A SOCIETY of GODS? THEOSIS in the INKLINGS CALENDAR of EVENTS July 7Th Hall of Men: Fr

SYNAXIS n. a periodical gathering; purported to be a newsletter PUBLISHED by EIGHTH DAY INSTITUTE Transfiguration 2016 Vol. 3, No. 2 U.S. $10

A SOCIETY OF GODS? THEOSIS IN THE INKLINGS CALENDAR of EVENTS July 7th Hall of Men: Fr. Benedict Armitage on St. Irenaeus of Lyons 19th Sisters of Sophia: Summer Social 23rd Inklings Festival and Lecture Series 28th Hall of Men: D. P. Fahrenthold on Johann Georg Hamann August 11th Hall of Men: Kyle Nelson on Paul Hindemith 16th Sisters of Sophia: Martha Sturgill on Dorothy Day 25th Hall of Men: Fr. Benedict on St. Nicholas Cabasilas September 8th Hall of Men: Christopher Earles on Fr. Pavel Florensky 20th Sisters of Sophia: Anna Henry on Corrie ten Boom 22nd Hall of Men: Fr. Geoff Boyle on Holy Prophet Job October 4th Great Conversations: Black Lives Matter. What Is To Be Done? 13th Hall of Men: Dr. James Juhnke on Cornelius Wedel 18th Sisters of Sophia: Jeri Holladay, Stephanie Mann & Laurie Robinson on Frances Chesterton 27th Hall of Men: Brandon Buerge on St. Benedict November 10th Hall of Men: Erin Doom on St. Gregory Palamas 15th Sisters of Sophia: Ellen Awe on Mother Teresa December 2nd Pipes and Pints 9th Christmas Feast for Eighth Day Members January 12-14th Eighth Day Symposium A SOCIETY OF GODS? THEOSIS IN THE INKLINGS

EDITED BY Erin Doom & Tom Rhein

EIGHTH DAY INSTITUTE WICHITA, KANSAS 2016 TABLE of CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION A WORD FROM THE DIRECTOR by Erin Doom 4

PART I: EIGHTH DAY NEWSLETTER

THE WORK OF EIGHTH DAY INSTITUTE Symposium: Soil and Sacrament by Vigen Gurioan 8 Symposium: Theology as Sacramental Tapestry by Hans Boersma 9 Symposium: Work of Human Hands by Mike Aquilina 13 Hall of Men: George Herbert by Gene Veith 14 Sisters of Sophia: Simone Weil by Megan Taylor Gilstrap 16 Great Conversations: How Does Your Pastor Interpret Gn. 1-2? 18 Feast of St. Patrick: St. Patrick & the Renewal of Culture by Jackie Arnold 22

PART II: INKLINGS FESTIVAL INKLING REFLECTIONS East Meets West in C. S. Lewis by Ralph Wood 26 Chord of the Rings by Mike Aquilina 32 Theosis: Caveats and Concerns by Fr. Benedict Armitage 34 Everlasting Splendors by Ellen Awe 36 Allegory or Otherwise? Reading the Chronicles of Narnia by Leslie Baynes 38 Out of the Shire… by Brandon Buerge 40 Theosis and Authority by Patrick Callahan 41 Inklings of Theosis by Jon de Jong 42 Prepping for Life by David W. Fagerberg 43 Theosis in “Leaf by Niggle” by Dusty Gates 46 Man Fully Alive: Theosis as Human Vocation by Kenneth J. Howell 48 The Man Born to Be King: Dogmatic Drama in Dorothy Sayers by Stephanie Mann 50 Mere Christianity: Theosis in a British Way by Fr. David Vincent Meconi, S.J. 52 Does Empathy Connect to Theosis? by Dr. Mark Mosley 56 Tolkien in a Nutshell by Joseph Pearce 58 Theosis and Baptism by Dn. David Sebits 59 From St. Anthony to Elwin Ransom: Deification in C. S. Lewis by Dn. Aaron Taylor 61 Taking Manhood into God vs. Converting Godhead into Flesh by Matthew Umbarger 64

PART II: INKLINGS FESTIVAL cont. WORDS FROM THE FATHERS Promotion into God by St. Irenaeus of Lyons 66 The Inner Work of the Heart by St. Barsanuphius 66 On Spiritual Knowledge by St. Diadochos of Photiki 67 Ambiguum 7 & 10 by St. Maximus the Confessor 68 Homily On the Transfiguration by St. Gregory Palamas 70 In the Light and Conformed to Christ by St. Gregory Palamas 72 Hesychasm, Prayer & the Body by St. Gregory Palamas 74 The Theology of Light by Vladimir Lossky 76 SCHEDULE WITH ABSTRACTS 80

SPEAKER BIOS 82

SATURDAY CONVOCATION & NOTES 84

FLORILEGIUM 90

ECUMENICAL POSTLUDE 91 On Ecumenism by David Bentley Hart

EDITOR & DESIGNER Erin Doom MANAGING EDITOR Tom Rhein COPY EDITOR Jeffrey Reimer BOOK REVIEWS Eighth Day Books

SYNAXIS is published by Eighth Day Institute to promote the renewal of culture through samples from and reports on the work of Eighth Day Institute and book reviews, in conjunction with the notebooks for our annual Eighth Day Symposium and Inklings Festival. Synaxis is a bi-annual publication, to be published each winter and summer by Eighth Day Institute, 2836 E. Douglas, Wichita, KS, 67214. Annual subscriptions cost $20 ($30 for non-U.S. surface rate; $40 for non-U.S. airmail rate). Subscriptions are automatically included with all levels of Eighth Day Membership.

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Although Eighth Day Institute and Eighth Day Books have no formal aﬃliation or financial relationship, our support for each other is mutual and enthusiastic. Our mission of “renewing culture through faith and learning” is carried out through not-for-profit educational endeavors that seek to accomplish what Eighth Day Books does as a for-profit business through book sales: connect people to classics which shed light on ultimate questions and expose people to the teachings of the Holy Fathers. This edition of Synaxis is typeset in twelve point Garamond. Titles and heading are in Thomas Paine. Cover Image: Icon of the Transfiguration (14th Cen) Visoki Decani Monastery, Serbia. Adjacent Page: Icon of Christ with His Saints All other artwork by Blaise Rhein © 2016 WRITE THE EDITOR: We welcome letters of all sorts: encouragement, critique, thoughtful reflections on the renewal of culture, or any other sort of letter. Length should be limited to 300 words and may be edited for clarity and length. E-MAIL US: [email protected] WRITE US: 2836 E. Douglas, Wichita, KS, 67214 CALL US: 316.573.8413 ADVERTISE WITH US: [email protected]

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. ~ C. S. Lewis board of directors Rev. Geoff Boyle - Lutheran Steve Buxton - Orthodox Steve Cohlmia - Orthodox Erin Doom - Orthodox Phillip Elder - Reformed Warren Farha - Orthodox Jinny Garvey - Catholic Alex Kice - Evangelical Dr. Jim Logan - Evangelical Fr. Paul O’Callaghan - Orthodox Tom Rhein - Catholic Dn. David Sebits - Orthodox Martha Sturgill - Orthodox Fr. Eric Weldon - Catholic

officers Tom Rhein - President Jim Logan - Vice-President Martha Sturgill - Secretary Steve Buxton - Treasurer

staff Erin Doom - Founder & Director

eighth day institute Headquarters at The Ladder 2836 E. Douglas Wichita, Ks 67214 www.eighthdayinstitute.org 316.573.8413 [email protected]

PART I eighth day newsletter SYNAXIS 3.2

INTRODUCTION amazing. I am humbled and extremely grateful to all of you who have donated your time and finances to carry this work forward. Because of A WORD FROM THE you, our faithful Eighth Day Members, our work DIRECTOR of renewing culture has been able to thrive. And because of you, it continues to develop. As we look forward, I am personally extremely : excited. The initial impulse for Eighth Day Erin Doom Institute was an idea to create a one-year gap program for students between high-school and college (adults welcomed also). The idea grew out IGHTH DAY Institute was officially of my personal experience while serving as a incorporated on April 18, 2008. This missionary in Latin America for the first three E means we recently completed our eighth years of my twenties. You can find an early year of operations. I’m proud of what we’ve articulation of the vision on our website. We’ve accomplished in those eight years. been calling it the Catechetical Academy and, with Our work has steadily grown. As one of our your continued support, it’s time to begin fleshing original endeavors, The Hall of Men has been, and out this vision. continues to be, a foundation for all of our work. I’m also excited about our Eighth Day In addition to various lectures, language courses, Ecumenism. For the last two years I’ve been film series, and retreats, we’ve organized the Eighth emphasizing a “Dialogue of Love.” I think we’ve Day Symposium for six years now (the seventh is in done a good job at embodying and facilitating this. the works and we’ll be announcing the theme and As we continue forward I’d like to propose an speakers when we open registration early this fall). equal emphasis on the “Dialogue of Truth.” As we We’ve organized and celebrated the Feast of St. all know, differences and divisions are real. We Patrick for the last seven years, and the Feast of the can’t pretend they aren’t. The question is, how Nativity of our Lord and Savior for the last six years. shall we deal with them? In a letter between the We’ve published five issues of Synaxis (in various Reformed theologian T. F. Torrance and the forms) and five issues of A Word from the Fathers. Orthodox theologian Fr. Georges Florovsky (Jan. This past year, we launched The Inklings Festival & 25, 1950), while discussing their different views Lectures, The Sisters of Sophia and Great Conversations. about Church Order and the Eucharist, Torrance If you haven’t been able to attend any of these exclaims: “I do wish I could spend several days events, you can get a taste in the first half of this with you going over all the relevant passages in the publication where we offer samples of our work Scriptures and the Fathers of the first four from the past six months. You can also become an centuries on these matters—that is the only way to Eighth Day Member to access digital archives. come to a closer understanding, is it not?” I Financially, we are more stable than we’ve ever believe Torrance is right. Therefore, in the coming been. Just two years ago we were supported by a months and years, I intend to facilitate more mere 26 members. At that point, we honestly opportunities for Catholics, Orthodox and didn’t know if we would be able to continue our Protestants to spend time together actually operations. Since then, our membership has studying the scriptures and the fathers. I hope increased more than six times. This is absolutely you’ll join me. Looking back, we’re proud of our achievements and humbled by your support. Erin Doom is the Founder and Director of Eighth Day Institute. Looking forward, we’re excited to develop the He lives in Wichita, KS with his wife Christiane and their four Catechetical Academy and to facilitate the children, Caleb Michael, Hannah Elizabeth, Elijah Blaise, and “Dialogue of Truth”. But what about the present? Esther Ruth

4 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016

What about this second annual Inklings Festival? Controversy, from the Greek word hesychia which Last year’s inaugural Inklings Festival was means stillness or silence). very successful. This year promises to be even To succinctly summarize (and over-simplify) better. We have much more space, more the debate, Fr. John Meyendorff describes the life opportunities to cool down, a spectacular line-up of Palamas, an Athonite monk and later of seminars on culture and craftsmanship, and Archbishop of Thessalonica, as dedicated to we’ve worked hard to make it even more family defending one basic truth: “The living God is friendly. Plus, we have Ralph Wood! As some of accessible to personal experience, because He you may know, Dr. Wood was such a hit at our shared His own life with humanity.” But second annual Eighth Day Symposium on the defending this simple truth involved a complex Inklings (“What’s Wrong with the World? An debate about a range of other topics such as: the Inkling of a Response”) we brought him back the role of philosophy in salvation, methodology of following year to present on Dostoevsky. Now prayer (with an emphasis on the role of the body), we’ve got him a third time to present yet again on the distinction between the essence and the the Inklings. uncreated energies of God, knowledge of God Themes for the Symposium and Inklings (cataphatic and apophatic theology), and the Festival are usually chosen by committee. Not this experience of God in His uncreated light. A time. When I invited Dr. Wood to speak, he was serious ecumenical discussion of theosis, then, must not only excited to join us, but he already knew involve a deeper conversation than a mere what he wanted to speak about. And I loved his affirmation of the famous dictum by St. proposal. Consequently, we are gathered to Athanasius the Great: “God became man so that discuss theosis, a theme dear to Eastern Orthodox man might become God.” Christians but not widely known or understood Unfortunately, we won’t have time here at beyond Orthodoxy. In recent years, however, this the festival to go much deeper. Three hours of has been changing. Indeed, theosis has even lectures do not allow us to heed Torrance’s wise become somewhat of a popular topic among council to spend a couple days studying the Catholics and Protestants. To retrieve a doctrine scriptures and the fathers to reach a common that is grounded in the scriptures and affirmed in understanding of theosis. But we can initiate a the church fathers, especially the Greek fathers, is conversation and become aware of the wider a very good thing. But this doctrine offers us an context of the doctrine and the controversies opportunity to transition from the “Dialogue of surrounding it. And we can continue the Love” to the “Dialogue of Truth”. conversation after this weekend. Please heed Although clearly affirmed in the scriptures Torrance’s advice: find a friend or a group of and the fathers, the doctrine of theosis was not fully friends (try to find an Orthodox, Catholic and articulated and synthesized until the fourteenth Protestant!) and read and discuss the Words from the century in the writings of St. Gregory Palamas. St. Fathers included in this volume. And then move Gregory was canonized by the Orthodox Church, beyond the short excerpts and read and discuss St. less than a decade after his death, and his work Gregory Palamas. I suggest you begin with the was affirmed in a series of councils during his Classics of Western Spirituality edition of The Triads lifetime (1341-1351). Orthodox Christians accept and supplement it with any number of secondary these councils as authoritative (some even refer to books reviewed herein by Eighth Day Books. them as the Fifth Council of Constantinople or For now, however, let us listen to St. Basil the Ninth Ecumenical Council); Roman Catholics the Great (d. 379) and St. Gregory Palamas (d. do not; most Protestants are simply unaware. 1359): These councils, along with Palamas, were responding to a controversy about prayer and the When a sunbeam falls on a transparent vision of God (called the Hesychastic substance, the substance itself becomes

renewing culture through faith and learning 5 SYNAXIS 3.2

brilliant, and radiates light from itself. So too Spirit-bearing souls, illumined by Him, finally become spiritual themselves, and their grace is sent forth to others. From this comes knowledge of the future, understanding of mysteries, apprehension of hidden things, distribution of wonderful gifts, heavenly citizenship, a place in the choir of angels, endless joy in the presence of God, becoming like God, and, the highest of all desires, becoming God. ~St. Basil the Great

He who said that the angels contemplate the eternal glory—I mean St. Gregory Nazianzus—has shown that it is an error to identify the eternal glory of God with the imparticipable essence of God. We have here a proof that the eternal glory of God is participable, for that which in God is visible in some way, is also participable. But the great Denys has also said: “The divine intelligences move in a circular movement, united to the unoriginate and endless rays of the Beautiful and Good.” It is clear, therefore, that these unoriginate and endless rays are other than the imparticipable essence of God, and different (albeit inseparable) from the essence. In the first place, that essence is one, even though the rays are many, and are sent out in a manner appropriate to those participating in them, being multiplied according to the varying capacity of those receiving them. . . . Furthermore, the essence is superessential, and I believe no one would deny that these rays are its energies or energy, and that one may participate in them, even though the essence remains beyond participation. ~St. Gregory Palamas May the unoriginate and endless rays of the Beautiful and Good—the participable glory of God—fall upon us, illumine us, and make us brilliant, everlasting splendors. Indeed, let us become more like God, and dare we say with St. Basil and St. Gregory, become God. :

6 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org EIGHTH DAY INSTITUTE would like to express its deepest gratitude to Church of the Resurrection Charismatic Episcopal Church and to St. George Orthodox Christian Cathedral for their financial support of our work. Thank you!!! If your church is interested in contributing to the renewal of our culture, please contact our Director for details and perks, which includes hosting EDI events.

St. George Cathedral Welcomes

Eighth Day Institute for The Second Annual Inklings Festival

CONVIVIALITY. CONTEMPLATION. ILLUMINATION SYNAXIS 3.2

EIGHTH DAY SYMPOSIUM own abundant grace and joy. In the garden, our biblical faith, unadulterated by foreign metaphysics and spiritualities, forever SOIL AND SACRAMENT reminds us that we are earth-women and earth-men. The sky is our cover. The air we breathe, the water : we drink, the warmth and the light of the sun are the sources of our life and sustenance that God provides. Vigen Guroian Our true home is not an ethereal, disembodied heaven, but an earthly paradise. Gardening is a way HE GARDEN is a sacrament—a door that of reclaiming a deep knowledge of creation and the Christ has opened for us by which He makes God who brought it into existence. The gardener’s T His presence known to us; therefore, it is a sense of place increases over time and grows richer portal to divine life. God’s creation is epiphanic. By with every year because he resides in a place familiar it, He makes Himself known to us. Thus, we may in a world that by our own misguided doings grows speak of the world—the garden—as gift. increasingly unfamiliar. Where there is little permanence, the garden provides a reminder and a The garden is a physical space. It is a real promise that we will be given a place that is location, but it is also a space that we cannot permanent and everlastingly filled with life. The completely control. It is unusual because it is not absence of a sense of place is completely related to completely wild on the one hand, but it is not the loss of a sense of wonder and appreciation for completely controlled by us on the other. Gardening the earth as our home. The garden renews the teaches us the importance of having a body and yet gardener’s wonder at that place which is our place. beckons us to retreat bodily. This is a place which The world is the matter, the material of one all- offers us a living metaphor of scripture, and it draws embracing Eucharist and we are priests of God’s us into a profound contemplation of mystery if we cosmic sacrament. allow it to. It is not enough to stand in view of the The garden is a reminder that we belong to the garden. If it is to be revelatory of God’s presence, we earth and that our redemption includes the earth must be present within it. If we are rightly disposed, from which we and all the creatures have come, by if we make our kneeling and labor also prostration which we are sustained, and through which God and prayer, then the garden will reward us with peace continues to act for our salvation. and with the spirit of life—with beauty—paradise’s :

The following three pieces are excerpted from the plenary lectures at the sixth annual Eighth Day Symposium on January 14-16, 2016.

Life Is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition By Wendell Berry

Berry’s gentlemanly prose is a velvet glove clothing a rather devastating critique of E.O. Wilson’s Consilience, and its attempt to subsume all human knowledge and experience — artistic and religious — within an “imperialistic materialism.” Berry brings together a sympathy with religious experience, intimacy with the natural order, and an easy literary genius to integrate the “two cultures” of science and the humanities when they should be integrated, and to separate them when they should be separated. We were tempted to start quoting him, but then realized that we would simply be reprinting the whole book in our own pages. We can only tell you that reading this book will shed light on what it means to live in the modern world without amputating either our rational or spiritual antennae. 153 pp. paper $14.95

8 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016

THEOLOGY AS SACRED Congar, along with Henri de Lubac and others, was part of a group of French Catholics who had TAPESTRY caused quite the uproar in the Catholic Church in the mid-20th century. I didn’t learn about the so- called nouvelle théologie until much later. As an aside, : the term nouvelle théologie is a real misnomer, since the theologians that we today know as nouvelle Hans Boersma theologians wanted to be anything but new. They intended to engage in a ressourcement, a retrieval, of BOUT 12 YEARS ago, when I was the pre-modern tradition—the church fathers, teaching at an evangelical liberal arts medieval theology—in the face of what they saw A university, Trinity Western University in as a far too strictly rational approach to theology, Langley, British Columbia, I joined a few friends which had come to dominate Catholicism, and colleagues in an ecumenical reading group, especially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth made up of Evangelicals, Catholics, and centuries. Orthodox, a group that we called By the time I was finished my research on ‘Paradosis’ (Tradition). One of the books we nouvelle théologie, I had read lots of material not only discussed during our informal conversations was from Yves Congar and Henri de Lubac, but also Yves Congar’s Tradition and Traditions. That rather from Congar’s teacher, Marie-Dominique Chenu; imposing tome, written by a 20th-century French and I had read students of de Lubac, such as Hans Dominican theologian, is impressive not just in its Urs von Balthasar, Jean Daniélou, and Henri scholarship but also in the opening that it creates Bouillard. I won’t go into all of them today, but let for Catholic-Protestant dialogue. As a Protestant, I me just say that as an Evangelical I have been so sensed that I was in the presence of a Catholic impressed by the resonances that I felt with these scholar who truly understood non-Catholics and, Catholic thinkers. Here they were, often bravely what is more, who had a great deal of appreciation resisting the rationalistic tendencies of the for them. dominant Catholic school of thought, almost all of Congar has a way of dissolving false them losing their jobs as a result of their writing dilemmas with regard to the Scripture-Tradition and teaching, and nonetheless persisting while relationship. One of the things he makes clear is submitting to church discipline when it came. And that in an important sense, Tradition is simply the not only were they persisting, but they were Church’s authoritative interpretation of Scripture actually making an impact—such an impact that itself. That is to say, Congar doesn’t treat Scripture when the Second Vatican Council came around in and Tradition as two separate sources of 1962, it was these theologians that shaped in many revelation, the way I had always been taught ways some of the main documents of the Council. Catholics look at things. In other words, Congar’s I couldn’t help but think: if it’s true that these treatment doesn’t take some doctrines (for theologians represent the official position of the example, original sin) from the Bible, while Catholic Church, if these theologians continue to arguing that other doctrines (for example, the shape Catholic theology today, then much of what immaculate conception of Mary) come from some I always used to think about Catholicism no kind of secret tradition, completely separate from longer quite holds. Yes, we may still have Scripture. No, for Congar Scripture itself is the disagreements, but on a number of major issues, ultimate norm of authority in the church; and we would actually be a lot closer together than I tradition, you could say, is simply the way in which would ever have thought possible. people have interpreted Scripture over the centuries. The Cultural Significance of nouvelle théologie What I didn’t know at the time is that What I think is the most important thing

renewing culture through faith and learning 9 SYNAXIS 3.2 about nouvelle théologie is the potential of a articulate what we both see as we’re looking at the sacramental approach to reality to shape, or rather tree. Once we take that step—of saying that the to re-shape, our cultural heritage—with immediate natural order is neutral, that is to say, not consequences for the soil in which we have our determined by the realities of which our faith place. Let me unpack this a little bit. In his book, speaks—it becomes easy to see that social Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, my friend James K. A. arrangements, political ideals, and economic Smith talks about theological developments in the models are also regarded as neutral. What really late Middle Ages that affected not just theology allows us to live together in society, so we think, is itself, but that led to a whole new cultural the common, neutral terrain of purely natural constellation of ideas and realities. Smith speaks of realities. a paradigm shift in Western culture that gave birth Second, not only do we now regard the to remarkably new, quite unparalleled accounts of natural order as neutral, but we inevitably also the world and social relationships. These think of it as strictly autonomous. That is to say, philosophical and theological shifts gave birth to these neutral public realities do not depend—or so new social arrangements, new political ideals, new we think—on the supernatural. After all, if natural economic models, and new accounts of human realities are self-enclosed, then they must also nature, all of which were slowly globalized function in a fully self-enclosed fashion. Any sort through the exportation of liberal democracy and of purposes that we may construe in politics or capitalist economics. economics have nothing to do with the I won’t, in today’s lecture, discuss each of supernatural end of the beatific vision. When we these developments, though the political ideals, talk about heaven, or about the beatific vision, economic models, and accounts of human nature we’re talking merely about private ideas, about operative in modernity have obvious Sunday stuff. But when we’re focusing on the consequences for the way we view our national debt or about economic trade relationship to the soil. I will get back to that in a arrangements, then we’re dealing with the moment. First, it is necessary briefly to mention Monday-to-Friday stuff, with neutral, public life, what I think underlies these new arrangements of which is quite independent and autonomous from modernity. Every single one of them stems from a any sort of perspective that the Christian faith key assumption about the natural realities of the might provide. That is to say, we live as if natural world that we observe around us. The assumption realities were purely immanent, strictly self- is that these realities are purely natural. The soil is enclosed, and, therefore, entirely autonomous. So, just that: soil—nothing else. The soil has no the two consequences of a purely natural world inherent connection with anything that exceeds its are that we understand such a world to be both own, natural being. In no way does it depend for neutral and strictly autonomous. its continued existence on greater, transcendent When you look at reality in this way is, you realities. The created order has become a purely get a split-level universe. The bottom level is the natural order, radically separate from the life of public, neutral, autonomous realm of nature, with God. its own, independent processes, concerns, and The results of this assumption of an order of aims. The top level is the private, subjective realm pure nature (pura natura) are at least twofold: first, of the supernatural. Think of what happens when we now assume that the realities around us you no longer hold that the natural world—the (including the soil in which we are rooted), soil of our existence—has a link with anything because they are purely natural, are also neutral. A beyond itself, when you have come to believe that tree is a tree is tree. It doesn’t matter whether you the aims of the natural realm are purely horizontal, look at the tree or if I look at the tree; we both see have nothing to do with the eternal purpose of exactly the same thing, and by using scientific eventually seeing the face of God. There’s a funny language we can both adequately and fully kind of irony that takes place here. We have

