father the son in the holy spirit
if my father help us to
penetrate more deeply that heritage christian spirituality to make it evermore our own so that we may pray evermore in your spirit this we asked through christ our lord amen
so our topic is the history of christian spirituality
this is a course i'll be teaching at berkeley and at holy family college of the topic the course wasn't my idea of at berkeley they had this graduate school in theology and they said the lots of people come and they can already with quite a focused interest when person will want
to do merck and another person wanted to augusta know whether it be and then they focus on this for two or three years and they come out with credit knowledge there but they may not know much about the kind of of the full christian heritage so what they wanted was some sort of course it would give this kind of overview
you
when you were cousins was here of listen about ten that's right he was here with a chap who had just taken his doctorate and for to be young we time but kitchen in a certain point this chap as who is cation so here's a guide to be taken as a doctorate in isla de
allergy and a young i knew at the cousin said it was a brilliant doctorate but he'd never even heard of occasion so the purpose of this course is that people will have at least heard of cases people say a few meaningful phrases
the danger of this course is incredible superficiality and just dutch kind of like the american tour of europe and today it's luxembourg and tomorrow it's supper lim et cetera
so that's obviously the big weakness the hope is to give an overview in terms of which then one may ten afterwards to focus but will be a focus being aware of the whole
we are catholics
and the word means universal
we believe that god is present in his whole body a whole body the church and this kind of geographically god is working in spirit is in africa in england and scotland we hope in california and also temporarily the churches he extent we are in
communion with some thomas aquinas with augustan with erroneous with gregory of nyssa etc this is the whole komodo and history for this talk of this symphony or otra to instruments in an orchestra and is precisely through all the various elements that you get this
the rich harmony but you need them all and if you leave out the drums at this point or if you meet up the violence there it it ain't the same so the a catholic would necessarily be that person who is interested really in the whole because the spirit works in this great variety of ways in the whole and it's in the older you get a full
nder concept of of the mystery which cannot be exhausted by any one part
heretic means someone who's picked apart and that part might be true better
he was so
when the english recently
irish catholics who said a heretic seven who's latched onto one truth and then sort of gotten crazy from solitude
because that one truth is true but if he takes a cut off from the whole of now the catholic is the one who doesn't want to buy i'm just to the truth and this would be the case and the level of dogma would also be the case of a level of spirituality you can get a kind of a spiritual heretic who's got a part that is profound
a true but he goes after that so
in such a fixed way that it becomes narrow and richard and fonts merton has some things to say it so the hope of this kind of course but it's not just a course it would hopefully be a challenge to everyone to do this sort of thing
and it's kind of the basic task of a contemplative life prayer personal prayer through that of next cod v know which would involve this is whole christian heritage
songs of if at didn't point their problems of objections of questions
ah hopefully when the key
source of this course will be the primary sources that is get the people i hope getting you to read primary sources of would start with scripture than the early fathers in the later father's its interests are so i think there are all these other things avail
double in one form or another new library souls that a just today and brett's tomorrow it would be doing the introduction to this because it might seem very simple you just start you go through that there's all sorts of issues underlying of how this can be done indeed whether it should be done with it's a contradiction in terms to talk
about history of spirituality and centres so today we're going to try to work through some of these underlying issues because otherwise they might remain implicit all the way through of was very important in any area of study and spiritually such a to always try to think through the presuppositions
because up a thing might seem simple but it might involve all sorts of choices that you have to make to get into a certain way of doing that and those choices condition later in when we or the other everything you do i ultimately become clearer
ah
for instance can there be such a thing as the history of spirituality or indeed a history of anything but especially list of spirituality they're here we have to get into philosophies and theology but there's a whole current of philosophy and there's
right back to the most ancient times and right up to the present the claims at history is just bulk or illusion
you see if we want to get a truth we want to get at what is
now what is is
and therefore is that which is precisely is this which is eternal therefore which is unchanging you want to get to that thing that lasts that's truth that's being that's that's the goal especially of a contemplative especially the mystic not the things that pass not the changing
the out or superficial but to penetrate to that last lasting eternal realm you see
now history would have to do with the superficial outer realm of changes
you have to go back way in the earliest of greek philosophy harmonies there's this giant who whose important because he had a huge influence on plato had a huge influence on many of the early fathers so much of this is already inside of us without even perhaps recognizing it so much it's inside lots of our prayer
years for instance lots of our collects of him on lay back in italy was here rousseff and literatures to dinner he said lots of our prayers are the liturgical purse are colored and someone say tainted by this platonic
dualism of change this appear and the things that pass away down here the whole effort at the christian is to move beyond the things that pass change to the changeless
so you see if you push this radically hard the whole idea of a history spirituality is absurd because spirituality is that level where there is no history there's no one thing after another there's just pure isn't this is clear him
is anyone here apartment and new here
jeff from a pet a follower of permanente's know a
just never heard of it did you hear of plato yeah yeah now plato was very influenced by permanente's permitted these as a rigorous logic and plato had to sweat my anything just to get out of it a bit some insist he didn't get out that much
when you see permitted these logic as soon as he says what we're interested in it is what is
ah
no
this
well i will first know
no
you see also when you talk and you want to know the truth about something you tell me tell me the way it is and tell me of the deepest level not the kind of superficial things had changed from day to day what is the real character of
of beauty not this particular changing beauty of that particular but beauteous such what is the ultimate depth of
see and you don't want the superficial changing accidents according to us this kind of distinction or harmony and language you don't have the illusion of change but you want the is the final level of being
now be ends and not being is not let's take this seriously so being is is means is use lasting unchanging
and between is and is not there's absolute abyss and about is not we can say nothing because it is not and there is no middle ground of becoming see that's what history presupposes that between is not and is there's this middle ground of becoming of change
but not just a negative sense of
famous it fit are lasting but in the sense of development
now
the influence of permanente's this radical there's only is there is only the turn all the rest is illusion
it's like if you've drunk to not much if you've drunk too much can see all sorts of things horses that are flying in little gremlins etc they aren't really there it's just dilution so permittees is claiming that any change any kind of changes think you see my and movie it's all illusion of the outer senses but if you'll just
recent through it just like the drunk guy was still a bit of sobriety and he says no wait i thought i saw a flying horse but this isn't reasonable so by the force of reason he works through the solution so army-navy says by the force of our reason that's worked through this illusion of change and we'll see it's just an illusion so we just set aside and
just contemplate pure been
and again this had quite an influence and play dogs and a critical of it also had an influence on aristotle who gets a little area of change into things but only on the level of matter as does played on
ah and thus through aristotle to some thomas so you can go right on and on is there a real concept in the greek
philosophical world of change in the positive sense as there is interesting the in the bible according to many executes the bible
a proposes this theme of salvation history god works through salvation history to our fathers abraham isaac joseph if you open the bible and eight like reading a ios or it isn't like reading permanente's he's a series of abstract meditations about being it's
history of what happened to abraham where he left from with whom he went where he went what happened to him than his sons and his sex god works through this history you see so it's an entirely different world view according to some and i think you can make a real case for this so you've got the greek of changeless wanting to contemplate being
the and you've got the semitic and only in recent time have we come up with philosophers who have proposed other categories that have permitted us to feel at home again with a biblical view of salvation history that history is real it's really significant it is no way an illusion
and it's not even perhaps a merely subordinate level of material see plato said to permitted these when you're exaggerating there really is change it's not just like being drunk but it just hit the level of matter
physical hands change in the and two o'clock move and things material things change but pure spirit is changeless snus since plato that's where permitted he's is right
if you ask what is pure beauty pure beauty is that it it's always that it always will be that is the pure form of beauty
form of truth is that and it's not going to change so what you want to do is move beyond the changing material level to the eternal spiritual level that's the platonic
answer to permittees that tries to give a little more space to change but it's very hierarchical and changes on one very lower leveled simply the material and changeless is on the spiritual
and then of course photo does have a tendency to see the human person is a kind of dualism and the pure spirit imprisoned in the body
so what does the whole task of the spiritual life you come here to the hermitage are you after year now pure platonic might say what you're after is free your pure spirit from the prison of this body address various techniques for this prayer techniques and meditation permanently software techniques
basically meditation on pure beam and that you arise above evolution to pure changed business plato offers techniques to rise above this changing world to the change the squirreled of the pure eternal forms
i said the christian fathers said we can fit this who'd with christian thought because the christian should be no longer on earth but in heaven living a long record of the body but growing spirit they detected they thought a kind of but a platonic dualistic tension there and so they said fine and then you can work at a whole spirituality and these
turn so the whole function of the monk of the contemplative to pass from the changing and temporal and that which passes away to the eternal and lasting and spiritual and transcendent etc
so here again a whole concept of history would be
at best
operating an and a very superficial level and at worst it would be just distraction from the pure contemplation it would be illusion and worse so of this is simply to suggest that they're real issues behind even proposing a course like this
any comments questions

