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Liturgy, Theurgy, and Active Participation with Dr. Kjetil Kringlebotten
20 Plays17 days ago
In this episode of the Dionysius Circle Podcast, we’re joined by Rev. Dr. Kjetil Kringlebotten, a priest in the Church of Norway and author of Liturgy, Theurgy, and Active Participation. We talk about what it really means to participate in the liturgy, why God’s action is at the heart of worship, and how Christian Platonism can deepen our understanding of the Church’s rituals.
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Transcript
Introduction and Book Discussion
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Dynasties Circle Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Sam Bennett. In this episode, me and Jack Bozar talk with Chetl Kringlebotten about his new book, Liturgy, Theurgy, and Active Participation.
00:00:12
Speaker
He takes a Neoplatonic approach to Christian liturgy He's heavily influenced by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and he addresses the question of what it means to actively participate in the liturgy.
00:00:24
Speaker
He says our action in the liturgy must be understood as our participation in God's act, most profoundly in the act of Christ, and only secondarily as our own personal ritual involvement.
Musical Collaboration Appreciation
00:00:38
Speaker
A big thanks to Peter Anthony Togni, for letting us feature his rendition of the hymn of the father's love begotten from Tanya's album, Sea Dreams. God bless. And I hope you enjoy the episode.
Chetl's Background and Theological Journey
00:00:53
Speaker
Yeah. Maybe channel we could just start off, you know, could you tell us a bit about yourself, you know, maybe share where you grew up in some of your journey into both. the priesthood, as well as into academic theology.
00:01:06
Speaker
Yeah, so i'm I'm a priest in two parishes in two villages southeast of Bergen.
00:01:17
Speaker
But I grew up in a small village, about an hour, I would say, northeast of Bergen. I would say had a very... safe upbringing.
00:01:28
Speaker
i was always interested in reading, though I wasn't actually the best at school. I often ah found school boring and actually had to redo some exams. What's interesting is is where I live in ah in a municipality. We have less than, well, no, just over 4,000 people.
00:01:48
Speaker
Yet I think I know like eight or ten people who study theology. And I think partly it's because we had very good priests who were ah very good like ambassadors for the church and who also encouraged us to study.
00:02:05
Speaker
Anyway, so when I started my my undergraduate um studies in Bergen, i moved into a Christian student house where we actually had mass five times a week.
00:02:18
Speaker
So every morning at 7.20. i didn't go to all of them. ah And then we had the compliant in the evening.
00:02:29
Speaker
and we had to live We actually had a live-in priest. And I learned their an appreciation of participation as a liturgical, but also a philosophical category.
Philosophical Shift and Liturgical Theology
00:02:40
Speaker
just want to ask you about your website. You mentioned that before going to Durham, which is where you got your PhD, you were more of an Aristotelian Thomist Lutheran.
00:02:51
Speaker
And you say that now... You're still a Thomas Lutheran, but you're also a devoted Christian Platonist. So I was kind of curious, could you tell us a little bit about that journey?
00:03:01
Speaker
You know, why do you say that you're no longer Aristotelian and you now embrace a Platonist Platonic perspective? if Can you kind of just tell us about that transformation? You know, maybe what happened at Durham that caused that transformation? Yeah.
00:03:17
Speaker
Yeah. Well, actually, i would say ah don't see as much of but ah a shift in myself, actually, but more of realization that actually wasn't an Aristotelian.
00:03:31
Speaker
Interesting, okay. I would say this was interesting enough, and not necessarily a philosophical realization, but more ah driven by by my my theology studies, and especially in liturgical theology.
00:03:47
Speaker
So I was interested in participation, particularly in the liturgy, and I had already worked on that in my master's thesis where I discussed the Eucharistic sacrifice in and Joseph Ratzinger and Wolfhard Pannenbaum, who is a German Lutheran.
00:04:07
Speaker
And I had already
Metaphysical Action in Liturgy
00:04:08
Speaker
realized that hall liturgical participation was also a metaphysical participation in God. ah Working with my PhD, I realized that that this concept wasn't actually that particularly compatible with Aristotle.
00:04:22
Speaker
For example, he says in his metaphysics that to say that the forms are patterns and that other i things participate in them it's issues is to use empty phrases and poetical metaphors.
00:04:35
Speaker
And Wallis, he is correct, actually, because this is a metaphor. For him, this was deal breaker, but for for Plato and for me and probably for you as well, this just and reveals a truth that we cannot aver adequately explain the divine and not even creative reality.
00:04:58
Speaker
I was like ah quoting St. Paul. So in 1 Corinthians 8, he says, if anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know it as he ought to know.
00:05:10
Speaker
I think we can assume that he was speaking to a to an audience who knew the Socratic idea that of learned ignorance, which is actually a later term ah from St. Augustine, um also houston and used in Nicholas of Husa.
00:05:33
Speaker
It tells us that all of reality, how is mysterious because the creator is unknown. I realized that I was actually ah more platonic, though I would say i am a Christian first and a Platonist second.
Aquinas' Neoplatonic Influences
00:05:48
Speaker
wanted to follow up on that and then ask you, I'm interested in Aquinas and a lot of our listeners probably are as well, but how would you respond to somebody who takes a hardline Aristotelian approach to reading Thomas? I mean, my so I myself think he's significantly Neoplatonic. Well, you could say that on on his feast day this year, I i wrote an ah well a post on my sub-self called Thomas Aquinas, the Neoplatonist.
00:06:16
Speaker
So my use of him actually grew out of my my work on participation. And as many, have read Aquinas and commentaries on him, and I've done that for a long time, ah since before I did my initial theology degree.
00:06:33
Speaker
And as many other people, are I was under the impression that he just wasn't Architellian, but partly because a lot of the commentaries just assume he is.
00:06:46
Speaker
But actually, how through the work on my PhD, I came to realize that he was also, in fact, more of a Platonist, though, of course, also a Christian first.
00:06:57
Speaker
So you could say, a better sense, he's an Augustinian. And then he uses Aristotelian philosophy in a very Platonist manner. ah No, not matter, and manner.
00:07:09
Speaker
yeah And for him, ah participation is central, ah which again was problematic for Aristotle. He uses Aristotle, but he unfolds his philosophy and takes it to like a breaking point ah by reading it through a Christian and a Platonist framework.
00:07:32
Speaker
You could take transubstantiation, for example. For Aristotle, the idea of a free-floating accent is absurd. But using both platonic and Christian ah thought, Aquinas finds a way to explain that as a participation in God.
00:07:51
Speaker
that's That's something you discuss in your book, this this idea that Aquinas' metaphysics of the Eucharist kind of takes him beyond... and Aristotelian framework.
00:08:05
Speaker
It's a very fascinating discussion, yeah. Yeah, it kind of ah breaks it apart, I a say. But you also call yourself a a Lutheran, and I'm just wondering how you combine the pseudo-Dionysian approach with Lutheran theology, because Luther was seems to be pretty critical of pseudo-Dionysius.
Pseudo-Dionysian Approaches and Lutheran Theology
00:08:24
Speaker
There's a quote here where Luther says, In his theology, which is rightly called mystical, of which certain very ignorant theologians make so much, Pseudo-Dionysius is downright dangerous, for he is more of a Platonist than a Christian.
00:08:38
Speaker
So if I had my way, no believing soul would give the least attention to these books. And I think Luther was pretty influenced by another text, the Theological Germanica, if I'm pronouncing it right.
00:08:51
Speaker
And that's a very Neoplatonic book, so there seems to be back and forth in Luther's own thought. Any thoughts on that? Yes, well, I would say Luther was a man of contradictions, ah putting it mildly.
