Grace via Thomas Aquinas

[ish mailian]

Cool. All echoes LW to my ear.

Wittgenstein and the Metaphysics of Grace

W. Klein Terrance
Oxford University Press (2007)

On Sun, Jan 28, 2018 at 9:15 AM, Thomas Eckhardt
<thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
> I take this opportunity to return to the discussion about grace from August
> which I did not find the time to continue back then. The following is not
> yet very well structured, and the English could use some editing, but here
> goes.
>
>
> *Direct references to Aquinas in Pynchon*
>
> To judge from his essay on Sloth, Pynchon knows his Aquinas rather well:
>
> 'In his classical discussion of the subject in the "Summa Theologica,"
> Aquinas termed Sloth, or acedia, one of the seven capital sins. He said he
> was using "capital" to mean "primary" or "at the head of" because such sins
> gave rise to others, but there was an additional and darker sense resonating
> luridly just beneath and not hurting the power of his argument, for the word
> also meant "deserving of capital punishment." Hence the equivalent term
> "mortal," as well as the punchier English "deadly."'
>
> 'But Sloth's offspring, though bad -- to paraphrase the Shangri-Las -- are
> not always evil, for example what Aquinas terms Uneasiness of the Mind, or
> "rushing after various things without rhyme or reason," which, "if it
> pertains to the imaginative power... is called curiosity."
>
> http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/sloth.html
>
> (Anybody who mentions the Shangri-Las and Thomas Aquinas in the same
> sentence is my friend.)
>
> Siegel's mother in "Mortality and Mercy in Vienna", "(...) at the age of 19
> had struggled with her soul one night in a railroad flat somewhere in Hell's
> Kitchen and, half-drunk on bootleg beer, had ended up refuting Aquinas and
> quitting the Roman church (...)"
>
> http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/vienna.html
>
>
> *Grace and understanding that things are exactly what they are*
>
> The text in question was:
>
> "One mild and ordinary work-morning in Chicago, Lew happened to find himself
> on a public conveyance, head and eyes inclined nowhere in particular, when
> he entered, all too briefly, a condition he had no memory of having sought,
> which he later came to think of as grace."
>
> Next paragraph:
>
> "He understood that things were exactly what they were. It
> seemed more than he could bear."
>
> AD, p. 42.
>
> This is of particular relevance as the final word of the novel is "grace":
>
> "They will put on smoked goggles for the glory of what is coming to part the
> sky. They fly toward grace."
>
> AD, p. 1085.
>
> Monte Davis quoted Laura Kelber on this (from 2007):
>
> "A couple of reviewers seemed to take the mention of grace at the end of the
> book in its religious sense.  The Inconvenience has become sort of a public
> conveyance, the world in microcosm, and it flies toward grace. But if grace
> is understanding that things are exactly what they are, it seems that TRP
> has something other than the religious connotation in mind.  Things that are
> exactly what they are don't have any particular grace of god bestowed on
> them.  They belong more to the preterite than the elect."
>
> I believe that this is one of the rare cases of Laura being wrong. Pynchon
> does not necessarily use "grace" in its religious sense but he definitely
> uses a Thomist concept of grace according to which perceiving things "as
> they are", i.e. in their whatness or quiddity, indeed means partaking in
> divine grace.
>
> This does not mean that Pynchon embraces the concept, or that "grace"
> carries the same meaning in each and every instance. How and why Pynchon
> uses the Thomist concept for his own literary purposes, may well be a matter
> for discussion. *That* he uses it, to me seems indisputable.
>
> Professor Krafft helpfully reminded us of Gottfried's ascent in GR which
> also, if obliquely, seems to refer to understanding "that things were
> exactly what they were":
>
> "'This ascent will be betrayed to Gravity. But the Rocket engine, the
> deep cry of combustion that jars the soul, promises escape. The
> victim, in bondage to falling, rises on a promise, a prophecy, of
> Escape....
> Moving now toward the kind of light where at last the apple is
> apple-colored. The knife cuts through the apple like a knife cutting
> an apple. Everything is where it is, no clearer than usual, but
> certainly more present.'"
>
> GR, 758-759 (Penguin 20th Century Classics)
>
> Professor Krafft commented:
>
> "If observing/perceiving/understanding things to be exactly as they are
> is grace in AD, compare this passage from the end of GR. Surely
> Gottfried isn't flying toward grace, is he?"
>
> I suggest that Gottfried may not be flying toward grace but very much hopes
> that he is. Or, as these thoughts are very much out of character and we
> cannot be sure who exactly is speaking here, the narrator suggests that he
> hopes he is.
