The Fall, 2002 edition of Communio opens with a theme that brings
into relief the distinctiveness of the Christian understanding of God:
divine providence, understood as God’s tender, fatherly care for all
of his creatures, especially for human beings. The troubles of the
times impel Christians toward a rediscovery of the meaning of
providence, not only, or even primarily, for the sake of their own
peace of soul, but, above all, for the sake of the integrity of their
Christian witness. Their task, now as always, is to affirm persuasively
the intelligibility of God’s good creation—in light of what the
Gospel proclaims about the death, resurrection, and cosmic lordship
of Jesus Christ.
Olivier Boulnois opens the issue with “The Concept of
God After Theodicy,” which makes a case for a christological
understanding of providence that corrects the rationalism of
Stoicizing theodicies both ancient and modern. Nicholas J. Healy’s
“Inclusion in Christ: Background to a Christian Doctrine of
Providence” lays the theological groundwork for the christological
re-thinking of providence that Boulnois calls for. Proposing the
cosmic lordship of the dead and risen Christ as the criterion for a
Christian doctrine of providence, Healy argues that such a doctrine
requires deeper understanding of the Spirit’s work of universalizing
Jesus’ paschal mystery—in its unrepeatable singularity. In the end,
providence is nothing other than the inclusion of all of history
within Jesus’ once-only mission.
The next two articles explore divine providence in terms of
a question that is unusual in contemporary theology: How do sin,
grace, and redemption affect the material creation and, in so doing,
shed light on the evil and suffering that, without Revelation, we
might be tempted to think are connatural to it? In “‘Fallen’ Nature:
How Sin Affects the Creation,” Michael Schulz, rejecting the
reduction of evil to an inevitability of nature, insists on evil’s
historical origin, an insistence that implies, in turn, that the fate of
the material cosmos is closely bound up with man’s freedom. Kevin
A. McMahon’s “Man and Woman at the Moment of Creation: A
Covenantal Study of the First Sin” explores a similar theme from a
different angle: in light of a biblical reflection on the relationship
between creation and covenant, McMahon argues for a christological
reading of the Genesis account of the first sin. In so doing,
McMahon seeks to show that original sin, far from being rendered
mythological by evolution, is a factor “retroactively” conditioning
evolutionary history itself.
Our reflection on providence continues with an exploration
of the thought of the Inklings. Lawrence D. Goodall’s “Of
Universals, Angels, and Inklings” offers evidence that C. S. Lewis,
J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams conceived of universals as
personal, after the manner of angelic powers, and thus suppose a
dramatic cosmology in which responding to evil is a matter of
choosing sides. In “Providence in C. S. Lewis’ ‘Space’ Trilogy,”
Thomas Howard highlights Lewis’ awareness of the mysteriousness
of divine providence as the encounter of divine and human freedom.
We next present two articles that, while less directly tied to
the doctrine of providence, nonetheless touch on questions that form
part of its background. Jacques Servais, writing on “Freedom as
Christ’s Gift to Man in the Thought of Hans Urs von Balthasar,”
explores the relationship between finite and infinite freedom: man
discovers his true freedom, Servais argues, precisely when he
embraces, in gratitude, the gratuity of the God who cannot be
degraded to a function of our projects and plans. In “Toward a
Christian Theology of Inter-Religious Dialogue,” Roch Kereszty
lays out the complex, mutually complementary theological criteria
that must govern Christian participation in discussions with members
of other religions. The Christian interlocutors, Kereszty argues, must
combine allegiance to the fullness of revelation given objectively in
Christ and the Church with a discerning openness to the ways in
which aspects of other religions may lead to a renewed appreciation
of this fullness (and, in so doing, find the way to their own deepen
ing, purification, and integration into the truth of Christ).
Spirit and History features two short exegetical pieces by the
great seventh-century theologian and martyr for christological
orthodoxy, Maximus the Confessor (580-662). These brief works
not only introduce us into the heart of Maximus’ thought, but also
suggest the possibilities for a christological doctrine of providence
that combines biblical theology with a profound metaphysical
speculation in a seamless interweaving of many strands of the
Tradition. In “Christ: The Goal of Providence” (the sixtieth of the
Quaestiones ad Thalassium), Maximus, commenting on 1 Pt 1:20,
shows that Christ, as the revelation of the inmost depths of the
Father’s love, is also the ground of the intelligibility of creation and
of its providential ordering. In “Human Freedom as the Pivot of the
Providential Economy” (the sixth of the Opuscula Theologica et
Polemica) Maximus demonstrates, on the basis of a theological
exegesis of the Agony in the Garden, that the fulfillment of the
providential economy hinged on Christ’s free, human Yes to the
Father’s will—and that it was not only as God, but also as man that
the eternal Son of God both worked and willed our salvation.
Notes and Comments concludes the Fall issue of the journal
with two appreciations of The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann
1973-1983, an extraordinary window into the inner life of the great
twentieth-century Orthodox theologian, whose rare combination of
uncompromising Christian discernment and exquisite humanity is
everywhere in evidence in the pages of the Journals. David L.
Schindler, in “Introduction to Schmemann’s Journals,” highlights
both the breadth of Schmemann’s concerns and his emphasis on the
eschatological-sacramental meaning of the world—also and especially
in the face of contemporary secular culture. In “Of Simplicity, Style,
and Spirituality: The Schmemann Journals," Robert Slesinski
likewise focuses on the eschatological motif in Schmemann’s work—a motif that underlies, Slesinski suggests, the remarkable freedom of
Schmemann’s Christian judgment and the vividness of his experience
of the Church as the presence of the Kingdom in the midst of the
world.
AW
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