Introduction God and Grace of Body by David Brown

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Introduction
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God and Grace of Body: Sacrament n Ordnary
Davd Brown
Prnt pubcaton date: 2007
Prnt ISBN-13: 9780199231829
Pubshed to Oxford Schoarshp Onne: |an-08
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199231829.001.0001
Introducton
Davd Brown (Contrbutor Webpage)
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199231829.003.0001
Abstract and Keywords
Ths ntroductory chapter begns wth a summary of the book, whch s
ntended as a seque to God and Enchantment of Pace: Recamng Human
Experence. The book contnues the work of ts predecessor n showng
the range of artstc and cutura experence that theoogy must pay more
attenton to. But whe God and Enchantment of Pace focused on pace,
ths book focuses on the human body - how the body mght medate the
experence of God. An overvew of the three parts of the book s presented.
Keywords: human body, regous experence, God, musc, Chrst
THIS book s ntended as a seque to Cod and Enchantment of Place:
Reclaiming Human Experience. Lke ts predecessor, t seeks to recam
for regous experence great areas of human encounter wth the dvne
that have been ether margnazed n contemporary Chrstanty or amost
whoy gnored. As much contemporary academc wrtng we ustrates,
theoogy contnues to see ts man daogue partner n a phosophy that
dentfes varants on the tradtona arguments for the exstence of God as
the rea heart of where the debate shoud e.
1
I woud not wsh to chaenge
the ntrnsc nterest of such dscussons, but t does seem to me that that
s not what makes most of us regous beevers or otherwse. Were such
an Enghtenment mode ony confned to those wth a strong nterest n
phosophy, that woud be bad enough. But the poston s consderaby
exacerbated by so much theoogy producng, as t were, a mrror mage by
way of reacton. The Chrstan reveaton then becomes a sef-contaned
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Introduction
entty that s seen as requred to address and chaenge the word's vaues
rather than engage wth them.
Inevtaby, that prevous paragraph grossy smpfes compex ssues.
2
But
rather than compcate the perspectve wth further quafcatons here, et
t stand, so that I can more accuratey sketch where my own stance es. It
s that both sdes are not |ust wrong, but serousy wrong. In effect, modern
regon has become an optona extra, whereas through most of the hstory
of regon t was seen as havng a bearng on a aspects of fe. God was not
ony (p.2) the God of the bbca reveaton and so concerned wth prayer,
moras and potcs, he was aso actve n every aspect of hs creaton. Each
deta of that word and the human understandng that goes wth t was hed
-necessary-to refect some aspect of the dvne nature. So, as I have
sought to ndcate over these two voumes and the thrd whch foows t, God
was found n every aspect of human experence. That was never seen as
merey human aspraton or pro|ecton. God met the ndvdua haf way, as t
were, n the very structurng of such experence. So t was no accdent that,
for exampe, some budng styes spoke of God and others not, some garden
desgns coud evoke a sense of dvne presence and others not, and so on.
3
That heps expan why dscussons about such matters n the past were
so often anmated. The archtect's |ob was ether to evoke or deepen the
sense of a dvne presence that was aready there n reaton to the word but
needed to be made more expct. Smary, andscape artsts never thought
of themseves as smpy recordng the scene before them. The am was to
hghght those features that woud draw the vewer more cosey nto an
experence of God.
4
Not that precsey the same features of the dvne were aways chosen.
Inevtaby, that rases the queston of confct. Sometmes competng
features, despte ther dfferences, coud after a be seen as essentay
compementary. More probematcay, at other tmes the tensons appear
more deep-seated. Baroque payfuness and ts sense of drama, for nstance,
st uneasy wth a cassca sense of order.
5
Agan, Gothc transcendence
must nevtaby for the Chrstan border on the heretca uness baanced by
some countervang emphass that stresses mmanence.
6
That mght seem to requre an mmedate push towards crtera. I take a
dfferent vew, not because I thnk the ssue unmportant but because t
seems to me that a more fundamenta am has to be acheved frst: the need
to take such experence serousy n the frst pace. So much contemporary
Chrstan aesthetcs pronounces from a poston of pror certantes (aegedy
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Introduction
but on secure bbca foundatons) that t s tte wonder that the outsde
(p.3) word pays scant attenton. There s preachng but no rea engagement,
no serous attempt to wreste wth whether God mght not be aso n what
s encountered no ess than n what s offered. Phosophers sometmes
ob|ect to the wooness of such a noton of experence, or even rdcue ts
very possbty. There s a category mstake nvoved, we are tod. A God
who transcends every human concepton cannot possby be encountered
n ths way.
7
That I do not for a moment beeve. The fact that God n hs
totaty cannot be experenced does not enta that the dvne may not be
experenced n part. In a smar way, the mpossbty of graspng a great
human mnd hardy prevents some mted comprehenson and experence of
that nteect.
