Man's Desire For God

Man's Desire for God by Brian Mullady, OP

This is a very readable book on a number of topics. Notwithstanding the title, only the first chapter addresses the vexed question of whether man has a natural desire to see God. At first, I found this confusing, but by the end of the book, I was impressed with how Father Mullady's topics developed the issue of man's single nature of spirit embodied in flesh, which brings with it issues pertaining to other concepts where two natures become one thing, such as form and matter, sacraments, and the Incarnation.

Chapter One - The Natural Desire to See God. The issue is whether man has a natural desire to see/know God or whether this is a desire implanted supernaturally. The conundrum is that if this desire is natural, then it seems that it should be accomplished by nature, except that we know that no one will see God without the supernatural assistance of grace.

Mullady's position is that there is a natural desire found in the intellect and not in the world. Once man starts to wonder about existence, then he starts to wonder about causes, which leads to a desire to see the first cause, namely God. Man has the natural potential to act under grace, which suffices to answer the question of nature - Man has a nature that allows him potentially to see God, but actuating the potential requires grace.

Chapter Two - The Person in the Theology of the Body: Father Mullady puts his attention of Pope John Paul II's theology of the body. A question is why should it matter to a spiritual being what is done with the material frame that the soul inhabits. Mullady's explanation is that the human person is a hylomorphic entity composed of both body and soul. The body is therefore a visible sign of the spiritual and divine things not visible. The body is a kind of sacrament. Under this perspective, the radical dualism of Kant and Descartes is avoided. The body is a sign of God.

Chapter Three - The Fatherhood of God: God's fatherhood presents both divine truth and human reality. Mullady explores the meaning of fatherhood as active agency. The Father is the source of being; the Son receives that being. Reducing the relationships of the Trinity to actions destroys completely the central mystery of Christianity, particularly since all actions outside the Trinity are done by all three Persons. (p. 45.)

Chapter Four - The Body and Soul of the Human Act: Father Mullady asks the question of how bodily acts perfect the soul. This is possible only because human persons are hylomorphic beings composed of both body and soul. If we were simply “ghosts in the machine,” our bodily acts would not affect the soul. The moral probity of our actions would come down to our intentions. But we are embodied creatures, so we can discount the material conditions of our acts (as Karl Rahner sought to do.) A good will cannot excuse the torture of an innocent child because the material act is intrinsically wrong.

Chapter Five - O Life By Which I Live: “The divorce of the matter from form ... is at the root of the culture of death.” Father Mullady discusses Pope John Paul II's encyclical “The Gospel of Life.”

Chapter Six - Dying because I do not die.”: Father Mullady discusses a heterodox understanding of Christ's passion and death advocated by Karl Rahner in reliance on the thinking of Marin Heidegger. Heidegger's argument was that life was absurd and that death was therefore absurd. The only way of achieving meaning was for the individual subject to impose a meaning on death by making a choice for death. Rahner extended that notion to Christ by arguing that Christ did not have the beatific vision during His life, and, therefore, faced His own death in the same state of anguish and uncertainty as other men.

Father Mullady's response deserves wide reading. He denies that death is per se absurd. What is absurd is that the body dies and the soul is immortal which leaves people with the sense that death is the real absurdity. This absurdity can only be resolved by the Resurrection of the body through God's grace. Gace infuses the soul which infuses the intellect, and, then, the body, restoring the original harmony of body and soul, as God originally intended. Man was formed with such harmony, which is another reason that the death of the body while the soul remains immortal, is absurd.

Chapter Eight - Attitudes to Death: This may be the premier chapter of the book. Father Mullady affirms that Christ had the beatific vision at all times. This doctrine is found in the encyclical Mystici Corporis by Pope Pius XII and the Catholic Catechism. Father Mullady discusses Christ's cry of despair on the cross, which he says was not a cry of despair but a quoting of Psalm 21 (22) that ends with the vindication of the suffering servant. Christ was not abandoned in any way other than the “union of protection” from physical injury. (p. 102.)

Chapter Eight - Bread of Angels: Father Mullady discusses the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist. This chapter contains a lot of fascinating details suitable for mediation. For me, the eye-catching point was that Eucharist is in essence and in substance the body, blood, soul and divinity of the risen Christ. This means that substance of the material elements - bread and wine - are taken away and the substance/essence of Christ's body is created. What this substance point means is that none of the accidents of the body of Christ are found in the sacrament, which includes accidents like size, extension and weight. The substance appears to take on the proportions of the accidents of appearance found in the host, but concerns often raised by non-believers about the size of Christ's body necessarily being larger than a mountain miss the point of the substantial change. Father Mullady also explains that the “natural accompaniments” of the body - the blood, soul, divinity, etc. - are found in the Eucharist after the words of institution are spoken. Father Mullady makes the interesting point that if the Eucharist had been confected while Christ was in the tomb, then the natural accompaniments would not have included Christ's soul.

This is a fascinating book. As a student of Aquinas, I found the book to be a practical working out of Aquinas' logic. The book is slim, which makes it less intimidating. I recommend this book.