Resourcement Must Include The Renaissance
The early renaissance contains many figures who, important in the history of ideas, have received scant attention save by specialists. Sadly, this means many of their insights have been lost, their wisdom ignored. While they were working upon a way to view the world in a more catholic, united fashion, the spirit of the Reformation is all about dividing and making conflicts in places where no such conflict is necessary. Difference of opinion and experience do not have to create division, nor do they have to be indicative of indifference. Pluralism can be, and should be, founded upon the truth — a truth which, however, transcends human reason and therefore is capable of being embraced and understood in apparently contradictory practices and beliefs. The more we grasp for truth, the more we find out we do not know, the more we appreciate we do not understand, and the more we see why the arrogance of those who think they know the fullness of truth is as sad as it is laughable.
Let us look at three major figures who I believe best represents the greatness of the renaissance, and whose ideas, if explored further, I think would be of great benefit to humanity.
First, there is Nicholas of Cusa. On the one hand, he was a capable canon lawyer and theologian. In ecclesiastical debates, he defended the rights of the papacy, pointing out that what many in his day thought were abuses were not, in themselves, justification for schism. Indeed, he pointed out that the mutability of practices might not end up with practices one likes, but they become the practices which are needed at the time and place they are established. However, as a philosopher, he was quite universalistic. He believed that religions should work together, come together for the sake of peace; indeed, he was willing to accept world religions were, at different times, inspired by God, meaning he promoted more than mere natural theology as a way to bring religions into dialogue with each other. Through history and human frailty, the insights were corrupted, and falsehood did indeed cause much harm, but he believed the insights contained within the religious traditions could still be used to help bring them together into accord (and that in this accord, they pointed to the truths contained in the Catholic faith). But he also believed that diversity was necessary, even in religious unity, so that the differences between the religious traditions could be taken into consideration and used to establish different rites, each not only meeting the needs of the people, but also allowing them to develop, according to their own talents, rites which could inspire each other in their mutual worship of God. Finally, Nicholas believed that education could only go so far, that real wisdom transcended what one could learn from study. It is not that he denied the value of education; it had its place (he called it learned ignorance), but he thought it important to remind people that even an “idiot” could produce worthy insights if they were allowed to ponder the truths which they innately possessed.
If Nicholas of Cusa helped awaken the renaissance to the true catholic nature of religious wisdom, Marsilio Ficino was chosen to bring this insight further by being the one who would translate the complete works of Plato, and many of the Platonists, into Latin. He would be able to show, through a real world example, what Nicholas pointed to in theory: God’s wisdom helped inspire the sages of humanity and if one looked through the records of these sages, one could learn religious truths helpful for humanity in any era of world history. Ficino helped establish the notion of a universal, perennial philosophy (he did not call it such) which could be, and should be, embraced; its insights were divine and so could be followed by people of the Christian faith. Moreover, he helped reshape Europe through the inspiration he found through such research. He established the need for reform, not only on the nature of philosophical and theological truth, but in the realm of aesthetics. Artists had been mistreated and ignored; he promoted them, explaining why they should be seen as more than mere carpenters. In music, he helped inspire a revolution (some suggest his work might have helped form the foundation for modern opera). His notion of Platonic love helped develop new anthropological insights, the fruit of which can arguably be modern personalism. Finally, his exploration of ancient religious thought led him to write upon the immortality of the soul, and his writings led the Catholic Church to explicitly declare the immortality of the soul at the Fifth Lateran Council.
Finally, one can mention Agostino Steuco. Here we have a Vatican Librarian who took on the Protestant Reformation based upon the wisdom of the renaissance. What he saw lacking in the Reformation was a respect for religion (an insight which proved to hold some truth, as we would later find Protestant theologians declare Christianity not to be a religion). The Reformation was too negative, too contrary to the human spirit. For Steuco, the end result of the revolt could only be a universal hostility to the universal truth found in the religions of the world (he considered his defense of Catholicism as a defense of religion itself). Steuco presents to us one of the things which divides Catholicism from Protestantism, that is, the way one approaches humanity. For most Protestant traditions, everything human is deplorable and to be rejected outright. For the Catholic, what we need to do is find what we can embrace in what others say and lift it up, to help show how it fits in the fullness of truth. One sees something to overturn and silence, the other sees something which needs to be lifted up through grace. This divide continues, even in modern times. Barth’s conflict with the analogia entis (even if he were to become more nuanced about it later) presents to us the Protestant rejection of the world. This rejection, wherever it is found remains a problem; sadly, it is a sensibility which many Protestant converts to Catholicism hold on to, and this explains why they continue to look at the church with a Puritanism which divides the Church, causing grave conflict and harm to the People of God.
