Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of those who believe in you and kindle within them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. Let us pray. May the outpouring of your Holy Spirit, dear Lord, cleanse our hearts and make them fruitful by the inward sprinkling of his dew, through Christ our Lord. It's important to know where the prayer comes from. It's my own translation, it comes from the Roman mission, that's right, yes, it comes from, it's the First Communion, which is rather nice, very neat, prayer handwriting, I think. What is man? If you look at me at the moment, you might very well wonder. Nice amalgam of English and American. These words are, of course, what is man, the first three words of the fourth verse

[01:16]

of Psalm 8, a psalm which begins by looking up at the wonder of the night skies with the moon and the stars, and it's curious how strong is this impact of nature which one can get between the tall buildings of the city, even when other impressive works of nature are hidden or far away. And then one looks down at the physical littleness of man, compared with all that splendor. Yet as verse five of the psalm goes on to reflect, there's something about man that makes him only a little less than God. The Hebrew word there is, of course, Elohim. It's God-like substance in a certain way. Sometimes it's translated as angel, but probably here it means simply God. And you'll remember I wrote on one occasion, quoting another psalm in which the psalmist

[02:20]

is saying, I've said you are gods. Now it seems to me to be quite evident that we cannot sensibly go beyond this point in our introduction to theology, which has so far been concerned with God revealing himself, whether in the scriptures or most ultimately and absolutely in the person of the unbegotten son, and with the theological vision which begins to emerge from considering these two interrelated sources, without saying something satisfactory about the mystery of man, human beings, the ones to whom the revelation is made. Curious enough, I know of no ordinary textbook, and there are few enough of great classical works of theology, that do this as soon as I feel we need to do this nowadays, if it's ever done at all, except sometimes as a kind of spiritual luxury. For I need hardly say that an ordinary old-fashioned course in moral theology was never any substitute

[03:26]

for a proper consideration of the mystery of man, which evidently must at least start in dogmatic theology. I believe the word mystery is the correct one to use in this connection. In the first place, because the nature of man is not unrelated to the revelation that human beings are made in the image of God, a fact which suggests that they have spiritual dimensions that need making as explicit as we can make them with any confidence. And in the second place, because in a more conventional sense of that word, we are mysteries to ourselves, a fact which is sometimes more readily recognised by unbelievers than by those who profess to have faith. This latter, almost universal experience of people who are at all reflective is out

[04:28]

as grounded, among other things, in the fact that we are a spirit-body complex, which it gets harder to talk about and understand the nearer we get to what is largely physical about ourselves. In other words, we really do need, as a complement to a sound theological sense, a sound sense of ourselves. Some kind of Christian and Catholic anthropology in a world not only things about God, but things intimately concerned with the lives of human beings are increasingly challenged or dismissively questioned. That Holy Scripture has such a conception of the immediate importance of a right conceiving of ourselves is suggested not only by the awe-inspiring thought of Psalm 8, but also by many phrases and passages, rather especially in the Psalms in general.

[05:29]

This, as we shall see, with one of the rather rare references to our creation, Psalm 118, verse 73, says, Your hands have made me and fashioned me. Give me understanding that I may learn your commands. Or, again, in the wonderful Psalm 138 or 139, according to the way you count, whether Hebrew or Latin, 138 in Latin, which is a prolonged meditation of ourselves under the penetrating gaze of God, who has perceived us when we were being formed in our mother's womb, and from whom there is really no place to escape. Remember, if I take the wings of the morning, darkness is not dark for thee, and all the rest of it. I personally wonder whether there is not in a feeling of this kind, as in the expression

[06:39]

of awe in Psalm 8, something which can and does come from time to time to those who are not yet formally believers in the God who reveals Himself. Naturally that such a one should want to be known by God, and so pray the prayer with which Psalm 138 ends, search me and know me, presupposes an act of faith. Alas, not even those who actually profess to believe are always brave enough to go on to say, search me, O God, and know my heart, and see if there be any wickedness in me, and lead me in the way of the lasting. Let's return to the initial act of faith for the moment, that act which alone can make theology really alive for us personally. Here we come to a matter upon which John of Damascus and St. Thomas appear to differ at

[07:42]

least to some degree. That what St. Thomas is prepared to concede to St. John is, I believe, of enormous importance from a pastoral point of view. And I make it my excuse for not discussing with you the problems raised by the demonstrations put forward by St. Thomas, which he thinks, if properly understood, lead to the conclusion that it must be true to say that God is, and is not some product of a mood or fantasy of the imagination. Question 2 of the first part of the Thomas Owen Theological, deals with the problem of whether God exists, a very proper thing to consider before proceeding any further with theology at all. For should the answer be no, then theology, understood as the science or knowledge of God revealing, has its very foundation removed. Now, in order to discuss this matter, St. Thomas first asks the question whether the

[08:43]

fact that there is a God is a self-evident matter. He's going to say that this is not a self-evident truth, and therefore he chooses to quote St. John of Damascus as representing the apparently contrary point of view, since at the beginning of chapter 3 of book 1 of the De Figo Orthodoxy, St. John says that the knowledge of God's existence has been revealed to us through nature. As St. Thomas quotes him, he is using a Latin text which employs the word innate. Perhaps I'd better just go a bit, and I'm sorry I didn't finish with you. Let me just outline. Question 1. Question 2. Article 1. Article 2.