wow

walk along
me
and yes there was invaluable
would this work

some tourists would arguments others wouldn't a might ten tried a recent synthesis where you to come up with the metaphysics of history
one

new historical
but
right
james

said

they're all sorts of issues here one would be the more a theoretical philosophical where the metaphysical ears it is at one level and history and another i think merton might be off operating us to another level of kind of deepest spiritual experience
oh and the question is how to get these hold together are they quite distinct if you're going to distinguish them fine now how how far you push the distinction because what role outcomes first to go just to the philosophical level metaphysics wants to get to the deepest sort of structures of being of
reality
now if you're saying that metaphysics is clearly distinguish from history it's hard not to end up saying that history doesn't have to do with the ultimate levels of being history that ends up the superficial level kind of you pick up the newspaper enough the latest thing and soon so ran into so and soul and
you know the flux
the obvious
right

right that's my kids what is history so that's our first category and it's not at all a simple things very very deep
but there can be up there was a first kind of confrontation between history and this more traditional metaphysics and many metaphysics sessions of the more traditional film rather threatened by at all you have history you also have things like evolution for instance responses the same issues see plato says
a horse is a horse you have an eternal form of horse someone ask what's is a horse well whether plato told so in source centuries ago where would we see it now there's a a horse is always a horse not that particular horse but the essence of hoarseness is always that and this particular horse might be
white and this for small and that and this was sick and that would stroke all these accidental differences but the pure form of hoarseness which is participate your something in there in some other way
that is unchanged this is to simplify terror this is the platonic solutions is eternal form of sparseness and with which
see madness then you got the participation in horse age the find sufficient force base in the individuals and this one is galloping distraction in that direction etc now permitted he says this level is simply elution there is only this level
which is ultimately one you be
plato says no it's not just the which there is this horse and that the horse and that horse and this plurality and diversity and change and movement comes from the level of matter
it's as if a pure form have been impressed in different matters you have a seal when you put it in this red wax here and that blue wax or now it's the material of the wax their that maybe if it's a very fine wax you to reflect every detail of the seal and that wax will pick up only so many
details or to so what you would have as a lot of impressions of the pure transcendent form and that gives you your change and and because matter is always changing and decaying etc plato is thus able to explains eternity and fixedness and change and the dove
our city etc
so history would be at this level the material level of change subject
and it would have to do now of aristotle comes up with a variety of this it i think so little more subtle and gives a little more space still to change
but still you see your ultimate levels of reality or the levels of aristotle to form
if you want to know the essence of a thing it's particularly the form that is the essence the unchanging what is that that's a human being what does that that's a horse what does that pensive table these forms table chair human being v very true according wants you to aristotle so course mrs always horses
the evolutionist comes along and says no rid of it
this hoarseness millions of years ago was a being it was sort of half horse and a half some other pre horse mammal form what you have to is a graduate of constant development
at at a certain point we arbitrarily say this is horse and we make a category out of it but the reality is not this eternal form the reality is this dynamic development whether on the level of nature call it evolution or on the level of human development called history
so there are contemporary forms of philosophy but think the reality is not in the eternal unchanging for the reality is in history is in the dynamics and someone like paypal will develop a whole philosophy and metaphysics of change of dynamic process
yes
now what about the eternal hoarseness m's now they'll say that of that as to do with human limits in thinking this is also get some we we can't grasp change in our abstract category we take like little photographs of a reality that bitch essentially sword and moving
it's like a football game and there's constant take a soccer game years we're getting these soccer game is constant movement and then the sports reporter there he takes a photograph year and he notes that what's happening at that moment is so we interact with is fixed photographs and he says these represent the soccer game and since they do
do but he shouldn't say they're the real soccer game you're only a week reflection of the soccer game that is essentially dynamic
whereas thus you see someone like dirk zone turns everything upside down the real is the movement that dynamic beach what he calls a long time
and these fix things eternal table this eternal hoarseness or eternal beauty years and peace are just human human constructs that are necessary for us to analyze the doctor has to descend the corpse and so he puts the kidney there and puts the
the eyeball here but the living organism is a continual dynamic in what we really want to do at least on this earth to get into reality on this earth three on the of god as a whole different issues but to get every other mr we want to use are fixed categories but realize that there
holy week instruments and get into the dynamic
an order to preserve and you will be all sorts of levels to this dynamic from this clearly superficial the really chronicle in the people to desist dice the decisive moments of forward meeting
this is just to suggest quite different philosophies of reality a whole series of philosophies that are essentially fixes i think as regarding the ultimate levels of reality
other philosophies that are essentially dynamic also in ancient of greece you have possibilities for which everything is fixed then you had inherently to us who said just the opposite panta rei all things change all things flow he said you can't step into the same
river twice
enigmatic phrase in the sense if you go back there and it's different words
merton filled a lot of sympathy for her reckless was very misty moments
my own i've been wrestling with this since undergrad to use i think personally that there's some truth in book and i think that god eventually is beyond the fixity of opportunities and also the change of records you just have to go into real mystery there
but at least these two schools give you a kind of a leverage wonder kids the other as it were because permittees ends up and just absolute fixity
interactive since i've been just absolute flux
and some you'd cut to recognize the space of either or both of these and the validity of both dimensions of reality it seems to me but without absolute ties in either
you
throughout history exist talked about charm such as terminal and each or got picture or so that seems like have so proud of the definition for a history of surely to
to develop a concept of a term of history and i'm not surprised pushed posing questions do you feel that an terminal history says do you see history his staff had been just fine