10 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016 assumed that the world around us is purely nature of truth and our understanding of theology. natural, strictly autonomous; that its beauty, its If natural realities—whether we’re talking creation, truth, its goodness—its very being itself—is self- history, Old Testament, or plain old human truth enclosed, doesn’t derive from anywhere else. If claims, it doesn’t matter—if these natural realities that is true, how do we determine how to care for are not just neutral, objective, purely natural and the world around us? Where do we find the norms self-enclosed realties, but if in a sacramental way by which to decide how to treat it? It seems to me they participate in heaven itself, then this has no coincidence that environmental implications for the way in which we look at mismanagement has become a huge problem in human truth claims. It means, on the one hand, a the modern world. It’s almost inevitable: if the recognition of the limits of human truth claims. natural order is purely autonomous and has no After all, while there is, as it were, a “real link to anything transcendent, of course you treat presence” in our truth claims—our statements of it as you see it: a collection of purely quantifiable truth really do participate sacramentally in the objects, whose goodness and beauty reach no Truth (capital T), the Word himself—this further than themselves. participation is actually quite provisional. We can no longer say of human propositions or of Truth and Theology in a Sacramental World theological systems—no matter how carefully Perhaps you think: surely we are far removed constructed—that they have the final say on the by now from the French Catholic movement of truth. The Truth with a capital T is always greater nouvelle théologie. But actually, the reason I am than our merely sacramental sharing in it. As interested in nouvelle théologie lies precisely in these Anselm, the great 11th-century theologian put it in cultural issues. What I do in the second part of my his Proslogion: book Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry is point to five theological Do Thou help me for Thy goodness’ sake! areas to show how in each of these, the nouvelle Lord, I sought Thy face; Thy face, Lord, will I theologians refused to acknowledge a separate, seek; hide not Thy face far from me (Psalm purely natural order. In each of these five areas, 27:8). Free me from myself toward Thee. they asked the question: if it’s true that created Cleanse, heal, sharpen, enlighten the eye of my realities are sacraments, if it’s true that they exist mind, that it may behold thee. Let my soul recover its strength, and with all its by way of participation in the eternal Word of understanding let it strive toward Thee, O God, in the Son of God who has become Lord. What art Thou, Lord, what art Thou? incarnate for us; in other words, if it is true that What shall my heart conceive Thee to be? He is the true reality, and that everything else finds its being in created and contingent dependence on Anselm knows his understanding is limited. Him, then what does that do to our understanding Human truth claims never reach strict of the various areas of Christian doctrine? Put correspondence with reality; they are never more differently, the nouvelle theologians believed that than a sacramental participation in the eternal retrieving the sacramental tapestry of the church Word of God Himself. A sacramental fathers and the medieval theologians requires us to understanding of truth thus exposes modern renew our focus on Christ in every area of claims of full comprehension and control over the doctrine—for all this talk about participation and natural world as a false arrogation of divine about sacraments is ultimately talk about Christ. knowledge. In my book I trace five specific areas where I At the same time, a sacramental view of think we can learn from nouvelle théologie—the truth also implies a firm ‘no’ to skepticism—the Eucharist, tradition, interpretation of Scripture, great bane of our postmodern world. Skepticism truth, and theology. In the little bit of time that we despairs of the possibility that human statements have left, I want to focus on the last two: the of truth might participate in the truth of the reality that they seek out. It seems to me that many

renewing culture through faith and learning 11 SYNAXIS 3.2 contemporary Christians are right in reacting contemplation of heavenly realities. When against the overconfidence of modernity. But we theology claims its priestly role (leading people to need to be cautious where to put our next step, a deeper participation in the life of Christ), it is for the radical skepticism of post-modernity is far likely that as Christians we will also more and more debilitating than the problems that we faced more come to view our relationship to the soil as with modernity. If we have no participation in having a priestly function—so that as priests we truth whatsoever, then we’re simply floating on offer the entire cosmos back to the One who gave the flotsam of the wreckage of modernity. Surely it to us as a symbol of His presence. the Christian faith is more hopeful than that. Theology as knowledge of God—scientia dei— : according to the pre-modern perspective advocated by the nouvelle theologians, is participation in divine self-knowledge. It’s not an attempt to grasp God, and it certainly ought not be an attempt to control God. On a participatory understanding, theology takes on a priestly role. The theologian initiates people deeper into the sacramental reality of the life of God. That’s why theology can never be a merely academic enterprise. Theology will never feel at home in the neutral public sphere of the academy. Theology is a discipline that begins in faith and ends in the beatific vision. Theology leads to heavenly participation. I hope you understand me well. I am not advocating a lack of academic rigor here. What I am suggesting, however, is that theology is primarily an ecclesial discipline that leads to

Sanctifying the World: the Augustinian Life and Mind of Christopher Dawson by Bradley J. Birzer

“This scholar of culture and history was one of the most counter-cultural of all intellectuals,” writes Bradley Birzer in his sympathetic biography of Christopher Dawson. “As the world rejected God, Dawson embraced God. As the world rejected myth, Dawson embraced myth. As the world rejected . . . prophets, Dawson attempted to speak as one.” Dawson, a twentieth-century misfit who remained in academic obscurity until the end of his career, stood at the center of the Catholic literary revival in England and America that preceded Vatican II. A “Christian humanist,” he shared his contemporary Tolkien’s love of dreams and the imagination, and his hatred of fascism, communism, and ideology. He took an Augustinian view of western civilization that found God’s purpose visible in history, and pursued with indefatigable energy the mission of restoring Christendom amidst the failures of modernity. Birzer draws on Dawson’s books and letters, news stories, and interviews with Dawson and those who knew him to create this “intellectual and spiritual” biography. His engaging prose takes us inside Dawson’s mind and thought, serving with equal facility to introduce new readers to Dawson’s legacy and to offer fresh insight and inspiration to the writers’ many devoted readers. 316 pp. cloth $30.00

12 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016

WORK OF HUMAN HANDS And that’s my earliest memory. It’s of a man who worked and whose particular fragrance was coal dust and petroleum. It’s an image of a man : whose work was sacrificial, and who gave and Mike Aquilina gave and kept on giving until he had nothing left. And when he had nothing left, he fell into the form of our God, whom I knew well — even at KNOW A BIT about work. If I haven’t done age three — from divine worship. In our churches as much of it as I should — and if I’ve often Jesus was held up cruciform before our astonished I been guilty of shirking my duty — still, I’ve gaze. watched it up close. My father, through most of Even now, some fifty years later, whenever I his adult life, was a union welder for a mining read Jesus’ words about “laying down one’s life,” company. He didn’t retire until he was almost 80. it’s a vivid image for me. It’s my father in his work My mom was a union seamstress in a factory that clothes, out cold on the floor of that little mass-produced beautiful dresses for women who apartment on 150 South Main Street in Pittston, were more well-off than union seamstresses. Pennsylvania. They were devout and intelligent believers, That image is for me a holy icon of Christ, living in a parish serviced by old-country priests the laborer still scorned by the world, who knows from a religious order that was steeped in the happiness and fulfillment because He gives biblical and liturgical renewal movements of the Himself entirely in love, holding nothing back. My early twentieth century. We were poor, but we kids father’s blackened hands tell me much of what I never knew we were poor. Our parents always need to know about soil and sacrament. seemed grateful to have work. And it’s their work Jesus worked with His hands, and so He that gives me whatever knowledge or authority I bestowed the supreme dignity on human labor. have to speak on the subject. For Christians who know union with Christ, labor If I’ve learned anything in life, I learned it is not merely good, it is holy. It is an imitation of from my father. My earliest memories are of him Christ and a participation with God in the act of coming home from work. I was his late-in-life creation. baby. He and mom were 47 when I was born. So This is far more than a work ethic. It is a in those memories I’m around 3 and he’s around profound conversion of life. We have been 50. created for this. We have been called for this. We Pop was a welder, as I said, and he worked are employed for nothing less than this purpose. on heavy machinery for a mining operation. He : worked long hours at his job, and sometimes he had to travel to distant sites. Sometimes he came home late, and usually he came home exhausted. I’ll bet he wanted nothing more than to collapse beneath the newspaper. But that’s not what he did. The first thing he’d do was go to the kitchen sink and scrub the motor oil and coal grime from his hands. And then he’d go into the living room and join in whatever game I happened to be playing. Our routine was consistent. We’d push the Tonka Trucks or stack the Lincoln Logs, taking our turns and making our plans. And at a certain point in the game, I’d look over and see my father, fast asleep with his arms outstretched.

renewing culture through faith and learning 13 SYNAXIS 3.2

HALL OF MEN Is the year only lost to me? Have I no bays to crown it, GEORGE HERBERT A wreath of bay leaves is what the poets : were crowned with. No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted? Gene Veith All wasted? Not so, my heart; but there is fruit, And thou hast hands. ANY OF Herbert’s poems are about Recover all thy sigh-blown age affliction, his struggles with On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute M tuberculosis, and his frustrations with Of what is fit and not. the challenges of his tiny parish. One of the most famous and astonishing of these is called “The As a pastor he’s always weighing what is Collar”. Let’s read it. right or not. Just forget that! Forsake thy cage, I struck the board, and cried, “No more; Thy rope of sands, I will abroad! Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee Good cable, to enforce and draw, You can hear him saying, “No more! I’m And be thy law, done! I’ve had it and I’m leaving!” This is a poem While thou didst wink and wouldst not see. about wanting to give up his ministry. Give up the faith, even! Here he’s really questioning... He’s in a cage, bound by the rope of his priesthood. But it’s just What? shall I ever sigh and pine? sand, which his own thoughts have made. Is all of My lines and life are free, free as the road, his Christianity true, or just something he’s You see, he knew he was a great poet. Here deluded himself about his whole life? Why keep he was, writing these amazing poems and not shutting his eyes to the truth? letting anyone see them as long as he lived. Willing Away! take heed; to let them be burned, even. He’s thinking here, “I I will abroad. could be a great poet. I could be famous. What am Call in thy death’s-head there; tie up thy fears;

I doing here in this tiny church where no one At his time is was not uncommon for priests understands me? I’m wasting my time…” to keep a skull on their desks to remind them that Loose as the wind, as large as store. this will all pass away. You’re going to be dead a Shall I be still in suit? lot longer than you’re going to be alive, and that Have I no harvest but a thorn To let me blood, and not restore should give you perspective. Here he tells himself, What I have lost with cordial fruit? “That’s so depressing! Get rid of that! Forget your fears and really live!” The only fruit he’s getting are thorns. He’s He that forbears grabbing them and his hands are bleeding. He To suit and serve his need thinks, “Yeah, there’s better fruit than this…” Deserves his load.”

Sure there was wine He’s anticipating modern pop psychology! Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn You’ve got to look to your needs first! Do what’s Before my tears did drown it. right for you! Then you can think about others. But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild At every word, Adapted from a Hall of Men presentation on George Herbert on Methought I heard one calling, Child! March 31, 2016

14 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016

And I replied My Lord. The Collar

What’s happened in those last two lines? I struck the board, and cried, “No more; Who is it that’s calling? Who has broken into his I will abroad! rebellion, his ranting and raving? “My Lord!” What? shall I ever sigh and pine? Notice the restoration of the relationship. The My lines and life are free, free as the road, rebellion simply melts away. You see it in the form of the poem, even. Up until that point his verse is Loose as the wind, as large as store. scattered, disordered, like the chaos in his mind. Shall I be still in suit? The lines all rhyme somewhere, but the form is Have I no harvest but a thorn out of order, imitating its content. But the final To let me blood, and not restore stanzas return to harmony, his life clicks back into What I have lost with cordial fruit? place as he hears the call and turns his gaze back Sure there was wine to the Lord. And yet, he has at least one more Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn surprise for us, and for himself, maybe. As you Before my tears did drown it. analyze the structure of the individual lines, you find that the outward chaos of the rhyme and Is the year only lost to me? verse hides an order in the underlying meter, Have I no bays to crown it, almost like there was a plan, a purpose for his No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted? rebellion, even if he couldn’t see it. All wasted? Even the language of his rebellion is Not so, my heart; but there is fruit, sacramental, turning his phrasing back upon itself And thou hast hands. as the Lord calls him: The board, an altar; the Recover all thy sigh-blown age road, the rood (cross); the wind, the Spirit; the thorns and blood, our Lord on the Cross; fruit and On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute corn, the Eucharistic elements (corn in England is Of what is fit and not. Forsake thy cage, wheat). It just goes on and on. Thy rope of sands, This poem is about a calling, a vocation. And Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee vocations can be extremely frustrating and Good cable, to enforce and draw, wearisome sometimes, because they’re lived in the And be thy law, grind of our everyday life. But what is it that While thou didst wink and wouldst not see. makes a calling meaningful? Not the calling, but Away! take heed; The Caller. I will abroad. Call in thy death’s-head there; tie up thy fears; : He that forbears To suit and serve his need Deserves his load.” But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild At every word, Methought I heard one calling, Child! And I replied My Lord.

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SISTERS OF SOPHIA she found it so beautiful. Through it, she had an intense experience of the presence of the love of God for her, “like that which one can read in the SIMONE WEIL smile on a beloved face.” Simone never became a member of the : Church, though she loved the lives of the saints and the Catholic liturgy. One of her few friends Megan Taylor Gilstrap was a Catholic priest, Fr. Perrin, to whom she wrote many letters, including this one, in which EFORE I BEGIN to speak about Simone she attempted to explain why she was unable to Weil, I’d like to read a poem that I believe do so: B encapsulates her journey and her spirit well, one that she especially loved. It’s by the I owe you the truth, at the risk of shocking English poet George Herbert: you, and it gives me the greatest pain to shock you. I love God, Christ, and the Catholic faith LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back, as much as it is possible for so miserably Guilty of dust and sin. inadequate a creature to love them. I love the But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack saints through their writings and what is told From my first entrance in, of their lives — apart from some whom it is Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning impossible for me to love fully or consider as If I lack’d anything. saints. I love the six or seven Catholics of

genuine spirituality whom chance has led me ‘A guest,’ I answer’d, ‘worthy to be here:’ Love said, ‘You shall be he.’ to meet in the course of my life. I love the ‘I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear, Catholic liturgy, hymns, architecture, rites, and I cannot look on Thee.’ ceremonies. But I have not the slightest love Love took my hand and smiling did reply, for the Church in the strict sense of the word, ‘Who made the eyes but I?’ apart from its relation to all these things that I do love. […] All I can say is that if such a love ‘Truth, Lord; but I have marr’d them: let my shame constitutes a condition of my spiritual progress Go where it doth deserve.’ which I am unaware of, or if it is part of my ‘And know you not,’ says Love, ‘Who bore the blame?’ vocation, I desire that it may someday be ‘My dear, then I will serve.’ granted to me. ‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste my meat.’ So I did sit and eat. What’s interesting is that many of the things

she described do make up the church. I think her I share this poem, because much of Simone’s life demonstrated that she really did love the life was not lived in a Christian context, and I Church, but she grappled with the particulars. She think sometimes people tend to mislabel her or also felt strongly that God wanted her to remain misunderstand her. Her life is a difficult one to outside of the Church, that somehow she was wrap your mind around, and I think if you needed there and was somehow not specifically understand the poem, you can better understand needed within the Church. As she put it, her. As I mentioned, she did not spend most of I have the essential need, and I think I can say her life as a Christian, being the daughter of the vocation, to move among men of every agnostic Jews. But she came to Christ —in her class and complexion, mixing with them and own way — late in her short life, in part through sharing their life and outlook, so far that is to reciting this poem over and over, simply because say as conscience allows, merging into the crowd and disappearing among them, so that they show themselves as they are, putting off Adapted from a Sisters of Sophia presentation on Simone Weil on all disguises with me. It is because I long to March 15, 2016

16 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016

know them so as to love them just as they are. For if I do not love them as they are, it will not be they whom I love, and my love will be unreal. For Simone, real love meant a reconsideration of our idea of obligations and rights. The world is obsessed with its rights, but Simone stressed that we must begin with our obligations to one another, as persons, simply because we are people. Because we are all people, it’s our obligation to go out of our way to help anyone in need. Instead of letting the boxes we put around ourselves and others become walls between us, Simone challenges us to simply ask them, “What are you going through?” :

The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind by Simone Weil

In his preface, T. S. Eliot recommends a slow and careful reading of Miss Weil lest we become distracted “by considering how far, and at what points, we agree or disagree . . . what matters is to make contact with a great soul.” He goes on to say that Simone Weil might very well have become a saint considering the great obstacles she had to overcome and the great capacity she seemed to have had for overcoming them. Asked by the Free French in London to write a report on the possibility of regeneration in France after World War II, Weil wrote this book—considered by many to be her most well-balanced and intellectually persuasive—calling on her fellow countrymen to begin recovering their spiritual roots and suggesting how this might be done. At the core of her thought is the centrality of physical labor in establishing and developing spiritual solvency. Both social stability and a well-ordered life depend not only on the body’s exertion but also on a people “accustomed to love truth.” Eliot categorizes Weil’s work as a “prolegomena to politics which politicians seldom read,” exhorting the young to study it “before their leisure has been lost and their capacity for thought destroyed.” We concur (though not confining her readership to the young alone) and offer Weil herself to close: “To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.” 298 pp. paper $20.95 also by Simone Weil… Waiting for God 227 pp. paper $13.99 Gravity and Grace 236 pp. paper $24.95 War and the Iliad 121 pp. paper $14.95

renewing culture through faith and learning 17 SYNAXIS 3.2

GREAT CONVERSATIONS limitations and therefore uncertainty, I find certainty in the Word of the resurrected Christ. HOW SHOULD WE INTERPRET Pastor Joel Schroeder GENESIS 1 & 2 IN THE LIGHT OF Joel Schroeder is a Nebraska native, who grew up out in the country as the son of an accountant. He was CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE? homeschooled through elementary and then went to Omaha Christian Academy for junior High and High School. He attended Faith Baptist Bible College for his undergraduate : degree in Biblical Studies and Faith Baptist Theological Seminary for his Master of Divinity degree. He is currently Moderated by Michael Witherspoon working on his PhD in systematic theology from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, N THE EVENING of April 12, 2016, Missouri. He has served a youth pastor, music pastor and currently is the interim pastor at Goddard United Methodist ten speakers representing Orthodoxy, Church in Goddard, Kansas. He and his lovely wife Bethany O Roman Catholicism and several live in Bel Aire, Kansas. traditions within Protestantism gathered together The story of creation can seem silly based for a Great Conversation. only on the science that we have today. However, Approximately 150 people gathered at the foundation of Christianity is a miracle itself— Resurrection Charismatic Episcopal Church to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Do not hear each presenter and to participate in the Q&A dismiss the creation story found in Genesis 1 just that followed. because it doesn’t quite fit with today’s science. I believe that if you undermine the validity of Fr. Geoff Boyle Genesis, you will soon lose faith in the foundation of Christianity itself! Fr. Geoff Boyle has served as senior pastor of Grace and Trinity Lutheran Churches (LCMS) here in Wichita Pastor Paul Hill since 2010. Presently he is working on his dissertation through the University of Toronto considering a sacramental Paul Hill is the pastor of the Wheatland Mission approach to how Christ is present in the Old Testament He Church in Wichita, and occasional adjunct instructor at is blessed with a wonderful wife, Nikki, and five beautiful Friends University and Tabor College. He has been married children: Ana (8), Claire (7), Gabriela (6), Micah (4), and to Calana for 23 years and has three nearly grown children. Brigit (3)—all of whom are gifts of God’s good creation. He has degrees from Manhattan Christian College, Friends University, and Johnson University. The Triune God created all that is—as His enscriptured Word says—in six roughly 24-hour I think we should study Genesis apart from days. I ascribe to the traditional Lutheran way of evolution because too often our pursuit of details reading scripture—that is, drawing the meaning obscures the real message of Genesis. We need to from the literal sense of the text itself, considering ask the right questions because Genesis is an the genre, form, and grammar. I believe Moses ancient book written to an ancient culture. I wrote Genesis, not by his own will, but from God. believe Genesis 1 does not describe how we get Genesis 1 and 2 aren’t two separate creation the material of the universe but instead paints a accounts. Genesis 1:1-2 is a summary of what picture of a cosmic temple from which God follows and Genesis 2:4 and following highlight assigns function and purpose to the world. the creation of man. Although Genesis is not a Creation is good not only because our good God history book, I believe it is still a historical created it but also because He has assigned good accounting of the creation story. I find the and proper function to the universe. I believe this creation of all things by the voice of God in a approach reduces the tension that exists for mere six days as no more unbelievable than the people who have grown up in a materialistic and resurrection of the dead. While science has scientific world and who believe that science is at

18 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016 war with the scripture. 1987. Either this large star ran out of fuel and blew up 176,000 years ago, or God is being Mr. Dan Stockemer deceptive by sending us massive amounts of Dan Stockemer is a Kansas native, who grew up on a information for an event that never happened. dairy farm just west of Wichita near the small community of According to science, the beginning of space time St. Marks. He currently resides next to that farm and is the was 13.8 billion years ago. I believe day one owner of Prairie Hill Vineyard. Prairie Hill provides grapes to Grace Hill Winery, and also provides equine pasturing creation and the formation of the universe were and horseback riding. He is also the president and Senior not simultaneous. I believe that day one of God’s Advisor at Life Advisors LLC, offering retirement planning, creation week starts at some point after the solar life insurance and Long-Term Care Solutions. He has been system was formed. I believe this first day of an avid Bible student since age 18, and has served as a lay creation could have been 10 billion years after the pastor and counselor for over 40 years. He is currently writing a book entitled Pictures of the Messiah, and his beginning of space and time. Day one of creation presentation on Zero Point Energy grew out of research is to be viewed from the perspective of one on the done during his study of Genesis while writing the book. earth’s surface. This is when God lets light Dan is married to his wife Mary, with four daughters, and penetrate the darkness surrounding the earth for three grandchildren. photosynthesis and optical light. I believe in God’s I believe in the resurrection and therefore I creation week; I just don’t see that week as being believe in the truth of Genesis. I believe these two six, 24-hour days beginning right after the start of truths are connected and cannot be separated. space and time. Science seems to contradict Genesis, because we Fr. Terry Hedrick don’t know how to interpret the data we are given. I have spent significant time reading the work of Fr. Terry, Ph.D. (Durham University, UK) has been Barry Setterfield, who proves that the speed of priest/pastor of Church of Resurrection Charismatic Episcopal Church in Wichita, KS since his ordination in light has slowed since the beginning of time and 1998. He has served as a priest/pastor in Wichita, with his so have all atomic processes. This accounts for the wife Julie, for the last 35 years. He has been an adjunct incongruence found between scripture and instructor at Friends University since 1994. Fr. Terry has two science. I believe God might not have created the grown daughters, Tera Lee Hedrick, Ph.D. (Northwestern universe in six 24-hour days. However, He did University, USA) and Jaimee Anne, married to Phillip Gwost. He also has two granddaughters, the loves of his life, create this world, albeit using a different Evie Marie and Carley Anne. Fr. Terry has always perception of time than we know on earth. understood his calling as a “Pastor-Teacher” according to Ephesians 4. Mr. Dennis Vander Griend In reading the story of Genesis, it is Dennis Vander Griend is a Senior Process Engineer st who has worked extensively in the fuel ethanol industry. important to remember that our 21 century Dennis designed the majority of ethanol plants in the USA, questions are not the same as the questions posed which amount to more than 5% of the volume of all the in the ancient near eastern culture. The Bible is gasoline one puts in their gas tank. As a designer, Dennis has not a science book. The principle question of always been interested in how God designed the universe: science is how? In other words, by what process the parts we think we understand based on observation. does something occur? On the other hand, the What God did and what is in the Bible is principle question in theology is why? What is the congruent. Why wouldn’t it be? It is the same meaning and purpose. Genesis 1 emphasizes the God! I separate Gen 1:1 from Gen 1:3. I believe transcendence of God and reveals the goodness of that super nova 1987a falsifies the Young Earth God and his creation. Genesis 2 emphasizes the Creation model in which God created the stars imminence of God. These two chapters answer and galaxies approximately 6,000 years ago. The the question of who God is and why he created. It is light from this super nova traveled about 167,000 important to recognize that these are the primary light years and reaches our earth in late February questions it was written to answer, not the how that

renewing culture through faith and learning 19 SYNAXIS 3.2 modern day science asks. Science cannot prove or Dr. Matthew Umbarger disprove scripture; it can only agree or disagree. Matthew Umbarger, Ph.D., is an assistant professor Science is transitory and what we know today as of theology at Newman University. Matthew grew up on a the absolute truth in science could likely be farm in Southeast Kansas. He holds a bachelor of theology obsolete and inaccurate in 100 years. The scripture degree from Ozark Christian College in Joplin, MO, and an is constant and should be viewed as a whole text. MA and Ph.D. in the Hebrew Bible from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beer-Sheva, Israel. He also Mr. Joshua Bitting earned a second MA in theology at Newman University. Matthew’s expertise is in Scripture, especially the Old Joshua Bitting was born and raised in the Wichita Testament He enjoys studying ancient Jewish texts, like the area. While studying philosophy as an undergraduate at Dead Sea Scrolls and the Mishnah. Matthew has been Southwestern College, Joshua came into full communion married to his wife, Robin, for nearly seventeen years, and with the Catholic Church on June 22nd, 2003, the Feast of they have five children. Corpus Christi. Joshua and his wife Amanda are parishioners at Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church. They have I believe in reading the Bible with a literal been married for nine years and have four children: John sense of creation. I do not mean “literalism” in Augustine, age 8; Therese Marie, age 6; Elijah Paul, age 3; which everything is interpreted literally. Instead, I and Joseph Francis, age 1. Joshua attended Franciscan University of Steubenville where he earned his Master’s mean a search for the author’s intended meaning degree in Theology with an emphasis in Catechetics. He has and the interpretation as such. The first chapters served the Church in various catechetical ministries of Genesis cannot be interpreted in a literal sense including adult faith formation, RCIA, parish evangelization, because that is not how they were intended to be Catholic “Welcome Home” programs, Catholic Scripture read. The author of Genesis wrote a divinely study, and sacramental preparation. Currently, Joshua is a director of the Office of Faith Formation for the Catholic inspired creation myth: a myth that creates a Diocese of Wichita. worldview through a story. When I say that Genesis was a “myth”, I employ Pope Saint John God is not the highest being, He is being Paul II’s definition: “an archaic way of expressing itself. Creation is not a one-time occurrence, a deeper content.” Therefore, you cannot interpret state of “journeying” in which creation continually Genesis with a literalist point of view. Although it travels towards being “whole”—a new heaven and is written as a myth, it conveys something far earth. Man is an embodied unity, ordered toward more profound than just a bare historical account fulfillment in Christ, the visible image of the and therefore should not be taken lightly. When invisible God. John 1:1-3 is thus the interpretive the creation stories are compared with those of key for understanding the creation narratives Israel’s neighbors, it becomes readily apparent that aright. John 1:1-3 is the definitive creation story, Genesis was not written as a historical account but not Genesis 1 and 2. Genesis is not the final say rather as a defense against the stories surrounding on the creation of the world. I believe in a six-day Israel at that time. creation approach in which each day is roughly 24 hours. Ultimately we can only understand creation Fr. Paul O’Callaghan in reference to Christ himself. Genesis 1-3 Fr. Paul O’Callaghan has served as Dean of St. answers different questions than those that science George Orthodox Christian Cathedral since January 1, 1993. asks. These passages talk about the truths of Prior to his service at St. George Cathedral, Fr. Paul served creation, the origin and end in God, the order and the Orthodox Christian parishes of St. George, San Diego goodness of creation, the vocation of man, the (pastor, 1984-1993), St. Nicholas Cathedral, Los Angeles (assistant, 1980-1984), and St. Mary, Cambridge, MA drama of sin and the hope of salvation. (interim, 1979-1980). Fr. Paul holds a Master of Divinity Everything in these passages needs to be read with degree from the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of the entirety of scripture in mind. The cause of the Theology in Brookline, MA (summa cum laude), and a friction between science and theology is literal Bachelor of Arts degree in Religious Studies from the mindedness that in the end obscures the real California State University at Chico in CA. meaning of scripture. Genesis and all of scripture can only be

