Autism and sin

As I have been exploring the history of the concept of autism, my theological antennae have started quivering.

In 1910–11, Eugen Bleuler coined the word autismus (autism) to describe a symptom he observed among adult psychiatric patients, namely a pathological withdrawal from reality into an inner world of fantasy. The Greek root of the term (autos) points to self-absorption and detachment from external reality as the defining feature of autism. Later, in the early 1940s, Hans Asperger and Leo Kanner described autistic patterns in children, which Kanner termed ‘early infantile autism’ (more recently known as classic autism). Their work led to autism being thought of as a neurodevelopmental issue rather than a symptom of an adult psychopathology. But the core defining feature – self-absorption and detachment from reality – remained unchanged.

The reason for my quivering theological antennae is that the defining feature of autism as originally introduced to psychiatry bears an disturbing resemblance to Protestant and Catholic understandings of sin. In fact, Martin Luther’s classic definition of sin as a state of being incurvatus in se – of being ‘curved in upon oneself’. In other words, sin is a condition in which the heart turns away from God and neighbour to rely on its own resources and satisfy its own desires. There is a clear structural parallel between autism as originally understood and Western theology’s understanding of sin. In both frameworks, the fundamental error/pathology is the rejection of the external (Reality/God) in favour of the internal (Self).

We can push this a bit further because Bleuler did not restrict his use of ‘autism’ to his patients. He also wrote about ‘autistic thinking’ in normal people, namely his fellow doctors (see his Autistic and Undisciplined Thinking in Medicine, and How to Overcome It [1919]), describing it as logic driven by wishes, desires, and fantasies rather than hard reality. In this usage, ‘autism’ functions similarly to the theological concept of idolatry or concupiscence: it is a defect of the will where the subject prefers a comfortable lie (inner wish) over a demanding truth (external reality). By framing ‘wishful thinking’ as a primitive or pathological trait, he was effectively medicalizing the old religious warning against following the ‘desires of the flesh’ and the ‘imaginations of the heart’.

An unfortunate coincidence? I think not. Bleuler was not personally religious, but he grew up in Zurich where the ‘grammar’ of human interiority was written by the Reformation. Sin was understood as social withdrawal and self-obsession. While health/salvation was understood as turning outward toward the community and objective truth. When he sought to describe the ultimate pathology of the mind, he reached for a concept that looked just like the ultimate pathology of the soul he would have heard about in the catechism of his youth.

In view of all this, I don’t think it is unreasonable to see the classic understanding of autism as a secularization of the Western Christian view of sin: it has simply taken the structure of the sinner curved inward and transformed it into the patient withdrawn inward.

All Creation Luminous

Having Perplexity AI prepare an Orthodox critique of my PhD thesis provided me with food for thought while I contemplated the not inconsiderable task of revising the thesis from an Orthodox perspective. So far, the fruit of that contemplation had amounted to the following chapter outline:

Introduction: Our Compromised Environment – an introductory examination of the environmental crisis and its nature as a spiritual problem.

1. Creation and the Patristic Mindset – an exploration of how Orthodox theological methodology applies to the doctrine of creation (including the Orthodox view of Scripture; Georges Florovsky’s call to “acquire the patristic mind”; the emergence of  Orthodox theology from liturgical experience; and the role of apophaticism in Orthodox theology).

2. The Triune Creator – the grounding of environmental theology in the Orthodox doctrine of the Trinity (the Cappadocian vision; perichoresis and relational ontology; creation and the divine energies; creation as a triune act).

3. The Word Through Whom All Things Were Made – an exploration of patristic cosmic Christology (the Logos, the logoi, and creation; the Incarnation and the material creation; the cosmic Christ; recapitulation and the restoration of the cosmos).

4. The Lord, the Giver of Life – outlining the pneumatological foundations of environmental theology (the Spirit as Life-Giver; the Spirit in Orthodox liturgical theology; deification and cosmic transformation; eschatological pneumatology).

5. Priests of Creation – replacing an anthropology focused on dominion/ stewardship with Orthodox priestly anthropology (the image and likeness of God; the priestly vocation; Adam and the cosmic temple; deification and ecological responsibility).

6. The Eucharistic Vision of Creation – examination of John Zizioulas’s suggestion that creation is eucharistic and its implications for environmental theology (creation as divine gift; the eucharistic offering of creation; the implications for our worship; the Eucharist and environmental ethics).

7. Nature in Orthodox Worship and Spirituality (the sanctification of time; the blessing of creation; iconographic ecology; ascetic environmentalism).

8. All Things Made New – examining the eschatological destiny of creation (Orthodox affirmation of matter and bodily resurrection; the cosmic dimension of salvation; the transfiguration of the cosmos; the kingdom of God and ecological hope).

9. Towards an Orthodox Environmental Ethics (ascetic principles and sustainable living; the Church as ecological community;  the global challenge of the crisis and Orthodox witness; political responses to the crisis and Orthodox action).

At the moment, one major element is still missing. Somewhere I have to work in a chapter on human sinfulness and the notion of ecological sin. I feel it should go fairly early in the text, but I’m not sure how to do that without anticipating material that I want to develop later on.

And the title of this revised study of environmental theology? At the moment, I am calling it All Creation Luminous: An Orthodox Vision of the Natural World. According to St Gregory of Sinai, the perfect hesychast ‘sees the entire creation luminous as in a kind of mirror’.

Paul Ladouceur (1944–2025)

I have just heard that Dr Paul Ladouceur reposed in the Lord last Friday. He came from a French-Canadian Roman Catholic family but converted to Orthodoxy at the age of fifty. Following his conversion, he went on to become very active in Orthodox theology (both Anglophone and Francophone). Perhaps his most important theological work was Modern Orthodox Theology (T&T Clark, 2019) – personally, I have found this to be a very useful thematic introduction to the main concerns of Orthodox theology over the past couple of centuries. He was also responsible for the helpful French Orthodox website, Pages orthoxes la Transfiguration.

