Josef Pieper on the Spiritual Life: Creation, Contemplation, and Human Flourishing

By Nathaniel A. Warne

Warne’s original study provides an insightful analysis of the role of contemplation and creation in the thought of Josef Pieper, illustrating the importance of this practice to earthly happiness and human flourishing.

What is the relationship between creation, contemplation, human flourishing, and moral development? Nathaniel Warne’s Josef Pieper on the Spiritual Life offers a sophisticated answer to this question through a systematic analysis of philosopher Josef Pieper’s (1904–1997) thought. Warne’s examination centers on the role of contemplation and creation in Pieper’s thinking, arguing that contemplation of the created order is a key feature of earthly happiness. By emphasizing the importance of contemplation, Pieper illustrates the deep interconnections between ethics, creation, and spirituality. For Warne, to posit a binary between the contemplative life and active life creates a false dichotomy. Following Pieper, Warne claims that theology and spirituality cannot be bracketed from ethics and social action—indeed, our lived experience in the world blurs the lines between these practices. Contemplation and action are closer together than are typically assumed, and they have important implications for both our spiritual development and our engagement with the world around us. Ultimately, Warne’s emphasis on creation and contemplation represents an attempt to resist a view of ethics and the spiritual life that is divorced from our environment. In response to this view, Warne argues that we need a renewed sense that creation and place are important for self-understanding. Contemplation of creation is, fundamentally, a form of communion with God—we thus need a more robust sense of how ethics and politics are rooted in God’s creative action. Taking Pieper as a guide, Warne’s study helps to deepen our thinking about these connections.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Release date: Mar 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9780268204921

Nathaniel A. Warne

Nathaniel A. Warne is the priest-in-charge of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Mishawaka, Indiana, and teaches theological ethics at Bexley Seabury Seminary. He is the author and editor of a number of books, including The Call to Happiness: Eudaimonism in English Puritan Thought and Emotions and Religious Dynamics, co-edited with Douglas J. Davies.

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Josef Pieper on the Spiritual Life

NATHANIEL A. WARNE

Josef Pieper on the Spiritual Life

CREATION, CONTEMPLATION, AND HUMAN FLOURISHING

University of Notre Dame Press

Notre Dame, Indiana

University of Notre Dame Press

Notre Dame, Indiana 46556

undpress.nd.edu

All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2023 by the University of Notre Dame

Published in the United States of America

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022949496

ISBN: 978-0-268-20493-8 (Hardback)

ISBN: 978-0-268-20495-2 (WebPDF)

ISBN: 978-0-268-20492-1 (Epub)

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Երախտագիտութեամբ կը նուիրեմ մեծ հօրս՝ Հարոլդ Ադիշեանին

For my grandfather, Harold Adishian

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book has been almost eight years in the making. There are so many people who encouraged me and offered helpful insights while writing this book. Chief among these was Benjamin DeSpain. Ben not only introduced me to Pieper in early 2013, but nearly every page of this book demonstrates the fruit of our long discussions on St. Thomas, Pieper, Platonism, and contemplation. I am also thankful for the encouragement and friendship of Adam Willows, Matthew Crawford, Robbie Griggs, and Todd Brewer. Thanks to Christopher Insole for friendship, a guiding hand, and encouragement that a book on Pieper was worth writing. My sincere thanks also to Gilbert Meilander, who took time out of his own busy research schedule to meet with me and talk about Pieper. In the early stages of my writing and research, Gilbert’s encouragement to show readers how Pieper’s thought has deeply practical implications for theology and ethics shaped the direction of the research.

