To Act and Hope with Creation
Nicolete Burbach is Social and Environmental Justice Lead at the London Jesuit Centre. Alongside her academic research, she is a frequent contributor in The Tablet and New Ways Ministries’ blog, Bondings 2.0. In her spare time, she plays in the Durham-based heavy metal band, Nine Altars.
The theologian, Josef Komonchak[1] once wrote that modern Catholic theology is characterised by two tendencies.
The first is the ‘Augustinian’ tendency. Named after St Augustine of Hippo, who is famous for his keen awareness of the way sin damages creation, this tendency views creation with a level of suspicion. People who take this approach tend to worry about the way that the world is liable to go wrong, and hope for God to save us by acting over and against wayward creation.
The second is the ‘Thomist’ tendency. Named after St Thomas Aquinas, who roots creaturely activity in the activity of the Creator, people who take this approach tend to look at creation more hopefully, emphasising its capacity to be a vehicle for grace.
This typology neither aims nor manages to capture the nuances of Augustine’s and Aquinas’ thought. Rather, it frames a dilemma that all Christians face.
On the one hand, we know that God works in and through the world. Christ took on human nature, and thereby saved us. The sacraments are material things, and yet impart grace. And insofar as God wants justice in the world, whenever we work in pursuit of justice, we are doing God’s work.
In this regard, it is important that we hope and act with creation – because it is in and through creation that God brings our hopes to fulfilment. To hope and act with creation, in this sense, is no less than to hope in and act with God.
On the other hand, the tragedy of sin abounds. It makes us desire the wrong things. It leads our reason astray. It is embodied in oppressive structures that reproduce injustice in our society.
In these respects, creation is bound to betray us. It is worthy of neither our co-operation, nor our hope.
It would be trite to say that we cannot afford to be either too ‘Augustinian’ or too ‘Thomist’. It is true that being too suspicious of creation might lead us to miss the ways in which it can be site and vehicle for our fulfilment. And it is true that being too hopeful with regards to creation can lead to naivety. But this does not mean that the solution lies in finding some kind of middle-path, as if we can simply think our way out of the situation by being sensible and moderate. This attitude, which seeks a way out by trusting in our own natural powers of discernment, can itself embody a kind of naivety – if not arrogance or complacency.
Rather, just as our ambivalent world both offers possibilities and betrays us, we must resign ourselves to stumbling back and forth between the poles of Augustinian suspicion and Thomist hope.
But if this resignation seems like the ultimate triumph of Augustinian pessimism, then we might also remember that grace works in the world even amidst its imperfections. Perhaps, then, we might find something authentically hopeful emerging from within this movement itself.
[1] Komonchak, Joseph A. 1994. ‘Vatican II and the encounter between Catholicism and Liberalism’, in Catholicism and Liberalism: Contributions to American Policy, R. Bruce Douglass and David Hollenbach (eds.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) pp. 76-99.