Few qualifiers are misused more often than
"magisterial". The term refers not just to
intellectual authority, but intellectual authority
embedded in thousands of years of devout tradition
- specifically, the Magisterium, or teaching
authority of the Catholic Church, the anchor
institution of Western civilization.
Father James V Schall, the Georgetown
University political philosopher, is "magisterial"
in the full sense of the word, an authoritative
thinker from a tradition that has stood for
millennia.
Prominent among Schall's many
virtues is courage. Last August, for example, he
suggested that Islam may collapse as suddenly
as communism once Muslims
begin to question the authenticity of the Koran.
"The fragility of Islam, as I see it, lies in a
sudden realization of the ambiguity of the text of
the Koran," he wrote at the Catholic Thing blog.
"Is it what it claims to be? Islam is weak
militarily. It is strong in social cohesion, often
using severe moral and physical sanctions. But the
grounding and unity of its basic document are
highly suspect. Once this becomes clear, Islam may
be as fragile as communism." [1] Few political
theorists could, or would dare to, go so boldly to
the heart of the matter.
It was humbling
for this writer to read to read Schall's review of
my essay collection, It's Not the End of the
World - It's Just the End of You. Titled "On
the Promises of God to Mankind", it appeared on
New Year's Day in the Homilectic and Pastoral
Review [2]. I use the word "humbling" with the
same precise connotation that I use the word
"magisterial" for the reviewer. Schall has read my
work more keenly, perhaps, than anyone else, and
perceived so clearly what I am after, that I now
feel a bit like an undergraduate whose impatient
professor gently suggests that he proceed with
less distraction to the point. After reading his
critique, I understand somewhat better what I was
trying to say. There is only one error in his
review, a small but significant one, which I will
address momentarily.
I wish to call
attention to two thematic issues among many in
Schall's wide-ranging review: One is the effort of
a Jewish writer to understand God's presence in
the world and his promise for universal salvation
as embodied in the living Jewish people, rather
than the Incarnate God of Christianity.
The second has to do with the limits of
reason in human affairs. The second is bound up
with the first, for the Election of Israel is an
act of inexplicable grace beyond the ken of human
reason. "The unique issue that the book brings to
our attention is precisely: What is Israel?,"
Schall writes:
As [the Catholic philosopher
Jacques] Maritain said, Israel is a "mystery"
precisely because it is still present, and
clearly has a role within salvation history
itself, from which role it gets its purpose. The
question for Israel remains whether its own
mission is coherent, without a relation to the
salvation history that ends in Christ, and
continues through the Church, to "eternity, the
eternal life that so concerns Goldman about the
uniqueness of the Jewish
nation".
Schall quotes this passage
from It's Not the End of the World:
In the West, nations came by the
hope of immortality through Christianity, which
offered the eternal promise of Israel to the
Gentiles, but only on the condition that they
cease to be Gentiles, through adoption into
Israel of the Spirit. Israel is the exception
that proves the rule, the single universal
nation whose purpose is the eventual recognition
of the one God by all humankind. The history of
the world is the story of man's search for
eternity. That is what Rosenzweig means when he
said that the history of humanity is the history
of eternal life, vouchsafed first to the Jews,
that stands at the center of Western history.
Christian Europe came into being by absorbing
invader, and indigenous alike, into a
super-ethnic Christian empire, whose
universality was expressed by a single religious
leader, whose authority transformed kingdoms, a
single church, and a single language for liturgy
and learning. Europe arose from a universal
Christian empire and it fell when the
nationalities mutinied against their mother, the
Church, and fought until their mutual
ruin.
And he writes in response:
I cite these passages in the Goldman
book because they suggest the reason why he has
to reject Christianity's view of revelation,
revising the Jewish view. This latter position
makes Israel the light of the nations, not
Christ. For the Christian, the light of Israel
is only completed in Christ. Essentially, for
Goldman, Christianity has failed in its
universal worldly mission. As a result, the path
is now open to China, India, Islam, and, yes,
Israel to refashion the world in another image.