I am grateful to those who were part of the Virtues and the Practice of Science project held in the Center for Theology, Science, and Human Flourishing at the University of Notre Dame. Thanks to Rebecca Artinian-Kaiser, Dori Beeler, Louise Bezuidenhout, Celia Deane-Drummond, Darcia Narvaez, and Timothy Riley. Emily Dumler-Winckler was a wonderful officemate and conversation partner during this time. She consistently asked hard questions that forced me to consider the real-time, practical implications of Pieper’s thought. I also had the enormous privilege of working for a year in Notre Dame’s Center for Social Concerns. My heartfelt thanks to Clemens Sedmak for his mentorship and encouragement. He urged me to read broadly in the areas of political theology and Catholic Social Teaching, which shaped my reading and understanding of Pieper himself. I would also like to thank a small group of Notre Dame faculty called writers@work for reading portions of part III of the book and giving helpful suggestions for developing Pieper’s thought in the context of modern discussions of labor and justice. My thanks to Dan Graff, Tom Stapleford, Margaret Pfeil, Valerie Sayers, Eric Bugyis, Kevin J. Christiano, Kelli Reagan, and Joshua Specht. My appreciation also to the Political Philosophy and Religion working group, especially Anne Jeffrey, Toni Alimi, Ryan Davis, Mary Nichel, Jonathan Tran, Mark Satta, and Jessica Flanigan.

My sincere gratitude also goes to Lewis Ayres, Karla Bellringer, Matthew A. Benton, Anna Blackman, Jay Brandenberger, Andrew Byers, Douglas Davies, Patrick Grafton-Cardwell, Kirsten Guidero, Jimmy Haring, Franklin Harkins, Christopher Juby, Tom Kimber, David Lincicum, William Mattison, R. Michael McCoy, David Newheiser, Simon Oliver, Adam Powell, Emanuele Ratti, Alec Ryrie, Adam Schaeffer, Samantha Slaubaugh, Robert Song, Medi Volpe, and Clift Ward. Many of the above read significant portions of the book at various stages and gave helpful comments. I am also thankful to the faculty and students at Bexley Seabury Seminary Federation. I must also acknowledge St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Mishawaka for their encouragement and support in the final stages of writing this book.

I am thankful for the support of Stephen Little at University of Notre Dame Press for his encouragement throughout the process of writing the book and his belief in the project from the very beginning. Thanks also for the guiding hand of Eli Bortz. Blind peer reviewers gave encouraging and helpful comments on how to sharpen the overall argument of the book, for which I am thankful. I am also very thankful to Rachel Martens for her help with the manuscript. Portions of the epilogue and chapter 7 were published in the Journal of Moral Education, Theology, Philosophy and the Sciences, and Studies in Christian Ethics, though they appear in revised form here.

This project would not have been possible without the support and love of my partner and friend, Charissa. She patiently listened as I recounted to her what Pieper was teaching me about God, contemplation, and creation, and offered me her helpful insights and challenges.

PART I

God and Creation

CHAPTER ONE

Creation and Contemplation

Where there is no vision, the people perish.

—Proverbs 29:18 (KJV)

In the early twentieth century, openly socialist Helen Keller was unreservedly scorned by the newspaper Brooklyn Eagle for her activism. Where at an earlier time the Eagle and its editor Mr. McKelway had treated Keller as a heroine, they later chalked up her political positions as a defect of her being both blind and deaf. When her rebuttal to these statements was rejected from being published in the Eagle, she responded in the New York Call, writing:

Oh, ridiculous Brooklyn Eagle! What an ungallant bird it is! Socially blind and deaf, it defends an intolerable system, a system that is the cause of much of the physical blindness and deafness which we are trying to prevent. The Eagle is willing to help us prevent misery provided, always provided, that we do not attack the industrial tyranny which supports it and stops its ears and clouds its vision. . . . If I ever contribute to the socialist movement the book that I sometimes dream of, I know what I shall name it: Industrial Blindness and Social Deafness.¹

In one sense Keller is addressing concern about the many workers that became physically blind due to their working conditions. She is, however, also accusing the Eagle of another kind of blindness, a moral blindness. She is using her own physical impairment to highlight the Eagle’s moral disability. Similarly, twentieth-century Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper in a short essay entitled Learning to See the World Again writes, Man’s ability to see is in decline.² He continues, "To see things is the first step toward that primordial and basic mental grasping of reality, which constitutes the essence of man as a spiritual being.³ Reflecting on the healing of the blind man in the Gospel of John chapter 9 in another essay, Pieper writes, What becomes clear in the end is that a person can be blind while enjoying good vision."⁴ Both Keller and Pieper are exposing a cultural decline that comes from a spiritual and moral blindness. There is indeed a connection between the world, our engagement with it, and ethics.

