It’s as if we speak with one voice in different registers, yours much more nuanced than mine. I had exactly the same thoughts in 3rd grade (Who made God? Why something rather than nothing?), as well as pointing out to Sr M Catherine that the Atonement theory she was teaching seemed utterly incongruous with my own experience of my quite seriously flawed father. Only 50 years later did I discover the eastern, patristic alternative to the penal-substitutionary model in ‘God became man so man could become God.’ Next came fresh appreciation of creation ex nihilo (primarily through my friend, David Burrell) and the writings of DBH, (plus the latter’s rehabilitation of final causality as the key to it all), Max has at least given me a singular focus and personal mission that is as joyously fulfilling as it is a sharing in Christ’s own angst over the Trinitarian tone-deafness of both the world and the western church. Your Substack, needless to say, is a most welcome and appreciated Light in the darkness. I appreciate our little exchanges on occasion. I wish I knew the folks you know (Thomas Belt and Aidan Kimel especially), to say nothing of the classical authors at the trailhead of your intellectual journey. Continued blessings and encouragement for what you do. I’ll step up soon and do more than subscribe freely to your site 🥴
I've never met ANY theologians or philosophers or fellow bloggers, personally. Neither do I have an academic background - not a single course - in either. I've corresponded with those who've reached out. My journey has been worth it but emotionally costly because, as an autodidact, my prose has by necessity been dense, formulaic & extremely idiodyncratic. It's been ridiculed way more often than extolled. When I lapse into lucidity & accessibility it's because I've borrowed a foreign idiom, which I don't otherwise inhabit systematically. So, I'm influenced by Peirce, Aquinas, Scotus, Bonaventure, Palamas, the Capps Bros, Eriugena, Maximus, Bulgakov but can't render historical interpretations only my ad hoc appropriations & inveterate conceptual mapmaking. I've spent far more years, 30 to 10, in atheological forums with fellow scientists (my grad work was avian neuroendocrinology) than fellow believers. I grew up a run of the mill Catholic charismatic with a vivid pneumatological imagination, which led me to Amos Yong thru Don Gelpi. Never met Amos. Never saw Don after 1972.
I'm a Richard Rohr - Thomas Merton Catholic.
I feel like a social media misfit, surprised when I strike a chord, never surprised by eyerolling glazeovers. I'm not on substack to fund raise or gather likes.
I founded Roman Catholics for Obama in 2008 & had an unpleasant dustup with +Chaput. I founded Emerging Catholics with 2500+ followers, which migrated to my personal Facebook page, which I could not manage due to the rancor between all my like-minded progressive Catholics, whom I'd never met, and other-minded trad catholics, with whom I'd grown up and were my contemporary family, friends, coworkers & neighbors. I closed those accounts and got out of cyberdodge.
I'm a retired bank chairman, president & ceo.
IOW, I'm a godforsaken unicorn of a theologian.
But I DEEPLY appreciate that you, Amos Yong & Tom Belt "get me," because I want some accountability beyond my intrinsic authority. So, merci beau coup!
I believe somewhere in chapter six of his Theological Territories (I've given this one away to friends) or in his essays about the Brothers Karamazov, DBH hints, not at a solution but a revelation, that divinely sublates the transient evils of our gnomic existence in the Apokatastasis.
Here's my version of his reasoning (supplemented by my long-standing appreciation of NDE's as supportive evidence for necessary universalism): the Apokatastasis and the resultant Pleroma is so infinitely and excessively the obverse of creation ex nihilo as to render all that transpires in the in-between time and space of gnomic willing and suffering not only bearable but so absolutely and incontrovertibly beautiful as to annihilate the possibility of any and all objections regarding the antecedent and consequent wills of God.
If we keep in mind that Final Cause (Omega Point) always precedes and determines the First Cause (creation ex nihilo), and if we have a truly transcendental appreciation of creation ex nihilo as given in the ever-arresting intuition of being, we should have no trouble imaging that whatever occurs in the Pleroma to be as completely uncanny, utterly fortuitous, and inconceivably as awe-inspiring as the gratuity of existence itself.
Anyway, some thoughts I had when reading your wonderful article....
That was a prayer of praise, at once, beautiful & consoling.
re long-standing appreciation of NDE's as supportive evidence for necessary universalism
My niece, an oncologist, is well acquainted with Dr J. Long, whose NDE research I have closely followed. It has similarly raised my sneaking suspicions!
re: obverse of creation ex nihilo
very cogent take, which rhymes with ex nihilo being the apophatic expression of a kataphatic ex Deo
re: all that transpires in the in-between time and space of gnomic willing and suffering not only bearable but so absolutely and incontrovertibly beautiful
especially once considering that parhypostatic phenomena have never substantially existed and only authentically hypostatic events ever 'transist' in the sense that any given phenomenon can ever truly 'be'
re transcendental appreciation of creation ex nihilo as given in the ever-arresting intuition of being we should have no trouble imaging that whatever occurs in the Pleroma to be as completely uncanny, utterly fortuitous, and inconceivably as awe-inspiring as the gratuity of existence itself.
I've often thought that I've no need of death as my educator re my radical finitude. Rather, I've felt that it's not (only) HOW but THAT things are, which is the mystical. Dating back to kindergarten & wondering "Who made God?" has always sufficed to arouse my mysterium tremendum et fascinans to fully experience the unfathomable contingency of our glory.
