Luther vs Aquinas II

Ding ding! Round 2. Except, I must apologise, but I can't for the life of me work out how to format this post in such a way that points 51-97 come out numbered correctly (Blogger kindly reformats them so they start from 1, whatever I do), so instead I shall give you the whole 97 points. If you feel you grasped Luther's basic argument first time round, feel free to start from point 51; otherwise, here's points 1-97 all in one place.

1. Don't criticise Augustine!
2. If you do, it's letting Pelagians and heretics win.
3. And sticking your tongue out at all the doctors of theology.
4. Man, being a bad tree, can only will and do evil.
5. Man isn't free to choose between good and evil; our wills are captive.
6. We can't choose to do what's right.
7. Without the grace of God, we can only will evil [are you getting the gist yet?]
8. But that doesn't mean our wills are essentially evil [hang on a minute...]
9. But our wills are innately and inevitably evil [what?]
10. The will is not free to will the good.
11. It can't will what it ought to will.
12. But it can will whatever it chooses to will.
13. Sinful man can't love God.
14. The will can will what's bad but not what's good.
15. Only the will can will what's bad but not what's good [that's a tongue twister right there]
16. Sinful man can love what God has created, but can't love God.
17. Human nature is unable to want God to be God: we want to be God instead.
18. We can't love God more than anything else.
19. I said, we can't love God more than anything else.
20. If we do kind things it's by grace and not by our own free will.
21. Everything we do in accordance with our nature is an act against God.
22. Acts against God are bad.
23. We can't put right our badness by being hopeful.
24. Hope isn't contrary to love [what's your point, Lutherface?]
25. Hope doesn't grow out of good things but out of suffering which destroys good things.
26. The best way to do good isn't to perform acts of friendship;
27. It's to perform the act of conversion, following grace.
28. We can't choose to seek God.
29. The best way of getting hold of God's grace is to be eternally elected and predestined by God [that's alright, then].
30. We can't do anything to earn God's grace.
31. Blah
32. Blah blah
33. Did I mention we can't earn grace?
34. In terms of our human nature, we can't do what's right. Did I say that already?
35. Ignorance is no excuse.
36. I SAID ignorance is no excuse.
37. Our natures take pride in anything we do which looks good.
38. There's no moral virtue without pride or sorrow, i.e. without sin [Great, now sorrow is a sin].
39. We are not masters of our actions but servants.
40. We don't become righteous by doing righteous things. When we've been made righteous, we do righteous things. The philosophers were wrong.
41. Aristotle's Ethics is the worst enemy of the good.
42. Aristotle was wrong.
43. It's wrong to say that no one can become a theologian without Aristotle [take that, Aquinas!]
44. In fact, you can only become a theologian without Aristotle.
45. Theologians don't need to be logicians [take that, Dawkins!]
46. There's no such thing as a logic of faith.
47. You can't use logic to talk about theology.
48. But that doesn't mean that theology is illogical.
49. If you could prove theology with logic, you wouldn't need faith [that would be BAD, btw]
50. I hate Aristotle.
51. Aquinas didn't even understand Aristotle anyway.
52. I hate Porphyry too, but you probably haven't heard of him.
53. Stop talking about Aristotle! I already told you I hate him!
54. An act is only good if it has grace; and if it has grace, it doesn't need anything else to be good.
55. The grace of God is never inactive: it's always living and active. And did I mention that we can't do anything good without grace?
56. God won't accept us unless he's already justified us by grace.
57. It's dangerous to say that the law commands that an act of obeying the commandment be done in the grace of God.
58. That would imply that 'to have the grace of God' is a new demand going beyond the law.
59. And that you can fulfil the law without grace.
60. Which you can't.
61. So it doesn't follow that the law should be complied with and fulfilled in the grace of God.
62. People outside of the grace of God sin ALL THE TIME, even if they're not doing anything obviously bad.
63. They sin because they don't spiritually fulfil the law.
64. Er.
65. Outside of grace it's impossible not to be angry and lustful, and even in grace it's not possible to fulfil the law perfectly.
66. Hypocrites are bad.
67. We can't be good without grace.
68. We can't be good without grace.
69. Without the grace of God, nature DESTROYS the law [Oh noes]
70. Good laws are bad for the natural (evil) will.
71. Without grace, the law and the will are enemies.
72. The will never wants what the law wants.
73. Blah blah
74. The law makes sin abound because it annoys the will.
75. But the grace of God makes justice abound because it makes the will love the law.
76. You can do things that look good without grace, but they're not really good.
77. Did I mention that the law and the will don't get on?
78. If the will keeps the law without grace, it's only doing it to get something for itself.
79. Those who do the works of the law are condemned.
80. Those who do the works of grace are blessed.
81. You can do good works outside of grace. Not!
82. Religious ceremony is rubbish.
83. And so are the ten commandments.
84. The only law that's good is the love of God put in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
85. If our wills could choose, they'd choose to be free of the law.
86. Will and law: definitely no sitting in a tree K.I.S.S.I.N.G for them.
87. The law is good, and because the will doesn't like the law, the will must be bad.
88. The will is bad.
89. [Deleted due to unnecessary repetition]
90. The grace of God is meant to direct the will.
91. Not so that we can do good more often, but so we can do any good at all.
92. If we could do good things on our own, we wouldn't need love.
93. I don't like scholastic theologians. I'm talking about YOU, William of Ockham.
94. We can't love God and creatures.
95. To love God is to hate oneself and know nothing but God.
96. We must make our wills conform to God's will.
97. They should be totally the same.

