Caputo on faith, hope, and charity.

So we start to see how deeply the not is embedded in the path, how deeply the impasse is embedded in the pass, and more generally how deeply the impossible is embedded in the possible--almost to the point that, far from being a simple play on words among wild-eyed French theorists, it is beginning to look like a law, and indeed one very close to the religious heart. Think about faith, hope, and charity singled out by St. Paul. When is faith really faith? Not when it is looking more and more like we are right, but when the situation is beginning to look impossible, in the darkest night of the soul. The more credible things are, the less faith is needed, but the more incredible things seem, the more faith is required, the faith that is said to move mountains. So, too, hope is hope not when we have every reason to expect a favorable outcome, which is nothing more than a reasonable expectation (the virtue of a stockbroker), but when it is beginning to look hopeless, when we are called on to "hope against hope," as St. Paul says (Rom. 4:18), which is a magnificently deconstructive turn of phrase. This is above all true of love, where loving those who are lovable of those who love you makes perfect sense. But when is love really love? When does love burn white hot? When we love those who are not lovable or who do not love us--in short, when we love our enemies. In other words, we are really on the way of faith and hope and love when the way is blocked; we are really under way when the way seems impossible, where this "impossible" makes the way possible. It is precisely the "not" that makes the "path" kick into high gear. -What Would Jesus Deconstruct?

A beginning.

Once upon a time, a baby was born to a proud mother and father. The mother was a simple woman, reported to be round, short, and kind. She had been a servant, in the home of a wealthy hosier. She could not sign her own name, three letters long, without the help of another guiding her hand. She would be exalted from her station, by disgrace in her station, for the same hosier would bless her with a child, and then a wedding, and then six more children. This particular baby was the last—the child of their old age (not unlike Abraham and Sarah). While they might not have known it, this was also their child of promise. He too would make the journey to Mt. Moriah. He too would place the object of his love on an altar before God. While the father did not accompany him, the child carried his memory with him. Indeed, he carried the father’s weight on his back, and his sadness. (How many days was his journey? Perhaps more than three, and as silent.) The child learned of God from this father, including the sad familial tale when the father was himself a son, and young shepherd, standing on a hill in Jutland. Hungry and cold, the small shepherd threw up his arms and cried out against his Maker, before spending the rest of his life trying to undo his cries. (Is it any wonder that the shepherd’s son felt anxiety and guilt before God?) He took communion with this father. He was baptized and confirmed in the presence of this father, in the church of his father. He would learn of piety before God, and self-denial. Through all of this, he developed faith in God, a faith so strong, that no matter how many times it was expressed, could not be fully revealed. These same things could be spoken of his love for the object of his sacrifice. And unlike Abraham, who was asked to sacrifice his son, this son, would sacrifice his betrothed. He would do it not with a knife, which is dull as a sword, but with the mightiness of a pen, and a breaking of an engagement, in a time and place when engagements were not broken. The son as we know is Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, the father, Michael Kierkegaard, the betrothed, Regine Olsen.