Book Reviews
THE title of this book refers to the dramatic context of Nietzsche’s infamous phrase ‘God is dead’, when a madman smashes a lantern in the market place; its subtitle is ‘Rediscovering a felt presence of God’.
Rolheiser’s thesis is that we have indeed lost the metal capability to think of, imagine, and feel God’s existence in our western society. He asks how we lost a cultural currency which used to be dominated by a sense of God’s existence? Can we murder God by the way we live? And, what is the route back? For the loss of the consciousness of God does not mean that God no longer sustains us at every breath.
The struggle for the contemplative life, that lifegiving, terrifying journey back to a consciousness of God, takes place for us in a social environment which militates at every turn against our best intentions.This book essays to give some perspectives on how to undertake such a journey.
Going to church won’t do the trick, Rolheiser tells us, as God is not only absent in our marketplaces, but is frequently absent from our religious activities as well. We often kill God by bad religion, he remarks in a footnote, whereas atheism is most often generated by bad theism. Valuable discussion of the place of agnosticism, and the category mistake of modern atheism is inserted throughout the book.
The definitive task is to restore our sense of the presence of God in everyday life.
Rolheiser uses the resources of classical Christian mysticism, primarily St John of the Cross because of his systematic and reliable synthesis of the tradition, which is characterised by ‘unknowing’ and obscurity.
Purity of heart is the touchstone of contemplation, which involves a painful process of purging anything that clouds one’s awareness of reality – for contemplation is about waking up
Narcissism, pragmatism and restlessness, all besetting sins of modernity, block this awakening. For the yuppie, self-development is salvation, the religious project.
As for pragmatism, when is comes to God and religion, our problem is not so much badness as busyness (a comment from Thomas Merton). Prayer and contemplation is not a utilitarian effort; it is, from the practical point of view, a waste of time.
The solution to atheism is not
finding better proofs for God’s
existence
Restfulness is a primal craving for humans, Rollheiser says, to the point where we identify it with heaven: “Grant us eternal rest.” True restfulness is when ordinary life is enough – but exces- sive greed for experience quenches such simple satisfaction.
The contemplative believes that, since God is radically other than ourselves and our reality, we can live patiently and believe in God, despite seemingly unanswerable paradoxes, and despite pain and injustice.
But when manipulation of reality replaces wonder, there is by definition a reduced awareness. “Preoccupation with measuring land and testing oxen reduces the chances of being aware that there is a divinely initiated banquet going on at the heart of everyday life.”
Rolheiser’s description of the “dark night” which must be traversed to move beyond manipulation to empathy, beyond clouded vision to understanding, is a succinct unpicking of the classical mystics’ experience, which tends to be shrouded in unfamiliar images and symbols.
We spontaneously guide our lives by conceptual knowledge, possessive love and control designed to guarantee our own security, all of which veil another way of knowing, which is faith; of loving, which is charity; and the alternative security of hope. The transition to the contemplative way is painful, which is why it is universally characterised as ‘dark’.
Rolheiser quotes Jürgen Moltmann: “Our faith must be born where it is abandoned by all tangible reality; it must be born of nothingness, it must taste this nothingness and be given it to taste in a way no philosophy of nihilism can imagine.”
A concise philosophical discussion of classical theism provides an intellectual scaffolding for mystical experience – or what is, in Rolheiser’s words, perceiving everything against a divine horizon. Consequences for secularism are very interesting in the context of the current debate inspired by the new atheists.
However, the purpose of this book lies else- where: “The solution to the atheism of our time is not finding better proofs for God’s existence but finding a proper way of living, a proper praxis.”
The author gives some concrete guidelines for the contemplative way, and finishes with, for me, a most comforting comment: “Normally it does not feel like prayer”.
The book’s style is chatty, mostly well-supported by endnotes, but its production lets down its content. Typos are manifold, and there is no index.
Ronald Rolheiser is a Roman Catholic priest and member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. He is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas.