20 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016 apprehended within the living Tradition of the All scripture is inspired by God. He ordained Church. While I do not hold to any particular all things and therefore His inspired Word speaks position, theory, or academic school of thought, I to all generations until the end of time. The seven believe that the genuine findings of science must days of creation were no earthly 24-hour days. be taken seriously. Without being a “literalist”, I God did not complete the known physical speak directly from the creation story and believe universe—the moon, the sun, the stars, the galaxy we should take it with equal seriousness regardless as we know it—until day four. This is after the of how literally we are interpreting it. Genesis 1 earth was created. Therefore, the light spoken of presents the grand sweep of creation, from the initial moment of being to the formation of in the first three days was Jesus. Jesus was and is mankind as the crown of creation. Genesis 1 gives the Light. The scripture simply says that the us the big scope of God’s work, the grand creation days were light based, not time based. They overview. Genesis 2 takes us deep within to the were eternal days—outside of time. The days of fundamentals of relationships as they unfold. creation are proclamations made by God from the However we relate Genesis to the findings of realms of eternity—they came to pass and were modern science, Genesis has formed the very fulfilled and continually move forward simply world we live in. Theology takes place at the because God ordains it to be so. intersection of what has been revealed, what is otherwise known, lived, and experienced. Genesis : is an ever-fresh wellspring of theology. The important question then, is: where would we be without it? Mr. Gary Gensch Gary Gensch is a petroleum geologist having worked extensively in coal, and oil and gas exploration as a field and research geologist. He has been engaged in the active research and study of geology for over 38 years. As a young and fairly new Christian studying micro and developmental biology, astronomy and then landing in Geology with an emphasis in Paleontology, Paleoecology and ancient depositional environments he had the formidable challenge to address the tenants of evolutionary thought with an open mind, and with an open Bible. In 1978 he graduated with a BA degree in Geology fully convinced macro-evolutionary tenants are fraught with serious flaws and provide an unsatisfactory comprehensive explanation for all that is observed on the Earth and in the universe. He emerged convinced in the Biblical revelation that reveals a glorious sovereign and eternal God who by the breath of His mouth called all things into being through the power of His Living Word, and only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, as prescribed by Genesis 1 and supplemented throughout the rest of Scripture. He contends the earth’s geologic and paleontological history reveals numerous sequences of cataclysmic depositional and erosional environments compatible to Biblical revelation. Gary is a founding Ruling Elder, Bible and reformed theology teacher of Heartland Community Church (PCA) here in Wichita.

renewing culture through faith and learning 21 SYNAXIS 3.2

FEAST OF ST. PATRICK So often my world feels like a culture within a culture. I have a haven of rationality in the culture of my faith, and at the same time am ST. PATRICK & CULTURAL surrounded by the post-Christian secular culture. RENEWAL It is so tempting to build up walls and communes of safety, and never depart from them. But Patrick tells us that we cannot do that. We have to find : renewal in faith, yes. But we also must recognize Jackie Arnold that faith, by its very nature is missionary. We are called to go out and engage the culture. What Patrick saw in the Irish was not so very different THINK Patrick’s method of mission is a than what we see today. He could have been striking example of what Pope Saint John repelled by the harshness and evil found in the I Paul II called “the New Evangelization.” For Druidic religion. I am sure he called evil for what those not familiar with the term, it essentially it was, but he also didn’t let those things deter him means the re-evangelization of peoples and from what was good, true, and beautiful within the countries where the Gospel was announced and Irish people and their culture. This is our job, too. took hold centuries ago, but has lost meaning in a Patrick’s method worked. It transformed great majority of people’s lives. Irish culture within a few generations into a Christian culture that was uniquely Irish in its love The New Evangelization calls for a clearly for Christ. This proved providential, too, because conceived, serious, and well-organized effort Roman culture was crumbling and the various to evangelize culture. The Son of God, by invasions where rending Europe apart. One of the taking upon Himself our human nature, bright spots of early Christianity was the became incarnate within a certain people, even missionary efforts of the Irish. though His redemptive death brought If you find yourself disgusted with a slice of redemption to all people, of every culture, race and condition. The gift of His Spirit and His America, take Patrick as your guide: go out into love are meant for each and every people and the mix and know that “there is no shortcut to culture. (Ecclesia in America, 70) understanding the people.” Get to know people as individuals on their own terms. When you I see Patrick as a guide in this, because he understand someone, you will often know better was a man fully immersed in both Christian what to say and do, and how to do so in the most culture, and also the culture in which he was effective way. And when people feel that a real evangelizing. He learned the Celtic language and Christian understands them, they will infer that spoke it with the people to whom he ministered. maybe God can understand them, too. He had an understanding of the Druidic religious structure, knowing that they held the power. He : utilized his understanding of Celtic culture to engage the people where they were and to build bridges of faith in their culture. Patrick engaged their love of nature, heroism and stories through Christian virtues and stories that fulfilled these values.

Adapted from a presentation at EDI’s Feast of St. Patrick on March 12, 2016

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PART II inklings festival SYNAXIS 3.2

EAST MEETS WEST IN C. S. LEWIS The 4th century saint is here recalling our Lord’s pronouncement from John 10:34—it is the the summons to become icons of Christ virtual leitmotif of the fourth Gospel—where Jesus quotes Psalm 82: “I said, you are gods.” Yet the real basis for theosis lies in a somewhat obscure : remark from 2 Peter 1:4, “You shall become Ralph C. Wood partakers of the divine nature.” Athanasius was a father of the Greek-speaking Church of the East, OT MANY readers of C. S. Lewis know and theosis and deification have lain at the center of that, despite his well-known sympathies the Orthodox East far more than of the Latin N with the major texts and theologians of West. The Eastern Church insists on reading the West, he embraced a radically Eastern vision human nature in dual rather than singular terms, of the Christian life as a pilgrimage toward total taking with utmost seriousness the Hebrew transformation called theosis. It is a Greek word doublet which declares that we are made in that does not actually appear in the New “God’s image and likeness.” Testament. Yet like Trinity and Atonement as For the East, the image of God in us terms also absent from Scripture, it is crucial for remains virtually indestructible: we can escape it comprehending the Gospel. Roughly translated, it no more than we can avoid our own shadow. It means the “divinizing” or “deification” of human ensures our unique and distinct identity, life. C. S. Lewis’s friend Charles Williams gave it permanently setting us apart from the other an odd English translation: “in-Godding.” We are animals. We can destroy it, in fact, only by called not merely to be yanked back from the becoming beasts (Athanasius) or demons brink of Hell, so that we remain ransomed but still (Gregory of Nyssa). Our likeness to God is also sodden sinners for the sake of the Kingdom. Nor divinely given but it is not divinely fixed. Because are we meant to follow Jesus as our Exemplar, God never coerces his creatures, He grants us striving for moral improvement so as to become freedom that is at once wondrous and terrible— “good people.” Important though these things namely, the liberty to become either more or less surely are, they don’t touch the depths of theosis., like the image in which we are made. We are which calls us to participate in the very life of already, here and now, on our way to ever greater God. We are summoned to be nothing other than likeness to God or else, alas, ever greater icons of Christ. unlikeness. The first is called Paradise, the last I. Perdition. We are already embarked on our way Already by the fourth century the doctrine of toward either Heaven or Hell. Hence this sharp deification had become indispensable for the life saying from Maximus the Confessor: of the Church. St. Athanasius (c. 296-373) gave it By His gracious condescension God became the most celebrated and succinct formulation: man and is called man for the sake of man and “God became human,” he declared, “so that by exchanging His condition for our ours humans may become God. And He manifested revealed the power that elevates man to God Himself by a body that we might receive an idea through his love for God and brings God of the unseen Father; and He endured the down to man because of His love for man. By insolence of men that we might inherit this blessed inversion, man is made God by immortality.” divinization and God is made man by hominization. For the Word of God and God wills always and in all things to accomplish the mystery of His embodiment. Ralph Wood is Professor of Theology and Literature at Baylor University. He is the keynote speaker at the second annual In The Four Loves, Lewis draws a similar Inklings Festival..

26 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016 distinction while using different terms. There are in one way more than likeness, for it is union two kinds of “nearness to God,” he argues. The or unity with God in will…. [O]ur imitation of first is the nearness that comes from God’s having God in this life—that is, our willed imitation impressed his character onto the whole creation, as distinct from any [image] which He has and supremely on us humans as the utter “given” impressed on our natures or states [of being] —must be an imitation of God incarnate: our of our human condition—the equivalent of what model is the Jesus, not only of Cavalry, but of the East calls “image” or icon. The second the workshop, the roads, the crowds, the nearness is “a nearness of approach” that requires clamorous demands and surly oppositions, the our consent and collaboration; again, this is lack of all peace and privacy, the interruptions. something akin to “likeness” in Orthodoxy. For this, so strangely unlike anything we can Always and already enabled by divine grace, the attribute to the Divine life in itself, is achievement of this nearness of approach is not apparently not only like, but is, the Divine life imposed on us by anything akin to forensic operating under human conditions. justification or substitutionary atonement. As Lewis says, it is “something we must do.” He As Lewis also argues in Mere Christianity, the clearly believes in the necessity of our human whole purpose of the Gospel is to turn Christians response to God’s Incarnation. Even before God, into what he variously calls “new men [and we are totally passive creatures. Hence Lewis’s women],” “little Christs,” “Sons [and Daughters] remarkable claim in the Screwtape Letters: of God”—all of which may rightly be called true icons. The likeness they [i.e., believers] receive by The life of theosis entails our becoming fully sonship is not that of images or portraits. It is human even as Christ was fully human. We are to Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom by David Bradshaw

A clearly limned inquiry into the philosophical and theological trajectory of the concept of the “energies” (energeia, originally identified with “force” or “activity”) of God, and a suggestion that the different ways this idea has been understood in East and West has had large historical consequences. Bradshaw (Professor of Greek Philosophy, University of Kentucky) discusses energeia as it originates in the writings of Artistotle, and its slow transformation in the Middle Platonists, Philo of Alexandria, and the Neoplatonists, among whom Bradshaw locates the beginning of the increasing divergence in understanding between West (progressively simplifying the concept) and East (continually finding fresh nuance in it). The great fourth- century Cappadocian Fathers make the distinction between the unknowable essence and knowable energies of God—already present even in Philo—common parlance for Eastern theology, a language further enlarged in the sixth-century Dionysian writings and in Maximus the Confessor and John of Damascus (whom Bradshaw explicates at length). Turning to the West, Bradshaw finds already in Augustine an absence of the category of the energies, an absence ultimately sealed in Aquinas’s philosophy of the divine essence. A chasm thus yawned between this doctrine of God and that of the East, where the teachings of the greatest theologian of the essence/energies distinction, Gregory Palamas, were upheld in two church councils against the attacks of the Augustinian-influenced Orthodox monk Barlaam the Calabrian. For Bradshaw, beside this divergence, the controversies over the filioque or the papal claims pale in comparison. The conclusions he draws concerning the consequences of this divergence—first among them the way human persons might “partake of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4)—are so plentiful, provocative, and controversial that it is impossible to enumerate them here. Suffice to say that this is one of the most important studies of the tragedy of schism that we have encountered in years. 297 pp. paper $49.95

renewing culture through faith and learning 27 SYNAXIS 3.2

become by grace what He is by nature, as the embodies, in fictional form, this central doctrine Lord’s Prayer indicates: we are meant to be gods of deification. Lewis’s novel borrows from the dwelling in accord with each other on earth here medieval idea of refrigerium—the notion, namely, and now as also in heaven. Lewis sounds this that God occasionally gives the inhabitants of hell same trumpeted summons to theosis in his war- a day off from their fiery torment to enter a place time sermon “The Weight of Glory.” There he of refreshment and coolness. Lewis transforms calls for our transformative participation in God’s this idea by turning it into an omnibus that turns own life so as to effect not chiefly our own into a space ship taking certain earthly souls to the individual salvation but the deification of everyone very precincts of Paradise, so as to lest them we meet, even our life in the secular city: decide whether they will choose to proceed upward toward Heaven, or else to turn back, It is a serious thing to live in a society of retrogressing to their usual hellish abode on earth. possible gods and goddesses, to remember For C. S. Lewis, as also for the Eastern that the dullest and most uninteresting person Church, heaven and hell are permeable realms, at you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly least at their borders. So it is with the dramatis tempted to worship, or else a horror and a personae of The Great Divorce: they have arrived at corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only the borderland of eternity, and they must decide in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some whether to turn their mortal existence into degree, helping each other to one or the other immortal life. In short, they must choose whether of these destinations. It is in the light of these they will be deified. Note well, this choice is not a overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe once-and-for all decision. It is an entire life-choice. and circumspection proper to them, that we If they choose positively, then their mundane life should conduct all our dealings with one will have become a purgatorial preparation for full another, all friendships, all love, all play, all divinization. If they reject this heavenly summons, politics. thus refusing the life of theosis, their entire earthly II. existence will have been a preliminary hell. They The Great Divorce remains, in my estimate, the will disappear or become ever less real, dwindling single book wherein C. S. Lewis most decisively away to the final non-existence called damnation.

The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis by Alan Jacobs

One wonders if it can be helped. Release a movie adaptation of a book and watch the publisher’s profits soar. Books by the author, not to mention books about the author, crowd the shelves ad nauseum, each demanding their share of the consumer’s attention. Make that author C. S. Lewis—one of the most written—about authors of the last century-and one must seriously consider how best to spend one’s reading hours. Thankfully, Alan Jacobs understands his predicament. As one who once vowed never to write another word about Lewis, he approaches the task with a fearlessness born of humility. Jacobs’ Narnian is biography, no doubt, but he’s unmistakable in his focus: it is Lewis’ imaginative man that fuels not only all manner of his writing but also his life and his faith. On every page, Jacobs’ story is bent on illustrating how Lewis’s imagination shaped his philosophy, his theology, and his fiction, and how, in turn, these disciplines informed Lewis’ delight in virtue and moralism. In Jacobs’ words, “It is the merger of the moral and the imaginative-this vision of virtue itself as adorable, even ravishing-that makes Lewis so distinctive.” It follows that Jacobs’ work carries that same distinction. With erudition and very little sentimentality, he reveals the genius of an imagination without betraying the life that animated it, observing that “few writers other than Lewis could open to us that sphere of experience in which John Milton and Beatrix Potter can be seen as laborers in the same vineyard.” 400 pp. paper $14.95

28 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016

They can literally unmake themselves from both and opinions, and how nobody should trample on the image and likeness in which they are made. them: Against Blake’s idea of marrying heaven and hell, so as to make for real human vitality, Lewis “Look at me now,” said the Ghost, slapping shows that the residents of earth are not really his chest (but the slap made no noise). “I gone straight all my life. I don’t say I was a religious alive. They are Ghosts inhabiting bodies that man and I don’t say I had no faults, far from compete for their place on the bus, violently it. But I done my best all my life, see? I done shoving each other and at one point even firing my best by everyone, that’s the sort of chap I guns. Mark it well that Lewis the narrator sees was. I never asked for anything that wasn’t himself as one of these ghosts: “There was a mine by rights. If I wanted a drink I paid for it mirror on the end wall of the bus. I caught sight and if I took wages I done my job, see? That’s of my own [image there]…. I also was a the …. sort of chap I am. I only want my phantom.” rights. I’m not asking for anybody’s bleeding Lewis the character/narrator notices that the charity.” bus-become-spaceship has to travel so many miles “Then do,” replies the murderous Man. At that the great grey towns where these ghosts once once. Ask for the Bleeding Charity. Everything resided are barely visible at all. And their here is for the asking and nothing can be inhabitants live so far apart that they really cannot bought.” be called neighbors. For Lewis, hell is a non-place of separation and isolation. If everyone lives for We meet another of these wraith-like herself or himself alone, why not create creatures in a woman who has repeatedly refused anonymous suburbs where no one knows or cares to conform her earthly likeness to the divine about their neighbors? And if Lewis had foreseen image in which she is created. She is a nameless, the churches of the future, they would have garrulous woman who has been a grumbler probably been megachurches, where autonomous throughout her life. As Lewis the narrator individuals (saved by autonomous decisions for indicates, grumbling is a sin more silly than Christ) come to be entertained alongside other wicked. Yet if we persist, even in such autonomous believers. None of them would have peccadilloes, such small sins, we will become ever any sense of the Church as the sacramental less real, ever more gossamer; ever less divine, community where we are taken up into God’s ever more sub-human, even demonic. Finally, she own radically communal life. shall no longer remain a grumbler but shrivel into The residents of this preliminary Heaven, by nothing but a grumble. She will have refused contrast, are called the Solid People. They are not deification, destroying not only her likeness to thin and gossamer. Indeed, everything in this God but also the image of God in her. She will utterly real region is dense and substantial. That descend into the nothingness of evil, “as the Lewis is not operating in strictly Platonic terms is grumble goes on forever like a machine” (GD 75). made evident when everything in the paradisal realm proves to be thick and dense with concrete III. reality; it is not an abstract and disembodied realm It should be evident that Lewis joins both of the ideal forms. The grass is so firm that it the Eastern and the Western churches in his pains the feet of the ghostly, and the apples are so thoroughly Augustinian understanding of evil as heavy than they can hardly be lifted. The flowers privatio boni. Derived originally from the neo- are so durable that they don’t bend over and wilt. Platonists, it was repeated by Boethius, and it has It is the hellish souls who turn out to be shadowy been maintained throughout the entirety of the and insubstantial. Christian tradition. St. Augustine’s revolutionary Consider, for instance, the Big Ghost, the insight is that evil is literally no-thing. It is the outsized phantom as stressing his personal rights privation or absence of true being, the perversion

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and deformation of the good, the twisting and become the form of her body: distortion of the divinely-ordered creation. Evil remains entirely parasitic off its host, a tapeworm I cannot remember [Lewis the pilgrim that has no life of its own. Yet precisely because it confesses] if she was naked or clothed. If she were naked, it must have been the almost has no life of its own, evil can assume a virtually visible penumbra of her courtesy and joy infinite set of disguises. Its terror lies precisely which produces in my memory the illusion of here—in its power of deception and illusion. The a great and shining train that followed her serpent remains “the subtlest beast of the field.” across the happy grass. If she were clothed, Yet the novel’s real interest lies not in those then the illusion of nakedness is doubtless due who have turned back to the hellish city of man to the clarity with which her inmost spirit but those who have gone through the vestibule of shone through the clothes. For clothes in that Heaven, higher up and further in, so that they are [heavenly] country are not a disguise: the already dwelling in the precincts of Paradise. spiritual body lives along each thread and There we learn that to be divinized is not to float turns them into living organs. A robe or a slightly above the earth as having no contact with crown is there as much one of the wearer’s features as a lip or an eye. sin, nor is it a scheme for moral improvement. Indeed, the divinized are not obviously good. Lady Sarah does not cling to her beauty Take the murderous Man, for instance. He is not selfishly, as if her in-Godding were a thing to be an exemplary figure by any ordinary moral grasped. Instead, she transforms everyone whom standard. In fact, he killed a man named Jack. Yet she touches, whether it be cats or dogs, birds or he confesses to having committed a far worse sin, horses, or even formerly unfaithful husbands. one that moralistic society never discerned: he was They do not lust after her beauty, desiring to consumed with contempt for his boss, nursing a become someone other than they are in order to grievance for years against his employer, who is ravish her. “In her,” declares Lewis, all these none other than the Big Ghost himself: creatures “became themselves” (GD 108). In her, Love is no longer a need to be satisfied but a Murdering old Jack wasn’t the worst thing I did. That was the work of a moment and I was virtue to be multiplied: “What needs could I half mad when I did it. But I murdered you in have,” she asks her recalcitrant husband, “now my heart, deliberately for years. I used to lie that I have all. I am full now, not empty. I am in awake at nights thinking what I’d do to you if Love himself, not lonely. Strong, not weak. You I ever got the chance. That is why I’ve been shall be the same,” she urges her spouse. “Come sent to you now: to ask your forgiveness and and see. We shall have no need for one another to be your servant [here in the lower rungs of now: we can begin to love truly” (GD 113). Paradise] as long as you need one, and longer Like the Dante who remains at once poet if it pleases you. I was the worst. But all the and pilgrim in the Divine Comedy, so does Lewis men who worked under you felt the same. gain necessary clarity about these matters from his You made it hard for us, you know. And you own Vergil—i.e., from the writer who, as Lewis made it hard for your wife too and for your children. confessed, “baptized” (i.e., Christianized) his imagination: George MacDonald. MacDonald Unlike the garrulous grumbler who thus insists to Lewis the pilgrim that “Heaven is underwent gradual de-divinization, we encounter a not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that Beatrice-like figure named Sarah Smith from is fully real is Heavenly. For that all can be shaken Golders Green, the predominantly Jewish will be shaken and only the unshakeable remains.” neighborhood in London. Though she attained no Lewis strikes deeper still when he has MacDonald fame on earth, this ordinary woman is indeed a reveal that deification is both a retrospective and a goddess in the Athanasian sense: she is so fully prospective reality. We can comprehend the real imbued with divinity that her soul has truly meaning of both good and evil only through the

30 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016 simultaneity of temporal events. In such divine deification. He enables us to experience how it is time, the past is still alive in the present, and the that “Evil can be undone, but [that] it cannot future is already happening now: ‘develop’ into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit” (6). “Both good and evil, when they are full The question Lewis poses for us, therefore, grown, become retrospective. Not only this is whether we are undoing the evil that will valley but all their earthly past will have been Heaven to those who are saved. Not only the otherwise turn us into ghosts on earth and thus twilight in that town, but all their life on Earth permanently dead souls in the world to come; or too, will then be seen by the damned to have whether we are already undertaking—through been Hell. That is what mortals misunderstand. Christ and his Person called the Church, its They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No sacraments and practices—the life of deification. future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing The separation between the two realms is already that Heaven, once attained, will work and always occurring. One and all, we are backwards and turn even that agony into a becoming ever more unlike the divine image in glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say, which we are made, or else we are on path toward ‘Let me have but this and I will take the ever greater likeness it, so that finally we become consequences’: little dreaming how damnation the icon of Christ himself, the one true Human will spread back and back into their past and because He was also the one true God incarnate. contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good : man’s past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man’s past already conforms to his badness and is filled with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say, ‘We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven,’ and the Lost, ‘We were always in Hell.’ And both will speak truly.”