00:09:05
Speaker
ah Yes, he was very skeptical of Dionysus, partly because of some of his positions, but I think it's it's more that he saw him as obscure and and hard to understand. and yeah But there is a Norwegian author or her theologian called Knut Alsorn, and he ah has written a lot on Dionysus and on Lutheran. He points out that Luther knows the mystical or theology by heart and ah uses inside there for all its worth.
00:09:45
Speaker
ah He also has an article where he compares Heluther to Maximus. so
00:09:52
Speaker
And one thing is interesting that if you read the philosophical thesis of the Heidelberg Disputation, which I think will be coming out in the English translation this year, Heluther is very ah reliant on the Promenides.
00:10:12
Speaker
And as you note, he was also... the first one to actually publish the Theologia Deutsch or the Theologia Germanica, which actually came out for the first time in Norwegian this year.
00:10:29
Speaker
and No, actually, no, in December. um It was actually m ah translated by the by the same Krutalsorg. yeah I do have to have to say that that yes, we use the adjective Lutheran, but we don't really follow a Lutheran or things.
Central Questions of the Book
00:10:47
Speaker
and But yes, is a man of contradictions and uses dionysius but also don't like it's he's a very hard man to pin down maybe we can kind of dive into your book a little more squarely at this point and so i just want to talk about like what is the central question or the central questions driving your work um in in the book you kind of outline them helpfully ah so here are kind of the questions that drive your book you say so first off who is active in the liturgy
00:11:25
Speaker
And then what does it mean to engage in the liturgy? And then further, how should we understand the relationship between divine and human agency in Christian practices, particularly in the liturgical action?
00:11:40
Speaker
So i was kind of, yeah, I was just hoping, could you kind of initiate us into this discussion? You know, why do you find these questions about who is active in the liturgy Why do you find that question pressing? Why do you find the question of the relationship between divine and human agency pressing?
00:11:57
Speaker
um And maybe, yeah, give us some possible answers to these questions, just to just to kind of initiate us into the discussion. Yeah.
Historical Context of Liturgical Participation
00:12:04
Speaker
Yes. Well, so this is a discussion that has probably gone on since the dawn of time, or at least since humans started doing rituals.
00:12:16
Speaker
ah But I'm not going to go all the way back there. got yeah I think in the 19th and 20th centuries we had the liturgical movement, or I like to call it the liturgical movements, because It wasn't like ah like one thing.
00:12:36
Speaker
ah And a very important question there was what participation is. And an important text here is the Second Vatican Council's Constitution on the on Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium.
00:12:56
Speaker
And in paragraph 14, we can read Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful i should be led to that fully conscious and active participation in liturgical celebrations, which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy.
00:13:17
Speaker
Such participation by the Christian people as a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a redeemed people, 1 Peter 2.9, is a right and duty by reason of the baptism." end quote So the question is how we should understand this.
00:13:36
Speaker
And some, they others said that this should be understood practically as the believers in liturgical and involvement in concrete ah and liturgical celebrations.
00:13:50
Speaker
And an important figure here is Amskar Chupunko, who was who has emphasized the importance of involvement, contextualization, and enculturation.
00:14:02
Speaker
And others, they said this should be understood metaphysically, first and foremost, as a basis for being involved at all. because we have a ah fundamental participation or involvement in God and in God's work.
00:14:18
Speaker
and An important figure here is Ratzinger, who emphasized that in the liturgy, we are partakers of a principle action, which is first and foremost divine.
00:14:31
Speaker
And he is not ah saying that we should ignore the practical and moment of of the faithful in the liturgy, and For example, in processions, readings, or hymns, or prayers, or postures. but that this ah Or that these elements are not part of what constitutes active participation.
00:14:52
Speaker
But that such involvement needs to be grounded in a more fundamental, a metaphysical and personal participation in God and God's action through Christ.
Divine and Human Agency in Liturgy
00:15:07
Speaker
Okay, so it's, you know, the question is, you know, what is our involvement in the liturgy? And you've kind of set up two contrasting approaches to involvement. One is the practical understanding, which is really going to emphasize just sort of like concrete acts you might do. I don't know, you know, whether that's, you know, participating in communion, maybe helping to distribute communion or something else um versus a more metaphysical understanding of involvement.
00:15:37
Speaker
in the liturgy and you kind of set up that contrast. Awesome. You know, now we kind of have a ah sense of, you know, the main questions animating your work that we can now turn to, you know, what's your fundamental thesis.
00:15:48
Speaker
And so i thought right now I would just kind of give you my understanding from reading your book, which I enjoyed a lot. And then you can kind of just let me know if it's accurate or if you want to add to it. Okay. So when it comes to the question of who is active in the liturgy, it seems like, yeah, you want to say,
00:16:04
Speaker
It's both God and humanity that's active in a liturgy. But the relationship is hierarchical where God's activity is primary. And what we are doing in the liturgyy liturgy is very much secondary. So that's kind of my understanding of the way you respond to that first question. And then the second question in terms of you know what does it mean to engage in the liturgy you you emphasize that liturgical activity is participatory activity, meaning um what we do in the liturgy is really a participation in the in a more primary act of God. So anyway, I just wanted to lay that out. Does that sound accurate to you so far? And like please feel free to expand or clarify anything i've said so far.
00:16:48
Speaker
Yes,
Aquinas on Causality
00:16:49
Speaker
yes. Yes, I would say that it's accurate, that we are causes in a way, but But it's so secondary courses. Yeah, that's great. So I noticed in the book you place a lot of emphasis on Aquinas. So i'm just wondering if you want to elucidate for our audience how we should understand this relationship between God's action and human action, especially in the context of these Christian practices.
00:17:16
Speaker
And i think... the Correct me if I'm wrong, but you draw on Aquinas' distinction between primary and secondary causality for a lot of this, providing the metaphysical basis for understanding the liturgy.
00:17:29
Speaker
It's so tricky where you want to say that we really dependent on God, at the same time, you want to say that our actions really are meaningful and genuine. We are really, truly...
00:17:40
Speaker
act Yes, our participation and our involvement is it derived, yes, but it's also real and meaningful. I think it's very hard to explain why, but but I think, I don't know if if you've read Andrew Davison, he has a book called Participation in God, and he he he says that our nature as beings participating God is a derived ah solidity.
00:18:07
Speaker
So we are real, but our reality finds his ground in God in the one. And a very important element here is that God is not a thing. So because God is simple, God is beyond being, our participation isn't a competition with God.
00:18:30
Speaker
So in that way, it's real, but it's it's always also derived. Yeah, maybe at this point we can go into some more details, kind get in the nitty-gritty of your book now.
Theurgic Perspective on Liturgy
00:18:40
Speaker
So you know, for one, you describe your perspective on the liturgy as theurgic, participatory, and analogical.
00:18:47
Speaker
I don't know, do you want to kind of go through each of these in turn? What does it mean to say that you have a theurgic perspective on the liturgy? and And maybe you could kind of contrast that with a non-theurgic perspective. Like, what would that look like? What would it what would it mean to so to take a non-theurgic perspective on the liturgy?
00:19:06
Speaker
Yes. Well, I would say that the word Heteogy is a term that I hadn't really i read a lot about before I started doing my PhD. I was actually encouraged to read into it by my supervisor, ah ah Dr. Samuel Oliver.
00:19:24
Speaker
and ah at First, very simply, I would say that Heteogy means ah God's work or divine work. So theologia in Greek comes from Heteos, God or Theos, divine, and Argon, which means work.
