stuff from the early twentieth and late nineteenth centuries: Russell, Chesterton, Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, etc. It makes enlightening reading. Some of these people that seem fairly contemporary to me (Chesterton and Russell in particular) do address the past in ways that now seem impossible. Chesterton’s familiarity with the Mediaeval and Celtic ways and literature for example give you the tail end of a dream of something that was once retrievable. It does not seem so now. Russell argues with Kant and Hegel as if they were at a seminar together.

Listening to these works takes us back to a time before the UN and the EU, before the failure of colonial liberation, and before we betrayed one another’s humanity by an all-too-serious game of slaughter in the ditches of Europe.

I’ve just put a new feature on the blog: the book line. It shows what I’ve been reading recently and what I’m about to start reading. If I can be bothered soon, I might even put in their proper titles or format it or something. The one in bold is the one I’m on at the moment, and the titles before that are what I have recently finished. So the bold font should go progressively down the line, and the order will probably change, as I put off reading the big thick volumes longer and longer.

It’s meant to alternate between modern and old stuff, according to my thesis needs (at the moment I need more modern than old, as much of the research is now in the past, so Lossky counts as old). And I’ll be adding to it as I think of things and as my library manages to get hold of obscure titles.

In theory, this is so people can see what I’m reading and suggest stuff that is interesting in that regard. But really it’s just a way of increasing the sense of achievement when I finish a book. Sad, isn’t it?

I’ve been working on a Timeline for a while now, and am just putting it out in case anyone’s interested, and discovers any of the shocking lacunae or mistakes in it. It’s really randomly detailed, because of my randomly detailed and vague reading. So find the gaps and help me fill them in, people!

I’ve been thinking dark thoughts in January. This is because it’s dark here, so it’s difficult to avoid. (more…)