A Fractured Relationship: Faith and the Crisis of Culture.
McDermott, John M.
A FRACTURED RELATIONSHIP: FAITH AND THE CRISIS OF CULTURE. By
Thomas J. Norris. Dublin: Veritas, 2007. Pp. 267. 13.95 [euro].
Contemplating the current alienation of religion and Western
society, Norris seeks its cause, then its cure, in a properly understood
trinitarian theology that allows the depth of Christian living to
emerge. Borrowing from an array of philosophers and theologians, he
notes how, since 1680, religious images have disappeared from our
cultural imagination under the influence of the scientific,
technological revolution and the Enlightenment. These forces placed
autonomous human reason at the center of reality, then relativized that
reason. Religious wars contributed to revelation's displacement,
and in the Reformation's wake theology's quest for certitude and authority, expressed in thesis form, ignored its traditional role as
faith seeking understanding. Consequently reason was separated from or
opposed to religion, the latter newly relegated to the realm of personal
preferences, conjectures, and presumptions--what Newman dubbed
"weak reason." The sense of transcendence, mystery, truth, and
human solidarity was weakened or lost. Reason's deformation
resulted in today's "massive deculturation." Calling upon
Newman, Voegelin, and Lonergan, N. attempts to answer Kant and reverse
culture's preference for the natural sciences' "strong
reason" by showing how transcendent truth is necessary to ground
thought, an obvious insight, as postmodernity overwhelms academe.
Chapter 3, relying on Pope John Paul II's Fides et ratio, maintains
that, as religion is needed to reaffirm reason, reason supports
religion. Ultimately, in facing life's mysteries (suffering,
injustice, mortality, God's personality, and "why being rather
than nonbeing"), man's search from below must be met by divine
condescension; his self-centeredness must be crucified as he, like Mary,
remains open not to a faceless divinity, but to Love.
Part 2 reproposes the Christian message to meet the ends of
contemporary man's quest. Chapter 4 reflects on the history of
revelation, highlighting the experiences of Abraham, Moses, the
prophets, and the Suffering Servant. Only the incarnate Word's
recapitulation can reconcile the opposites in such a multifaceted
revelation. Jesus and God's kingdom are understood in terms of
Jesus' entire self-giving and the response resulting from it;
thereby Jesus unites those accepting him to the living God. His
"art of loving," which is without measure, creates a home for
all humankind. Chapter 6 considers Jesus crucified as the true face of
God; his self-emptying revises our preconceptions. He is only
intelligible in terms of the trinitarian communion of persons; this
involves personal ecstasy, a self-giving that the cross manifests in a
sinful world. Such a God does not repress human freedom but opens room
for its authentic expansion in sincere self-giving. Only thus can homo
technicus vacuus be fulfilled in a community mirroring the Trinity. This
Balthasarian theology is further articulated: "God is in himself
the very Event of Love, and ... being such he is Trinity!" (190).
The unity between Father and Son grounds believers' unity with
Jesus; a new "we" develops in the space opened among
trinitarian persons. This "interpersonality" replaces the
Cartesian ego as the starting point of thought and life. "Being is
relation, and revealed being is Trinitarian relationship" (205). A
final chapter emphasizes beauty's attraction and considers credible
alone the love that is the glory-beauty of the Trinity. N. traces the
loss of trinitarian perspective to Augustine, who, despite seeing
relation as essential, abandoned the personal love analogy to develop
the rational substance analogy; to Aquinas's psychological analogy;
and to the Carmelites who experienced the Trinity interiorly in
individual selves. This loss allegedly led to a practical nominalism and
mere monotheism. With Chiara Lubich, N. calls the church again to
trinitarian theology and communitarian spirituality.
Fascinating as are the writers to whom N. appeals, he offers more a
convergence of thinkers than a speculative reconciliation. Newman,
Lonergan, Balthasar, and various Protestant authors await their
synthesis. Though faith and reason must go together, their unity in
diversity is not elaborated. This synthetic lack results in
exaggerations--for example, "man, not the law, was the norm of
authentic piety for Jesus" (141, citing Kasper); and Jesus
allegedly addresses the Father and men alike, "You are everything,
I am nothing" (165, 196). But God is man's measure as the
Father is Jesus'. Again, in Jesus, God "descends into that
which is his very opposite and contradicts his very being" (186).
Does human nature contradict God's? If the kingdom attains full
realization in God's future (148), how can
"'unconditional choice" be demanded now (149)? For Jesus
and Paul the present is fullness, the future superabundance. The
Trinity's alleged exile from Christian life may be exaggerated: the
same Rahner who decried that absence accused the average Catholic of
Monophysitism. For Christians Scripture remains faith's principal
witness; they do not confuse it with theology. All in all, bringing
together so much current theology, N. encourages further reflection on
the mystery of divine love.
JOHN M. MCDERMOTT, S.J.
Sacred Heart Major Seminary, Detroit
