Category Archives: Christian humanism, work, & economics

Whither beauty, goodness, and truth in the modern American church?

Posted on September 12, 2022 | Leave a comment

The following argues that the re-integration of the spiritual and the material/social is the deepest task of both the faith & work movement today and the Christian Study Center (CSC) movement. I wrote it in 2016, after the national meeting of the Consortium of Christian Study Centers–hosted that year at Wheaton College.

The early church, per Robert Louis Wilken, Darrel Amundsen, C S Lewis, and many others, understood truth, beauty, and goodness to be intrinsic, inarguable, and universal goods (that is, to be secured for all people, as God wants all people to have them), as had the classical world before them. And drawing on the Christian understanding of the material world as intrinsically good (which the Pagan philosophers did not share), the early Christians were also able to add to these three values a fourth, bodily health and well-being—a value so vividly supported by the Incarnate Christ’s healing activity on earth.

The church then proceeded to say (again, per Wilken) that, while these four things are intrinsically and universally good, none of them provides, of itself (nor even do all four taken together), a suitable telos for humanity—and that indeed any of them become life-destroying idols when pursued in and of themselves, without the transcendent referent: the universal call to love and serve God. (This is the burden of Augustine’s theological discussion of uti love and frui love–that is, the loving of things that are not ultimate, and the loving of the ultimate, which is God–and it is also the burden of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy.)

The early Christians responded to this transcendent referent by identifying three “theological virtues” – faith, hope, and love, which they added to the four classical (“cardinal”) virtues of prudence, courage, temperance, and justice.

The new Christian value of the good of bodily health, along with the Christianized classical values of truth, beauty, and goodness, each informed and amplified through the transcendent referent, and pursued with the help of all seven virtues, birthed in the Christian medieval West the institutions of the hospital, the university, the cathedral and liturgical art and architecture, and the ethical systems of the scholastics that would lay important foundations for modern jurisprudence.[1] This was the origin of huge swathes of the culture and the vocational arenas of today’s world.

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Spirituality and economic work in the Middle Ages: Complementarity, not enmity? Part X – the Cistercian example (III)

Posted on September 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Cistercians at work,” Alexander Bremen, 13th c.; Expositio en Apocalypsim (University Library Cambridge Ms. mm 5.31. fol. 113), manuscript from Northern Germany; Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Continued from part IX

Nor did contemporary observers seem to think the Cistercians were defined by their economic activities – either used or eschewed.[i]

And indeed, even the document considered to have been written in 1134 didn’t single out “pawning, leasing, sales, and exchanges” for censure.[ii] (196)

She concludes that the Cistercians “participated vigorously in the economic changes of the twelfth century while retaining the solitude of their houses and granges and the simplicity of the food, clothing, and liturgy that made them appear so intensely holy to their neighbors.” (196)

By this example of simplicity and austerity, Bouchard argues, the knights were attracted to them “psychologically,” as they were “reaching a level of social prominence . . . at the beginning of the twelfth century,” thus “just reach[ing] the point both of being able to enjoy [the] comforts [of the aristocracy] and of recognizing that the soul’s salvation might lie in the rejection of them.” (197)

But at the same time, there was a “social” appeal of the Cistercians to the knights as well, “because the Cistercians were integrated into the rural knightly system of ‘give-and-take,’ where property transactions were used not only to transfer ownership of property but also to bind people together.” (197)

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Five themes in Christian humanism (II)

Posted on August 29, 2022 | 1 comment

This Mob Quad group of buildings in Merton College, Oxford was constructed in three phases and concluded in c. 1378; Wikipedia, public domain

Here is the third of the five potential “dyad topics” for the projected seminar on Christian humanism (again, WordPress can’t handle the auto-numbering in Word docs. Sigh) Continued from part I:

  1. Faith and reason
    1. Reason and the image of God in humanity
    1. The role of reason in the carrying out of the creation mandate (for human flourishing)
    1. Illumination and education in early Christian soteriological understanding
    1. The pendulum of claims for reason
      1. Tertullian vs. Clement on the value of philosophy
      1. Seminal Logos understanding
      1. Augustine, reason and its limitations; the autonomy of scientific knowledge and the critique of bad Christian scientific reasoning
      1. Anselm, “faith seeking reason” – modest claim
      1. Aquinas – moderate claim
      1. Late scholasticism – reason maximized, atrophied, and arrogant – seeking to bring all knowledge under reason’s command
      1. The nominalist critique
      1. The renaissance humanist critique
      1. The Lutheran critique: Luther against the philosophers
      1. The recovery of scholasticism under Melanchthon and the rise of Protestant scholasticism
      1. Positivist, naturalist anti-humanisms of wartime
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Five themes in Christian humanism (I)

Posted on August 27, 2022 | Leave a comment

Detail of Adoration of the Trinity, Albrecht Dürer [public domain]

Here’s a new way I’m thinking of for developing the faculty seminar on Christian humanism I’m doing for my friend the Think Tank Director. I like this one better than the more chronological one shared earlier. I’ll share this in a couple of chunks because I went a little crazy with editorializing on it.