May his memory be eternal! Que sa mémoire soit éternelle !

Radical Orthodoxy may be a health hazard

Here is my second extract from Elizabeth Smith’s ‘Radical Orthodoxy for Dummies’:

The Fine Print:  Radical Orthodoxy May Be a Health Hazard

Now, a word of caution to the would-be Radically Orthodox. If one or more of the following apply to you, you may not be cut out for a career in this branch of theological endeavour. 

1. Your interest in sex as a subject for theological reflection still carries a concern for the practical and social and spiritual liberation of women. Radical Orthodoxy seems to be better at problematising the gender of Christ than it is at deproblematising the economic and political downside of the gender of actual women. However, if you are a woman theologian who is happy to continue speaking of “God himself,” you will probably be fine.  
2. You think think that theology is fun to do, but it still matters to you that it’s fun for anyone else to read. Radical Orthodoxy seems to have jettisoned clarity of English syntax in favour of bandwagon vocabulary. However, if a sentence like the following appeals to you, you will most likely do well in Radical Orthodoxy: “Perhaps unsurprisingly, this search for the universal and the ‘superhuman’ reveals itself as a hopeless and ultimately nihilistic account of form and essence, since it maintains that forms can appear apart from what they inform, and universality upholds only its self-depiction and has no necessary or obvious regard for the particulars it could instantiate.”  (Phillip Blond, “Perception:  From modern painting to the vision in Christ,” in Millbank, Pickstock, and Ward, eds, Radical Orthodoxy:  A New Theology , p. 229.)
3. You quite enjoy reading and interpreting the bible. Radical Orthodoxy hasn’t quite worked its way back past Augustine to scripture as a source of inspiration, let alone as a major primary contributor to theology. However, there is probably another rediscovery of patristic biblical hermeneutics waiting to happen, and possibly yet another a re-appreciation of the bible as artful verbiage (“literature”) worthy of some attention in its own right, so if you want to help inspire the Radically Orthodox to reappropriate the word “biblical” the way they’re reappropriating “platonic,” by all means go for it.
4. You are a sacramental theologian or liturgical theologian. Radical Orthodoxy is acting rather as if it had invented, with a little help from its postmodern and platonic friends, the entire concept of an “outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible reality,” while you and your mates have been exploring this very field of endeavour for decades already.  You may feel a trifle resentful that Radical Orthodoxy does not give due credit to the liturgical life of the church for persevering with an environment that is rich in metaphor, visual image, sensory input and embodied prayer, while all around were foundering in the sterility of metaphysics and rationality.  However, if with Prince Charles you suspect that the last 50 years of liturgical renewal have been a bad mistake and a waste of time, or if you think liturgists are really terrorists who can’t be trusted with real theology, you may well find a way to enjoy Radical Orthodoxy.
5. You can’t muster up much theological nostalgia. Perhaps you think that the best and most fruitful theology is yet to come and your energy is best directed into constructive rather than deconstructive projects. Perhaps you get exhausted just thinking about the embedded patriarchal assumptions in 99.5 per cent of theology to date, and despite your genuine admiration for Aquinas you would rather put your hand to the plough and not look back. 

If you still want to become Radically Orthodox, dodging, embracing or transforming the issues described above, you may find you can do it even without footnotes to Hans Urs von Balthasar.

How to become radically orthodox

About twenty years ago, I came across ‘Radical Orthodoxy for Dummies’ by Elizabeth Smith poking fun at the theological movement known as Radical Orthodoxy. Sadly, it has long since vanished from the Internet. So I have decided to post a couple of extracts here for your amusement.

This first piece is called ‘How To Become Radically Orthodox: A Beginner’s Guide’:

First, it will help if you start out Radically Privileged, have learnt at least one classical language before you hit university, and are not beset by family members asking why you haven’t gone in for something like Accountancy or Marketing that will guarantee you a well-paying job. A good general grounding in classical and enlightenment philosophy is also necessary, so that you do not embarrassingly mix your epistemology and your ontology, your realists, idealists, nihilists and so on. Then you need to go deeply into the work of a theologian or philosopher who may well be totally out of fashion. At this point you may become discouraged because no one else seems to be interested in your chosen writer, but please persevere. 

By now you will also have friends who are studying subjects other than classical philosophy and what used to be called “patristics.” Eventually you will notice that they are having great fun playing with Structuralism and Post-structuralism and Psychoanalytic Theory and Queer Theory, not to mention the whole gamut of Feminisms and Post-Colonialisms, and all sorts of other exciting tools of fin-de-millennium scholarship, and you will wonder if it might not be fun to play with some of the same things in your own field. 

All this time, you will have been faithfully attending church services. You should take care to participate in the type of liturgy that is aesthetically rich, in a visually stunning building with marvellous music, ministers in fabulous vestments, services that go on unhurriedly in imitation of the Liturgy of Heaven, and the kind of sermon that has sometimes been unkindly characterised as “three points and a poem” (the poem usually being many times richer and deeper than the three points, due to its having been written by someone other than the preacher). Steep yourself in the liturgical world of metaphor, symbol, and palpable transcendence, for here has been preserved (or, if we are to be honest, reinvented in 19th century Anglicanism) the flavour of piety and imagination that we are about to inject, along with a cocktail of postmodern methodological stimulants, into the veins of the historical theological figure you have so diligently and hitherto thanklessly been studying. 

Now you need to find a group of like-minded scholars with whom you can share hints on how to get Lacan and Derrida into footnotes where a generation ago Schleiermacher and Barth cast much longer shadows. You need to grit your teeth and read North American contemporary criticism and not just British and European sources. Then, at last, you need to find a hot topic in current social or ecclesial life, and find a way for your antique hero to appear to make a contribution to the debate. Only a cynic would suggest that in fact the debate is making a contribution to the faded aura surrounding your antique hero. As for suitable debates, sex, politics, and art are always good value for a controversy guaranteed to get the juices of academic interest flowing.