>
> Another possiblity would be that the passage refers to Fausto Majistral's
> "task of living in a universe of things which simply are" and its "innate
> mindlessness" (V., 326 Picador). Laura Kelber argued that this idea could
> provide comfort to Gottfried:
>
> "For Gottfried, that point at the top of the parabola -- where the knife
> cutting the apple is just a knife cutting an apple, where there's a complete
> absence of knowledge or morality -- is a comfort. For the Chums, it's a safe
> haven from the impending horrors. Don't we all attempt to retreat to that
> frame of reference - the cold, amoral universe, where things just are what
> they are - when confronted with the insanities of the day? I know I do."
>
> I am familar with the sentiment but doubt that it applies to Gottfried's
> (God's peace) state of mind here. There are quite a few  frames of reference
> for Gottfried's doomed ascent -- e.g. the Kabbalah, S&M, sacrificial ritus,
> death-wish -- but most of all to me it seems to be a savage satire or
> demonic inversion of the Christian myth of man's elevation to divine grace
> and glory, toward the revelation of the deity (I believe I am in line with
> the mainstream of Pynchon criticism here). Gottfried's ascent in this view
> is the expression of Blicero's desire for apocalypse (which is then, along
> with the technology and Wernher von Braun, transferred from Germany to the
> US via Project Paperclip -- "If you're wondering where he's gone, look among
> the successful academics, the Presidential advisers, the token intellectuals
> who sit on boards of directors. He is almost certainly there. Look high, not
> low." 749).
>
> My hypothesis would be that Gottfried's or the narrator's thoughts during
> the ascent have to be viewed against the background of Thomist theology. For
> one, the ability of understanding that things are just what they are, is
> explicitly called grace in Lew's case. My view is also supported by the fact
> that "the kind of light where at last the apple is apple-colored" is a
> direct reference to Aquinas:
>
> "For if we understood or said that color is not in a colored body, or that
> it is separate from it, there would be error in this opinion or assertion.
> But if we consider color and its properties, without reference to the apple
> which is colored; or if we express in word what we thus understand, there is
> no error in such an opinion or assertion, because an apple is not essential
> to color, and therefore color can be understood independently of the apple."
>
> http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1085.htm
>
> This is about essence and accidents, and with regard to Gottfried again
> about seeing things as they actually are.
>
> (I do not know what to do with the phrase "no clearer than usual", I have to
> admit -- things *should* be clearer than usual in the "kind of light"
> Gottfried hopes for.)
>
>
>
> *Quiddity*
>
> The idea of perceiving things as being just what they are is related to the
> Thomist concept of quiddity or whatness:
>
> "But the angelic and the Divine intellect, like all incorruptible things,
> have their perfection at once from the beginning. Hence the angelic and the
> Divine intellect have the entire knowledge of a thing at once and perfectly;
> and hence also in knowing the quiddity of a thing they know at once whatever
> we can know by composition, division, and reasoning. Therefore the human
> intellect knows by composition, division and reasoning. But the Divine
> intellect and the angelic intellect know, indeed, composition, division, and
> reasoning, not by the process itself, but by understanding the simple
> essence."
>
> Summa Theologica, I, Question 85, Article 5
>
> To perceive things exactly as they are, to "have the entire knowledge of a
> thing at once and perfectly", means to perceive things like angels do or God
> does. It also means that God's essence is revealed to man. It should be
> noted here that there are various stages of revelation in Thomist thought,
> each of them vaguely related to a certain kind of light: lumen naturae
> (light of nature), lumen gratiae (light of grace), lumen gloriae (light of
> glory).
>
> These different kinds of light play an important role in Dante's "Divine
> Comedy". Compare this comment by John S. Carroll on "Paradiso", Canto 30:
>
> "It will be noticed that I speak of this central circular sea as lumen
> gratiae, for it is still the light of grace which once flowed in form of a
> river; but that light of grace has now reached its perfect form of eternity,
> the lumen gloriae. The change of the river into the circular sea is Dante's
> symbolic way of stating that the grace by which a soul is saved and
> strengthened to persevere to the end of the earthly life, is not something
> different in kind from the glory to which it leads. According to Aquinas,
> 'grace is nothing else than a certain beginning of glory in us' [Summa,
> ii-ii. q. xxiv. a. 3: 'Gratia et gloria ad idem genus referuntur; quia
> gratia nihil est aliud quam quaedam inchoatio gloriae in nobis'], and the
> light of glory is simply the perfected form of the grace of earth [Summa,
> i-ii. q. cxi. a. 3.]"