It’s as if we speak with one voice in different registers, yours much more nuanced than mine. I had exactly the same thoughts in 3rd grade (Who made God? Why something rather than nothing?), as well as pointing out to Sr M Catherine that the Atonement theory she was teaching seemed utterly incongruous with my own experience of my quite seriously flawed father. Only 50 years later did I discover the eastern, patristic alternative to the penal-substitutionary model in ‘God became man so man could become God.’ Next came fresh appreciation of creation ex nihilo (primarily through my friend, David Burrell) and the writings of DBH, (plus the latter’s rehabilitation of final causality as the key to it all), Max has at least given me a singular focus and personal mission that is as joyously fulfilling as it is a sharing in Christ’s own angst over the Trinitarian tone-deafness of both the world and the western church. Your Substack, needless to say, is a most welcome and appreciated Light in the darkness. I appreciate our little exchanges on occasion. I wish I knew the folks you know (Thomas Belt and Aidan Kimel especially), to say nothing of the classical authors at the trailhead of your intellectual journey. Continued blessings and encouragement for what you do. I’ll step up soon and do more than subscribe freely to your site 🥴
David Burrell! that's quite the running start.
I've never met ANY theologians or philosophers or fellow bloggers, personally. Neither do I have an academic background - not a single course - in either. I've corresponded with those who've reached out. My journey has been worth it but emotionally costly because, as an autodidact, my prose has by necessity been dense, formulaic & extremely idiodyncratic. It's been ridiculed way more often than extolled. When I lapse into lucidity & accessibility it's because I've borrowed a foreign idiom, which I don't otherwise inhabit systematically. So, I'm influenced by Peirce, Aquinas, Scotus, Bonaventure, Palamas, the Capps Bros, Eriugena, Maximus, Bulgakov but can't render historical interpretations only my ad hoc appropriations & inveterate conceptual mapmaking. I've spent far more years, 30 to 10, in atheological forums with fellow scientists (my grad work was avian neuroendocrinology) than fellow believers. I grew up a run of the mill Catholic charismatic with a vivid pneumatological imagination, which led me to Amos Yong thru Don Gelpi. Never met Amos. Never saw Don after 1972.
I'm a Richard Rohr - Thomas Merton Catholic.
I feel like a social media misfit, surprised when I strike a chord, never surprised by eyerolling glazeovers. I'm not on substack to fund raise or gather likes.
I founded Roman Catholics for Obama in 2008 & had an unpleasant dustup with +Chaput. I founded Emerging Catholics with 2500+ followers, which migrated to my personal Facebook page, which I could not manage due to the rancor between all my like-minded progressive Catholics, whom I'd never met, and other-minded trad catholics, with whom I'd grown up and were my contemporary family, friends, coworkers & neighbors. I closed those accounts and got out of cyberdodge.
I'm a retired bank chairman, president & ceo.
IOW, I'm a godforsaken unicorn of a theologian.
But I DEEPLY appreciate that you, Amos Yong & Tom Belt "get me," because I want some accountability beyond my intrinsic authority. So, merci beau coup!
Simply beautiful, brilliant, per usual.
I believe somewhere in chapter six of his Theological Territories (I've given this one away to friends) or in his essays about the Brothers Karamazov, DBH hints, not at a solution but a revelation, that divinely sublates the transient evils of our gnomic existence in the Apokatastasis.
Here's my version of his reasoning (supplemented by my long-standing appreciation of NDE's as supportive evidence for necessary universalism): the Apokatastasis and the resultant Pleroma is so infinitely and excessively the obverse of creation ex nihilo as to render all that transpires in the in-between time and space of gnomic willing and suffering not only bearable but so absolutely and incontrovertibly beautiful as to annihilate the possibility of any and all objections regarding the antecedent and consequent wills of God.
If we keep in mind that Final Cause (Omega Point) always precedes and determines the First Cause (creation ex nihilo), and if we have a truly transcendental appreciation of creation ex nihilo as given in the ever-arresting intuition of being, we should have no trouble imaging that whatever occurs in the Pleroma to be as completely uncanny, utterly fortuitous, and inconceivably as awe-inspiring as the gratuity of existence itself.
Anyway, some thoughts I had when reading your wonderful article....
That was a prayer of praise, at once, beautiful & consoling.
re long-standing appreciation of NDE's as supportive evidence for necessary universalism
My niece, an oncologist, is well acquainted with Dr J. Long, whose NDE research I have closely followed. It has similarly raised my sneaking suspicions!
re: obverse of creation ex nihilo
very cogent take, which rhymes with ex nihilo being the apophatic expression of a kataphatic ex Deo
re: all that transpires in the in-between time and space of gnomic willing and suffering not only bearable but so absolutely and incontrovertibly beautiful
especially once considering that parhypostatic phenomena have never substantially existed and only authentically hypostatic events ever 'transist' in the sense that any given phenomenon can ever truly 'be'
re transcendental appreciation of creation ex nihilo as given in the ever-arresting intuition of being we should have no trouble imaging that whatever occurs in the Pleroma to be as completely uncanny, utterly fortuitous, and inconceivably as awe-inspiring as the gratuity of existence itself.
I've often thought that I've no need of death as my educator re my radical finitude. Rather, I've felt that it's not (only) HOW but THAT things are, which is the mystical. Dating back to kindergarten & wondering "Who made God?" has always sufficed to arouse my mysterium tremendum et fascinans to fully experience the unfathomable contingency of our glory.