Does Everybody Hurt?
Over the weekend, Daniel and I released our latest episode of our podcast Awkward Asian Theologians.
Our episode is more of a collaborative reflection on a Nautilus article put out by Tim Brinkhof entitled “Is the State of the World Causing You Pain?”
Against the backdrop of this article, Daniel and I looked at the German concept of Weltschmerzen or “World Pain”, and we looked at it not as something disconnected from what it means to be human. On the contrary, we opined that Weltschmerzen, while at one level is about the pain of the world, it is fundamentally an anthropological category. More to the point, World Pain is less about the pain the world feels as it is about the pain we feel as a result of our relation to the world.
In this context, we discussed how our anthropology is such that, contrary to modern conceptions of ourselves as separate from (if not over and against the world), we are what Maurice Merleau-Ponty called “intervolved” within the world, such that we are invested in - and within - the world. Conversely, the world is less pieces of furtniture than sinews of our bodies, so that what happens to the world impacts on our very self.
More to the point, we both thought that this article had important theological implications, since it not only provided an important correction to our anthropological categories, but also how it frames the faith not simply as a set of categories to be assented to, but also as a way of life that comports us to reality. More importantly, we also argued that Scripture and theology - in this case Catholic Social Teaching - provides both a sympathetic and critical angle to the concept of World Pain. This becomes particularly evident when we consider John Paul II’s idea of the “structures of sin”, which he spoke of in his social encyclical Solicitudo Rei Socialis.
More to the point, we argued that the vocabulary of theology provides room for divine hope, human agency and Christological redemption that the otherwise secular concept of Weltscherzen does not allow. In this context, if I had the chance to re-record the episode, one point I would have added would have been one of St. Ambrose of Milan’s letters, in which he speaks of creation itself suffers the pain of frustration. Yet, St. Ambrose adds, creation nonetheless “lives in hope” before this frustration because:
its hope is in Christ…[and] it hopes that it will share in the glorious freedom of the sons of God and be freed from its bondage to corruption.
“Does Everbody Hurt?” is availalble to listen in full on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music.
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