| Notes to the Text | ||||
Notes to Introduction | ||||
1. E.g. Our Global Neighbourhood: The Report of the Commission on Global Governance, New York and Oxford (Oxford University Press: 1995), 46-9. | ||||
2. In the Bible, the word for 'womb' comes to be used to refer to a compassion which is specifically divine or which pertains to the coming of the reign of God. See Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, VII, 548-55. | ||||
3. For a somewhat similar attempt to express the Christian notion of the Trinity in experiential terms see: Barbara Fiand, Embraced by Compassion: on Human Longing and Divine Response, New York (Crossroad: 1993) 25. See also the final chapter of Catherine Mowry LaCugna, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life, San Francisco, Harper: 1991. | ||||
4. Cf. Albert Nolan, Jesus Before Christianity, Maryknoll (Orbis: 1976, 1988), 83: 'The sayings and parables of Jesus are about life and the power at work in life and in nature. Only very infrequently does he find it necessary to mention God by name.' (This book is also published by David Philip in South Africa and by Darton, Longman and Todd in London.) | ||||
Notes to Ch. 1 | ||||
1. Cf. Eric Voegelin, Order and History: Vol I: Israel and Revelation, Louisiana State University Press (1956), 126-7, 136-7, 417. On the question of how the Jewish understanding of historical time differed from the modern liner notion of time see, Albert Nolan, Jesus Before Christianity, 74-6. | ||||
2. On the relationship between the hermits of Egypt and the Celtic hermits see, Michael Rogers and Marcus Losack, A Pilgrim's Guide to Glendalough, Glendalough, 1996. | ||||
3. Sebastian Barry, The Steward of Christendom, London (Methuen: 1995), 133. I am indebted to the author for permission to quote this passage and to the publishers for giving me access to a pre-publication text. | ||||
Notes to Ch. 2 | ||||
1. Cf. Albert Nolan, Jesus Before Christianity, 75-81. | ||||
2. Cf. Nolan, 134: 'Jesus did not found an organization; he inspired a movement.' | ||||
Notes to Ch. 3 | ||||
1. Cf. Donal Dorr, Spirituality and Justice, Dublin (Gill and Macmillan) and Maryknoll (Orbis) 1984, 221-35. | ||||
2. There are some very well documented instances of ghosts having been seen repeatedly in haunted houses. Perhaps such ghosts are 'ancestors' who remain strongly bound to certain locations because the circumstances of their deaths led those whom they left behind to fail to 'release' them and allow them to pass on; so they manifest themselves inappropriately-especially to psychically sensitive people. | ||||
3. London and Boston (Faber and Faber: 1990). | ||||
4. New York and London (Samuel French: 1993). | ||||
5. Patrick Kavanagh: The Complete Poems, New York 1972 and Newbridge, Ireland, 1984, 294-5. | ||||
6. Cf. Donal Dorr, Integral Spirituality: Resources for Community, Justice, Peace and the Earth, Dublin (Gill and Macmillan) and Maryknoll (Orbis Books), 1990, 14. | ||||
7. There is some debate among scripture scholars about St Paul's views on these 'principalities' (or 'guardians') and 'powers'. The standard reference books (e.g. Kittel and the Anchor Bible Dictionary) suggest that for the most part Paul sees them as evil cosmic forces engaged in a titanic struggle against the forces of good-a struggle in which Christ triumphs. Wesley Carr (Angels and Principalities, Cambridge University Press, 1981) maintains that to read the Epistles in this sense is to impose on them a Gnostic worldview which came to the fore perhaps fifty years after the Epistles were written; for him, the Powers are uniformly good and are part of the retinue or court of Yahweh. Carr's overall thesis has in turn been challenged by Walter Wink who argues convincingly that 'the Powers' are not evil in themselves but that many of them have become corrupted and have to be brought back to their true purpose; see his Naming The Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament, Philadelphia: Fortress Press 194; and Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces that Determine Human Existence, Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1986. When using the terms (or their equivalents) here, I understand them as referring not to enemies of Christ but to aspects of the divinity or of the heavenly court (� la Carr) or, alternatively, (following Wink) to agencies within our created world which have a spiritual dimension and which are currently fulfilling their proper, divinely given purpose and are therefore agents of God. | ||||
