Literature and theoLogy as a grammar of assent For Zephyra Porat Literature and Theology as a grammar of assent david Jasper University of Glasgow, UK and Renmin University of China, Beijing First published 2016 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © david Jasper 2016 david Jasper has asserted his right under the Copyright, designs and patents act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice.. Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe . British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Jasper, david. Literature and theology as a grammar of assent / by david Jasper. pages cm includes bibliographical references and index. isBn 978-1-4724-7524-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. religion and literature. i. title . pn49.J387 2016 809’.93382--dc23 2015027686 isBn: 9781472475244 (hbk) Contents Acknowledgements vii introduction: The study of Literature and Theology – a history since 1982 1 part i the durham ConferenCes 1 humanism and Belief in Literature: seeking a grammar of assent 13 2 a habit of mind: religion and imagination – John Coulson and John henry newman 27 3 making the World Bearable: ulrich simon 43 4 Choosing Commitment: martin Jarrett-Kerr Cr 59 5 finding the otherness of god in Literature: Werner g. Jeanrond 73 part ii the Loss of and the return to theoLogy 6 ‘a tone Born out of the World of ruins’: robert detweiler 87 7 returning to Theology: nijmegen, 2000 99 8 seeking forgiveness and retrieving a Theological sense of Being human: Leuven, 2014 111 part iii themes and the Wider WorLd 9 poetry: The poetry of the oxford movement 127 vi Literature and Theology as a Grammar of Assent 10 sacrament: The eucharistic Body 143 11 The Bible: The Bible as Literature – Parergon 159 12 europe and australia: new Worlds 189 13 europe and China: old Worlds meet 205 part iv ConCLusions 14 Becoming innocent again: Looking Back on Theory in Literature and Theology 221 15 Conclusion: prospero’s Books 235 Brief Bibliography 251 Index 255 acknowledgements it is impossible to thank everyone who contributed directly and indirectly to the making of this book. There are many voices from the past, and some of them, no doubt, would be critical of my judgements. old friends who can review, with me, this history in full, will have different readings and interpretations, and here i am thinking of elisabeth Jay, stephen prickett, david Klemm and a few others. i thank generations of my students, some of whom, like andrew hass, have gone on to become colleagues. andrew in particular has distinguished himself by his labours over many years in editing the journal Literature and Theology and his heroic work as secretary of the international society for religion, Literature and Culture which continues to sustain the biennial conferences today. The next meeting is scheduled to be held in the university of glasgow in 2016. voices from around the world will be heard in the following pages, but particular thanks are due to my two anonymous readers who made many wise suggestions and saved me from a number of gross errors. Those that remain are entirely my own. if i may be permitted to reproduce the words of one who remarked on the writing of the book that ‘it is a way of integrating two (traditional) ways of thinking that itself is no longer being practiced, or being practiced in this particular manner, and the reasons why it is not – which importantly is what this book is about – is the very reason it ought to remain’. i hope that this is the case. above all i thank my wife alison and three daughters, who have endured my obsession with literature and theology these many long years, my many hours spent in my study when i might have been better employed more sociably, and the perhaps inevitable onset of a cast of mind that looks back to better times as increasing years battle with ever faster and more mysterious technology and seeks on shelves for dusty volumes that are ever more difficult to find – though i know that they are there somewhere. october 2015 viii Literature and Theology as a Grammar of Assent an earlier version of Chapter 1 was published in Literature and Theology, vol. 26, no. 3, september 2012, 252–64. an earlier version of Chapter 5 was published in Dynamics of Difference: Christianity and Alterity, ed. ulrich schmiedel and James m. mattarazzo, Jr (London: Bloomsbury t&t Clark, 2015). an earlier version of Chapter 8 was given as the keynote lecture to the biennial conference on Literature and Theology in the university of Leuven in september 2014. This version was published in Literature and Theology vol. 29, no. 2, June 2015, 125–37. an earlier version of Chapter 9 was published in the International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church (iJsCC), vol. 12, nos 3–4, 2012, 218–31. an earlier version of Chapter 10 was published in ramona fotiade, david Jasper and olivier salazar-ferrer (eds), Embodiment: Phenomenological, Religious and Deconstructive Views on Living and Dying (farnham: ashgate, 2014), pp. 131–42. Chapter 12 was first given as the keynote lecture in the third conference of The sacred in Literature and the arts (sLa) at the australian Catholic university, sydney, July 2015. permission to reproduce paul Celan’s poem ‘psalm’ from Poems of Paul Celan, 3rd edition, trans. and intro. m. hamburger, 2007, is given by anvil press poetry. introduction The study of Literature and Theology – a history since 1982 it is often remarked that all writing is to a degree autobiographical. i suspect that this becomes more the case as one grows older, though it takes different forms from that of preachiness, to nostalgia or reminiscence and so on. it would be true to say that the genre of autobiography must be, with some notable exceptions, one of the most self-indulgent, not to say boring, of literary forms. airport book shops are full of hastily contrived volumes describing the lives of ‘celebrities’, many of whom are barely old enough to have absorbed much more than the tinsel of their celebrity status, and are liable to be forgotten within a short space of time. nevertheless, at a certain point, perhaps before it is too late, there may be something to be gained in reflecting on many decades of experiments in thought, encounters with people and ideas, and the effects, both mental and spiritual, of experiences that are both the result and the cause of certain defining moments not only in one’s life but in the life that is shared between a number of people. such moments in a life may participate, in a minute way, in the larger cultural, intellectual and religious events that are ongoing and around us all of the time, whether we are aware of them at the time or not, and at the very least these defining moments may act as reflectors, however distorted, of such large scale events in the world and society. on 23–25 september 1982, the first national Conference on Literature and religion took place in hatfield College in the university of durham, england. such conferences have been held every two years since then to the present time in various universities in great Britain and europe. They gave rise to a society, at first known as the national Conference on Literature and religion, with its own modest newsletter that later became the journal Literature and Theology. By the time the conferences became international, meeting in nijmegen, holland, in 2000, the society had grown and been renamed as the international society for religion, Literature and Culture (isrLC). my present concerns are primarily with the earlier meetings in the 1980s, though some attention will be given to the meeting in nijmegen as it ushered in the new millennium, and finally to the most recent conference, at the time of writing, held in Leuven in 2014. i am seeking for the imperatives which drove us in the early meetings. The history of the later conferences will be for others to pursue if they think it worthwhile.