Recruiting Norris Clarke for My Cosmotheandric Universalism

Below, I’ll be citing relevant excerpts from John J. Winkowitsch’s dissertation on Norris Clarke’s Relational Metaphysics.


Theological Universalist Concerns

My universalism insists that the unitive destiny of all in the Totus Christus is consistent with the absolutely gratuitous orders of both creation & grace, even if one presupposes a “Creation as Incarnation” Christological Cosmology. This is to recognize that those gratuities of creation & grace would lovingly flow from a divine volitional fittingness of the divine esse intentionale and not as some natural necessity of the divine esse naturale.

Perditionists try to block any such inferences as could be derived from such distinctions by invoking a strong doctrine of divine simplicity & Actus Purus.

Anthropological Universalist Concerns

My universalism relies primarily on a moral argument against hell, which objects to infinite consequences for the sins of finite creatures.

Perditionists try to block any inferences regarding such a disproportionality by claiming that, because there is no natural desire in wo/man for the beatific vision of God, there could be no divine injustice in His depriving anyone of the beatific vision.

My universalism rejects as incoherent any post-mortem anthropology that relies on a putative immutability of rational creatures, both when they’re disembodied & when they’re newly re-embodied.

Perditionists try to block such inferences because they would be consistent with the possibility of post-mortem repentance.

Theoanthropological Universalism

Contra caricatures of universalism as implicating or entailing divine necessity, as Christological monophysitism or cosmological pantheism:

“In summary, Clarke has argued that God can be said in some significant though carefully qualified way to be both (1) really related to the world in His intentional consciousness and (2) contingently different in his ‘eternal Now,’ because of what happens in the created world.” 1

“According to Clarke, ‘there is no other criterion for the distinction of natures” other than how the “essences of beings are manifested by their actions.’” 2

“Clarke defines self-identity as ‘the active power of self-maintenance in exchange with others.’” 3

“Clarke distinguishes two senses of immutability. On one hand, God’s immutable ‘intrinsic intensity and fullness of his own being and faithful love of us’ is an appropriate and necessary proper perfection of a person, but on the other hand an ‘ongoing sensitive adaptation to the mutual relations of an interpersonal dialogue is appropriate and necessary for the perfection proper to a person,’ too. These two senses of immutability depend upon a further distinction: ‘Different’ and ‘changing’ are not identical concepts. Change implies time and mutability, whereas difference implies a contrast to another possibility, so although God is different because of our actions in time, He does not change.” 4

“Here Clarke gives a glimpse into one of the most controversial claims of his relational metaphysics: receptivity as a positive perfection of personal being.” 5

“Receptivity is not passivity. Rather, it should be understood as ‘an active, – welcoming – receptivity that is a mark of the perfection—not the imperfection—of interpersonal relations.’ ” 6

Contra perditionist inferences that would block the conclusions of universalism’s moral argument vis a vis disproportional consequences:

“In support [of the Transcendental Thomists] Clarke refers to where Thomas himself ‘had worked out quite explicitly and carefully, in his treatise on the ethical life of man, the doctrine of the natural desire in man for the beatific vision of God.’ ” 7

“Clarke turns to Thomas: ‘Just as ‘all knowers implicitly know God in all that they know,’ he tells us, so too all actors, desirers, lovers implicitly love God in all that they love or desire.’ ” 8

“Clarke’s argument for the ascent to God through the dynamism of the intellect is accomplished in five steps.” 9

whatnesses of our primary nature – that have been and continue to be wounded from the cumulative historical consequences of all past and ongoing personal sins.

These consequences involve “bad habits,” which operate both personally & communally. They can significantly obscure but never totally eclipse our abiding primary nature as Christ-images. They can greatly hinder but never wholly obliterate the reducibility of the final potencies of our secondary nature, which can everlastingly grow to become increasingly Christ-like.

The intrasubjective dynamics of each person’s growth in authenticity, of each person’s intellectual, affective, moral, social & religious conversions, and of each person’s soul-maturation are all reductions of essential potencies, which are all fostered by formative means. As we are radically social rational creatures, those means (reductions of our final potencies) are inescapably intersubjective and are ordered toward unitive ends, which are, by definition, also intersubjective. This is to say that our personal maturation as individual subjects is inextricably intertwined with & mutually conditioned by our interpersonal growth in intersubjective unity. Ours is a freedom for unitive excellence.

A coherent distinction between the nondeterminate divine nature and kenotic & economic self-determinate divine will needn’t threaten the divine intrinsic perfection. A weak simplicity & thin passibility allow for that divine volitional fittingness, which would lovingly flow from the divine nature.

So, God does variously respond to creatures by different divine theophanic hownesses (from an infinite array of equipoised divine optimalities), even while in no way implicating a change in divine whatness. Such differences could indeed involve more than just Cambridge properties, although they would only be differences in divine self-expression, theophanically, not changes in divine self-constitution, theogonically.

In a cosmotheandric metaphysic of intersubjectivity, wherein all subjects & societies are mutually constituted equiprimordially, we might could even coherently refer to both theophanic & Chrostogonic dynamics, at least, in terms of the intersubjective unitive doings of the Totus Christus.

This particular exercise was a long backburned project that came about from my 2016 encounter with Fr Kimel’s “But is God really, really, really related to the world?“.

It was especially inspired by Tom Belt’s contributions to that divine simplicity conversation: Living, moving, and having being in God—Part 2

In Tom’s response, I could sense profound resonances with my own approaches, which included, in part, Scotus’ formal distinction, but, especially Norris Clarke’s personalism.

The project I had long deferred was simple. I just wanted to do a conceptual mapping of the differences in vocabulary between Tom & Fr Clarke’s terminology. I wanted to better establish my suspicions that, in many ways, they were saying the same things.

The vocabulary differences were rather straightfoward & few. Both Fr Clarke & Tom were drawing distinctions between how immutability might be applied in different senses, where “faithful love” wouldn’t preclude must indeed include “ongoing sensitive adaptation.” Otherwise, Fr Clarke introduced distinctions between change & difference, passivity & receptivity, real & truly. It’s no semantic shellgame. Fr Clarke was recognizing the rigorously defined Thomist terms change, passivity & real. And he was not merely translating those terms to make their Thomist meanings more accessible to general audiences, who would otherwise be misguided by the popular understandings of those words. Fr Clarke was going beyond – although still inspired by Thomism – to render a more robustly personal account of God than could ordinarily be found in strict Thomist renditions of Classical Theism with the strongest versions of the doctrine of divine simplicity.

In the end, my research confirmed my suspicions that Fr Clarke was saying a lot of the same things about God’s relationship to his rational creatures that Tom said and continues to say to my delight & edification.