IV. As Rowan Williams has recently argued in The Lion’s World, Lewis in the Narnian books and Till We Have Faces, as also in the Space trilogy and Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce, accomplishes what none of his apologetic works fully achieves. Instead of setting forth abstract arguments, Lewis the imaginative writer enables his readers to inhabit the life of both salvation and damnation, as he captures the “character, the feel, of a real experience of surrender in the face of absolute incarnate love.” In these works as in few others, Lewis communicates, to jaded believers and contented believers alike, the possibility “of coming across the Christian story as if for the first time.” I would add that, in The Great Divorce, Lewis also embodies, in narrative form, a theology of

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INKLING REFLECTIONS Platonizing Jew of first-century Egypt, spoke of creation’s musicality with images astonishingly similar to Tolkien’s. “Heaven is always singing CHORD OF THE RINGS melodies,” he wrote, “perfecting an all-musical harmony, in accordance with the motions of all : the bodies which exist therein. . . . Therefore the heaven, which is the archetypal organ of music, Mike Aquilina appears to have been arranged in a most perfect manner, for no other object except that the hymns N TOLKIEN’S Silmarillion the material sung to the honor of the Father of the universe, universe comes into being by means of a might be attuned in a musical manner” (On Dreams I song, the Music of the Ainur. 1.35, 37). Actually, the song preexists creation, and The ancients were not blind to sin, and so Eru shares it with the angelic Ainur, the “Holy they were aware of the off-notes in the song of Ones.” As they sing under Eru’s direction, the salvation history. But everything changed with the world is “made visible before them . . . globed advent of the Christ. Redemption brought about a amid the void.” restoration of cosmic order—a resolution to all I was a teenager when The Silmarillion the cacophony brought about by sin. appeared in print. I wasn’t much of a reader at the The earliest Christians imagined this new time, but a friend of mine, Ron, was fanatically creation, again, as music. St. Ignatius of Antioch invested in Middle-Earth. His copy of the book, wrote at the beginning of the second century: “A not yet a week old, was already worn and its cover star shone forth in heaven above all the other creased. stars, the light of which was inexpressible, while its Ron was a big guy, and he’d already spent novelty struck men with astonishment. And all the time in juvenile detention. So I complied when he rest of the stars, with the sun and moon, formed a insisted that I sit down, shut up, and listen as he chorus to this star, and its light was exceedingly read the entire creation account aloud. He read great above them all” (Letter to the Ephesians 19). with more passion than I could muster for Similar passages resound a couple anything but food and baseball. generations later in the Adversus Haereses of St. The moment stayed with me. The narrative Irenaeus of Lyons. But it is Clement of Alexandria stayed with me. I remembered my friend’s who develops the theme most stunningly in his declamation when, just this year, a reader, deeply Exhortation to the Heathen. He speaks of God the moved by the same passage, posted a question in Son as “the harmony of the Father.” Jesus is “the an online forum for Tolkien fans. He asked if all-harmonious, melodious, holy instrument of Tolkien’s work had been based on any “real God”; and as Savior he makes a symphony, once creation myths.” again, of fallen creation. Just listen: “The union of Well, yes. The idea of a “music of the many in one, issuing in the production of divine spheres” is at least as old as Pythagoras. The harmony out of a medley of sounds and division, ancients often spoke of nature in terms of becomes one symphony following one choir- harmony and dissonance, and history in terms of leader and teacher, the Word, reaching and resting melody that moves from theme to theme. in the same truth, and crying Abba, Father. This, The idea resonated with the followers of the true utterance of His children, God accepts biblical religion. Philo of Alexandria, the great with gracious welcome.” Tolkien was a devoted reader not only of Mike Aquilina is the author of more than forty books on Scandinavian myth, but also of the Church Catholic history, doctrine, and devotion. He has hosted nine series Fathers. In his formative years, the works of these on the Eternal Word Television Network and appears weekly on ancients were appearing in new English Sirius Radio’s “Sonrise Morning Show”.

32 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016 translations. I like to think that what we find in The Silmarillion is an echo of what the novelist had long before encountered in the relics of Alexandrian Christianity. This harmony between Tolkien and the tradition occurred to me as I read the Fathers down the decades. I was pleased last year to see it made explicitly by the priest-scholar Doru Costache in chapter 13 of his book Alexandrian Legacy. The Fathers believed that the music of the spheres would achieve its intended harmony, first, in the Church of Jesus Christ. May our fraternal love be harmonious, true to the Composer’s intentions. .:

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THEOSIS: CAVEATS AND 2. Theosis, like other concepts (such as, for example, asceticism or hierarchy), is a Greek CONCERNS word, coined in Greek, but arising not from a Greek basis but from a Semitic one. Its roots : are not in Greek mystery religions, or Neoplatonic philosophy, or Hermetic Fr. Benedict Armitage mysticism, but rather in the Apocalyptic strain of late Second-Temple Judaism, such as can be WANT TO share my concern about the found in, for example, the book of II Enoch. theme for this year’s lecture series, namely Hence, its origins are Jewish, however esoteric I theosis (or deification), by providing a number a form of Judaism, and not pagan or even of caveats for all of us—speakers, attendees and philosophical. readers—to bear in mind. Being an Orthodox Christian monk, I am 3. The term itself, and what it expresses, not opposed to the term itself, or to the idea presupposes a patristic frame of thought. The behind it; but I am concerned that it can be easily Fathers only use the term in the context of the misunderstood, emphasized as a clever or neat theological distinction made between God’s theological idea, and not connected with the life in Being (or essence) on the one hand, and his Christ. It has become trendy in certain theological Activity (or energies) on the other. This circles to talk about theosis, and trendy is almost distinction is key to Orthodox theology, and a never good in any discussion of the deep things of participation in the life of God, as imparted in God. Therefore, I would ask the readers to bear in Christ, must be a participation in His mind that: uncreated energies, not in His essence. A failure to make this distinction makes of theosis 1. It is only one of several terms and models something meaningless, or worse—a kind of used by the theologians of the Orthodox pantheism. Where this patristic framework is Church to articulate the faithful Christian’s not present, it is likely much sounder to stick experience of God. It has always been used to to biblical terminology, though admittedly safeguard the real experience of God-in-Christ, terms such as theosis can help us to flesh out and to express the truth that man, by being some of the content of that terminology. united with God, can become a participant in 4. Moreover, it is always, in the mind of those His eternal, incorruptible, and indestructible Fathers who employed the term, understood life of unconditional love and ineffable joy. It in the context of the sacramental life of the is admittedly, however, not a biblical term. For Church, especially Baptism, wherein our this reason it must always be tied to the adoption begins, and the Eucharist, wherein biblical doctrine of our “adoption as sons” the faithful are nourished in their new life. and subsequent “life of the Spirit”. If ever taken in isolation from the scriptural context, 5. There is some sense in which the term is especially from what is found in Paul and John culturally conditioned by a society heavily ,it will necessarily be misunderstood or informed by Neoplatonic ideas and distorted. terminology, even if it is simply expressing biblical concepts in new language. This does not by any means make it untrue or inadequate Father Benedict Armitage is a member of the Monastic or even unhelpful, but it may nevertheless be Brotherhood of St. Silouan and an ordained deacon in the wise not to use it indiscriminately without first Orthodox Church. He presently serves as the headmaster of Christ studying the presuppositions it assumed and the Savior Academy, an Orthodox Christian classical school in the questions it was meant to answer. Wichita, Kansas.

34 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016

6. Theosis is not a theme that is much present in the later Western theological tradition, if indeed it is present at all (at least in the form the Orthodox know it). As such, it is very unlikely that much reference to it will be found in the corpus of the authors known as the Inklings, at least without considerable intellectual gymnastics and a feat of eisegesis. If so, then this would make our conference theme a little problematic . . . Perhaps I am wrong about this. I look forward to the lectures. :

CSA AD HERE

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EVERLASTING SPLENDORS some volunteering. I started at a preschool that our church sponsored for children with special needs. I seemed to have a knack for it, and I liked : the children. So the following summer I applied Ellen Herr Awe for a job at a school sponsored by my church that served young people with fairly significant intellectual and physical disabilities. Since I was T IS A serious thing to live in a society of possible young and new, I was given the important and gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most rewarding job of taking children to the bathroom I uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a for toileting and changing diapers. Big diapers, creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly little diapers. One young man came in to the tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such school, and being new to this field, I didn’t as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day recognize much response from him. I erroneously assumed that he wasn’t aware of whom or what long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the was around him and that he didn’t really care if he other of these destinations. It is in the light of these was wet or dry, so I often left him until last. One overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and day, he was lying on a cot and I came to him, circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of seeing that he, along with the cot, was completely our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all soaked in urine. I picked up his long lean body play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have and carried him to the bathroom. I talked softly to never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, and him just to break the silence and cleaned and changed him completely. When I laid him back civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as down on his cot, he looked into my eyes and the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, smiled. It was a moment of clarity—a rare and work with, marry, snub and exploit—immortal horrors or beautiful gift. I realized it mattered. It absolutely everlasting splendors. mattered how I treated this young man, as he was no “mere mortal.” Heaven was open, and my This beautiful and power-packed capsule vocation was as clear as anything has ever been. from C. S. Lewis’s essay “The Weight of Glory” It’s forty years later, and every day I work never fails to stir something in me. It inspires, with everlasting splendors. This year, nine of humbles, and haunts me. When I return to it, as I them, all given the label of intellectual disability, frequently do, it’s a new experience. Different enter my classroom, and we help each other on words or phrases beg to be understood. Once for the road to holiness. It’s easy to bear the a solid week, I felt a heavy despair as I thought of responsibility to help them to a better destination how often I fail to live up to this charge or any because I was given the gift so long ago of where parts of the words of Jesus to “love one another and how I was to live out my faith in the as I have loved you.” Not wanting to dismiss these workplace. I’ve worked with kids that scream, hit, words or to be afraid of them, I kept pondering. It bite, run, throw, read, write, laugh, and help struck me as I lived, prayed, and worked that I others. I’ve helped them learn to read, to point to may understand it most clearly in the context of a picture, to recycle plastic, to write poetry, to vocation. keep their hands to themselves, to swim, to “use Long ago, when I was a teenager, my mother words,” and to wait to eat until all their friends are wisely told me to get out of the house and do served. They have helped me laugh, pray, work harder, and to wait to eat until all my friends are served. Mostly they teach me not to take myself so Ellen Herr Awe lives in Wichita and teaches for USD 259. seriously. She reads as much as possible, tends a little garden and cherishes We work and we make merry. “Hey guys, spending time with her grandson.

36 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016 good news, I brushed my teeth,” said Justin as he entered the classroom a week ago. Laughter and high fives (along with a bit of relief) came from the group. Sensing a student’s frustration as we worked on telling time, I told him the old joke, “So, what time is it when an elephant sits on a fence? Time to get a new fence!” Alex dissolved into giggles and told and retold that joke, each time needing to be prompted to add the punchline. Years ago, one young Catholic girl announced that she was going to be the flower girl at my wedding. Of course she was. Not only was she a lovely flower girl, but seeing that there was no priest at this Protestant affair, she took it upon herself to bless my newlywed self. I’ve received far more than I’ve given. Grateful am I that God gave the gift of my vocation, which allows me to spend the day among these extraordinary people who help me on the road to holiness. Grateful am I to C. S. Lewis for helping me see that through a young man’s smile I was invited to begin on this journey. :

The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage by Paul Elie

In the mid-twentieth century four American Catholics came to believe that the best way to explore the questions of religious faith was to write about them—in works that readers of all kinds could admire. The Life You Save May Be Your Own is their story—a vivid and enthralling account of great writers and their power over us. Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk in Kentucky; Dorothy Day the founder of the Catholic Worker in New York; Flannery O’Connor a “Christ-haunted” literary prodigy in Georgia; Walker Percy a doctor in New Orleans who quit medicine to write fiction and philosophy. A friend came up with a name for them—the School of the Holy Ghost—and for three decades they exchanged letters, ardently read one another’s books, and grappled with what one of them called a “predicament shared in common.” A pilgrimage is a journey taken in light of a story; and in The Life You Save May Be Your Own Paul Elie tells these writers’ story as a pilgrimage from the God-obsessed literary past of Dante and Dostoevsky out into the thrilling chaos of postwar American life. It is a story of how the Catholic faith, in their vision of things, took on forms the faithful could not have anticipated. And it is a story about the ways we look to great books and writers to help us make sense of our experience, about the power of literature to change-to save -our lives. 554 pp. paper $18.00

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ALLEGORY OR OTHERWISE? personal tutelage didn’t do the trick. For example, thirteen year old Patricia Mackey received a long reading the Chronicles of Narnia letter from Lewis explaining the topic in detail, but that didn’t prevent her from writing as an adult : that “reading through the entire series built my understanding of allegory as a literary technique.” Leslie Baynes Ironically, she notes that this experience was a major factor in her becoming an English teacher. REGORY the Great, the sixth-century Lewis’s formal definition of allegory appears pope and saint, described scripture as “a in his first scholarly work published in 1936, and G river broad and deep, shallow enough little could he realize at the time that he would be here for the lamb to go wading, but deep enough restating it in some form or other for the rest of there for the elephant to swim.” The same might his life. He writes, be said of C. S. Lewis’s use of scripture in the Chronicles of Narnia. Some of his references are Allegory, in some sense, belongs not to obvious to anyone with a superficial knowledge of medieval man but to man, or even to mind, in general. It is of the very nature of thought and the Bible, but others emerge only as subtle language to represent what is immaterial in allusions and echoes. One thing the Chronicles are picturable terms … On the one hand you can not, however, is biblical allegory. Lewis’s first start with an immaterial fact, such as the published work of fiction, The Pilgrim’s Regress passions which you actually experience, and (1933), is an allegory, and his first published book can then invent visibilia to express them. If you of literary criticism, The Allegory of Love (1936), is are hesitating between an angry retort and a still considered a definitive treatment of the genre. soft answer, you can express your state of Therefore when he insists, as he does repeatedly, mind by inventing a person called Ira with a that the Chronicles are not allegory, he knows torch and letting her contend with another whereof he speaks. invented person called Patientia. This is If the Chronicles aren’t allegory, who argues allegory. that they are? Just about everyone, it seems, from In a letter to a Mrs. Hook in 1958, his readers in the 1950s when they were first definition is simpler but essentially the same: “By published, to commentators in the present, allegory I mean a composition (whether pictorial including people who should know better. For or literary) in which immaterial realities are example, British journalist Polly Toynbee, writing represented by feigned physical objects, e.g. a in The Guardian when the first Narnia movie came pictured Cupid allegorically represents erotic love out in in 2005, asserts that the series is “a strange … or, in Bunyan, a giant represents Despair.” blend of magic, myth and Christianity, some of it According to Lewis, an allegory “is like a puzzle brilliantly fantastical and richly imaginative, some with a solution,” and an author writes it (the clunking allegory) toe-curlingly, cringingly deliberately. He contrasts it to myth, another genre awful.” But Narnia haters aren’t the only ones in which he was expert: “Into an allegory a man who mistake the genre; Narnia lovers are just as can put only what he already knows: in a myth he likely to do so. Lewis received many letters from puts what he does not yet know and could not fans whom he had to disabuse of the notion that come to know in any other way.” the Chronicles were allegory, but sometimes even Lewis gives slightly differing accounts of the genesis of the Chronicles of Narnia. According to one version, he didn’t initially know what he was Leslie Baynes is Associate Professor in the Department of doing. He explains that from the age of about Religious Studies at Missouri State University. Her area of sixteen, he had had a “picture of a Faun carrying research is Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature, and within that, particularly 1 Enoch and the Book of Revelation. an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood” in his

38 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016 mind. When he was about forty, he decided to God, as He became a Man in our world, became make a story out of it. a Lion there, and then imagine what would happen.” At first I had very little idea how the story Although these accounts don’t necessarily would go. But then suddenly Aslan came contradict each other, they do reflect an evolving bounding into it. I think I had been having a sense of the conception of the Chronicles. At any good many dreams of lions about that time. Apart from that, I don’t know where the rate, Lewis was well aware of the pitfalls involved Lion came from or why He came. But once in trying to remember one’s own creative He was there He pulled the whole story process, cautioning his readers that authors don’t together, and soon He pulled the other six pay attention to it when they’re in the throes of Narnian stories in after Him. writing, and later they may forget how it happened. The important thing here, however, is Elsewhere he writes in a similar vein, not to attempt to reconstruct the evolution of Some people seem to think that I began by the Chronicles, but to emphasize a fact Lewis felt asking myself how I could say something quite strongly about, that the Chronicles are not about Christianity to children; then fixed on allegory. the fairy tale as an instrument, then … drew up a list of basic Christian “truths” and : hammered out “allegories” to embody them. This is all pure moonshine. I couldn’t write that way at all. Everything began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. At first there wasn’t anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of its own accord. According to another rendition, he seems to have worked more purposefully. As he informs Mrs. Hook, “If Aslan represented the immaterial Deity in the same way in which Giant Despair represents Despair, he would be an allegorical figure. In reality however he is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, ‘What might Christ become like if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?’ This is not an allegory at all.” If not allegory, what genre are the Chronicles of Narnia? Sometimes Lewis calls them fairy tales, as he does above, and in the dedication of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to Lucy Barfield, but more often he uses a word he himself coined, “supposals.” “I did not say to myself ‘Let us represent Jesus as He really is in our world by a Lion in Narnia’: I said ‘Let us suppose that there were a land like Narnia and that the Son of

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OUT OF THE SHIRE might remain there which makes me long to visit the Shire again, though I know the narrative will : betray me to a flight that will never lead back to quite the same place again. Why must I leave? Brandon Buerge Why can’t I stay here? Why did I come here at all? The questions echo down the hallways of my NCE OR twice a month, unbidden, a mind to a thousand Shires I’ve left; intoxicating nameless grief stirs. The color of an friendships, seasons and hours and moments of O unremarkable scene out of the driver’s- awakening, pools of rest and safety. All of them a side window, the wayward breath of a misplaced taste of heaven if they drew me onward, and hell if season after a front passes. It is worst in autumn I clung to them. when the outdoor world wears sepia as Kansas The sadness of leaving is not enough to leans away from the Sun. And it is always autumn dissuade me from visiting again, if only to remind when I visit the Shire. myself that the way of death is to remain there; the Grief drawn from having, and leaving, way of life leads out of the Shire. everything I have ever loved, normally reliable : only in its fleeting, falls readily to hand when I visit. I read and reread the images, and my delight grows in lock-step with sadness, because the pleasures are only being given to be taken away. As soon as I arrive, I feel the futility of resting. I am of two minds. It is the promise that I

Brandon Buerge is a teacher, engineer, pilot, and neophyte contemplative living in Newton, KS.

Road to Emmaus: Pilgrimage As a Way of Life By Jim Forest

True to the hospitality it celebrates, Jim Forest’s new book quietly and gently welcomes you into its precincts. Short, richly anecdotal chapters proceed from descriptions of the literal elements of pilgrimage (the road, walking, praying, relics, silence, hospitality) to a spiritual expansion of their meaning until, ultimately, pilgrimage embraces all of life. We have only to open our eyes, to become aware of what we are doing, and a flower growing between the cracks of a sidewalk in a seedy part of the city can become an epiphany of beauty that transforms our trip to the grocery store into pilgrimage. An encounter with a stranger, if subsumed in a moment in which we consider that strange bearing Christ’s image, becomes a place of pilgrimage as holy, in its way, as Mt. Sinai or Jerusalem. Even illness, as Forest relates from first- hand experience of kidney disease, can, with gratitude for small blessings and the large blessings of caregivers and considerate friends, take the shape of a journey. Properly attended, this book allows pilgrimage to become an interpretive tool that works its way into our perceptions, enabling us to recognize the Stranger of Emmaus as present in each moment, and authentically our own the scriptural designation of the Christian as a ‘stranger and sojourner on the earth.’ 190 pp. paper $16.00

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THEOSIS AND AUTHORITY heard this message so many times there is a danger that it becomes saccharine, an image as : substantive as a web of cotton candy. It has no immediacy, no urgency, to the modern ear. What Patrick Callahan nonpejorative meaning does “authority”—as found in John 1:12 or anywhere else in the RECENTLY set my students, and therefore Gospels, where they marvel at this man who myself, the rather heavy task of memorizing taught with authority—have in the twenty-first I the prologue to the Gospel of John. For century? those interested, it was the KJV translation, as the We live many years since Robert Nisbet first NAB unfortunately mistakes the liberal use of the published Twilight of Authority; and, as a man who return key for the creation of poetic language lives most of his life among friends long dead (compare, please, “There was a man sent from whose parlor talk consists exclusively of messages God, whose name was John” to “A man named scrawled back and forth on paper and ink, I relish John was sent from God”). Philological ranting the stories of men of authority in the Inklings’ aside, the act was a wonderful, extended prayer for writings. One thinks of Dr. Ransom in That most of us as we entered into the mystery of Hideous Strength, Stanhope in Charles Williams’s John’s Christology with our body, mind, and Descent into Hell, or Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings. spirit. Look at the true marks of authority in these men, When asked to speak on the Inklings, the their service to and suffering for others. phrase that immediately jumped out was “to them There can be no theosis without authority. gave he power to become the sons of God” (Jn. The best illustration of this, roughly connected 1:12). The Greek for what they call “power”–– with the Inklings, resides in Chesterton’s The Man sorry, it’s my job to bring these things up––is Who Was Thursday. But then, if you don’t have a exousia, which is more “authority” or “capacity” day to spend on Chesterton, I at least than it is inherent “power.” The subtlety is not recommending twenty minutes of lectio divina on unexpected here, but it reminds me of my surprise the first chapter of John’s Gospel, and I urge you to hear the centurion say he was not ikanos for to reflect as the Inklings did on the connection Jesus to enter under his roof (Mt. 8:8). Ikanos is a between theosis and authority. word that the modern translation of “worthy” : hardly comprehends. For ikanos means “sufficient” or “capable,” and the word in the mouth of a centurion means something like “I don’t hold the proper rank for someone of your authority to come to my dwelling.” But the beautiful, startling thing is that exousia means that we are called to this gift, this challenge, of becoming the sons of God. We have

Patrick Callahan is the Dean of Humanitas, a two-year great books program sponsored by the St Lawrence Institute for Faith and Culture for students at the University of Kansas.

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JOURNEYING TOWARD intent): (1) union of man with God in his Essence (pantheism) or (2) union of man with God’s created THEOSIS gift of grace (impersonal and purposeless moralism), I struggled to sniff out in our Western-formed : Inklings more than the journey and more than broad Jon de Jong hints at some ambiguous destination. Charles Williams putters about the topic, seems to falter CONTEMPLATED this task of writing a whenever his characters flirt with the potential of brief article on theosis in the Inklings excitedly as union with God, and painfully tries to work out a I I sat aboard a plane on my own journey with my theory of “co-inherence” on his own. Tolkien companions toward a fiery crucible of theosis— perhaps gives us a faint echo of theosis in a Gandalf Mount Athos. My mind filled with grand theories transfigured from Grey to White by the Light of the and analogies of journeys—mine, the service of the Valar—although such Light was a “mere” and Divine Liturgy, our souls toward God, the Nine seemingly impersonal reflection of Illuvatar’s. Of the Companions, Archdeacon Julian Davenant’s, and three primary Inklings, Lewis, the agnostic-turned- Reepicheep’s “Come further up. Come further in.” Anglican, enters domains of the Church Fathers that Yet, even as I undertook my own journey, I came to the West rationalized away centuries ago, insists with realize that, as a person far more interested in those Fathers (at least in Mere Christianity and “The intellectual theories about God than in knowing Weight of Glory”) on dogmatics that set forth the Him, I am singularly unqualified to speak of this; goal of man as personal deification without please forgive my fumblings. Archimandrite George pantheism, and gives us the character of that of blessed memory, in a small, lovely book handed to divinized human, Ransom, who, having experienced me by a monk at Grigoriou Monastery and titled that “unrelenting though unwounding brightness” of Theosis: The True Purpose of Human Life, defines theosis the Uncreated Energies of God, lives each day being as meeting God face-to-face. Following the lead of more filled with God yet never becoming Him—as Saint Gregory Palamas in the face of a fusillade of we should. rationalist objections, the monks of Mount Athos : have “explained” for centuries their personal meetings with God in His Uncreated Energies through the practice of stillness and the Jesus Prayer. You see, for those pursuing theosis, it’s not about the journey, however ascetic, interesting, or even essential that may be, but it’s all about the destination. Because the rigors of the West’s dogmatics have left its adherents with only two options (and I observe this in the spirit of Eighth Day–style, true ecumenism and without polemic

Jonathan de Jong has been reading the Inklings since he was six and credits their works for inspiring his undergraduate studies in ancient history, language, and literature. He is a long-time customer of Eighth Day Books and a member of St George Orthodox Christian Cathedral in Wichita, Kansas .

