In Part One I discussed Days 1 & 2 of Bonaventure’s Soul's Journey into God. In Part Two, I take up
Days 3 & 4
Over the
many centuries of Christian history, Christian thinkers have reflected upon the
Genesis account of creation, especially the creation of humans. Genesis 1:26
states, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.” The
issue has to do with what it means to be created in the image and likeness
of God. Many Christian thinkers thought that what distinguishes us from other
animals is our rational faculty. Thus, in our ability to reason we are most
like God. Some would add the faculty of the will, thus in our rational deliberations,
we are able to freely choose between various goods.
In modern biblical studies, there has
been a recognition of the influences of other ancient Middle Eastern cultures
on the formation of the biblical texts. These include such mythical accounts of
origins as the Enuma Elish, the Gilgamesh Epic, as well as the
many and various social-cultural practices that would form ancient people’s cosmologies
and religious imaginations. In ancient Babylon, for instance, the king would be
the prime manifestation and image of the deity. Thus, when the king spoke his
will, it was legitimized and grounded in the belief that he was the mouthpiece
of Marduk. Thus, in the biblical account, there is a democratization of those
who contain the divine image.
Despite how different thinkers in
Christian history came to define what it means to be created in the image and
likeness of God, there was a general agreement that with the advent of sin,
i.e., disobedience to the will and commands of God, humanity had damaged the
image and likeness of God and could not recover either through their own
volition. The will to live according to the commands of God had been irreparably
damaged. This narrative of the ‘Fall’ would be incorporated into the western,
Augustinian theology of original sin. Human desire would now be bound to
a will congenitally self-focused, intent on self-construction. The creature
comes to believe in the illusion of being its own creator.
In day three of Bonaventure’s Journey
of the Soul to God, the individual is called to move from looking at the
outer world of creation, to the inner world of one’s mind/soul. Bonaventure, in
the psychology of his day, will look at the natural powers that we have, that
is, our capacities and abilities that are unique to human beings. One very important
capacity that humans have is the ability to love ourselves. We desire good
things for ourselves, and in some cases, we desire the good for others. In
order to love ourselves, we must have some knowledge of ourselves.
Memory will be important in
self-knowledge. In this case, memory is not simply a recall of random events.
Rather, our memories that form our sense of self include the many choices we
have made over our lifetime. Thus, the will plays an important role in the
formation of our self-identity.
When reflecting upon our many choices,
we can see that in most, if not all cases, our choices have been for the love
of self. We desire happiness, wellbeing, and despite the fact that many of our
choices, looked at objectively, have in fact been to our detriment, we
nevertheless made these choices hoping for some kind of fulfillment, a means to
satisfying some unconscious identity need (meaning, connectedness/belonging,
recognition, and security).
Bonaventure was convinced that our minds
are built for truth, and that such apprehension of truth brings us
satisfaction. Using mathematical examples, knowing that 2 + 2 = 4 brings us a sense
of satisfaction, while claiming 5 to be the correct answer is disjointing. When
we work out a problem, coming to a truthful resolution, we gain a sense of
satisfaction, a sense of happiness. When we find something that we at first
thought to be true, but discovered later to be a lie, we find such an occasion
to be disheartening. Thus, our minds desire truth.
However, we did not come out of the
womb with a comprehensive list of what is true about the world. We have had to
work at finding truth in the various areas and aspects of our lives. Even more
disconcerting, our means of finding truth, especially when it comes to those
truths that will genuinely fulfill our identity needs, can only be arrived at
by means of others. We are dependent upon the various models who enter our
social landscape. This is – with a great deal of understatement – problematic.
Combining the various ingredients
discussed above, we can begin to see our dilemma. First, as humans, we have the
facility to love ourselves, thus, to know ourselves to some degree. Second, we
are designed for truth. Knowing and grasping the truth of things informs a
sense of satisfaction and happiness in our minds and hearts. Third, we can only
come to knowledge of anything through experience, and when it comes to understanding
our experiences, we are reliant upon the influences of others. We have to
choose between the many and various options of interpretations offered from the
many and various models in our life. Over time, our memories are formed by the
various choices we have made, i.e., those modelled interpretations concerning
what a meaningful life consists of. Those choices concerning who we will
connect our affections to, whose recognition of our selfhood is deemed more
rewarding. These choices will form a world in which we feel either safe or anxious.
In this journey for self-knowledge,
for truth, for happiness, we begin to make judgments about how we determine the
good. We gain a sense of degrees to goodness. We form judgments about what a
good life consists of. Unfortunately, these judgments are profoundly informed
and shaped by the models we have formed our will and desires in. Over time, our
worldviews, our emotional constructs, will become a habitus. Our
automatic responses to the world will become a type of second nature.