how about history in any case would not be static writing the basic question is history just in this world and just on a several questions is it just done a very superficial level in this world and thus may be true even interest us his contemporaries
is it on a deep level in this world it's a second question even the deepest level of spirit the third question does it even extended to what we are usually called eternity that would be a third more radical crush there's a whole thing of process theology today it is trying to talk of
god himself herself not a static fixed be in a kind of part amenities way but as dynamic activity
i soap requests i think i don't want to give a yes or no just now but move on we've got to get more into this first category history see what we may me by i'd say at least my thesis will be in this life history reaches down to the deepest levels
in what sense are we all historical
ah take the life of the church you see there was a time when jesus was not yet incarnate there was a time when pentecost had not yet occurred in salvation history according to the gospels and acts it's a he started his five decisive phases there is it before and after and this matters radically
are there is a before and after the old testament bosses and it's very decisive the alliance this is important david et cetera
in the life of the church and old time there was a before vatican two and it was rather different and there's an after vatican two things are no different
things change in the life of the church we used to have the model there again this gets into the churches they fixed rock where things never change and in this terrible world and uncertainty and movement i'm going to clean to the church where there's eternal doctrine which is always true and eternal ways in the eternal sacred lang
widgets are so many people are related to the church to the extent that the churches the on changing a bulwark against up a world can change but i think if you read the bible and also the fathers of you have the church in history
oh the catholic church before vatican two is just not simply the same as after vatican two
i'm involved in the dialogue with the anglicans something very decisive happened just yesterday efforts it's an app store you're researching but apparently the vatican came out with some sort of decree
that anglican priest who are married want to become roman catholic can become i'm kathy can become priests yet still be buried who now there was something of this up till now you're very secretly there were very few lutheran ministers and anglicans who were married and reaper
omitted to be a ordained to sell catholic priests and a practice but in a very hush hush way but this is all over the front page archbishop quinn's announce this and central then he added to other things one thing is that they will be able to maintain certain riches of the anglican heritage this isn't to win
oh and the other is all this is not meant minimally to prejudice the ecumenical dialogue with the anglican communion as such which is have a dialogue in dialogue considered between sister churches and says the word archbishop quit to all this
didn't exist two days ago archbishop quinn said all this and no we're entirely different ball game it might need today the vatican will issue all sorts of clarification said might be all i know is that the anglican roman catholic dialogue isn't the same today as it was two days ago it may
right move forward and the fact is in a much more complicated thing and also the a roman catholic position on the absolute of discipline of celibacy for our priests has been significantly nuance
some say that when this is it's a very roundabout way for the a catholic church to begin to modify its discipline on the celibacy of all diocese priests it can do it in a way that seems very conservative and cautious if it allows a bcs converts to stupid to be priests if they're already married
and this but obviously people will object will and anglicans can become priests and be married why can't pour catholic student so in any case it's a very complicated thing as all of history is and you'll see probably i imagined when interpretation of what's happened in they show catherine reported another
the monitor and another in the register it all of his bases at the level not have eternal force this effort
an a level of things that can be discussed and debated
what what is the real message of thomas merton some will say one thing another around this is this week but this is a certain also you if you think personally on your reality as historical
just take their superficial events today brushed your teeth with sentences but think a big when there was a moment when you weren't here for instance then there was a moment you decided to come here with some kind of commitment to try this vocation now that is mattered presumably for your spiritual life it is not indifferent
now presumably it reaches down to a certain depth
it's presumably not just the superficial level you're committing your whole life to god through monastic profession or take the moment of marriage another vocation to people who in that moment commit themselves from all the future
to be faithful etc
that moment is important that this anglican think of archbishop quinn of declared to be historical corrections that
there we are back to our word again by that means extremely important by that very word per amenities would mean elution you seen so we've got in archbishop archbishopric implicitly going quite a different theology of the history
so marriage monastic profession take another decisive one baptism we presume that matters that moment when you are objectively engrafted and price there's a before and there's a preparation for this and and there's an after this sort of thing
christians have tended to take history very seriously
we could go out the door and do something would be very unfortunate the when you know modifier old future life
is that person just came back who's been studying theology berkeley and he spent the whole summer in asia
a prison during a chat and chaplaincy work these are people who were there because the explosion of anger they killed someone or is sort of thing you see there was that moment that is radically modified there
like thereafter
ah this sort of thing so my thesis would be a distinguish between kind of a more superficial repetitive moments in history like getting out brushing your teeth putting on the habit this sort of thing
here there's change is one thing after another intends to be rather cyclical but then decisive moments that involve all of our forces of freedom and deliberation and reason and the depths presume it was the depths of were speaking when you came here when a person
chooses million that's a first answer that my own thesis be prepared to defend this that history reaches down to the depths since are very mysterious way
of the individual person of the community now we're discussing the foundation is tough stuff difference that's a decision that once made you see we are now definitively going to choose the property near milton or we're going to choose a property near and
would be los angeles or that will decide the shape the form of that community from their out just as years ago and fifty eight with dharma doctor matured to this is the place and we're gonna have a permitted should this is shaped things you see
so you could write a history of newcomers me it wouldn't just be superficial you could write a history of each one of you you could write a history of the church is countless once on the shop or new a history of christianity and maybe you can write a history of a christian spirituality but it is we're trying to wrestle a bit with history now
this is so