[09:45]

He's quoting St. John of Damascus, saying to everybody that God exists is naturally innate, inserted in him. So God is known, is evident. As St. Thomas quotes him, as I say, he's using obviously his Latin translation. But the sense is certainly all right. And it's rather, especially this word innate, which gives St. Thomas something he feels he can concede. I'd like to translate for you, I'd like to translate his answer. It must be said, he says, that to know that God exists is innate to us in a general and

[11:03]

confused way, in so far as God is the final bliss of mankind. For a human being naturally desires happiness. And what someone naturally desires is naturally known by them. And then here comes his real objection. But this is not the same thing as knowing that God exists in an unanswerable way. Just as, for instance, to know that someone is coming towards us is not to know that it is Peter, even though it may be Peter coming. Do you see St. Thomas' objection? Not quite. It's, if you like, what St. Thomas is conceding, this is of course the way to medieval discussions in universities, in fact this is the way, a terrible way, those awful days when we had

[12:08]

to do these discussions in Latin, as I did when I was younger. You always have to try to concede something to your objector. And in this case St. Thomas can, because he has a conception of desire as being the good which the seeking power seeks. And he says that in case of human beings, because human beings desire what is good for them, it's true to say that they do know there must be some good. And it is also true that that good is there. But what it may be, whether it's Brother Michael walking on the path as I think it is, or who it be, I don't know.

[13:09]

And so it is not so vivid that God exists, and I suppose we don't really need to be convinced of the truth of saying this. Mark, yes, come on. Well I'm not sure that I followed the argument. So it's not possible... He's not saying that we couldn't arrive at the point when it became clear to us that it was indeed God. He's simply saying that when I have a great kind of appetite for the good over here, I don't know that this enormous appetite, which in my case as yours is enormous, as the years go on, I can't know that the thing that is going to fill this is God. And I think it's all kinds of things, and this is really what he goes on to do in lots

[14:23]

of bits of the sermon, to say that people think that it's riches, think it's food, or think it's somebody else. All kinds of wonderful things, the world is full of them. So you know, doers care of things, the world is so full of wonderful things, I think we should all be as happy as kings. Does he say that we can know that something will fulfill our desire? I suppose in a certain way he takes that for granted, yes. That because we have such... He takes the fact of desire as being an indication that it is not empty. It is of course one of the things to remember that St. Teresa of Alesia in her very darkest period, one of the things St. Teresa of Alesia was very convinced of in one of her darkest spiritual periods, is that God doesn't give us desires in vain. Now of course that starts from the standpoint of faith as an experience.

[15:25]

But simply as desire, of course there are enormous numbers, everybody is rushing around America today looking for something, aren't they? And not all of them know that they're looking for God. That's really what he's saying. If you like, God may be there, and he is. This is not so they know it is, that's what it is. Obviously for somebody who has, even for people who have faith, there may be moments of hesitation about these inexperience, if you see what I mean. Thank God there are, because we should have a very confused idea of God at all. If we didn't slowly have to eliminate certain pictures, certain idols and so on. It's very good to have idols too, from time to time, on the route.

[16:31]

Because they sometimes give us an intimation of that which is greater than they are. All right? Isaiah, you got it? You see why St. Thomas doesn't accept it, yes? John Baptiste? I'm not clear as to, those who are rushing around looking, have they a sense that there is something there, whether it is God or not, or whether they have a sense of anything. Well, let's say this, they want something, a somewhat. You see, if you think that the kind of extent of human potentiality, of human desire, is very great indeed, you can say that insofar as A pursues B, C, D, and all those other things, he or she is looking for somewhat.

[17:34]

But that can't be taken to mean that they know what that thing is, that will satisfy them. And that's why, of course, when you know, Love Walked In, and all those kind of things, all those lyrics from all those songs, they all indicate that Heaven's arrived here and now. And of course you can think that for a time until you find that it hasn't. After breakfast in the morning, perhaps. But that has to be discovered. It's not given in the initial experience. You think, ah, this is it. I suddenly remember a very charming West Indian saying to me about one or two of his love affairs, because one always thinks that this blast, this is the real time.

[18:42]

And of course this exactly conforms to experience. Now this is not, of course, in presenting it like this, this is not a way of laughing at these experiences, because as I say, there may in fact be, I should think for the greater number of human beings, they are the path by which they discover that only God will do. It is just as well, I think, not to begin too sure up in the head that only God will do, because you may possibly get rather on the wrong path if you do that. But that's something we can perhaps reserve to discuss later on. But at any rate, you've got the idea now, Mark. You see that in other words, all St. Thomas is saying is that desire is there all right, and man is in fact only in practice

[19:45]

going to be able to be fulfilled by God himself. But that doesn't mean to say that he knows that in the very fact of desiring. Is God causing the desire? Is God making us desire him, and we don't know it? Did St. Thomas say that? He said God is there, but we do not know it. God is there, making the desire, but we don't know it. Well, insofar as we are creatures, God has made us, yes. Stones don't desire anything except to fall down. According to the old philosophy, yes. Except to fall down by their weight. This is the wonderful idea, oh I'm sorry, I mustn't get talking about Augustine again, because this is where Augustine's conception of ponderous weight gets done. I mean, Augustine, of course, being a specialist on Mark, he knew rather a lot about it. You see, the thing is,

[20:48]

this is what Avery brings us out of his thesis on friendship. You see, it's a quotation from the Confessions, of course. The thing is, everything wants to find its right place in nature. This is what nature is like. I don't want to talk too much about the concept of nature, because there are so many concepts here, I have to try to avoid talking about too much, because otherwise we get the whole of theology on our heads in one go. But at any rate, you can say this, that all creative things, not just us, let's not bring in God before we can, we have to, that's the point. We are all creative things, have their appropriate place, gardeners like Ken and me, who have done gardening since we were very young, have probably something we couldn't quite explain to other people, about the sort of feeling whether this is the right place to put a plant, or what you do with it under these circumstances, just like doctors do, all of you do different things,

