The Difference Nothing Makes

Brian D. Robinette

Description

This book explores the doctrinal, social, and spiritual significance of a central yet insufficiently understood tenet in Christian theology: creation “from nothing.”

In this original study, Brian D. Robinette offers an extended meditation on the idea of creation out of nothing as it applies not only to the problem of God but also to questions of Christology, soteriology, and ecology. His basic argument is that creatio ex nihilo is not a speculative doctrine referring to cosmic origins but rather a foundational insight into the very nature of the God-world relation, one whose implications extend throughout the full spectrum of Christian imagination and practice. In this sense it serves a grammatical role: it gives orientation and scope to all Christian speech about the God-world relation.

In part 1, Robinette takes up several objections to creatio ex nihilo and defends the doctrine as providing crucial insights into the gifted character of creation. Chapter 2 underscores the contemplative dimensions of a theological inquiry that proceeds by way of “unknowing.” Part 2 draws from the field of mimetic theory in order to explore the creative and destructive potential of human desire. Part 3 draws upon the Christian contemplative tradition to show how the “dark night of faith” is a spiritually patient and discerning way to engage the sense of divine absence that many experience in our post-religious, post-secular age. The final chapter highlights creatio ex nihilo as an expression of divine love—God’s love for finitude, for manifestation, for relationship. Throughout, Robinette engages with biblical, patristic, and contemporary theological and philosophical sources, including, among others, René Girard, Karl Rahner, and Sergius Bulgakov.

It should be obvious by now that the mystagogical path traced here is not fashioned principally as an “answer” to atheism, in the sense of adducing various arguments to meet intellectual challenges to theistic faith. There is a place for such an endeavor, and some of the best examples draw liberally from traditions of negative and mystical theology in order to highlight the limited nature of atheistic denials. To state the matter briefly, if somewhat provocatively, too often atheistic critique isn’t atheistic enough. It is insufficiently rigorous in its denials, too confident in claiming to know what “God” actually means, as indeed it must if its denials are to stick. The main shortcoming with most arguments against theistic faith is the deep-seated habit of conceiving of God as a being among others, as some force or cause within universe, an Intelligent Designer, perhaps a superlative being alongside (and therefore negatively defined by) the universe. Virtually every atheistic objection to faith presupposes some contrastive logic in its construal of the God-world relation, as though God and world were situated within a spectrum of being, within an encompassing horizon of potency and value, with God as the “highest” being acting upon “lesser” beings. Yet in all such cases we are really referring to something like a demiurge, to a god-like entity operating within a network of causes, a superior subject within an immemorial flow of becoming, not the inexhaustible, eternal wellspring of all that is—the eternal One who freely gives all things “to be.” To begin speaking of God properly so that we might know what we are denying requires following a series of denials that go well beyond the usual compass atheistic critique. This is why Turner describes modern atheism as a form of “arrested apophaticism.” It denies, but only so far. By denying that God “exists,” an atheist might find it surprising to learn just how readily a Pseudo-Dionysius, or a Thomas Aquinas, or a Meister Eckhart would agree, all of whom deny that God can be said to “exist” in any univocal sense, i.e., as an existent among others. “It falls neither within the predicate of nonbeing nor of being,” writes Pseudo-Dionysius. “It is beyond assertion and denial.” Or the Angelic Doctor: “Now, because we cannot know what God is, but rather what He is not, we have no means for considering how God is, but rather how He is not.” Or Meister Eckhart with his typical homiletic daring: “For God is nothing: not in the sense of having no being. He is neither this nor that that one can speak of: He is being above all being. He is beingless being.”

To appreciate why such statements are not absurdities requires serious intellectual effort, and not a little intellectual humility. But it also entails a self-implicating discipline to fully explore. Along these lines, David Bentley Hart complains that those who seem the most confident in their public denunciations of theistic faith, and who routinely demand knock down proofs and empirical demonstrations, seem the “least willing to undertake the specific kinds of mental and spiritual discipline that all the great religious traditions say are required to find God.”

Hart is referring here to various public intellectuals who have gained notoriety for their atheistic (or even anti-theistic) stances, couched usually within a naturalistic worldview. The point is more broadly applicable than to vocal polemicists, however. The invitation includes anyone with a sincere interest—atheist, agnostic, and theist alike—in discovering what “God” might really refer to, or what it opens up for the genuine seeker. If truly serious in investigating the question of God from an experimental standpoint, and not only through argumentation, then one ought to be prepared for at least consulting those practical traditions that are exquisitely attuned for just such an exploration. Though by no means the only appropriate discipline to commend in this respect, Hart suggests that contemplative discipline “is peculiarly suited to (for want of a better word) an ‘empirical’ exploration of that mystery.” This is so because, as “a specific discipline of thought, desire, and action,” it is “one that frees the mind from habitual prejudices and appetites, and allows it to dwell in the gratuity and glory of all things.” Far from being anti-intellectual, the practice of contemplative prayer “is among the highest expressions of rationality possible, a science of consciousness and of its relation to the being of all things, requiring the most intense devotion of mind and will to a clear perception of being and consciousness in their unity.”

