A Revitalization of Images. Gregory C. Higgins
our nature has made this to be our feature too” (V, 2).
The human capacity to reason soundly, to act freely, and to love purely are for Gregory reflective of the royal status that humans enjoy by virtue of their creation in the image of God, but this alone does not give us the full picture of the human condition. The key is found in the sequence in which the first creation story unfolds. About the same time that Gregory was composing Making, he also composed a short work dedicated to a discussion of the soul and the future resurrected state. In this dialogue between himself and his dying sister Macrina, Gregory plays the part of the disciple seeking the wisdom of the elder spiritual guide. In the midst of their discussion of the emotions (or impulses), Macrina explains, “The holy word tells how the Divine proceeded by a certain route and orderly sequence to the creation of mankind. For when the universe had taken shape, as the narrative says, man did not immediately come onto the earth, but the nature of irrational animal preceded him, and plants preceded the animals.”40 Coming last in the order, humans carry within themselves the appetites for sustenance and the perception of what would contribute to or threaten their overall well-being. When we read that we are to subdue the earth and have dominion over its creatures, Macrina states, we should take that to mean that our rationality should direct our passions and intentions to their proper end. “Therefore if reason, which is the distinctive property of our nature, should gain dominance over those traits which are added to us from outside (the word of the Scripture has also revealed this as if in a riddle, bidding mankind to rule over all the irrational creatures) [Gen 1:28] none of these impulses would work in us for servitude to evil, but fear would produce obedience in us, anger courage, cowardice caution, and the desiring impulse would mediate to us the divine and immortal pleasure.”41 The emotions or impulses, in other words, are not necessarily vices, but they have the potential to become them if they are not directed to the true, the good, and the beautiful.42
Gregory believes that the two creation stories convey “to us a great and lofty doctrine” (XVI, 9), namely, that humans are the mean, the midpoint, or the juncture between the height of divinity and the depth of brutality. “While two natures—the Divine and incorporeal nature, and the irrational life of brutes—are separated from each other as extremes, human nature is the mean between them: for in the compound nature of man we may behold a part of each of the natures I have mentioned,—of the Divine, the rational and intelligent element, which does not admit the distinction of male and female; of the irrational, our bodily form and structure, divided into male and female: for each of these elements is certainly to be found in all that partakes of human life” (XVI, 9). The dynamism inherent in the soul calls to mind the graceful motion of trapeze artists soaring high above the crowd. Their energy and exertion propel them in a graceful movement high above the net. Their exchanges require intense focus, but when successfully completed, their act appears effortless. In a similar way, Gregory speaks of the heights the soul can reach when reason holds sway over the emotions and the power of love desires what is truly beautiful: “we find that every such motion, when elevated by the loftiness of mind, is conformed to the beauty of the Divine image” (XVIII, 5). In terms of his analysis of the human condition, Pascal echoes Gregory’s insight when he observes, “Man is neither angel nor beast; and the unfortunate thing is that he who would act the angel acts the brute.”43
What happens, then, if our attention is diverted from what is most beautiful? Like the trapeze artists who mistime their movements, the soul falls to what is below. The tendency of sin “is heavy and downward” and “our soul is more inclined to be dragged downwards by the weight of the irrational nature than is the heavy and earthly element to be exalted by the loftiness of the intellect; hence the misery that encompasses us often causes the Divine gift to be forgotten, and spreads the passions of the flesh, like some ugly mask, over the beauty of the image” (XVIII, 6). We exchange the highest good for a lesser good.44 To ask why we would make such a turn is to enter directly into the mystery that stands at the center of the creation stories. As Gregory writes in his Great Catechism, “No growth of evil had its beginning in the Divine will. Vice would have been blameless were it inscribed with the name of God as its maker and father. But the evil is, in some way or other, engendered from within, springing up in the will at that moment when there is a retrocession of the soul from the beautiful” (V).45 Theologically, God can not be the cause of evil, but why there is a “retrocession” of the soul at all is one of the mysteries of the human condition that the creation stories acknowledge, but do not explain.
For Gregory, what was lost in the fall is regained at the final resurrection. For while Gregory does not mention the “garments of skins” (Gen 3:21) with which God clothed Adam and Eve after the fall in Making, in On the Soul and the Resurrection he lists the features of human life that these garments of skins symbolize. “These are the things which we have received from the irrational skin: sexual intercourse, conception, childbearing, dirt, lactation, nourishment, evacuation, gradual growth to maturity, the prime of life, old age, disease, and death.”46 In the resurrection, the human life will “be set free as it were from the reins, and revert once more, released and free, to the life of blessedness and impassibility” (XXII, 2) In On the Soul and the Resurrection Gregory writes, “Incorruptibility, glory, honor, and power, which are agreed to be characteristic of the divine nature, formerly belonged to the one made in God’s image, and are expected to be ours again. The first ear [1 Cor 15:35–38] was the first man, Adam. Since at the entrance of evil our nature was split up into a multitude like the kernels in the ear, each of us, denuded of the form of that first ear and mixed with the earth, at the resurrection will spring up again in the archetypal beauty.”47 Just as humans are the midpoint between divinity and brutality, we also stand in a symbolic midpoint in history between creation and redemption.
John Bunyan’s Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
Where Gregory emphasized the inherent instability of the human soul and the way in which our thoughts and desires can fluctuate from the heights of divine contemplation to the basest emotions of jealousy and greed, John Bunyan (1628–88) provides a first-hand account of the anguish and uncertainty that can plague the human person. Though ostensibly Bunyan’s autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners defies precise classification.48 It is not the classic model of a conversion story—there is no parallel to the blinding light on the road to Damascus. Neither is it an academic work intended to advance a position on the relationship between nature and grace. It might best be seen as a mixture of Puritan theology and spiritual testimony—a stylized account of his life story as he understood it through his own reading of the biblical narrative. With his evocation of 1 Tim 1:15 in the title and his lacing of biblical allusions throughout his work, Bunyan’s Grace Abounding offers a profound reflection on human existence lived east of Eden.
The tumultuous British political and religious history of the seventeenth century provides the background for approaching Grace Abounding. The political battles between the king and the Parliament as well as the theological tensions between the Church of England and the Independent churches both impact the course of Bunyan’s life. During the Civil War (1642–51) Bunyan served in the Parliamentary army, but when his regiment was disbanded in 1649 he returned to his trade as a tinker.49 In 1653 Bunyan became a member of the Independent church in Bedford and a few years later began preaching in public. Following Oliver Cromwell’s death, the monarchy was restored under Charles II (1660) and public preaching by those not licensed to do so became a matter of importance to local magistrates. In November of 1660 Bunyan was arrested for preaching and sentenced to three months in prison. His release was contingent upon his