This book is about contemplative vision and creation in the thought of Josef Pieper. By connecting contemplation and creation, this book argues that ethics, even theological ethics, should be rooted in a robust engagement with the created order. Even though it is diminished in this life, contemplation of the created order is nonetheless the key feature of earthly happiness. An emphasis on contemplation illuminates a deep connection between ethics, creation, and spirituality. The binary between the contemplative life and active life creates a false dichotomy between the two. Theology and spirituality cannot be bracketed from ethics and social action. Our lived experience in the world blurs the lines between these. Contemplation and action are closer together than are typically assumed. Both have important implications for how we develop spiritually as well as how we engage the world around us as agents and citizens. This way of thinking about contemplation is meant to extend to every person and not just those situated within certain contexts, like a monastery or university. Contemplation is not exclusively for the homo theoreticus, but for all as homo sapiens.⁵ Moral and spiritual human flourishing are directly related to our ability to see the created world rightly and truly.

One of the major contentions of this book is to rethink the connection between contemplation, creation, and human flourishing alongside a theologically and metaphysically rich anthropology. In a sense, this is an argument for the necessity to slow down and smell the roses. At the heart of this argument through the work of Josef Pieper is the conviction that we should contemplate and that such contemplation is important for earthly human flourishing. This emphasis on creation and contemplation as being essential for moral and spiritual development is an attempt to resist a view of ethics and the spiritual life that is divorced from our environment. We need a renewed sense that creation and place are important for self-understanding. The God who shows up in creation, as well as in the church and in the Eucharist, matters for how we live and is significant in helping us make moral decisions. The fact/value distinction, the breaking apart of the is from the ought, which D. Stephen Long has described as significant in twentieth-century economics, is destructive to theological ethics.⁶ Ethics is not only a field studied in the academy, but is also present in the church, and even on long hikes in nature. Contemplation of creation is union and communion with God, we thus need a more robust sense of how ethics and politics are rooted in God’s creative action. With Pieper as our guide, this book is intended to deepen our thinking about these connections.

PIEPER AS PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGIAN

Though Pieper did not think of himself as a theologian, he is, perhaps, more theological than he initially acknowledges. Pieper is doing what Christopher Insole has called philosophy as theology. There is Christian theology, or sacra doctrina, which begins and ends in divine self-revelation given in scripture.⁷ Through the book we will observe how Pieper reads scripture theologically, but this is not primarily where his theological emphasis resides. Philosophy as theology does not primarily focus on revelation. Rather, it examines what natural reason achieves with the vital qualification that the categories of both nature and reason are conceived of in vastly richer terms than we have now become accustomed to.⁸ Philosophy as theology has as its object divine things and only secondarily created things, but in its search for divine things, it moves through sensibles to arrive at knowledge of God that is revealed through natural effects. Knowledge of immanent things, all of which have a supernatural orientation, is a knowledge of a transcendent cause that brings said things into actuality.⁹

Theology and philosophy both have the same object of study: something like first principles, though they approach these from different angles. The analogy between the light of reason and the light of faith means that God is the object of both philosophy and theology. Concomitantly, cognition of God is given to the mind not only through faith but also through reason via sense perception and intellection.¹⁰ Pieper is theologically faithful and respectful to this Christian tradition, but does his thinking as much as possible from mere reason. Though Pieper recognizes that there is no such thing as a non-Christian philosophy (since any philosophy that takes its task as the totality of things seriously cannot discount those findings of theology as revelation as well as myth), there is a sense that even philosophy as theology, which is disciplined and self-reflective, has an implicit and unintended homage to sacra doctrina.¹¹

