MLK, Chenu & Aquinas on Non-Dualism and Body Politic

 

January 23, 2023 Daily Meditation by Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox

 

 

A non-dualistic attitude toward matter and body results in a non-dualistic attitude toward the body politic.  Democracy or an effort at fairness and justice, a spirituality of “dancing Sara’s circle” vs. a spirituality of “climbing Jacob’s ladder,” results from a consciousness of incorporating matter, spirit and history in the body politic.

 

One example of that is Aquinas’ insistence that the common good is more divine (divinius est) than personal liberties.  So important was this insight to Martin Luther King Jr. that he cites Aquinas in his iconic Letter from Birmingham Jail.  Laws contrary to the common good need not be obeyed but should in fact be protested.

 

There are laws that supersede those made by men.  Laws like justice and fairness and compassion and treating one another with decency—laws that do not always make it into human-made law books, especially in the South during Jim Crow days.   Chenu emphasize how “some mystical traditions within and without Christianity consider multiplicity and diversity to be a radical weakness.”  History is considered something negative.  For Neoplatonists life on earth is an exile.  We merely ‘put in our time’ on earth much as a prisoner puts in his time.  We are ‘doing time’ one might say.  Time becomes a wound through which our life pours out.

Aquinas thinks the opposite—that history and multiplicity are “a work of wisdom.”  Diversity is a blessing and history is an invitation to co-create and it is    ...because God’s goodness cannot be represented effectively in one single creature that he created multiple and diverse things in such a way that whatever is lacking in one creature in representing the divine goodness may be made up for by another. (Aquinas)

 

Humanity is not the most excellent thing in the universe—the universe is.  “It is the entire universe which shares perfectly the goodness of God and represents it more than any one creature by itself.” (Aquinas) And “humanity is a partner of God in the continuing building up of the world....Humanity, the co-creator, is unthinkable apart from history and it is through humanity that the universe receives a historic dimension.” (Chenu)   Evolution is not a stumbling block but an invitation to construct a world of justice and peace.  “But to do this takes body (justice) and spirit (love) working in mutual harmony as body and soul do.” (Chenu)