00:19:41
Speaker
And following the Socratic idea that the philosophy must be grounded in our acknowledgement of ignorance, and the idea that there is something like the one beyond being which must reveal itself,
00:19:56
Speaker
Some Neoplatonists have recognized that we can only achieve union with the divine and reception of divine power through participation in the divine work. And this was, as they say, enacted principally but not exclusively in ritual.
00:20:12
Speaker
yeah The most central actors here were Jamblchus and Proclos. But in my a project, I use this idea with Ratzinger's emphasis on on on the divine work to point out that liturgy is a gift we are given.
00:20:31
Speaker
It's something that we can enter into um which can then transform us, even if we in some ways also shape its form.
00:20:44
Speaker
And I would say a non-theurgic perspective will be a perspective which ah not always is practiced, but often often unconsciously emphasizes our own acts to such a degree that it seems that liturgy is our own doing and not something we have been given.
00:21:02
Speaker
So to avoid that, I think that liturgical reform, which i think we will come back to, needs to be relatively conservative. Although I don't really like that word. But ah but I do like the there's yeah and a small like aphorism and by the famous liturgist Dom Gregory Dix in the book The Shape of the Liturgy. So he said that the good liturgies were not written, they grew. Yeah, that's fascinating. You know, one thing you're talking about, look, you know we can shape the form of the liturgy
00:21:40
Speaker
And clearly that is evidenced in ah the history of Christianity. The liturgy takes different forms in in different cultural contexts to some degree. But fundamentally, the liturgy is a gift from God.
00:21:53
Speaker
I think that's a great emphasis. And it kind of reminds me of... at least in certain cases of the divine liturgy and the Eastern context, I've heard that it can begin by saying, now it is time for God to act.
00:22:09
Speaker
And i really, i think that puts the right emphasis that what we're doing here is entering into an act of God on his initiative, you know, so.
00:22:20
Speaker
Yes, and also any change, like any shaping we have done, it's a shaping that happens within the the liturgy, like in the the context of God's people, and often over centuries.
Metaphysical vs. Practical Views of Liturgy
00:22:38
Speaker
so So we'll we'll dive into the topic of theurgy more in a moment, but maybe first we can kind of touch on the second key feature of your perspective, which is participation. As I just said, you know you describe your view on the liturgy as participatory.
00:22:53
Speaker
And yeah what does this mean for you? Maybe just unpacking a little bit more of your idea that this is really about a metaphysical perspective on involvement and participation.
00:23:05
Speaker
Again, we have to distinguish between two uses. So a metaphysical and more of a ah of a practical. And when I speak of liturgy as participatory, I emphasize of course, the metaphysical one, at least in discussion here. And one and if I think that if we do that, we understand that liturgy is a gift and that our involvement is in something we can we enact because because of that initial participation.
00:23:42
Speaker
So you could say a non-participatory view of the liturgy will be one where this metaphysical dimension is downplayed. and which overemphasizes the human capacity to do and to comprehend liturgy.
00:23:57
Speaker
Often you get this this feeling that people want to make liturgy understandable, but I did a lot of work in this ah project on Catherine Pickstock, who is was a scholar m in Cambridge, and she ah has asked that that liturgy is actually impossible.
00:24:22
Speaker
What we can do is because we are ah participating in Christ, who is able to celebrate. So when we are repeating the liturgy again and again,
00:24:36
Speaker
we are not actually just doing the same thing. she She talks about a non-identical repetition because it's... We are trying to repeat something that can't be fully comprehended or grasped.
00:24:53
Speaker
It's always new, but it's also always eternal.
Analogical Language in Theology
00:24:57
Speaker
I can i could say as ah as a fun fact, Pixot was my supervisor. the supervisors So...
00:25:04
Speaker
and in Your engagement with her work is yeah is really a highlight of the book. It's really exciting. And yeah, I really appreciate that because, you know, ah people often or at least should acknowledge that, hey, God is, you know, infinitely beyond us. He's so in his majesty and power. And of course, he's going to be veiled in much mystery. We cannot comprehend him fully.
00:25:33
Speaker
ah But yeah, it's a really nice, refreshing point that, look, There's something divine about the liturgy itself. And so there's ah it's going to also have that mysterious character. it's gonna So far, we've kind of laid the basis for your work, one being theurgy, second being participatory. But then you bring in the final element, the analogical.
00:25:55
Speaker
And so could you just explain to us what this means and then give us a quick contrast between a liturgy that's analogical and one that's not? This term is probably the more obscure, actually, of the three.
00:26:07
Speaker
ah But it's is's a term that's very central to Aquinas and many others. And he he says that you can use languages in univocal, equivocal and analogical ways. So...
00:26:25
Speaker
If you use a term univocally, it's used identically. So for example, when we use the word being and apply it to two different ah creatures. But if we use a word equivocally, we can the ah use it in completely unrelated ways. So I can kick a ball on a pitch or I can attend a ball to go dancing.
00:26:50
Speaker
But if a term is used analogically, it's somewhere in between. it's like it's It's hard to pin down exactly what analogy is. But Aquinas, he says that there are two ways to do analogy. You have analogy analogy of of or proportion,
00:27:12
Speaker
and For example, as A is to B, so X is to Y. So as a good father is to his his children, so the good king is to his subjects. But then he hes also says that we have an analogy of attribution where we use words in a somewhat metaphorical ah way with reference to a common her subject.
00:27:36
Speaker
And the point of view, uses word health because it's actually not completely proper to say that medicine is healthy, or exercise is healthy, or the food is healthy.
00:27:48
Speaker
The only thing that's healthy is the person. But and we say that these things are healthy in relation to the person.
00:27:57
Speaker
And when ah Aquinas used this, he said that God is the only one who is good and wise in himself. But we are are good and wise through participation in him or um now analogously to God.
00:28:14
Speaker
And ah this is actually ah place where Aquinas takes something from Aristotle, ah who used the phrase proshen in Greek, which means toward the one.
00:28:27
Speaker
But he combines it with the Platonic idea of participation. And then he uses it in a a very non-Arsotelian way. And he then takes this further. He says, God is, or God is essay, or God is being.
00:28:46
Speaker
although Being is not the best word.
00:28:49
Speaker
But we only have existence through our participation and relation to him. And you have those who, I would say, those who follow John Donne's Scotus and take his ideas to the extreme.
00:29:05
Speaker
I don't actually that Sculptist was a Sculptist in this sense, but I think in univocal ways you can end up with a God that has being at the same way we have being.
00:29:24
Speaker
But though he he may come nearer to us in that sense, it actually becomes more distant, almost like a tyrant or a or someone who is in competition with us.
00:29:36
Speaker
And as Pickstock has said, this entails kind of like a flattening out oh of reality. So she says somewhere that where ontological difference invites the possibility of likeness and proximity, university of being produces mediable difference and distance.
00:29:55
Speaker
And I would say that ah following a university of being, we would have to to say there is an unmediable abyss between God and creation. And not because he is other, but because he is not other enough, even though he is infinitely distant.
Adapting Neoplatonic Theurgy to Christianity
00:30:14
Speaker
And I would say that some people might not like this, but I find this and liturgically expressed in Calvin's conception of liturgy. yeah In the liturgy in Geneva, where he was, the the elements of the... So the yeah the bread and and wine are called these earthy and corruptible elements.
00:30:38
Speaker
And there is a d um um the emphasispha exercise so but no the emphasis on creation's participation in God. And it's kind of like trying to travel away from acc creation instead of of seeing ah creation as as a place that has a place and that when we are saved, we are saved.