>
> http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3024.htm
>
> It could be argued, I believe, that Gottfried desires the light of glory, a
> full revelation or apocalypse, whereas Lew unexpectedly experiences the
> "beginning of glory" in him.
>
>
> *Joyce's epiphanies*
>
> Quiddity is one of the many scholastic terms James Joyce uses and discusses
> in his novels. Stephen Dedalus talks about claritas and quidditas in
> "Portrait of the Artist", referring to artistic creation:
>
> "You see that it is that thing which it is and no other thing. The radiance
> of which he speaks is the scholastic /quidditas/, the /whatness/ of a
> thing."
>
> "Portrait", 231 (Penguin 20th Century Classics)
>
> In "Stephen Hero" we find the following, where Stephen ties the concept of
> quidditas to the idea of epiphany, again with regard to aesthetic ideas:
>
> "Claritas is quidditas. After the analysis which discovers the second
> quality the mind makes the only logically possible synthesis and discovers
> the third quality. This is the moment which I call epiphany. First we
> recognise that the object is one integral thing, then we recognise that it
> is an organised composite structure, a thing in fact: finally, when the
> relation of the parts is exquisite, when the parts are adjusted to the
> special point, we recognise that it is that thing which it is. Its soul, its
> whatness, leaps to us from the vestment of its appearance. The soul of the
> commonest object, the structure of which is so adjusted, seems to us
> radiant. The object achieves its epiphany."
>
> http://theliterarylink.com/joyce.html
>
> There is a subtle but important difference between Stephen's take on Aquinas
> in "Stephen Hero" and in "Portrait of the Artist" which is discussed by
> Tudor Balinisteanu in "Violence, Narrative and Myth in Joyce and Yeats:
> Subjective Identity and Anarcho-Syndicalist Traditions":
>
> "In Richard Kearney's words, from Aquinas, Joyce seems to have 'gleaned an
> understanding of epiphany as "whatness" (/quidditas/), meaning an experience
> of luminous radiance (/claritas/), wherein a particular thing serves to
> illuminate a universal and transcendental Form.'"
>
> Kearney's argument according to Balinisteanu is that Joyce moves from this
> understanding of epiphany -- "the experience of ascension from the world to
> the divine, as with Aquinas" -- to the "experience of a reality 'where the
> divine descends into the world'"
>
> (The latter idea Kearney ascribes to Duns Scotus and his concept of
> "thisness" (/haecceitas/). Scotism is referred to on p. 596 of M&D in what I
> take to be positive terms.)
>
> https://books.google.de/books?id=7BprhEnSeQ0C&pg=PT57&lpg=PT57&dq=ascent+to+God+grace+aquinas&source=bl&ots=YgIjcLRpeY&sig=EoTnQTv6L3bpbrVcpPAWMBa62XA&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwin1Nawi_DYAhXqLsAKHeMoAis4FBDoAQg2MAE#v=onepage&q=ascent%20to%20God%20grace%20aquinas&f=false
>
> I am quoting this because it seems to describe the fundamental difference
> between Gottfried's desire for epiphany or revelation or apocalypse (all
> related to a manifestation of deity) and Lew's experience. See below.
>
> Epiphany:
>
> "The Feast of the Epiphany is celebrated in the Christian calendar on 6
> January each year, and commemorates the revelation of Jesus’ divinity to the
> Magi, the three wise men who had followed the star to Christ’s birthplace.
> Derived from Greek, the word ‘epiphany’ means a sudden manifestation of
> deity. In Christian theology, it also means the manifestation of a hidden
> message for the benefit of others, a message for their salvation. "
>
> http://jamesjoyce.ie/epiphanies/
>
>
> *Lumen gratiae*
>
> To come back to Aquinas and Pynchon: As I said, perceiving things in their
> quiddity means to perceive them like angels do or God does. For man this
> means to gain at lest partially angelic or divine knowledge, angelic or
> divine powers of perception. This is only possible through God's grace,
> because grace adds to nature and thus elevates man and his intellectual
> capacities:
>
> "All rational and intellectual creatures have a natural desire to see God.
> While they can reach a knowledge of God commensurable with their natural
> capabilities it is simply beyond the reach of these natural capacities to
> know Him in his essence. For this they need divine help. This help God
> freely and gratuitously offers them; we name it grace. For Aquinas the
> angels needed this help if they were to be converted to God and to be
> beatified by Him through the vision of his essence."
>
> http://catholic-church.org/grace/western/scholars/lap1.htm
>
> Or, as the man himself puts it:
>
> "(...) the human understanding has a form, viz. intelligible light, which of
> itself is sufficient for knowing certain intelligible things, viz. those we
> can come to know through the senses. Higher intelligible things of the human
> intellect cannot know, unless it be perfected by a stronger light, viz. the
> light of faith or prophecy which is called the "light of grace," inasmuch as
> it is added to nature.
