The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic
Thinkers, Earth Keepers Daily
Meditations with Matthew Fox
|
MLK, Jr. and M. D. Chenu Oppose Dualism—and Pay a Price 01/19/2023 |
In a previous DM this week we zeroed in on an all-important criticism from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. about the philosophy that supports injustice and deadens religion. It is worth repeating here.
|
I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other-worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the
secular. King is right to call dualism “strange” and "un-Biblical." Dualism is un-Jewish and | Body versus soul: “La Décalcomanie” by René Magritte. WikiArt. |
traces its roots in the West to Plato
and Neo-Platonist philosophers like Augustine who declared that “spirit is whatever is not matter.” It is hard to get more dualistic than that. Augustine is eliminating matter and history from spirituality. Many, alas!,
have followed his lead over the centuries. About Augustine’s attitude toward history, Chenu says: For Augustine, history was an embarrassment. People are not meant to be at home in the world much less in
changing the world. In contrast, Aquinas recognizes “time and history as a place for the holy no less than the profane.” Contrary to Augustine’s dualism, Aquinas defined spirit as "the elan or vitality in everything”—grass and trees, animals and birds, rivers and giraffes. This non-dualism lies at the heart of creation spirituality, it is a way of declaring all creation as sacred. It is this sense of the sacred that Thomas Berry points out is often missed in our efforts at ecological renewal. |
| An absence of a sense of the sacred is the basic flaw in many of our efforts at ecologically or environmentally adjusting our human presence to the natural world. Chenu was a great scholar of Thomas Aquinas and wrote a classic work |
called Toward Understanding Saint Thomas.
He lamented bluntly the destructive influence of nostalgic Thomism and “baroque theology.” Like MLK, Chenu paid a severe price for his championing of non-dualism. His book on education was put on the Index in 1942 and he was forced to
sign a document that declared that “Dogmatic formulas express a truth which is absolute and unchanging.” And Aquinas’s philosophy “does not proclaim mere relative but absolute truths.”* This language sounds eerily like Cardinal
Ratzinger’s favorite meme, that he was fighting a war against “a dictatorship of relativism.” Chenu’s name for “relativism” is history. Evolution. For his work in history and his support of the worker priest movement,
he was exiled from Paris to Rouen from 1954 to the year of the Council, 1962 when he arrived as a “peritus” or theological coach with a bishop from Madagascar. |
| To view today's video, please click the image. You will be taken to today's post on the Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox website, where you can see the meditation in a larger version and also view and post your Comments. In the sharing that follows, a kind of community is developing around the DM.
If you can't reach today's post on the website directly, click HERE.
If you can't reach Matthew's video on the website, try his Vimeo channel HERE. |
*Cited in Ulrich Engel, OP, ,“The Question of Modernity in Catholic Theology. The Dispute over ‘Nouvelle Theologie’ as the Context of M-D Chenu’s Book Une Ecole de theologie:
Le Saulchoir (1937) in Hilary D, Regan, ed., A Coming of God into Time and History: The Theological Project of M-D Chenu, OP, p. 12. Adapted from M. D. Chenu, “Body and Body Politic in the Creation Spirituality of
Thomas Aquinas” in Matthew Fox, ed., Western Spirituality: Historical Roots, Ecumenical Routes, pp. 192-194. Banner Image: M.D. Chenu (“Marie-Dominique Chenu,” from biography in Backward View blog, 2/12/2012; photographer unknown) and Martin Luther King (photographed during his “I Have a Dream” speech, 8/28/1963, Wikimedia Commons). |
Queries for Contemplation How eerie is it to see a pope who died two weeks ago using the same language that was employed in a Vatican document of 1937? |
Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, please click HERE
to go to our website and scroll down to the Comments field. |
Western Spirituality: Historical Roots, Ecumenical Routes In this book, Fox gathers scholars from various cultures and traditions such as Helen Kenik, Jon Sobrino, Nicolas Berdyaev, Rosemary Ruether, M. D. Chenu, Mary Jose Hobday, Ronald Miller, Monika Hellwig, James Kenney, Justin O’Brien and others to approach creation spirituality from many traditions and many angles.
“An exciting and important book…a pleasant
alternative to the oppressive burden of the fall/redemption tradition.” ~ New Review of Books and Religion | |
See Matthew Fox's full calendar HERE |
Join Matthew Fox at the virtual Our Lady of the Prairie retreat, offering a discussion and Q&A on “Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Names for God…Including the Unnameable
God.” Thursday, January 19, 4:00pm-6:00pm PT. Register HERE. Join Matthew Fox as he speaks on “The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times” in a virtual event hosted by the Weber Retreat and Conference Center Thursday, January 26, 4:00pm-5:30pm PT. Register HERE. Creation Spirituality Conversations |
Matthew Fox at the Center for Contemporary Mysticism discusses “Birthing a New World: Can Creation-Centered Spirituality Help Reclaim the Sacredness of the Earth?" | |
Please share this post! Just click the buttons below.
OR share your insights on Instagram or Twitter using the hashtag #RevDrMatthewFox and tag Matt with @RevDrMatthewFox
|
|
|
|