Because of its divine founding, Israel has the
strongest claim. As far as I read him, Goldman's
focus is inner-worldly, even when he talks of
eternity. I do not mean that he doubts the
existence of Yahweh, but he does doubt a plan
that is primarily a message of salvation from
this world, and not one that saves this world as
a world.
The question of the
inner-worldly purpose of human life in this world
is one that is ever fascinating, especially when
it often has its roots in a subtle effort to use
this "mission" as an alternative to, or rejection
of, the transcendent purpose that was embodied in
Christ, and His relation to each individual human
person. As Benedict said in his book, Jesus of
Nazareth, what scripture said of Christ is in
fact true. He is the Son of Man. He did exist in
this world; he was resurrected on the "third day."
This presence in the world of time makes
everything different. One thing seems certain; the
primary purpose of revelation cannot be
inner-worldly, to build an earthly city. We simply
cannot allow the billions of those who have thus
far existed in the imperfect cities of men to
become tools to some future, finite, temporal city
as the explanation of why men exist in this world.
With due reverence to Schall, it is not
that I believe that "Christianity has failed at
its universal worldly mission", or that I am
concerned with matters of this world as opposed to
salvation in the World to Come; rather, I observe
(or rather credit Franz Rosenzweig's observation)
that the Desire of Nations will never leave this
world. Christians always will want what the Jews
have: to be Chosen, that is, eternal, and to have
a sign of eternity in their own flesh. That is the
dark, existential longing which no arguments can
assuage.
I do not doubt that Christianity
might succeed, and (except where conversion of
Jews is concerned) I hope Christianity will
succeed. My point is more subtle: for Christianity
to succeed, it must "Judaize" to one extent or
another. That is why America is the only remaining
Christian nation in the industrial world: it
succeeded in styling itself a new (almost) Chosen
People in a new Promised Land. And that is why the
Jews remain indispensable to Christians. One
learns to Judaize from the Jews.
As
Professor Eric Nelson of Harvard observes in his
remarkable book The Hebrew Republic,
America's founders drew on Medieval rabbinic
sources as well as the Bible in their new Mission
in the Wilderness.
As Michael Wyschogrod
observes, Christians believe that God is incarnate
in Jesus Christ, whereas Jews believe that God's
Shekhinah abides in the living flesh of the Jewish
people. From what we Jews observe, believe in the
Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth
is not enough for Christians; they also want to be
sanctified in their own flesh. That is not the
doctrine, of course, but that is the usual
outcome; each of the European nations in turn
arrogated to itself the idea of Election. And the
Church (as well as the Protestant churches) too
often appeased this desire.
To assert such
a dark, existential Desire of Nations necessarily
assigns a lesser role to reason in human affairs.
It is not that reason is unimportant, but rather
that it is our reason, whose exercise is
unimaginable in world in which we do not exist in
some recognizable way.
I do not think
Christianity ever will fail; on the contrary, I
believe that it will succeed and fail to different
degrees and under different circumstances. It has
failed in Europe, tragically, but flourishes in
the Global South. There is no reason America
should not succeed as a Christian nation, and I
pray it will prevail until the Messiah comes.
Schall acknowledges this sort of exemplary role
for Israel. As he points out,
Several years ago, the Belgian
Jesuit, Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, published an
essay on the Christian understanding of the
place of Israel in Christian revelation.
Following the Pauline lead in Romans 11, Vanhoye
argued that God did not take back His promises
to Israel. The fact is that the vast majority of
Jews did not, and do not, understand the Hebrew
Bible as leading to, and as completed in, the
divine origin and earthly life of Christ. This
line of thought required a new interpretation of
history. The original promises made to Abraham
and Moses continue. They eventually result in an
account of Israel as itself having a divine
founding unlike other nations. None the less,
Israel's very existence symbolizes and
illuminates what nations ought to be. The
universalism of the Hebrew tradition, if it
might be called that, was thus focused on the
examples of believing Jews finally gathered in
their homeland after centuries in the diaspora
in which their identity was kept alive in the
synagogue's worship.