If one wants to reexamine Christian theology through the exploration of historical documents, one cannot ignore the renaissance. Certainly the Church Fathers deserve prominence; scholastics brought a theological rigor which continues with us today. But for so many, this is the end, and the renaissance is ignored. There is a vast richness of thought which has been ignored, a richness which is needed, not only because of the aesthetic richness found in this era, but also because of its promotion of humanity, a promotion which is necessary in a world influenced by Protestant hostility to the world. When we go back before the reformation, we can see what incarnational thought can really bring — a rich tradition which can promote humanity and the world instead of reject it. It is a tradition so needed today so that Christianity does not have to be viewed as being, as so many think, a faith founded upon a rejection of the world.
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Do you know Leo Steinberg’s book, The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and In Modern Oblivion?
Steinberg suggests that it was only during the Renaissance that Christian artists and theologians awoke to the full meaning of the Incarnation, and that that “full meaning” was manifested magnificently through the theological implications of the artists’ representations of the naked Saviour–but then that flowering of what one might call “full-blooded Christianity” was thoroughly lost by the sentimentalizing and prurient leadership of both the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reform. And, thus, the most perfect understanding of the Incarnation in history faded.
No, I’ve not read that book. Mostly, I have focused on primary sources, and a few (a few) major secondary sources. There is a lot to be had and studied in the renaissance, and yes, I do think its artistic development must be further explored (and not just seen as a thing of the past to be revered, as so much of it seems to be today)
All for the Renaissance. But I think you are too harsh and reductive here:
“a promotion which is necessary in a world influenced by Protestant hostility to the world.”
Luther arguably had a theology of “real presence” about the natural world, and whatever *implications* you might draw from Calvinism (or certain strains of Calvinism), John Calvin was an enormously accomplished humanist, and an astute appreciator of culture.
And yet, we have from both a total repudiation of the dignity of humanity (Calvinism presented it as TULIP).
Henry, would you say that Luther had the same repudiation of human dignity as Calvin? Why?
Pinky
Not the same level, a bit less, but still from that tradition. Why? Look to his anthropology, and you will see he also rejected the goodness of humanity (hence his notion of works).
Plus the fact that Luther is, more than anybody else, the SOURCE of Germanic anti-Semitism. Nobody before Wagner, in that culture, is a more ferocious anti-Semite.
And, here, paraphrased, is what Luther says, in his Table Talks, about the Letter of St. James, in the New Testament:
“Yes, I know that text, and I will have none of it; it is a text of STRAW.”
And what does Luther say about Christ’s stricture against adultery in the Scripture (as he marries his NUN)?
“…THAT commandment is given to us by the Lord with His tongue far in his cheek to CONVICT US OF OUR SINS.”
This last saying says more than anything else about how terrible a distortion of Christianity Lutheranism is. With it, he thoroughly rejects Christ’s command to “Be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is”–no more striving for excellence, no more “saintliness” as a goal in life, and–most importantly for culture, including political culture–a thorough denial of mystical Christianity’s “the-Kingdom-is-spread-out-before-you” in favour of the earth as a “vale of tears” and “pie-in-the-sky-after-death.”
Francis of Assisi would have had more in common with the BUDDHA than with Luther, and the compromises with this deadly doctrine (despised even by Friedrich Nietzsche) during the Counter-Reform and thereafter, has been a catastrophe for the Catholic and Apostolic Church–a catastrophe renewed by the deadly Lutheran-tinged pessimistic piety of Pope Ratzinger.
I meant, above, “stricture against DIVORCE,” of course, but, you know–forgotten in all this debate about “American” as opposed to “same-sex” marriage, divorce and re-marriage IS “adultery” to Catholics (and Luther knew that well, and intended to deliberately confound it, by marrying a woman who had been “married to Christ”).
“John Calvin was an enormously accomplished humanist, and an astute appreciator of culture.”
Just like the Taliban.
Calvin established a theocracy in Geneva, in which he acted as dictator, wielding tremendous authority with various councils and committees. Under his instruction, said committees banished rosaries and other Catholic trinketry, exiled Jews, Muslims, Catholics, and nonbelievers, forbade dancing, card games, theatre, luxurious clothing, anything he considered to be witchcraft, and even dictated the names allowed to be given to children (no saint’s names, nothing not in the Bible.) Taverns and all entertainments were forbidden. Church attendance was mandatory. Punishments for these offenses included fines, torture, exile, and death. Children who were disobedient were sometimes hung from the gallows by their armpits or feet as warnings. Some children were also executed. Sometimes the decapitated heads of those Calvin had condemned were paraded victoriously through the streets to warn others.