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PREPPING FOR LIFE and act in accordance with it. (The Life in Christ 1.2) Some faculties that have been forming in us : since baptism, our other dark and fluid home, may David W. Fagerberg also seem like they are growing inside to no purpose; we have not used them as we should; we are clumsy and incomplete in how we wield the HE MEDIEVAL Byzantine theologian theological virtues we have been given; we have and master of the Mysteries (sacraments) gifts prematurely, it seems. T Nicholas Cabasilas offers a very Yet, Cabasilas is saying, we fetal saints do interesting way of thinking about theosis. He writes, have some perception, even now in this life, of “As nature prepares the fetus, while it is in its dark what is yet to come because the ending of the plot and fluid life, for that life which is in the light, and (our life) has been shown in Revelation. It is the shapes it, as though according to a model, for the purpose of Revelation to give a glimpse of the life which it is about to receive, so likewise it upcoming theosis, both in the formative Torah and happens to the saints” (The Life in Christ 1.2). the divining prophets, and the revelation in the We can imagine the fetus thinking, Why do flesh outside Bethlehem. Only after we have seen these bones in my legs continue to grow when the flower can we understand the seed; until we they only cramp up the limited space I have? What see the tulip, the bulb looks like a gnarled knob; are they for? They’re of no use to me here, in this until we run, we do not know what legs are for; place. Why this nose when there is nothing to the Omega is required to understand the Alpha; smell, these eyes when it is totally dark, these lungs the son of God made flesh is required to that are ill-suited to this liquid environment? It is a understand the predestination of men and women. waste to be developing these faculties because I think each of the Inklings was on to this. they are of no use to me in my present life, in my Their stories and writings taught us to be disposed present condition. and prepared for that life, and to live and act even But having made the comparison between now in accordance with it. The clues are strewn the baby and the saint, Cabasilas points out an throughout their writings. important way in which they are different. Tolkien calls us “sub-creators” because, like While the unborn have no perception the God in whose image we are made, we can whatever of this life, the blessed ones have many create little cosmoses: that’s what fairy tales are. hints in this present life of things to come. . . . The He does not define fairy stories as childish stories, unborn do not yet possess this life, but it is wholly or even stories for children; he defines them as in the future. In that condition there is no ray of stories about Faerie. It is a particular mood in light nor anything else which sustains this life. In which we find all things to be enchanted—tree our case this is not so, but that future light is, as it and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and we were, infused into this present life and mingled ourselves, mortal men and women. Each fairy with it. . . . In this present world, therefore, it is story has its own mode of reflecting truth, he possible for the saints not only to be disposed and adds, and one of the truest and most moving prepared for that life, but also even now to live sensations in a fairy story is the sudden happy turn “which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which I argued it is the highest function of fairy- stories to produce).” To name this experience he David Fagerberg is Professor of Liturgical Studies at Notre coined the word eucatastrophe, from eu- (good) Dame University. He specializes in liturgical theology: its definition and methodology, sacramental theology, and liturgiology. and cata-strophe (unraveling a drama’s plot). “And I He also has interests in sacramental theology, Eastern Orthodoxy, concluded by saying that the Resurrection was the linguistic philosophy, scholasticism, G. K. Chesterton and C.S. greatest eucatastrophe possible in the greatest Lewis

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Fairy Story” (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien 100). never be satisfied, and yet we are not discouraged Think of the saints that have lived a joy such as is by the fact. capable of bringing tears. Owen Barfield speaks of “poetic diction,” In the first place, though the sense of want is which means selecting and arranging words in acute and even painful, yet the mere wanting is such a way that their meaning arouses aesthetic felt to be somehow a delight. Other desires are imagination. And when he tries to describe in felt as pleasures only if satisfaction is expected more detail what that means, he finds himself in the near future: hunger is pleasant only “obliged to define it as a ‘felt change of while we know (or believe) that we are soon consciousness’” (Poetic Diction 48). Deification going to eat. But this desire, even when there would change our consciousness of everything. is no hope of possible satisfaction, continues However, capacitation for such a consciousness to be prized, and even to be preferred to requires that the world be perceived by the whole anything else in the world, by those who have person. “I do not perceive any thing with my once felt it. This hunger is better than any sense-organs alone, but with a great part of my other fullness; this poverty better than all whole human being. . . . When I ‘hear a thrush other wealth. And thus it comes about, that if singing,’ I am hearing, not with my ears alone, but the desire is long absent, it may itself be with all sorts of other things like mental habits, desired, and that new desiring becomes a new memory, imagination, feeling, and will” (Saving the instance of the original desire. (The Pilgrim’s Appearances 20). Like the fetus in the womb, we are still waiting for our most startling contact with Regress 12) reality, when we will have the resurrected body, This hunger is better than any other fullness. but unlike the fetus we can already detect it In The Horse and His Boy the good mare Hwin, because we perceive the world not with sense when she first sees Aslan, trots up to him, organs alone, but with divinely graced memories, trembling all over, and says, “Please, you’re so imaginations, feelings, and wills. beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I would What quotes shall I take from Lewis to bring sooner be eaten by you than fed by anyone else.” him into the discussion? All the characters in The path to our deification traverses the cross, Narnia long to go further up and further in, as which is laid like a drawbridge across the ditch of much as the fetus longs to get further out. They death. We must be willing to be eaten by Aslan if want to go into Aslan’s country, where the inside our hunger is to be fulfilled. There is a two-way is bigger than the outside, where all that mattered eating in every Eucharistic meal. of the old Narnia has been drawn through the Finally, we may mention Charles Williams, door into the real Narnia, where they find that who also knows something about desire, and everything they loved in the old Narnia was romance, and the urge toward heaven. In his study because it looked a little like this, where Jewel the of the figure of Beatrice in the Divine Comedy he Unicorn realizes he has come home at last. But describes Dante meeting an angel with two keys. how? Upon what interior faculty does the One is silver and one is gold. Of course they are transfigured Narnia seize hold when it reaches out the keys of forgiveness given to the Church. But to attract us? With what part of our self does it Williams says they reflect something more. One is make contact, like an electric wire extending its the method of Rejection and the other of current? Lewis calls it “Romance.” Affirmation. “Rejection is a silver key, which is I understand Lewis’s definition of Romance ‘more dear’; Affirmation is a golden key, more as describing our thirst for theosis. Romance is a difficult to use. Yet both are necessary, for any special kind of longing, he says, and it is a special life. . . . The Church is not a way for the soul to kind because we do not mind its being bittersweet. escape hell but to become heaven; it is virtues This Romance comes from a longing that will rather than sins which we must remember” (The

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Figure of Beatrice 157). So many times religion is promised deification. That is why their stories are preached in only the silver key: sins, vices, joyful and effortless. escaping hell, rejecting worldliness. There is truth : in that, Williams says, but there is more. Religion must also be preached in the golden key: graces, virtues, becoming heaven, affirming the world without distorting it into worldliness. “The Way of Affirmation,” he explains, “was to develop great art and romantic love and marriage and philosophy and social justice” (The Descent of the Dove 56). The real reason for Christianity is our deification; conversion and mortification are means, not ends. Human beings are strange creatures because they are thrice born: they are born once, biologically; they await their final birth, eschatologically; but in the meantime we are reborn, sacramentally. The thread running between these three births permits a ray of light to extend from heaven into our daily life, which beckons us upward on the path of theosis. That future light is infused into this present life and mingled with it. The Inklings awaken our appetites and show us that light. The Inklings have a hold on us because they do not teach us morality the way the Stoics do: as a joyless and effortful duty. The Inklings teach us morality as a virtuous way of life that can already act in accord with our

Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry By Owen Barfield

Maybe the best known of Barfield’s books, Saving the Appearances professes itself to be “not so much a new discovery or a new idea as a different ‘slant’” (to quote the author) on the history of human consciousness. Rather than seeing man (as Sartre did) as a being condemned to freedom—a hollow man by all accounts— Barfield sees him to be “the theatre on which participation has died to rise again.” Just exactly what he means by that requires a dedicated reading of Barfield’s particular, and original, approach to Christian perplexities. Drawing illustrations from mythology, philosophy, history, literature, theology, and science, Barfield chronicles the evolution of human thought, tracing the disappearance of what he terms participation (a vague but immediate awareness of the meaning of phenomena) and the subsequent appearance of symbolism (the experience of phenomena as representations). He calls this latter experience, in its extreme form, idolatry. To move past idolatry a responsible use of imagination must be envisioned and enacted. As Barfield puts it, this requires the ability “to experience the representations [of phenomena] as idols” and then be able to participate in them “with the profoundest sense of responsibility, with the deepest thankfulness and piety towards the world as it was originally given.” Barfield names the seed of this shift the Logos. “Henceforth,” he writes, “the life of the image is to be drawn from within. The life of the image is to be none other than the life of imagination.” 190 pp. paper $19.95

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THEOSIS IN LEAF BY NIGGLE This purgation begins for Niggle in the form of his bothersome neighbor, Parish, who asks (more than once) for help in fixing his roof, which : Niggle finds terribly inconvenient. Though his Dusty Gates own perfectionism and other distractions prevent him from completing his Tree painting, he HE LORD of the Rings trilogy and its ultimately finds it completed for him, in a way predecessor, The Hobbit, offer numerous greater than he could have imagined, by a power T glimpses into the theological perspectives outside himself. The first stage of his theosis is of Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic. While the marked by an experience of the transcendent: power struggle between good and evil is present A great green shadow came between him and throughout the story, it is a mistake to presume it the sun. Niggle looked up, and fell off his to be the dominant motif tying the work together. bicycle. Before him stood the Tree, his Tree, In a letter, Tolkien wrote: “I do not think that finished. If you could say that of a Tree that even Power or Domination is the real center of was alive, its leaves opening, its branches my story. The real theme for me is about growing and bending in the wind that Niggle something much more permanent and difficult: had so often felt or guessed, and had so often Death and Immortality.” As much as the fight failed to catch. He gazed at the Tree, and between light and dark forces has to do with slowly he lifted his arms and opened them eternal life, Tolkien recognizes that, in the end, the wide. “It’s a gift!” he said. kingdom is all that matters. All earthly quests find In his changed nature, Niggle has a more their meaning only in the context of the grand authentic experience of reality than he had ever narrative: our yearning for everlasting life. With before perceived. It is so unexpected, and so this meta-theme in mind, we can gain valuable splendidly beautiful, that Niggle knows at once it insight into the heart and mind of Tolkien by was not done by him, but was certainly done for taking a careful look at one of his lesser known him. Through the process of divinization, Niggle stories: “Leaf by Niggle.” is able to experience a heightened form of reality, The story focuses on a relatable character in which the author of the work and the one who named Niggle (most likely styled after the author beholds it share in the same intimate relationship himself), a good-natured man, yet easily distracted, and vision. and even more easily flustered by the everyday Tolkien’s development of his character events of life that get in the way of his pet project. Niggle is a beautiful transposition of what must His magnum opus is a painting of a Tree, which he happen before the creature may behold his obsesses over and, for one reason after another, creator. Fellow Inkling C. S. Lewis took up a fails to complete, at least in a way that he finds similar theme in one of his own novels. Till We satisfactory. The reader who is familiar with the Have Faces, like “Leaf by Niggle,” reminds us that author is clearly reminded of Tolkien’s own we cannot behold God until we have become like laborious and drawn-out efforts to complete his Him. We are unable to see the Lord face-to-face trilogy. Niggle, like Tolkien (who was particularly until we have been made perfect; deified through scrupulous and self-critical), would recognize his the power of the Holy Spirit. need of purification from his human weaknesses. On his journey, Niggle realizes that he has become able to experience his art, in fact all of creation itself, differently. Dusty Gates currently serves as the Director of Adult Education at the Spiritual Life Center for the Catholic Diocese of After a time Niggle turned towards the Forest. Wichita, KS, and as an adjunct Professor of Theology at Newman Not because he was tired of the Tree, but he University in Wichita, KS, where he resides with his wife and two seemed to have got it all clear in his mind children.

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now, and was aware of it, and of its growth, paths that will lead us toward it. We are finally even when he was not looking at it. As he given the chance to enter into it, if only we have walked away, he discovered an odd thing: the the eyes to see and the feet to trod the way. Forest, of course, was a distant Forest, yet he could approach it, even enter it, without its losing that particular charm . . . as you walked, : new distances opened out. . . . You could go on and on, but not perhaps for ever. There were the Mountains in the background. They did get nearer, very slowly. They did not seem to belong to the picture, or only as a link to something else, a glimpse through the trees of something different, a further stage: another picture. With this heightened ability of perception, he finds he still has work to do, and needs help. He finds that help in Parish—the neighbor whom Niggle had failed to aid, and appreciate, in their former lives. Niggle is afforded the opportunity to assist Parish, and to receive Parish’s assistance in turn. They become friends—true friends—and in the process Niggle becomes paradoxically more at peace, yet also more in search of something greater.

As their work drew to an end they allowed themselves more and more time for walking about, looking at the trees, and the flowers, and the lights and shapes, and the lie of the land. Sometimes they sang together; but Niggle found that he was now beginning to turn his eyes, more and more often, towards the Mountains. Niggle and Parish walk together to the edge of the country—to the point where the ascent of the mountains begins. Parish isn’t yet ready to leave, so Niggle moves on without him, and begins his ascent of the mountain with the help of a mysterious Shepherd.

Even little Niggle in his old home could glimpse the Mountains far away, and they got into the borders of his picture; but what they are really like, and what lies beyond them, only those can say who have climbed them. In this life, we perceive flashes of eternity; momentary and partial “sneak-peeks” of the glory that is to come, and are likewise guided along the

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MAN FULLY ALIVE several words in the Greek Fathers (koinonia, methexis). The first to speak in these terms, theosis as human vocation however, was the Apostle St. Peter himself: : His divine power has given us everything which pertains to life and piety Kenneth J. Howell through the knowledge of the One who has called us by His own glory and virtue. EIFICATION is not well understood Through these things He has given us in the western world. When western precious and great promises that by these you D Christians hear the word “deification”— might become partakers of the divine nature theosis in Greek—they often associate it with by fleeing the corruption in the world in lust pantheism in which the divine and human are (2 Peter 1:3-4). fused together into a seamless spiritual garment. This text, repeatedly quoted by the Greek For them, pantheism is a heresy which obliterates Fathers of the Church, sets the stage for the distinction between God and human beings. understanding the goal of the Christian life. It They rightly see this as being in conflict with the affirms that God has left nothing undone which biblical distinction between Creator and creation. pertains to our salvation. It also reminds us that all Yet for two thousand years, Christianity has which God has said or promised holds out the properly spoken of deification or theosis as the hope that the diligent Christian will be able to essence of salvation. What is theosis? share in that divine nature of which Jesus spoke in The goal of theosis is to dwell in God, to His famous prayer. But St. Peter also warns that it share in the divine life. This truth is reflected in is only through purification that such a goal is the prayer of Jesus recorded in John 17. There we attainable. hear Jesus giving us hints of what the inner life of The process of theosis is one of regaining the the Trinity is like. He prays that His disciples “may likeness of God. Genesis 1:26 says that man was be one as we are one” (Jn 17:11). Then later He made “in the image and likeness of God.” It explains this oneness, “that they may all be one, as would be natural to think that the two terms, you Father are in me and I in you, that they may “image” and “likeness,” are synonyms, two ways also be in us” (17:21). This unity of the Father, of saying the same thing. The Greek-speaking Son, and Holy Spirit is one of mutual indwelling Church Fathers, however, rather consistently say and participation in a shared life. It is that divine that these two words are two sides of the same life to which every Christian is called. Jesus desires coin. Adam and Eve possessed both the image His disciples to share in that life of the Holy and likeness of God but the fall into sin, into our Trinity which is the ultimate source of all life, both current deporable state, robbed us of the likeness material and spiritual. of God while the image of God remains intact in Reaching the goal of deification takes place us. Indeed, we would cease to be human if we did through participation, a reality designated by not have God’s image within us. But the likeness of God we have lost, and this is why we need grace, for we can never be like God again unless Kenneth J. Howell is President and Director of Academic He makes us like Himself. This too is why the Research for the Eucharist Project, an ecumenical effort to make Eternal Son of God, the Logos, became flesh and the teachings of the Church Fathers on the Eucharist better took upon Himself our burdens. He came to known. Having taught for thirty years at the university level, he restore us to the likeness of God. has recently been promoted to teaching high school theology in his 2 Peter 1:4 speaks of “fleeing the corruption spare time.

48 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016 in the world in lust.” This vocation to holiness us that heaven and earth are joined together in the explains why monastic life in the East is seen as liturgy of the Church. “When you see the Lord the model for every Christian. Not all are called to sacrificed and lying there and the priest standing monastic prayer but all are called to the same with the sacrifice praying along with all who have purity the monk seeks to achieve. Theosis requires become red with that precious blood, then do you purification of one’s life, emotions, rationality, and still think you are among men and standing on will. Such a task will naturally involve earth? Rather aren’t you immediately transported renunciation. But, even more importantly, it is into heaven?” God has not left the process of realized through contemplation, the kind Paul deification to be dependent on us. Always spoke of in 2 Corinthians 4:18: “Setting our gaze creatures, we will nonetheless be fully filled with not on the things seen but on the things not seen. God’s own Trinitarian life. It is then that we shall For the things that are seen are temporal, but the be fully human. unseen things are eternal.” Such a goal seems impractical to the average person today, even : those who believe in a higher and more perfect world of heaven. God knows our human weakness. He has not abandoned us to our devices. That is why He gave the liturgy of the Church. The liturgy is the privileged and unique setting in which His divine life is poured out into the hearts of every believer so that they too can “become partakers of the divine nature.” No one has said this truth more often or more eloquently than St. John Chrysostom. In sermon after sermon he reminds

Partakers of the Divine Nature Edited By Michael J. Christensen and Jeffery A. Wittung

Partakers of the Divine Nature is an uncommon anthology. Born from an academic conference exploring the topic of theosis/deification at Drew University, it is a collection of essays by writers representing the perspectives of both East and West, “across cultures and historical periods within the Christian tradition” (from the Introduction). From its early Greek origins to more modern constructions, the idea of theosis and its “compelling vision of human potential for transformation and spiritual perfectibility” (again, from the Introduction) has been increasingly explored in academic circles and simultaneously tarnished by deviations imposed upon it by the New Age movement. The editors of Partakers seek a restoration of sorts. This volume includes never-before-published essays by scholars on the concept of deification in the New Testament, as well as in ancient Greek, Syriac, and Copto-Arabic cultures. The authors parse its development in patrisitc, Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions as they consider the works of Athanasius, Ephrem the Syrian, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, Maximus the Confessor, Gregory Palamas, Anselm, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, Sergius Bulgakov, and Karl Rahner. The contributors list is just as impressive: Andrew Louth, Stephen Finlan, J. A. McGuckin, Vladimir Kharlamov, Stephen J. Davis, J. Todd Billings, Boris Jakim, and Francis J. Caponi (among others). Also included is an extensive bibliography of works on theosis with nearly 300 entries. In the words of one reviewer, Partakers of the Divine Nature is “a broad and reliable collection that...provides a sense of what is at stake.” 326 pp. paper $29.99

renewing culture through faith and learning 49 SYNAXIS 3.2

THE MAN BORN TO BE KING “The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man . . . and dogmatic drama in Dorothy Sayers the dogma is the drama.” In her introduction to the published plays, Sayers noted the stunning : juxtaposition of clauses in the Nicene Creed: For Jesus is unique—unique among gods and Stephanie A. Mann men. There have been incarnate gods a-plenty, and slain-and-resurrected gods not a few; but NE OF THIS summer’s big movie He is the only God who has a date in history. events will be the release of Hollywood’s And plenty of founders of religions have had O third adaptation of Governor Lew dates, and some of them have been prophets Wallace’s Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. If you or avatars of the Divine; but only this one of remember the blockbuster 1959 version with them was personally God. There is no more Charlton Heston as Ben-Hur, you might also astonishing collocation of phrases than that recall that Jesus, the Christ, is an enigmatic figure which, in the Nicene Creed, sets these two in the movie. We never hear His voice, we never statements flatly side by side: “Very God of very God. . . . He suffered under Pontius see His face—we only see and hear how Judah Pilate.” Ben-Hur and other characters react to Him. We hear a musical cue whenever He appears; Those who haven’t read the plays should, just otherwise, His appearance is left to our to see what Sayers does with that phrase “suffered imagination. under Pontius Pilate”. This reticence about depicting Jesus was at Sayers based the chronology of her twelve least partially cast aside in 1941 when Dorothy L. plays on St. John’s Gospel, supplementing the plot Sayers wrote her radio plays for the BBC, The Man with episodes from the Synoptic Gospels. Born to Be King, in which Christ speaks in a British Throughout the plays (broadcast on one Sunday voice with the cadence of modern English. Sayers evening each month, beginning on December 21, included directions that some of the characters 1941 and ending on October 18, 1942), Sayers should have different accents, including Cockney. presents the disciples’ reactions to the mystery of Some in the audience were shocked by the use of Jesus as they live with Him. She also delineates, modern English; they expected the familiar particularly on Holy Saturday, how different the rhythms of the Authorized Version they heard reactions of the women are to these events. In the every Sunday. collected edition, Sayers prefaces each play with But that was part of Sayers’ point. She notes on the characters. In the notes to the last wanted listeners to hear the story of Jesus in a play, “The King Comes Into His Own”, she different way so they would stop and listen. Those divides the characters into “The Men” and “The familiar, fragmented passages of the Gospel heard Women”. every Sunday were almost too familiar. The men—Peter, James, John, Matthew, etc. She wanted her audience, through this —are despondent and lethargic. The women— dramatic presentation of the life of Christ, to save Mary Magdalen—are active and energetic. contemplate anew the dogma of the Incarnation Even as they mourn for Jesus, they have things to and the Paschal Mystery. As she wrote in 1938, do: prepare the burial cloths and spices, comfort the Blessed Virgin Mary, and plan for His tomb. Sayers comments, “At births and deaths, women Stephanie A. Mann is the author of Supremacy and Survival: come into their own and can do something, while How Catholics Endured the English Reformation, available from men can only sit about helplessly.” Scepter Publishers (and at Eighth Day Books). She resides in Wichita, Kansas and blogs at Dorothy L. Sayers—novelist, translator, www.supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com. theologian, and dramatist—knew well how to

50 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016 depict the drama of Christian dogma, even in the differences between male and female as God had created man. As he wrote to her in 1955, C. S. Lewis read The Man Born to Be King every Holy Week—and Lewis wept. :

Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society By Dorothy Sayers

One could very well call the wit of Dorothy Sayers “biting,” though the publishers of this edition choose instead the far more elegant (and complimentary) piquant. Indeed, she is “engagingly provocative” and “agreeably stimulating” with “a lively arch charm” (Merriam-Webster), though this reader would hardly wish to find herself opposing Ms. Sayers in debate. Her arguments concerning women are sharp as any battle-ready sword and also (quite often) hilarious in their delivery and execution. One of the first women to graduate from Oxford, Sayers met with the Inklings from time to time and might be best known for her detective stories, plays, and fine translations of Dante. Only three times is she known to have written on the nature and functions of women—in the two essays printed here and in her introduction to Dante’s Purgatory. Sayers is far from what most imagine a feminist to be. She is more concerned with a way of life that liberates women as human beings than she is defending their right to do men’s work. In short, “It is ridiculous to take on a man’s job just in order to be able to say that ‘a woman has done it-yah!’ The only decent reason for taking any job is that it is your job and you want to do it.” 69 pp. paper $10.00

renewing culture through faith and learning 51 SYNAXIS 3.2

MERE CHRISTIANITY of what it is they should take away from these three weeks of Lewis. I have found over the years, theosis in a British way however, that all of them understand the book much more quickly and coherently when I teach it : from one underlying premise: that the entire point of Christianity is to make humans into “little Fr. David Meconi, S.J. Christs”, as Lewis repeatedly puts it. That Lewis holds a robust doctrine of deification, I have N HIS preface to Mere Christianity, Lewis shown in a previous study; but that this is the admits that this is not a confessional work unifying thread holding the numerous strands I but is “merely” the explanation and defense offered throughout Mere Christianity did not occur of “the belief that has been common to nearly all to me until teaching this unmatchable work to Christians at all times” (p. viii). Since Mere university undergraduates these past few years. The most lapidary expression of Christian Christianity continues to prove to be a seminal deification is found in St. Athanasius: “God work of Christian educators teaching at most became man so men could become gods”. The levels of formation—high schools, preparatory Church Fathers knew this to be the heart of the schools, seminaries, colleges, and universities—it faith and such metaphors of humanity’s is especially important to understand what this one “becoming gods” abound. Before Athanasius, for “belief… common to nearly all Christians” may example, we read St. Irenaeus teaching his flock be. In this brief article, I would like to advance the that “this is why the Word became human, and thesis that this one main belief, and thus the the Son of God became the Son of man, so that unifying lens through which every page of Mere humans, by entering into union with God and Christianity is best read, is the divinization of the thereby becoming divinely adopted, may become a son or daughter of God”. Cyril of Jerusalem tells human person in Christ. his newly-baptized congregants that now, ‘you Lewis himself admits toward the end of the who have become sharers in Christ are work, that “putting on Christ” or “dressing up” as appropriately called “Christs”’. Similarly, St. a child of the Father “is not one among many jobs Augustine exhorts his congregation to “rejoice and a Christian has to do; and it is not a sort of special be glad, for they have become not Christians but exercise for the top class. It is the whole of Christ (non solum nos christianos factos esse, sed Christianity. Christianity offers nothing else at all” Christum)”. While the early Church initiated and (IV.8; p. 195). By examining the overall purpose of solidified humanity’s divine transformation as the each of the four books, we shall come to see how heart of the Christian faith, we hear the same call deification runs through Mere Christianity, thereby for the baptized to live the divine life in the best allowing us to understand the organic nature of of the medieval tradition as well. St. Thomas the work better as well as enabling us to see Aquinas, for example, preaches that, “The only- Lewis’s rich and very useful appreciation for the begotten Son of God, desirous to make us sharers human person’s divine transformation in Christ. in his own divinity, assumed human nature, so that Every fall semester I teach Mere Christianity to he made human might make humans gods”. a group of incoming students from all disciplines Furthermore, recent studies have shown how throughout the university. For the most part, these deification, while perhaps a bit more muted, was a freshers are very bright and they respond to Lewis central tenet of the early modern and with brio; some, however, struggle to make sense contemporary periods as well. In his unmatchable style and unforgettable phrasing, Lewis translates Fr. David Vincent Meconi, S.J. is associate professor of this theological tradition into his repeated call to historical theology at St. Louis University, and is the Founder and become “little Christs”. […] Director of the Edmund Campion Centre for Catholic Studies.