yeah
why
and that depends what we mean by that is a history is just in this world obviously then it can't
yeah even god is involved
ah
here we get really a mystery in i will maybe you can talk about history with a capital h somehow he was god was eternally be getting this sun you see in the spirit
christian dogmas been to this dynamic in the godhead not just this static on sort of up
we think
one
child
somebody

what
look at and

right
right
what
but it can you say you look at it from a historical standpoint i'd say which historical standpoint there's just a there's a kind of a will see this there's a kind of our history of kind of a positivist in history of events that happen chronicle
and then there's a deeper christian history then there might be the deepest issues through mystery which is god's history innocent of the eastern father's gregory of nyssa for instance to go back to this business does history end with death he speaks of a eternal dynamic growth in god as
after death we normally have a kind of a static image of heaven you die and right at that point of perfection you're there for all eternity you see your glasses that things did not even bigger and you'll have that much water enough anymore for all eternity with great sadness and others had this eternally dynamic coin
and god was absolutely infinite
and so we are for all eternity while this would be a the code history called dynamic whatever
in some sense dynamic in some sense act
impure pure thomas i'm used to correct but this act in the sense not have static sort of fixity but dynamic life vitality now if you have kind of this is a transcendent understanding of dynamic then you would say at the deepest level the only way you can understand
human tragedies etc would be to a historical
that is it isn't all fixed in in tragedy that person
he is a psychotic you'll always be out of contact me that it but there's as deeper mysterious process there's no fixity and this there's always dynamic grace that can change everything
so you can talk about change with the old series of negative categories and connotations change means not stable not lasting not eternal and that would be the tendency of someone who starts from kind of a possibility or up
platonic categories are you can see change as salvation history as grow
and you'd come up with a whole different view so i think you you gotta take an option here
i as i say i think either model when you take it simply isn't sufficient it doesn't do a
justice to the mystery of interiority or god
but and together the sort of force each other beyond each other the tcp their most of that way to talk about that you person your community and church and god
other questions comments
which we've been going forty five should we take a break and then come back or keep going
he had already know

