weinhold
Puritan Board Freshman
I purchased Christ and Apollo some time ago, and have just now gotten to reading it. I have only read the first chapter, but already I can tell that this is a book that deserves my closest attention. In the book, Fr. Lynch essentially alters a Nietzschean dichotomy, Apollo and Dionysus, and alters it in order to emphasize the particularity of Christ. A little background may be helpful here. One of Nietzshe's early works was a piece of literary criticism called The Birth of Tragedy. In that short but dense book he established a binary represented by two Greek gods, Apollo and Dionysus. Apollo represented structure, Dionysus the spiritedness beneath -- and for Nietzsche superior to -- the external structures imposed upon any work of art. In a similar fashion, Fr. Lynch uses Christ and Apollo as figures, not for structure and creativity, but for immanence and transcendence, earth and heaven, particularity and generality, image and idea. In doing so, Fr. Lynch begins a powerful argument for what Aristotle termed, "attending to the particulars," and for the significance of doing so for the Christian. As Fr. Lynch writes himself, "Beginning with the first battle between the gnostic and Hebraic imaginations there has been a long war between the two forms of the imagination, between the men of the finite and the men of the infinite. This book takes up the case of the men of the finite and for the power of the definite" (10).
What is the definite?
Perhaps the best place to begin is Fr. Lynch's own categories for speaking about possible attitudes toward the definite. He notes four common errors:
1) "Exploiters of the real." This imagination, says Fr. Lynch, merely uses the real, the finite, the earthy, in order to rebound into the metaphorical sky of transcendence. In a biting example, he notes the tendency to be "more interested in baptismal statistics than in people" (17). I am reminded of a remark my father once made, poking fun at this same attitude: "I love mankind; it's people I can't stand!"
2) "Psychologism." Rather than rebounding toward heaven from the real, some rebound into the self. Poetry, art, music, relationships, and religion become significant in their ability to trigger a response from the self. Symbols are mere symbols, meaning occurs when the self breathes life into them.
3) "Double Vacuum" Here Fr. Lynch borrows Karl Barth as an emblematic figure for this contradictory scheme of the imagination. The imagination plunges partially into the finite, then recoils into "indefinite bliss" (19). Fr. Lynch returns to the double vacuum later in his chapter.
4) "Facers of facts." A prototypical existentialism, in which the absurd courage of the individual triumphs over and against the stark void of reality, characterizes this mode of the imagination. The finite is understood quite literally as a hellish realm, and the infinite may or may not be genuine.
By posing these four postures of the imagination toward the definite, Fr. Lynch successfully emphasizes the general lack of attention to particulars prevalent in modern thought. In contrast to all the above views, therefore, he argues, "We waste our time if we try to go around or above or under the definite; we must literally go through it" (16). Doing so, really entering into the finite world, "causally generates the plunge up" into the transcendent realm (22). Paraphrasing Heraclitus, Fr. Lynch offers another explanation: "The way up is the way down" (23). And here is where we can return to Karl Barth and the "double vacuum" problem. For Barth, the ascent into the heavenly in spite of the definite, whereas for Fr. Lynch, the definite is the path to the transcendent. Barth's imagination perceives the earthy things of this earth, the particularities, and says nevertheless the transcendent. Fr. Lynch would have us view the particularities and say therefore the transcendent. This is what he means by going through the particulars.
As I considered this first chapter in Christ and Apollo I was first struck by its resonance with an artistic sensibility. Think about what artists do: they form transcendent things out of material things. Paint. Ink. Cat guts. Even further, think about the movement of descent and ascent found in Christ, the reason why Fr. Lynch chose him as the emblem for the definite. The movement is toward the real first and only after Christ has descended into hell, as the creed says, can he ascend into heaven. What we often miss is the causal relationship there: the descent therefore the ascent. And this is what Christ would have us do if we are to be his followers. We must descend into the earthy, the real, the definite, the particulars. The key to that descent is love. Yet we cannot simply love mankind. Loving mankind is too easy; we must love our neighbor.
In light of Fr. Lynch's chapter on the definite, let me ask you to consider a passage from Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov in which Alyosha realizes this movement through the earth, therefore into the heavens:
The fresh, motionless,
still night enfolded the earth. The white towers and
golden domes of the cathedral gleamed out against the
sapphire sky. The gorgeous autumn flowers, in the
beds round the house, were slumbering till morning.
The silence of the earth seemed to melt into the
silence of the heavens. The mystery of earth was one
with the mystery of the stars. . . . Alyosha stood,
gazed, and suddenly threw himself down on the earth.
He did not know why he embraced it. He could not have
told why he longed so irresistibly to kiss it, to
kiss it all. But he kissed it weeping, sobbing and
watering it with his tears, and vowed passionately to
love it, to love it forever and ever. “Water the
earth with the tears of your joy and love those
tears,” echoed in his soul. What was he weeping over?
Oh! in his rapture he was weeping even over those
stars, which were shining to him from the abyss of
space, and “he was not ashamed of that ecstasy.”