8. This suggestion of a specific linkage between 'guardian angels' and different spheres of human activity is inspired by�and a development of�the approach of Karl Rahner who strongly insists that 'angels are essentially related to the material world' (Sacramentum Mundi, III, 204). See also my remarks, in chapter 6 below, about the role of angels in 'The Transformation Game'. | ||||
Notes to Ch. 4 | ||||
1. Cf. Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, VI, 66-9. | ||||
2. I am not presuming that the Gospel accounts are a literal history of what Jesus did and said and thought. There are times when they do not give us the exact words of Jesus himself but reflect the way the first Christian communities understood Jesus and applied his teaching to their own situation. However, I have no hesitation in making use of the words attributed to Jesus by the evangelists, since I take it that the understanding of the early Church as expressed in the text of the Gospels is normative for us in our effort to grasp the deeper meaning of the life of Jesus. | ||||
3. Cf. Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to New Testament Christology, New York (Paulist) and London (Chapman) 1994, 91. I am relying on Brown for background on this topic. | ||||
4. Brown (Introduction ..., 92) speaks of the likelihood 'that there was a 1st-century Jewish expectation that God would make victorious and enthrone over Israel's enemies a specific human figure who would be the instrument of divine judgment-a figure who could be appropriately designated "the Son of Man" because he embodied or exemplified the destiny of all righteous human beings.' | ||||
5. My account of the relationship between Jesus and the rest of humanity is greatly influenced by Karl Rahner who has made an enormous contribution to Christology by his development of this whole theme. See his article on 'Jesus Christ' in the encyclopedia Sacramentum Mundi, III, 192-209; see also the following articles in the various volumes of his Theological Investigations: 'Current Problems in Christology', I, 149-200; 'On the Theology of the Incarnation', IV, 105-20; 'Christianity and the "New Man"', V, 135-53; 'Christology within an Evolutionary View of the World', V, 157-92; 'Dogmatic Reflections on the Knowledge and Self-Consciousness of Christ', V, 193-215; '"I Believe in Jesus Christ": Interpreting an Article of Faith', IX, 165-8; 'One Mediator and Many Mediations', IX, 169-84; 'Christology in the Setting of Modern Man's Understanding of Himself and of his World', XI, | ||||
215-29; 'Reflections on the Problems Involved in Devising a Short Formula of the Faith', XI, 230-44; 'The Quest for Approaches leading to an Understanding of the Mystery of the God-Man Jesus', XIII, 195-200. Rahner holds that, 'In Jesus, God's absolute, merciful self-communication to the world in a historical event is not only taught but in truth is eschatologically and definitively accomplished and present' and that the 'personal, human reality of Jesus Christ has entered into such a unique God-given union with God that it became God's real self-utterance and a radical gift of God to us.'�Sacramentum Mundi, III, 199, 207. For Rahner, the human person's deepest reality is an openness to be a created self-expression of God; in Jesus this openness is filled to the uttermost. Therefore, 'the message of the faith concerning Jesus Christ ... tells of the unique occasion which saw the radical achievement of the ultimate possibility of man's existence'�Theological Investigations, IX, 167. The crucial point is that what made Jesus capable of being the definitive expression of God in creation was the humanity which he shares with us. 'This man is, as such, the self-utterance of God in its self-emptying ...[;]... "what" he is is the same in him and in us: we call it human nature.'�IV, 116. So Rahner's position can, in a sense, be summed up in his statement that 'Christology may be studied as self-transcending anthropology, and anthropology as deficient Christology'�I, 164, note 1. Cf. also Nolan, Jesus Before Christianity, 119. | ||||
6. Dublin, Columba Press; Collegeville, Liturgical Press: 1994. | ||||
7. Cf. Jon Sobrino, Christology at the Crossroads: A Latin American View, Maryknoll (Orbis) and London (SCM), 1978, p. 219: 'In Jesus' cross we find fulfilled the prohibition against fashioning human images of God ...' | ||||
