Twilight, hermeneutical

 

Here [i.e., in Heidegger and all the "last metaphysicians"] the ambiguous Platonic wakefulness to wonder is submerged again into brute passivity, the full Christian awakening is entirely purged from  memory, and philosophy becomes a crepuscular pathos, a twilit meditation upon its own death.

  Within the world of thought though, it seems worth noting, as in the physical world, twilight comes about not because the sun (or the sun of the Good) is setting, but only because the world is itself turning away into its own shadow.

-- David Bentley Hart, in The Beauty of the Infinite, p227

I should add to this somber note a few applications.

First, the wonder that Hart speaks of is the wonder at God, as not just bigness or terrifying power, but as One Who does not play the sacrificial "zero sum" game of cosmic have's at the expense of have not's.

That wonder is quantitatively, and potentially infinitely, greater than the wonder at CERN nowadays, at a little particle called, non-metaphysically, the "God-particle."

Second, the twilight is due to the rising again, undead-like, of nihilism. Rip metaphysics from theology and this is what happens. Make God voluntaristic, and associate Him with every event in the everyday, and you must do such ripping with metaphysics.

It is due also to Orthodox priests, the guardians of Tradition, practicing economic theory at such profound odds with the economic theory of the Trinity.

Finally, nihilism is everywhere the Word is preached outside the Apostolic Rule. Where salvation is reduced to self-improvement. Where men and women are not venerated as icons of Christ. Where the poor are left hungry and the rich are left ignorant of James. Where Christ is not understood as the victim of every sin. Where Tradition does not produce the meekness of peace.

Every prayer is a charge against the gates of hell. Every intercession is a Herculean deathmatch with nihilism. Every repentance is a confession of the goodness of creation.

Nihilism is the darkness. Too much of what we do, say and think is this stuff of adumbration. 

We are crepuscular indeed -- that is the character of our priesthood today.

 

Comments

[Aaron Taylor]

Nice! ;-)

[Greg]

Re your post: amen, father, amen

[Fr JonathaN]

You know, Aaron, that I have a love/dislike/like relationship with Hart, who doesn't know me from Adam -- but that's not saying much since Adam to him doesn't look like anything factual (or actual).

One bristles in rough company. DBH is rough. I don't know if he is convivial or not, which is my chiefest expectation of friendship. I mean to say that he can describe aesthetically the tide rushing down into Charybdis -- but will he sail with you? Aye, there's the question indeed.

But at this hard ecclesial moment I'm given to ask the nautical questions, and so we'll just have to wade and sea..

[Aaron Taylor]

I always bristle a bit at the figure of DBH, Father, but I applaud these thoughts whole-heartedly. I found the 'Every prayer' paragraph in particular quite encouraging.