[21:50]

either you cook or you wash or you sew or you paint or whatever it is you do, and you know instinctively what's the thing which is appropriate under the circumstances. And so, the whole of this kind of picture can be worked out in terms of what the weight of the thing is, what it really wants. Does this want more water? Lots of honey? Stones desire to fall. They didn't know anything about going up to the moon, when everything changes. But given stones, if you put a stone on the roof and you push it, it normally falls to the ground. That's the only kind of desire that stone has. This we can talk about by analogy of course. There we've got within our own world the use of an analogy from a human experience, because of course stones do not desire anything,

[22:51]

in fact. But simply what their nature causes them to do, being heavy. Fortunately, the people who thought all these kind of thoughts, didn't know any of the complicated things we now know about what stones are like. They didn't know that if stones were just like us, masses of molecules rushing around at enormous speed, that was wrong. And that of course is only a picture too. Don't forget that. Can you write about the argument itself? You can see what St. Thomas is saying, it's just enough to say that human beings obviously have desire, it's true to say they have a desire for fulfilment, which is the good for them. But it's not given in the very fact of the desire, to know that this fulfilment is God.

[23:52]

Now of course if you've already got faith of some kind, then of course you will probably, shall we say, although you may be confused about this to begin with, you will probably be somewhat obscurely aware that this is going to be God. And so you may even have heard somebody say that it is, which rather clears the picture already, but it isn't given if you think about it in experience. So as I say, St. Thomas there says, in fact the reason why this is so evidently not true, is that there are many people who think that riches are the complete good of man, in which this consists. Others think that it's pleasures of some kind, some others, ice cream, lots of it. And still others, something else.

[25:03]

It can be the most extraordinary things, of course. Anybody who's ever dealt with as many human beings as I have over the last 30 years, would be quite astonished at some things that people really want. Sometimes it can become quite crazy, but it's there all right. Now this is, while making an important clarification, which scripture also recognises, to concede a very great deal. It's denying something very important, but it's conceding a very great deal. And indeed if you read the whole of the chapter, which follows this introductory Mark of John himself, you'll see that he concedes, that the way many people in practice live, he didn't need to be in New York to know this, overlays and obscures that primal innocence, which Gino so wisely referred to the first time we were thinking about St. Thomas at all.

[26:10]

If you like, at all times in human history, and even in the middle of a wood, in little wooden huts or something, people can get confused as to what they really want. And this is of course also the sort of dilemma to which our Lord refers in the parable of the sower. If we're not careful, our hearts can become as hard as stone, or as cluttered up as a choking patch of brambles. Now none of this amounts to my saying that St. Thomas is wrong, in saying that this is not an intellectually convincing argument. I'm rather saying that I think that the argument from innate desire is in the long run always the decisive one in practice. So if you like, the reason why you've asked these questions doesn't surprise me, because we much more,

[27:15]

let's say, whether we're reflective or not, we know much more about our desires when it comes down to it, when we're hungry and tired and fed up and so on, than we do about anything else. I think you can argue with anyone until you're black in the face, even if you won't convince them. But if they prefer not to know that there really is a God, then they'll find some way of forgetting and so not knowing, or at least deciding not to know now. Well this is true, isn't it Peter? And never perhaps really attend to the one thing that deserves more attention than anything else. I mean it is obviously a primary human dilemma. Yes Mark? It's fascinating.

[28:17]

What you just said. What did you say? What did you think I just said? What went through my head was that maybe we think that the fact of God's existence is not implied in our desire is because I think this goes to what you just said, because we are not really aware of our desire. Yes, certainly. We really are aware, conscious of our desire. On a level other than just the sense.

[29:24]

Yes, yes, yes. And maybe it's in that awareness that we would find... Well that's why I'm saying that I think this is in fact a very impressive kind of, it's a very impressive thing to concede. In practice, I think in most people's lives this is the way it works. That's really what I'm saying. But of course all I'm asking you to admit is that Thomas is right in saying you didn't get there at one leap. Isn't it so? You didn't get to... To being able to say, well it's God I want. Nobody does really, I think. As I say of course, in fact sometimes people can put this off for a very long time. Half a lifetime.

[30:26]

They may get very, very close to it. And they may quite suddenly be pushed. It suddenly makes me think of my very oldest convert, who was no later than 73. Who lived, when eventually I, she was actually the very toughest convert that I ever had to deal with. She was very, very intelligent. And she fought very, very hard about this particular issue. Especially because she'd been brought up in a very a very kind of old-fashioned scientific world, late 19th century scientific world. Her father was Lord Berkeley who was one of the pioneers in investigation of electricity and things like that. And she'd been brought up in an entirely rational world. And then of course she also said to me, in fact I think I must tell you one of the nice stories she told me just to illustrate

[31:26]

how complex life can be. She said, just think, I spent the first 30 years of my life doing nothing but hunting, shooting, fishing. Doing what? Hunting, shooting, fishing. Lots of country parties, round the lovely castle. And so one day she also told me a very worrying kind of thing. She said, isn't it terrible to think the very first time she was ever allowed to travel alone she was allowed to go and meet her father at Calais by crossing by the boat from Dover. So she got on the boat and God said that it was her chair and she sat down as every young lady in 1910 should. The period we're hearing about is just a period. And she opened her book and began to read. And after some minutes she was aware that somebody was

[32:30]

drawing a chair up quite close to her. And although she was reading the book with some care she couldn't fail to become aware that the creature sitting on the chair was a man. And then a voice said, good morning. And so she said, good morning and went on with her book. And the next thing that happened was that he put his hat and stick on the chair, walked to the side of the boat and jumped into the sea. And he was drowned. In fact she said, isn't it perfectly ridiculous? I mean, nowadays I've just begun to talk to him. I didn't know what to do. At thirty nobody ever told me what to do in such a situation. She was doing all things she'd been taught to do in a very conventional world. I'm sorry, that's a great distraction. Distractions almost as absurd can occur in absolutely everybody's life in which the kind of really fundamental

