Postmodern Theology and Jean-Luc Marion: An(other) interlude, on Benedictine ‘Caritas,’ continued
(Archive of this tediously—and slowly—developing series)
VII. Postmodern Theology and Jean-Luc Marion: An(other) interlude, on Benedictine ‘Caritas’
VI. Postmodern Theology and Jean-Luc Marion: Recap
V. Postmodern Theology and Jean-Luc Marion: An interlude on the ‘theological turn,’ continued
IV. Postmodern Theology and Jean-Luc Marion: An interlude on the ‘theological turn’
III. Postmodern Theology and Jean-Luc Marion: From ‘ego cogito’ to ‘ego amans’
II. Postmodern Theology and Jean-Luc Marion: Being and Giveness
I. Postmodern Theology and Jean-Luc Marion (a brief opening move)
At the center of Benedict’s theology of charity, is an ontological contention that is also central to Marion’s postmodern theology. While Benedict puts that ontology within the intelligibility of the logos, Veritas; what I find remarkable is the bare ontology of the matter. Both Benedict and Marion raise the same question for Catholics: What does it means to (re)think theology under the sole terms of love?
I will not answer that question here, but I will try to be descriptive. To that end, I will rely mostly on quotations from Benedict’s recent encyclical that bring out ideas that compare favorably to Marion’s ontology.
I begin with this opening passage from Caritas in Veritate:
For the Church, instructed by the Gospel, charity is everything because, as Saint John teaches (cf. 1 Jn 4:8, 16) and as I recalled in my first Encyclical Letter, “God is love” (Deus Caritas Est): everything has its origin in God’s love, everything is shaped by it, everything is directed towards it.
Here we find a striking ontological statement: “…charity is everything because… everything has its origin in God’s love…” This is very close to Marion’s own philosophical statement in The Erotic Phenomenon on the primordiality of love: “I love even before being because I am not, except insofar as I experience love, and experience it as a logic.”
This primordial origin-ality of love emphasized in Benedict’s theology and Marion’s phenomenology presents a robust alternative to the modern domain of reason and rationality. The alternative is not irrational, but it confirms the dynamic flux between love and truth. In that flux, we find that love is not merely revealed in truth, but love gives truth its originary creditability—a credibility that truth cannot give in return to love. In other words, truth becomes instrumental to revelation as a lamp is to sight, but it is not the ontological source.
Benedict puts it this way:
Truth needs to be sought, found and expressed within the “economy” of charity, but charity in its turn needs to be understood, confirmed and practised in the light of truth. In this way, not only do we do a service to charity enlightened by truth, but we also help give credibility to truth, demonstrating its persuasive and authenticating power in the practical setting of social living.
So, while love is located in truth and always can be found in the light of truth, Caritas retains its ontological originality. From this point Benedict puts the ontological priority of Caritas into more concrete terms by showing that not only does it pre-exist truth, it also transcends justice.
The Pope is very clear when he writes:
Charity goes beyond justice, because to love is to give, to offer what is “mine” to the other; but it never lacks justice, which prompts us to give the other what is “his”, what is due to him by reason of his being or his acting. I cannot “give” what is mine to the other, without first giving him what pertains to him in justice. If we love others with charity, then first of all we are just towards them… On the one hand, charity demands justice: recognition and respect for the legitimate rights of individuals and peoples. It strives to build the earthly city according to law and justice. On the other hand, charity transcends justice and completes it in the logic of giving and forgiving.
If we recall Marion’s cited idea that we experience love “as a logic,” we see that the logic of giving and forgiving is of the same kind. Moreover, we find that Marion’s phenomenological reduction into giveness is affirmed in Benedict’s own discussion of giving. As with truth, we find that justice and charity are not simply put into a totalizing hierarchy, but, at the same, there is an ontological order to their complex relations.
This ontology—an erotic ontology, and ontology of charity—is the very heart of Benedict’s developing theology and Marion’s developing phenomenology, I think.
Comments are closed.
Sam
Do you think Benedict might mean a different kind of love than Eros? Or does Marion mean more with Eros than the Greeks? I’ve not read Marion yet, but the Christian generally thinks Eros is a good pointer, but Agape is superior, and this is the Love which is meant by Caritas.
