The Simplicity of Divine Love
Father Richard emphasizes the clarity and simplicity of trusting in divine grace:
The early English Franciscan brother William of Ockham (c. 1285–c. 1349) had an overriding principle that’s called “Occam’s razor” (using the Latin spelling of his name). As he put it, “The answer that demands the fewest assumptions is likely the correct one.” If his students wanted to discover the truth of something, he encouraged them to “shave” away as many assumptions, beliefs, or complicating explanations as possible. Great truth might well be mysterious, Ockham believed, but it is never complex. The better answer is almost always the simpler one was his conclusion.
I’ve found that mature prophets are those who simplify all questions of justice, reward, and punishment by a simple appeal to divine love. God’s infinite, self-giving care is the only needed assumption, cause, factor, or possible variable in the drama of creation. All else must be “shaved” away as creating needless and useless complexity—which only confuses the soul and the mind.
This is the nature of mature, mystical religion—simple and clear. We shave away as many religious assumptions and judgments as possible and reground religion on one lone conviction—a divine love that can only be experienced and not proved by rational logic. The prophets claim such divine experience and tell us that we can and must, too. This is their one absolute foundation and their radical center on which the entire rest of their message is built, and it makes them unlike any other kind of teacher. Anything that gets in the way of this divine and absolute love must be shaved away. This is the purpose of the sacred criticism practiced by prophets like Amos, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah.
The prophets—and Jesus—are the ones who have the courage to make God’s way of loving action the source, the goal, the criterion, and the standard for all human morality and behavior. The questions for all of us should eventually be What is God doing? and How does God act?
We cannot dismantle the violence we find in the world if we allow threats and promises to be the overarching frame of Christianity, or any religious or secular creed. This dualism—the idea of an infinite God being caught up in a naive reward/punishment worldview—must be undone by the deeper gospel of radical grace, unconditional love, and true respect, or nothing will ever change. The loving people I’ve met across the world seem to know that if it’s love at all, it has to be love for everybody. As soon as we begin to parcel it out, we’re not in the great field of love.
The prophets want us to love God above all else,
And be loved by God above all other partners.
Which will, and must, lead to a universal love.
The kind that sets out to rescue those we’d much
rather condemn.
That is the prophets’ hard-won conclusion,
Their tear-filled victory.
Is there any other kind of winning?__________________________________________________
5 on Friday; John Chaffee
1.
“God is the name of the blanket we throw over the mystery to give it a shape.”
– Barry Taylor, Former Road Manager for AC/DC
Most theology, or God-talk in the West and since the Enlightenment fell into “kataphatic theology.” In some ways, it was almost inevitable. As the world became more rationalistic and quantifiable, the church might take the bait and do the same thing.
However, long before “kataphatic theology” there was “apophatic theology.”
What are these two things?
“Kataphatic theology” discusses God through affirmative statements that we can rationally argue and “prove.” It emphasizes certainty and logic.
“Apophatic theology” involves discussing God through negative statements or avoiding what can be said. It emphasizes mystery and paradox.
This quote from Barry Taylor is in the “apophatic” stream of thought. How did you experience this quote from him? Did you disagree with it? Or did it feel like it scratched an itch on your back that has been there for a long time but nothing quite got at it?
Yeah.
Again, that is because we are probably overdoing it with that certainty and logic in the West.
2.
“There’s some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.”
– J.R.R. Tolkien, British Fantasy Author
A few months ago, I read that Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings resonates with people so much because it finds a way of re-enchanting the world. That epic fantasy tale of Frodo taking the Ring of Power to be destroyed reminds us of our responsibility to fight for whatever good is left in the world…
And to fight for that good, even if there is no certainty that we will return from the task.
3.
“We should measure the prosperity of a nation not by the number of millionaires, but by the absence of poverty, the prevalence of health, the efficiency of the public schools, and the number of people who can and do read worthwhile books.”
– W.E.B. Du Bois, American Sociologist
This past week, Tesla stock plummeted.
In response, the President of the United States did product placement for Tesla cars while on the front lawn of the White House.
This is something which has never been done before.
Just imagine that, a sitting President used his media influence to give a product bump to his most significant political donor (Elon Musk donated $288 million to Trump’s Presidential campaign).
I do not consider myself a liberal, neither do I consider myself a conservative. My faith demands that I think critically of any form of political power and follow the way of the Lamb, who shows a preferential option for the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger among us.
The only way forward is for better education, an increase of compassion, and the decision to show solidarity with those at the Bottom rather than those at the Top of a society.
This all reminds me of the words of Yahweh in Amos 5:21-25,
“I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
your assemblies are a stench to me.
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!”
4.
“Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.”
– Simone Weil, French Philosopher and Mystic
So, anything we give sustained attention to is prayer?
This leads me to think about how we give sustained attention to social media, to politics, to the endless outrage feedback loop we call the news, to binge watching shows.
Imagine if we gave one another unmixed attention, .
5.
“If you know that the reconciliation of all things is the grand design of the Creator of the universe, then your own individual and communal acts of faithfulness to one another become signs in this world of the world to come.”
– Fleming Rutledge, American Episcopal Priest
In other words, our small acts of kindness and love are apocalyptic.
But when I say this, I mean apocalyptic in a different sense than Hollywood.
Apocalyptic does not necessarily refer to calamity or destruction, because in its original use, it means that something is being revealed.
Once again, our small acts of kindness and love reveal what the Kingdom of God will be like.