52 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016

In Book II of Mere Christianity, “What designs for His higher creatures is the happiness Christians Believe”, Lewis accordingly focuses the of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to reader’s attention on how the Divine Being each other in an ecstasy of love…” (II.3; p. 48). If discerned throughout Book I is neither some God is going to relate to us as other persons and capricious force nor some impish scamp. Rather, not as mere automata, he must allow us to turn this is a God who is pure reason, who resonates away from him. perfectly and personally with goodness, and who But Lewis also knows that even in our tolerates evil only in order to bring all rebellion turning away, we are showing our desire to be like freely back to faithfulness in Him. Lewis’s God. He therefore explains sin as perverse emphasis on the role of free will within the drama imitation of the very God who we are created to of salvation here is splendid, and is reminiscent of be like. In other words, the Enemy knew that no the Church Fathers who also understood sin as other temptation could have moved the first the perverse imitation of godliness. That is, Lewis couple out of Eden, out of the “natural” understands the entire Gospel message is one of perfection they enjoyed. This explains why Lewis transformative love, but love must be freely presents his hamartiology in terms of our innate chosen and appropriated: “Because free will, yearning for divinity. The “Dark Power” promises though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing our protoparents that they could be “like gods” that makes possible any love or goodness or joy (Gn. 3:5). In one way, this was true, and that is worth having… The happiness which God why Lewis refuses to name this anywhere an act of

The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, Volume One, Revelation and Knowledge of the Triune God by Dumitru Staniloae; translated and edited by Ioan Ionita and Robert Barringer

The marks of true and living theology, according to Archpriest Staniloae, are “fidelity to the revelation of Christ given in holy Scripture and Tradition . . . responsibility for the faithful who are contemporary with the theology as it is being done, openness to the eschatological future.” Fr. Dumitru treats the patristic writers as contemporaries, “living witnesses whose testimony requires on our side a continual self- examination and rethinking, with present-day concerns in view.” Yet his work is also a creative, bridge- building work, pointing towards paths yet unexplored. His is a theology of meeting and response, love and personal communion. He contends that any knowing we come to comes to us in communion, with ourselves, one another, and with God. Therefore it is also strongly Trinitarian—God as the supreme structure of interpersonal love. Staniloae also stresses apophatic knowledge, “paradox is to be found everywhere,” he says, and in so doing emphasizes the saving dialectic of the “otherness yet nearness of God.” In his forward-facing theology, Fr. Dumitru conveys a strong vision of cosmic transformation, making his theology essentially aesthetic, full of beauty and joy, and ultimately, great hope. 280 pp. paper $26.95 See also…

The Experience of God : Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, Volume Two, The World, Creation and Deification By Dumitru Staniloae

This second of a projected six volumes presents an Orthodox understanding of the creation of the visible world and of man, the angelic world, evil in the created order, the Fall, Providence, and the deification of the world. 213 pp. paper $26.95

renewing culture through faith and learning 53 SYNAXIS 3.2 mendacity. He instead argues that human about doing right or avoiding wrong. In this sense sinfulness comes, not from believing a lie but, Christianity is not a religion at all, it is a from seeking divinity apart from the Divine. With relationship that demands our free assent and what else could the enemy of our human nature subsequent vulnerability as we allow Christ to lead have used to tempt us? us into his very self. It is no longer about keeping On the natural level, Adam and Eve had the law, or about carefully fixing our eyes on our everything; if anything, this is precisely what Eden own successes or failings, but about casting our is to represent. The only blessing the first couple very being upon the Lord himself. That is why lacked was that full and deified union with God, throughout Book III of Mere Christianity, Lewis is which was the only one thing which Satan could intent upon avoiding two errors: (1) morality is have used to tempt them. No other good could not God’s maneuver to spoil people’s fun, (2) nor have been a temptation, for every other good they is the Christian ethical code meant simply to make possessed perfectly and in abundance. Lewis one stronger or more efficient in his or her tasks. realizes that while we are created so as to become This is why Lewis can later so beautifully teach godly, this can occur only in union with the Triune that, “God became man to turn creatures into God in whose image and likeness each human [children]: not simply to produce better men of person has been made. Satan did not so much lie the old kind but to produce a new kind of man. It as he usurped a power and a privilege which is is not like teaching a horse to jump better and never his to bestow. Lewis hence likens human better but like turning a horse into a winged excellence to an automobile which can run on creature” (IV.10; p. 216). Deification does not only the proper petroleum. Like an automobile, abolish humanity’s nature but fulfills and God alone can be the petrol which produces the completes it. […] types of human persons he intended: “God Mere Christianity is a multi-faceted work of cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from theology and an unmatchable piece of apologetics. Himself, because it is not there. There is no such Through all its many wonderful side streets and thing” (II.3; p. 50). To be fully human is to turns is one underlying thesis: God created other partake in the divine nature (2 Pt. 1:4), never to persons so they would freely choose to become possess it. Made in and for divine relationship like Him and so live with Him in perfect intimacy (Gn. 1:26-27), men and women become fully who forever. And when the beauty of creation, the they are meant to be, more perfect, more morality of conscience, and the keeping of the law individuated, as they grow in divine reliance and all failed, God sent His only Son into human flesh. union. The only thing with which the Enemy This Son lived the human life fully for no other could have tempted them was the only thing they reason than to continue His own divine life into did not yet have: the deified life. The ultimate each and every human soul. He became the Son of irony, of course, is that such godliness was in fact Man so we could all become the sons and theirs to have. That is, the Enemy’s promise to daughters of God. In this “great exchange” God our first parents to become “gods” was indeed becomes one of us and each of us is called to accurate, but only through their participation in become God, to become living members of his the one who alone has divinity to grant. Satan thus own body as the Christ-life is extended through us exposes himself as a liar, not in what he told into every time and place. This is both the mere- Adam and Eve, but in the manner by which he ness and the majesty of all life in Christ. enticed them to obtain it. […] : When reading Mere Christianity in light of the overall aim of explicating a theology of human Excerpted from original publication in Journal of deification, it is the virtue of hope that stands out Inkling Studies 4:1 (April, 2014) p.3-18. Reprinted most audaciously. As we come to learn with permission of the author. throughout Book III, Christianity is not ultimately

54 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org

PRESERVING CIVILIZATION ONE STUDENT AT A TIME

Northfieldd School of the Liberal Arts

ORTIMER ADLER and Robert Hutchins began Mpublishing The Great Books of the Western World while teaching at the University of Chicago in the 1950s. Their efforts signaled an invitation from the academic world to the working world: the common ground of western civilization must be preserved. The keys to cultural preservation, they suggested, were to be found in fifty-four great texts. Their intention was not to drag people back to school, but to offer each mind the heroic task of entering the Great Conversation of history – the dialogue of the good, the true, and the beautiful. Today, unfortunately, that Great Conversation has been replaced with a headlong rush toward “progress” at a velocity that leaves the future of civilization at risk. Hutchins once wrote, “Imagine the younger generation studying great books and learning the liberal arts. Imagine an adult population continuing to turn to the same sources of strength, inspiration and communication. We could talk to one another then.” Northfield School of the Liberal Arts was founded to extend this invitation to both parents and students. We have the privilege of watching young peoples’ minds flourish on a regular basis under the influence of the Great Books. “Here at Northfield,” wrote a recent graduate, “we find ourselves seeking truth in every aspect of our lives. In the classroom, we are continuously challenged to think for ourselves, to find the truth.” In a presentation speech at a New York City gala for the release of the first complete set of the Great Books, Hutchins explained its essence: “This is more than a set of books, and more than a liberal education. Great Books of the Western World is an act of piety. Here are the sources of our being.” For the sake of our western civilization, we at Northfield invite you to join us in our pious quest for the sources of our being through a lifetime of reading in the Great Books.

Northﬁeld School of the Liberal Arts is a private, non-proﬁt middle- and high-school operated by Phillip and Becky Elder in Wichita, KS. Their emphasis on the Seven Liberal Arts and the Great Books makes their motto become a living reality daily in the lives of students, teachers, and parents: Nascantur in Admiratione. Let them Be Born in Wonder. SYNAXIS 3.2

DOES EMPATHY CONNECT set these forth anyway in order to raise questions about theosis for which others may have answers TO THEOSIS? from the Bible and the teachings of the Church. : Here are the premises so far: 1. Theosis is the infusion of God into Dr. Mark Mosley mankind. 2. Theosis occurs at the creation of mankind HE STORY of mankind does not begin when man is made in the image and with the fall. It begins in the garden. Man likeness of God. T was made in the image of God. He lived 3. Theosis is the original purpose of mankind. in the likeness of God, was infused with God’s 4. The fall deforms this journey. The cross being, and shared His life. We could say that this redeems it. sharing, this infusion of God with us, what the 5. Salvation by “justification” is not the ultimate purpose of mankind, but rather Greeks called theosis, is the original purpose for the way to realize theosis (a shared life of which mankind was created. sanctification). In the same way that mankind’s story does 6. Theosis is not a statement of position with not begin with the fall, his story does not end at God; it is a process of God living through the cross. If theosis is the purpose for which us. mankind was created and the fall disrupted this design, wouldn’t the cross be the way to return us If these premises are true and theosis is the to the shared life, i.e., theosis, which God originally purpose of mankind before the fall, is it intended? The cross is the way to resurrection and reasonable to ask if theosis is still the purpose of ascension into heaven. In some western mankind? Even for those who are not yet saved? terminology, we would say it is not finished to be I would like to entertain the idea that human “justified”—we must walk with God through beings, regardless of their position before God, “sanctification.” But from an Eastern Orthodox are in fact constantly drawn to be with God. I mindset, this “sanctification” is not simply living a would also suggest that this spiritual instinct is less sinful life, but is rather a life of theosis in which empathy. Therefore, I would ask, “Is this not a our life is infused with God’s being and consumed basic form of theosis?” by His presence. When a secular person who has no thought In this theological understanding, the fall of God experiences true empathy for another does not destroy our image of God in us. Neither human being, or even for an animal, is this not the does the fall destroy our ability to get glimpses of energy of theosis? When a person who is in despair His likeness. Rather, the fall mortally deforms our or in depression somehow encounters empathy ability to realize both. and paradoxically is lifted out of his darkness, is I am not a theologian and have already set this not the primitive activation of theosis? up premises which I am unfit to discuss. But I will And we who claim Christianity, when we run dry in our thoughts and actions and we perform some small act of charity without regard to our Dr. Mark L. Mosley graduated from the University of own pleasure or displeasure, is not this grace-given Oklahoma College of Medicine at Oklahoma City in 1990. He works in Wichita, KS and specializes in Emergency Medicine. empathy the fuel that energizes us toward theosis?

56 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016

To “count” only the empathetic responses of those who are Christian is disingenuous. The Holy Spirit works in all of us before we are “saved.” God’s desire is that all of mankind be drawn to Him and be saved. Let me add a seventh premise: True empathy is not generated by us—it is given to all of us as a gift. It is a base instinct that connects us to theosis. It can be experienced by all of mankind. It draws the sinner and energizes the saint. A final thought: If theosis is a process for every human being, if it is being infused with God, beginning with an experience of empathy that leads to selfless love, what then is salvation? And what is the need for salvation if we are all on the journey of theosis? Is salvation not the consignment of submission to God in us? We not only agree to the idea that empathy does not come from within us but we cooperate and commit ourselves to being in God. The God who created us, now by our agreement, consumes us. Though an imperfect analogy, it is like a marriage in which the love of a couple precedes the marriage ceremony and the marriage ceremony gives it a seal of authenticity because God has blessed it. The work of love a couple shares before marriage is authentic, even godly, in its approach, but it has not been sealed by God Himself. Empathy too must be understood, offered, and sealed in baptism to continue its journey as theosis. Empathy grows into a ripened theosis when it has been recognized, handed over, blessed, and sealed by God. Salvation is not necessary then to encounter theosis; but it is necessary to fulfill it. :

renewing culture through faith and learning 57 SYNAXIS 3.2

TOLKIEN IN A NUTSHELL of the dead, having the power to release the dead themselves from their curse, and insofar as he has, : in his capacity as the true king, great and miraculous powers of healing, is clearly a Christ Joseph Pearce figure. Gandalf, in his death, resurrection, and transfiguration is also a Christ figure. OLKIEN described The Lord of the Rings Many of the seven sacraments are as “a fundamentally religious and Catholic represented in The Lord of the Rings. As we have T work.” Is it possible to summarize this seen, the Eucharist is present symbolically in the dimension of Tolkien’s magnum opus in fewer than depiction of the elvish life-bread or bread of life six hundred words? You better believe it! (lembas). The Sacrament of Penance and the The connections between The Lord of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction are represented in Rings and the Catholic faith are numerous. There the manner of the final exchange of words is a symbolic connection between the One Ring between the dying Boromir and Aragorn, the latter and original sin and, therefore, between Mount of whom serves in persona Christi as the absolver of Doom and Golgotha. The elvish word for Boromir’s sins. The Sacrament of Marriage is waybread, lembas, means life-bread, or bread of depicted beautifully in the marriages of Aragorn life, connecting it to the Eucharist. Like the and Arwen, Faramir and Eowyn, and Sam and Eucharist, lembas feeds the will. The date on which Rosie. The priesthood is represented insofar as the Ring is destroyed is March 25, the date of both Aragorn acts in persona Christi. The Blessed Virgin the Annunciation and the Crucifixion, connecting is represented insofar as Tolkien said that he put the destruction of the Ring (sin) with the all of his love for the Blessed Virgin into the Incarnation, and with the life, death, and characterization of Galadriel. resurrection of Christ. Although Tolkien did not write a formal : allegory in which characters simply represent historical figures, it is true nonetheless that several members of the fellowship represent, albeit with subtlety, significant Christian typological figures. Frodo, as the Ring-bearer, can be seen as the cross-bearer, and therefore as both a Christ figure and a figure of the Christian who takes up his cross. Sam is, in consequence, a figure of the loyal disciple. Boromir, as the only man in the fellowship, is the representative of humanity and is therefore an everyman figure. Aragorn, insofar as he is the true king who descends into the kingdom

Joseph Pearce is writer in residence at Aquinas College in Nashville, Tennessee, and Director of the Aquinas Center for Faith and Culture. He is a world-recognized biographer of modern Christian literary figures, and has authored over twenty books.

58 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016

THEOSIS AND BAPTISM Logos if He is a creature like us, as the Arians argued? “Our access to the Godhead through : Christ in baptism depends on His being the Father’s only own and true Son deriving from His Deacon David Sebits essential being which is why He is named along with the Father in the baptismal formula” HE WELL-KNOWN and often quoted (Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the dictum of St. Athanasius that “God Greek Patristic Tradition 182). For St. Athanasius, it T became man so that men might become is the very baptismal formula, given by Jesus in gods” expresses succinctly the patristic Matthew 28:19, that not only proves Jesus being understanding of theosis or deification. However, it “of one essence with the Father” but also our sure should be noted that in St. Athanasius’ battle with hope that all who have been baptized into Christ the Arians, deification was taken for granted and have put on Christ, as St. Paul says in Galatians not a point of contention. For it was the Arians 3:27. Thus, the Father and the Son are united in who held that Christ Himself had been deified by essence; the Son and believers are united through the power of the Father. The great achievement of baptismal adoption and grace (Russell 180; St. Athanasius was showing the deifying power Athanasius, Against the Arians 2.41). and, consequently, the full divinity of the Son of St. Gregory of Nyssa, brother of St. Basil the God who was “of one essence with the Father, by Great and participant at the Second Ecumenical whom all things were made” (Nicene- Council in 381, also linked baptism and theosis. Constantinopolitan Creed). Gregory used what has been called the “exchange St. Athanasius explains that theosis is made principal” when describing deification: “so that by possible because of the Incarnation of the Logos, becoming as we are, He (Christ) might make us as the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. But what is the He is” (Antirrheticus adversos). Thus Christ, taking vehicle or means by which humanity may become on our humanity in the Incarnation, “infused “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pt. 1:4)? For Himself into our nature” (Catechetical Oration) in Athansius, the answer was in the waters of Holy order that He should receive humanity while we Baptism. The “clothing” that St. Paul refers to in 1 received from Him His divine attributes of Corinthians 15:53—”For the perishable must eternity and incorruptibility (Russell 229). clothe itself with the imperishable”—was baptism. For Gregory, it is Holy Baptism that brings According to Athanasius, if the purpose of the about our comingling with the Divine. Baptism ecclesiastical practice of the “holy bath of inserts us into the saving action of Christ by baptism” is to join us to the Godhead, then what participating in the death and resurrection of point is there in our being made one with the Christ. As St. Paul says in Romans 6:4, “We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the Deacon David Sebits received a B.S. in Political Science from dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk Kansas State University and a Master’s degree in Public Policy from American University in Washington, D.C. He is the in newness of life.” Echoing the language of St. Chairman and CEO of Pickrell Drilling Co. in Wichita, KS. He Athanasius on baptism being our “clothing”, and his wife Shamassy Jennifer (Genevieve) have been blessed with Gregory calls our baptism the “tunic of three children: Isabella (Elizabeth), Preston (David) and incorruption” (Catechetical Oration). Baptism as Zachariah.

renewing culture through faith and learning 59 SYNAXIS 3.2

“gift” is expressed well by Gregory: “How can one us if He is indeed fully God and fully man. give thanks worthily for the gift of baptism? With 3. The saving act of Christ is brought to us what words, what thoughts that move our mind in the waters of Holy Baptism. can we praise this abundance of grace? Man Let us all remember the words of St. Cyril of transcends his own nature, he who was subject to Jerusalem: in your baptism, “at the same moment corruption becomes immune from it in his you both died and were born; that saving water immortality” (On the Beatitudes). Man transcends became your tomb but also your mother” his fallen state by becoming a son of God by (Mystagogic Catechesis 2). baptism, which appropriates to us the salvation : found in Christ. St. Gregory says that our salvation does not come simply from hearing the teaching of Christ, but from what He achieved, “in order that through the flesh, which He assumed and at the same time deified, all who are joined to Him might be saved” (Catechetical Oration). St. Gregory succinctly articulates the Nicene view for which St. Athanasius fought contra mundum: “If I were baptized into a creature, I would not have been deified.” Debate among various Christian confessions center on baptism and its meaning. For the early Church, the meaning and reality for our lives was clear: 1. Only God can save a fallen humanity. 2. Becoming one with Christ can only save

Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition by Norman Russell “God became man in order that man might become God” is one of the dominant themes in the Greek Fathers from St. Irenaeus forward, the exegetical development of the scriptural phrases “you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you” (Ps. 81/2.6) and “that you might . . . become partakers of the divine nature” (1 Pt. 1.4). The doctrine of deification (theosis), human persons becoming divine by grace, became the cornerstone of the Orthodox doctrine of salvation, the goal of human cooperation with the sanctifying energies of God through the Holy Spirit in the Church. Describing the development and content of this vision of human destiny strikes one as a little like trying to bottle light, but Norman Russell is a trustworthy guide. He systematically narrates the history of the doctrine with extensive chapters on precursors in the Greco-Roman world, ancient Judaism and the New Testament, and of course the Greek Fathers. Russell’s original contributions are his discussion of deification as a metaphor with two distinct emphases, “the transformation of humanity in principle as a consequence of the Incarnation . . . and the ascent of the soul through the practice of virtue”; and his survey of recent Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox engagements with the doctrine, ranging from Harnack’s dismissal of deification to Vladimir Lossky’s insistence that it lies at the very center of our understanding of God and humanity. 418 pp. paper $85.00

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FROM ST. ANTHONY TO surface by taking a look at one such image. Lewis probably comes closest to portraying ELWIN RANSOM one of these human “gods and goddesses” in the deification in C. S. Lewis figure of Elwin Ransom, as he appears in the final book of the Ransom Trilogy, That Hideous Strength. : Here Ransom is revealed to be “the Pendragon,” Deacon Aaron Taylor and the wounded “Fisher-king” of Holy Grail lore, a royal figure. But more importantly, he is a HAVE LONG thought that C. S. Lewis converser with angels, gifted with unique spiritual makes a characteristically eloquent statement insight. I of the doctrine of deification in his classic The character is a far cry from the Ransom sermon, “The Weight of Glory.” Lewis writes, “It of Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra. Indeed, the is a serious thing to live in a society of possible reader who does not have the events of Perelandra gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest fresh in the memory may find this deified Ransom and most uninteresting person you can talk to may a bit perplexing. One gets the strong sense in the one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, first two books that he is, as he himself admits, you would be strongly tempted to worship….” one of the “quite ordinary people,” something of The reference to holy men and women as an amalgam of Lewis and Tolkien themselves. “gods and goddesses” is quite traditional. Our How did he “suddenly” become a Saint? It is Lord Himself refers the “I said, you are gods” of precisely in the transformation of the character— Ps. 81/82:6 to them “unto whom the word of which, if we pay attention, was anything but God came” (Jn. 10:34). St. Athanasius takes up the sudden—that he is revealed most fully as an icon expression in his classic formula of deification: of deification. “For He was incarnate that we might be made I would argue that despite obvious god” (De Incarnatione 54). differences, Ransom’s deification—which begins Although some serious scholarship would be in Out of the Silent Planet but is depicted most needed to delve into how thoroughly conversant clearly in Perelandra—can be compared in a Lewis or his fellow Inklings were with the number of ways with that of the original doctrine, we do find echoes of this language of hagiographic hero, St. Anthony the Great. True, deification in the imaginative work of Lewis and Ransom is a learned philologist, in contrast with his fellow Inklings. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and St. Anthony’s decision not “to learn letters” (Vita Charles Williams have given us many images and Antonii 1). And Ransom’s field of battle is a lush motifs that can fruitfully be read in dialogue with paradise, not the Egyptian desert. But these the theology of theosis. I shall just scratch the contrasts serve a purpose, and in the end they highlight the similarities. As he states at the beginning of Perelandra, Ransom has received an order “from much higher Deacon Aaron Taylor studied Moral Theology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He serves at St. up” to set out “single-handed to combat powers Benedict Orthodox Church (ROCOR) in Oklahoma City, where and principalities.” While this may generally he is also a teacher of medieval thought and literature and of the remind one of St. Anthony’s famous vocation— New Testament at the Academy of Classical Christian Studies. hearing the Gospel words “Go sell all that you Fr Deacon Aaron occasionally blogs at Logismoi.

renewing culture through faith and learning 61 SYNAXIS 3.2 have” (Mt. 19:21) as a personal command—the Recall, however, that the tomb may be taken expression “single-handed” in particular hearkens to signify the death of self, the taking up of the to the original meaning of monachos: “one who is cross. Both battles are indeed marked by alone.” The vessel in which he is conveyed to excruciating physical pain. Even at the beginning, Perelandra is “a large, coffin-shaped casket,” a Ransom is shocked by the pain in his fist and by shape reminiscent of the tomb in which St. the torment of the Un-man’s nails ripping through Anthony lived (VA 8) and undoubtedly reminding his flesh, and we discover in That Hideous Strength us of the call to die to self in order to “put off the that his pains never leave him. St. Athanasius tells old man” (Eph. 4:22). us that the torments of the demons inflicted pain Most important is the purifying battle with “so severe as to lead one to say that the blows the Evil One that Ransom undergoes. For like St. could not have been delivered by humans, since Anthony’s famous experiences of “temptation”, they cause such agony” (VA 8). Both Saints Ransom’s battle is not merely inward and moral, participate in this way in Christ’s salutary passion, but also physical. The point is explicitly addressed but they also participate by means of psychological at the beginning of the novel, before the fighting pain. First, there is the appearance of frightening has even begun. Upon learning that Ransom is to creatures—probably the most famous part of St. engage in a direct conflict with diabolical powers, Anthony’s torments, thanks to countless the narrator—i.e., Lewis himself—tells us that he Renaissance artists—paralleled in Ransom’s objected to Ransom’s reference to the experience by the large insect-like creature he sees “principalities and powers” of Eph. 6:12 on the just before he kills the Un-man. grounds that it referred merely “to a moral The other psychological crucifixion both conflict.” Ransom then argues that the demons’ undergo is perhaps more difficult, and may well apparent willingness to confine themselves to “a constitute a distinct moment in the death to self. psychological or moral form” was but “a certain After St. Anthony initially defeats his demonic phase in the cosmic war,” a passing phase. adversaries, he reveals that he has experienced a During the fighting itself, both St. Anthony sense of divine abandonment when he prays, and Ransom chant fortifying words about “Where were you? Why didn’t you appear in the undaunted hearts—the one from Ps. 26/27:3, the beginning, so that you could stop my other from the Anglo-Saxon Battle of Maldon distresses” (VA 10)? The Un-man actually tells (assuming that Lewis’s reference is to the words of Ransom beforehand that he will experience this the old retainer Beorhtwold which Tolkien called abandonment—and furthermore, he places it “a summing up of the heroic code,” cf. VA 9). within its Christological context by Furthermore, while we see that Ransom was able “remembering….the very words spoken from the to recite by heart large portions of the Iliad, the Cross”: Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani (Mt. 27:46, Odyssey, the Aeneid, the Chanson de Roland, Paradise quoting Ps. 21/22:1). For both, this abandonment Lost, the Kalevala, and even The Hunting of the Snark, is discovered ultimately to be only apparent. St. about St. Anthony we are told that “he paid such Athanasius tells us: “And a voice came to him: ‘I close attention to what was read that nothing from was here, Antony, but I waited to watch your Scripture did he fail to take in—rather he grasped struggle. And now, since you persevered and were everything, and in him the memory took the place not defeated, I will be your helper forever, and I of books” (VA 3). will make you famous everywhere’” (VA 10).