My Lenten reading

I intended to reread John Climacus’s Ladder of Divine Ascent but failed hopelessly. Even switching to Papavassiliou’s modern rendering of it (Thirty Steps to Heaven) was no help. I think I find the mindset and context of sixth-century monk living in the Sinai desert too alien. It is not something that can be easily mapped onto the life of a layperson living in an affluent Western society in the twenty-first century.

So, perhaps inevitably, I reverted to rereading Tito Colliander’s Way of the Ascetics. In 26 short chapters he offers a practical introduction to Orthodox spirituality largely in the form of extracts from the writings of the Church Fathers. I like it because it is so practical and, having been written by a layman for twentieth-century laypeople, it is directly applicable to our context. It is much easier to read than Climacus but just as challenging if read properly.

As for my other reading during Lent, I have been carefully working my way through Andrew Jackson’s Maximus the Confessor and Evolutionary Biology. I know some Orthodox theologians are a bit sniffy about non-Orthodox studies of Maximus, but this is a must read for anyone interested in relating modern science and Christian theology. At the moment, I am preparing a review of it, which will appear in a future issue of the journal Science & Christian Belief. But it also looks highly relevant for a paper I hope to write for this year’s ORIC conference.

I have also been reading Origen’s Commentary on the Gospel of St John. My main reason has been so that I can take part in the regular ORIC seminar. It has reaffirmed my sense that I do not like Origen as a theologian. I dislike his belief that the material universe exists only as a punishment for essentially spiritual beings. And his hierarchical view of Christians – most are carnal (i.e. they know Christ and him crucified!) and a small elite are spiritual (i.e. they have gone beyond the letter of Scripture to its spiritual sense) – makes me deeply uneasy.

Christians as resident aliens

The phrase ‘resident aliens’ has become associated with Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon since they wrote a book of that title nearly forty years ago. But the idea is as old as Christianity itself. John Climacus, whose treatise on the spiritual life is read by many Orthodox Christians every Lent, begins his account of the ascent to God with renunciation of the world. And the second-century Letter to Diognetus puts it starkly

Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. . . . They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. . . . They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. (Letter to Diognetus, ch.5)

This is a far cry from the heretical ‘Christian’ nationalism that seems so popular nowadays. Christians are called to obey the laws of the land as far as they can without compromising their faith but always to remember that they are resident aliens, citizens of another kingdom.

Not all theologians are liars

Given what I said in the last entry, it was inevitable that I would want to qualify it: all theologians are liars, but there are exceptions. In a lecture given in 2012, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware drew on St Gregory Palamas to outline three categories of theologian:

St. Gregory Palamas of the 14th Century distinguishes three kinds of theologians. First he says, there are the saints. They are those who possess personal experience; who have themselves beheld the divine light, and these are the true theologians. Secondly, there are those who lack such personal experience but who trust the saints and learn from them. And they too may be good theologians, albeit on a lower level. Thirdly, there are those who lack personal experience and who do not trust the saints, and they are bad theologians.

The ‘bad theologians’ are those self-styled theologians who are more interested in their academic prowess than in the pursuit of truth. They may court controversy to bolster their standing or boost their book sales. They may put personal bias before the truth of the gospel. But generally they presume that the Infinite can be grasped and analysed by finite human reason.

Then there are what Metropolitan Kallistos calls the ‘good theologians’. They may lack the kind of personal experience of God enjoyed by the saints, but they are at different stages on the path to that kind of experience. They know only too well their own finitude and sinfulness and they recognize the truth of Gregory of Nyssa’s suggestion that any unqualified statement about God is a lie.

Finally, the ‘saints’  or ‘true theologians’ are, as St Gregory puts it, those who have directly experienced the divine Light. Or, following Evagrius of Pontus, they are those whose prayer is true. But by no means all saints have attempted to articulate their experience and relate it to Scripture. In fact, in its 2000-year history the Orthodox Church has granted the title ‘Theologian’ to just three saints: St John the Apostle, St Gregory of Nazianzus, and St Symeon the New Theologian. However, this category can be expanded to include those Fathers of the Church who have been recognized as saints. St John is in a class of his own, since his writings form part of the New Testament. Otherwise, these theologians are regarded by the Orthodox Church as authoritative rather than infallible. And these are the theologians who might reasonably regarded as exceptions to my previous entry.

All theologians are liars

I am a theologian. Therefore, …?

St Gregory of Nyssa put it rather more gently: ‘anyone who attempts to portray the ineffable Light in language is truly a liar – not because of any abhorrence of the truth, but merely because of the infirmity of his explanation’ (quoted in Jean Daniélou, From Glory to Glory, p. 105).

Every positive statement we can make about God is utterly inadequate and dangerously misleading. Ultimately, whenever we state confidently that God is X, we are setting up an idol.

And this leads us directly to the apophatic tradition in Orthodox theology. The encounter with God forces us to admit the inadequacy of all our images of God. It calls us to repent of all those confident positive statements and to confess that God is infinitely greater, more dynamic, more alive than any of those statements suggest. So, for example, when we say ‘God is love’, we must immediately admit that the ‘love’ referred to is something infinitely greater than we can imagine given our limited and deeply flawed understandings of love.