[33:31]

even the ordinary human thing gets missed out somehow. She died after a long fight at ninety-six. Very potent old lady. Dear Sibyl. Everybody said, what are you on to Sibyl? She's so different. So as I say, you can remember the parable of the sower. How the seed falls and so on. It depends whether it germinates or not. As I say, none of this amounts to my saying that St. Thomas is wrong, but I think he's making a very important kind of concession in practice. I think it's the one that mostly works. Much more than intellectual arguments do. I think I've

[34:33]

actually never met what I would call real atheists. Perhaps they exist, but I haven't come across them. Here I fly to the one of the most memorable of all St. Augustine's phrases. I forgot I was going to talk rather a lot about Augustine here. Da, I meant him. Eccentric or dinko. Give me a lover and he will understand. This phrase of Augustine has the added advantage that it occurs in the context in which the act of faith has been at once free and yet a gift of God is being discussed. This is really why I'm doing this here. The theology of this is extremely important. The act of faith of a human being, because of the dignity of the human being, has to be free and yet it's a gift. And it occurs in the splendid sermons St. Augustine gave

[35:34]

on the Gospel of John, which you must have got this one translation of, I was thinking the Library of St. John the Baptist. And this occurs, this splendid thing, give me a lover and he will understand, it comes in the sermons on John 26, paragraphs 2 to 4 especially. The phrase I've quoted is very near the end of paragraph 4. Augustine is commenting on the words of our Lord in John chapter 6, verse 44. Stop telling stories. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. This is Augustine I'm translating now. Oh what a tremendous commendation of grace. Nobody comes unless he's drawn. Whom he draws

[36:34]

and whom he does not draw, why he draws, this one and not that one, do not wish to decide. Indeed not. If you don't wish to be deceived. Just take it and understand it. Are you not yet drawn? Pray that you may be. What am I saying my brothers? If we are drawn to Christ, then belief is involuntary. So violence to you is not simulated. Anyone can go into church unwillingly, approach the altar unwillingly, receive the sacrament unwillingly, but he cannot believe unless he wishes to. If one believed in the body that would occur in the unwilling. But it is not in the body that one believes. Hear the apostle. A man believes with his heart. And what follows? And he confesses with his lips and so is saved. This confession or profession if you like, rises

[37:35]

up from the depths of the heart. And so the discussion proceeds with Augustine searching psychological awareness. Alright Jose, you've got the sense of the argument have you? I think so. Augustine is saying you can pull somebody into church, do all kinds of things with them, push them about and so on, but you can't make them believe unless they want to. And he even finds himself quoting a tag from the Eclogues of Virgil which says that everyone is drawn by his delight. There you are Mark, back to the problem of yours you see. Everyone is drawn by delight. Turkish delight perhaps. Not necessity but sheer delight. Appetite. Not obligation but delight.

[38:36]

How much more strongly should we say that a man is drawn to Christ who delights in truth, delights in happiness, delights in our brightness, delights in eternal life all of which Christ is. Oh give me a lover and he will understand what I'm saying. Give me someone who desires, who thirsts wandering and thirsting in his solitude and sighing for the fountain of the eternal country give me such a one he will know. But if I'm speaking to an iceberg he will not know what I'm saying. So were those who murmur to each other him whom the father draws he says comes to me. Forgive me brothers for going on so. This I think you'll see is exactly in line with the thrust of our thought as devolved in our discussion just a moment ago and in these last few days. It's moreover exactly what

[39:37]

Vatican II underlines in chapter one in chapter one of the constitution on divine revelation with which we began. Just listen again to this from paragraph two His will was that man should have access to the father through Christ, the word made flesh, in the Holy Spirit and thus become a sharer in the divine nature By this revelation then the invisible God from the fullness of his love addresses men as his friends It's a very remarkable church document this and moves among them in order to invite and receive them into his company. Excuse me father, could you begin that quote again? I could. His will was that men should have access to the father through Christ, the word made flesh, in the Holy Spirit and thus become

[40:38]

sharers in the divine nature Peter, 1 Peter remember? But this revelation then, by this revelation then the invisible God from the fullness of his love addresses men as his friends and moves among them in order to invite and receive them into his company. This economy of revelation, I'm still going on here, this economy of revelation is realized by deeds and words which are intrinsically bound up with each other. The most intimate truth with which this revelation gives us about God and the Salvation Man shines forth in Christ, who is himself both the mediator and sum total of revelation. So we are back really again to that Christocentric type of theology which seems to impose itself upon us and formed in somewhat different but highly compatible ways the minds of both Athanasius

[41:41]

and Henry. You must forgive me for taking you back again to a slightly later passage in that splendid 26th sermon on John of Augustine. We have already in an earlier lecture heard Augustine saying why he thinks our situation is not radically different from those who actually saw our Lord and heard him speaking. I remember it was one, I think it was the first lecture I quoted those Easter time sermons where our Lord was saying of course lots of people touched our Lord and so on but it didn't make any difference. So really this is really why the interiority of this act is of such importance when you respond to the invitation that is there but not everybody does. Augustine returns to this point in paragraph 8 of the 26th

[42:41]

sermon on John. If I, being a man, teach him who hears my word the Father also teaches him who hears his word. If it is true that the Father teaches him who hears him his word. Ask whom Christ may be and you will find his word. In the beginning was the word. Not in the beginning God made the word. How was it? In the beginning God made heaven and earth. You see this is because he is not a creature. Learn to be drawn to the Son by the Father. Let the Father teach you. Hear his word. Which word shall I hear you say? In the beginning was the word. Not the word made but was. How should human beings in their fleshly condition hear