And even though I've just totally disagreed with, like, every important Catholic theologian, I'm still well Catholic, and everything I've said is totally in line with what the teachers of the church say. So there.

Ah, Luther. How could you not love him?

Luther vs Aquinas

In his Disputation Against Scholastic Theology, written just before his famous Ninety Five Theses, Luther sets out ninety seven reasons why he disagrees with scholastic theologians. Think of it as a kind of warm up for the Ninety Five Theses, where again Luther explains why he's right and everyone else is wrong. Scholastic theology, by the way, was the major strand of academic theology from the 12th-16th century, originating around the same time as the first universities were set up and Aristotle's work was rediscovered (it had been lost to the West for centuries but had been preserved in Islamic culture). It included hugely important thinkers like Thomas Aquinas, so Luther's taking on the big guns here. It's a shame he comes out sounding like such a prat. Here's a summary (actually not that much shorter than the original) of points 1-50; you'll get the second half later this weekend, you lucky things.

1. Don't criticise Augustine!

2. If you do, it's letting Pelagians and heretics win.

3. And sticking your tongue out at all the doctors of theology.

4. Man, being a bad tree, can only will and do evil.

5. Man isn't free to choose between good and evil; our wills are captive.

6. We can't choose to do what's right.

7. Without the grace of God, we can only will evil [are you getting the gist yet?]

8. But that doesn't mean our wills are essentially evil [hang on a minute...]

9. But our wills are innately and inevitable evil [what?]

10. The will is not free to will the good.

11. It can't will what it ought to will.

12. But it can will whatever it chooses to will.

13. Sinful man can't love God.

14. The will can will what's bad but not what's good.

15. Only the will can will what's bad but not what's good [that's a tongue twister right there]

16. Sinful man can love what God has created, but can't love God.

17. Human nature is unable to want God to be God: we want to be God instead.

18. We can't love God more than anything else.

19. I said, we can't love God more than anything else.

20. If we do kind things it's by grace and not by our own free will.

21. Everything we do in accordance with our nature is an act against God.

22. Acts against God are bad.

23. We can't put right our badness by being hopeful.

24. Hope isn't contrary to love [what's your point, Lutherface?]

25. Hope doesn't grow out of good things but out of suffering which destroys good things.

26. The best way to do good isn't to perform acts of friendship;

27. It's to perform the act of conversion, following grace.

28. We can't choose to seek God.

29. The best way of getting hold of God's grace is to be eternally elected and predestined by God [that's alright, then].