Vance on the ordo amoris

J.D. Vance decided to stick his nose into Christian theology the other day, summarizing his understanding of the ordo amoris (‘order of love’) thus:

‘There’s this old school – and I think it’s a very Christian concept by the way – that you love your family and then you love your neighbour and then you love your community and then you love your fellow citizens and your own country, and then after that you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.’ (interview on Fox News, 29 January)

I don’t have a problem with the idea that there is an order to love (ultimately, this comes from Augustine and Aquinas, though their treatment of love in this way owes more to Plato and Aristotle than it does to Scripture). But Vance and those Christians who have spoken up in his support have gone wrong in two important ways: they have made the ordo prescriptive, and they assume that love is finite and essentially static.

Misunderstood in this way, the order of love suggests that love of family takes priority over everything else (the old lie, ‘charity begins at home’). Next in importance comes love of one’s immediate neighbours, then love of the wider community, then love of one’s nation. Only then, might one consider loving people beyond the boundaries of our own ethne. Add to this the assumption that love is essentially finite and it suggests that those beyond our borders are only worthy of the dregs of love that may or may not be left over after we finished loving everyone closer at hand (and most like ourselves).

Against this, I would argue first that the order of love should be understood as descriptive. Yes, love begins with the family. That is where we first experience love and where we learn to love. But as we grow, our horizons expand – we go to school, join clubs, attend church, leave home, perhaps go to university, perhaps emigrate – and our experience of love expands with our expanding horizons.

But, more importantly for the Christian, love is not merely a finite human faculty. It is also a gift of God. And as we exercise that gift, God increases our capacity for love. Since God is utterly unbounded, there are literally no limits to this love. We see this quite clearly in Scripture where Jesus commands us to love our enemies. And in the Orthodox tradition, we find examples of love extending even beyond the limits of this world (e.g. St Isaac the Syrian speaking of the compassionate heart praying even for demons).

Postmodernity and Univocity by Dan Horan

A review of Postmodernity and Univocity: A Critical Account of Radical Orthodoxy and John Duns Scotus by Daniel P. Horan, OFM (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014) 

In recent years, John Duns Scotus has come under concerted attack from the school of theology known as  Radical Orthodoxy. Until now, their treatment of the Subtle Doctor has met with surprisingly little resistance: those medievalists who know better have largely confined their critiques to specialist journals and have been ignored both by the proponents of Radical Orthodoxy and the wider theological world. However, in this little book the Franciscan Dan Horan offers a useful summary of both Radical Orthodoxy’s Scotus myth and the critiques of Scotus scholars in the hope of setting the record straight.

The structure is straightforward: In the first two chapters, Horan summarizes the charges laid against Scotus by Radical Orthodoxy, then outlines the influence of their account of Scotus on contemporary theology and beyond. Chapter 1, ‘Radical Orthodoxy’s Use of John Duns Scotus’, traces the development of the Scotus myth from John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock to Conor Cunningham, Graham Ward, and Gavin Hyman. Horan clearly shows how Radical Orthodoxy presents Scotus as the antithesis of Thomas Aquinas. Since their appropriation of Thomism is at the heart of their anti-secular project, we thus find Scotus being identified as the key figure in the emergence of modernity (John Milbank), the father of nihilism (Conor Cunningham), and even denounced as a heretic (Gavin Hyman). In chapter 2, Horan offers examples of the way in which Radical Orthodoxy’s Scotus story has been adopted by a wide range of contemporary theologians and philosophers, including Stanley Hauerwas, Charles Taylor, and Terry Eagleton.

The remaining chapters set out the case for the defence. Chapter 3 outlines the major critiques of Radical Orthodoxy’s understanding of Scotus’s theology. In summary, he argues that Milbank et al. have misunderstood Scotus’s doctrine of univocity. By treating what is essentially a semantic theory as a metaphysical one, they create the false impression that Scotus has reduced the difference between God and creatures to a merely quantitative one, thus fatally distorting Western theology and enabling the emergence of the concept of the secular. Furthermore, he points out that their entire narrative is dependent on a narrow range of secondary sources and shows little evidence of engagement with Scotus himself (beyond a few well-known texts available in translation in introductory readers). Horan concludes the case for the defence in chapter 4 by offering a corrective to Radical Orthodoxy’s reading of Scotus’s doctrine of univocity. Finally, in a brief conclusion, he suggests that far from being the root of all postmodern evil, Scotus may in fact offer contemporary theologians a constructive way forward in engaging with postmodern culture.

The book is not without its flaws. In particular, I found it rather repetitive. Strangely, he chooses to leave his explanation of univocity (and other crucial Scotist concepts) until after his substantive critique of Radical Orthodoxy’s view. As a result, he has to anticipate his explanation more than once while presenting his critique. The impression of repetitiveness is reinforced by his decision to structure his overview of Radical Orthodoxy via its key personalities rather than thematically. By contrast, his corrective explanation of Scotus felt rather compressed. It would also have been good for there to have been rather more in his conclusion about how Scotus might be used to develop an alternative to Radical Orthodoxy’s eccentric neo-Thomist agenda.

However, those are minor caveats. Horan has done the wider theological community an important service by making accessible the reservations of leading Scotus scholars and thus raising important questions about the foundations of Radical Orthodoxy. This book should be required reading for anyone seeking a critical understanding of Radical Orthodoxy.

Some notes on Yannaras’s Elements of Faith

As you might expect, I have been aware of Christos Yannaras for some years and have read one or two summaries of his thought. But, until recently, I hadn’t read anything by him. What I found myself reading a couple of months ago was so thought-provoking that I decided to begin a deep dive into his work. And the logical place to start seemed to be his Elements of Faith: An Introduction to Orthodox Theology (T&T Clark, 1991).

NB This is not a review, just some notes in passing.

It certainly has the appearance of an introduction to the subject. Its ten chapters cover

1. ‘Positive’ Knowledge and Metaphysics
2. The Problem of God
3. Faith
4. Apophatic Knowledge
5. God as Trinity
6. The World
7. Man
8. Jesus Christ
9. The Church
10. Orthodoxy

And it does all this in fewer than 200 pages. A further indication of its introductory nature is that it lacks the extensive footnotes one might expect in a more advanced treatise. It doesn’t even have a bibliography or suggestions for further reading.

