Letters for the Road: March 2022
Letters for the Road: March 2022
Essential Peace
Dear reader,
With the deluge of violence in our news feeds, it can be difficult to imagine an alternative. Even as we weep and mourn and rage against injustice, we can inoculate ourselves against it—we can become accustomed to it so that it’s nothing more than what we had expected. And under a particular expression of the doctrine of God’s sovereignty, we can even minimize the violence by accepting it, with a shrug of the shoulders, as God’s will, and the fruit of sinful humanity—what should we expect, after all?
I have felt this kind of acquiescence increasingly over the past two years of pandemic, bushfires, flooding, war, and humanitarian crises. On the one hand I have wondered if my proper response is a perpetual state of grief; if in order to take the suffering of the world seriously I must never be happy again. And at the same time I feel my capacity for caring, and more significantly, for acting, to be shrinking. It seems to me that the intensity of emotional response that is required, particularly for regular engagement on social media, is unsustainable.
In the midst of this, I was struck by the beauty of God. I am doing my best to wrap my head around David Bentley Hart’s philosophical analysis in his book The Beauty of the Infinite—and my best, I’m sure, is falling short in this case. Still, one idea has pressed itself on my heart, particularly significant to my growing sense of consent to the violence of the world. Hart writes about the difference between the classical Christian understanding of violence and the modern/postmodern understanding. Many contemporary Western philosophers understand violence to be intrinsic to our world because of the necessity of difference. The gap of that difference, the distance between me and you, the self and the other, is always one of risk and potential hostility.
In contrast, Hart claims that the primary relationship, before the creation of the world, is that of the Triune God: a relationship of abundant, unending love and beatitude. Difference exists in the distinct persons of Father, Son, and Spirit, but peace defines those relationships, not threat of violence. Hart describes the Triune life of God as one of “coinherent love…delight and fellowship and love…eternal delight that is the divine perichoresis [mutual indwelling] and that obeys no necessity but divine love itself.” It is a life of “infinite peace…in its beauty and diversity.”
Given the way violence marks the world and just doesn’t seem to go away or even recede, I have found tremendous hope in Hart’s claim that violence is unavoidable, but not necessary. That is—because of the curse, and the grip of sin on the human heart and within human systems and institutions, we can expect violence. We shouldn’t be surprised when people idolize power and prestige and wealth and freedom, and cause an enormous amount of suffering as a result. But being wise to the existence and effects of evil is not the same as acquiescence: acquiescence believes violence to be not only unavoidable but also fundamental to reality. Against this, Hart argues that violence is not necessary in the sense that it is not baked into the order of the world, it is not intrinsic to the divine relationship that exists and has existed from infinity. Instead, violence is the result of corruption, a malignant cancer that does not belong.
And so, I am finding hope in the truth of God’s being. Despite the violence of the world—not only the violence out there, but the violence that I myself perpetrate, in my selfish grasping, my use of others for my own self-satisfaction and reputation, my failure to see and relate to others as God’s image bearers—there is something more true, more essential, more fundamental to reality: the peace and beatitude of the Triune God. And it is this infinite peace that God promises to restore to the world through the work of his Son.
How does this reality affect the present? In my own heart, I’ve felt able to reclaim joy. When I am happy, I am reflecting the beatitude of our Triune God—a beatitude that exists now, despite the brokenness of the world. It isn’t a happiness that ignores or sentimentalises suffering and pain; instead, it remembers that peace has and will one day finally swallow up violence, so that we “will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands” (Isaiah 55:12).
Any discussion of the Trinity brings Andrei Rublev’s famous icon of the trinity, also known as The Hospitality of Abraham. Pictured in the icon are the three angels who visited Abraham at the Oak of Mamre (Genesis 18), but its symbolism points to an interpretation of the angels as the three persons of the Trinity. In his work, Rublev masterfully communicates, through perspective, composition, postures, and gestures, the peace-in-diversity, their equality and fellowship. And at the centre, the cup: that symbol of the sacrifice that the Father, Son, and Spirit accomplish together in order to welcome us into the divine life of communion and peace.
Over the past two months (no, you didn’t miss something! I didn’t send a letter in February), I read Brad East’s new book The Doctrine of Scripture. East’s prose is beautiful, and his handling of this topic is skillful. I especially appreciated how he laid out the relevant questions and issues around the authority of Scripture, before arguing for a particular view. The clarity here and honesty about the issues at hand is helpful and irenic.
I also finished Natalie Carnes’ Image and Presence, a book that considers the ability of images to communicate presence, grounded in the reality of Christ’s incarnation as the image of the invisible God. Rather than taking a stance either for or against images, Carnes investigates the power of images along with their capacity for temptation and idolatry. Her reflections are fascinating, and I want to return to this book.
Less mentally demanding, but still rewarding, was Luci Shaw’s Adventure of Ascent: Field Notes from a Lifelong Journey. In this memoir, Shaw records the many mundane realities of growing old, all in the context of continuing on in her life in God, with gratitude, openness, and humour.
On the blog this month: “Unity’s False Face,” and “Macrina’s Beauty.”
Glory be to the Father
and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost,
as it was in the beginning,
is now and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
On the road with you,
Laura