The Future of Wisdom Toward a Rebirth of Sapiential Christianity

by Barnhart, Bruno

• ISBN13: 9780826419323
• ISBN10: 0826419321
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-05-25
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

This is the most ambitious effort so far to communicate the depth and power of the Christian sapiential tradition, or "wisdom Christianity," and the promise of its dramatic rebirth in our time. While much of the writing of Rahner, von Balthasar, Merton, Bede Griffiths, Abhishiktananda, Leclercq, De Lubac, and Odo Cassel is of this kind, theologians have been slow to connect the dots and to awaken to the organic gestalt of sapiential theology in its unity and vitality. The book shows how the sapiential consciousness and its theological expression develop both the unitive depth (or "East") and the historical dynamism (or "West") of the mystery of Christ. The work unfolds in 4 stages: (1) the awakening of sapiential consciousness, (2) the Eastern turn, which opens Christianity to its own unitive (or nondual) core, (3) the Western turn, in which Christian wisdom is first challenged and then regenerated by its encounter with the personal and historical dynamism of the West (expressed in freedom, creativity, critical thinking, and historical progress), and (4) the global turn of postmodernity, global consciousness, and the world church of Vatican II, in which the unity and intentionality of history become visible and understandable in a Christocentric perspective. >

Author Biography

Bruno Barnhart, O.S.B. Cam., is a monk of New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, California

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
A Preliminary Overview	p. 1
The Bias	p. 3
The Taste	p. 3
Thinking about Wisdom	p. 5
The Christian Wisdom Tradition	p. 7
The Eclipse of Wisdom in the West	p. 13
The Time of Vatican II: Toward a Rebirth of Christian Wisdom	p. 14
The Way of Wisdom	p. 16
Four Historical Moments	p. 17
Four Movements	p. 18
Spirit and History	p. 19
Movement I: The Sapiential Awakening	p. 21
Wonder and Awakening	p. 21
The Sapiential Event and Its Eclipse	p. 22
The Sapiential Awakening of the Twentieth Century	p. 23
Henri de Lubac: The Anatomy of Christian Wisdom	p. 24
Jean Leclercq: The Two Medieval Theologies	p. 27
Cipriano Vagaggini: Between Two Wisdoms	p. 28
The Quaternary Unfolding of the Christ-Mystery	p. 30
The Revolution of Jesus	p. 31
Rationalization of the Mystery	p. 33
Thomas Merton: Opening Christian, Wisdom (I)	p. 34
Karl Rahner: Opening Christian Wisdom (II)	p. 41
The Paradox of Christian Wisdom: The Word of the Cross	p. 51
Conclusion	p. 52
Movement II: The Eastern Turn	p. 53
The New East-West Relationship	p. 53
Nonduality	p. 56
Christian Nonduality I	p. 61
Baptismal Initiation: Point of Contact with the East and Pivot of Identity	p. 64
Theological Corollaries of the Principle of Nondual Baptismal Identity	p. 68
(I) Breaking through the Container of Dualistic Christianity	p. 70
(II) Unitive Interpretation of the Christ-mystery	p. 72
(III) Unitive Interpretation of the New Testament	p. 73
(IV) A New Theology Centered in the Explicit Unitive Principle	p. 76
(V) Unitive Anthropology	p. 78
(VI) Fullness at the Beginning	p. 82
(VII) The Trajectory of Life: From Baptism to Eucharist	p. 85
(VIII) Contemplation as Conscious Experience of Baptismal Identity	p. 89
(IX) History Understood in the Light of Unitive Self-realization	p. 90
Movement III: The Western (Modern) Turn	p. 93
Modernity	p. 93
The Vocation of the West	p. 97
The Shape of Western History	p. 99
Renaissance	p. 103
The Modern Individual	p. 117
Freedom	p. 121
Jesus' Revolution and the History of the West	p. 127
Participation and History	p. 130
Wisdom and the West	p. 134
The Shadow and the Destiny of the West	p. 143
Movement IV: The Global (Postmodern) Turn	p. 146
Postmodernity	p. 146
Interpretations of Globalization	p. 152
Toward a Global Consciousness	p. 160
Resistance to Incarnation	p. 164
The Descent of History	p. 169
Global Christianity: The Southern Turn	p. 173
Christian Nonduality II: Incarnation	p. 176
The Incarnation of Wisdom	p. 180
Epilogue	p. 185
Notes	p. 191
Bibliography	p. 209
Index	p. 219
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