The Centre for Catholic Studies, in conjunction with the Newman Association, the Education, Service of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle and the Catholic Biblical Association of Great Britain, is hosting a study day on ‘The Uses of Scripture in Catholic Prayer, Practice and Theology at Durham University. Speakers will include Prof. Lewis Ayres, Dr Richard Briggs, Dr Nicholas King, SJ, The Most Rev. Bernard Longley, Sr Dr Patricia McDonald, SHCJ, Fr Sean Maher and Sr Prof. Mary Mills.

The event will be held on Saturday, 10th March 2012, from 9.30am-5.00pm, in the Department of Theology and Religion. There is a £50 flat fee for the day and lunch, £25 for students or those on lower income.

To book a place please contact j.r.furnal[at]dur.ac.uk by 29th February 2012.

You who would read this book that I have writ
If you will please your heed to it lend,
Consider it well what you may say of it,
For it is very hard to understand
But let Humility lead you by the hand,
She, keeper of the key to Learning’s treasure-chest,
She, the first virtue, mother to all the rest.

Men of theology and Scholars such as they
Will never understand this writing properly.
True comprehension of it only may
Those have who progress in humility;
You must let Love and Faith together be
Your guides to climb where Reason cannot come,
They who this house as mistresses do own …

So you too must abase your learning now,
Built only upon Reason, and your true
And perfect trust completely you must show
In the rich gifts which Love will make to you,
And Faith will cause to shine in brightest hue.
So understanding of this book they’ll give
Which makes the Soul the life of Love to live.

Marguerite Porete, The Mirror of Simple Souls (University of Notre Dame Press, 1999) 9.

For a brief article on the importance of Porete, see Tina Beattie’s article last year in the Guardian

DIGBY STUART RESEARCH CENTRE FOR CATHOLIC STUDIES

RESEARCH SEMINARS FOR SPRING 2012

Convent Parlour, Digby Stuart College
5.30 to 7.00 pm

January will be dedicated to Education and Faith:

18/1: Mike Castelli, University of Roehampton: “A Faith Dialogue Pedagogy for a Post-Secular World”

25/1: Andrew Copson, Chief Executive of the British Humanist Association, and Professor Tina Beattie, University of Roehampton: “Faith Schools: Whose rights? Which rights?” A debate chaired by Mike Castelli. (Please note the change of date for this event.)

February will be focused on Justice and Development:

15/2: Dr Séverine Deneulin, University of Bath: “Recovering Nussbaum’s Aristotelian roots: a reinterpretation of Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach”

29/2: Rev Augusto Zampini Davies, University of Roehampton: “International Development and Catholic Social Teaching in Dialogue”

March will be dedicated to the Bible and social issues:

14/3: Dr Andrew Rogers, University of Roehampton: “Congregational Hermeneutics”

29/2: Mary Witts, University of Roehampton: “Drama and the Bible in a rural African Church: An Enriching Conversation?”

Drinks and nibbles will be served during the seminars. We usually go to a local restaurant for a meal afterwards on a self-paying basis, and you are welcome to join us.

For further information, please contact Rev Augusto Zampini Davies: zampinia[@]roehampton.ac.uk or Tina Beattie: t.beattie[@]roehampton.ac.uk.

Poetry here pushes against the ultimate ambiguities of our experience of time, revealing that what is truly desperate about life in time is not the constant erosion of the biological basis of our existence, the inevitability of our powers failing us and, in the end, our being annihilated, but that it destroys hope and faith in love. Yet, if we are to believe in love, do we need to deny, transcend, or otherwise roll back the surge of time? Do we not rather need to be in time and to live in time otherwise than in the manner of violence and betrayal? The challenge is not to escape time, to transcend time, or to find a kind of centre to time, but to live out a different kind of time, a time turned towards justice, forgiveness, and peace rather than to an endless vanishing into nothingness.

George Pattison, God and Being: An Enquiry (OUP 2011), 138-9. [US:UK]

I know, it got my attention too.

In response to an essay by Karl Barth entitled The Word of God as the Task of Theology (1924), Catholic theologian Erik Peterson (1890-1960) calls Barth’s dialectical theology ‘a sham’ in his essay entitled What is Theology? (1925). Peterson begins his essay with a quote from Barth’s essay:

“As theologians, we are supposed to talk about God. But we are also human beings, and as human beings we are not able to talk about God. We are obliged to be aware of both our ‘Ought’ and our ‘Cannot’, and in so doing, to give God the glory”.