Thus in this book, I approach Pieper as a philosophical theologian, even though he would not have seen himself that way. Philosophical theology is a better category for what Pieper is doing and helps us today consider the difficulty in drawing definitive lines between theology and philosophy. His work resides in that nexus between philosophy and theology where the space between them is unclear and where they have shared commitments. Historically, theology and philosophy share a similar root in Plato, but Pieper’s dedication to following Thomas Aquinas also allows him to comfortably sit in this common space.¹² One of Thomas’s great achievements was being able to draw together both Platonist and Aristotelian strands in that he was able to blend the cataphatic, which is revealed through scripture (sacra doctrina), along with the apophatic, which consists in part of natural theology (divina scientia) and metaphysics. Pieper himself notes that Thomas sought to be true to the intentions of Augustine and Aristotle, as well as to scripture, and that Aristotle, along with Augustine and Dionysius, were observers of the truths which were revealed through them.¹³ Adrian Pabst writes, Aquinas combines the shared Platonist and Aristotelian metaphysical emphasis on divine self-revelation in order to develop a new account of divine illumination.¹⁴ Throughout his career, Pieper was deeply immersed in both Platonic and Thomist thought, while also having engaged with the philosophical and theological debates of his own time.¹⁵ Pieper’s immersion into ancient and medieval thinkers came from years of teaching and writing. He also had experience in other scientific fields from his time working as a sociologist and psychologist.¹⁶ His written work is praised for communicating complicated philosophical and theological concepts with simplicity and clarity. Themes are repeated and reemphasized in a number of Pieper’s works across a number of topics throughout his career as a writer.

Pieper also provides a distinctively platonic Thomas. While many scholars in the twentieth century dubbed Thomas with the Aristotelian epithet, Pieper’s reading situates both Aristotle and Thomas within a historical context that views both of these figures as inheritors of Platonism.¹⁷ Pieper highlights how thinkers like Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius played important roles in Thomas’s overall thought. The author Thomas cites the most in the Summa Theologia is Pseudo-Dionysius. Pieper writes, The doctrine of Ideas, the conception of Creation as following prototypes living within the divine Logos—this central Platonic concept was something that Thomas never abandoned.¹⁸ Plato could not be replaced by Aristotle and vice versa. What made distinctive Pieper’s approach was an openness to thinkers like Plato while maintaining a negative element in Thomas.¹⁹

Because of this commitment to a more platonic reading of Thomas, philosophy and theology for Pieper are less an academic discipline and more a spiritual journey. As one grows in the spiritual life, as they are perfected through their journey back to God, they are purified; they are perfected. The spiritual life, which includes philosophy and theology, is the moral life because one takes on the traits of the object of study. As will be discussed in chapters 4 and 5, when one develops virtues, she becomes more like God and thus realizes her best and perfected self. One way of approaching this can be found in the distinction between two ways of knowing.²⁰ The first is purely theoretical (per cognitionem). This is a way of knowing a thing which does not belong to the knower. Put another way, one can study ethics and can even judge right and wrong, good and evil, without himself being a good human being who has experienced goodness. The other way of knowing is based on an essential relatedness (per connaturalitatem). By loving the good—partaking of it, sharing in it—a good person knows what is good.

Through faith and love there is an inner correspondence between goodness and the one seeking it. Contemplation is concerned with a kind of knowing where the foreign becomes one’s own and connaturalitas happens.²¹ Pieper writes that this is not only how one can distinguish between theology and pseudo-theology, but also important for interpretation of divine and natural things.²² Concerning philosophical contemplation, the object of study which is the mystery of wisdom itself and is sparked by wonder finds its roots in this kind of knowledge. This becoming happens through the senses, through our engagement with creation, and moves us closer to the divine. If the world is no longer seen and engaged with as creation or as good, the possibility for contemplation is destroyed. If contemplation is destroyed, then also destroyed is the free philosophical act. To be truly philosophical, at least in the ancient sense, is to possess the knowledge that is per connaturalitatem. This, Pieper notes, has been taken up by the Christian tradition as the beatific vision.²³

