Whose Single Harmonious Order?
Mark Shea quotes St. Athanasius:
The Word creates a divine harmony in creation In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made. In these words John the theologian teaches that nothing exists or remains in being except in and through the Word.
Think of a musician tuning his lyre. By his skill he adjusts high notes to low and intermediate notes to the rest, and produces a series of harmonies. So too the wisdom of God holds the world like a lyre and joins things in the air to those on earth, and things in heaven to those in the air, and brings each part into harmony with the whole. By his decree and will he regulates them all to produce the beauty and harmony of a single, well-ordered universe. While remaining unchanged with his Father, he moves all creation by his unchanging nature, according to the Father's will. To everything he gives existence and life in accordance with its nature, and so creates a wonderful and truly divine harmony.
To illustrate this profound mystery, let us take the example of a choir of many singers. A choir is composed of a variety of men, women and children, of both old and young. Under the direction of one conductor, each sings in the way that is natural for him: men with men's voices, boys with boys' voices, old people with old voices, young people with young voices. Yet all of them produce a single harmony. Or consider the example of our soul. It moves our senses according to their several functions so that in the presence of a single object they all act simultaneously: the eye sees, the ear hears, the hand touches, the nose smells, the tongue tastes, and often the other parts of the body act as well as, for example, the feet may walk.
Although this is only a poor comparison, it gives some idea of how the whole universe is governed. The Word of God has but to give a gesture of command and everything falls into place; each creature performs its own proper function, and all together constitute one single harmonious order.
I heartily agree with this. I think this is why I like reading write-in lists from elections so much, God always gets a few votes. In this particular one, he received three votes: one for "Jesus Christ", one for "God Almighty" and one for just plain "God".
However I think it's a bit of a waste of a vote since God is already king of the universe. And I'd rather vote for someone who recognizes that the universe is already harmoniously tuned by God -- albeit marred by human sin -- than someone who wants to give it their own version of a tune-up. (Don't let your grease-monkey 17-year-old tune-up your Lexus either. Or your Chevy for that matter.)
Let me just state for the record that I totally support Almighty God in his initiatives of providing universal health care and in immanentizing the eschaton. Oh, yeah, don't forget immigration reform.
(HT to Rich Talbert who first alerted me to the wonderful world of online write-ins. I couldn't believe God received a vote for "Sheriff" in Mercer County, PA... no, on second thought, I believe it.)
Jesus uber alles!
ReplyDeleteJust say "jah" to Jah.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how, on some topics, Mark seems incapable of arguing in good faith with those with whom he disagrees -- both Jonah and those of us here who are patient enough (or stubborn enough) to comment at his blog as if he can engage you in a civil discussion.
ReplyDeleteThe irony is, in his own ham-handed way, Mark Shea actually proves Jonah's point.
I really doubt Jonah would disagree that, theologically, we're all "part of an organic whole" under God, but not under the state. To suggest that Jonah is making an argument in oppostion to Athanasius is to conflate the church and the state, and Jonah's argument is that fascism is a totalitarian, secular religion.
And it's sad that the beautiful thing Athanasius wrote was followed by such discordant noise. He'd rather use the a beautiful idea of the universal brotherhood of man as a bludgeon rather than actually try to live out the consequences of the idea.
"The Word of God has but to give a gesture of command and everything falls into place; each creature performs its own proper function, and all together constitute one single harmonious order."
Whaddya think Mark thought after digging this passage up? That he should remember God's commands to him, perform his own proper function, and work to do his small part to live in God's harmonious order? Or that he found a nice juicy quote that he could use to nail that bastard Goldberg?
And it's sad that the beautiful thing Athanasius wrote was followed by such discordant noise.
ReplyDeleteWell, to be fair, some people, Mark included, might think this blog contains much "discordant noise", esp. due to my sense of humor which is extremely acerbic. So I'm not going to judge it in an absolute sense.
My friend's grandmother was in Germany when everybody was getting brainwashed, you know, with stuff like "Take a sponge bath for the Fuhrer", etc. Later when she was in her 90's and living with his family, he said it used to send chills down his spine when she would announce at the end of the day: "EVERY-ZING EES IN ORDER!" So I can see how these "unified theory"-like prescriptions for behavior (what food to eat, etc.) have more behind them than merely the acknowledgement of the order inherent in God's creation.