There seemed to be threads from all those innumerable
worlds of God, linking his soul to them, and it was
trembling all over “in contact with other worlds.” He
longed to forgive everyone and for everything, and to
beg forgiveness. Oh, not for himself, but for all
men, for all and for everything. “And others are
praying for me too,” echoed again in his soul. But
with every instant he felt clearly and, as it were,
tangibly, that something firm and unshakeable as that
vault of heaven had entered into his soul. It was
as though some idea had seized the sovereignty of his
mind -- and it was for all his life and forever and
ever. He had fallen on the earth a weak youth, but he
rose up a resolute champion, and he knew and felt it
suddenly at the very moment of his ecstasy. And
never, never, all his life long, could Alyosha forget
that minute. “Someone visited my soul in that hour,”
he used to say afterwards, with implicit faith in his
words.
What is the definite?
Perhaps the best place to begin is Fr. Lynch's own categories for speaking about possible attitudes toward the definite. He notes four common errors:
1) "Exploiters of the real." This imagination, says Fr. Lynch, merely uses the real, the finite, the earthy, in order to rebound into the metaphorical sky of transcendence. In a biting example, he notes the tendency to be "more interested in baptismal statistics than in people" (17). I am reminded of a remark my father once made, poking fun at this same attitude: "I love mankind; it's people I can't stand!"
2) "Psychologism." Rather than rebounding toward heaven from the real, some rebound into the self. Poetry, art, music, relationships, and religion become significant in their ability to trigger a response from the self. Symbols are mere symbols, meaning occurs when the self breathes life into them.
3) "Double Vacuum" Here Fr. Lynch borrows Karl Barth as an emblematic figure for this contradictory scheme of the imagination. The imagination plunges partially into the finite, then recoils into "indefinite bliss" (19). Fr. Lynch returns to the double vacuum later in his chapter.
4) "Facers of facts." A prototypical existentialism, in which the absurd courage of the individual triumphs over and against the stark void of reality, characterizes this mode of the imagination. The finite is understood quite literally as a hellish realm, and the infinite may or may not be genuine.
By posing these four postures of the imagination toward the definite, Fr. Lynch successfully emphasizes the general lack of attention to particulars prevalent in modern thought. In contrast to all the above views, therefore, he argues, "We waste our time if we try to go around or above or under the definite; we must literally go through it" (16). Doing so, really entering into the finite world, "causally generates the plunge up" into the transcendent realm (22). Paraphrasing Heraclitus, Fr. Lynch offers another explanation: "The way up is the way down" (23). And here is where we can return to Karl Barth and the "double vacuum" problem. For Barth, the ascent into the heavenly in spite of the definite, whereas for Fr. Lynch, the definite is the path to the transcendent. Barth's imagination perceives the earthy things of this earth, the particularities, and says nevertheless the transcendent. Fr. Lynch would have us view the particularities and say therefore the transcendent. This is what he means by going through the particulars.
As I considered this first chapter in Christ and Apollo I was first struck by its resonance with an artistic sensibility. Think about what artists do: they form transcendent things out of material things. Paint. Ink. Cat guts. Even further, think about the movement of descent and ascent found in Christ, the reason why Fr. Lynch chose him as the emblem for the definite. The movement is toward the real first and only after Christ has descended into hell, as the creed says, can he ascend into heaven. What we often miss is the causal relationship there: the descent therefore the ascent. And this is what Christ would have us do if we are to be his followers. We must descend into the earthy, the real, the definite, the particulars. The key to that descent is love. Yet we cannot simply love mankind. Loving mankind is too easy; we must love our neighbor.
In light of Fr. Lynch's chapter on the definite, let me ask you to consider a passage from Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov in which Alyosha realizes this movement through the earth, therefore into the heavens:
The fresh, motionless,
still night enfolded the earth. The white towers and
golden domes of the cathedral gleamed out against the
sapphire sky. The gorgeous autumn flowers, in the
beds round the house, were slumbering till morning.
The silence of the earth seemed to melt into the
silence of the heavens. The mystery of earth was one
with the mystery of the stars. . . . Alyosha stood,
gazed, and suddenly threw himself down on the earth.
He did not know why he embraced it. He could not have
told why he longed so irresistibly to kiss it, to
kiss it all. But he kissed it weeping, sobbing and
watering it with his tears, and vowed passionately to
love it, to love it forever and ever. “Water the
earth with the tears of your joy and love those
tears,” echoed in his soul. What was he weeping over?
Oh! in his rapture he was weeping even over those
stars, which were shining to him from the abyss of
space, and “he was not ashamed of that ecstasy.”
There seemed to be threads from all those innumerable
worlds of God, linking his soul to them, and it was
trembling all over “in contact with other worlds.” He
longed to forgive everyone and for everything, and to
beg forgiveness. Oh, not for himself, but for all
men, for all and for everything. “And others are
praying for me too,” echoed again in his soul. But
with every instant he felt clearly and, as it were,
tangibly, that something firm and unshakeable as that
vault of heaven had entered into his soul. It was
as though some idea had seized the sovereignty of his
mind -- and it was for all his life and forever and
ever. He had fallen on the earth a weak youth, but he
rose up a resolute champion, and he knew and felt it
suddenly at the very moment of his ecstasy. And
never, never, all his life long, could Alyosha forget
that minute. “Someone visited my soul in that hour,”
he used to say afterwards, with implicit faith in his
words.
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