Monday, January 02, 2006
THEOLOGY AT NOTRE DAME
Cyril O'Regan
(B.A., 1974, and M.A., 1978, University College Dublin; M.A., 1983, M.Phil., 1984, and Ph.D., 1989, Yale University)
Huisking Professor of Theology
O'Regan specializes in systematic and historical theology. He has specific interests in the intersection of continental philosophy and theology, religion and literature, mystical theology, and postmodern thought. He has written The Heterodox Hegel, Gnostic Return in Modernity, and Gnostic Apocalypse: Jacob Boehme's Haunted Narrative. He has published numerous articles on such topics as the nature of tradition, negative theology, the sources of Hegel's thought and Hegel as a theological source, and on figures such as John Henry Newman and Hans Urs von Balthasar. O'Regan is currently working on books on Romanticism and Gnosticism and on Han Urs von Balthasar and postmodern thought.
Isn't that a curious combination of topics and teachers!!
There is one question I would so very much like to ask this theology professor...was Hans Urs von Balthasar a Christian Martinist? If the answer is "yes", it would go a long way toward explaining what seems to be unexplainable about the current direction of some circles in the Church.
Two of O'Regan's books are reviewed by Dermot Moran, University College Dublin. From the review:
Early in his first book in the series, Gnostic Return in Modernity (p. 6), O’Regan quotes another scholar of gnosticism, Ioan Culianu, bemoaning the fact that everyone is a gnostic according to someone:Not only was Gnosis gnostic, but the catholic authors were gnostic, the neoplatonists too, Reformation was gnostic, Communism was gnostic, Nazism was gnostic, liberalism, existentialism and psychoanalysis were gnostic too, modern biology was gnostic, Blake, Yeats, Kafka, Rilke, Proust, Joyce, Musil, Hesse and Thomas Mann were gnostic. From very authoritative interpreters of Gnosis, I learned further that science is gnostic and superstition is gnostic … Hegel is gnostic and Marx is gnostic; Freud is gnostic and Jung is gnostic; all things and their opposite are equally gnostic.
I must say I agree with Culianu; it seems that anyone who puts forward a systematic account (Hegel, Marx, Heidegger) can be defined as a gnostic. It is not a neutral term but carries some sense of flawed, Faustian, overweaning ambition.
Is it a valid criticism? Is an orthodox Catholic belief that God interacts in an unseen way with His creation actually a gnostic conception? And so is there really a variety of authentic Catholic gnosticism? Is it possible to believe in a transcendent God without being, to a certain extent, gnostic? It's a question that presents itself more demandingly the more I read of the novelties in theology that seem to be growing in popularity in the Church.
Related to that is a further question...if there is a genuine Catholic gnosis, how does one distinguish it from the heretical variety? The answer, I presume, lies in a close adherence to doctrine. Our theologians need to work on this to come up with something that those of us who are not theologians can put to use in evaluating our culture. Right now all we have to work with is a confused jumble of theories.
Stratford Caldecott seems to be saying the same thing in his article "The Secret Path: A Catholic Response to the New Age." He writes in conclusion:
But how is one to help awaken that mystical vision of the true nature of the Church, and the organic structure of the Christian mysteries sheltered by adamantine tenderness in creed and dogma? This is the question I have been trying to face: the question of how to develop an appropriate mystagogy for our time. Gnostics have always been attracted by the beauty and fascination of an elaborate mythology of cosmic spheres and powers, of "secret teachings" and "hidden transmissions". While the Catholic Church should not try to compete with Gnosticism at this level, it is worth noting that the arguments of Irenaeus against the heresies are based not only on the inconsistencies and crudities of the Gnostic myth, but on the superior attractive power of the Christian revelation once correctly understood. I have given in the preceding pages a few indications of where I would begin to look for an orthodox Christian Gnosis capable of rekindling the interest and enthusiasm of a new generation. The Centre for Faith & Culture in America and Britain hopes one day to be able to offer courses along these lines. Three possible approaches suggest themselves immediately.
The first is based upon the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This popular and ancient devotion is a system of prayer arranged around a series of fifteen Mysteries, summarizing the entire content of Christian faith - it provides a Marian perspective on the life of Christ. There could be no better foundation for a mystagogic programme capable of integrating prayer and study. Another approach would be based around a suitable textbook. Olivier Clément’s The Roots of Christian Mysticism, supplemented by a range of longer readings from the tradition, would be one such text. Jean Borella’s The Secret of the Christian Way (mentioned earlier) would serve those of a more metaphysical disposition - and again, a variety of supplementary readings could be provided.
If he doesn't have the answers, he is at least asking the right questions. Catholics can hardly continue to muddle along side-by-side with New Age gnostic concepts, allowing ourselves to be seduced by mysticism that is not Catholic. Somehow we must escape from pure Catholic rationalism--rule following--into a recovered belief in a living relationship with the unseen God who created us, a relationship that can span the hours of our everyday life. A Sunday-morning God is no longer adequate. Materialism has shown us its inadequacy. The human heart was made for a 24/7 friendship with its Creator, and nothing less will satisfy. There was a time, 40 years ago, when we knew this. The intervening years have robbed us of that relationship. Perhaps Benedict's focus on the liturgy is the answer. The liturgy is not everything, but it just may generate the rest. This Catholic can only hope so!
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
