Sunday, November 22, 2015

23. META-NARRATIVES

   
    Meta-narratives are governed by a literary form which requires their authors to weave narratives recording historical events into a coherent account of the entire course of human history.  On its part, the literary form provides the arena in which meta-narratives view for authority.

     Few authors intend to construct a meta-narrative.  But every reading of the western literary tradition enshrines a meta-narrative which guides and even governs the self-understanding of adherents of a particular strand in that tradition.

                    Nietzche and Heidegger

    Heidegger's use of a hermeneutical theory forged by Nietzsche to assert his authority over readings of the western literary tradition offers a paradigm example of the contention between meta-narratives.  Thus, to frame which own meta-narrative, Heidegger implicitly acknowledged that readings generated by Nietzsche's archeology of knowledge and genealogy of morals forced rationalists to admit that a literary construct, "reason", could not provide a detached, god-like perspective on language, experience and reality.  And the force of Nietzsche's critique was enhanced by his accusation that rationalism was propelled by a hidden will to power.  To counter Nietzsche without contributing to the assumption that "reason" spoke with authority, Heidegger centered his re-reading of the western literary tradition in a conviction that "reason" became conscious of itself in and through the notion of Being forged by an inter-textual dialogue among the so-called pre-Socratics.  As the god-term governing his re-readings of the transition from orality to literacy as the foundation of western culture, Being accommodated a metaphor which described languages generated by a literary tradition as abodes in which individuals dwell suspended over an abyss.  Since the abyss in question is clearly the Cartesian chasm between subjectivity and objectivity, languages function as vehicles for the revelation of the meaning of Being, and an authentic human existence is defined as a stance of open responsiveness to the creative and gracious activity of an all-pervasive Being.

    I suggest, however, that the depiction of the human quest framed by the pre-Socratic notion of Being cannot be reconciled with the delineation of human existence in the Hebrew narrative tradition.  The difference:  Since the pre-Socratics forged the notion of Being prior to the emergence of significant distinctions among language, experience and reality, Heidegger could use it to recover a participative existence from the sterility of reason's dispassionate, disinterested stance.  But the literary form of the prose narrative forged by the Hebrew narrative tradition rejected the distinction between a participative and a detached existence.  Its import is evident in the metaphors of intimacy designed to evoke the longing for intimacy on the part of unique individuals and to transform that longing into a realizable quest.
   
            Meta-Narratives in the Christian Tradition 
   
    Though the powers-that-be in Rome refuse to acknowledge the fact, the Christian tradition transmits two irreconcilable meta-narratives.

    The dominant meta-narrative continues to provide the stage for the misplaced debate between Catholic and Protestant theologians.  For its starting point, it canonizes the harsh doctrine of original sin which Augustine extracted from the story of Adam and Eve.  According to Augustine, this story is an historical account which asserts (1) that God originally intended a purely natural relationship with human beings, (2) that Adam's sin severed this natural relationship and condemned his descendants to a self-centered existence, (3) that divine justice had to demand fitting reparation for this offence, and (4) that no mere human could make such reparation.

    For the transforming moment in the story, the meta-narrative invoked the understanding of the Incarnation inscribed in Anselm's Cur Deus Homo (which can be loosely translated as "Why did God become a man?")  Presumably, divine mercy intervened and, together, justice and mercy determined that the cruel and humiliating death of the Word made flesh would not only restore the severed relationship, but elevate those who are saved to a supernatural state of existence.  (The import of Augustine's description of Adam's sin as "a happy fault".)

    Note well:  This meta-narrative (1) implies that the Word would not have become incarnate if Adam had not sinned, (2) enshrines the hierarchical structure implicit in the metaphor of power and judgment in a theology of transcendence, and (3) places Jesus at the center of that structure as a mediator between God and sinful humans.

    Inexorably, the meta-narrative generated a sin-centered theology which reduced Jesus's saving activity to an emphasis on reparation to God and redemption for humans (or later, in Luther, on justification by faith alone).  Even worse, once Aquinas situated the meta-narrative in a baptized Aristotelianism, the metaphor of power and judgment which framed the western philosophical tradition led theologians to depict God as Lord, Lawgiver and Judge, and the language of redemption was burdened with the supposition that Jesus' sacrificial death merited something called "sanctifying grace."  In this context, this created grace was somehow conferred by the reception of the seven Sacraments or merited by good works or performance of the terms set for gaining Indulgences.

    COMMENTARY:  I cannot believe in a God who would demand the cruel and humiliating death on the cross of his own divine Son in reparation for human sinfulness.  Please do not remind me that God's ways are not our ways.  I would respond with the reminder that the stories in the Old Testament cannot be read as historical accounts of how God acted in the past.  And I would suggest that Jesus, fully God and fully human, reveals God's ever-faithful and all-inclusive love.

    The second meta-narrative frames the incarnational theology indebted to Scotus.  It begins with the vision inscribed in the Hymn in the Prologue of John and the Johannine formula which presents God simply as Love, not with Augustine's doctrine of original sin.  The understanding of these biblical passages awaited the emergence of the doctrine of the Trinity in the fourth century, CE.  And when this doctrine was interpreted through a code derived from the metaphors of intimacy projected by Israel's great prophets, it implied that the three divine Persons shared so intimately in the lives of one another that there was only one divine life.  (That life was also individuating.)

    Scotus' reading of the Prologue of John presented creation as an out-pouring of divine love.  In short, he insisted that love always over-flows.  (His formula:  Amor est diffusivus sui;  translated literally:  "Love diffuses itself.")  When this passage is read through a code derived from the doctrine of the Trinity, the eternal Word is central to life within the Trinity, the act of creation, the course of human history and the lives of human beings.  Quite obviously, then, the Incarnation was not a response to human sinfulness.

    According to this meta-narrative, therefore, the Incarnation reveals that each of the three divine Persons longs to be intimately involved with us on our journeys through life.  Jesus, the Word incarnate, reveals how the Father and the Spirit were involved with him in distinctive ways on his journey.  And on his part, he dwells among us as a tremendous lover and wounded Healer, not a mediator between God and us.

    In sum, Jesus' birth, life and death reveal that he loves us with a passionate, vulnerable, respectful and faithful love.  And since he is the revelation of the love of the triune God, so do the Father and the Spirit.
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