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The result of this process of purification and illumination, and ultimately of deification, is the Saint. One could go on at length multiplying the comparisons between our two heroes. Both attain a kind of hieratic character; both appear less aged than they should be by natural laws; both possess authority over beasts; and especially, both have a gift of discernment and of healing souls through words penetrated with divine power. I don’t know whether Lewis had read the Vita Antonii—though he had certainly read St. Athanasius’s other famous work, De incarnatione—or how familiar he would have been with hagiography or the theology of deification. But just as, in the words of Fr. John Behr, St. Anthony becomes “the instrument of Christ, by which the Lord effects his work: healing the sick, consoling and reconciling others,” so Ransom becomes the instrument by which the various sicknesses surrounding N.I.C.E. (The National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments) are healed and many are consoled and reconciled, embodying the fellowship of Logres. :

Deification and Grace By Daniel A. Keating

Writing from a Roman Catholic perspective, Daniel Keating offers a fine summary of the biblical basis for the doctrine of deification (theosis), and its development not only by the Eastern Fathers but also by Ambrose, Augustine, Leo, and Aquinas in the West. He is insistent that the massive common ground that exists here should relativize, to some degree, the important divergences that do exist between Orthodox and Catholic views on the nature of grace, whether created or uncreated, and the manner in which grace enables our participation in the divine nature (in other words, the divergence between the approaches of Aquinas and Palamas). While more detailed studies of various aspects of theosis obviously exist—Norman Russell’s Doctrine of Deification and A. N. Williams’ Ground of Union come to mind—the strength of Keating’s synthetic work is in its balance, concision, and clarity, and the way deification is consistently located in the biblical revelation, in the Atonement as well as the Incarnation, in the sacraments as well as in ascesis. Keating’s chapter on the pervasive presence of the phrase in many of the early Fathers that is often assigned only to Athanasius—“God became man in order that man might become God”—is worth owning the book. Carefully documented and indexed, with a useful bibliography, Deification and Grace is a valuable resource for those interested in authentic theological encounter between East and West.

142 pp. paper $34.95

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THE TAKING OF MANHOOD Batesby, visits the Archdeacon of Fardles, Julian Davenant, who is recovering from a violent attack. INTO GOD VS. CONVERTING GODHEAD INTO FLESH The Archdeacon, dizzy and yet equable, concealed his own feelings when his visitor, chatting of Prayer Book Revision, parish : councils, and Tithe Acts, imported to them a Matthew Umbarger high eternal flavour which savoured of Deity Itself. Each day after he had gone the HE RARELY recited Athanasian Creed Archdeacon found himself inclined to brood can still be found quite easily on the on the profound wisdom of that phrase in the Internet and in older prayer books, and it Athanasian Creed which teaches the faithful T that “not by conversion of the Godhead into is worth getting to know. It seems to have been flesh, but by taking of the manhood into crafted in the West in response to the Arian, God” are salvation and the Divine End barbarian hordes that swept over the collapsing achieved. That the subjects of their Roman Empire in the early fifth century. Among conversation should be taken into God was the truths asserted concerning the person of Jesus, normal and proper; what else, the Archdeacon this line, striking out against Nestorianism, begs to wondered, could one do with parish councils? be pondered: “Who although He is God and Man; But his goodwill could not refrain from feeling yet He is not two, but one Christ. One; not by that to Mr. Batesby they were opportunities conversion of the Godhead into flesh; but by for converting the Godhead rather firmly and assumption of the Manhood into God.” It begs to finally into flesh. be pondered, because in the better-known Nicene Williams understands a profound truth, and Creed we state that the Only Begotten Son of invites us to understand it as well. Seeing the God “became man.” The Athanasian Creed Incarnation from the proper perspective reminds tempers our reception of this great truth. us that not only has Jesus’ particular humanity Reflection on God’s attributes quickly been assumed into the divine life, but ours has demonstrates why this is the case: technically, God been as well, and now, with our willing never becomes anything. He is eternal Being. He is, participation, all mundane things that we in the faith of the ancient Church, impassible. The encounter can be caught up with him and “hidden Athanasian Creed is concerned that we get the how with Christ in God.” Of course, mundane things of the Son’s becoming man right. The proper can also become ensnaring idols for us, and thus, perspective sees it as an elevation of humanity, not in a way limited to our personal capacity for God, a degradation of divinity. work the opposite and tragic action of “converting Charles Williams offers his insights on this the Godhead . . . into flesh.” creed during a seemingly unimportant scene at the beginning of the fifth chapter of War in Heaven, in : which a well-meaning but worldly priest, Mr.

Matthew Umbarger is an Assistant Professor of Theology at Newman University who specializes in Old Testament Interpretation.

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PATRISTIC PERSPECTIVES PROMOTION INTO GOD THE INNER WORK OF THE : HEART St. Irenaeus of Lyons : d. 200 UT AGAIN, those who assert that He St. Barsanuphius was simply a mere man, begotten by d. 540 B Joseph, remaining in the bondage of the old disobedience, are in a state of death; having T IS NOT because I wish to abolish been not as yet joined to the Word of God the abstinence and the monastic discipline that I Father, nor receiving liberty through the Son, as I am always telling your love to perform the He does Himself declare: “If the Son shall make needs of your body as necessary—far be it from you free, ye shall be free indeed” (Jn. 8.36). But, me! Rather, I am saying that, if the inner work being ignorant of Him who from the Virgin is does not come to our assistance after God, then Emmanuel, they are deprived of His gift, which is one is laboring in vain on the outward man. For eternal life (cf. Rm. 6.23); and not receiving the that is why the Lord said: “It is not the things that incorruptible Word, they remain in mortal flesh, go into a person’s mouth that defile that person, and are debtors to death, not obtaining the but the things that come out of the mouth” (Mt. antidote of life. To whom the Word says, 15.11). mentioning His own gift of grace: “I said, Ye are Indeed, inner work with labor of heart the sons of the Highest, and gods; but ye shall die brings purity, and purity brings true quiet of heart, like men” (Ps 81/82.6-7). He speaks undoubtedly and such quiet brings humility, and humility these words to those who have not received the renders a person the dwelling-place of God, and gift of adoption, but who despise the incarnation from this dwelling-place the evil demons are of the pure generation of the Word of God, banished, together with the devil who is their defraud human nature of promotion into God, captain, as well as their unworthy passions. Then, and prove themselves ungrateful to the Word of that person is found to be a temple of God, God, who became flesh for them. For it was for sanctified, illumined, purified, graceful, filled with this end that the Word of God was made man, every fragrance and goodness and gladness; and and He who was the Son of God became the Son that person is found to be a God-bearer, or rather of man, that man, having been taken into the is even found to be a god, according to the one Word, and receiving the adoption, might become who said: “I have said, that you are gods, and all the son of God. For by no other means could we children of the Most High” (Ps. 81.6; Jn. 10.34). have attained to incorruptibility and immortality, : unless we had been united to incorruptibility and immortality. But how could we be joined to incorruptibility and immortality, unless, first, incorruptibility and immortality had become that which we also are, so that the corruptible might be swallowed up by incorruptibility, and the mortal by immortality, that we might receive the adoption of sons? :

Excerpt from Letters from the Desert: A Selection of Questions Excerpt from Against Heresies 3.19 in Ante-Nicene Fathers and Responses, tr. John Chryssavgis. Vol. 1, eds. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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ON SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE Himself. No one achieves this unless he persuades his soul not to be distracted by the false glitter of this life. : St. Diadochos of Photiki 28. Only the Holy Spirit can purify the intellect, for unless a greater power comes and d. 500 overthrows the despoiler, what he has taken LL SPIRITUAL contemplation should captive will never be set free (cf. Lk. 11.21-22). In be governed by faith, hope and love, but every way, therefore, and especially through peace A most of all by love. The first two teach us of soul, we must make ourselves a dwelling-place to be detached from visible delights, but love for the Holy Spirit. Then we shall have the lamp unites the soul with the excellence of God, of spiritual knowledge burning always within us; searching out the Invisible by means of intellectual and when it is shining constantly in the inner perception. shrine of the soul, not only will the intellect perceive all the dark and bitter attacks of the 2. Only God is good by nature, but with demons, but these attacks will be greatly weakened God’s help man can become good through when exposed for what they are by that glorious carefull attention to his way of life. He transforms and holy light. That is why the Apostle says: “Do himself into what he is not when his soul, by not quench the Spirit” (1 Thess. 5.19), meaning: devoting its attention to true delight, unites itself “Do not grieve the goodness of the Holy Spirit by to God, in so far as its energized power desires wicked actions or wicked thoughts, lest you be this. For it is written: “Be good and merciful as is deprived of this protecting light.” The Spirit, since your Father in heaven” (Lk. 6.36; Mt. 5.48). He is eternal and life-creating, cannot be quenched; but if He is grieved—that is if He 3. Evil does not exist by nature, nor is any withdraws—He leaves the intellect without the man naturally evil, for God made nothing that was light of spiritual knowledge, dark and full of not good. When in the desire of his heart gloom. someone conceives and gives form to what in reality has no existence, then what he desires : begins to exist. We should therefore turn our attention away from the inclination to evil and concentrate it on the remembrance of God; for good, which exists by nature, is more powerful than our inclination to evil. The one has existence while the other has not, except when we give it existence through our actions. 4. All men are made in God’s image; but to be in His likeness is granted only to those who through great love have brought their own freedom into subjection to God. For only when we do not belong to ourselves do we become like Him who through love has reconciled us to

Excerpts from The Philokalia, Vol. 1, compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth, tr. by G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware

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AMBIGUUM 7 AND 10 will become wholly God in soul and body owing to the grace and the splendor of the blessed glory of God, which is wholly appropriate to him, and : beyond which nothing more splendid or sublime St. Maximus the Confessor can be imagined. What could be more desirable to those d. 662 who are worthy of it than divinization? For N HIS oration “On the Plague of Hail,” St. through it God is united with those who have Gregory the Theologian says: “They will be become Gods, and by His goodness makes all I received by the ineffable light and vision of things His own. the holy and majestic Trinity, shining upon them with greater brilliance and purity, and which will 10. It happened that certain of Christ’s be wholly mingled with the whole of the intellect, disciples, through diligence in virtue, ascended and and this alone I take to be the kingdom of were raised aloft with Him on the mountain of heaven,” at which point—if I may dare to add my His manifestation, where they beheld Him own words to his—the whole of rational creation, transfigured, unapproachable by reason of the light of both of angels and human beings, will be filled His face, and astonishing in the brightness of His with spiritual pleasure and joy. I mean those garments; and having observed His appearance creatures that did not, out of negligence, violate made more august by the honor of Moses and any of the divine logoi, who by their natural motion Elijah standing at either side of Him, they crossed were inclined to the end established by the over from the flesh to the spirit, prior to having Creator, but kept themselves wholly chaste and cast off carnal life, through the substitution of faithful to their end, knowing that they are and their powers of sense perception by the activity of will become instruments of the divine nature. For the Spirit, who removed the veils of the passions God in His fullness entirely permeates them, as a that had covered the intellective capacity within soul permeates the body, since they are to serve as them. With the sensory organs of their souls and His own members, well suited and useful to the bodies purified through the Spirit, they were Master, who shall use them as He thinks best, initiated into the spiritual principles of the filling them with His own glory and blessedness, mysteries that had been disclosed to them. graciously giving them eternal, inexpressible life, They were taught, in a hidden way, that the completely free from the constituent properties of wholly blessed radiance that shone with dazzling this present life, which is marred by corruption. rays of light from the Lord’s face, completely The life that God will give does not consist in the overwhelming the power of their eyes, was a breathing of air, or in the flow of blood from the symbol of His divinity, which transcends intellect, liver, but in the fact that God will be wholly sensation, being and knowledge. From the participated by whole human beings, so that He observation that He had neither form nor beauty, and will be to the soul, as it were, what the soul is to from the knowledge that the Word had become flesh, the body, and through the soul He will likewise be they were led to the understanding of Him as one present in the body (in a manner that He knows), more beautiful than the sons of men, who was in the so that the soul will receive immutability and the beginning, and was with God, and was God, and, by body immortality. In this way, man as a whole will means of the theological negation that extols Him be divinized, being made God by the grace of as being beyond all human comprehension, they God who became man. Man will remain wholly were raised up cognitively to the glory of the only- man in soul and body, owing to his nature, but begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. They were also taught that the garments, which became Excerpts from On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The dazzling white, convey a symbol: first, of the words Ambigua, Vol. 1, tr. Nicholas Constas. of Holy Scripture, which at that moment became

68 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016 bright, clear, and transparent to them, grasped by knowledge of Scripture, and the natural the intellect without any dark riddles or symbolic contemplation of beings according to the spirit. In shadows, and pointing to the meaning (logos) that this way, anyone who desires to become a perfect lay concealed within them (at which point the lover of perfect wisdom will be able to show what disciples received the perfect and correct is only reasonable, namely, that the two laws—the knowledge of God, and were set free from every natural and the written—are of equal value and attachment to the world and the flesh); and, equal dignity, that both of them reciprocally teach second, of creation itself—stripped of the soiled the same things, and that neither is superior or preconceptions of those who till then believed inferior to the other. they saw it clearly, but who in fact were deceived and bound to sense perception alone—now : appearing in the variety of the different forms that constitute it, all declaring the power of the Creator Word, in the same way that a garment makes known the dignity of the one who wears it. For both of these interpretations are appropriate for the Word, because in both cases He has been rightly covered with obscurity for our sake, so that we should not dare to approach unworthily what is beyond our comprehension, namely, the words of Holy Scripture, for He is the Word; or creation, for He is the creator, fashioner, and artisan. From this it follows that whoever wishes blamelessly to walk the straight road to God, stands in need of both the inherent spiritual

The Patristic Doctrine of Redemption: A Study of the Development of Doctrine During the First Five Centuries by H. E. W. Turner Based upon a series of lectures given in 1949 during Passion Week, H. E. W. Turner builds upon the foundation laid eighteen years earlier by Gustaf Aulen’s seminal work on the atonement, Christus Victor. While Aulen revived what he described as the “classic” patristic view of redemption with Christ as Victor, Turner notes Aulen’s failure to fully explore the far more variegated view of the Church Fathers. Indeed, confronted with more pressing theological controversies, the Fathers were not compelled to translate their joyfully lived experience of the redemption into a definitive doctrinal formula as the Cappadocians did for the Trinity or as Chalcedon did for Christology. Instead, they viewed the entire Incarnation—from birth to death to resurrection—as the decisive act of redemption. Consequently, no single patristic perspective existed and Turner sets out to paint a more nuanced and accurate picture of the patristic understanding by exploring Christ as Illuminator (“The Logos Paidagogos leading his people into an ever-increasing experience of Illumination”), Victim (“The Christ Victim conjoined with the Passion Mysticism of the Medieval period”), Victor (“The Christus Victor offering vicarious victory to mankind”) and Giver of Incorruption and Deification (Christ “became what we are, that He might make us what He is Himself”). Viewed as an integrated image, Turner argues, it becomes clear that for the Fathers the “Redemption, essentially, centrally, consists in Transfiguration, the lifting of human life . . . by the participation, through all that the Historical Christ was, and achieved, in the very life and character of the Triune God Himself.” 124 pp. paper $18.00

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HOMILY ON THE have not believed, Paul’s words, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the TRANSFIGURATION heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed : them unto us by His Holy Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of St. Gregory Palamas God” (1 Cor. 2.9-10). d. 1359 10. What do the words “and was transfigured” HE LIGHT OF the Lord’s mean? Chrysostom the theologian said that the transfiguration does not come into being Lord graciously willed to open up a little of His T or cease to be, nor is it circumscribed or divinity, and revealed God within Him to the perceptible to the senses, even though for a short initiated disciples. “As he prayed”, says Luke, “the time on the narrow mountain top it was seen by fashion of His countenance was altered” (Lk. human eyes. Rather, at that moment the initiated 9.29), and, as Matthew writes, “His face did shine disciples of the Lord “passed”, as we have been as the sun” (Mt. 17.2). He compares the light to taught, “from flesh to spirit” by the the sun, not that anyone should imagine that that transformation of their senses, which the Spirit light was visible to bodily eyes—away with those wrought in them, and so they saw that ineffable whose minds are blind and capable of light, when and as much as the Holy Spirit’s power understanding nothing more exalted than visible granted them to do so. Those who are not aware phenomena!—but that we might know that Christ of this light and who now blaspheme against it as God is for those who live by the Spirit and see think that the chosen apostles saw the light of the with spiritual eyes what the sun is for those who Lord’s transfiguration with their created faculty of live by their senses and see with natural vision. sight, and in this way they endeavor to bring down Those who behold God in divine contemplation to the level of a created object not just that light— need no other light, for He alone is the light of God’s power and kingdom—but even the power those who live forever. What need is there for a of the Holy Spirit, by which divine things are second light when they have the greatest light of revealed to the worthy. They have not heard, or all? Thus while He was praying He became radiant and revealed this ineffable light in an indescribable way to the chosen disciples in the presence of the Excerpts from The Homilies, ed. Christopher Veniamin. most excellent of the prophets, that He might Metamorphosis: The Transfiguration in Byzantine Theology and Iconography by Andreas Andreopoulos Icons are an essential component of Orthodox faith and worship, and though much has been said about style and tradition (icons as depiction of Scripture), the theology of images (icons as interpretation of Scripture) is a rich subject not yet adequately presented in English. In Eastern Christian thought, icons and scriptures are not static objects. They are “places of encounter” where man begins to experience God, in some measure reflecting the encounter at Mt. Tabor where the disciples saw Christ revealed as the Icon of God the Father. Metamorphosis examines the relationship between the biblical Transfiguration narrative, the theology of human transfiguration, and the icons used to reveal this theology. Byzantine, Hesychastic and Russian traditions emphasized different practical aspects of Christ’s Tranfiguration, prompting changes in the detail of the icon over time. This book is part historical account of these changes, and part meditation on the mystery of the Transfiguration and its expression through history. A fifteen-page section of full- color plates of various Transfiguration icons accompanies the text. 286 pp. paper $26.00

70 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016 show us that it is prayer which procures this invisibly. He possessed the splendor of the divine blessed vision, and we might learn that this nature hidden under His flesh. This light, then, is brilliance comes about and shines forth when we the light of the Godhead, and it is uncreated. draw near to God through the virtues, and our According to the theologians, when Christ was minds are united with Him. It is given to all who transfigured He neither received anything unceasingly reach up towards God by means of different, nor was changed into anything different, perfect good works and fervent prayer, and is but was revealed to His disciples as He was, visible to them. Everything about the blessed opening their eyes and giving sight to the blind. divine nature is truly beautiful and desirable, and is Take note that eyes with natural vision are blind to visible only to those whose minds have been that light. It is invisible, and those who behold it purified. Anyone who gazes at its brilliant rays and do so not simply with their bodily eyes, but with its graces, partakes of it to some extent, as though eyes transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. his own face were touched by dazzling light. That 14. The apostles were transformed, therefore, and is why Moses’ countenance was glorified when he saw that transformation which our human clay spoke with God (Ex. 34.29). had undergone, not at that time, but from the 11. Do you observe that Moses too was moment in which it had been assumed, when it transfigured when he went up the mountain and was deified through union with the Word of God. beheld the Lord’s glory? But although he That is why the Virgin, who mysteriously underwent transfiguration, he did not bring it conceived and bore Him, recognized her child as about, in accordance with him who said, “the God incarnate, as did Simeon, when he took Him humble light of truth brings me to the point where up in his arms as an infant, and the aged Anna, I see and experience God’s radiance” (St. Gregory who came to meet Him (Lk. 2.25ff). The power of the Theologian). Our Lord Jesus Christ, however, God shone out visibly as if through thin glass to possessed that radiance in His own right. He did people who had had the eyes of their hearts not need prayer to illuminate His body with divine purified. light, but He showed how God’s splendor would 17. [. . .] So, rightly believing what we were taught, come to the saints and how they would appear. and understanding the mystery of the Lord’s For the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in transfiguration, let us make our way towards the the kingdom of their Father (Mt. 13.43), and when radiance of that light. As we long for the beauty of they have all become divine light, they will behold, the of unchanging glory, let us cleanse the eyes of as children of that light, Christ’s indescribable our understanding from all earthly defilements, divine radiance. The glory that proceeds naturally despising every delight and beauty that is not from His divinity was shown on Tabor to be lasting, for sweet as it may be, it procures eternal shared by His body as well, because of the unity of suffering, and though it may enhance the body, it His person. Thus His face shone as the sun on clothes the soul in that ugly robe of sin, on account of this light. account of which the man without the garment of 13. Given that when He was transfigured the Lord incorruptible union was bound and taken away shone and displayed glory, splendor and light, and into outer darkness (Mt. 22.11-13). will come again as He was seen by His disciples on 18. May we all be delivered from such a fate by the the mountain, does this mean He somehow took illumination and knowledge of the pre-eternal, this light to Himself, and will have for ever immaterial light of the Lord’s transfiguration, to something He did not have before? Perish the His glory and the glory of His Father without blasphemous thought! Because anyone who says beginning and the life-giving Spirit, whose so imagines that Christ has three natures: the radiance, divine, glory, kingdom, and power are divine, the human, and the one belonging to this one and the same, now and for ever and unto the light. It follows that He did not manifest a ages of ages. Amen. radiance other than that which He already had

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In the Light and Conformed to Christ was united, by which he had received the capacity of union, having gone out from all beings, and become light by grace, and nonbeing by transcendence, that is : by exceeding created beings. As St. Maximus says, he who is in God has left behind him “all that is after St. Gregory Palamas God . . . all the realities, names and values which are d. 1359 after God will be outside those who come to be in AM incapable of expressing and explaining these God by grace” (Ambigua). But in attaining this matters. Nevertheless, the contemplation of this condition, the divine Paul could not participate I light is a union, even though it does not endure absolutely in the divine essence, for the essence of with the imperfect. But is the union with this light God goes beyond even nonbeing by reason of other than a vision? And since it is brought about by transcendence, since it is also “more than the cessation of intellectual activity, how could it be God” (Pseudo-Dionysius, Letter 2). accomplished if not by the Spirit? But there is also a “not-being by For it is in light that the light is seen, and that transcendence” (Pseudo-Dionysius, Mystical Theology) which sees operates in a similar light, since this faculty spiritually visible to the senses of the soul, which is has no other way in which to work. Having separated definitely not the divine essence, but a glory and itself from all other beings, it becomes itself all light radiance inseparable from His nature, by which He and is assimilated to what it sees, or rather, it is united unites Himself only to the worthy, whether angels or to it without mingling, being itself light and seeing light men. And since angels as much as men see God in through light. If it sees itself, it sees light; if it beholds this fashion, being united to God and singing hymns the object of its vision, that too is light; and if it looks to Him, it is probable that if even an angel were to at the means by which it sees, again it is light. For such explain this supernatural vision, he would say, much as is the character of the union, that all is one, so that he did Paul: “I know an angel who saw, but I do not who sees can distinguish neither the means nor the know if it was an angel, God knows” (2 Cor. 12.2-3). object nor its nature, but simply has the awareness of How could anyone who recognizes the infinite being light and of seeing a light distinct from every majesty of God, and the heights to which in His love creature. for men He has elevated our lowliness, how could such a man claim that these visions of the saints— 37. This is why the great Paul after his which are known only to God and to those to whom extraordinary rapture declared himself ignorant of they have been revealed, as Gregory the Theologian what it was. Nonetheless, he saw himself (2 Cor. 12.2). says (Homily 28)—are sensory and, being sensory, are How? By sense perception, by the reason, or by the imaginary and symbolic, and human knowledge? spiritual intellect? But in his rapture he had transcended these faculties. He therefore saw himself 66. This knowledge, which is beyond by the Spirit, who had brought about the rapture. But conception, is common to all who have believed in what was he himself, since he was inaccessible to every Christ. As to the goal of this true faith, which comes natural power, or rather deprived of all such power? about by the fulfilling of the commandments, it does He was that to which he was united, by which he not bestow knowledge by God through beings alone, knew himself, and for which he had detached himself whether knowable or unknowable, for by “beings” from all else. Such, then, was his union with the light. here we understand “created beings”; but it does so Even the angels could not attain to this state, at least through that uncreated light which is the glory of God, not without transcending themselves by unifying of Christ our God, and of those who attain the grace. supreme goal of being conformed to Christ. For it is Paul therefore was light and spirit, to which he in the glory of the Father that Christ will come again, and it is in the glory of their father, Christ, that “the Excerpts from The Triads, Classics of Western just will shine like the sun” (Mt. 13.43); they will be Spirituality, tr. John Meyendorff. light, and will see the light, a sight delightful and all-

72 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016 holy, belonging only to the purified heart. This light at adds, “But, in my opinion, the nobility of the present shines in part, as a pledge, for those who Beatitude suggests another meaning” (On the Beatitudes through impassibility have passed beyond all that is 6). condemned, and through pure and immaterial prayer Denys the Areopagite indeed asks how we have passed beyond all that is pure. But on the Last know God “since He is neither intelligible nor Day, it will deify in a manifest fashion “the sons of the sensible”, adding, in a tentative manner, “perhaps it is Resurrection” (Lk. 20.36), who will rejoice in eternity true to say we know Him not from His own nature and in glory in communion with Him Who has but from the dispensation of created things” (Divine endowed our nature with a glory and splendor that is Names 7.3). But he then goes on to reveal to us that divine. most divine knowledge according to the supernatural Even in the created realm, this glory and union with the superluminous light, which comes to splendor do not pertain to essence. How, then, could pass in a manner beyond mind and knowledge. But one think that the glory of God is the essence of God, these people have ignored the supra-intellectual of that God who while remaining imparticipable, knowledge as if it did not exist. They have not thought invisible and impalpable, becomes participable by His to investigate the reason why Denys expresses himself superessential power, and communicates Himself and in a tentative way, as if he had done so from no shines forth and becomes in contemplation “One particular motive; and they have given prominence to Spirit” (1 Cor. 6.17) with those who meet Him with a this phrase, taken out of context, as if it affirmed that pure heart, according to the most mystical and God is known only through His creatures. Our mysterious prayer which our common father philosopher, Barlaam, has failed to remark that the addressed to Him own Father? “Grant them,” He saint is speaking here of that human knowledge which says, “that as I am in you, Father, and you in me, so belongs to all by nature, not of that given by the Spirit. they too may be one in us”, in truth (Jn. 18.21). In fact, he is saying, since everyone possesses sense Such is the vision of God which in the Age and intelligence as natural faculties, how can these which is without end will be seen only by those judged faculties permit us to know God Who is neither worthy of such a blessed fulfillment. This same vision sensible nor intelligible? was seen in the present age by the chosen among the By another way, certainly, than that of sensible apostles on Tabor, by Stephen when he was being and intelligible beings; these faculties, in short, stoned (Act 7.55-56), and by Anthony in his battle for constitute the means of knowing created beings, but inner stillness (Life of Anthony)—indeed by the saints, are limited in scope to such beings and manifest God that is, the pure in heart, as one learns if one wishes through them. But those who possess not only the from their own written lives and biographies. faculties of sensation and intellection, but have also 68. It is time to repeat those divine words: obtained spiritual and supernatural grace, do not gain “We give thanks to You, Father, Lord of heaven and knowledge only through created beings, but also know earth, because”, uniting Yourself to us and making spiritually, in a manner beyond sense and intelligence, Yourself manifest to us by Yourself, “You have that God is spirit, for they have become entirely God, hidden these things from the wise and prudent” (Mt. and know God in God. It is therefore by this mystical 11.25; Lk. 10.21), who are prudent only by their own knowledge that divine things must be conceived, as the same St. Denys reminds us, and not by natural account and learned only in their own eyes. This is why, when they hear the words of the saints, they faculties. We must transcend ourselves altogether, and reject some and give a false interpretation to others, give ourselves entirely to God, for it is better to belong and sometimes dare even to falsify certain passages to to God, and not to ourselves. It is thus that divine deceive everyone. So, when Gregory of Nyssa explains things are bestowed on those who have attained to what is the nature of the contemplation of God fellowship with God. granted to the pure in heart, he says, “It is possible : also for the wise of this age to obtain a notion of God from the harmony of the world”; however, he then