00:31:06
Speaker
as nature. I like Ephesians 4-6 where it says that God is not just above all, but also through all and in all.
00:31:17
Speaker
And an analogical perspective on liturgy, we see that creation and us are transformed and transfigured in Christ as nature and not as something to be taken away.
00:31:38
Speaker
So diving then more into the theurgic component to all of your work, do you want to just briefly explain the history of theurgy, its connotations with the Neoplatonists, and also the sorcery and magic, and then we'll transition more into the Christian appropriation of that.
00:31:55
Speaker
I would like to point out that in the book I have explicitly said that I ah often avoid using the terms magic, or sorcery, because as first order terms, so no terms used by by people in a tradition, they are often and not very common, but also, and for example, by emplicers outright rejected.
00:32:20
Speaker
But they're often also problematic as a second order of terms, because especially in ah in modern times, they're often and meant to mean something evil or bad or irrational.
00:32:34
Speaker
So we often say that magic is what the others are doing. But anyway, so back to theogies. So the term is now most associated with Bigamicus and Proclus, but they found the terms in the Chaldean oracles, which was compilation of ah fragments from the second century.
00:32:56
Speaker
It's sometimes called the Bible of the New Platonists. It was probably, but... We don't know exactly, but probably written or compiled by Julian the Chaldean, or his son Julian the Theogist.
00:33:14
Speaker
And the main focus of the text, at least theogier-wise, is an ascent or anagogy. So in Greek, anagogia, which is a journey towards a god through a sacrament of immortality.
00:33:30
Speaker
And we don't know exactly what this ritual was, or if it was only one ritual, or ah a variety. But at the center is the idea that there is a so sympathy between heavenly or intelligible realm and ours, because of the actions of what they call the paternal intellect, which basically is the demiurge.
00:33:54
Speaker
And in fragment 39 it says, For after he he thought his works, the self-generated paternal intellect sowed the bond of love, heavy with fire, into all things." So and we see here that there is a sympathy between everything. And in fragments 108, we see that the paternal intellect has sown symbols, in Greek, symbola, throughout the cosmos.
00:34:24
Speaker
These symbols are also, they also use word token, syntematos in Greek. And this is
00:34:37
Speaker
something ah how through which we can like like reach the divine. They will often talk about the what they call the barbarous names.
00:34:51
Speaker
So, enomina barbar in Latin. So, these are often phrases from other languages, which has no semantic content in the language into which they are important.
00:35:03
Speaker
They are, therefore, like meaningless words, even if they, of course, carry meaning in their original language. But these are as seen as almost like, ah to say, like a magical words, and in a fragment 150 it says, do not change the nomina, Barbara, that is the names handed down by the gods to each race has have ineffable power in the initiation rites.
00:35:33
Speaker
And these were are thought to to create this sympathy, which allows the theogists to manipulate the heavenly.
00:35:45
Speaker
so So the names or symbols create the sympathy between the creature and the heavenly? Or participate in them. Or maybe like enter into them.
00:35:59
Speaker
Okay. But what we see in the Amicus is a a critical reinterpretation. So he he says that this is not magic. So he was he calls Magaia in Greek or sorcery, Goetia in Greek.
00:36:16
Speaker
Because he thinks that a manipulation of the divine is impossible. a So but he he says that the formulas of prayers have been sent down by the gods. So...
00:36:35
Speaker
as something into which we can ah we come like come or enter. and The prayers have been sent down by the gods?
00:36:47
Speaker
Yes. Okay, so that that kind of reminds me of what you were saying earlier about you know thinking of theory of the liturgy as a given gift. Okay. yeah okay Well, he says that the hieratic prayer reform have been sent down to mortals by the gods themselves.
00:37:10
Speaker
And then he also talks about like the meaningless names, like the Nominabarbara. but But he says that they are meaningless only because we can't comprehend them. but there i mean But they have a meaning to the gods or to the one.
00:37:28
Speaker
And he he talks about Assyrians and the Egyptians particularly ah as the first ones to to create this. And because of of tradition and being important, he says that now we have to use the same words because these were the words given.
00:37:46
Speaker
ah But again, the point for him is not that they are magical. but they are divine words through given through her human ah language, which allow participation and in the divine work.
00:38:00
Speaker
um He says that magic and sorcery is a manipulation of the divine, which he sees as impossible, while her theology is actually the opposite. is It is to be hamid am manipulated by the divine, by participating in the divine work.
00:38:18
Speaker
Okay, so it's, yeah, it it doesn't seem right to say that if we are saying prayers given to us by the divine, that we are therefore somehow manipulating the divine, because it seems like it was freely given in the first place. So how would that be a type of manipulation? And and you're kind of saying that when we think of magic, we're really thinking of a sort of manipulative type of spiritual practice. That's really helpful. And I mean, I guess, you know,
00:38:47
Speaker
just just to cover our bases as it were, you know, what would you say to someone who just says, look, isn't theurgy inherently pagan?
Pagan Roots and Christian Theurgy
00:38:56
Speaker
You know, it has its origins and pre-Christian traditions.
00:38:59
Speaker
You know, is it really possible to adopt elements of theurgical thought within a Christian framework? Yeah. So just, can you kind of just address that worthy, you know, that worry that theurgy is just not compatible with Christian theology? yeah What would you kind of say?
00:39:14
Speaker
Yes. Yes. Well, I don't think it's pagan any more than Logos spagan or umuscios in and the no nocene creek is is pagan or or Aristotle's used by Aquinas is pagan.
00:39:35
Speaker
So what makes anything pagan is not the metaphysics, but what is expressed in practice, so in so like the religious part. And of course the word pagan here is very broad and very unhelpful, but I would say that theudgy is a metaphysical and a philosophical framework through which we can understand not just what we do in the ritual, but why we can do so in the first place.
00:40:06
Speaker
Actually, I think that Jumtus is helpful here. So in The Mysteries, on The Mysteries, so his main work, he says, well, he criticizes Porphyry, who denies that the gods need prayers.
00:40:25
Speaker
And then he writes in Book 115, Because we are inferior to the gods in power and in and in purity and in all other respects, it is eminently suitable that we entreat them to the greatest degree possible.
00:40:40
Speaker
The consciousness of our own nothingness, if one judges it in comparison with the gods, makes us naturally and turn to supplications. And by the practice of supplication, we are raised gradually to the level of the object of our supplication.
00:40:57
Speaker
And we gain likeness to it by virtue of our constant consulting with it. And starting from our own imperfection, we gradually take the perfection of the divine." And I think we can easily see Dionysus paraphrasing this, but he would again ah say that we can only find this in Christ and in the work of the Spirit.
00:41:25
Speaker
um And through that, ah we can gradually take on that um on the perfection of the divine. And he talks about deification.
00:41:38
Speaker
So he says that in and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, he talks about the assimilation to and union with God, as far as attainable, and he calls that deification.
00:41:53
Speaker
But again, what this comes down to is not a difference so principle of principle or function or metaphysics, but this is it's it's a question that centers on revelation.
00:42:06
Speaker
And then the question is, who has the authentically divine revelation? Right. So it's okay to talk about, it has to it seems Like it needs to be okay to talk about divine assimilation about, you know, and so to just call that pagan, would be a mistake because, you know, really the question is more like, you know, to be a Christian, you have to affirm that it's only through Christ that any divine assimilation is possible.
00:42:38
Speaker
Awesome. Maybe we can now um look at a passage real quick from Gregory Shaw, his book Theurgy and the Soul. You explore this passage in the book. Maybe I can just read it out.
