Speculative Grace: The Frustration of Desire

More speculating this week on how tightly a proper understanding of grace is or ought to be tied to a theistic conception of God.

1. It is commonplace to associate our need for grace with the problem of desire. This, I think, is entirely correct. We won't properly understand the one without the other.

2. However, it is also commonplace to frame our need for grace in terms of a tension between the frustration of our desires and the fulfillment of our desires. Here, the problem is understood to be the ways in which the fulfillment of our desires is perpetually frustrated. Often, we're unable to get what we want. And - even worse! - we discover that when we're lucky enough to get exactly what we want, it still didn't lead to the satisfaction of desire. Not only is not getting what we want frustrating, getting what we want is also deeply frustrating!

3. When the human problem is understood to be the frustration of desire, then grace is understood as an answer to the problem of desire because it offers us access to the one object that can in fact permanently and completely fulfill our desires: God.

4. God, as ontological Alpha and Omega, as theistic exception to the way in which everything else exists, can permanently and completely satisfy desire. God's grace solves the problem of desire by ending it. What role do the classically theistic characteristics of God (omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, etc.) play in this version of the drama? They play the crucial role of guaranteeing that something can permanently and completely satisfy desire.

5. The typical grace/works debate unfolds within this framework. To be saved, desire must be fulfilled. The only question, then, is how to acquire the fulfillment of that desire. Is satisfaction given as a free gift (i.e., as a grace) or must we work our fingers to the bone to acquire it? When framed in relation to the issue of fulfillment, the grace/works debate is a deadend.

6. I would submit that this version of the problem and solution may not be very good gospel.

7. Rather, I would propose that our need for grace is related to the problem of desire in an entirely different way. Grace has neither to do with the fulfillment of desire nor the frustration of desire. Grace has to do with our wrongly relating to desire in terms of its fulfillment/frustration.

8. Sin: wrongly relating to desire in terms of its fulfillment/frustration. 

9. In these terms, grace should be understood as working orthogonally in relation to the fulfillment/frustration of desire.

10. How does grace save us in relation to the problem of desire? Rather than giving us access to an object of uber-satisfaction, grace is what gives us desire itself. To be saved is to receive the perpetuation of desire itself as being the grace that saves us from the problem of frustration/fulfillment.

11. Rather than refusing the grace of desire, salvation unfolds when we accept the perpetuation of desire and the work that this perpetuation entails. 

12. What is the grace that saves? Receiving the gift of endless work that the perpetuation of desire bestows. Here, grace/works produce no aporia.

13. But shouldn't I try to eat, protect my family, succeed in my business, etc.? Yes, but not as a way of permanently and completely satisfying your desires! Rather, pursue those desires as a way of receiving and sanctifying them as such!

Comments

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I couldn't comment on your previous post for some reason. Consider this comment a response to that.
I read your conception of grace as essentially Buddhist. But employing that formation in a theistic framework is to me equating karma with sin. It is overlooking the fact that God compels us to action (insert passages regarding sin of omission, acts of righteousness, etc.), not simply to establish a Buddhist disposition and master our sinful nature. It is this lack of divine perfection, or our deviance from living a life like Christ (i.e. driven solely by adherence God's will) that requires grace. This grace is, as you posit, immanent and prior to sin. But what of karma? Is not the universe, theistic or not, still causal? Does not this immutable metaphysical inertia demand a super-natural grace? And where could this karma go, but into the debt the Universe owes God by way of Jesus' morally perfect character (both as a pre-existent form of God and during his incarnation) undergoing a karmic load (stress, insults, whippings, crucifixion) befitting only the most depraved? I don't see the atonement as appeasing a bloodthirsty God but rather God working within the bounds of reality (karmic justice) to allow reconciliation of that reality to Himself.

[Adam Miller]

Jordan,

Thanks for the comments. I'll respond as I'm able below:

1. There are certainly deep resonances here with the immanence of a Buddhist approach to grace. I've reflected on them explicitly here in particular. For whatever it's worth, I probably wouldn't go so far, though, as to say that this approach is essentially Buddhist ;)

2. I think I'd say that rather than employing an immanent "formation in a theistic framework," I'm deploying a theistic grace in an immanent framework . . . in order to see what happens. I don't disagree that things may be lost. But the experiment is to see what kinds of things are lost and how essential those things are.

3. I'm very hesitant to agree that (even in a theistic framework) it is wise to define sin as a "lack of divine perfection" or as "deviance" from a divine ideal (e.g., as embodied by Christ). Not that divine ideals of perfection don't play an essential role in the constitution of our experience of sin, but that this role is much more complex and ambiguous than we may tend to think (cf., for instance, Romans 7).

4. For my part, I think that you hit the nail on the head when you ask:

"But what of karma? Is not the universe, theistic or not, still causal? Does not this immutable metaphysical inertia demand a super-natural grace?"

To me, this is a genuine (rather than rhetorical) question. In many ways, I take it to be the question.

Does this karmic, metaphysical inertia demand a supernatural grace?

Is the non-supernatural grace of what is given too poor a thing to save?

In particular, I think we need to be very sensitive to the ways in which a demand for an additional, supernatural grace may itself feed into the logic of sin that creates - in the first place - the bind of human sinfulness.

5. I'm very interested in your final sentence:

"I don't see the atonement as appeasing a bloodthirsty God but rather God working within the bounds of reality (karmic justice) to allow reconciliation of that reality to Himself."

Is your conception of "reality" here theistic or nontheistic?