But the list of chapter titles hints that this is no straightforward exposition of Orthodox Christianity in general. It clearly does not follow the structure of the Nicene Creed. Nor does it attempt to create some kind of catechism. Rather, it seems to be Yannaras’s own personal take on Orthodoxy. This is the perspective of someone with a firm grounding in mid twentieth-century Continental philosophy. Further, it is written with a degree of sophistication that makes me wonder who his intended readers were. An introduction to Orthodox theology for philosophy graduates perhaps?

Just a couple of caveats on what he says in these chapters:

He defines the Church thus,

the Church is the gathering in the Eucharistic meal. Not a foundation, not a religious institution, not a governing hierarchy, not buildings and offices and organizational arrangement. It is the people of God gathered in the ‘breaking of the bread’ and the ‘blessing of the cup’. It is the children of God who are scattered abroad (Jn 11.52 RSV) who are gathered now in the unity of life of the ecclesial body. (p. 122)

But, having defined the Church in this way, he goes on to focus on: the paschal meal; renewal of life; Pentecost; existential transformation; ‘transubstantiation’ and ‘symbol’; mysteries; the ecclesiastical hierarchy; synods, primacy and authority; and religious alienation. He says nothing about the gathered community that is sent out into the world at the end of the Eucharist. But we are not Church only when we are gathered together in the event of the Eucharist. That event may define us as the Church, but we remain the Church – the body of Christ – when we are scattered abroad to go our separate ways. During the week, we are the body of Christ acting for the Kingdom of God in the world. And, at the start of each week, we gather together again in the Eucharist to reaffirm that this is who we are. So, it is not enough for Yannaras stop where he does. There is a desperate need for a rigorous analysis of what it means to be a member of the body of Christ acting for the Kingdom in the world.

My other caveat regards the distinction he draws between Orthodoxy and western Christianity. He idealizes the former and with it the Hellenistic contribution to Greek Orthodoxy. By contrast, he demonizes western Christianity as a heresy that ‘has transformed radically the course of human history’ (p. 154), drawing a clear line from Augustine, through Scholasticism, to western European culture and modernity. This western Christianity and culture has, he believes, poisoned contemporary Orthodoxy. While I think he is right to position Orthodoxy as a radically countercultural movement, I don’t think it helps our understanding of either Orthodoxy or western Christianity by exaggerating their differences in this way. Various commentators on Yannaras assure us that his position is actually much more nuanced than it appears to be here. Hopefully, I will discover those nuances for myself as I continue my dive into his works.

Asceticism and world affirmation

According to Christos Yannaras,

Asceticism is the struggle to renounce my egocentric tendency to see everything as neutral objects, subject to my needs and desires. By poverty and submission to the common rules of asceticism, I fight precisely against my egocentric claim, I transpose the axis of my life from my ego to my relationship with the world which surrounds me, because the relationship begins only when in practice I desist from the tendency to subject everything. Then I begin to respect what surrounds me, to discover that it is not simply objective impersonal riches (of objective utility), but things, that is, results of activity, what has been done by a creative Person. I discover the personal character of the data of the world, a uniqueness of reason in each something, a possibility of relationship, a ground of loving reference to God. My relationship with the world becomes then an indirect relationship with God, the maker of the world, and the practical use of the world a ceaseless study of the truth of the world, a constantly deeper knowledge inaccessible to ‘positive’ science. (Elements of Faith, p.49f.)

The Groaning of Creation

A review of Christopher Southgate, The Groaning of Creation: God, Evolution, and the Problem of Evil (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008)

In this short work, Christopher Southgate sets out to tackle the perennial problem of pain and suffering. What sets this volume apart from most other exercises in theodicy is that he focuses on the relatively neglected issue of animal suffering.

The first three chapters are essentially introductory. In chapter 1, he sets the scene by defining the nature and extent of the problem assuming as his starting point the evolutionary picture painted by modern science. Chapter 2 is a survey of various approaches that in his view hinder our efforts to address the problem of evolutionary theodicy. He quickly dismisses creationism and intelligent design, both of which question the evolutionary picture of the world from which he is starting. Equally short shrift is given to those who suggest the physical world is in some sense evil, or that its creator is evil, or that sheer creativity somehow takes precedence over the will of God; all these approaches require too great a departure from orthodox Christian theology for his taste. But his real target in this chapter is the notion of a cosmic fall. He simply cannot reconcile the notion of a historical fall of humankind that somehow has cosmic consequences with the scientific record. From there, he turns in Chapter 3 to a survey of the other evolutionary theodicies currently on offer, looking particularly at the work of Rolston, Peacocke, Haught, and McDaniel.

Southgate’s own proposal for an evolutionary theodicy is to be found largely in chapters 4 and 5. Like the authors surveyed in chapter 3, he accepts that the evolutionary process was the only way (or at least the best way) for God to bring a variety of finite selves into existence, given the constraints imposed by a law-like universe. However, the beauty, diversity, and sophistication that have arisen as a result do not cancel out the very real suffering that has occurred as a by-product. On the contrary, the responsibility for such suffering lies firmly with God. Thus, in Chapter 4 he paints a Trinitarian picture of a God who ‘suffers in the suffering of every creature’ (p. 56) and who creates by self-giving. He envisages a creation in which creatures are called to be themselves (to express their ‘thisness’) in accordance with the triune God’s creative will. However, their response to that call is always ambiguous because expressed by self-assertion at the expense of others rather than by self-giving; thus many (perhaps most) individual creatures never achieve the fulfilment to which God has called them. In his view, it is not enough to say that the overall process or God’s final purpose somehow justifies the messy evolutionary means. Thus, at the end of chapter 4 he affirms that the Cross and Resurrection have an objective redemptive effect on the non-human creation. This leads in chapter 5 into a brief discussion of the place of eschatology in evolutionary theodicy. Here he affirms the orthodox Christian view that there is no redemption apart from creation: we are saved as embodied creatures not disembodied spirits. This clearly implies that the non-human is implicated in the eschaton, but does evolutionary theodicy require the redemption of individual non-human creatures? Southgate argues that the answer is ‘yes’ at least in the case of more complex organisms.