This reworking suggests that we use the seminar to explore the hypothesis that Christian humanism has found ways to keep together key dyads: divine-human, faith-reason, virtue-grace, heavenly-earthly, reason-imagination (or truth-beauty). And that the REASON the tradition has been able to do that is its strong grounding in the Incarnation.* We could look at each of those dyads through readings across the different periods, in a way that could attend to historic development without bogging down in the chronology/history.

* Arguably it’s not just the Incarnation but the almost shocking organic unity of the God-human relationship in early soteriology that grounds this whole thing: that is, the theosis understanding of salvation. But interestingly, both Luther and Calvin were similarly quite mystical and organic about the human-God relationship – there are great readings from both that show this.

NOTE: Stupid WordPress has no idea how to deal with the automatic numbering in MS Word, and I don’t have time to go in and change it. So please ignore the plethora of “1s” in the following!

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Spirituality and economic work in the Middle Ages: Complementarity, not enmity? Part IX – the Cistercian example (II)

Posted on August 26, 2022 | 1 comment

Monks at work, detail from La Thebaid, 1418-1420, paintings attributed to by Fra Angelico (ca 1400-1455), tempera on panel, 73,5 x208 cm. Florence, Galleria Degli Uffizi (Uffizi Gallery)

Continued from part VIII

Bouchard’s book shows that the longstanding scholarly claim that “the ideals of Cistercian monasticism and the rapidly developing economy of the twelfth century were incompatible” does not survive close analysis of the economic and religious records. So why was it made in the first place?

Another key reason for the scholarly claims about decline due to economic engagement is the existence of “The ‘legislation of 1134,’ setting out what types of property were and were not suitable for Cistercian monks.” Scholars have assumed this to be “a reiteration of what the monks had believed and practiced since Citeaux’s foundation in 1098.” The document raises up farming over other economic activities, so “scholars have treated the early Cistercians as exclusively farmers, who concentrated on opening up uncultivated lands and who were economic innovators only in their pioneering use of draining methods.” They have therefore taken the evidence for other kinds of economic transactions as de facto evidence of declension.[i]

Then the dissection of the paradigm begins. First Bouchard notes that it has had to be modified and re-modified in recent years, as evidence for non-farming economic transactions has pushed earlier and earlier,[ii] and as scholars have had to wrestle with a lack of any kind of numerical decline that would imply that the monks’ secular neighbors no longer valued them as holy men – quite the contrary, as the order continued to gain members and resources at a rapid rate. This has caused scholars to back away from harsher language of “decadence,” preferring instead to state that their “ideals” had not survived the encounter with certain “realities.”[iii]

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Spirituality and economic work in the Middle Ages: Complementarity, not enmity? Part VIII – the Cistercian example (I)

Posted on August 24, 2022 | 2 comments

Cistercians at work, from Aleteia (public domain)

Continued from part VII

Now we turn to a more direct example of the supposed conflict between economic work and spiritual health. This is from the fascinating study of Cistercian economic activities penned by Constance Bouchard.[i] Bouchard states the crux of her argument like this:

“Whereas modern scholars usually contrast spirituality and economic success, the Cistercian order in Burgundy, in its first century of development and expansion, was able to participate in the multiplying economic activities of the period and at the same time continue to be considered by its secular neighbors an intensely holy order whose monks had the ear of God.” (ix-x)

I note again that “secular” used above means what it has meant to older generations and still means to the Roman Catholic Church: those Christians who, in contrast to the “regular” (rule-following) monastics whose daily round focused on eternity, engage in the business of the world and of “this age” (the saeculum). Thus even priests were considered seculars. And certainly knights, peasants, and craftsmen as well – most of whom would have been trying to live as Christians, and had at least elementary understanding of, and agreement with, key theological sources such as the creeds.

