I wouldn’t be surprised if this is quoted in your book (which I look forward to reading!), but you reminded me of Thomas Merton: “Therefore there is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God. If I find him I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find Him” (New Seeds of Contemplation). It’s interesting to me how much people struggle with this. What you’re saying is pretty basic—vanilla Christian spirituality in the Augustinian tradition. Eg also Calvin: “Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other” (Institutes I.1.1.). If Catholic Merton and Reformed Calvin agree on this, I wonder if the criticism is a fruit of our disconnection from and disdain for tradition.
I really think so. It's funny, because I'm pretty sure everyone who has come at me for this is a Calvinist...but I'll be they have no idea he said that. You're right that it's pretty basic, but to be honest I didn't really encounter this teaching myself until I trained as a spiritual director and started reading Merton and, say, David Banner (whose *Gift of Being Yourself* is the first thing that really confronted me with the idea. I reread it last year and realized that he also uses Simon Peter as an example, which I had TOTALLY FORGOTTEN. I like my take even better, though. 😄).
I wouldn’t be surprised if this is quoted in your book (which I look forward to reading!), but you reminded me of Thomas Merton: “Therefore there is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God. If I find him I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find Him” (New Seeds of Contemplation). It’s interesting to me how much people struggle with this. What you’re saying is pretty basic—vanilla Christian spirituality in the Augustinian tradition. Eg also Calvin: “Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other” (Institutes I.1.1.). If Catholic Merton and Reformed Calvin agree on this, I wonder if the criticism is a fruit of our disconnection from and disdain for tradition.
I really think so. It's funny, because I'm pretty sure everyone who has come at me for this is a Calvinist...but I'll be they have no idea he said that. You're right that it's pretty basic, but to be honest I didn't really encounter this teaching myself until I trained as a spiritual director and started reading Merton and, say, David Banner (whose *Gift of Being Yourself* is the first thing that really confronted me with the idea. I reread it last year and realized that he also uses Simon Peter as an example, which I had TOTALLY FORGOTTEN. I like my take even better, though. 😄).