8. In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins, New York (Crossroad) and London (SCM) 1983. | ||||
9. Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination, Minneapolis (Fortress Press: 1992), 129-131. | ||||
10. Cf. Edward Schillebeeckx, Jesus: An Experiment in Christology, London (Collins: 1979), 601 :'Jesus might ... teach us ... that it is not our idea of "humanity" that is the measure for assessing Jesus, but that his humanity is the measure by which we ought to judge ourselves.' | ||||
11. See the very sensitive treatment of this topic in Enda Lyons, Jesus, Self-Portrait by God, especially 125-138. | ||||
12. See also my remarks towards the end of chapter 6 on the Word present in creation prior to the coming of Jesus. | ||||
13. Brown, Introduction..., 194. | ||||
14. I shall return to this point in chapter 7 below. | ||||
15. Cf. Raymond Brown Anchor Bible No 29, 410-1. | ||||
Notes to Ch. 5 | ||||
1. Cf. Michael Winter, The Atonement, London (Chapman, 1995) 27. | ||||
2. The traditional theology of atonement represents a very uneasy a compromise: on the one hand, it emphasises God's free and boundless love in sending Jesus to save humankind; but, on the other hand, by incorporating the notion of a God who requires satisfaction through the blood of Jesus it is also a product of the human tendency towards violence and of the tendency to hide such violent impulses by projecting them outwards-in this case onto God. On this point see Raymund Schwager, Must There be Scapegoats? Violence and Redemption in the Bible, San Francisco (Harper & Row: 1987), 232. | ||||
3. Cf. Ren� Girard, Violence and the Sacred, Baltimore (Johns Hopkins University Press: 1977), 97: '... a scapegoat ...becomes the receptacle of human passions ... of hostilities that all the members of the community feel for one another.' | ||||
4. The famous analyst Joan Riviere gives a technical but simple account of the process of projection in Melanie Klein and Joan Riviere, Love, Hate and Reparation, New York and London (W. W. Norton: 1964), 11-6. | ||||
5. Girard's views are scattered over a variety of different sources. For a synopsis see Schwager pp. 1-25 and for a very brief summary see Schwager pp. 46-7. Girard's ideas are presented simply and illustrated in terms of the situation in Northern Ireland (and other contemporary situations) in Roel Kaptein, On the Way to Freedom, Dublin: The Columba Press 1993. Walter Wink, while favouring the general thrust of Girard's position gives a cogent critique of some of its more sweeping generalizations in Engaging the Powers, 153-5. | ||||
6. This kind of imagery is very evident in the ancient celtic prayer known as 'The Breastplate of St Patrick'. | ||||
7. Cf. Winter, The Atonement, 26 | ||||
8. My interpretation of Deutero-Isaiah is based largely on Voegelin, Israel and Revelation, 488-515. Voegelin's view has been very helpfully elaborated by Robert M. Doran in Theology and the Dialectics of History, Toronto (University of Toronto Press: 1990), 128-35. | ||||
9. Plato was well aware of the hostility which must be endured by a truly good and just person; in his Republic he says such a person can expect to be scourged, tortured and crucified. Christians saw in this a prophecy of the fate of Jesus-cf. Gerald O'Collins, Interpreting Jesus, Mahwah (Paulist) and London (Chapman), 1983, 96-7. | ||||
10. Cf. Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (The Anchor Bible), Garden City (Doubleday: 1970), 1013-4. | ||||
11. I am deliberately using the phrase 'real presence' here, to suggest an analogy with the 'real presence' of Jesus in the Eucharist. Vatican II challenged Catholics to stretch their understanding on this point. There was no question of denying or scaling down our traditional belief in the 'real presence' in the Eucharist. But we were asked to acknowledge that Jesus is really present in other ways as well-in the Word of God, in the minister, and in the community. In somewhat the same way the New Testament challenges us to broaden our conceptions of 'resurrection' and 'new life' so that they extend not just to Jesus but also to his followers and to all whom he represents. | ||||