The appeal to science here is meant in the ancient sense of the term—as practical wisdom (phronesis) rather than technical mastery. For while there is an obvious sense in which contemplative practice is a discipline involving repeated acts of attending and discerning, often through the skillful coordination of body, heart, and mind, such repeated acts, as they become habitual, are not meant to acquire something special, whether peaceful feelings or discrete unitive experiences, but more simply to notice and gradually become released from the various compulsions to “have” or “do” or “be” anything at all.

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part I. Grammar and Contemplation

1. The Difference Nothing Makes

2. Undergoing Something from Nothing

Part II. Christ as Concentrated Creation

3. Jesus and the Non-Other

4. Strange Victory

Part III. Purgation and Union

5. On the Contemplative Consummation of Atheism

6. Return to Love

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Christian Theology
• Philosophie et théologie
• Soteriology
• Theology
• Systematics
• Catholic
• Christology
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 15 février 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268205737
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE DIFFERENCE NOTHING MAKES
The Difference Nothing Makes
Creation, Christ, Contemplation

BRIAN D. ROBINETTE
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
undpress.nd.edu
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2023 by the University of Notre Dame
Published in the United States of America
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022947716
ISBN: 978-0-268-20352-8 (Hardback)
ISBN: 978-0-268-20351-1 (WebPDF)
ISBN: 978-0-268-20573-7 (Epub)
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail]
Dedicated to the memory of
Bonnie Lou Robinette,
my mother
and
Michael Jon Gregory Pahls,
my brother in Christ
You formed my inmost being;
you knit me in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, because I am wonderfully made;
wonderful are your works!
My very self you know.
My bones are not hidden from you,
When I was being made in secret,
fashioned in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw me unformed;
in your book all are written down;
my days were shaped, before one came to be.
Psalm 139:13–16
CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction PART 1 Grammar and Contemplation ONE The Difference Nothing Makes TWO Undergoing Something from Nothing PART 2 Christ as Concentrated Creation THREE Jesus and the Non-Other FOUR Strange Victory PART 3 Purgation and Union FIVE On the Contemplative Consummation of Atheism SIX Return to Love Notes Bibliography Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing a book often entails sustained labor in solitude, and yet anyone who has engaged in such work knows just how much its very substance depends upon a host of others. While a great many people have helped me bring this book to fruition, there are several in particular I wish to acknowledge here.
Thank you to those who provided me critical scholarly engagement in the spirit of friendship at various stages of this book’s composition: Grant Kaplan; Ryan Duns, S.J.; Daniel Horan, O.F.M.; Jessica Coblentz; Chelsea King; Joseph Rivera; Ligita Ryliškytė, S.J.E.; Kevin Hughes; Andrew Prevot; and Jeffrey Bloechl. To those who provided me crucial spiritual companionship throughout the writing process: Martin Laird, O.S.A., and Lama John Makransky. To those who provided me all the above, but especially the joy of unfiltered friendship and conversation: Boyd Taylor Coolman, Rick Gaillardetz, Matt Petillo, Steve Pope, and Jeremy Wilkins.
A special word of gratitude goes to my wife, Krista, and sons Trevor and Austin. Thank you for sharing with me the most fulfilling home life I can possibly imagine.
Early versions of the book’s central thesis and themes were presented at various conferences, workshops, and invited lectures, including the American Academy of Religion, the Catholic Theological Society of America, the Boston Theological Society, Theology & Peace, the College Theology Society, the Centre of Theology and Philosophy, and the Colloquium on Violence and Religion. Some portions of the present text first appeared in other publication venues, including “The Difference Nothing Makes: Creatio ex nihilo , the Resurrection, and Divine Gratuity,” Theological Studies 72, no. 3 (2011): 525–57; “Undergoing Something from Nothing: The Doctrine of Creation as Contemplative Insight,” in The Practice of the Presence of God: Theology as Way of Life , edited by Martin Laird and Sheelah Treflé Hidden (London: Routledge, 2016), 17–28; and “Contemplative Practice and the Therapy of Mimetic Desire,” in Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture 24 (2017): 73–100. All scriptural texts are from the New American Bible Revised Edition.
INTRODUCTION
A N A STONISHING C LAIM
Christian theology makes an astonishing claim about our world: creation did not have to be, and yet it is—from nothing. As challenging as it may be for us to imagine, the world we typically take for granted, the only world we actually know, is wholly gratuitous, without necessary existence, and utterly dependent upon an unfathomable God for its very being. While this claim has achieved a formal status in Christian theology—as articulated by the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo , or “creation from nothing”—the scope of its significance for Christian imagination and practice is not sufficiently understood.
The central question this book asks is this: What difference does “nothing” make? What does the sheer gratuity of creation mean for our understanding of God? What does it imply about God’s intention for creation, for creaturely flourishing amid the impermanence and interdependence of all things? How did this understanding of creation arise within the Christian tradition in the first place, and what role does scriptural testimony play in its subsequent theological development? What does creatio ex nihilo imply for our understanding of human-divine interaction? Is it primarily about cosmic origins, or does it also suggest a certain manner of social critique and communal aspiration? How might “creation from nothing” be relevant for addressing the late-modern mood of nihilism, or the sense that “nothing matters”? And, finally, how might this doctrine become a practical and contemplative insight that we can skillfully embody in everyday life?