[43:43]

such a word? Because the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Thus here Augustine, like the recent Council after him, is pointing to the economy of salvation. The pattern, the whole plan of salvation. As St. John of Damascus and the Greeks in general would say. Here is the conviction of the undivided Church. If you like the Incarnation occurs as a special a special way of presenting an invitation to us to respond to fulfillment in God. Do sit down and enjoy that sermon. They are all splendid. They are 26 I think fairly. Try to get the best translation you can. I'm not quite sure what there is available but none of them too bad actually because St. Augustine is so good and clear that you really have to be an awful duffer to make a bad

[44:44]

translation of it. I think. Now of course neither in the earthly life of Christ nor now in this hearing of the Word is it merely a physical thing that is in question. It has to be a spiritual hearing. Going down to the depths of the heart. This is something Augustine has faced in Sermon 19 paragraph 10 of this same set. In commenting on the text from John chapter 5 verse 26 Truly I say to you the hour is coming and now is when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. We can readily understand that they are alive who unless they were living could not hear but he does not say that they hear because they live but that by hearing they come to life again.

[45:46]

And those who hear will live. What then does hearing mean except attending? As far as it has anything to do with the hearing of the ear not all who hear live for many hear but do not believe. By hearing and not believing they do not attend by not attending they do not live. Christ the Word of God, the Son of God is preached by whom all things were made truly by the grace of his choice taking flesh born of a virgin a child in the flesh, a youth in the flesh suffering in the flesh, dying in the flesh rising in the flesh ascending in the flesh promising the resurrection of the flesh, promising the resurrection of the soul the soul before the flesh the flesh after the soul Anyone who hears and listens lives No wonder the penetrating eyes of Simeon could cause him to say his nonctimitis

[46:49]

as he took the child in his arms in the temple And on Cadramas day when these thoughts were germinating I couldn't help remembering and John the Baptist helped me to find it a little bit of that listening of the church which goes on continuously in all responses for the vigil of the day is number two in the first nocturne of the Candlemas vigils which says this very delightful thing the old man carried the child but it was the child who had the control over the old man the one whom the virgin conceived and brought forth, remaining a virgin in her child bearing, she worshipped you see everything's turned upside down so you see we're in a very strong tradition of listening and attending with the heart the old man carried the child the child carried the old man it's a very

[47:50]

Christocentric kind of theology Christ being there in the whole mystery embracing it all and being so little in the child too and because we found ourselves reaching a rather common way of feeding our path into theology in which Christ is really the centre I shall like to share with you a lovely passage of a contemporary Romanian Orthodox theologian whom I've never met but who the Bishop knows me in fact he came to me with a copy of Asking the Fathers said I'm washing my hair at the moment but I want you just to write this book and I'm going to take you back to Romania with it from the fact that Christians began to worship our Lord as God and so they had to find a way of explaining how this could be because he was known to have been born and so Orthodox Christianity

[48:53]

found itself having to say that the Son was begotten from all eternity as Son of the Father but in time as Son of his Mother who is then very carefully called Theotokos so she is the one whom she bears is God as well as Man and she really is the Mother of the One who is both God and Man this is the importance of the title Theotokos in the theology I think but the Holy Spirit is because if you like what the Holy Spirit does is he moves the mind all right because this is one of the things

[49:55]

promised by our Lord in the last summer speech that he would bring all things past to remembrance but in fact he is also primarily the Spirit of Love and this is where Gino's connaturality thing comes in isn't it that in fact it's by living with what is lovable that we come to know it better all this beginning I brought to mind is the Holy Spirit what gender is it interpreted as and I've heard it as referred to Father Kastner in the documents of Vatican II the notes beforehand Mackenzie I think referred to it as she well there are differences about this of course because

[50:55]

what we I think we can't really yet except talking about the Holy Spirit quite like that though there is a real problem of course behind wanting to say that namely of course we've got to be able to say that there must be femininity in God mustn't there because there's femininity in other things let's say there must be in a preeminent way in a special way let's say if you like the mother of God is also God's perfect idea which is his immaculate conception if you like I suppose the difficulty we have here is that this requires the maximum amount of purification from

[51:56]

not that I mean sexuality is impure but it does need the maximum amount of purification from most of the associations at least this word calls up except when we get used to using it in psychological terms the Greek well the only way I can rationalize that is that in translating it it might be a third person whatever gender and so you get it he, she or it for the Holy Spirit and when people refer to it is there any proper way of referring to it? there's no proper way except by procession except by flowing forth or flowing out well I mean do you say the Holy Spirit or do you say it

[52:56]

or he is an additional way of talking about it isn't it do you think then referring more to she is a more popular thing that or something well I think we can't say if you like I suppose here you've asked me something so difficult I don't quite know how to fully deal with it I mean I'm very interested I think everybody is nowadays because as I say we've got to be able to say that there's some way in which let's say it's obvious I think that when various spiritual writers um not all of them women Solomon of course does it at least once comparing the souls

[54:00]

relationship though God were our mother and of course it is also in the Old Testament in the prophecy of Isaiah remember if a mother can forget her child I will forget you so that God does wish to be known as having the qualities which we associate with femininity femininity and of course we do now we've begun to look into ourselves rather more we know that you can't have a man who is so masculine he has nothing feminine about him as Jung so sensibly said no man would ever be able to talk to a woman if he hadn't got something in him which made it possible to understand what it was to be a woman that's the minimal thing you have to say about it especially in our kind of life you have to say much more than that because it's very very important that the