00:42:52
Speaker
You can tell us a little bit about um about this passage. It's really helpful because it talks about the key difference between the theurgy of Amblichus and Christian theurgy. And so what Shaw says is this. He says, the key difference is that in Neoplatonic theurgy, the material cosmos is an agama.
00:43:12
Speaker
In other words, a shrine of the demiurge The cosmos itself reveals the presence of gods. That is, again, continue with Shaw. The natural world for and and Amblican Platonists is a theophany.
00:43:27
Speaker
The natural world is a theophany. Far from being fallen, nature itself is the face and living symbol of the divine. Nature is the incarnation of ah dev divine reality. So...
00:43:38
Speaker
Yeah, like, you want to kind of unpack this? Like, what do you think about his position on this? The the idea that, you know, the the real key difference is that nature itself is the incarnation of divine realities.
00:43:49
Speaker
Yes, yeah. I think he he is is correct there, but I would be very...
00:43:57
Speaker
Specifically, I have said that this is a difference between Janbleke and a Christian, not between new Platonist and Christian. um So Janbleke and a theology, it's the natural word as a direct and unfallen, like theophany.
00:44:15
Speaker
Or shrine of the demiurge. And the word agalma is interesting here. Because it literally means stature in Greek. And the idea is that the cosmos itself is like an idol. Or an icon of God.
00:44:29
Speaker
Which is made by by by the demiurge. um ah But. So. Jambus. He will say that theurgy is demiurgy.
00:44:44
Speaker
Because. ah But in a sense, I would say this is also true for Christians um also and also in Judaism. So in Isaiah 55, 12, I will read, for you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace.
00:45:03
Speaker
The mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. So, We can also say that God has ah has some symbols throughout the cosmos, to quote the Kalean Oracles.
00:45:20
Speaker
But we would maintain that God has received Himself to a specific people and in a specific man in Christ as the one mediator. ah
00:45:32
Speaker
As Christians we will also and maintain that we encounter God in the concrete, in water, bread and wine, but though both ah Christianity and Jews, and maintain that God is present in and ah through creation, as well as above it, with we wouldn't say this the incarnation of the divine, because it is created and it's fallen and is perishable.
00:46:00
Speaker
And a big difference here is that we would say that the whole cosmos needs to be reconciled. And we will all say that this happens in Christ. Shaw says that, you know, the cosmos itself reveals the presence of gods.
00:46:15
Speaker
Would you say that the type of presence of the god of the gods for Amblichus is different from the kind of presence you have in the incarnate, ah incarnate word and in Christ, right? Isn't yeah that, is that be correct to say that? Like, I want to say like the presence of God in Christ is just more emphatic. It's somehow deeper.
00:46:41
Speaker
I don't know how to describe it, but that would be my intuition is that, you know, wouldn't a Christian say that the type of presence you have of the divine in Christ, I mean, this is the incarnate word, the second person of the Trinity. i don't know it just seems like it's a deeper type of presence. Is that,
00:46:58
Speaker
that right, or am I misunderstanding Iamblichus there? No, no, I would say that I think it's important to understand what the incarnation is and what it isn't. So in Christian thought, because for Iamblichus, a theurgist can possess the nature of the gods ah extrinsically, as long as he prefers the act like the theurgy.
00:47:23
Speaker
Or rather, you could say he's he's possessed by them. He says in and and On the Mysteries, in Book 6, that the theurgist, through the power of arcane symbols, commands cosmic entities no longer as a human being or employing a human soul, but existing above them in the order of the gods, using threats greater than are consistent with its own proper essence.
00:47:49
Speaker
And this is not what we mean when we talk about the incarnation, because this is a temporal um annihilation of of the theuchist of humanity.
00:48:03
Speaker
But we don't think that Jesus just possessed humanity or divinity for a while, or that he has he's like a person with ah a close connection to God, like Abraham or Moses, but he just is God and he just is man.
00:48:24
Speaker
It's is' not something imposed, it's extrinsically ah voluntarily. In Christ, divinity and humanity are united fully, metaphysically, in one single person.
00:48:38
Speaker
And he just is both um and will be so forevermore. And I think that because of this, Christ kind of fulfills the purpose of theology, which is union with God, but without any annihilation of humanity. For in him, so the divine act and human enactment is completely united.
00:49:07
Speaker
we can... I think we can illustrate this with a quote from the the prayer of the cherubic hymn from the Divine Liturgy where the priest says, For you are the one who both offers and is offered, the one who is received and is mr is distributed of Christ our God.
00:49:29
Speaker
So, in a way, is the theurgist, he is the theurgy, or the act, he is the God from whom the act comes and to to whom though the act is offered, and he has the gift offered to us so we can partake.
00:49:46
Speaker
that's and That's pretty great. I mean, I've got a deep interest in the history of Neoplatonism, and I think it's fascinating how the patristic sources utilize the Neoplatonists, and then going back to the Middle Platonists.
00:49:59
Speaker
But I think, you know, I've i've read a bit of Shaw's book, and he makes some criticisms of Christianity in there, especially at the beginning, where he talks about how Well, the Christians don't have, they they they tend to say that the theurgic component of religion and philosophy is limited to just one this one religion. But I think the point you're making is a pretty strong counter, namely that, well, the person of Christ is not just taking on the God's power, like in the Yamblachian sense, but really is directly united and is identical with the divine nature
00:50:38
Speaker
And that makes Christianity the consummation of theurgy. Is that an accurate statement of what you've been saying? yes. yes Because, yes, as you say, it's not just that Christ is one of many, but he is the one.
00:50:57
Speaker
Right, and that's a really interesting point that you have, that Christian theurgy, thanks to the incarnation, it satisfies the goals that were built into
Christian Theurgy vs. Pagan Theurgy
00:51:09
Speaker
pagan theurgy. So what pagan theurgy was trying to achieve, striving to achieve, Christian theurgy is actually achieving.
00:51:21
Speaker
um Can you unpack that for us a little bit more? I mean, just just to make it clear for us, like what what, yeah, I mean, I guess, would you just say the goal of pagan theurgy is ultimately assimilation and then it's only thanks to,
00:51:36
Speaker
the incarnate Christ that we can genuinely achieve divine assimilation. Is that, would that be kind of the thought? Yes. Yes. Because we are kind of like real, like related to Christ. So, um,
00:51:54
Speaker
I think it's also important too to, to, uh, to say that this, like, like we don't ah think that we become intrinsically the divine, uh,
00:52:06
Speaker
Like in and so the Chalcedonian definition, it says that humanity and divinity in Christ is united without confusion, change, division or or separation.
00:52:23
Speaker
So they are distinct but not separated. So what we can say that we as human persons relate to the person of Christ.
00:52:35
Speaker
ah who via ah human nature is is like us in all respects. So in Hebrews 3.14, it says that we are partners of Christ.
00:52:47
Speaker
And we are also because He is human, and because we have been incorporated into Him through baptism. and And as persons, we we relate to His person.
00:52:58
Speaker
and In the book I try to explain this in analogical terms, so like a kindness with ah the prosan or towards the one.
00:53:10
Speaker
And that because God is the one common focus of the divine a human union, when we are related to Him,
00:53:21
Speaker
we also relate to God and we become partakers of the divine nature, it says 2 Peter 1.4. And as human beings, or as beings at all, and we must relate to that which is beyond being and immediate in and in an analogous way.
00:53:41
Speaker
What incarnation does is that it provides us with a mediator who just is the one beyond being. while also being someone we can relate to as beings and without any confusion.