ah i see
we might go on a little more i don't know what danny
okay
yeah so something about history and princess tea yards as everything is the sum of its past nothing is comprehensible except through its history he's working through evolutionary categories we can almost understand the world today in terms of its g g
geology or astronomy or were swallowed she turns out where it's come from and so the individual person so the church we can only understand the church today if we understand it's been through vatican two it's been through trend it's been to a reform in the west a system in the east
of truths and france all the positives all the negatives that's to understand the depth and profundity of this church of ours
ah so this is of
what is history then it's hard to come up with the definition but it would have to do with dynamic
not statistically know that as a significant category things are dynamic and not in a cyclical way but moving forward sort of consecutively and one thing i'm adding to another
so that you just can't go back into a a cyclical thing some people have a cyclical view of history well it this has happened before there's nothing new under the sun etc the biblical view is that there is something going to percent despite that tests that particular phrase and of wisdom literature was influenced by the east a kind of pessimism about
history but the normal approach of the old testament of a new his optimism that there is something new and it's basically good
the tub david again does represent a new step forward solomon for him christ as the breakthrough and cetera
ah with christ though we can do a paradoxical moment somehow the fulfillment of history missy
ah
i remember a professor nicholas can you talked about in time
here at the whole monastic interested the eschatological dimension now what does this do with our thing about process and dynamic industry that is it might be that we'd want to miss the significance of history up till christ but now christ has come the new era is as dawned and this is it
we're in end time i got into a little discussion with the professor michael john this point you see
normally in the aleutians will want to maintain the tension here they would say that with christ is the breakthrough of the kingdom but not in the sense of the definitive end of time and the definitive establishment of the king we still pray every day in your product by kingdom come as
and holy scriptures ends with this prayer come lord jesus come quickly we're still in this eschatological tension i would they even a boat given the contemplative would want to witness to both sides of this kitchen not just to the eschatological as arrived because that can vote because it hasn't just arrived and comply
lead and definitive were also in this tension a weakness of fragility of still have a journey and maybe the herman to the contemplative should feel this more than anyone the team of poverty can assist children
ah so it might be that not even the eschatological dimension will want to simply cancel out this history indeed the book of acts luke writes the life of jesus the death and resurrection you have such that he goes into the book of acts which apparently the first manuscript was the same book sort of continued
we divided into when separated by john but apparently has been conceived it it's one dynamic of salvation history of what happens after christ is obviously simply an extension of the christ list but it is an extension
in poland says i'll be keeping up with lacking the sufferings of christ and crisis and you will do greater things haven't dived an inserter but there is at least this expansion of the gospel to
to all nations and branch twelve deaths
so things go on and a axes like the old testament in the sense and the new testament but this dynamic moving forward peter goes for purchase samarium these new questions arise new issues that the church has never faced where we can do in his chin towns what about circumcision or new and then paul
see you a whole new issues and salvation through observance of the law or through pure grace this becomes an explicit issue things that hadn't been explicit before but only implicit this is all history see and this is radically important
so
when last distinction it might be interesting about history of and
theologian of reform a richard neighbor made it between outer history and inner history
the documents you have and and doing scientific studies of those documents this and we all are
we shouldn't have disdain for of a outra history it that which a can be verified
the census department has all sorts of information about us know about each one when you were born of color of your eyes maybe it's all these things that name of the father and mother a series of historical data about you this is our history
but we asks to what extent with all this information that they penetrated into the deepest levels of your most profound values you most profound holds your most profound he fears your most profound choices options in your life
and so he says let's not confuse the one with the other so one might think because he's read all sorts of data about a
he hasn't really got into the depths is now these depths may be old princes the depths of me he'd you only i can experiences and maybe only even partially and maybe also with a deep deep friend with whom i communicated this
you get into inner history depth history it may be that christians have an understanding of the history of the church for the interests for use petroleum that no one else could ever have regarding christianity even if they take a course since read all the texts and learn all the dates were the biggest authorities on scram yoga in italy is an atheist
but he knows more than most of the canal debates about when sidra you have lived where he went from place to place where ideas influenced him it said you can do a whole trip ah through out or history that in this kind of thing and come up with lots of information there's no doubt about it
but it might kids let's hope that there is a depth understanding overall mule that comes from of having a shared from within romulus options
now that come that here we get into this depth profundity
now the hope the christian is to bring these together so we're not calling some kind of schizophrenia that is tooth
the concrete dies in my objective life my inner history that's a whole thing of public profession monastic profession or public matrimony or so many people to they see what why do i need to get married whether we both love each other we have the tend to live with each over there as well as why do we need to go out there and
public ceremonies such well it's a it's a human urge that's essential to to fulfill and to harmonize and to unify these two histories so what publicly professors with ones habit and hopefully with one's way of life etc
what the deepest
the danger years raise up superficiality and also hypocrisy when can put on the habit and you also very quiet noise very prayerful to and inside outside you are white and gleaming but inside yourself the tubes inserted the sort of thing so you can't have just the outer or just the inner the christian
once the both but that's part of the that might be part of the up
venture of spirituality is to get this act together get the outer history together with the inner history and this might have been for instance the greatest the greatness of christ's death neighbor has a great meditation on christ as he who unites in our history and outer history
and most of us it's a struggle all of our life to get these two together
but anyway this might be a distinction that helps note the different depths of this thing so we talked about history then we have to talk about what do we mean by spirituality and where we've been specifically by christian spiritual but we've tried to wrestle a little with his first category so maybe we can think about this take a break then come back with
have questions or problems about history
a stop
emotions but it's not too big of a berkeley
not that i've heard particularly
oh maybe okay i'm certainly out with the dominican zero pregnant dementia process theology