Thus,
our judgments will have the feeling of truth. However, from a Christian
perspective, these judgments may in fact be falsehoods. But in our believing
these falsehoods as true, Bonaventure, borrowing from Augustine, would state
that we have been curved in upon ourselves. We no longer stand (metaphorically)
arrect, able to look above us; above our deformed imagination, and see the
truth for what it really is. Rather, we can only gaze upon our actual deformed
minds which deceive us into believing the illusions we have convinced ourselves
of.
The deformation of our minds and
hearts is manifested in many ways. We see it in such attitudes of tribalism,
nationalism, bigotry, prejudice, violence, mean spiritedness, misogyny,
patriarchy, and a myriad of other things that set humans against one another.
And we know, by just the most minimal of historical knowledge, that such
deformation of human beliefs and behaviors are seemingly beyond reformation.
Even the most enlightened of individuals struggle to overcome inclinations to
desire the self over the wellbeing of others. From a Christian theological anthropological
view, the human condition is in need of salvation, that is, a healing, from a
source beyond its own capacity. Thus, the need for a savior.
Day three is a difficult part of the journey to self-knowledge. It requires radical honesty and fortitude to face the brokenness of one’s inner subjective reality. It takes radical humility to admit one may be desperately in need of transformation, and willing to ask for help.
Day three is Bonaventure’s exploration
of the natural human condition before the advent of grace. Grace is that necessary
gift each requires to be brought to a state of rectitude impeded by a self-centeredness that places the needs and desires of the individual first. Grace is needed as
well in order to overcome the illusion of self-creation. In day four, Bonaventure explores
the dimension of faith and grace, found in the work of Christ.
Day four has to do with redemption,
the transformation of the individual, bringing a re/birth of the true image and
likeness of God that has been lost by the malformation of the mind and heart
through a will consumed with distorted desires for self-construction. Bridging
day 3 and day 4, Bonaventure again looks at the faculty of memory. Memory, for
Bonaventure, is somehow an aspect of the human person that touches eternity, as
it allows us to transcend time by helping us to go back to the past, capturing
the present, and draws us into the future through foresight, using the
imagination. By recalling our experiences of the past, along with our awareness
of the present, we can predict, to a small degree, a bit of our future. We can do
this, because we have come to experience things happening in an orderly manner.
In Bonaventure’s account of this day
in the journey, he associates the different aspects of human psychology with
the three members of the trinity. Such comparisons do not seem to relate to our
contemporary understanding of human psychology. Thus, I will forgo using such
comparisons in my interpretation of this day. Instead, I will use categories I
believe are more relatable to our contemporary experiences.
From a Girardian perspective, we each
have models, or as Bonaventure would call it, exemplars, who mediate for us
values, principles, convictions, and desires by which we learn how to shape our
worlds of meaning. These models originate from the outer world, brought in
through our senses, as I discussed in Part One. Over time, the acclimation and information
of our models’ desires, values, principles, and convictions will become instantiated
into the makeup of our very selves. We will embody these ‘others’ into the
construction of our ‘self. Recognizing this is the first step in discarding the
illusion of self-construction.
When it comes to the theology of
grace, the question as to how grace brings about transformation can be rather opaque.
We can easily observe the seeming contradiction of those claiming to have been ‘saved’
by grace yet live in such a fashion that clearly contradicts the teachings of
Jesus in the gospels. Such hypocrisy has been a source of animus towards
Christianity for many.
For Bonaventure, Jesus is the
exemplar of God’s character. In Jesus, through his teachings and actions narrated in the gospels, we see the nature of the divine. By reflecting and
meditating on the life of Christ, one begins to see what God’s desires and
values consist of. For Franciscans like Bonaventure, Francis is the example par
excellence of the imitation of Christ. He did this so profoundly that even
his body became conformed to the body of Christ through the five wounds, the
stigmata he received on Mount La Verna. But more importantly, Francis was profoundly
conformed to the desires and values of Jesus as he spent hours upon hours in
prayer, reflecting on the gospels.
Thus, from a Girardian perspective,
grace operates through the conscious and intentional act of conforming one’s
desires upon those of the Christ. This includes imitation of the Christ in his
teachings, his attitudes, his behaviors, his conformity to the will of God. Of
course, this means that one must willingly seek to discard those desires that
have been directed towards the self as a means of self-construction. This means
that one must recognize the many dead-end journeys towards identity satisfaction
that have created false constructions of one’s meaning world, based on the
limited and distorted models whose own desires are formed in such misdirected
ways.
Days three and four, as with all the
days on the journey, are ongoing endeavors. They are part of an overall
pilgrimage that takes a lifetime of commitment and dedication. However, despite
the incompleteness of the journey through days three and four, there must be
some evidence/manifestation of the journey’s progress through the outward praxis
of one’s inner conversion and transformation. Such evidence/manifestation will
be the subject of Part Three, which will take up days five and six in Bonaventure’s
schema.
No comments:
Post a Comment