8
So what ths voume does s contnue the work of ts predecessor n
demonstratng the range of such artstc and cutura experence that
theoogy needs n my vew once more to take serousy. Whe the man
focus of Cod and Enchantment of Place was, as ts tte mpes, on pace,
n ths one the spotght fas on the human body. So I consder how body
mght medate experence of God. Part I focuses on some of the key ways
n whch body sometmes functons as a symboc medaton for encounter
wth the dvne, among them the body as beautfu, as sexua and as ugy,
and n ceebraton such as dancng and feastng. Part II then turns to musc.
As a deberate chaenge to the reader, I try to ndcate how God mght be
experenced through musca forms as vared as opera and |azz, Schubert
and Led Zeppen.
I have chosen to nk musc wth the more earthed body expressons of Part I
because t seems to me that t bees superfca appearance, n beng at one
and the same tme etherea and matera. It thus forms a natura transton
to Part III , where I want to nsst on the reaty of Chrst's physcaty n the
eucharst despte the etherea character of that presence. Ths voume's
seque, Cod and Mystery in Words, w have more to say on how (p.4) that
s reazed n the turgy. But here I deberatey concude the argey secuar
dscusson of the frst two parts n ths way, to emphasze that a the word
shoud be seen as sacramenta, as mbued through and through wth dvne
presence.
9
It s for that reason that the book's subtte adapts a famous
phrase of the poet George Herbert n speakng of Sacrament n Ordnary.
10
The actvty of God s everywhere n the matera word that s hs creaton,
and not at a an soated and occasona phenomenon. That s why t seems
to me no accdent that Chrstanty's centra sacrament focuses on body
and on a human body at that. It s no mere sprtua presence that s on
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Introduction
offer n the eucharst but one envsaged n defntey matera terms. Earthy
reaty s present not |ust n the bread and wne but aso through the whoe
humanty of Chrst beng once more made avaabe, however transformed
t has become through enterng a new type of exstence. That nsght was
centra not |ust to Aqunas but equay aso to Luther and Cavn.
In the process of referrng to Sacrament n Ordnary, however, reasons
for the choce of the book's prmary tte, Cod and Crace of 8ody, must not
be forgotten. Thanks argey to St Pau grace became a technca term n
Chrstan theoogy, to be contrasted, ke fath, wth works. The stress, t s
sad, must be whoy on the dvne ntatve that saves faen humanty. It
s amazng grace, grace aboundng. Whe that stress s rght and proper,
expressons of grace got bogged down from Augustne onwards n a whoe
seres of quafcatons, characterzed by such ad|ectves as effectve,
congruent and prevenent. These are not my concern here. What I ntend
to evoke n my tte s the much wder sense of the term that nks a number
of Greek words and enabes us to detect grace of body as tsef a dvne gft.
The Greek term charis not ony gves us charismata, the gfts of grace,
but aso chara (|oy), chaire (ha or good day), and eucharisteo (thanks for
charis). What nks them s the dea of excess, of gong beyond what mght
be expected. So charis s a favour rendered that coud not be demanded or
expected, and |oy and thanks therefore the approprate response. Chaire
may seem the excepton, (p.5) but that s because I have provded the
usua transaton rather than what the phrase means teray: |oy to you.
As such t s the usua concuson of pagan Greek hymns to the gods. Luke
aso empoys t as a pun n the ange Gabre's address to Mary at the
Annuncaton. So far from beng decared aready fu of grace as n the Latn
verson of the Ave Mara, what the Greek actuay says s more ke Good day
to you, God s beng good to you.
11
None of ths s to deny the exstence of uses n both pagan wrtng and wthn
the Bbe tsef unconnected wth regon. For nstance, Pato treats chara as
equvaent to hedone and s therefore suspcous of t, n marked contrast, t
must be sad, to the Stocs, who tend to contrast |oy and peasure, dentfyng
the former as one of fe's egtmate aspratons.
12
But the eement of
excess does gve us a cue to why such words do so often appear n regous
contexts. There s a sense of beng carred beyond the ordnary nto the
transcendent, beng rased onto a qute dfferent eve. For the regous that
shoud appy not |ust to the exuberance of dancng and feastng but aso
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Introduction
to each ordnary mea receved. There s nothng speca about partcuar
ndvduas that enttes them to be fed whe others go hungry.
But such excess aso appes to the body tsef. |ust as the sayng of grace
before a mea can transform our sense of ts sgnfcance, so gracefu
gestures can hep us to read the body tsef n new ways. So t comes as no
surprse that the anguage of grace was once apped n the ancent word
to the athete, |ust as today the term s st commony heard apped to the
dancer. But even the reatvey statc body, when seen as beautfu and to be
vaued n ts own rght, can make a statement: that the unverse s grounded
n hgher vaues than expotaton and ust. The names of the cassca three
Graces suggest a focus on ceebraton, and t s wthn such contexts that
earer artstc representaton tends to be set.
13
Hesod descrbes how from
ther gancng eyes fows a ove that mets the mbs, and beautfu s ther
gaze from beneath ther (p.6) brows.
14
It s ntrgung to observe that ony
n ater ancent hstory were they deprved of ther cothes and ther bodes
now aowed n and of themseves to speak of proporton and harmony.