>
> Hence we must say that for the knowledge of any truth whatsoever man needs
> Divine help, that the intellect may be moved by God to its act. But he does
> not need a new light added to his natural light, in order to know the truth
> in all things, but only in some that surpass his natural knowledge."
>
> http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2109.htm
>
> Elsewhere, Aquinas states that the "light of grace" or lumen gratiae means
> "participation of the Divine nature."
>
> http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2110.htm
>
> Not suprisingly, given this background, the light of grace in all but name
> also turns up in AD. The narrator describes what Lew sees while in a state
> of grace, then states:
>
> "Lew found himself surrounded by a luminosity new to him, not even observed
> in dreams, nor easily attributable to the smoke-inflected sun beginning to
> light Chicago."
>
> AD, p. 42.
>
> Then:
>
> "He understood that things were exactly what they were. It
> seemed more than he could bear."
>
> Note also that Lew is being described as "transfigured" on p. 43. -- a
> transfiguration being "a momentary transformation of a man or woman into
> someone having the aspect of the divine."
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfiguration
>
>
> *Difference between Gottfried's and Lew's experience*
>
> To be able to perceive things in their quiddity means that one has been
> touched by God's grace, partakes in the divine. It may even mean a
> revelation of the essence of the divine being. It is what Gottfried aspires
> to, what he desires, hopes to ascend to, but does not achieve, and what Lew
> receives as a spontaneous gift, "generous, free and totally unexpected and
> undeserved", as it should be.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_in_Christianity
>
> Gottfried's ascent is linked, at least by him but surely also by Blicero, to
> finality: a telos, a violent revelation or apocalypse. Insofar as the
> purpose of the rocket is concerned, which, the novel suggests, may bring
> about the end of the world in a thermonuclear catastrophe, the Thomist
> meaning of an ascent through grace to the revelation of the divine essence
> is turned on its head.
>
> Northrop Frye would probably call this "demonic imagery" ("Anatomy of
> Criticism, 147). Wiki provides a summary:
>
> 'At one pole we have apocalyptic imagery which typifies the revelation of
> heaven and ultimate fulfillment of human desire. (...) At the opposite pole
> lies demonic imagery which typifies the unfulfillment, perver[s]ion, or
> opposition of human desire.'
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomy_of_Criticism
>
> Lew, on the other hand, experiences a comparatively mundane epiphany, on an
> "ordinary work-morning". I suggest to see this as an epiphany in the Joycean
> sense discussed above: The divine descending to the world instead of man
> ascending to the divine, as in Aquinas.
>
> I do not believe that Pynchon uses "grace" in its religious sense here
> (after all, the grace bestowed on Lew qualifies him for "Pinkerton work")
> but he uses Aquinas' frame of reference.
>
> As for the Chums, in the light of what I noted above, I believe the ending
> of the novel is highly ambiguous. Remember, they have to shield their eyes
> against the revelation that is to come:
>
> "They will put on smoked goggles for the glory of what is coming to part the
> sky. They fly toward grace." (1085)
>
> It has been pointed out to me that among the things they are flying toward
> is WW II and the atomic bomb.
>
> Again, notions of revelation, apocalypse, a blinding light, grace...
>
>
> P.S. In BE Horst ponders why he was saved on 11 September and links his luck
> to his "weird talent" for predicting market behaviour:
>
> '"So if you guys hadn't decided to sleep in..."
>
> "Back in the pits, I used to know this Christer coffee trader who told me it
> was like grace, something you don't ask for. Just comes. Of course, it can
> be withdrawn at any time."'
>
> BE, 320.
>
>
>
>
> Am 22.01.2018 um 21:46 schrieb David Morris:
>>
>>
>> http://religion.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.001.0001/acrefore-9780199340378-e-335
>>
>> Most interpreters have rightly understood that in Luther’s view, to have a
>> gracious God means to have a God who does not require human beings to
>> fulfill a set of prerequisites in order to receive God’s gift in Christ or
>> to reciprocate God’s giving in order to continue receiving Christ and his
>> benefits. For Luther, to have a God of grace means to believe and trust that
>> through Jesus Christ, God has already met all prerequisites and fulfilled
>> all reciprocations. On this point, Luther found himself breaking new ground
>> (or recovering lost ground) in the understanding of divine grace. Luther
>> “broke” with those theological forebears who taught that divine grace was,
>> in one way or another, partly dependent on human willing and doing.
>>
>>
> -
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