30. We can't do anything to earn God's grace.

31. Blah

32. Blah blah

33. Did I mention we can't earn grace?

34. In terms of our human nature, we can't do what's right. Did I say that already?

35. Ignorance is no excuse.

36. I SAID ignorance is no excuse.

37. Our natures take pride in anything we do which looks good.

38. There's no moral virtue without pride or sorrow, i.e. without sin [Great, now sorrow is a sin].

39. We are not masters of our actions but servants.

40. We don't become righteous by doing righteous things. When we've been made righteous, we do righteous things. The philosophers were wrong.

41. Aristotle's Ethics is the worst enemy of the good.

42. Aristotle was wrong.

43. It's wrong to say that no one can become a theologian without Aristotle [take that, Aquinas!]

44. In fact, you can only become a theologian without Aristotle.

45. Theologians don't need to be logicians [take that, Dawkins!]

46. There's no such thing as a logic of faith.

47. You can't use logic to talk about theology.

48. But that doesn't mean that theology is illogical.

49. If you could prove theology with logic, you wouldn't need faith [that would be BAD, btw]

50. I hate Aristotle.

That's all for Part I, folks. You'll never guess what Luther talks about it Part II.

Photo: Martin Luther by Lucas Cranach der Ältere

Being a bit fairer to Meister Eckhart

Now, I blogged a little while ago about Meister Eckhart, the 13th/14th century Dutch mystical theologian (see below for link), and suggested that maybe he was a bit horrendously dualistic. Having read some more and thought a bit more about what he's saying, I realise that I was was probably a bit harsh, and have repented accordingly. It's always less fun to argue that someone's thought is complex and nuanced than that they're totally right or completely idiotic, but in the name of fairness, I thought I ought to have another go at some Eckhart-exposition.

Eckhart starts with a fundamental distinction between the oneness of God and the multiplicity of the world (check out my blog on divine simplicity if that makes your head boggle – link below). The closer to God things are, the simpler they are; the further away, the more multiple. In line with lots of other people who espouse divine simplicity, Eckhart tends to see physical, external things as more multiple than spiritual and intellectual internal things, so he tends to privilege minds over bodies and what we want and choose over what we actually do. It's not that external actions don't matter; it's just that they're less important than what's going on inside us. In addition, we can control what goes on inside us more easily than we can what goes on externally: we can't stop our annoying friends coming round and being annoying, but we can make sure that our minds are fixed on God at all times so we're able to love them even when they're idiots. We can't feed all the hungry people in the world, but we can get ourselves to the point where if we could, we would: and Eckhart thinks that for God, that's as good as actually doing it. We can't ignore what goes on around us, and we have to get involved with it, if only because we need to eat and drink and wear clothes just to not die; but the more we care about God, the more we'll be preoccupied with what's going on inside us, because that's the part of us that's most like God, and the less we'll care about whether our food is tasty or has maggots in. But at the same time, Eckhart does realise that external things can reveal God to us - an amazing steak can speak to us of the goodness of God - so we need to both let go of external things and also grasp God in and through them.

It really comes down to this: that everything comes from God, and if we want God more than anything else then our relationship to all of those other things will fall into place naturally: we'll see everything in terms of its relationship to God. But if those things are more important to us than God is, our whole way of seeing the world gets snarled up, and the good things God made becomes dangerous temptations into sinfulness and idolatry.

Creation, for Eckhart, is about God giving of himself; and our response to his generosity should be to give ourselves in return. We are most ourselves when we're totally given over to God, when we're so united with God that God acts and wills through us, when we have chosen God so profoundly that God chooses God in us. We get so given over to God, in the end, that it becomes difficult to tell where we end and God begins (this is the bit that got Eckhart in trouble for sounding a bit heretical), and our relationship with God should, eventually, resemble the relationships of the Trinity, where God is one but also three. Getting to this place of perfect relationship with God isn't easy, at least at first. Eckhart says it's like learning how to write: when you start, it's really difficult; you have to concentrate really hard and it still looks like some drunken spiders vomited all over the page. But if we keep persevering, slowly training ourselves, then eventually be able to write beautifully without even thinking about it (That's perhaps a less comforting analogy for those who, like me, have always had dreadful handwriting). If we discipline ourselves to want God above all else, then choosing God will, eventually, become second nature, and we won't even need to think about how we relate to the physical things around us because with God at the centre of our lives, everything else will naturally assume its rightful place.