but there's various you see your language pair of be tragedies they would say of fixes prejudice than is becoming that becoming is been in since then that or something
precise never really
time
right so our language is very defective according because we haven't seen that this kind of photographic approach and so agree these people we have to make a real effort to get into the dynamic and be an ultimate dynamic which is guns now there are some of these process he as they do weird things some of them not all but some
would argue for the limited of god god does not know all things is not all powerful and said
precisely
right

right the there's all sorts of brian it's just like you can talk about scholastic theology and you have everything from duns scotus to
whitehead is they're great philosopher of this of process and and there's this ultimate level of process so what they've got is a pretty significant contemporary philosopher that gives them a whole theoretically theoretical underpinning but it's one is probably the most significant current of protestant
the allergy now
i would think that all catholic theology is trying to take are certainly history very seriously
ah i think someone like components that are trying to get beyond mere easy static ideas of god but to not do not to fall into some kind of limited god this is the trick
two ever a god it's infinite energy and act
but not a god was kind of struggling along towards some future fulfillment
change seems to require an idea of incompletion which you've got to haven't got is a dynamic in some sense but full completion at every moment and that's not as presumably or life in some sense in heaven would be at every moment of i think for greatness it's not that the so
colds are suffering anguish because they're not it's a great mystery him
but that's the ultimate mystery of god himself i think we can at least start you that here on earth for us in our life in the church for our life in this community and and our interior life i think we can argue that history is is key and not just superficial

i've heard it said i don't know all about that that it is a unique proposal of the judeo christian heritage that up till then everything was cyclical at this and you have the nature cycles
right right
yeah
right
and does their writing sometimes you just just kind of cycles significant
i just don't know enough about it but i know people have argued with grading system so that uniquely judeo christian as idea that up
things happen that are decisive in god works precisely through these things not simply above them
god hears the morning of israel and each have been comes down and liberates is mrs decisive in israel it's steepest religious experience is not going up into some kind of neoplatonic changeless forms but remembering anagnorisis and then moving on from there sort of thing
towards the whole

oh

well it's a nice going to all nations baptizing them and maybe anteriorly hundred so you know the old sturgeon yeah your spirituality whatever it needs but it might be something like wholeness maybe our own i think it's in the father's a goddess well this is in scripture god is giving us more time to work how
out our salvation so then we need this time to get our act together sir
one thing
no

with certain young
i think you can in any case only do it in thing also within
because sometimes we seem to be going backwards in our spiritual life it's a dream the father seeing this can be a real growth in humility and section but
at least it's easily one can detect some sort of geographical like these steps
though it isn't simply linear because there's whole parts of the middle east at once we're we're a flourishing christian churches in the time of paul for instance it ain't no more
but still hold who comes africa for instance to the new world but it's a mystery
but i think the fathers every strongly this impression that there's this dispense in this economy of nor in this interim period where we're working it out and then in the moment of relative fullness christ will come

well

soon

said
yeah
oh

as
learn
water
her

i think that those getting him
moving
shoes
why

since more to me the whole i don't know somewhere like mother teresa of calcutta who approaches these untouchables and profoundly concerned about each one of them as a unique creature of god cetera there i think hinduism at its worst simply says you know these are the intangibles it's always been that way and
and also something like the muslim religion very interesting but you can get into a fatalistic concept that it's that way it's always been that way you know a praise be this with our role is passive
an acceptance of but in the historical personal list view of god works through us working in history so we're often challenge to get out him
helped him touch untouchable and is this sort of thing precisely as an expression of our
spirit

interesting that a similar like boo-boos profoundly semitic jewish will struggle is he through creates a contemporary language of this interpersonal i vow dialogue
no
i think a good case can be made it the history is of interpersonal action sort of thing and i can't just have my own history as a human person just poor baby in the jungle and very difficult difficulty will it arrive in and kind of human full psychological ever
the potential over

history i think deadly mean seconds
the thing about you and i think it's interesting often his language suggests platonic though archetype thing you know you go this particular
dream is interesting but what you really want to get us to the archetype their that remind you the art type in that purse new trip to hundred years ago and that person it's this sort of unchanging of great mother archetype might be the virgin mary year it might be on their can have all sorts of forms but you want to get by
beyond the accidental changes to the essential eternal architecture i think there's a lot of them know