The basic argument developed in this book is that creatio ex nihilo is not a speculative doctrine referring to cosmic origins but a foundational insight into the very nature of the God-world relation, one whose implications extend throughout the full spectrum of Christian imagination and practice. In this sense it serves a grammatical role: it gives orientation and scope to all Christian speech about the God-world relation. It does this by, among other things, characterizing that relationship in noncontrastive terms. God and world do not compete with each other within a spectrum of being. Rather, God is the source and ground of creation’s contingent being, its inmost possibility and animating impulse. Creation comes “to be” precisely in and through God’s gratuitous act, which means that the more creation truly is , the more it reflects its ontological dependence on the Creator.
This is how the privative “from nothing” basically functions. It does not refer to “nothing” as a special kind of “something,” as though God creates out of a prior potentiality or cocreative principle. It does not refer to a source alongside God, a numinous force, or some kind of lack in God that creation appears to fulfill. Such speculative approaches, sometimes found in the tradition, may arouse a certain fascination or sense of drama around God’s creative act, but usually by attributing some kind of mysterious quality or minimal content to “nothing,” when in fact the doctrine denies even this. To this extent, the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo functions as a piece of negative theology, not because it means to be obscure, but because it means to remove any concept, intuition, or principle that might mediate between “something” and “nothing.” No extradivine necessity is at work in God’s creative act, no outside condition is met, no primeval chaos is overcome, no ontological scarcity or unconscious striving in God is satisfied in bringing all things “to be.” The difference between there being anything at all, rather than nothing, is absolute—traversable only by the gratuitous act of the Absolute God.
While this noncontrastive relationship can be stated in formal terms, the main burden of the book is to explore the positive content of this relationship, its dynamism and living texture, as well as its more radical implications. Within a Christian theological context, this exploration will be christological in shape, in the sense that Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection concretely display the God-creation relationship with maximal clarity and salvific import. It is maximally clear because in Christ the creaturely and the divine are united “hypostatically,” in one person . It is salvific because it unveils and transforms the deep-seated ways the God-creation relation has become misconstrued or disordered on account of human sin. Human desire, which is originally good and participative of divine life, is susceptible to rivalry, conflict, and violence, and this susceptibility can lead us to cast the God-world relation in contrastive, even agonistic terms. God is thus seen as over against the world, or perhaps associated with a sacral violence underwriting conflict in human relations.
Among the most remarkable features of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection is that precisely in the midst of a human failing—a brutal execution—God is revealed as having nothing to do with our violence. But more, God is revealed as the One whose self-emptying love enters into the depths of rivalry, conflict, and violence in order to overcome them. This overcoming is not the deployment of an even greater force but, paradoxically, the victory of an inexhaustible and efficacious vulnerability that exposes the roots of conflict and violence. This exposure is simultaneous with the communication of a pacific, pardoning, and divinizing presence. From the perspective of the risen victim, which is one way to characterize the peculiar density of the Easter event, we can begin to envision creation anew, as though for the first time, and perceive with unprecedented clarity that creation is originally given “to be” out of unconditioned goodness and love. Its origin is agapeic , not conflictual, and the God-world relation, so far from a matter of competition or rivalry, is the very site of communion. Creatio ex nihilo , or our coming into existence “from nothing,” is in fact a relation of sheer intimacy with God, and thus our sense of contingency and creaturely poverty, rather than a matter of threat and defensive posturing, can be welcomed and embraced as pure gift, as that which we may freely accept,