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An Interview with Gregory Baum Confronted with All Kinds of New Questions “Faith, Community, & Liberation” That the Ancients Didn’T Have, and We Trust Adam S

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An Interview with Gregory Baum Confronted with All Kinds of New Questions “Faith, Community, & Liberation” That the Ancients Didn’T Have, and We Trust Adam S Sometimes the scriptures confirm what the church is doing. But sometimes they criticize what the church is doing. So there must be a willingness to listen, to be judged Volume 2, Issue 2 | Spring 2005 and be confirmed. This interests me particularly because in modernity we are An Interview with Gregory Baum confronted with all kinds of new questions “Faith, Community, & Liberation” that the ancients didn’t have, and we trust Adam S. Miller that we are not without wisdom regarding Journal of Philosophy and Scripture these new questions because we read our scriptures, and we hear in scripture what our ancestors didn’t hear. Gadamer says that JPS: In order to find a place to begin, classic texts never stop speaking to us: they perhaps we could open our conversation have surplus meaning. To give an example, about philosophy and scripture with a in the Catholic church we rejected very general question about the modernity, we rejected human rights and relationship of scripture to the Christian personal liberties, because we thought that community. In your view, what role does Christ wanted us to proclaim the truth in the church play in the interpretation of order to rescue people from error. So we did scripture and, conversely, what role does not approve of religious liberty because it scripture play in shaping the church? made room for people in error. This was our position in the nineteenth century. It was GB: Well, these are, of course, huge thought at the time that this was being questions. The scriptures were collected by obedient to Jesus and to certain biblical the church, the canon was constituted by the texts. Later, Pope John XXIII was impressed church, and the scriptures are read within the by the universal declaration of human rights context of a believing community. If you of the UN, published after World War II were to give Christian scripture to people with its endless killing and its endless outside of the believing community, they humiliation of humans. So he decided to re- could come to very different conclusions read the scriptures and found biblical texts about their meaning. When the scriptures are that affirm the high dignity of the human read within the believing community they being, both as image of God in the creation tend to be interpreted within a liturgical story in Genesis and as summoned by God context. And these believing communities according to the Pauline doctrine that in have lived in many different cultures and in Jesus God acted on behalf of all humanity. many different historical moments, therefore The high dignity of humans is therefore they read these scripture differently. The grounded in the orders of creation and result is that you have a whole history of redemption, This convinced John XXIII that interpretation. So I think that the church and this high dignity must be respected by the scripture belong very much together. When I authorities of governments and say church I do not necessarily mean church organizations. So he found a theological authority at the moment, but just the foundation for human rights, not by believing community. The community reads compromise with the modern world, but by scripture, and the creativity of God’s word is re-reading scripture. then revealed in the never-completed meaning communicated to the believing JPS: I’m interested in the connection that community throughout the ages. When the you made between the reading scripture church finds itself in a new situation it re- and the issue of authority. As you see it, reads the scriptures and, because it hears on some occasions scripture works to give God’s word addressing the new situation, it the church the authority needed to make hears what its ancestors did not hear. the kind of proclamations you’ve just Journal of Philosophy and Scripture Vol. 2 Issue 2, page 23 Gregory Baum Faith, Community & Liberation indicated, but at other times scripture the Augustinian tradition, I am keenly aware operates in such a way as to criticize the of the gratuity of all that is good in my life. church’s claims or beliefs? That is why I prefer to think of religious experience as involving both challenge and GB: Yes, I think that’s right. I think that new life, both repentance and freedom. often the church is not obedient to scripture. Take for instance the text in which Jesus JPS: In your view, is it beneficial to read says, “Call no man your father, because God scripture in light of philosophy? is your father” (see Matt. 23: 9). The Catholic church has never really reflected on GB: Almost certainly, yes. We are human this text. We speak about the Pope as holy beings, and I don’t see how we could not father, we call priests father⎯all without reflect in some systematic way on scripture. really wrestling with this text, even though it In different periods Christians have used stands over us in judgment. There are many different philosophical traditions. For the other biblical texts that challenge us. Some ancients it was Hellenistic philosophy. Many theologians are willing to be challenged, but Protestants and a few Catholics put great the community as a whole often refuses to emphasis on the difference between take a second look. The texts of the NT on Jerusalem and Athens. They see Jerusalem poverty and the exercise of powers have not as source of divine truth and Athens as received the attention they deserve. source of philosophical reflection distorting divine truth. I think that that is unacceptable. JPS: Many contemporary continental Hellenism has influenced the writing of the philosophers tend to locate what is Bible itself. Parts of the Old Testament like religious precisely in an experience of Proverbs were influenced by Hellenistic being challenged and contested, so that thought. Hellenistic thought influenced the the moment of contestation appears as the writing of the New Testament, very strongly religious experience par excellence. in the Fourth Gospel. One of the fascinating things about the New Testament is that it is GB: This sounds very Protestant to me. a book of transition from one culture to Protestants have always emphasized God’s another. In other words, the passage from word as judging us, while Catholics have one culture to another and the translation of seen God’s word as both judgment and new the biblical message into a new language are life. Religious experience is an experience part of divine revelation. I think that we of being challenged, but it is also an have not explored sufficiently the experience of being made fully alive in transitional dimension of the New loving one’s neighbor, in escaping Testament. resentment and becoming generous, in Dialogue with philosophy is necessary. I escaping arrogance and becoming humble, think it belongs to the essence of the in escaping self-concern and becoming Christian proclamation to engage in concerned about others. Personal dialogue with people, to take their culture transformations of this kind are not the work seriously and respect their wisdom tradition. of flesh and blood; they are gifts of grace. God is graciously at work in people’s search God judges us, this is true; we are again and for truth and goodness, long before the again challenged by God’s word, but God is Church get there to proclaim the Gospel. also the new life in us, the Spirit poured That is why we want to listen to people’s forth in our hearts, the divine empowerment wisdom—critically listen to it, making to do good. It is possible for Catholics to put appropriate distinctions. Karl Barth wanted the emphasis on good works and forget they to reject all philosophy. When he saw that are rendered possible by God’s grace. That the majority of great German thinkers is why we are grateful for the Protestant supported the war of the Kaiser, he thought corrective, reminding us of the gratuity at that there must be something deeply wrong the center of our existence. As a Catholic in about their ideas. He wanted to leave Journal of Philosophy and Scripture Vol. 2 Issue 2, page 24 Gregory Baum Faith, Community & Liberation philosophy behind, but the readers of his in touch with active members of left-wing brilliant theology are not convinced that he political parties in Canada and Quebec. did so. They find traces of Kierkegaard in What amazes me is the profound ethical his thought. Since we cannot escape commitment of my friends, their philosophical ideas, it is better to become selflessness, their concern for others, their conscious of them and critically clarify generosity and their compassion with the them. disadvantaged and marginalized. Yet when But there are also times when I ask them where their values come from, philosophy takes over and biblical revelation they don’t know. They have no language for simply functions as a starting point. Then articulating what takes place spiritually in the intellectual effort of conceptualization their hearts and minds. Christians have a produced a rational theological system. I language for this because they belong to a think that this happened in Scholasticism. religious tradition. My amazement before When I was a student at the University of the ethical commitment of my secular Fribourg, I was trained in Thomism. It is friends obliges me to interpret what goes on possible to adopt a narrow reading of in them in theological terms: they are Thomas by focusing on the first question of touched by God’s grace. According to a the Summa where he defines theology as a patristic teaching, the church can be defined science based on the articles of faith— as humanity-as-touched-by-God’s-grace, somewhat as optics is based on the Ecclesia ab Abel, the church from Abel on, principles of geometry.
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