He concludes his book with two chapters exploring our calling to care for creation in light of this theodicy. While rightly warning against the hubris that thinks human action can somehow bring about the eschaton, he argues that we are called to have some part in the redemption of creation. Negatively, he calls us to a self-sacrificial care for our fellow creatures, an ethical kenosis. Positively, he develops our role in terms of contemplation, priesthood and stewardship. And, in the final chapter, he examines two specific proposals, giving a cautious welcome to Andrew Linzey’s notion of vegetarianism as a sign of the eschaton and calling us to work for the preservation of other species.

Inevitably such a brief account of such a large topic has its weaknesses. In particular, I would highlight the lack of development of God’s action in relation to the non-human (especially in view of the fact that Denis Edwards, one of the key influences on Southgate’s own position, takes a strictly non-interventionist approach) and the extreme brevity of his account of the role of Christ’s atoning work (in spite of assertion that this is central to his thesis, p. 76). Nevertheless, this is a thought-provoking and at times moving work, which deserves to be widely read and debated.

Engaging Deconstructive Theology

A review of Ronald T. Michener, Engaging Deconstructive Theology, Ashgate New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies Series (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007)

‘If Christians are to continue to communicate and incarnate the gospel in a world with postmodern assumptions, then they must seek to understand their culture and seek relevancy’ (p. 7). This is Ronald Michener’s starting point for an exploration of what he calls deconstructive theology with a view to developing insights that might make Christian apologetics more relevant to postmodern culture.

In his introduction, Michener acknowledges the intellectual and cultural diversity of the postmodern phenomenon. Clearly it would be impossible to treat the entire spectrum of postmodernism adequately in a single volume. He opts instead to focus on what he sees as the most radical intellectual strand of postmodernism: deconstructionism. Having set the boundaries of his study, he proceeds in Chapter 2 to offer a very sketchy outline of the historical context of deconstructionism, focusing on its intellectual forebears from Francis Bacon to Claude Lévi-Strauss, before offering a brief introduction to the deconstructionist programme.

Part II of the book offers an account of the ‘holy trinity’ of deconstructionism: Lyotard, Derrida, and Foucault. The three chapters in this part provide useful but inevitably brief introductions to their thought. Michener’s main aim here is to identify themes in their work that are relevant to the task he has set himself. Among the themes he highlights are Lyotard’s scepticism with respect to metanarratives and Foucault’s rejection of the Enlightenment self. But most of the space in this part is devoted to Derrida. Picking up on hints in Derrida’s work, he suggests that deconstruction does not amount to the destruction of theology. Rather Derrida’s goal is destabilize or subvert the traditional metaphysics that is so closely wedded to Western theology. Thus deconstruction can be seen as a new via negativa. Michener is even prepared to recontextualize Derrida’s notion of the ‘messianic’.

Parts III and IV turn to the effect of this on two American academics (Mark Taylor and Richard Rorty) and one British theologian (Don Cupitt) whose writings have had an impact on recent theology in the English-speaking world. These chapters follow the same pattern as those in Part II: a brief introduction to their thought followed by a teasing out of various themes that are relevant to the challenge of developing a Christian apologetic for a postmodern context. Again he finds concepts that can be appropriated by a postmodern Christian theology, for example, Taylor’s notion of ‘mazing grace’ and Cupitt’s ‘solar living’ and ‘poetical theology’.

With Part V we arrive at the real heart of the book: the development of an apologetic methodology in view of the deconstructionist concerns highlighted in Parts II to IV. Chapter 9 deals with some methodological preliminaries, highlighting the inadequacy of some current apologetic methodologies and indicating what those deconstructionist concerns require of a postmodern apologetic. Specifically, such an apologetic must be post-individualistic, post-rationalistic, post-dualistic, and post-noeticentric (by which he means shifting away from knowledge to wisdom). In the next chapter he turns to Scripture, with an examination of the beginnings of Christianity in the book of Acts in the light of deconstructionist concerns. Michener is concerned to present the gospel as a non-totalizing metanarrative (i.e. one that does not fall foul of postmodern scepticism). The early Christian community as it appears in Acts is heterogeneous: open, multicultural, and pluralistic. And St Paul provides us with an apologetic model that majors on listening and dialogue.

That last point is developed further in Chapter 11, ‘Apologetic Engagement and Dialogue’. Michener stresses the importance of being a good listener. He is even prepared to speak of atheism as being ‘prophetic’ for those prepared to listen well. This leads him in to a discussion of what is involved in a critical reappropriation of deconstructionist concerns, providing the theoretical underpinning for the examples of reappropriation earlier in the book.

If Michener were to stop at this point, his contribution would be just one more rationalistic approach to apologetics. However, he is not content to leave it here and moves on in Chapter 12 to explore the ‘Apologetic Imagination’. It is his contention that imagination, myth, and story have a powerful role to play in apologetic dialogue. His role model for this change in apologetic strategy is the literary scholar and Christian apologist C. S. Lewis, perhaps a surprising choice given his intention to engage with deconstructionism/postmodernity. In this chapter, he also explores the place of hope in Christian apologetics.