Is this reality (with which God seeks to reconcile himself) a transitive, externalized effect of God's will (God being himself the sole creator and entire original, ontological source of this reality)? Or is it nontheistic in that this reality, in some sense, exists independent of and prior to God's will? Does the former require "reconciliation"? If reconciliation is required even there, then would it be different in character from God's reconciliation with a nontheistic reality?

[Jordan]

I don't think sin involves deviance from a divine archetype, but rather deviance from a personal divine revelation that unfolds moment by moment based on our faith. It is what convicts Paul of his thralldom to slavery. I see grace as boxing this slavery from two sides--immanently affordable (thanks to your insights here!) and available to overcome our sin after the fact.

My argument for supernatural grace is entirely metaphysical, and thus the relation to the idea is purely conceptual. Immanent, natural grace is experiential, and thus psychologically relevant. I see no theological overlap between the two, and thus supernatural grace shouldn't affect receiving natural grace. My understanding is this difference can assuage your wariness of supernatural grace hindering our reception of natural grace, which constitutes our relation to our desire-laden subjectivity and to God (again, thanks for the insight!!!).[it's more than likely I misinterpreted you here, b/c I'm unsure of what your last line in part 4 means "feed into the logic..."

My understanding of reality is both theistic and nontheistic. I see our God as the emergent Almighty, the one True God, arising "out of" Buddhist nontheistic samsara--like the Buddha reaching Nirvana, only as the Almighty God that "caps" reality that is "based" in your transcendent multiples--by purely natural processes of merit accumulation. I see this God as the personification of Love, implying both justice and mercy, and whose primary agency is derived from the willful navigation of justice and mercy, in the role of God to people in our theistic reality. In this sense, I see God as the monolithic, willful (and thus capable of both unresistant giving and entirely withholding gifts) analogy to your multiple, transcendent and irreducible immanent forces, only as residing "above" reality rather than "below" it, if you will.
I see our theistic reality as pure Creation, yet infused with sin and those "sown by the Evil One", as I see Adam's fall as forcing karmic judgement on God's otherwise perfect, and thus entirely a-karmic, creation. I further posit that this Fall grounded Creation, God's realized Vision, in samsaric reality, which then allowed incarnations of spirits who don't have God's "touch" in them, who came from the Buddhist samsaric realm within which God's reality is now situated. [To me, this makes sense of the predestination language in the Bible, reconciles Hell with a Benevolent God, and makes sense of Jesus as a Savior to All]
Consequentially, it seems to me necessary to posit a supernatural grace to save us from our samsaric location in addition to the natural grace giving us the spiritual fortitude to resist sin. I'm sure your familiar with the Buddhist requirements for samsaric (i.e. natural) heavenly realms, and given that likely less than a handful of Christians have historically met that benchmark, I find super-natural grace definitely necessary for a super-natural (eternal, with a super-natural God) heaven.

That's all remarkably unclear related to your question. I see our reality as theistic yet requiring reconciliation because of the metaphysical change of "location" resulting from the Fall. I see Created Reality forced to leave God's...mind?, as a result of sin, and thus needs karmic and moral absolution for reconciliation. I guess I see reconciliation as more complex than simply God "accepting" humanity. I don't think God wants to reconcile Buddhist, non-theistic reality, as 1) I don't think it has bounds or limitations, and 2) it's inherently loaded with impurity-->evil and good are in equal proportions (ying-yang): thus Creation.
I wanted throw in Buddhist metaphysics of mind in there as well (as a consequence of the Fall), which to me further evidences the location of Creation within samsara (or at least subjected to the rules therein) and necessitates a supernatural grace to literally lift our spirits from our current existential location and to liberate our minds from karmic law, which would otherwise have us reincarnate somewhere not pretty.
Finally, sorry for the lack of concision and long drawn out sentences! And don't hesitate to absolutely demolish everything I say here.
Thanks.

[Adam Miller]

Jordan,

Thanks for the additional thoughts - though this is certainly a lot to digest! There a lot of interesting ideas (from such disparate sources!) being woven together here.

I suppose my (quick) short answer response to your post might simply be to say that I'm generally more sympathetic to the those schools of Buddhism that argue that samsara and nirvana are ultimately identical. Hopefully we'll have additional opportunities to take a look at these issues with future posts.

My best,
Adam

[Jordan]

Please just clarify then what I'm seeing as your take-home lesson. Grace is immanent and precedes sin, therefore our faith as Christians is in the reality and efficacy of this grace to substitute/remedy any worldly desire/aversion. Thus, our work as Christians is turning more and more towards this grace, and further and further from the world, and in doing so psychologically reorient ourselves in God. So the faith/works dichotomy is abolished through the existential pursuit of grace-endowed holiness. Or, in other words, we "work out our salvation," are "transformed by the renewal of [our] mind," and are "born again" through a combination of our effort and God's immanent Grace. Thus, "supernatural" grace is superfluous, and even insidiously detrimental to the development of holiness.

"Who then can be saved?"

[Adam Miller]

Jordan,

The take-home lesson? I thought we were doing philosophy :)

No, this is really a good question. Let me try to clarify a couple of points.

1. Grace is immanent and precedes (and provokes) sin.

2. Grace is essentially the givenness of whatever is actually given.

3. Desire/aversion are ways of refusing the grace of what is given (i.e., we want things to be other than the way they are [desire], or we don't want things to as they are [aversion]).

4. Grace is a "remedy" for desire/aversion because it displaces both through its reception of the grace of what is actually given.

5. Thus, our work as Christians is to turn more and more toward God by turning more and more toward the world as it is given.

6. "Supernatural" grace is potentially (and spiritually) problematic insofar as it feeds into our unwillingness to accept the grace of what is already given.

7. Who then can be saved? Everyone.

My best,
Adam