This is intended as a companion to the discussion that Dave and I have been carrying on about theology and the Academy (it started in our discussion on Fish). It is also interesting in and of itself for a bunch of artists and (social) scientists like ourselves. Here is the opening passage from Auden's "Postscript: Christianity & Art" (from "The Shield of Persius"); it has some interesting implications for artists and scientists, that is, for the academy:
"Art is compatible with polytheism and Christianity, but not with philosophical materialism; science is compatible with philosophical materialism and Christianity, but not with polytheism. No artist or scientist, however, can feel comfortable as a Christian; every artist who happens also to be a Christian wishes he could be a polytheist; every scientist in the same position that he could be a philosophical materialist. And with good reason. In a polytheist society, the artists are its theologians; in a materialist society, its theologians are the scientists. To a Christian, unfortunately, both art and science are secular activities, that is to say, small beer.
"No artist, qua artist, can understand what is meant by God is Love or Thou shalt love thy neighbor because he doesn't care whether God and men are loving or unloving [Coye: only interesting or uninteresting]; no scientist, qua scientist, can understand what is meant because he doesn't care whether to-be-loving is a matter of choice or a matter of compulsion."
What do you think?
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4 comments:
I quarrel with artists qua artists.
I think because skillsets that become deepening patterns that become roles that become what we call "identities" do not belong in the same catagory as Identity and Anti-Identity (i.e. children of light, children of darkness; sheep, goats; in Christ, not in Christ, etc.). The only Identity that we are given is our name in Christ.
I would grant that God gives gifts of grace through which our Identity uniquely articulated. However, the true integrity of these gifts as gifts depends on their placement within the body of Christ and upon their nourishment as part of the body as supplied by Christ.
The forms of the gifts do exist outside of the body, but they are attached to no source; hense, they can only articulate echos, which they do and do and do. Thus, the appearance of polytheism. But here we have no life, just strangly generative spirals of meaninglessness toward utter isolation qua isolation (which is the Anti-Identity, which is death).
I wrestle against a form of personality-articulation as being a thing in itself because "thing in itself" means "identity-source."
That is, I do not say Artist qua Artist because "qua" means "come unto me, and I will give you rest"; it means, "I am life."
If we seek to speak ourselves as forms AS SUCH (and not as gifts), we will crumple under the sheer deflate of our empty statements.
boring...
Ok, I don't want to completely abandon this conversation (indeed, I have hopes that it will one day lead us back to Stanley and his piece about religion in the academy), but I feel the need to take a break for a little while. This is going to take a lot of re-reading and meditating on our previous posts, and there are currently other things seducing my attention away from this conversation. So (with your leave, of course) I would like to leave this waiting on the table for a little while.
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