Public Lecture (video),“You Have Never Talked to a Mere Mortal”: The Implications of a “Negative” Theological Anthropology

I wanted to use an opportunity to give an evening public lecture to explore some thoughts about anthropology: the ways modern conditions, categories and (especially) calculations give us a reduced sense of our humanity and then how the Christian tradition offers a more capacious alternative. It was sort of like letting the air out of a balloon and then trying to re-inflate it with good air from another place. In the last part of the lecture I talk about how an icon of the transfiguration will often display Christ as enveloped in layers of light that recede into grey and black behind him. As John Chrysostom said, the eyes of the disciples “were darkened by excessive radiance.” A later hymn writer likewise wrote, “`Tis only the splendour of light hideth thee.” There is more than we can take in when we turn to contemplate the beauty, infinitude, and holiness of the Lord. Hans Urs Von Balthasar spoke of an analogia personalitatis, or, the analogy between human and divine personhood. Is there a kind of dark centre of unknowability exceeding all that enlightens us as we come to know of another human person? How might this mystery inform a deeply theological anthropology? How does it challenge modern views of humanness? And what are its implications for human relations in society and everyday life?