"The question for
Israel," Schall concludes, "remains whether its
own mission is coherent, without a relation to the
salvation history that ends in Christ." That is a
challenge to Jews from a Christian, and a fair
one: if Jews forget that what makes them unique is
also what makes Israel's mission universal, they
will have failed in their purpose and fade away
like other nations. As Schall says, "Israel's very
existence symbolizes and illuminates what nations
ought to be." The nations must live in this world,
even if Christians look to the next world, and
Israel's mission is to evince an exemplary
national existence. But we can accomplish this
only by transporting eternity into everyday life.
As noted, there is one error: He wrongly
concludes that I think that "the wrong side won"
the Civil War, citing my statement, "The US South
chafes in anger and shame at its own defeat, and
the North recoils in horror from its own victory."
On the contrary, I emphasize the horrific
consequences of Abraham Lincoln's policy the more
to measure the spiritual grandeur of his
character. Americans lacked the grandeur of their
great leader, an almost-prophet for an
almost-chosen people. After killing 30% of
military-age southerners (at the cost of a tenth
of its own military-age men), the Union decided
that the judgments of the Lord, as was said 3,000
years ago, were not altogether just and righteous.
But Americans had marched to war singing
of the Grapes of Wrath in allusion to Isaiah 63:3,
where God declares, "I have trodden the winepress
alone; and of the people there was none with me:
for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample
them in my fury; and their blood shall be
sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all
my raiment."
I do not propose that
Americans now should emulate the Master of Legions
and seek out enemies to trample, but rather that
they should tremble in awe at their
God-intoxicated forefathers whose Biblical faith
inspired them to such great and terrible things.
As Schall observes, I have a bone to pick
with the late American political philosopher Leo
Strauss. "Goldman's problem with Strauss," Schall
writes, "is rather like his problem with Aquinas
and Christians, in general: namely, their granting
a place to reason within the revelational purpose
itself."
I might quibble and point out
that I have no such problem with Karl Barth, but
that is beside the point. The conservative
intellectual consensus in America rests on two
blocks, namely the neo-Thomism of Catholic natural
law theory, and the Classical rationalism
propounded by Strauss among others. The proximity
of the two camps is such that my friend Professor
Hadley Arkes, a prominent Strauss student,
converted to Catholicism in 2010.
Much as
I admire many individuals in the Thomist and
Classical Rationalist schools, respectively, I see
the world quite differently. Sacrifices on the
scale that Lincoln demanded during the Civil War,
for example, overwhelm human reason, and the
efforts of Strauss' students to portray Lincoln as
a sort of 19th-century Socrates strike me as
hopelessly obtuse. Thinking rationally, one might
easily read my characterization of the horrors
brought about by Lincoln's policy as condemnation
rather than praise, as did Schall. In that
respect, the one wrong note in his review is
revealing.
"A Catholic thinker," Schall
continues, "would find this sentence most curious:
'Biblical faith has no need of theodicy'." For
Jews, the fact that we live today (and by
implication, all Jews who ever lived continue to
live in us) is a grace so palpable that we require
no further proof of God's goodness and mercy. But
Schall well understands this. He writes,
In a large class of undergraduate
students, I recalled the quip of Walker Percy
which I thought was both amusing and pertinent
to a discussion of the Old Testament and
political philosophy: "Why are there no Hittites
in New York?" Percy wondered. I expected some
laughter, but, as far as I could tell, no one
understood the point. Since obviously we find
many Jews in New York but no Hittites, what can
explain that survival over the millennia of Jews
but not of the Hittites?
For a
Christian to draw conclusions about God's mercy
from the survival of the Jews - now, that is
theodicy.
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