The
natural law theory forged by Aquinas and invoked by Pope Benedict XVI implies
that a rational and purposive Creator inscribed an objective moral order in the
very structure of creation. To support
that description of God, its adherents must inscribe a teleological (purposive)
structure in each created entity and in the universe as a whole, (As an example of their argumentation, God
presumably created sexual beings in a way that centers the meaning and purpose
of sexual intercourse in the pro-creation of children.)
An incarnational theology traces the
creation of a finite universe to an extravagant out-pouring of the love of a
trinitarian God who is love. In this
belief-system, the incarnate Word entered human history as fully human as well
as fully God since that was the only way that even God could share fully in the
lives of human beings.
From my perspective, the issue between the
two can be illuminated by an awareness that theological inquiries are designed
to generate a language capable of processing everyday experience in ways which
discern God's activity in human history and of evoking responses to that
activity. From a philosophical
perspective, the belief that human nature has a teleological structure is the
offspring of Aristotelian metaphysics, not of the analysis of experience. In marked contrast, the language generated by
an incarnational theology voices the elusive longing for intimacy which, I
suggest, is the deepest longing of the human heart.
To voice that longing, an incarnational
theology uses the language of intimacy generated by metaphors projected by
Israel's great prophets. Over the course
of centuries, this language has been tested again and again in everyday
experience. As a result, everyday
language provides a more fruitful framework than Aristotelian metaphysics for a
discourse capable of exploring the biblical proclamation that God is love. And the incarnational theology which utilizes
this language voices the longing of each of the Persons in the triune God for
deepening intimacy with each and every human in a way that is quite beyond the
theology which depicts God as a rational and purposive Creator. Simply put, since there is no formula for
love, a natural law inscribed in a human nature with a pre-determined end does
violence to intensely person-to-person involvements.
Consequently, when the meta-narrative which
frames an incarnational theology is used to address the question of God's moral
will, the eternal Word became fully human while remaining fully God for two
purposes. Most immediately, the Word
became incarnate in order to be humanly involved with individuals in ways that enabled
them to transform their longing for an ever-more fully human and uniquely
personal existence into a realizable purpose.
Just as importantly, in and through this involvement, the Word seeks to
reveal how all three Persons in the Trinity long to be intimately involved in
the lives of all human beings.
Since an incarnational theology is framed
by the Exodus-theme which depicts human existence as a perpetual journey into
the unknown, it does not pretend to offer a conception of human reality and of
a uniquely personal existence which could justify the sort of judgments desired
by Thomists, past and present. Instead,
it implies that, to embrace the quest for such an existence, unique individuals
must be willing to become intimately involved with each of the Persons in the
triune God and at least one human being.
And they must also be willing to hear the prophetic insistence that
God's call is heard in the cries of the oppressed, dispossessed, marginalized,
silenced and outcast, since these cries reveal the dehumanizing and
depersonalizing violence of the power-structure so jealously guarded by the
powers-that-be.
This moral discourse generates a practical
spirituality indebted to Augustine's evocation of the murky depths which
frustrated his efforts to love and to Kant's use of inner turmoil as the soil
for moral discernment. Beginning with
the thesis that birth plunges unique individuals into a journey into the
unknown, this discourse calls moral agents to undertake an inner journey in the
midst of an existence governed by the formative power of everyday
languages. On the inner journey, those
who have a language capable of discerning the activity of the indwelling Spirit
in their tangled depths can encounter the Spirit in living ways in events in
their personal histories. As they
discern the Spirit's word of love, they begin to understand that, for living
encounters with the Incarnate Word, they must accept two inseparable beliefs,
(1) that Jesus comes to us through one another and (2) that whatever we do to
the least of his brothers or sisters, we do to him, since he is intimately
involved with them as well as us.
Elsewhere, I formulate the issue more
philosophically: Since human reality is
moral reality, a discourse designed to evoke the longing for an ever-more fully
human and uniquely personal existence is a moral discourse without
foundations. It recognizes that no one
can be compelled by reason or authority to risk intimate involvements, but it
also exposes woundedness and fears which incline individuals to settle for far
less.
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