22REJOINDER TO DR PITTENGERTONE OF THE CHARGES DR NORMAN PITTENGER MAKES in his `Critique' in the October 1 Christian Ce
22
REJOINDER TO DR PITTENGER
TONE OF THE CHARGES DR NORMAN PITTENGER MAKES in his `Critique' in the October 1 Christian Century,"
I must with shame plead guilty. He has caught me using the word `literally' where I did not really mean it, a vile journalistic cliche which he cannot reprobate more severely than I now do myself.2
This must not be taken to mean that my present conception would fully satisfy Dr Pittenger. He speaks about `the validity of our Lord's unique place in Christian faith as that One in whom God was so active and so present that he may be called "God-Man" '.:;
translate it, `our Lord's actually unique place in the structure of utter reality, the unique mode, as well as degree, of God's presence and action in Him, make the formula "God-Man" the objectively true description of Him'? If so, I think we are very nearly agreed. Or must I translate it, `the unique place which Christians (subjectively, in their own thoughts) gave to our Lord as One in whom God was present and active to a unique degree made it reasonable for them to call Him GodMan'? If so, I must demur. In other words, if Dr Pittenger's ,may be called' means anything less or other than `is', I could not accept his formula. For I think that Jesus Christ is (in fact) the only Son of God-that is, the only original Son of God, through whom others are enabled to `become sons of God'.4
I turn next to my book Miracles and am sorry to say that I here have to meet Dr Pittenger's charges with straight denials. He says that this book `opens with a definition of miracle as the "violation" of the laws of nature'.-3
He is mistaken. The passage (chapter 2) really runs: `I use the word Miracle to mean an interference with Nature by supernatural power.',
If Dr Pittenger thinks the difference between the true text and his mis-quotation merely verbal, he has misunderstood nearly the whole book. I never equated nature (the spatiotemporal system of facts and events) with the laws of nature (the patterns into which these facts and events fall). I would as soon equate an actual speech with the rules of grammar. In chapter 8 I say in so many words that no miracle either can or need break the laws of Nature; that `it is ... inaccurate to define a miracle as something that breaks the laws of Na- ture';7
and that `The divine art of miracle is not an art of suspending the pattern to which events conform but of feeding new events into that pattern.'8
Again, Dr Pittenger contrasts my view with that which makes miracles a sign of God's action and presence in creation. Yet in chapter 15 I say that the miracle at Cana manifests `the God of Israel who has through all these centuries given us wine' and that in the miraculous feedings God `does close and small ... what He has always been doing in the seas, the lakes and the little brooks'.''
Dr Pittenger thinks the Naturalist whom I try to refute in chapter 3 is a man of straw. He may not be found in the circles Dr Pittenger frequents. He is quite common where I come from; and, presumably, in Moscow. There is indeed a really serious hitch in that chapter (which ought to be rewritten), but Dr Pittenger has not seen it or has charitably kept silent about it."'
Pittenger rejects the fourth as simply untrue. According to him it gives that `interpretation' of our Lord's `significance' which the early Christians `found', and `rightly' found, `to be true'.11
I confess, however, that the problem of the Fourth Gospel raises in me a conflict between authority and private judgment: the authority of all those learned men who think that Gospel unhistorical, and my judgment as a literary critic which constrains me to think it at least as close to the facts as Boswell's Johnson. If I venture here to follow judgment in the teeth of authority, this is partly because I could never see how one escaped the dilemma aut deus aut malus homo12
I am accused of attributing `almost spatial transcendence' to God and of denying His continued presence within Nature because I speak of Him as `invading' or `intruding into' her.13
manence'. So does Dr Pittenger's `God's action and presence in the creation'.14
Dr Pittenger says that I base the Faith on authority (which has `grown up in the Church and won the assent of great doctors') .1
So does he; his authority is `the total consentient witness of all Christians from the Apostles' time'. 16
Where he really hurt me was in the charge of callousness to animals. Surprised me too; for the very same passage is blamed by others for extreme sentimentality.17
The statement that I do not `care much for' the Sermon on the Mount but `prefer' the `Pauline ethic' of man's sinfulness and helplessnessls
diagnosis (would you call it exactly an ethic?) had to be pressed. Nor am I aware that our Lord revised it (`if ye, being evil ..As
to `caring for' the Sermon on the Mount, if `caring for' here means `liking' or enjoying, I suppose no one `cares for' it. Who can like being knocked flat on his face by a sledge-hammer? I can hardly imagine a more deadly spiritual condition than that of the man who can read that passage with tranquil pleasure. This is indeed to be `at ease in Zion'.20
But let all that pass. Suppose the image is vulgar. If it gets across to the unbeliever what the unbeliever desperately needs to know, the vulgarity must be endured. Indeed, the image's very vulgarity may be an advantage; for there is much sense in the reasons advanced by Aquinas (following Pseudo-Dionysius) for preferring to present divine truths sub figuris vilium corporum22
One thing at least is sure. If the real theologians had tackled this laborious work of translation about a hundred years ago, when they began to lose touch with the people (for whom Christ died), there would have been no place for me.23