[55:00]

you see the Holy Spirit is all notice the traditional language you know what I would say as a kind of preliminary reply notice the traditional language he's instinctus all those kinds of things it's all concerned with instinct and and feeling and the movement of love which is spontaneous now this is neither masculine nor feminine really it occurs in both in fact so that I mean I've lived with one person in religious life who couldn't bear the idea that one should refer to the soul as feminine which of course it is in that it is and all our souls are feminine towards God in many ways

[56:06]

aren't they the mystical bridegroom Christ exactly yes the soul is the bride of Christ whether whether it be the soul of a woman or the soul of a man and it's not also an accident surely that it's man and woman who were made in the image of God it's the two together it's the pair that make the image whether they are together or apart it seems this is one of the things I've had to give up thinking about it too much the first two chapters of Genesis there you get one thing sequel to another in the first account the priestly account the liturgical poem about creation you get God making the pair in his own image in the second account

[57:07]

the kind of folk tale account which is the more primitive kind of text Adam is made first and he is not said to be made in the image but God breathes into him his life and then when he is asleep the woman is taken out of the sign it's a very sad paper I haven't been able to give I'd love to have been able to give you that because it was extremely well received and I'm still waiting for it to come from Berlin, it was delivered in 1975 on the feminine thing in Augustine because Augustine he's very often very much maligned person because people think he's responsible for all kinds of terrible things which in some extent is true at least they can be derived from him but he could be very very full of insight in this kind of thing and his treatment of the person of Eve and of the feminine side of ourselves in the work on Trinity is very very impressively interesting at one point I worked it all out

[58:08]

and inevitably of course it got the room crowded but everybody came nobody could get in the door and I had the very sad experience when an old professor who was teaching in Rome said to me, I suppose we'll have to wait till we die until we get a copy of this and in fact I think he did because the next conference I said to Miss Livingstone in France I'm bringing a special copy and she said I'm sorry to say he's just died I'm afraid he will never have it and I'm sorry to be so kind of unprepared for that for your particular question but I promise you we will try to think about this again because I think we've got to think about this a bit when we're coming to think about the about ourselves a bit more towards the end of this but of course

[59:09]

do remember the further we're getting away the more we're speculating very often the further we're getting away from what is dogmatic and that's to say here I'm trying to show the kind of minimal things that you've been saying and in a way you quite rightly want to go further, this is why theology is never finished you can't produce a book and close it up and say that's all done there's always something new to be thought and this is certainly one of the things that's yes, you know, what's happening you're forgetting something I don't know where I am where I have read it maybe it's in the church in the Vatican on the mystery of the church maybe but in the on this we got a procession from what I've

[60:10]

gathered, the son was that is in time we got a total expression of the father and perhaps it would be inadequate for us to move from the analogy of the procreation between man and woman but rather that these things are a reflection of the eternal event of the father expressing himself totally that is in a perfect image, his perfect fullness in his work and this procession is the love going on between the father and the son which is the Holy Spirit yes this is the way St. Thomas sees it of course and that's to say that if you like what the knowing of the father and the son what proceeds from

[61:10]

this is an internal relationship and so that each is giving wholly to the other this is really why of course it's a very exciting dimension of the realisation of the life of the Trinity in the soul because the father is wholly given to the son and the son wholly receives from the father and the Holy Spirit binds these together not for himself but for them that each one is doing for the other what the other is not doing although they are all the same but as far as the church is concerned it's again very important of course that the church is also given to the other family and there of course it's partly because of the

[62:15]

room of the font where we have gotten as Christians Father on the specific question that Peter raised maybe you can help because of your knowledge of language but when it's translated when Christ refers to the Holy Spirit it's always translated he what is that Greek pronoun I mean can it just as easily be translated she I've never investigated it I must say sufficiently to be able to answer that question because it's neuter isn't it in Greek pneumo is it neuter in Greek pneumo is that how it's translated I don't really know whether the word pneumo is invariably used in the New Testament I don't know we'd have to look this up in the Greek New Testament to be quite sure

[63:15]

I have Greek accordance of that kind in my room which I'd certainly knew commandedly but that's not a long way away have you got Greek accordance here have you got schmaus here do you know what it is I think we better say we will try to postpone an answer about this until we can look into this but I suspect that there's a combination of tradition based on language here almost certainly it seems to me that the kind of traditional words it's of course one of the complaints as you know that something is the same it's all a very masculine kind of religion isn't really true because there is a feminine aspect but it hasn't

[64:17]

nobody has yet succeeded in bringing it forward satisfactorily it's likely one of the things which sort of failed to be done with counsel for very special sorts of reasons there were many people who really in anticipation I think wanted a document on the relation of Our Lady to the life of the Spirit which in fact never got drawn up because I think quite rightly it was found to be much more necessary to situate Our Lady within the picture of the Church so that she does become the type of every soul because she is both Virgin and Mother and that's say if you like the way our own whether we are married or celibate we must be virginal towards God as St. John Christensen rightly notes, St. Paul is talking to the married explicitly to the married when he says

[65:19]

I was baptised as a Chaste Virgin to Christ because of course there's one thing you can't give to anybody else, however dearly you love them, that is the kind of the deep centre of your own spirit and conscience which must remain espoused to God if you can't be true to anybody else in love and if you separate these two your own integrity is the best thing you can give them and you can't give that away and of course all love relationships tend to foster integrity for this reason so there are all kinds of areas in our own life where we desperately need to be aware of everything especially in our own relationship to a soul but I've never been able to think of an

[66:20]

adequate, I've been faced with this occasionally before never really had time to think about this but it does seem to me that to make the departure of this kind from traditional language requires very solid reasoning behind it don't you think? I think this is on the whole the way we ought to proceed as in theology out of wisdom we shouldn't think that the questions are necessarily settled but we have to take notice of what has been done because very often there's a kind of prudence a kind of wisdom behind it which we can't afford to throw away yes? Yes, going back to this there is a blending aspect of God which I think this is more because of the influence of Jung in psychology I think we might recall