00:53:55
Speaker
And that's the only way I think that we can actually be united with God in a proper sense. i want I want to follow up on that. So you mentioned, I have the quote here, that without the incarnation, any union achieved through this liturgical activity, it would remain voluntarily voluntary and contractual rather than metaphysical.
00:54:16
Speaker
Could you elaborate on this distinction and then following up on that, how would you define the difference between a voluntary union and a metaphysical one? Well, ah voluntary contractual a union is a a union where ah the union doesn't fundamentally change any other partners.
00:54:39
Speaker
So it is essentially a contract or like an act of the will. the And if you understand the incarnation in that way, Jesus will just be be one.
00:54:53
Speaker
and in a string of ah people who have a contract or covenant with God. ah um i would say that is actually how Jammutkas sees the theagric union.
00:55:05
Speaker
It's just through this act you become united and you can use divine powers but in a way that where you are possessed by the God before going back to what you were.
00:55:21
Speaker
But a metaphysical a union involves actual ontological change and participation. so So Christ is the divine union, and when we are incorporated into him, we are not just entering into a contract with him, but we are changed, and yet we also also remain ah exactly to what we are.
00:55:45
Speaker
And of course, we can't fully explain how this is possible, but But I think we can i see that without there being someone who simply is divine human, in one person we cannot actually be united with God.
00:55:59
Speaker
But yeah, what ah what do you say to someone who says, look, you know, how could the union between humanity and divinity ever really be metaphysical? I mean, doesn't it always have to be extrinsic?
00:56:14
Speaker
right like What if someone says, look, human nature is just not intrinsically divine. It's not intrinsically supernatural. So won't deification always be somehow imposed, external? i mean Yeah, so what what would you say to that? well Well, I think if you do that, you're equivocating on different ways of using word intrinsic or extrinsic. So intrinsic here doesn't mean, say, that we that we are intrinsically divine or supernatural, but that we, as persons, relate to a person.
00:56:52
Speaker
So, thus and and you could say it is extrinsic in a way, but it is also intrinsic because it's on our level.
00:57:02
Speaker
So, it's... But it's not just impulse, and it's not just... ah contract. ah Something happens to us because we relate to something on our level.
00:57:19
Speaker
Which, yeah. Okay, so there's something there's something really key about the person-to-person relationship for you and in terms of explaining deification. Okay.
00:57:31
Speaker
You know, we kind of mentioned that it's, you know, Christian theurgy is supposed to be it's kind of the consummation of pagan theurgy in the sense that here, Christian thergy is able to achieve the type of assimilation the pagan thergy was striving toward.
00:57:50
Speaker
um Now, also, I guess you could kind of think of it as a consummation of a human, kind of an innate human
Human Orientation Towards Worship
00:58:00
Speaker
longing. I mean, kind of you talk about humans having an intrinsic orientation towards worship.
00:58:09
Speaker
um I know, I find that an interesting idea. like Can you kind of maybe unpack that for us, this idea that humanity just by nature is oriented to worship and we belong to worship?
00:58:20
Speaker
Yes. Well, in the book, I think I try to explain this both in metaphysical and philosophical and historical terms. So for me, the point of ritual which I would say include like narrative and storytelling, is that it is a concrete and bodily manifestation of or onte our orientation to God and our participation in Him and in His order. So I i like a quote by Barry Stevenson, who says that ritual is a way of thinking and knowing.
00:58:58
Speaker
yeah In fact, I think that to deny this is introduced almost like a Cartesian, illogical, positivist understanding of of rationality and ritual, where experience and reason and practice become ah dislodged.
00:59:15
Speaker
and You can find this, ah for example, in E.R. Dodds, when he says... of Jain Bruckers' book on mysteries as manifesto of irrationalism, an assertion that the road to salvation is found not in reason, but in ritual.
00:59:35
Speaker
Of course, this is is nonsense, because Jain Bruckers would deny that ah separation of reason and ritual.
00:59:47
Speaker
ah And he quotes Jernbruckes by saying that it is not thought that links the theagists with the gods. The problem here is that this is not a ah good translation. So Jernbruckes uses the the phrase her theoreticus her philosophultas.
01:00:10
Speaker
And this gets translated as thought by E.R. Dodds. but it becomes pure thought in the in the current translation of the book.
01:00:21
Speaker
yeah You can also translate this as a theoretical philosophizing. ah But what he says is that, for it's not pure thought ah that unites the theologians with the gods, or to the gods.
01:00:39
Speaker
and I think that this should be grounded in the notion of order. And that's what i what I do in the book. So in 1 Corinthians 14, 33, it says, for God is not a God of disorder, but of peace.
01:00:55
Speaker
and And my point is that God is perfectly ordered. And that because our worship participates in him ah root and reveals him as a grand reason, ah was it also becomes orderly.
01:01:09
Speaker
and rational. um I think we can strengthen this by just observing history. So I start the preface of a book by quoting Martin Luther who says that in his large catechism that there has never been a nation so wicked that did not establish and maintain some sort of worship.
01:01:33
Speaker
All people have set up their own God to whom they look for blessings, help and comfort. And I think this is just true. So Catherine Pickstock has shown that yeah
01:01:48
Speaker
that ritual isn't just an important, ah essential component of human history, but it is actually a defining characteristic, if not the defining her characteristic.
01:02:01
Speaker
So I can recommend an article by her called The Ritual Birth of Sons. And she points to um archaeological ah findings where it seems that ritual is actually more central and more like everyday than everything else like economics or or politics or ah whatever. but she But she says that ah far from being an aberrant and secondary species space use of action, ritual can be seen as a typical or defining
01:02:34
Speaker
mode characteristic of all action and maybe we can say that it's supra irrational that it transcends rationality but doesn't like it yeah i find that that kind of anthropological archaeological data about suggesting that yeah we have this kind of ritual impulse ingrained in us i think that's really fascinating because it just makes me think you know part of you thinks like oh people it's like our natural incarnation is just to like please ourselves enjoyment you know natural pleasure but really it seems like this data kind of suggests no it's like we have this um we have a sort of yeah spiritual um built into us and um maybe at this point we can kind of get a more concrete perspective though um the christian liturgy how it is theurgical
01:03:32
Speaker
Um, so you say, I thought it was really interesting.
The Epiclesis and Theurgical Nature of Liturgy
01:03:37
Speaker
Epiclesis more than anything else in Christian liturgy puts into words. It's essentially theurgic nature. So the epiclesis is kind of like where the theurgic nature of Christian liturgy is most on display.
01:03:48
Speaker
Maybe I'll read the word of the epiclesis and then you can kind of break it down for us. What are you see in it? Um, All right, so here it is. also we offer you this spiritual worship without shedding a blood and we ask pray and implore you send down your holy spirit upon us and upon these gifts here set forth and make this bread the precious body of your christ and what is in this cup the precious blood of your christ changing them by your holy spirit so that those who partake of them may obtain vigilance of soul forgiveness of sin communion of your holy spirit
01:04:20
Speaker
fullness of the kingdom of heaven, freedom of to speak in your presence, not judgment or condemnation. So yeah. Yes. Can you kind of just like, yeah, can you kind of just break down why is this such a good manifestation of theurgy, that kind of perspective?
01:04:38
Speaker
Yes. Actually, I find it interesting that we never translated the word epiclesis. It's just a Greek word. Because it means invocation, so maybe someone said, oh, that has too many magical connotations.
01:04:56
Speaker
But because it was used in the Greek antiquity, antiquitylike in the pagan world, to talk about invoking gods.