What we also find in Pieper’s thought is a convincing and plausible picture of the relationship between the contemplative and active life while being attuned to twentieth-century post–World War II cultural and political movements. In a distinctive way, he brings the voices of ancient and medieval thinkers to bare on issues in modern theology and philosophy. For example, Pieper is able to bring scholastic conceptions of work and ends into dialogue with figures like Karl Marx, or Thomas’s understanding of essence and existence to engage the atheism of Jean-Paul Sartre. Further, if one considers his written works in education and the university, for example, tensions between contemplation and action are eased and a holistic picture can be seen.

Pieper has already had an immense, but unexplored, impact upon many contemporary thinkers. Pieper’s name shows up in a surprising number of important texts by some of the most important thinkers in Thomist studies, philosophy, and theology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He has thus made a quiet but significant contribution to our understanding of Thomas and developments in Catholic thought. Philosopher Bernard Schumacher has written that Pieper continues to provoke among his contemporaries constructive, critical, and especially fruitful discussion on anthropological and ethical questions.²⁴ Theologian Denys Turner has written that Pieper’s book The Silence of St. Thomas did for him what David Hume did for Kant. It woke him of his dogmatic slumber.²⁵ David Burrell often cites in his work Pieper’s insight that creation is the silent element of St. Thomas’s philosophy.²⁶ Further, contemporary thinkers like Charles Taylor, Ralph McInerny, Thomas Hibbs, Andrew Louth, and Gilbert Meilaender cite Pieper favorably and often. In Pieper, we get a distinctive voice with regard to the contemplative and moral tradition.

Pieper is an exceptionally clear writer. Most who read his work cannot help but notice the clarity with which he expresses difficult concepts and seemingly antiquated ideas. In writing this book, I want to avoid making something complex out of something beautifully simple. My hope is that by connecting Pieper’s ideas from across his corpus and throughout his life, the shorter and clearer texts will be given increased nuance and background. For example, a text as short and concise as Only the Lover Sings includes latent themes like the divine ideas, beauty, and eros which are present in more robust ways in works like Reality and the Good, In Defense of Philosophy, and The Silence of St. Thomas. Having such background knowledge will make these easier short texts richer. The hope is that exploring the internal and silent connections within Pieper’s work will enrich readers interested in the work itself, along with making a constructive argument for the importance of contemplation and creation for ethics.

This book is not intended to a be a step-by-step guide in the practices of contemplation. It is not even necessarily an argument for specifically Christian forms of contemplation though this, by virtue of focusing on Pieper, is where the argument of the book is focused. Rather, focusing on Pieper allows us to broaden our understanding of contemplation altogether. As humans, we should participate in contemplation. In some ways we will find in Pieper’s argument for the truth of all things that other spiritual and contemplative traditions can come to the aid of Christian contemplative practices.

FROM CREATION TO CONTEMPLATION

For some, the connection between the world around us, contemplation, and the spiritual and moral life may seem incongruous. This has not always been the case. Contemplation, which was closely associated with philosophy in the ancient world, originally referred to worship and the beholding of divinities, statues, sacred objects, and in some cases theoria referred to the pilgrimages that foreign Greeks took to diverse sanctuaries in order to participate in their rituals and to witness their spectacles.²⁷ Contemplation, though starting from investigation of created things, is directed toward a God who is not part of the created order but is its author. Contemplation thus becomes not an exercise in abstraction but a practice of personal communion.²⁸ It was once assumed that the human flourishing that resulted from a growing spiritual and moral life was equated with contemplation.²⁹ However, a slow shift took place after the early modern period, through the industrial revolution, and into modernity and resulted in a separation of creation from human flourishing along with a desacralizing of the created order. There are a number of narratives about how these separations came about.³⁰ Even if one does not consider these accounts fully accurate, there is still an overwhelming sense that our understanding of our connection to the heavens and the earth as a part of our own well-being has significantly changed over the last five or so centuries. I favor no particular meta-narrative but only draw our attention to the changes that this desacralizing has made on spiritualty and ethics.