[67:21]

part of the Gospel where in our Lord said I gather you like a hand gathered there's no doubt about it there's plenty of scriptural support for this yes but it seems to me that the above refers to the Holy Spirit more of course in a masculine and besides I reason out this way since the Holy Spirit is equal to the Father and the Son yes it seems to me of course this is just my reasoning that it cannot be that rather being equal to the Father and the Son that the Holy Spirit is a feminine it cannot be traditionally the Church is the feminine aspect that is the Church is always referred to as the Bride of Christ feminine yet in God himself

[68:24]

there is He in the fullness that is the One the fullness cannot be cannot be that is the Holy Spirit feminine or other but it seems to me that being full yes of both the masculine and feminine and it is only time when there is appropriation yes of course what you've raised there is really of course I suppose the next thing to be said is that in fact when we're using the word masculine here we don't mean that except in a negative sense either because God is not male any more than female in fact but doesn't the reasoning then that the necessity of complementarity is in a sense a false situation within God within God in other words they don't have to balance an equation

[69:25]

no I think that's quite true though I suppose it is because it's precisely because this is what makes all the time so difficult to think about really is that in us there's no doubt about it this particular function psychologically speaking is of extreme importance and so I can see why people are concerned about this but I'm sure you have really put your finger on this thing, on the fundamental thing here that we shouldn't really forget that we've explicitly said in talking about the Trinity we're always talking in terms of analogy and really there is no God as one is beyond

[70:27]

all our conceiving is beyond male and female and as it is of course in the course of Christ himself in Christ there is neither male nor female it doesn't mean to say that they're denied, it means you go right up through them of course that's the important thing St. Paul is not saying that male and female are not valuable but that they are on exactly equal terms yes Peter, come on I was thinking of the time but I wanted to switch to something else do, please ok, um we've got 3 minutes according to Father Abbott's timing we're supposed to be at 12 past 4 well, talking about the pre-existence Christ is not born of a human mother and rises to his divinity, he's already divine

[71:28]

yes, exactly and Jesus in his preaching and healing ministry to me he's already conscious of his mission and he's fulfilling the Father's mission to preach the kingdom and at least myself I'm writing across articles or at least I'm hearing about this whole idea of Jesus not being fully conscious of his I know, because you can see I've already expressed my divinity about that way of talking it seems to me, first of all, we can't know what the consciousness of such a person could be like it's difficult enough for us to know each other's consciousness if you and I spend the rest of this week in a room, I bet you we won't get very far even if we're trying very seriously and how do you know

[72:28]

what the consciousness of somebody who is human and divine is like I just think it's very significant that the church has not so far been able to get to a dogmatic definition about humanity except concerning the will Do you think these statements then, like attaching masculinity and femininity and consciousness are throw-ups from our own experience, that we look for solutions in the divine? Well, to some extent it must be probably, but I think we must say that there were certainly conscious, we must do that obviously, he had consciousness for a while, and it must have been human consciousness too I think what is so difficult to conceive is how on earth a consciousness is going to action

[73:30]

in a human being who is also divine and that's to say if you like, turning back on ourselves self-knowledge is itself already obscure enough in our ordinary human experience but I can't see how we're going to have any means of judging whether what we say is true or false in this particular case if we speculate about it because I don't see what criteria we can possibly use do you? Yes? That sort of ties in with something that I was interested in if I heard you right, is that with Christ speaking in the scriptures it has to be determined whether he's speaking as God or man? Yes, this is what all the fathers will say and all the theologians will say So, how many, that must cause quite a lot of problems doesn't it?

[74:31]

There are certain passages where it does That's obviously There are certain passages where it does except that I suppose we can say that on the whole the traditional view of the thing is that the context makes itself obvious makes each of these cases obvious Yes? To say that that there are times when Jesus speaks as man and times when he speaks as God would not that imply what Fr. Peter was asking about that there is a definite consciousness? Well, as I've just said to you on purpose I think we've got to say there is a consciousness we certainly have to admit that it is so otherwise there couldn't be the God and against him and it would be meaningless wouldn't it and there must be a conflict there and there was apparently a conflict of will

[75:31]

as far as we can see because the natural will of all of us all human beings is for life and when you're 30 you're not ready to die mostly except by a special grace so that's I suppose it's something to do with this that it was necessary to insist that our Lord had a human will and this is the one defined thing there is about the human nature this doesn't mean to say you can't speculate about this just like just about anything there is a lot but I think the thing to bear in mind it seems to me that the difficulties are largely imaginative ones because we can't really imagine what it can be like to be this sort of a person I think

[76:35]

Romano Bordini in his book The Humanity of Christ addresses himself to that question about the consciousness and I think he that's one of his main conclusions it's impossible to even conceive exactly I've spent a lot of time thinking about this and I can't get any further this is where the words become a barrier in the end you're just trying to beat your head against the conceivable because I suppose when we say for instance that all theologians do as you see these early ones do too that our Lord actually becomes incarnate so that he can suffer because God the Father can't suffer we then are still not

[77:38]

making quite clear how a conflict situation arises because it doesn't our Lord apparently doesn't struggle not to go to sleep because he feels tired he eats when he feels hungry and so on he says he's thirsty when he's thirsty so all those kinds of consciousness appear to function just as we experience them it's very much more difficult to know what happens on the cross and the report the different reports of what our Lord actually said on the cross do make it extremely mysterious what was going on it depends how you hear the words of course and what they seem to say there's no doubt on that there's a real death