Peterson takes issue with Barth’s sayings about God because they are also un-sayings about God—to such an extent that nothing is said. In his own words, Peterson says ‘the apparent seriousness of this type of dialectic is only a sham seriousness. It is just as much a sham as the dialectical question is a sham and the answer of the dialectician is a sham and as God himself in this dialectic is only a dialectical possibility’. Peterson uses Kierkegaard to turn Barth on his head, ‘the nemesis of every dialectician’ is that ‘every effort at dialectic can lead to no higher seriousness than to some possible taking seriously’ which fails to account for arriving ‘at a real human seriousness’ let alone ‘to arrive at the seriousness of God in its dialectic’. For Peterson, the seriousness of God must be distinguished from the seriousness of the dialectician: the former exists whereas the latter ‘only mythically exists, in the form of a taking-seriously of all possibilities—that is, in a more sober sense is understood to not exist at all’.

Peterson claims that what both Barth and Bultmann lose sight of in their dialectical gyration was already anticipated by Kierkegaard:

“Kierkegaard’s assertion that subjectivity is the truth is only applicable in a meaningful way to Christ. Christ is the truth, Christ is the appropriation (i.e., the way), and Christ is the life, but to apply this Johannine saying to the individual means either that one is not a Christian, or pretends that one is Christ. But both are an expression of despair and at the same time an offense to faith”.

In other words, for Peterson ‘theology is not the saying of the Word of God—that would mean to forget that the prophets appeared—and theology is also not a speaking of God—for that would forget that Christ has been revealed’. What is at stake for Peterson here is both the distinction between creature and Creator as well as the revelation of such a distinction. This leads Peterson to a very specific definition of theology: ‘the continuing realization, in forms of concrete argumentation, of the fact that the Logos-revelation has imprinted itself in dogma’.

In contrast to Barth’s definition of theology, Peterson says that theologians are not wasting ink in order to secure the possibility of speaking about God, but rather that ‘theology is the concrete actualization of the fact that the Logos of God has spoken concretely of God, so that there is thus concrete revelation, concrete faith, and concrete obedience’. Since ‘dogma and sacrament are a continuation of the Incarnation and address of God’s Logos’ the task of theology becomes an elongation of Christ’s speaking about God between the ascension and second coming.

One has to wonder to what extent Peterson’s friendly admonishment here gave way to Barth’s Church Dogmatics (1932-1967).

If you would like to read more about Erik Peterson, I’d highly recommend picking up a recent translation of his Theological Tractates (Stanford 2011) which has more essays including an exchange of letters with Adolf von Harnack concerning the catholicity of his biblical criticism.

“But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Lk 2:19).

…

2. But Mary’s faith did not end in a mere acquiescence in Divine providences and revelations: as the text informs us, she “pondered” them. When the shepherds came, and told of the vision of Angels which they had seen at the time of the Nativity, and how one of them announced that the Infant in her arms was “the Saviour, which is Christ the Lord”, while others did but wonder, “Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.” Again, when her Son Saviour had come to the age of twelve years, and had left her for awhile for His Father’s service, and had been found, to her surprise, in the Temple, amid the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions, and had, on her addressing Him, vouchsafed to justify His conduct, we are told, “His mother kept all these sayings in her heart.” And accordingly, at the marriage-feast in Cana, her faith anticipated His first miracle, and she said to the servants, “Whatsoever He said unto you do it.”

3. Thus St. Mary is our pattern of Faith, both in the reception and in the study of Divine Truth. She does not think it enough to accept, she dwells upon it; not enough to possess, she uses it; not enough to assent, she develops it; not enough to submit the Reason, she reasons upon it; not indeed reasoning first, and believing afterwards, with Zacharias, yet first believing without reasoning, next from love and reverence, reasoning after believing. And thus she symbolizes to us, not only the faith of the unlearned, but of the doctors of the Church also, who have to investigate, and weigh, and define, as well as to profess the Gospel; to draw the line between truth and heresy; to anticipate or remedy the various aberrations of wrong reason; to combat pride and recklessness with their own arms; and thus to triumph over the sophist and the innovator.

…

- John Henry Newman, Sermon XV The Theory of Developments in Religious Doctrine (1813)

Call for Papers:

On the 1st of March 2012 Durham University Centre for Catholic Studies will host the

Post-Graduate Study Day:
Issues in Contemporary Catholic Theology
Keynote Address:
Dr Marcus Pound

The day is designed to bring together and facilitate conversation between all post-graduates working in this field. It will provide an excellent opportunity for post-graduates to meet, discuss, and present their research in a collegial environment. The day will consist of 20 minute papers and post-graduates at any stage in their research (MA, PhD) are encouraged to take this opportunity to present their research to their peers. Post-graduates are invited to submit proposals, consisting of a title and brief abstract, on any issue within contemporary catholic theology including:

• the interpretation of scripture
• historical theology
• philosophical and doctrinal theology
• issues pertaining to cultural expressions of theology
• the empirical study of Catholicism

The deadline for submission of proposals is 9th January 2011.