he does have journey etc but

history

yeah think a deeper had something interesting about this dialectic of the outer and inner the christian doesn't want to just eliminate the outer princess we were talking coming up at the institution of slavery which was a existence the whole history of humanity right up to quite recently still practices and to work
but that radically shaped millions of people's real existence you see and that's our history certainly soon saw as a slave that means that person's property can be sold and bought and treating some cultures life and death power over that slave just like a dog a
that's near our history and there's the mystery of the inner that person might ever write it that a deep fullness of union with god and doubts that but the christian is always intention to to express that inner freedom of children of god in the fall society and that's where you get into these contemporary things of
of the social commitment central but i think you could work it out also the inner contemplative dimension of expanding to your whole person and also your old community this of inner
grace are striving to

at answer

the one of the issues will see us when we pick up by on the writings of augusta more gregory of nyssa what it would be to what extent can we presume you can get lots of things about our history to what extent can we get the inner history of these persons and to what depth
that's the hope of a course like this as we can get at least in some way into some depth and not just a this course whenever you pick up augusta to do spiritual reading or gregory of nyssa river be that person lived centuries and centuries ago there's some kind of implicit hope that are you can get to the depths of that person through these writings
and be nourished by his experience in your own spiritual growth
is it really possible and to me and ask ourselves to what extent we just remain on a superficial outer level to what extent are we a contemporaries with them at the steepest spiritual level to what extent are they really cut off from us because they live in different ages with different values etc to what extent can we re
really understand of gregory parliaments or and augustan or a these are all issues that to have to be thought through inserted wrestled with
and been fascinating
well

well not yet and lasts

they
oh really
says

yes
yeah
once
was some sports
oh boy

story
spending
what makes people

st

right
i'm not sure i would tend to use the word not his here but maybe profit the person who reads his moment in the lighter
problems
yeah maybe you could argue beethoven and understood his period best in depth but i wonder if you could argue that he understood i don't know a third century greece in deauville calms her down
i think that's true and that gets us back to kind of a hope i think is contemplative sit were not cut off from the depths of history simply because we haven't taken ten years of history courses at the university of santa barbara or something that there is this depth level it may be again that we understand why he was better than this
atheists to as lots of information about him
ah
the none of this others could write on romulus through the pics or but this there's this issue that i think the whole theme of depth history brings us back to and again i think we would want to read not just our own age prophetically but try to as catholics in the best sense to be in contact with the whole heritage
so what this course is trying to be is kind of a challenge to have a lifetime project of trying to get in-depth contact with the whole life which is impossible but itself at least we need impossible task related tasks

watch
hollywood

will religion
only

only

yeah
i think it's great that the to get one of the functions i would think of the contemplative is to get beyond idols to break items to get really into the desert and much of this is to go beyond this union only only to go beyond by doing it certainly
i have had survey interference not to disdain that thereafter to value and and to but to recognize that it's no longer the you know capital t
kong god wrote a beautiful essay and the decision between tradition with a small tea and tradition with a capital t we often tend to confuse this to when we
jesus three stones people absent ties the traditions of men soothing
but to be aware that i don't know
some people are so caught up with benedictine spirituality and it's the be all and end all that it has various phases with various expressions various limits that there are other forms of monasticism before after that there's a benedictine monks who are completely disappointed about what is minutes at all this i think is he
helps to to value the specific relative expressions and also do not be bound by any one of them as the definitive
oh wow
they're said that text there's not many history of chris of spiritual these around but there's that of one volume attempt of again and and troll called the city in the desert and sort of thing
cute central section is with ignatius adams spent about twenty times more pages on ignatius than on augusta neuro her choose to a day recognize that is just absurd better we write our own histories according that some this should teach us we tend to do that will give
romuald four hundred pages in our own five hundred page history few christian spirituality or something else sometimes it's just
someone like come one senior the favour interest because he wants to go back to tradition and history we started out as a little narrow period i don't see any way where you can justify absolute ties into one particular mass form in latin and who were forms before and the reforms after and white you know say that that is the absolute
oot mass form once you get the full of you a hopefully you can avoid this
absolute icings

right
right
now this is a this is one whole side of the truth i think there's a more positive side that as we work through history not only to not repeat the error is not only to not absolute ties but also to get in touch with all the riches in that spirit has spoken and st francis of assisi and and some dominic and to so there's this whole not just not as
absolute ties but value
people do things they they really improvising something that in thought of maybe i'm just true patients for sure he's been tried lots of times since very beautiful but we can learn from the past so i think there's the other side to that the absolutely easy in history is in christ since this paul's words and central
but since
on

me

else

i'm trying time have

when all
we like
like

history the danger of a historicist approach is relativism and st francis said this but the bonaventure was a saint to and he said something quite different etc so where am i you it at the end so many kids after years of university they come up with a shrug and then they need some they need a recruiter's of so
i think you've gotta come up without something tyrannical but for something you are willing to commit life and death
ah there's a whole different thing we've gotta go on spirituality or spirituality is this is a big debate it's gone gonna should we talk about one spirituality or spiritualities but part of thing i would dump some kind of ultimate sense
ah it seems to send me and others that there is a ultimate one spiritually who is christ you know his spirit this and now it's to that definitively that i'm willing to die or live work
that i'm going to be martyred for
am i willing to be martyred for said rami world's understanding of recursion ah i may be edified by the helped to grow
but or if his concept of a day or something like that
so uh hopefully this kind of course would not leave us is a kind of a relativistic well you know they've done all sorts of things new but a challenge to and to try to work out what am i going to do and what are we going to do so life and ten that issue my life what history wants to do with see this moment
is decisively important the sickly and all reincarnation says well i miss of this life while i one hundred million other lives historical says this is very important you can walk out that door and committed a mortal sin and you know that said if you stay there
so the historical or protein it's best doesn't end a relativist having seen everything
but saying i'm not absolute dice or relative but go the whole way with a choice that i must make but that older my choice did i make is not for this school of spirituality or that school but it's for christ

