The Uses of Devotional Literature

Abstract

N one of the most striking aphorisms which came from his pen Pascal notes that man is a thinking reed. Though a drop of water suffices to kill him, man, urges Pascal, is nobler than that which slays him; for man knows that he dies and knows, too, the advantage which the universe has over him. The capacity to transcend the natural order in virtue of thought is, for Pascal, man's glory. All our dignity consists, then, in thought, he says (Pensees, Aphorism No. 347). To be able to think backwards and make contemporary a non-existent past and to think forwards to that which may be but is not, is a singular instance of what it means to be human. Men are in conformity to time without being wholly subordinate to it. So too is it with the Christian. Repentance and hope (backwards and forwards as they are respectively) are the means to the achievement of Christian liberty. By taking leave of the past and orienting the self towards the kingdom of heaven, which is the content of the Christian's future, the believer uses his capacity to think in the service of his own salvation. Thus to reflect is not only a biological weapon as John Dewey and the instrumentalists have insisted nor is it either simply an intrinsic value-though it may become such for some like Newman and Whitehead (cf. Newman's On the Scope and Nature of University Education, Discourses IV and VII, and Whitehead's Aims of Education, Chapters I and VIII). Reflection may also be the tool of the spirit. The man whose behavior is totally caused by his own past is damned indeed. No past is so significant that it ought to determine completely a man's life. The past is always sinf l and to be wholly indebted to it is a sign of spiritual meagerness. Of the past we must take leave. A man is as religiousand as Christian-as he is difficult to describe in virtue of his history. The man whose life is hid in Christ makes the presence of the living Christ determinative. We may even go further. Meaning in human existence is not unconditionally granted. Meaning, like happiness, is not bestowed indiscriminately. We discover the meaning of existing when our purposes allow the passing days to be bound into an order. Each of us is an historical being but we are not mechanical products of the energies of nature and history. Each must discover and will a purpose adequate to all of the circumstances of daily life. To do this is not easy. Even Christianity must be voluntarily grasped. To be born into Christian faith is an impossibility for it would mean being born with the purpose already operative. God's saving grace is for all a potentiality through natural birth; it is an actuality or a reality through a second birth. Another way of noting this is to point to the fact that character is not actually inherited. If character means the concentration of all of one's energies upon what is essential, if it means the possession of an abiding personal form for the passing content of living, then it is certainly not the case that any of us have it at birth. The qualities of Christianity are not exhausted by any single set of categories but it is nonetheless true that Christianity produces a specific kind of character in each believer. Character is a maturation not achieved by the act of simple endurance. There are as many forms of character as there are alternative ways of life. But as Christianity *PAUL L. HOLMER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota. During the academic year 1953-54 he is on a leave of absence as a Fulbright Research Scholar in Europe.