To submit a proposal, register for the day, apply for a bursary, or for general enquiries, please contact:

anna.blackman [-at-] durham.ac.uk

This event is sponsored by the Centre for Catholic Studies, Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University, the Digby Stuart Research Centre for Catholic Studies, Roehampton University, the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Nottingham, and St Mary’s University College, Twickenham, in association with the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain.

The day will be followed by the annual
St Cuthbert’s Lecture
Myriam Wijlens
University of Erfurt
‘Receptive Ecumenism and Canonical Structures: Possibilities for a Constructive Interaction’
6.30pm

I wanted to direct your attention to my religion and film article which has been posted online in advance.

You may access it here

Rationalism is a certain abuse of Reason; that is, a use of it for purposes for which it never was intended, and is unfitted. To rationalize in matters of Revelation is to make our reason the standard and measure of the doctrines revealed; to stipulate that those doctrines should be such as to carry with them their own justification; to reject them, if they come in collision with our own existing opinions or habits of thought, or are with difficulty harmonized with our existing stock of knowledge. And thus a rationalistic spirit is the antagonist of Faith; for Faith is, in its very nature, the acceptance of what our reason cannot reach, simply and absolutely upon testimony …

As regards Revealed Truth, it is not Rationalism to set about to ascertain, by the exercise of reason, what things are attainable by reason, and what are not; nor, in the absence of an express Revelation, to inquire into the truths of Religion, as they come to us by nature; nor to determine what proofs are necessary for the acceptance of a Revelation, if it be given; nor to reject a Revelation on the plea of insufficient proof; nor, after recognizing it as divine, to investigate the meaning of its declarations, and to interpret its language; nor to use its doctrines, as far as they can be fairly used, in inquiring into its divinity; nor to compare and connect them with our previous knowledge, with a view of making them parts of a whole; nor to bring them into dependence on each other, to trace their mutual relations, and to pursue them to their legitimate issues. This is not Rationalism; but it is Rationalism to accept the Revelation, and then to explain it away; to speak of it as the Word of God, and to treat it as the word of man; to refuse to let it speak for itself; to claim to be told the why and the how of God’s dealings with us, as therein described, and to assign to Him a motive and a scope of our own; to stumble at the partial knowledge which He may give us of them; to put aside what is obscure, as if it had not been said at all; to accept one half of what has been told us, and not the other half; to assume that the contents of Revelation are also its proof; to frame some gratuitous hypothesis about them, and then to garble, gloss, and colour them, to trim, clip, pare away, and twist them, in order to bring them into conformity with the idea to which we have subjected them…

John Henry Newman, ‘On the Introduction of Rationalistic Principles into Revealed Religion’ (1835)

Yet if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, “tradition” should positively be discouraged. We have seen many such simple currents soon lost in the sand; and novelty is better than repetition. Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour. It involves, in the first place, the historical sense, which we may call nearly indispensable to anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year; and the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity

…

To proceed to a more intelligible exposition of the relation of the poet to the past: he can neither take the past as a lump, an indiscriminate bolus, nor can he form himself wholly on one or two private admirations, nor can he form himself wholly upon one preferred period. The first course is inadmissible, the second is an important experience of youth, and the third is a pleasant and highly desirable supplement. The poet must be very conscious of the main current, which does not at all flow invariably through the most distinguished reputations. He must be quite aware of the obvious fact that art never improves, but that the material of art is never quite the same. He must be aware that the mind of Europe—the mind of his own country—a mind which he learns in time to be much more important than his own private mind—is a mind which changes, and that this change is a development which abandons nothing en route, which does not superannuate either Shakespeare, or Homer, or the rock drawing of the Magdalenian draughtsmen. That this development, refinement perhaps, complication certainly, is not, from the point of view of the artist, any improvement. Perhaps not even an improvement from the point of view of the psychologist or not to the extent which we imagine; perhaps only in the end based upon a complication in economics and machinery. But the difference between the present and the past is that the conscious present is an awareness of the past in a way and to an extent which the past’s awareness of itself cannot show.

Some one said: “The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did.” Precisely, and they are that which we know.

T.S. Eliot, ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ from The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism, 1922

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