This study is also not the place to make claims on how religion played a role in this change and thus its role in its own demise.³¹ What is important for our purposes is that people began to be motivated by the accumulation of goods through labor and work and taking productive activity as an end rather than a means, and that our engagement with the environment lost its sense of mystery and spiritual significance. Effort, as opposed to ease, became humankind’s this-worldly salvation. Kathryn Tanner notes that prior to the Reformation there was no real work ethic. She writes, If there is a work ethic here, it was exceedingly minimal and highly negative: economic labor was of no particular interest in its own right and was to be avoided whenever it posed a threat to what was of real concern, a life dedicated to God.³² Work was ordered to higher religious ends. Our world is now one of work and not leisure, of capital and consumption. These have become our worship. Rather than finding God’s presence in our surroundings, we looked for God in economic growth and the accumulation of wealth. Contemplation and experiencing God in creation—once central to our spiritual and moral lives—were moved to the periphery.

Briefly, I will make a distinction between two forms of contemplation. Before doing this, a quick note on what it means to prioritize a contemplative life over other kinds of activities. Four elements are traditionally emphasized, and we will see all of them in various ways in Pieper’s thought.³³ The first element is the pursuing of knowledge and the practice of contemplation over other kinds of practical activities like manual work or effort. This emphasis on contemplation and away from labor is historically justified on moral grounds. The second, closely related to the first, is that there is an emphasis on the immortal faculty of the intellect or the mind. This prioritization illuminates a hierarchy between mind and intellect over lower cognitive activities related to sensation, opinion, or even prudence (practical reason). (As we will see in the coming chapters, though, these play a significant part in our ability to contemplate and live a moral life.) Third, even for philosophers there is an essentially theological quality to the contemplative life. In contemplation we imitate a divine kind of existence, while simultaneously it is the divine beings in which we should contemplate. They are to be imitated as well as be objects of knowledge. Finally, there is an analogy between the above three elements and the celebration of religious festivals. Pieper’s account of the contemplative life focuses on all four of the above elements of the prioritization of the contemplative life.

Before setting off into the finer points of Pieper’s views, there is a distinction that needs to be addressed here. As we will see below contemplation has to do with vision, and more specifically, the vision of God. This does not get us far enough in determining Pieper’s understanding of the concept. Here we make the distinction between two forms of contemplation: two kinds of seeing. The first is the contemplation that comes with the visio dei and is the beatific vision after death in the next life. The second kind of contemplation can be had in this life, and though it is a significantly diminished visio dei, it is analogically connected to our experience of God in the next life and is nonetheless an important part of one’s spiritual and moral development. Earthly contemplation is a provisional or initial way of seeing God that is connected to the bliss that is had in seeing God after death.³⁴

We speak of our goal—attaining contemplative happiness of humankind—in a dual sense. In the first place it is the thing that we seek to attain; in the second, it is the means of attaining it.³⁵ Drawing upon the metaphor of thirst and drinking, Pieper lays out this distinction with happiness as the drink itself, and happiness as drinking. The questions he seeks to address are what is the substance of the drink, and how do we imagine the actual drinking of the drink?³⁶ Just as both kinds of contemplation are described with the analogy of vision, so also both have an aspect of passivity and epistemology. We develop a more robust sense of what Pieper means by contemplation if we take the above and think of it in terms of creation or creaturehood. We will look briefly at this distinction in more detail.