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HESYCHASM, PRAYER AND THE rightly so. For if the hesychast does not BODY circumscribe the mind in his body, how can he make to enter himself the One who has clothed himself in the body, and Who thus penetrates all : organized matter, insofar as He is its natural form? For the external aspect and divisibility of matter is St. Gregory Palamas not compatible with the essence of the mind, d. 1359 unless matter itself truly begins to live, having Y BROTHER, do you not hear the acquired a form of life conformable to the union words of the Apostle, “Our bodies are with Christ. M the temple of the Holy Spirit which is 7. You see, brother, how John Climacus in us” (1 Cor. 6.19), and again, “We are the house teaches us that it is enough to examine the matter of God” (cf. Heb. 3.6)? For God Himself says, “I in a human (let alone a spiritual) manner, to see will dwell in them and will walk in them and I shall that it is absolutely necessary to recall or keep the be their God” (2 Cor. 6.16). So why should mind within the body, when one determines to be anyone who possesses mind grow indignant at the truly in possession of oneself and to be a monk thought that our mind dwells in that whose nature worthy of the name, according to the inner man. it is to become the dwelling place of God? How On the other hand, it is not out of place to can it be that God at the beginning caused the teach people, especially beginners, that they mind to inhabit the body? Did even He do ill? should look at themselves, and introduce their Rather, brother, such views befit the heretics, who own mind within themselves through control of claim that the body is an evil thing, a fabrication breathing. A prudent man will not forbid someone of the Wicked One. As for us, we think the mind who does not as yet contemplate himself to use becomes evil through dwelling on fleshly certain methods to recall his mind within himself, thoughts, but that there is nothing bad in the for those newly approaching this struggle find that body, since the body is not evil in itself. [. . .] their mind, when recollected, continually becomes 6. The Father of Lies is always desiring to dispersed again. It is thus necessary for such lead man towards those errors which he himself people constantly to bring it back once more; but promotes; but up to now (as far as we know) he in their inexperience, they fail to grasp that has found no collaborator who has tried to lead nothing in the world is in fact more difficult to others to this goal by good words. But today, if contemplate and more mobile and shifting than what you tell me is true, it seems he has found the mind. accomplices who have even composed treatises This is why certain masters recommend towards this end, and who seek to persuade men them to control the movement inwards and (even those who have embraced the higher life of outwards of the breath, and to hold it back a little; hesychasm) that it would be better for them to in this way, they will also be able to control the keep the mind outside of the body during prayer. mind together with the breath—this, at any rate, They do not even respect the clear and until such time as they have made progress, with authoritative words of John, who writes in his the aid of God, have restrained the intellect from Ladder of Divine Ascent, “The hesychast is one who becoming distracted by what surrounds it, have seeks to circumscribe the incorporeal in his purified it and truly become capable of leading it body” (Step 27). to a “unified recollection” (Denys the Areopagite, This is exactly the tradition, and our spiritual Divine Names 4.9). One can state that this Fathers have also handed it down to us, and recollection is a spontaneous effect of the attention of the mind, for the to-and-fro Excerpts from The Triads, Classics of Western movement of the breath becomes quietened Spirituality, tr. John Meyendorff. during intensive reflection, especially with those

74 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016 who maintain inner quiet in body and soul. grants to the body also the experience of things Such men, in effect, practice a spiritual Sabbath, divine, and allows it the same blessed experiences and, as far as is possible, cease from all personal as the soul undergoes. The soul, since it activity. They strip the cognitive powers of the experiences divine things, doubtless possesses a soul of every changing, mobile and diversified passionate part, praiseworthy and divine: or rather, operation, of all sense perceptions and, in general, there is within us a single passionate aspect which of all corporeal activity that is under our control; is capable of thus becoming praiseworthy and as to acts which are not entirely under our control, divine. like breathing, these they restrain as far as When the soul pursues this blessed activity, possible. it deifies the body also; which, being no longer 9. [. . .] For just as those who abandon driven by corporeal and material passions— themselves to sensual and corruptible pleasures fix although those who lack experience of this think all the desires of their soul upon the flesh, and that it is always so driven—returns to itself and rejects all contact with evil things. Indeed, it indeed become entirely “flesh”, so that (as Scripture says) “the Spirit of God cannot dwell in inspires its own sanctification and inalienable them” (Gn. 6.2), so too, in the case of those who divinization, as the miracle-working relics of the have elevated their minds to God and exalted their saints clearly demonstrate. souls with divine longing, their flesh also is being What of Stephen, the first martyr, whose transformed and elevated, participating together face, even while he was yet living, shone like the with the soul in the divine communion, and face of an angel (Acts 6.15)? did not his body also becoming itself a dwelling and possession of God; experience divine things? Is not such an for it is no longer the seat of enmity towards God, experience and the activity allied to it common to and no longer possesses desires contrary to the soul and body? Far from nailing the soul to Spirit. terrestrial and corporeal thoughts and filling it with darkness, as the philosopher alleges, such a II.ii.12 Our philosopher brings the further common experience constitutes an ineffable bond objection: That to love those activities which are and union with God. It elevates the body itself in common to the passionate part of the soul and to a marvelous way, and sets it far apart from evil the body serves to nail the soul to the body, and to and earthly passions. For as the Prophet says, fill the soul with darkness. “Those whom God has filled with power have But what pain or pleasure or movement is been lifted far above the earth” (Ps. 46.10 LXX). not a common activity of both soul and body? [. . Such are the realities or mysterious energies .] There are indeed blessed passions and common brought about in the bodies of those who during activities of body and soul, which, far from nailing their entire life have devoutly embraced holy the spirit to the flesh, serve to draw the flesh to a hesychasm; that which seems to be contrary to dignity close to that of the spirit, and persuade it reason in them is in fact superior to reason. These too to tend towards what is above. Such spiritual things escape and transcend the intellect of one activities, as we said above, do not enter the mind who seeks merely in a theoretical way, and not from the body, but descend into the body from knowledge of them by practice and the experience the mind, in order to transform the body into that comes through it. Such a man impiously lays something better and to deify it by these actions hands on the sacred and wickedly rends apart the and passions. holy, for he does not approach these things with For just as the divinity of the Word of that faith which alone can attain to the truth that God incarnate is common to soul and body, since lies above reason. He has deified the flesh through the mediation of the soul to make it also accomplish the works of : God; so similarly, in spiritual man, the grace of the Spirit, transmitted to the body through the soul,

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THE THEOLOGY OF LIGHT Palamas. Almost the entire debate with Barlaam and Akindynos revolves around the question of whether the light of the Transfiguration was : created or uncreated—a question which can appear to be a scholastic subtlety, a Vladimir Lossky “Byzantinism,” to persons alien to the religious d. 1958 life. However, this question contains many others, HIS UNCREATED eternal, divine, and such as: the nature of grace, the possibility of deifying light is grace, for the name of mystical experience and the reality of this T grace also refers to divine energies insofar experience, the possibility of seeing God and the as they are given to us and accomplish the work of nature of this vision, and finally, the possibility of our deification. The doctrine of grace for St. deification in the real and not the metaphorical Gregory Palamas (as for all of Orthodox theology) sense of this word. thus is founded on the distinction of nature and The majority of the Fathers who have energies in God: “Illumination or divine and spoken of the Transfiguration affirm the deifying grace is not essence, but the energy of uncreated and divine nature of the mystical God,” he says (150 Chapters 69). Grace is not only experience. The light which the apostles saw on a function; it is more than a relation of God to Mount Tabor belongs to God by nature: eternal, man; far from being an action or an effect infinite, existing outside of time and space, it is produced by God in the soul, it is God Himself, revealed in the theophanies of the Old Testament communicating Himself and entering into as the glory of God. At the moment of the ineffable union with man. “By grace, God totally Incarnation the divine light was concentrated, so embraces those who are worthy, and the saints to speak, in Christ, the God-Man, in whom “the embrace God in His fullness” (Palamas, Hagioritic fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col. 2.9). This Tome). Being the light of the divinity, grace cannot means that the humanity of Christ was deified by remain hidden or unnoticed; acting in man, the hypostatic union with the divine nature; that changing his nature, entering into a more and Christ, during his terrestrial life, was always more intimate union with him, the divine energies resplendent with the divine light, which remained become increasingly perceptible, revealing to man invisible for most men. The Transfiguration was the face of the living God, “the Kingdom of God not a phenomenon circumscribed in time and come with power” (Mk. 9.1). This divine space; no change took place in Christ at that experience, says Palamas, is given to each moment, even in His human nature, but a change according to his measure and can be more or less was produced in the consciousness of the apostles, profound, depending on the worthiness of those who received for a moment the ability to see their who experience it (Homily on the Transfiguration). Master as He was, resplendent in the eternal light The full vision of the divinity having become of His divinity. St. Gregory Palamas says in his perceptible in the uncreated light, in its deifying Homily on the Transfiguration: “The light of the grace, is “the mystery of the eighth day”; it Lord’s Transfiguration had no beginning and no belongs to the future age. However those who are end, it remained uncircumscribed [in space] and worthy of it attain the sight of “the Kingdom of imperceptible to the senses, although it was God come with power” in this life, as the three contemplated by corporeal eyes. . . . But by a apostles saw it on Mount Tabor. transmutation of their senses the disciples of the The Transfiguration of the Lord occupies a Lord passed from the flesh to the Spirit.” In order central place in the thought of St. Gregory to see the divine light with corporeal eyes, as the disciples did on Mount Tabor, one must Excerpts from “The Theology of Light” in In the Image participate in this light, one must be transformed and Likeness of God. by it to a greater or lesser degree. In another

76 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org TRANSFIGURATION 2016 homily, St. Gregory of Thessalonica says, speaking of the mystical experience, “He who participates in the divine energy . . . becomes himself, in a sense, Light; he is united to the Light and with the Light he sees in full consciousness all that remains hidden for those who have not this grace; he thus surpasses not only the corporeal senses, but also all that can be known [by the mind] . . . for the pure of heart see God . . . who, being the Light, abides in them and reveals Himself to those who love Him, to His beloved ones” (Homily for the Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin in the Temple). :

The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church by Vladimir Lossky This is a first-rate introduction not only to the theology of the Eastern Church but also to the presuppositions and methods along which it proceeds. Lossky claims that Orthodoxy maintains no clear distinction between theology and mysticism. Lossky is without peer in expounding distinctive Orthodox themes: apophaticism, uncreated energies and created being, image and likeness, theosis. His voice is as magisterial as the patristic witnesses he quotes and expounds. 252 pp. paper $23.00 also by Vladimir Lossky… In the Image and Likeness of God 232 pp. paper $20.00 The Vision of God 175 pp. paper $29.00

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FEAST DAY OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL

ANNO DOMINI 2016

SATURDAY, JULY 23 SCHEDULE WITH ABSTRACTS 8:30 a.m. Third Hour Prayer 9:00 a.m. Convocation with a Contemplation by Erin Doom 9:15 a.m. Keynote Lecture I To Look At or To Be Looked At: East Meets West in the Icons Ralph Wood in Fellowship Hall Icons are based on a theology of presence rather than representation: God’s own splendor radiates through the icon, confronting the worshipper with the experience of Uncreated Light. The figures in an icon often gaze out at us, arresting our attention, eliciting our veneration, commanding our obedience. They are not images that we are meant to master by looking at in order to discern a realistic representation of the Holy. To illustrate this distinction we shall examine major Western and Eastern images of Christ. For example, we shall set Grünewald’s Isenheim Crucifixion with its agonized Christ, alongside an icon of Christ the Crucified King reigning from the cross; Holbein’s Dead Christ (plus Dostoevsky’s description of it), alongside an icon of the Entombed Christ attended by the myrrh-bearing women; Grünewald’s Risen Christ, alongside an icon of Christ Resurrected as he breaks open hell, trampling down death by death; then finally the 6th century Mt. Sinai icon of Christ Pantocrator as the true image of whom we are meant to be: an icon of Christ. 10:15 a.m. Break 10:30 a.m. Breakout Sessions Scripture in the Chronicles Leslie Baynes in Fellowship Halll A scripture-loving lamb wading in the Chronicles of Narnia will notice The Magician’s Nephew, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and The Last Battle first. The Magician’s Nephew reimagines the creation stories in Genesis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Jesus’ passion and resurrection in the gospels, and The Last Battle the last things of the Book of Revelation. Imagery in the other Chronicles isn’t so obvious because they don’t retell a discrete biblical narrative. Rather, they’re infused with diverse allusions to and echoes of scripture from both testaments. But it’s also important to realize that limiting the Chronicles’ biblical imagery to scripture is reductionistic. Lewis was a scholar of medieval and Renaissance literature, a devotee of Dante, Spenser, and Milton. Sometimes what may seem like biblical borrowing is in fact a layer or two removed from the scriptures, mediated instead through other sources. This may be most true of The Magician’s Nephew, where we will begin. There’s a lively debate about the proper way to order the Narnian canon. Should one read the Magician’s Nephew first, because it tells the story of the creation of Narnia, or hold to the order of publication, and read the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe first? I champion the latter, but here (and here only!) it’s best to make an exception to the rule because The Magician’s Nephew is the counterpart to Genesis at the beginning of the Judeo-Christian canon. I’ll then move to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Horse and His Boy, Prince Caspian and so on to The Last Battle.”

When We Have Faces: The Theoria of C. S. Lewis David Armstrong in the Gym C. S. Lewis possessed a symphonic mind, able to harmonize the polyphony encompassed by his depth of experience and education into an opera of divine glory. As his friend Owen Barfield once remarked, “somehow what he thought about everything was secretly present in what he said about anything.” Throughout both his fiction and his nonfiction, Lewis seeks to impart his vision of the telos of divine love—that is, the deification of the human person in Christ and the redemption of the cosmos through transfigured humanity. For Lewis, the grand eschatological event is ultimately

80 eighth day institute visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org the face-to-face encounter of each human person with God, a revelatory moment that finally illuminates the central truth of each human person, unveiling either the depths of the soul‘s ruination or the radiant glory of divine restoration through kenotic love. But the larger mystery, the comprehensive theoria of Lewis, is that the ultimate glorification of humankind is not just hope for human beings laboring in the sufferings of the present age, but is a gospel for the non- human creation as well—angelic, elvish, and animal, animate and inanimate. It is the articulation of this biblical and patristic vision—the life and love of the Trinity permeating the universe through the agency of redeemed and glorified human persons reflecting the image of God into the world—that earns Lewis the right to be called a theologian, and not merely an apologist.

Are Women Human? Can We Be Divine?: Dorothy L. Sayers Takes the Case Stephanie Mann in the Choir Room While not an active member of the Inkling group, mystery writer and Anglo-Catholic theologian Dorothy L. Sayers was known to Lewis, Tolkien, et al. This presentation will serve as an introduction to Sayers’ life and work— particularly her examination of the role of women in society and the Church. Her dedication to essential Christian doctrines as the guides to creating great drama and framing true morality will also demonstrate her support of the Inklings’ literary and religious revivals.

Darkened Vision; Deafened Ears: A Thematic Comparison of C.S. Lewis‘s Till We Have Faces and Eugene Vodolazkin‘s Laurus Meredith Burnett in the Chapel The theme of God’s absence is central to both C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces and Eugene Vodolazkin’s Laurus. In Till We Have Faces, this theme is explored primarily through the metaphors of darkness, blindness, invisibility and veiling, whereas the same theme is portrayed in Laurus with reference to deafness and silence. In both books, the purification of sight, hearing and, indeed, all the senses through ascetic endeavors is a means by which the central characters are brought closer to God. The nature of this rapprochement differs in each: In Till We Have Faces, it presents itself as an encounter between Orual and the god of the mountain, whereas for Vodolazkin God’s presence seems to be accounted for entirely in His actions through Laurus. (Indeed, this may be one area in which the difference between eastern and western conceptions of God’s action in the world becomes apparent.) Because the asceticism portrayed in each book is undertaken on another’s behalf, questions of identity arise as Lewis and Vodolazkin struggle with the question of whether it is possible to suffer salvifically for another, in particular for a loved one who has died. The death of one’s beloved thus becomes a crucible for Orual and for Laurus, who must then each spend a lifetime learning to find God despite the darkness, and in the silence.

11:30 a.m. Break 12:00 p.m. Keynote Lecture II Theosis in C. S. Lewis: The Summons to Become Icons of Christ Ralph Wood in Fellowship Hall Not many readers of C. S. Lewis know that, despite his well-known sympathies with the major texts and theologians of the West, he embraced a radically Eastern vision of the Christian life as a pilgrimage toward total transformation called theosis or deification. We are called not merely to be yanked back from the brink of Hell, so that we remain ransomed but still sodden sinners for the sake of the Kingdom. Nor are we meant to follow Jesus as our Exemplar, striving for moral improvement so as to become “good people.” Important though these things surely are, they don’t touch the depths of theosis. We are called to participate in the very life of God. We are summoned to be nothing other than icons of Christ. Such a summons is found in much of Lewis’s work, but especially in The Great Divorce.

1:00 p.m. Festival Begins. Food trucks will be available for lunch.

renewing culture through faith and learning 81 SPEAKER BIOS

RALPH WOOD Ralph C. Wood has served as University Professor of Theology and Literature at Baylor since 1998. He previously served for 26 years on the faculty of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he became the John Allen Easley Professor of Religion in 1990. He has also taught at Samford University in Birmingham, at Regent College in Vancouver, and at Providence College in Rhode Island. At Baylor, his main appointment is in the Religion Department, but he also teaches in the Great Texts program as well as the Department of English. He serves as an editor-at-large for The Christian Century and as an editorial board member for both the Flannery O’Connor Review and Seven: An Anglo-American Literary Review.

PRESENTATIONS To Look At or To Be Looked At: East Meets West in the Icons Theosis in C. S. Lewis: The Summons to Become Icons of Christ

LESLIE BAYNES Leslie Baynes (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame) is associate professor of New Testament and Second Temple Judaism at Missouri State University in Springfield, MO. She teaches a course on C. S. Lewis there, and she has presented and published on Lewis in many venues, including The Journal of Inklings Studies. She is currently working on a book on C. S. Lewis and the Bible.

PRESENTATION The Chronicles of Narnia and the Bible

DAVID ARMSTRONG David Armstrong is from St. Louis, MO and is an Accelerated Master’s student in the Religious Studies department at Missouri State University. He is an Orthodox Christian who enjoys a shameless love affair with Jews and Judaism. He has an avid interest in far too many things, and would do well to specialize.

PRESENTATION When We Have Faces: The Theoria of CS Lewis

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STEPHANIE MANN Stephanie A. Mann is a local author and presenter who has carved out a niche as a specialist on the English Reformation and on historical apologetics for national Catholic media like EWTN, The National Catholic Register, OSV’s The Catholic Answer Magazine, Homiletic & Pastoral Review, and The Saint Austin Review. Her book, Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation from Scepter Publishers, is readily available at Eighth Day Books. She blogs at ww.supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com. Her parish in Wichita is the Church of the Blessed Sacrament.

PRESENTATION Are Women Human? Can We Be Divine?: Dorothy L. Sayers Takes the Case

MEREDITH BURNETT Meredith Burnett is the wife of Fr. Joshua Burnett and mother of Katherine, Naomi, Isaiah, Gideon and Susanna. She was born in Montreal, Canada, and received an MA in Philosophy of Religion from McGill University. She was raised in a variety of Protestant churches, including Anglican and non-denominational, and became Orthodox in her late teens.

PRESENTATION Darkened Vision; Deafened Ears: A Thematic Comparison of C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces and Eugene Vodolazkin’s Laurus

renewing culture through faith and learning 83 EIGHTH DAY CONVOCATION we believe what the Church believes, as articulated by the Fathers our creed: of the First and Second Ecumenical Councils in the Nicene Creed

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible; And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, Begotten of the Father before all worlds, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, Begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made; Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man; And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried; And the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; And ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father; And He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, Whose kingdom shall have no end. And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, Who spake by the Prophets; And I believe in One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins. I look for the Resurrection of the dead, And the Life of the world to come. Amen.

A Morning Prayer to the Holy Trinity from St. John Chrysostom Glory to you, our God, glory to you. Glory to you, O Lord, our God, who always overlooks our sins. Glory to you, O Lord, our God, who enabled me to see this day. Glory to you, O most-holy Trinity, our God. I venerate your inexplorable forbearance. I thank and glorify your infinite mercy. For although I deserve every punishment and chastisement, you have mercy and do good to me with myriads of blessings. Glory to you, O Lord, my God, for everything. Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer

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CONTEMPLATION ~ 9:00 AM Theosis in the Fathers: A Patristic Perspective Director Doom in Fellowship Hall

Notes:

renewing culture through faith and learning 85 KEYNOTE LECTURE I ~ 9:15 AM To Look At or To Be Looked At: East Meets West in the Icons Ralph Wood in Fellowship Hall

Notes:

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BREAKOUT SESSION ~ 10:30 AM Title:

Speaker:

Notes:

renewing culture through faith and learning 87 KEYNOTE LECTURE II ~ 12:00 PM Theosis in C. S. Lewis: The Summons to Become Icons of Christ Ralph Wood in Fellowship Hall

Notes:

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Additional Notes

renewing culture through faith and learning 89 FLORILEGIUM: literary flowers from Inkling Lectures 1.

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ECUMENICAL POSTLUDE Orthodox polemicist fixes upon some single principle found somewhere in Latin theological tradition—like “subsistent relations” or “created ON ECUMENISM grace”—violently misinterprets it, and then uses it to diagnose a fundamental deformity in western theology that must estrange it forever from the : wellsprings of Orthodox truth; and so on. Perhaps David Bentley Hart this kind of thing is inevitable when a conversation arises between two traditions that N ANY MODERN engagement between claim to possess the sole, incontrovertible truth of Christian East and West, we begin from the things. It would be humbling indeed to discover I long history of an often militant refusal—on that many of our most finely wrought systems of both sides—of intellectual reconciliation; more to thought possess many accidental elements, the point, we begin from very different theological peculiar to our particular cultural sensibilities or grammars, and with terminologies that can achieve native tongues, or that perhaps our ways of only proximate correspondences, and from within depicting the truth to ourselves might be only conceptual worlds whose atmospheres are not partial and corrigible approximations to a truth perfectly congenial to one another’s flora, and that others, under extremely different forms, have from a settled mutual tradition of mutual (and approached with equal or better success. More frequently willful) incomprehension. All too often, terrible yet is the possibility that many of our moreover, this incomprehension takes the differences will prove to be only differences of depressing form of a simple and deplorable failure sensibility and language, and not of substance at of imagination: an inability to appreciate that, in all, thus reducing our systems to relative order to understand another intellectual tradition, expressions of the truth, rather than the pristine rooted in a different primary language, it is not vehicles of truth we wish them to be. enough to translate its terms into one’s own dialect and then proceed to interpret them : according to the rules of one’s own tradition. And the consequence of this is that, as often as not, “ecumenism” between East and West consists in little more than a relentless syncope of category errors: the drearily predictable alarm and indignation with which traditional Thomists find that Gregory Palamas, transposed into Thomas’ Latin, is not a Thomist; the deep and slightly macabre delight with which earnest Palamites discover that Thomas, read through Palamite lenses, proves to be no Palamite; arch dismissals of eastern understandings of grace as “semipelagian” by doctrinaire Augustinians; the reckless intensity with which a particular kind of

Excerpt from David Bentley Hart, “The Hidden and the Manifest: Metaphysics After Nicaea” in Aristotle Papanikolaou and George E. Demacopoulos, eds., Orthodox Readings of Augustine, 192-3.

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vigen guroian ! ralph wood DIADOCHOS of PHOTIKI

hans boersma ! mike aquilina BARSANUPHIUS

stephanie mann ! david fagerberg MAXIMUS the CONFESSOR

joseph pearce ! kenneth howell

GREGORY PALAMAS fr david vincent meconi VLADIMIR LOSSKY