right right

yeah i think this with i would i'm wondering if you should use the word absolute terror and sees me there's only one absolute who is god whose could take even marriage of christ can call us to abandon their take even the hermitage that a certain point run with might be called to go and preach the missions to the
when
right
are you
oh i wish i remembered that because a nipper work through this rather interesting the a try to avoid relativism on one side
and trying to avoid up a making on a divinity out of but taking you know it's some something to which about which were very tough and which will read willing to defend etc
the
it it's limits recognizing its limits and this is just for me and he just for my life or just maybe you yeah but but i'm going to give everything to it because i can't do everything i can't just a shilly shallying over the whole field
ah

no
why

lim
once for all kind of decision
oh
right
right
of that their we've gotten i think to the absolute ground of this by not saying there for that everyone should be arbitrary thing i'm saying that my understanding and the churches confirm this solemnly is it i am bound for all my life to i would change the of unions to the me very soon
now what form it might take tomorrow but i i've got what newman have we are doing called unconditional ascent to this
code
david
not really
it's a go

the same

yeah i think when the interesting points were trying to look at the whole history to get more freedom etc but we're going to be looking as contemporary western and will post vatican two and probably will have a series of prejudices and values etc
i was thinking passing this catholic bookstore in berkeley they have certain books out that are very jazzy books they don't have other books out now in ten years or probably of other books with the then be chassis and now merton is very big game teresa of calcutta and st thomas more glamorous and thomas mormon these things
happened but i think that's very
there are certainly phases we are in a phase at once distress that sensuality the word of god and brats road devices too much
certainly sir monasteries to globalize too much i think the richness in an ignatius or st francis de sales or something like that
oh right
yeah
ah still a
there are moments in the life of the church that are moments of renewal
and when you get back in contact with greater depths of the church than before i think it could be argued is probably contemporary arrogance but that with vatican two there had been some breakthroughs that you argue about the centrality of christ the centrally the word of god the centrality
of the eucharist for instance not eliminating nervous but that's sutra he sings i think you can make a good case for it on any level feel lodge it and i think it's very important that somethings are more peripheral and something's the gospel of john is simply more important than
then ignition exercises princess is history of christian spirituality by den and and trial i'm sort of anticipated that this it we should you begin the history of christian spirituality
this is where the great liberties that the person who sits up a course or writes a book you cut it as you want and you leave certain people out you get more spaced others you etc so where do you begin the thing now they argue that you should begin with the fathers of the desert that's where you get a clearly reflective of
our consideration of how can i grow in christ before know they're so concerned with just announcing the good news that they're not reflected but how grow in sanctification
now this is an incredible choice so in this history of christian spiritual and there's not one word about the gospels no one word about st paul no one heard about the first father's know someone like boogie and somewhat i think i'm better than doing the whole benedictine monastic heritage that is incredible
two found the whole enterprise and christian spirituality and the fathers of the desert know note as
the ultimate implications are incredible

able to deny that
oh you mean you're sure that's the other the other is pure protestantism and says the word of god only and then they have to explain where the spirit has been for two thousand years sort of be so i think the catholic or orthodox or anglican approach and now more and more the protestant is to take very seriously
but again without absolute but spiritually unique gift to the spirit to us in ignatius of loyola or him brother lawrence or thomas a campus or whatever it be and to try to get in contact with a all which are a thing
and we also are very conditioned by our time and probably can't get out of a totally but we can become reflexively aware of it it might be though that we are at least aware that were conditioned in a way that many many past generations weren't
in many medieval cathedrals you see of the christ mystery air and the guards around chrysler medieval armor and the and don't make adjustments will be a medieval normal it now that wasn't just a kind of update but they really thought that way did they largely lacked a historical center
once you see now we know that that the pilot didn't dress like jimmy carter and that a the troops at the foot of the cross were dressed like a marines or of russian and this is interesting

and your lap
in that on the some wow
because it a church
we have the president weapon story
and team but when they do that in chicago there are aware of what they're trying to do
ah
watch night
this might be someone like bead has a consciousness of history i've heard the editing argued but in any case i think it can lease be said on a superficial level we have more awareness of historical than they did them better
when she made the distinctions then you have to make the effort to get back to the contemporaneous and again christ this have to be confronted by a jimmy carter tie permits to fix of because if you leave it just back there then you've really done yourself damage if the essential contemplative effort
is to be there in communion with christ said centered some that's the second step
so people are walking out on i'm sorry chris mccarthy said so that you tomorrow we'll talk about spirituality think that went through what do we mean when say spirituality why kick that word does the word itself can be limitless does it suggest a kind of dualism of spirit matter is a platonic leaves
a heated as many have argued is that the best word to describe what we're after when we pray and asceticism etc
but what do we mean when returned but spirituality
and then when we read by christian spiritual and then we'll be ready to sail