Heavenly Contemplation

Where earthly contemplation is a ladder that leads to the telos of the spiritual journey, heavenly contemplation is itself the end of that ascent. Heavenly contemplation is the experience of God beyond all thought and lacks the attachment to any concept or image. Pieper draws on scriptures such as 2 Peter 1:4 (NRSV), Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature, to demonstrate that this kind of contemplation is associated with theosis. We are no longer on the journey back to God but have reached our destination and have become partakers of the divine essence.³⁷

Heavenly contemplation goes beyond symbols and attains God directly without the medium of creation. This is a direct contact and experience of the divine essence in itself as Trinity in one nature. For this is the highest mystery in which He has revealed Himself to us.³⁸ Contemplation is passive: It comes to us as a gift. Through the inner gaze we experience a satisfaction of inner peace unattainable by anything other than our creator.³⁹ It is in our natural capacities to receive this gift of contemplation. By capacity (capacitas) Pieper has two meanings in mind. The first is the capacity to receive something from outside into oneself. This is the capacity to embrace or give shelter to something. The other meaning is the power of having something outside as an object. If these two senses are applied to the mind, the first sense, as we will see below, is limited to realm of creation and is concerned with earthly contemplation. The second sense, however, reaches beyond creation into the infinite.⁴⁰ The highest of human knowing is a non-discursive, visual, and passive reception where we take in the immaterial as easily as our eyes take in light or our ears sound.⁴¹ Because this kind of contemplation is enjoyed by the angels it is not a specifically human activity. While being something fitting for us by nature, heavenly contemplation is a transcendence over what is human, yet it is truly fitting for the human person and is simultaneously the fulfillment of what it is to be human. As Thomas Merton has put it, contemplation of this kind is a supernatural love and knowledge of God, simple and obscure, infused by him into the summit of the soul, giving it a direct and experiential contact with him as he is in himself.⁴² It is the light of God playing directly upon the soul.⁴³ The gift of inner peace that is heavenly contemplation is the experience of God in the visio dei where we encounter God directly without the medium of creation.

Earthly Contemplation and Creation

Though there are many differences between heavenly and earthly contemplation (theoria physike), there are a number of important similarities. There is a sense in which earthly contemplation is a kind of visio dei. Theoria physike in a sense is a contemplation of the divine nature. Hans Boersma helpfully notes, Although doctrinally we may reserve the language of ‘beatific vision’ for the final cause itself—that is to say, for the vision of God in the hereafter—we should not erroneously conclude that the beatific vision is in a category all its own, separate from the earlier process of apprenticeship. This apprenticeship is already in the life of God and, as such, already a vision of God.⁴⁴ It is a seeing of God in this life through intuition of divine things in reflection on nature as symbols.⁴⁵ In this way, earthly or natural contemplation is mystical. It is a gift from God and an enlightenment of the divine.

Though this book will occasionally consider Pieper’s understanding of heavenly contemplation, its focus is on Pieper’s conception of earthly contemplation, or the theoria physike. Pieper writes, "God is present in the world; He can appear ‘before the eyes’ of one whose gaze is directed toward the depths of things. A corollary, therefore, is that reality is a creation, and that consequently, God is not ‘outside of the world,’ not Deus extramundanus, but the acting basis of everything that exists."⁴⁶ It is a post-enlightenment way of thinking that God is outside of time and creation. This is not to say that God and creation are the same, or that God is bound by creation and time, but that God is intimately involved in the creation and sustaining of the created order. All creation owes its being to God and is not a remote echo of God’s creative act.⁴⁷ The sum of the theoria physike in connection with the doctrine of creation shows, first, that everything has a divine origin; second, the one who contemplates sees that all things are good beyond comprehension; and finally, seeing this, one is happy.⁴⁸

Throughout his career Pieper emphasizes that human well-being is grounded in God’s creative act. He famously argues in The Silence of St. Thomas that creation is the hidden key to St. Thomas. Pieper clearly adopts and adapts this aspect of his medieval teacher in his own thought. Secondly, it is through creation that we are able to experience God here on earth and in this life. Because God through wisdom creates, there is a sense in which the God who transcends creation, is present in creation.⁴⁹ All creation, because it is created, can be a means through which we raise ourselves to God. As Pseudo-Dionysius notes, Everything, then, can be a help to contemplation, and using matter, one may be lifted up to the immaterial archetypes.⁵⁰ The asceticism that comes along with earthly contemplation is not a denigration of matter or the created world. Genuine asceticism leads to the purification and intensification of Christ-like love that leads to the world’s healing and reconciliation.⁵¹