Slightly harsh post on Eckhart here.
Divine simplicity made simple here.

Photo: Eckhart extract.

Beyond the Pleasure Principle

People sometimes think that, for Freud, everything was about sex. Disappointing though it is, it turns out that’s not quite true. Starting out, Freud thought that people had two basic motivations: the pleasure principle, which makes us want to avoid pain and seek out pleasure (and is quite a lot about sex) and the ego instinct, which makes us want to not die (less sexy). But then he changed his mind, because he realised that the more energy you spend looking after yourself in narcissism the less interested you are in sex (think about that next time you look in the mirror, folks). Our instincts for pleasure and for self-preservation are both functions of the libido, which can be directed outwardly or inwardly. So at this point, it really is mostly about sex. But then, in 1920, Freud wrote Beyond the Pleasure Principle, which argued that as well as the libido, we’re motivated by another fundamental principle: the death drive. So, it’s not all about sex, but it is all about either sex or death.

Freud says that the idea of the death drive came from his observations of types of repetition of painful experiences. Firstly, people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder relive, in dreams or in flashbacks, the event which originally traumatised them. Secondly, people who’ve had terrible relationships in the past tend to seek out similarly dreadful relationships, either in their marriages, their friendships or in their relationship with their therapist. And finally, Freud talks about repetition in children’s games, giving the example of 1 ½ year old nephew who started playing a game which involved throwing things under the bed, which Freud eventually realised was his re-enactment of the traumatic moment of his mother leaving. All of this examples of compulsive repetition throw a big spanner in the works of Freud’s theory that we’re basically all driven to seek out pleasure. Why would people deliberately repeat and relive painful experiences?

Freud goes on to argue that all living things have an urge to return to an earlier state of being (this would be something like the tendency towards entropy). Living things basically want to remain in a state of stability and unchangingness; they only change and develop if they’re forced to do so by external circumstances. And of course, the ultimate state of original stability is death: all life, says Freud, aims at death, though sometimes it gets distracted along the way by the need to defend itself from things which would force it into dying in the wrong sort of way. Various things may prevent us regressing to an earlier state, forcing us into creativity and growth; but all the time, regardless, we are aiming not for progress but for death.

Cheery stuff, no? It’s not the happiest theory, but it is a powerful one that explains a lot, both in terms of particular psychological disturbances and in terms of the general human capability for violence and destructiveness. But if Freud’s right, if there is a death instinct, an intrinsic desire for death in us, that raises all sorts of theological questions about the goodness of creation, the nature of sin, human identity. Oo er.

Photo credit: tstadler

Dandy Discipleship

...and I'm back. Did you miss me? I would have missed you, except I've been far too busy moving house (nightmarey), sunning myself in Menorca (sunburny), writing a paper (stressy) and partaking of family festivities (overeaty). But now I'm settled into my new house, with approximately 80% of boxes unpacked, and settling into a work routine, so I reckon it's time to start blogging again.

First up on the blog-to-do list is an article by Robert J. Myles. The article, called 'Dandy Discipleship: A Queering of Mark's Male Disciples' comes from the Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality. Myles starts out by pointing out that we never come to the Bible blind: we always bring with us all the baggage of our expectations, beliefs, culture etc. Our reading of the Bible says as much about us as it does about the text. So if we want to find things in the Bible that challenge our expectations rather than just telling us what we already think we know, sometimes we need to deliberately go looking for them. If we want to challenge our ideas about sexuality and gender, we need to deliberately 'queer' the Biblical text, which means looking out for ways of reading it that don't just fit in with our ideas about men and women, gayness and straightness. So in his article, Myles offers a series of queer rereadings of sections of Mark's gospel that talk about Jesus' disciples.