Finally, Michener takes up the question of foundationalism. Postmodernism is notoriously resistant to any suggestion that our beliefs can have any indubitable grounding. By contrast, much Christian apologetics (at least since the Enlightenment) has taken such foundations for granted. Is it possible to develop a Christian apologetic that can engage constructively with the anti-foundationalism of the deconstructionists? Michener proposes what he describes as a soft foundationalism: he accepts the postmodern critique of classical foundationalism but does not want to give in to complete scepticism. Certainty about religious beliefs is not possible, but neither is it necessary. He wants to speak instead of provisional beliefs, which cohere together into a ‘belief mosaic’ that is open to continual testing, reinterpretation, and recontextualization. Furthermore, this gathering of truth is eschatologically based, rather than foundationally based.

I must admit that, as I read through the book, I could not shake off the nagging question of whether the French deconstructionists were the most appropriate dialogue partners for a Christian apologist seeking to engage with postmodern culture. Nevertheless, there is a lot of interesting and thought-provoking material here, and, for the most part, it is presented in a clear and approachable manner.

Creation’s Diversity: Voices from Theology and Science

A review of Willem B. Drees, Hubert Meisinger and Taede A. Smedes (eds), Creation’s Diversity: Voices from Theology and Science (London: T&T Clark, 2008)

Creation’s Diversity is a selection of papers from the 2006 ESSSAT meeting in Romania. The title indicates that the editors have chosen them to offer the reader a variety of perspectives on the diversity of creation. After two introductory chapters, the papers are organized into two sections of six chapters each: ‘A Diversity of Visions of Creation’ and ‘Sustaining Creation’s Diversity’.

The first introductory chapter, by Willem Drees, simply offers an overview of the book itself. Its companion piece, by Patriarch Daniel Ciobotea of the Romanian Orthodox Church, is an interesting call for dialogue between science and religion. Unlike many similar calls, this one is rooted in Eastern Orthodoxy and specifically the theology of Dumitru Staniloae (whose work deserves to be much more widely known among Western Christians).

‘A Diversity of Visions’ offers six quite disparate perspectives on creation/nature. First we are offered a Gaian perspective of the biosphere by the feminist theologian Anne Primavesi. While I am sympathetic to the holistic view of the environment she presents, I was disturbed that there was no acknowledgement of the potential for ecofascism in this approach. In contrast to Primavesi’s focus on the history of nature, Regine Kather offers a philosophical exploration of humans as the products of nature, concluding that value is intrinsic to nature. David Goodin offers a fascinating Eastern Orthodox perspective on the Leviathan passages of the Old Testament from which he gleans a timely ecological message about the intrinsic value of creation. With his chapter, Christopher Southgate draws our attention to suffering within the evolutionary process. He revisits the concept of kenosis to suggest how the suffering of creatures might be reconciled with the notion of a benevolent creator. Alfred Kracher explores the popular myth that technology and nature are in opposition. The section ends with an article by Tony Watkins on new cosmologies and sacred stories, which calls for a re-imagining of our relationship with the environment by means of metaphors drawn largely from deep ecology and a new transcultural creation myth based on evolution.

The second section focuses on ‘Sustaining Creation’s Diversity’. Again it consists of six chapters from a variety of perspectives. It begins with Sam Berry objecting to the concept of ‘sustaining diversity’, which appears in much of the current literature to suggest the maintenance of a status quo. He prefers to speak of ‘developing sustainably’. Unfortunately, this concept also has a track record in the literature. Perhaps we should be speaking instead of nurturing diversity. In the next chapter, current threats to biodiversity are picked up and explored in some detail by Jan Boersema. Having been presented with a call to nurture diversity and dire warnings about threatened loss of the same, there follows a short paper in which Chris Wiltsher plays devil’s advocate. He argues, contrary to popular opinion among environmentally minded theologians, that nurturing the diversity of creation is not a clear theological virtue. Peter Kirschenmann explores the more general question of whether there are moral principles that would oblige us to maintain biodiversity. His conclusion is that such ‘sustainable development’ has to be rooted in an ethic of responsibility. Zbigniew Liana shifts the emphasis from biodiversity to cultural diversity. He proposes a Popperian approach to pluralism, which would allow an acceptance of the kind of philosophical and religious diversity apparent in this volume without descending into relativism or scepticism. Finally Dirk Evers draws the book to a close by examining the nurturing of diversity as a theological task in a climate of religious pluralism.

The editors have certainly succeeded in representing the diversity of opinions as to how to relate environmental engagement in the context of religious convictions. The contributors are certainly not of one mind, nor do their papers direct the reader to a particular set of conclusions. But this lack of an overarching argument does have the virtue that the book allows a view into an ongoing discussion. Sadly, there is little evidence of interaction between the chapters. I think the book could have been made more useful by allowing the authors to write short responses to each other’s papers.

My main reservation about the book is that it doesn’t really live up to the title. The emphasis is all on diversity, but judging by the content of these papers most of the authors seem blithely unaware that ‘creation’ is not merely a synonym for ‘nature’. For a book of this kind to ignore the very real theological distinction between the two is a major shortcoming. However, in spite of that reservation, this book remains a useful contribution to the continuing dialogue between theologies and the sciences on environmental issues.

The self-betrayal of evil

Some wise words from John McGuckin:

The face of evil is urbane and habitually masks itself in the present aeon of world history. It can even seek to mimic the good, and tries to fool even the elect, if such a thing were possible. Evil always betrays itself, however, for the simulation of the good is difficult for it, and its innate characteristics of agitation, spitefulness, lies, and hostility to what constitutes the peaceful good of others cannot help showing themselves at critical junctures. (The Orthodox Church, p. 234)

Agitation, spitefulness, lies, hostility to the peaceful good of others – a good summary of the attitude of the authoritarians, populists, and (crypto-)fascists who currently afflict the body politic.

Preserving Orthodox Christian Voices

St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary has a fascinating digital archive of talks and sermons from the past half century or so. Speakers include John Behr, Tom Hopko, Ephrem Lash, John Meyendorff, Jaroslav Pelikan, Philip Saliba, and Kallistos Ware. But, above all, it includes a large collection of talks by Alexander Schmemann. You can find the talks here.