What we are seeing is that the doctrine of creation is important for our understanding of earthly contemplation, at least in part, because it reinforces that God is intimately present in the world. Pieper’s thought, then, addresses a concern of N. T. Wright’s: we need a more robust sense of God being really present in the world.⁵² Further, Ephraim Radner has noted that the loss of a sense of creaturehood is what has determined the desiccated character of modern ‘immanence,’ noted by critics like Charles Taylor in his studies of secularism.⁵³ Contemplation, even for the ancients, had a relationship and orientation to the world and reality. This orientation was characterized by the idea that the world would reveal itself and its being. Contemplation, or theoretical knowledge, of reality is aimed at higher truths⁵⁴ and is what is most pleasant and best, in part because God is always in that good state.⁵⁵ This is the truly divine aspect of our personhood.⁵⁶ Earthly contemplation as an existential human act is aimed at the cognition of truth, reality, and being.⁵⁷

Like heavenly contemplation, theoria physike is the passive receiving of a gift from God and is something for which we can prepare ourselves. There is, however, a distinctive difference here in that while it is a passive reception of the divine, it is also something that requires action. As Thomas Merton notes, earthly passive contemplation cannot in a strict sense be demanded of all Christians. But there is some active contemplation that appears to be in practice absolutely essential to a Christian life. Such things like prayer and worship are essential parts of our earthly devotional lives.⁵⁸ As we will see in later chapters, this is where activities like prayer and meditation, as well as the development of the virtues, come into play and assist in our moral and spiritual development. There is a connection between what is offered by God and our own effort. Activity and contemplation are two different modes and there is need for both, just as there is a need for the profane and the sacred. Pieper writes, "Everything comes out wrong as soon as it is overlooked or denied that poetry and prose are but two different modes of speaking about what is real, and that philosophy no less than science attempts to know and understand the vast subject matter called ‘reality.’ Just so do we miss the real point, by necessity, if we fail to see the contrast of ‘sacred’ versus ‘profane’ equally within one common and comprehensive reality.⁵⁹ Part of the active preparation for earthly contemplation requires the necessary effort of rightly ordering our passions and our soul. Through these activities we are able to awaken and prepare the mind to know God.⁶⁰ By combining spiritual practices and the development of virtue, the one who contemplates sees straight into the nature of things as they are. At the same time, he sees into his own nature. And this is a mystical grace from God."⁶¹ Norman Wirzba argues that for church fathers like Maximus, in order for one to engage in theoria physike they need to be able to practice askesis that purifies the passions that would distort our capacity for contemplative vision. He writes, Put most directly, to see the world in a Christian manner is to see everything as God sees it. It was considered important for Christians to develop this way of seeing so that the world could be engaged faithfully and in a manner that brought healing to creatures and honor to God.⁶² We must be good in order to see well; we need to practice the askesis that Jesus revealed.⁶³

Even with the above emphasis on askesis, as early as the Eastern Fathers, contemplation was prioritized over other activities, but they did not see a distinction between the contemplative and active life: These two lives exist in relation with each other.⁶⁴ The active life and the contemplative life are two different modes, and both are needed. There is need for both, just as there is a need for the profane and the sacred.⁶⁵ There is a threefold model for those in the early church. We start with the active life, we then move to vision, which leads finally to theology, which then purifies the whole process as it repeats.⁶⁶ The effort of certain activities allows us to be prepared for this kind of contemplation.⁶⁷ Natural contemplation is an active contemplation. Connecting contemplation to mysticism, Andrew Louth notes the tight connection between contemplation and mystical theology which, at least within Plato’s philosophy, informs our understanding of the world.⁶⁸ This mystical intuition is something that we can seek and prepare for, even if it is something that is purely a gift of God. Earthly contemplation is not the face-to-face vision of the divine essence but is a vision in darkness.⁶⁹

This kind of contemplation is