Fishing for Men (Mark 1:16-20)
Myles rewrites the text thusly:

While cruising the seashores of Galilee, Jesus began his ministry by fetching a number of seemingly attached men to join his cohort of male admirers. He saw Simon and his brother Andrew fishing in their boat, and as soon as Jesus invited them to accompany him in his quest to fish for more men, they dropped their rods and joined him. Shortly after, Jesus discovered James and John in their father’s boat mending their fishnets. Upon enticing them, they immediately left their father and their livelihood, to elope with the alluring Jesus.

The disciples quit their jobs. Our jobs tend to reflect our roles within society and within our families, not to mention our roles as men and women. Following Jesus, it would seem, challenges the social roles and relationships we're tangled up in. As societies, we tend to restrict male friendships to particular spaces: it's ok for men to hang out in pubs, at sports events, on fishing boats; but we're a bit freaked out by the idea that men might just spend time hanging out with each other, talking about deep and meaningful things. Isn't that a bit...gay? But what if following Jesus means spending time with other people in ways that aren't socially acceptable? What if we were to accept that some of the sorts of relationships God calls us to with other people are precisely that: a bit gay?


Whose is the Greatest? Measuring Manhood (9:33-37)

When they came to Capernaum Jesus asked his admirers, “What were you squabbling about on the way?” There was an embarrassing silence, for they had been comparing with one another to find out whose was the greatest. Jesus sat down, called his disciples, and said to them, “Whoever admires me the most will have the least, for truly I tell you, size doesn’t matter; it’s what you do with it that counts.” Taking a little one in his hand, he said to them, “Whoever is open to one such as this is also open to me, and whoever is open to me is open to the one who sent me.”

Greco-Roman culture tended to have a competitive view of masculinity: the more people you can beat, the more of a man you are. It looks like Jesus is challenging this, but at the same time he seems to just be rearranging the rules of the competition: that's not what leadership looks like, this - Jesus' leadership - is what leadership looks like. If masculinity's still about who wins the competition for most-like-a-leader, then isn't Jesus just trying to win the competition himself, even if he's doing it in an unusual way?


The Pash of Judas and a Streaker’s Nuddie Run (14:43-52)

Immediately, Judas, one of the twelve, arrived; and with him there was a crowd of men with shackles and whips eager to restrain Jesus. The betrayer had said, “The one who I will kiss is the maledom; restrain him and lead him away.” When Judas came, he approached Jesus, said “master,” and pressed his lips up against him. Then the crowd laid their hands on Jesus and tied him down. After an initial struggle his admirers deserted him and fled. Shortly after, a boy escort wearing nothing but a cover of cloth was admiring Jesus. As the crowd of men tried to grapple him, however, he dropped it and streaked off naked.

Why, says Myles, do we assume that Judas' kiss is purely platonic? If it was Mary Magdalene kissing Jesus, there'd be a lot more nudging and winking (and the Dan Brownians would be wolf whistling their hearts out). Not only that, but who's the naked boy? The fact that his nudity's mentioned suggests to Myles that he might be a male prostitute (why would Jesus only hang out with female prostitutes?).

Conclusion
If we think there aren't any sexual undertones in the Bible, maybe it's because we're not looking hard enough. Maybe reading the Bible with dirtier minds would open up whole new levels of meaning, and whole new challenges to our ideas about sexuality, gender, and masculinity. This is especially important with Mark's gospel, which is often used to get ideas about what it means to follow Jesus. Why should Mark Driscoll get to decide what biblical manhood is like? If Myles is right, we need a whole new generation of biblical students with an eye for innuendo. Anyone feel called?

If you like this, Robert J. Myles' blog is here, and the full article is here. For the dirtiest mind in biblical studies, you could check out Roland Boer's blog, which covers biblical erotica, bestiality, and his campaign to get rude articles into respectable academic journals.
Photo credit: Travis S.