[78:40]

and it's a death in agony of some kind offered to the Father which of course has been communicated and made possible also for other people in the case of the martyrs I'm sorry not to go any further than this I will try to look into the question I'm fascinated that you have brought up at this particular point the business of the Holy Spirit and I'll try to look into this a bit but I can't promise to get very far I think this is perhaps an area where a little bit more progress might be made than I feel optimistic about I'm making about the First of the Sun because as I say I just seem to do fine as Marcus said in his book which is of course a very traditional theologian which I

[79:42]

find myself I suppose in this way it is very difficult for me to see how this is going to be anything other than most of the things most people want to say are going to be projections you see one of the hindrances also to moving ahead very far is the statement on the letter of the Hebrews that our Lord was like us in everything except sin so although there is nothing very clearly defined about this in the documents of the Church it is not possible to say that our Lord has the experience of what it is to sin but he knows what sin is there are lots of quite innocent

[80:46]

people too actually but he in a very special degree you see and one of the sort of problems I suppose about what did Adam and Eve do at the fall I'm going to leave this fairly open I can assure you when we get to this on Wednesday at least as far as I've got at the moment what it was they did it does look as though there was some kind of interior some kind of interior act as though they were actually seduced by the Jesuits and they would become God in other words they would become a closed system of their own whereas I think what we are going to have to say about man dogmatically is that that the whole call to the whole purpose of Revelation and the call to sanctification and to holiness means that we are open to relationship

[81:46]

in love with God and also with all apparently all other people who are capable of this too and this is a very big kind of thing whereas sin in fact closes you in more and more so you become more and more your own world, only me Father? Yes Yes? I think that in many ways Father Father Bernard Lonergan Yes opens the area I mean not that we can pin Christ down but I think he really opens this area because where Lonergan

[82:49]

got his insight into the cognitional structure is the thing of beginning the word Yes I think this is true in the procession of the Holy Spirit I'm not sure that I understand it though I think you are absolutely right in what you are saying but I'm not sure that I understand what he said It's very very difficult I think Don't you? Oh yes, but I'm not saying that I understand either but I'm just saying that I think it goes I think it goes kind of in the same awareness as the movement of the heart maybe Yes Yes in a certain way it is because you just said

[83:51]

that Christ didn't sin but he experienced Yes and I've often thought of that myself how so he himself too, he gets like, I mean he was like us Yes, well I think what we can of course say is that our Lord had compassion this is very explicitly said in the Gospel he was moved by the needs of people and so on and the word compassion is the passion that I have with something con always means with something so I go down into the experience with the other person by compassion so there is that element certainly there but that is a movement of love isn't it really but one which also is accompanied by understanding or perhaps understanding is it's product, I'm not quite sure which way

[84:51]

round it works to you do you remember how it works in Norvig and Thorpe what are you asking well does the understanding of compassion is it the fruit of going down in love with the other one or is it the other way around pardon pardon I think it is actually this is the way it comes to me this is why as far as I've ever gotten Norvig and I've always wondered whether there isn't some deep flaw in the argument which I don't see it may be something that I just don't understand but it could be there is also something a bit funny about it because I'm not the only person who feels this and people I regard as more intelligent than I am have the same difficulty about it I think well I think maybe the difficulty is this consciousness in this area of our own consciousness

[85:52]

understanding how it's tremendously difficult because of course on the whole I suppose we feel most comfortable and we grow most when we can also talk and feel by affinity although words are needed something more is going on yes Father just from what I gather I don't think a person has to sin in order to understand sin in fact I think it's just the opposite because our Lord was so pure that he could understand sin better than anyone and I think a virgin understands the sin of impurity much more than a person often to that sin they don't understand anything including sin so it seems to me that Christ did not experience sin at all but he knew the destruction

[86:54]

and the death of sin yes I suppose what I was saying we can't say the experience of sin is precise that the side effects of sinning which you quite correctly mentioned are in fact blinding they actually do I mean I can think of one sort of case of somebody who was in a rather grave kind of situation saying I think that boy would blow my nose and that's exactly what habitual kinds of rather grave sins make people feel like when they've deadened themselves enough but at the same time I think don't you think a child's first experience of what it is to do something wrong is a very vivid kind of experience indeed and I suppose some people would feel that certain kinds of interior experiences

[87:56]

of what sin is can't have been part of our lives certainly he could have understood them with the mind but that's not what we quite mean by experience isn't it with experience he endured temptation yes he endured temptation so this is concerned with the will isn't it, it's concerned with choice because that's the element the key element in sin is is choice because if you have no choice you can't sin what stage then would the conflict of will that you spoke of in terms of the garden of Gethsemane what in the process of coming to a choice where would that conflict occur well I suppose we can only place it on the human side by saying that it always occurs when the human will

[88:57]

closes itself to what God asks and says no the conflict from the will of the intellectual the will yes the will the two wills that have to be brought into conformance with the will of the Father yes and that's I think you see if you're looking at it in a very Thomas kind of way Thomas' conception of the will one of the first data of nature is the instinct of every creature to preserve its own life and this is unless you're sick you ought to want to live and in fact this is very extraordinary I remember reading once

[89:59]

the last journalist who'd been a doctor during the course of the 1914 war said a very very extraordinary thing how men could survive where rats would die and somewhere the other day I read a case of yes, oh yes, it was Julian Reed telling how his father had heard a young soldier saying to a doctor don't let me die and the doctor said you must die I can't help it but in fact the young man lived because the will to life is very very strong indeed it's extraordinary it's a natural force, it's enormously potent and it's led to itself not quite to itself apparently but it's enormously potently I think we've a cop manachure I think we've a cop manachure I think we've a cop manachure laughing It's enormously potent, isn't it? and indeed

[90:58]

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