12. Cf. Karl Rahner, 'Current Problems in Christology', Theological Investigations: I, 167, where Rahner suggests that we should take more seriously the idea that in creation in pre-Christian times the Logos (the Word of God) had a distinct activity and history which were 'before Christ but Christ-like'. | ||||
Notes to Ch. 6 | ||||
1. Cf. J. Gordon Melton, 'Whither the New Age?' in, The Way, 33 (1993), 206-7. | ||||
2. See Maria Beesing, Robert J. Nogosek and Patrick H. O'Leary, The Enneagram: A Journey of Self Discovery, Denville, New Jersey (Dimension: 1984), 1. The Sufi origin of the Enneagram is questioned by Richard Woods in 'What is New Age Spirituality?', The Way 33 (1993), 177. For an account of the Enneagram, together with guidelines on how it may be introduced to groups in a participative way see, Donal Dorr, Integral Spirituality, 1990, 227-67. | ||||
3. E.g. Louis M. Savary, Patricia H. Berne and Strephon Kaplan Williams, Dreams and Spiritual Growth: A Christian Approach to Dreamwork, New York/Ramsey (Paulist: 1984). | ||||
4. See, for instance, Elisabeth Haich, The Wisdom of the Tarot, London (Unwin Paperbacks: 1985). | ||||
5. E.g. Liz Greene, Relating: an Astrological Guide to Living With Others, London (Aquarian Press). | ||||
6. E.g. Arnold Mindell, Dreambody: The Body's Role in Revealing the Self, Boston (Sigo Press: 1982) and Harmondsworth (Penguin Arkana: 1990); Arnold and Amy Mindell, Riding the Horse Backward: Process Work in Theory and Practice, Harmondsworth (Penguin Arkana: 1992). | ||||
7. The ancient gnostic view was that reincarnation was a burden and punishment-see Wink, Naming the Powers, p. 112. | ||||
8. E.g. The Irish Theological Commission, New Life in the Spirit? A Catholic Response to the New Age Phenomenon, Dublin: Veritas 1994. | ||||
9. See the section on 'Guardian Angels and Spiritual Powers' at the end of chapter 3 above. | ||||
10. James Redfield, The Celestine Prophecy: An Adventure, New York (Warner Books: 1993) and London (Bantam Books: 1994). | ||||
11. Note that the horrors of Liberia and Rwanda spring not from the traditional cultures as such but from the disruption of these civilizations by the arms, the radios, and the political interference of the so-called advanced Western world. | ||||
Notes to Ch. 7 | ||||
1. Cf. David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, Maryknoll (Orbis: 1991), 191. | ||||
2. See, Donal Dorr, Option for the Poor: A Hundred Years of Vatican Social Teaching (revised edition), Dublin (Gill and Macmillan) and Maryknoll (Orbis), 1992, 81-2, 371-2. | ||||
3. Article on 'Jesus Christ' in Sacramentum Mundi, III, 203. See also the references to, and the quotations from, Rahner's other writings in chapter 4, note 5, above. | ||||
4. Cf. Catherine Mowry LaCugna, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life, 409: 'The principle of the unity of oikonomia and theologia means that there is no contemplation of God 'in himself', apart from God's works in the economy of redemption, or apart from God's presence in other human beings and in creation itself. | ||||
5. See, Donal Dorr, Spirituality and Justice, 242-3. | ||||
6. John Polkinghorne, Science and Providence: God's Interaction with the World, London (SPCK: 1989), 33. | ||||
7. In the 1980s Alain Aspect and his colleagues in Paris found a way of testing in practice a 'theoretical' experiment proposed in the 1960s by an Irish scientist called John Bell. The experiment showed that if a change takes place in one particle then a corresponding change takes place in another particle which is related to it; and this occurs at exactly the same instant, no matter how far apart the two particles have been separated in space. In this case Einstein's 'law' that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light does not apply; it is as though there were no space between the two particles. More recent work by John Cramer and others suggests that there are similar anomalies about time; in the quantum world it can no longer be assumed that time flows irreversibly forward; nor can it be assumed that causes precede effects. See John Gribben, Schr�dinger's Kittens: and the Search for Reality, London (Wedenfeld and Nicolson: 1995), 23-8, 223-47. | ||||
8. I am relying here on a lecture on prayer given by Walter Wink to the Churches' Commission on Mission, Bangor University, North Wales, in September 1994 and circulated on tape by Audio & Visual Services, CAMEC, Holcombe House, the Ridgeway, London NW7 4HY; see also, Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers, 308-14. | ||||