Calvin on Michael Servetus, who was murdered by his regime:
“He impudently reviled me, just as if he regarded me as obnoxious to him. I answered him as he deserved… of the man’s effrontery I will say nothing; but such was his madness that he did not hesitate to say that devils possessed divinity; yea, that many gods were in individual devils, inasmuch as a deity had been substantially communicated to those equally with wood and stone. I hope that sentence of death will at least be passed on him; but I desired that the severity of the punishment be mitigated.”
It was “mitigated” to being burnt alive slowly, Gerald.
We can also thank the councils of the first half of the 15th century, which, while they were occasioned by deep troubles, brought together scholars from all over the West and some from the Eastern and Oriental church traditions, in a way that had not occurred for centuries, which stimulated not only philosophical and theological study, but study of the material sciences, et cet.
Liam
I fully agree. Florence is one of my favorite councils, in part because of what you just said. Bessarion I believe should be canonized, but I doubt he ever will be.
Good post. In connection to your jab at converts, however, we need to look at our own roots that make a lot of what the thinkers cited here wrote foreign to contemporary ideas of Catholicism. In other words, I think the problem with “converts” and “cradle” Catholics in today’s context is one of modernity, and not one of failing to inherit the patronage of traditional religion. It was in the Counter-Reformation that many of the ideas of these philosophers became verboten in the Church. Arguably, it was Tridentine Catholicism that began the slide towards the “hatred of the world”, which culminated in Descartes, Jansenism, and even to a certain extent, the Patristic resourcement (insofar as they contrast the Judeo-Christian concept of history to the tragic cosmos that came before it).
In the Renaissance, you had a bunch of thinkers who felt that the cognitive dissonance between the Christian and pagan worlds were reconcilable. Astrology, theurgy, Patristics, philosophy, scholasticism, art, music, architecture, and all other things could complement each other, and matter could serve as a stepping stone to Spirit. In Counter-Reformed Catholicism, a line was drawn between the exclusive good that was the Church, and everything outside of it, that is the pagan and heretical darkness. Such I think was the struggle of the Chinese and Indian Rites controversy, where there was a deep suspicion on the part of Church authorities regarding bringing any aspect of the existing culture into evangelization.
With the whole phenomenon of “enculturation” at Vatican II, we have turned a corner and now see the value of those things that grew up outside the Church. The problem for me is that I don’t think the same philosophical foundations are there. Westerners barely see the perennial in their own culture, so I don’t see them being inspired by others. If anything, “multiculturalism” now, both inside and outside the Church, as more to do with liberal democratic ideology than an appeal to a philosophia perennis that manifests itself in every culture. Just like the idea of the “People of God”, enculturation may be an idea introduced with the right motivations, but with an entirely wrong method.
Arturo
I think you are right in saying there are many challenges, such as what we are to do with enculturation. For me, comparative theology (when done well) provides us some positive ground — Clooney’s Hindu God, Christian God I think presents one way forward, while I find strong affinity to the works of Bede Griffiths, who is capable of presenting the insights of perennial philosophy in a popular fashion.
I would also agree that the reaction to the Reformation caused many of the polemics of the Reformation to enter into the Church itself, and transform it in a negative way (not to its destruction, of course). Henri de Lubac I think did a good job describing this in Catholicism,where he pointed the finger to apologists. The whole debate over “pure nature,” I think connects to your point when you said, “In Counter-Reformed Catholicism, a line was drawn between the exclusive good that was the Church, and everything outside of it, that is the pagan and heretical darkness.” Pure nature is about closed natures, and having everything independent from each other. The normal things of the world, since they were closed off in themselves, were left untouched by grace, so that of course, what you get is the need to divide oneself from them.
And yet, it is important not to forget that perhaps a majority of 16th century “reformers” remained within Catholicism, and that this had important positive effects, in particular significantly progressive developments of (i) psychology by people such as Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, (ii) a distinctively lay spirituality (as opposed to applying monastic spirituality to laity) by people such as Ignatius of Loyola (again), Philip Neri, Francis de Sales and Jeanne de Chantal, and (iii) the working religious orders and institutes (perhaps the Ursulines being the most spectacular example). All of these presupposed an essential goodness in the world and in engagement with things that the pre-Tridentine world would have found more suspect.
Like all things, the record is complex.