01:05:07
Speaker
But how the point of the prayer in the Christian tradition is to invoke the Holy Spirit, that he may come to make the bread and wine. and the blood of the body and blood of Christ.
01:05:22
Speaker
ah ah What we would say that rituals is a ah work of God in the first place.
01:05:34
Speaker
And that's where I like the Apoclesis, because it tells us that this isn't our work.
01:05:43
Speaker
Of course, in the in the Western Heart Relation we often explain this by by saying that the priest acts in and and the person of Christ, while in the Eastern Heart Relation they often emphasize the priest acting in the Holy Spirit.
01:06:00
Speaker
Of course, i don't really see that much of a difference, because the Eastern Heart Relation will surely believe that the apostles and their successes are representatives of Christ because well Jesus says he who hears you hears me but also the New Testament says that Christ acts in the spirit and the point I think with the the epiclesis is that it involves God descending to do his work
01:06:36
Speaker
invoked through a ritual he has himself established. So it's it sounds like it sounds very theurgical just on the face of it. And since a the theagy is the divine work, Nebuchadnezzar helps us to understand that we are not the ones to transform the elements, the Holy Spirit is.
01:06:56
Speaker
and This is something you find all over Christendom. There's a lot of people who say that you don't find the ecclesiasties in the Roman rite until in the 1960s. But I don't know. If you read the Offertory...
01:07:13
Speaker
in the Trinity Mass, it says, Come, O sanctifier, almighty and eternal God, and bless this has sacrifice, prepared for the glory of thy holy name.
01:07:25
Speaker
And then, later it says, ah Which oblation do thou, O God, deign in all respects, to make blessed, approved, ratified, reasonable, and acceptable, ah so that it may become for us the body and blood of thy most beloved Son, O Lord Jesus Christ.
01:07:42
Speaker
Yes, the Holy Spirit is not mentioned explicitly, but I'm pretty sure they thought that was the Holy Spirit's work. And that's yeah that's where i ah see the the theory of nature, that it so emphasizes that this is not our work.
01:08:05
Speaker
Yes. Awesome. Yeah, that that's really helpful. kind of Just kind of fleshing out the kind of more concrete details of you know what it means for Christian liturgy to be theurgical. I know you also kind of engaged a little bit with some interesting stuff about Vatican II. I think, Jack...
Criticism of Liturgical Reforms
01:08:22
Speaker
Yeah, Vatican too super important. I mean, lots of documents on the church. Lumen Gentium comes to mind.
01:08:30
Speaker
But you do critically engage with the specifically Vatican II's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy with the recent reforms in the Church of Norway. So you've expressed concerns about the emphasis on noble simplicity and avoiding useless repetitions.
01:08:47
Speaker
Could you just elaborate on what this means in the Constitution and then your concerns about this from this Christian Neoplatonic theurgy point of view? Yes.
01:09:00
Speaker
Yes, again, here's where I found much help in Pigstock, because she's written a lot of this in her books of writing and repetition in identity. And ah she makes a point that modern reforms tend towards a strict and rigid order, while other liturgies, for example, the older all Roman rite or the Eastern liturgies, as well as older ah Lutheran, Anglican ones,
01:09:29
Speaker
are full of beginnings and re-beginnings of repetitions and what she calls liturgical stammer. and This can help us, that can help remind us that we can fully grasp her liturgy.
01:09:45
Speaker
ah Because, as she says, liturgy is actually impossible, but we can do so because we are participating in Christ. So when we repeat the liturgy again and again and the same divine service or across divine service week by week, this repetition is never completely identical.
01:10:05
Speaker
And as I said, she calls this non-identical repetition. And the underlying ah metaphysics here is that liturgy is not first and foremost a human ritual.
01:10:16
Speaker
though it manifests in ah human traditions and rites, but a participation in the divine act or and in a the theology. But since God cannot be comprehended or exhausted, any liturgical celebration will remain, will retain something new and unique every time ah you ah you repeat it And I think this is downplayed when you start talking about useless repetitions.
01:10:42
Speaker
I think that adjective actually reveals a total and misunderstanding of of what liturgy is. Because the liturgy is not the lecture hall, where you are filled with information.
01:10:54
Speaker
um But it's also not a ritual where you just ah reiterate the same identical thing. No, it is a never-ending journey towards one. It cannot be comprehended. It can only be non-identically repeated. so
01:11:12
Speaker
I think there's a dome played in Vatican II. So that's interesting. you So you connect the repetitions in the liturgy, maybe even the lack of you know lack of simplicity in a certain way. you You connect those repetitions with the notion of God being the mysteriousness of God. Like somehow those repetitions are or it's sort of indicative they're bound up with acknowledging the majesty of God, his mysteriousness, the way in which he transcends our ability to comprehend him. You would can you would tie those two together. That's really interesting.
01:11:53
Speaker
Yeah. so you also name I mentioned the Church of Norway. Should I talk? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's another thing that you kind of engage with is you kind of also discuss the latest reforms in the Church of Norway. I mean, yeah. Could kind of maybe just kind let us in on what those reforms are and then what? Yeah. What's your what's your criticisms of those reforms? Yes.
01:12:14
Speaker
Well, you could say my main criticism is that it has cost millions of crones. It started in 2001 and it's still not fully finished. But yes, what is interesting is that so in Norway, in the church, no we have a like a youth synod and they also ah they call for for simplicity and for more more more freedom within literature that were.
01:12:39
Speaker
and they were given a very long and expensive reform that, as I said, is not fully finished. And I'm not criticizing them here, um but the problem, I think, was not with what they asked for, but with ah what was offered.
01:12:59
Speaker
yeah Not necessarily with what it resulted in at the end, because the the end result was way more conservative, actually. But the The church council in Norway introduced the idea of the order and as a principle unity, and they were talking about three core values, which were flexibility, involvement, and localized contextuality.
01:13:29
Speaker
ah The problem with this is that we're ah some like Ratzinger, or and for example, Schmemann, in Orthodox Church, would emphasize that order not just a structure, but is a participation in the divine order.
01:13:45
Speaker
the In the Church Norway, they took inspiration from a Lutheran theologian called Gordon the Hellaforop, who has a structural approach where he emphasizes what he calls juxtaposition.
01:14:01
Speaker
And he says that meaning occurs through structure by one thing set next to another. So for him, this is it's mostly like a, don't know what to call it, like a almost like a sociological thing.
01:14:20
Speaker
So we have a fourfold structure. So we have the gathering and the word, the Eucharist and the dismissal. And it's almost like they were saying that the order itself was more important than the content.
01:14:38
Speaker
And to a certain degree, it's important to have an order like like between. They have be horizontally interrelated.
01:14:50
Speaker
But what unites them is actually their vertical ah relation to God, which then establishes any interrelation between them. And this was an aspect that was not emphasized at all in the reform.
01:15:05
Speaker
I would say it was missing, but it was de-emphasized to such a degree that I think the reform ah created a misunderstanding what liturgy is. So it was missing the the fact that what gives, would you say, meaning to the liturgy is...
01:15:23
Speaker
the vertical... Yeah, could you just, sorry, restate that? So you're saying, like, one this one guy's theory was that, like, what gives meaning to the liturgy is the way in which you structure the elements, like the yeah that you have A coming before B... It's it's it's almost like an a Calvinist saying the scripture interprets scripture. It's like the liturgy interprets... So by placing the word there and the bread there, like...