Good question.
Following Von Balthasar’s penchant for eros (in Love Alone, for example) Benedict puts the relations of charity in Eros and Agape into a much more tense and fruitful relationship (see: Deus Caritas Est, part I, ““Eros” and “Agape” – difference and unity”). And that relation yields what he calls the “mad eros of Christ on the Cross.”
This desire-laden notion of love accounts for the ontological purposes of Marion (and, I would argue, Benedict). It notes the primordial desire of love, the most ancient Love of all.
So, I think, equating the “phemon erotique” of Marion with Benedict’s “mad eros” is very consistent. At least it seems so to me.
Apropos of the previous post, if I’m not mistaken, agape is only equivalent to *supernatural* charity. Natural charity (at least as traditionally utilized) couldn’t possibly live up to the reality of “agape” — nor, conversely, could there be, within the Greek mindset, any such thing as a “natural” or “naturally acquired” agape.
As Papa Benedict might seem to fuse into one concept having two aspects/species the “caritas” of which he speaks (with said 2 aspects/species being that of the supernatural/infused and the natural/acquired), I’d be VERY careful in taking for GRANTED that the “charity” discussed throughout his latest encyclical is at all *identical* with _agape_ proper.
NOW, the above notwithstanding, I DO think that ultimately the Pope must be referring to supernatural charity (viz., agape) for otherwise his whole argument fails. Unfortunately, however, Benedict never states this explicitly…and this isn’t terribly surprising considering its apparently very radical consequences for what would then be, by deduction, the Church’s officially-voiced position apropos the state of apparent unbelievers making up those “men of good will” upon whose collaboration the Pope so clearly relies with hope.
For, it is straightforward doctrine that one cannot possess the theological virtue of “agape” without LIKEWISE possessing the supernaturally bestowed theological virtue of faith — something specifically diverse from the “belief” apropos of God as might be expressed by those who are practitioners of a given non-JudeoChristain religion and/or merely monotheistic by philosophical conviction.
And yet the apparent postulating of the widespread presence of agape/supernatural charity as available to “tap into” QUA solution for the world’s problems seems to entail precisely that.
Now, this is hardly unheard of. Maritain and many other orthodox Catholics have argued in favor of the widespread presence of such a covert and implicit supernatural virtue of faith in Christ among non-Christian “men of good will.” However, theorizing as private thinker is one thing; proffering a papal encyclical the soundness of which would appear to stand or fall on the obtaining of this controversial thesis — that’s something else. Has the Church now implicitly but officially endorsed the warrantedness of a working PRESUMPTION — namely, that — precisely insofar as we presume “good will” — just so far may we likewise presume sanctifying grace hidden within the soul?
This incipient faith wouldn’t make such men Christians (anonymously or otherwise), but it ALONE would render anyone capable of providing that very “caritas” of which the Pope appears to refer. After all, the “other” kind of charity — acquired natural charity — is entirely too weak, entirely different in kind, and constitutionally ill-disposed for the accomplishing anything close to the transformation of society being envisioned.
The buried lead in all this: Pope Benedict agrees with Leo XIII, Pius XI, et al that true earthly peace and progress comes by way of the “social reign of Christ the King.” The only difference is that the current Holy Father would likely grant — and seemingly must grant if the present encyclical is to have coherence — that said “social reign” need NOT (in principle) involve the conversion of any given man of good will unto Christianity, for the simple reason that — at least *somewhat* — a life of sanctifying grace must be able to obtain and indeed thrive overtly outside of the Christian fold.
Presumably, Benedict is assuming such is the case apropos of the majority of those non-Christian men of good-will to whom the contemporary Popes have consistently appealed, especially in their heroic efforts unto pre-eschatological worldwide peace and justice.
For what it’s worth,
Walter
N.B. HOWEVER, and despite common misconceptions, said supernatural faith may be mysteriously present — of which the presence in the soul is an anteriorly essential requisite for presence of the even greater gift of AGAPE (supernatural caritas) –, said supernatural faith, however mysteriously covert, must SOMEHOW attain unto the unicitously one REVELATION proffered in Christ alone. The “natural witness” of creation will not, in and of itself, do the trick, despite its real power to rationally lead to awareness of God).