Secular Grace

If I had to list the top ten books that influenced my approach to theology, Gregory Baum's book Man Becoming would be on the list. The subtitle is God in Secular Experience. I'm sure that today Baum would titled his something like Humanity Becoming.


Baum's approach to theology is based on a shift in thinking about God that was espoused by the French thinker Maurice Blondel at the beginning of the 20th century. Later in that century, the Catholic theologian Karl Rahner would extend Blondel's approach, as would the Anglican theologian Bishop John A.T. Robinson and the Lutheran Theologian Paul Tillich. Blondel taught that grace is secular and present in human life everywhere. Blondel rejected 'extrinsicism' -- the thought that God is 'out there' somewhere and imposes revelation on humans as a kind of new information about heavenly things.

In Man Becoming Gregory Baum interprets each major Christian doctrine in terms of the immanent, intrinsic nature of revelation. He writes about a 'graced humanity.' The truth of God is not information about God that comes to us from an outside source. Rather, it is the recognition of what we are already experiencing in our ordinary lives. The natural is shot through with the supernatural. There is no distinction between the natural and the supernatural. The transcendent is immanent. We discover 'God' in the process of our humanization.


What evangelization means is helping to bring about a new consciousness of the mystery of God's presence in everyone's life.


When I first read Baum's book it had the ring of truth for me. Later, when I studied the theology of Karl Rahner, I knew that the old way of thinking about God as separate and extrinsic was missing the mark. As Baum says, we like a good, neat rationalistic theology because it functions as a distancing defense mechanism against the demanding nearness of God. A rationalistic approach to God keeps God at arm's length. An existential and ontological theology gives us more responsibility; God is no longer a concept, but a present reality with which we have to deal. As William James put it, "We have business with God." 


In life there is a divine summons. We can open ourselves up to this infinite call and become truly and authentically human, or we can refuse the summons and block our self-realization (which is 'hell'). 


That's just a taste of what Baum describes in his book. Throughout he emphasizes the 'newness' that God is always bringing to our lived experience. A summary statement goes like this: "The Christian believes that tomorrow will be different from today." 


There is no 'us' and 'them'; no saved and lost. Only human beings who are in process. Some recognize the redemptive presence of God in their lives; others do not. 


I have never gotten over my first reading of Man Becoming. Recently I took it off the shelf and underlined even more sentences. Then a few days later came my copy of Commonweal magazine, and there was an article about Gregory Baum, now 88 years old. It was like a reunion with an old friend. Baum, who was once a Catholic priest, is now married to an ex-nun. He has continued to break down barriers between religions, and between the sacred and the secular. 


The farther away I have gotten from my Fundamentalist Christian upbringing, the closer I have felt to God. Indeed, we all live in God, and God in us. We are graced beings who participate in Being. 


The Good News is the lostness is an illusion. Salvation is a reality. We just need to wake up and enjoy it.