01:15:53
Speaker
It becomes almost like a structuralist interpretation. And yes, any reform has to take into consideration like but how to to structure things, of course, but mustn't lose sight of what a liturgy is, namely a concrete ritual participation in God.
01:16:12
Speaker
And of course, they could express this in in many ways. But it has to be grounded in Revelation as the orientation of God and as the orientation to God and the the reception of his gifts.
01:16:27
Speaker
And I would say that the worst part, I think, is was the like the core values. They were talking about flexibility and involvement and contextuality or like localized contextuality, ah which i would say created like an overly activist ah notion of participation.
01:16:45
Speaker
Because these are sociological terms. They're not ah philosophical or metaphysical or or theological. And they're almost like like Christian, neola like, not Neoplatonist, neo-capitalistic slogans, in a way.
01:17:01
Speaker
And I would say that concrete and liturgical movement is good, and you should encourage it. But it must have an understanding of what you encounter.
01:17:15
Speaker
Like as Pixta teaches, liturgical a repetition is non-identical because the reality in which it participates, which is God himself, and the heavenly liturgy can't be comprehended or exhausted.
01:17:31
Speaker
And ah liturgy which in a which is real should in a sense discombobulate us. very hard work well this can compbobulate us And that can teach us that her liturgy is not a place of shallow self-realization, but where we are almost dispossessed and become partakers of God's trunitarian self-praise, but we also remain what we are.
01:18:00
Speaker
And I think this can help us to balance out the various elements of the liturgy by anchoring them properly in in god
01:18:12
Speaker
Beautiful.
Beauty in Liturgy
01:18:13
Speaker
I kind of wanted to touch a little bit on your discussion of of Ratzinger, of Pope Benedict XVI. you you address I just want to quote this because I love this quote.
01:18:26
Speaker
Ratzinger says that, "...if the church is to continue to to to transform and humanize the world, how can she dispense with beauty in her liturgies, that beauty which is so closely linked with love and with the radiance of the resurrection?" and then you also quote, um he says that um they must make their church into a place where beauty and hence truth is at home. um Yeah, I just kind of wanted to get your, you know, can you kind of relate your remarks on this?
01:18:57
Speaker
I'd also be interested, you know, you personally as a priest, like, you know, how have you so tried it to to to make your church a place where beauty is at home? How have you kind of taken home Brad Singer's words here?
01:19:10
Speaker
Well, what Ratzinger is saying is that beauty is not first like a superficial aesthetic. It's not first about like being pretty.
01:19:23
Speaker
It's a participation in God who is beauty himself. So in Sacramentum Caratatis, which is is one of his apostolic exhortations, he says, well, you can say, I would say Ratzinger here, even if it's by Pope Benedict, but ah he says, beauty is not mere decoration, but rather an essential element of the liturgical action, since it is an attribute of God himself and his revelation.
01:19:54
Speaker
These considerations ah should make us realize and the care which is needed if the liturgical action is to reflect its innate splendor. And Ratzinger is his here making the Christian Plato's point that beauty in the liturgy is a participation in beauty itself.
01:20:13
Speaker
So in the spirit of the liturgy, he shows that this is a question of order, which is also the argument I have given for the liturgy. He points to the Pythagoreans who says that yeah the the mathematical order of the universe was identical with the essence of beauty itself.
01:20:34
Speaker
And it he finds this also in Dionysus, so in his general address on Dionysus, he notes that he transformed how the the Platonic or Lacroclan vision and says that he transforms this polytheistic universe into a cosmos created by God, into the harmony of God's cosmos.
01:20:59
Speaker
where every force is praise of God, and to show this great harmony, this symphony of the cosmos that goes from the seraphim to the angels and archangels, to man and to all the creatures, which together reflect God's beauty and are praise of God." End quote.
01:21:18
Speaker
For Dionysus, beauty in the world is always a participation in and the beauty beyond being. And of course, this goes back to Plato. like You have been discussing the Phaedo on the podcast. um and In the Phaedo, Plato or a Socrates says that, you see, it appears to me if some other thing is beautiful besides the beautiful itself,
01:21:44
Speaker
It's beautiful for no other reason than that it has a share in that beauty. And what this Dionysian or Platonic heration says is that beauty has a certain order and proportion, but it can't be reduced to that.
01:22:01
Speaker
As I know the book, the parades in Duremberg were ordered, yes, but they weren't beautiful. Like, beauty is a transcendental which draws us in, but it has to be be aligned with with truth and goodness, and it can be be be cut off from the other translators.
01:22:23
Speaker
So in the book I said that we believe P because it's true, we want X because it's good, and we look at Y because it's beautiful. But this the we must always and i'll see this this this together.
01:22:38
Speaker
And as a priest, I've tried to make my place, my my my church a place where beauty is at home. Because, well, one thing is actually is just, to you know, say the black and do the red.
01:22:55
Speaker
As in, just do the liturgy as it is. Because
01:23:01
Speaker
the liturgy is beautiful in itself. And just...
01:23:05
Speaker
saying the words and following the rubrics but without a lot of like personal interjections and, God forbid, explanations. ah ah um Except in a certain circumstances, most people in the divine sermons do not need to be told what we are about to do.
01:23:24
Speaker
like They can just be allowed to experience it. and And I think also if we explain it, we tend to explain it away. um And also, I think this will also turn liturgy into a drab lecture, or like a museum tour.
01:23:41
Speaker
and I also think that beauty is important when we preach, in that we should preach in a way that delivers the gospel, like instead of preaching about it, and that it becomes a part of the liturgy, and not like an interjection into it.
01:24:00
Speaker
um And aside from that, I tend to try to include the things and the liturgy that foster beauty. So, ah for example, I try to do your justice in a deliberate way, and but also naturally.
01:24:15
Speaker
And I also try to find hymns that are beautiful, but also singable. I think a lot of people ah beautiful hymns are not ah very singable.
01:24:27
Speaker
and And I think that is of paramount importance. Also in the Church of Norway, as all of of churches, you can have hymn between the first readings. And I often try to, depending on um the situation, to almost always use the responsorial song, because then we sing God's word in a beautiful manner. And think I think also have a nice, clever voice, but...
01:25:01
Speaker
Also, like I can last year we had a local or like a regional women's choir actually sing a Latin mass for Pentecost.
01:25:14
Speaker
And it was actually composed by a local doctor here in Latin. Oh, interesting. That's great. Well, yeah, I really appreciate this comment, giving us a kind of yeah little concrete insight into how a priest can...
01:25:29
Speaker
um enact that type of perspective.
Transubstantiation and Lutheran Views
01:25:34
Speaker
think I ah do, I think it's important there is there is what I've written on transubstantiation that I think is actually compatible with the Lutheran perspective.
01:25:46
Speaker
That what Aquinas means by accident is basically what we experience and what Luther simply calls bread and wine. And because accidents include chemical, composition, alcohol, content, and so forth. So I often, in encourage people to two to go in there and see that hu there isn't that much of a difference um on this important ecumenical questions, because like the Eucharist is the the practical center of the life of the church.
01:26:18
Speaker
so So I think I've given a good like ecumenical um contribution there, but that's obviously up to the reader to to ah to decide like i can't say that yeah yeah absolutely well yeah and yeah i'll just recommend ah to listen all those listening yeah highly recommend your book please check it out it's really uh it's worth it and it also for at least personally i found it to be to really enrich my um experience of the liturgy helped me uh to grow more um
01:26:55
Speaker
deeply into the liturgy or something like that. Anyway, thanks so much, Joel, for coming on. And, you know, it's been a great conversation. And thank you again for writing such a good book. Yeah, thank you.