Transforming Christian Theology

A review of Philip Clayton, Transforming Christian Theology: For Church and Society (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010)

The blurb on the back of the book describes it as ‘a radical call to return religious reflection to ordinary believers’.

Clayton begins by reciting the by now familiar story that Western society is in the midst of a fundamental transition – from the so-called modern worldview to what, for want of a better word, has come to be known as postmodernity. This transition presents a major challenge to our theologies, since in one way or another they have been adapted to the modern worldview that has been our cultural context for the past couple of centuries. As the transition gathers pace, our theologies appear increasingly irrelevant and out of touch with those around us.

He suggests that what we need is not merely a restatement of theology in postmodern terms. That would merely perpetuate the academic elitism that has characterized (and marred) theology in the modern era. Rather, we need a different way of doing theology. His proposal is that theology should become storytelling: the telling and retelling of our stories in light of core Christian questions (Clayton lists seven such, though others might want to modify his list). He hopes that in doing so our theologies might become more inclusive, less inclined to divide the Christian community into so many warring camps. If such an approach were successful, it would indeed lead to ‘theologies that can transform the Church’.

Clayton then goes on to ‘theologies that can transform society’. He proposes that we go beyond the liberal/evangelical divide. What he wants is a progressive synthesis of the best of liberalism and evangelicalism – a synthesis he likens to the pragmatic idealism of Barack Obama. Such a synthesis, he believes, would empower our churches to become missional communities, drawing postmodern men and women to Christ and capable of transforming the societies in which we live.

A brief concluding section offers a collection of ‘conversations worth having’: discussion starters intended to foster the kinds of theological dialogue described earlier in the book.

Clayton offers us a bold vision for the future of Christian theologies, clearly written in (deceptively) straightforward language. There is much here that I found myself agreeing with. However, I remain uneasy about a number of points.

Much as I warm to his vision of an eirenic, inclusive way of doing theology, we should not forget that there are times when theology must be exclusive. There are times when it must denounce falsehood in order to protect the integrity of the Church and promote the well-being of those on the margins of society.

I am uncomfortable with his portrayal of the Church of the future because of its implicit endorsement of emergent churches at the expense of older Christian traditions. Such churches stand out because they have shown themselves adept at accommodating themselves to the (emergent) postmodern worldview. While that is no bad thing, this luxuriant new growth will only flourish if the roots are nourished. And that requires an explicit appreciation of Christian traditions of worship and spirituality.

I am also suspicious of some of Clayton’s language. Is the way forward really a (quasi-Hegelian?) progressive synthesis of liberal and conservative? Liberal, conservative, progressive: this is the language of politics not theology. To use the language of secular politics to describe ourselves is to allow those outside the Christian community to define us. And as long as we allow ourselves to be defined by anyone other than Christ, we will struggle to be truly transformative.

And, of course, there is his suggestion that change can and should be managed. I’m sorry but Christian leaders should not be in the business of change management. That smacks too much of putting self in control. Ironical that there should be such a chapter in a book that also contains a chapter on ‘a theology of self-emptying for the Church’!

Philip Clayton has succeeded in producing a thought-provoking little book on what it means to do theology in a postmodern era. Read it: you won’t agree with everything he says, but the book will make you think.

No uninterpreted spiritual experience

I have long favoured Karl Popper’s slogan, ‘there is no such thing as an uninterpreted observation’. Science never merely follows the evidence, nor is scientific knowledge merely deduced from mythical theory-neutral observations. On the contrary, all observations are theory laden; they are shaped by prior theories/guesses about the way the world is, which determine what counts as evidence and what observations are of interest to us.

From time to time, I come across people who make the valid point that spiritual experience is much broader than whatever we might experience within the confines of religious worship. However, there is a danger in this generous view of spiritual experience: it is all too easy to slide towards the view that all experience of the transcendent is somehow spiritual. For examples of the sort of thing I mean, see Peter van Ness’s Spirituality and the Secular Quest: almost anything from art appreciation to scientific enquiry, from surfing to sex can be described as spiritual.

In response to this point, I am inclined adapt Popper’s slogan to spiritual experience: there is no such thing as an uninterpreted spiritual experience. Experiences of transcendence or of ecstasy are relatively commonplace. We feel awe at the majesty of nature; we are moved to tears by a work of art. Sex, drugs, (rock and roll) – all have the power to create ecstasy. And human beings have for millennia found nature, sex, and drugs to be potent sources of spiritual experience. But whether/how we see such experiences as spiritual requires something more; it depends on the interpretative framework through which we view them. For example, a convinced secular humanist will see in a drug trip only altered brain chemistry.

What initially made me think this way about spiritual experience was an interview with a Buddhist monk that I heard some years ago. He had been brought up as a Roman Catholic before converting to Buddhism in young adulthood. Imagine his surprise when as a result of intense spiritual exercises he began experiencing visions of the Virgin Mary. His teacher wisely pointed out to him that this was only to be expected because his unconscious was attempting to process the experiences he was having in terms that were already familiar to him.

One of the things that the world’s religions do is to offer competing frameworks to help us make sense of our experiences of ecstasy or transcendence. Of course, this means that one religion’s spiritual experience may be dismissed by another as a simple case of overindulgence or anathematized by a third as a case of demonic possession.

As a Christian, I am primarily interested in whether and how my experiences of transcendence might be interpreted as the activity of the Holy Spirit. How might we determine whether the Holy Spirit is active in a particular situation, experience, or relationship? As it happens, the New Testament offers a handy set of guidelines for discerning the activity of the Holy Spirit: the Spirit is present and active wherever there is a growth in ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control’ (Galatians 5:22f.).