15
It
was a theme taken up n much ater art of the Chrstan era, and kewse n
ts poetry.
16
So t woud be wrong to cam that that wder sense of grace was ever whoy
ost. Nor s t a percepton confned to the conventonay regous. Henr
Matsse n hs negotatons wth Fr Couturer over the decoraton of the
Vence Chape shows hmsef fuy aert to such ssues, as s aso cear, f
ess expcty, n The Dance, hs marveous seres of prntngs and muras
of a dancng crce of grs.
17
In a of the varous versons, the crce s
ncompete, and deberatey so. An nvtaton s thereby extended to the
vewer to |on the graced crce as t strans aganst the edge of the frame,
pung or beng pued nto the unknown beyond.
Strcty speakng, of course, Chrstan orthodoxy requres the atter. But, so
far from decryng the former, we shoud wecome those human stranngs,
for, f nothng ese, they at east represent the reazaton that there mght
be more to ths word than what frst meets the eye. It s not dffcut for the
Chrstan to fnd the Paune sense of grace n a body wracked by the pan
of crucfxon. But to eave matters there woud be once more to separate
theoogy and the word. We need aso to dscover a smar grace to what s
ustrated by that work of Matsse, a dance that promses to take us beyond
crucfxon nto resurrecton. It s a truth that s decared more profoundy,
n my vew, n the words of a pop song than n the wrtngs of many an
academc theoogan:
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Introduction
Grace, t's the name for a gr
It's aso a thought that changed the word .
Grace she carres a word on her hps .
No twrs or skps between her fngertps .
Grace makes beauty out of ugy thngs.
18
(p.7) It s the recamaton of that wder sense of grace for the Church that I
am seekng to acheve n ths work, as I aow everythng from ancent Roman
regous uses of sexuaty to twenteth-century secuar dance to hep nform
how we shoud understand God's generous offerng of hmsef to human
experence.
As wth ths voume's predecessor, there s no separate bbography.
Readers need, therefore, to be aerted to the fact that fu bbographca
detas are gven n the frst reference to a work wthn each chapter.
Bbca quotatons are from the Revsed Standard Verson, uness otherwse
ndcated. (p.8)
Notes:
(1) Usuay suppemented these days by one obvous argument aganst,
the socaed probem of ev. Snce there s ony a probem f t s thought
that we have rghts aganst God, even phosophy shows tsef here to be
condtoned ke a ese by hstorca context. The noton of rghts aganst the
Creator woud have been unntegbe for much of human hstory.
(2) For more quafcatons, see my Cod and Enchantment of Place (Oxford:
Oxford Unversty Press, 2004), 5-10.
(3) For archtecture, see bd. 245-371; for gardens, 371-87.
(4) Ibd. 84-136.
(5) Ibd. 281-97.
(6) For my expanaton for why Gothc art pursued qute a dfferent drecton
from Gothc archtecture, see bd. 272-81.
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Introduction
(7) See e.g. B. Daves, lntroduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford:
Oxford Unversty Press, 1982), 64-76; Thinking about Cod (London: Geoffrey
Chapman, 1985), 61-72 (more moderate); D. Turner, The Darkness of Cod
(Cambrdge: Cambrdge Unversty Press, 1995), e.g. 4.
(8) For that ob|ecton pursued n more deta and aso the reated crtcsm
that to tak at a of regous experence s nevtaby to downpay the
presence of God n the everyday, see my essay Experence Skewed, n K.
Vanhoozer and M. Warner (eds), Transcending 8oundaries in Philosophy and
Theology (London: Ashgate, 2007).
(9) Ths ncusve use of sacramenta was expored and defended n Cod and
Enchantment of Place, 5-36, esp. 25-33.
(10) Heaven n Ordnary s one of Herbert's descrptons of prayer n Prayer
(1): George Herbert: Complete English Poems, ed. |. Tobn (London: Pengun,
1991), 45-6, ne 11.
(11) Ths transaton was frst suggested by Austn Farrer n a 1963 essay,
Mary, Scrpture and Tradton, avaabe n A. Loades and R. McSwan (eds),
The Truth 5eeking Heart: Austin Farrer and his Writings (Norwch: Canterbury
Press, 2006), 75.
(12) For a bref dscusson, see R. Sorab|, Emotion and Peace of Mind: From
5toic Agitation to Christian Temptation (Oxford: Oxford Unversty Press,
2000), 47-51.
(13) Ther tradtona names (from Hesod onwards) are Agaea (Spendour),
Euphrosune (Gaety) and Thaa (Feastng).
(14) Hesod, Theogony 910-11 (my transaton).
(15) For one such ater type, see A. Steward, Creek 5culpture (New Haven,
Conn.: Yae Unversty Press, 1990), , no. 809.
(16) Whe n Bottce they reman cothed, Canova presents the naked dea.
(17) The front cover of ths voume utzes one such verson, from 1910. The
varous changes Matsse made are dscussed n Chapter 2.
(18) Grace, track 11 on U2's abum All That You Can't Leave 8ehind (2000).
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Introduction

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