Bouchard “use[d] the rich but largely untapped Cistercian archives to study economic exchanges between the monasteries and their secular, primarily knightly, neighbors,” reviewing records of over 2,000 economic exchanges, nearly two-thirds of them never having seen print, and only accessible in Burgundian archives. (ix)

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Christian humanism seminar outline (follow-up to the “sketch”)

Posted on August 23, 2022 | Leave a comment

Michelangelo, “The Creation of Adam,” ca. 1511; wikimedia commons, public domain

This follows up from the more sprawling “sketch for a seminar on Christian humanism.” We seem to be getting close here:

  1. Prologue:  marks of the current crisis
  2. Classical origins:  virtues – character and education for citizenship:  What is human excellence?
  3. Patristic phase:  anthropology – Incarnation, soteriology (theosis):  How does God prepare us for full human flourishing?
  4. Medieval phase:  the sectors – education, sciences, arts, and healthcare:  How can reason and tradition help us foster flourishing in response to God?
  5. Early modern phase:  common good – vocation, the family, the polis, the markets, and secularization:  What values will guide our life together?
  6. 19th & early 20th century:  anti-humanisms – the fruits of secularization:  What are we without God? (the “abolition of man”)
  7. The post-WW II phase:  the humanities – literature, “great books,” beauty:  How can we reclaim our common humanity and train our imaginations & affections?
  8. Epilogue: lessons for the current crisis and a closing look at inter-traditional dialogue in a postsecular age

Now we have to ask (1) do these pieces work well together? (coherent whole? logical flow? right size?), (2) would this framing serve faculty seminar participants well? and (3) what readings would support each unit?

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A sketch toward a seminar on Christian humanism

Posted on August 21, 2022 | 1 comment

Michelangelo, “The Creation of Adam,” ca. 1511; wikimedia commons, public domain

Some friends and I are beginning to plan a multi-day seminar on Christian humanism to be given to a group of scholar-teachers from across the country next spring. As we consider themes that might prove both interesting and helpful to such a group, I’ve framed some elements (still well short of an outline) as follows:

Nascent learning outcomes

  • Definitions:  What, simply defined, is Christian humanism (hereafter, “CH”)?
  • Warrants
    • Scriptural warrants:  What are some key scriptural foundations of CH?
    • Doctrinal warrants:  In what key Christian doctrines has CH been grounded?
  • Chronological scope, depth in the tradition:  How has CH been present and active in all periods of Christian history?
    • Patristic roots and forms:  How were the Church Fathers Christian humanists?
    • Medieval roots and forms: How were the scholastics and renaissance thinkers Christian humanists?
    • Reformation roots and forms:  How were the Reformers Christian humanists?
    • 20th century:  CH as a tradition reclaimed during times of crisis:  What social circumstances and intellectual contexts led WW II – era thinkers to attempt to reclaim facets of CH for their time? Are there parallels between the crisis of that era (to which some thinkers responded by looking to re-excavate CH) and our own moment of multifaceted crisis?
    • 21st century:  Application today:  If CH is appropriately considered as a “crisis philosophy” that has something to say to our moment, then do we need to recapture CH today – particularly in contemporary North American culture?
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Spirituality and economic work in the Middle Ages: Complementarity, not enmity? Part VII

Posted on August 4, 2022 | 2 comments

Image by Simon from Pixabay; public domain

Continued from part VI

On the efficacy of the active life as an aid to the contemplative life, Gregory’s understanding of “the mixed life”—especially, but (as we’ve seen) not exclusively for pastors and bishops—is one of his greatest legacies to the church. Bernard McGinn notes that while Gregory dwelt, “at times obsessively,” on married life’s dangers—especially owing to its unavoidable entanglements with the “outside” world—yet, “he believed that the combination of the vita activa and vita contemplativa to which the praedicatores [preachers] were called was the highest and most important form of life in the church.”[i]

The importance of this point may be seen in the fact that Gregory identified the two lives as oriented to the two parts of the “law of love” – love of God and love of neighbor.[ii]

Perhaps not surprisingly, given his own liberality with the coffers of the church on behalf of those in need, one of the elements of the active life that he taught pastors to practice was the economic work of providing for their people’s material needs and “earthly necessities.” In fact, he argued that if they did not do so, their words would not be heard well – and they would deserve it![iii]

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Spirituality and economic work in the Middle Ages: Complementarity, not enmity? Part VI

Posted on August 3, 2022 | 2 comments

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), “Dante’s Vision of Rachel and Leah”; Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Continued from part V

Cuthbert Butler first points out that Gregory picked up Augustine’s teaching that “no one can come to contemplation without having exercised the works of the active life, so that the active life is necessary for all, whereas the contemplative is not necessary[, and thus] . . . optional.” (Butler, 249)

Gregory, in fact, not only asserts that the active life is necessary, but also that it has a chronological priority: it must be exercised before one can come to the contemplative life. In fact, he asserted this frequently:

“The active life is lived first, that afterwards the contemplative may be attained to.”[i]

“Perfectness of practice having been received, we come to contemplation.”[ii]

“Every one that is perfect is first joined to an active life for productiveness, and afterwards united to a contemplative life for rest.”[iii]

“The season for action comes first, for contemplation last. . . . The mind should first spend itself in labour, and afterwards it may be refreshed by contemplation.”[iv]

“We ascend to the heights of contemplation by the steps of the active life.”[v]

“The active life is before the contemplative in time, because by good works we tend to contemplation.”[vi]

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