The Two Wills of Christ

(A recent Facebook conversation about William Lane Craig's Heterodox Christology brought this to mind. This is a paper I wrote during seminary. It is highly academic but since I am not a specialist it should be comprehensible and hopefully informative for anyone interested in Christology and Christian theology in general.) 

Christology is a complicated topic. There were seven councils dealing directly with Christology which are recognized as ecumenical. The theology of the later three is infallible for Rome or Constantinople/Moscow, but amongst Protestants it has differing reputations.1 This section will be irenic and not polemical. I am dealing with the sixth of these great councils, also known as the Third Council of Constantinople (ad 680-681). I will describe what the council actually said about the nature of the incarnation. Then I will explain the heresy of monothelitism which was the occasion for holding the council. Then I will explicate dyothelitism, and to a lesser extent dyoenergism, which were the dogmas established by the council.2

I. The Acts of Constantinople III

Any discussion of a church council should involve what was decided at the council in the very words of those present. There seem to be two things of primary importance stated directly in The Acts of the 6th Ecumenical Council (ad 680-681): the naming of heretical teachers and the true teaching of the church that Christ possesses two wills and two energies. The council clearly declares that monothelitism and monoenergism are heresy and undoubtedly affirms that dyothelitism and dyoenergism are orthodoxy.3 Then it goes on to posthumously anathematize several church teachers, the most important being Pope Honorius I (ad 625-638), who reputedly taught this doctrine.4 While every council is complicated, reading the acts of Constantinople III gives one the impression that the issue is very simple. Christ has two wills and that as they say is that. Of course almost nothing in connection with Jesus Christ is that simple. There are many layers and complicated issues within the theology of this great council. One of the most vexing for the Roman Catholic tradition is the unchallenged and unqualified condemnation of a Petrine Bishop “who in everything agreed with them [heretics].”5 But first we need to understand the preceding theological developments and problems which led the church to this point.

II. Monothelitism

This ecumenical gathering, just as each previous council, did more than affirm mere metaphysics. The fathers at Constantinople III had soteriological dogma in mind.6 The issue of Christ having one or two wills seems very esoteric given the theological challenges of 21st century Christendom. But to these bishops and teachers of the church it was like asking the question: are humans really and truly saved by Jesus Christ? The defenders of monothelitism were under the impression that to affirm dyothelitism was to affirm Nestorianism and therefore to separate God and man in Christ to the point of unraveling the salvific work of the Hypostatic Union.7 The historic concern of the monothelite tradition was to maintain the synthesis of Cyril Patriarch of Alexandria (ad 412-444) who affirmed the unity of the incarnation in the person of Christ. Cyril’s theology prevailed at the council of Ephesus over the teachings of Nestorius by preserving “the deep substantial nature of the conjunction of God and man in Christ.”8 But in spite of his success, Cyril’s terminology could be confusing or ambiguous, specifically his use of the phrase “one incarnate nature.”9 But this phrase was not alone. The monothelite heresy which followed claimed the central tenets of Cyrillian Orthodox Christology as its foundation.10

“The doctrinal edifice of Monoenergism was built upon three pillars: first, the recognition of the Cyrilline doctrine of ‘one incarnate nature of God the Word’; second an acceptance of the theopaschite formula, that is, the statement that ‘one of the Trinity suffered in the flesh’; and finally, the ps.-Dionysian affirmation of ‘a new (or ‘single’) theandric activity’ in Christ after the union. Both the statements of Cyril and ps.-Dionysius the Aeropagite seemed, on a superficial reading, to endorse the existence of a single activity in Christ.”11

This quotation shows the deep interconnectedness of Christology and soteriology. Each of the theological principles listed is primarily soteriological. “One incarnate nature” was Cyril’s way of emphasizing the deification of man through Christ.12 It was not a reference to one nature after the Hypostatic Union, an explicitly Eutychian idea, but the belief that “very God of very God” became incarnate. The divine nature was united to the human nature through Christ. And the same logic can be applied to both the theopaschite formula and talk of a theandric will. Because Christ is truly God and Christ has died therefore God has died. But that is not to say that God the Father or the divine essence were crucified. And a theandric will was simply a deified human will. So Christ would still be dyophysite and dyothelite but his human will is deified. Still it is not hard to see how the monophysite confusions were made consistently, or how indebted genuine Christian soteriology truly is to Cyril.13

But the irony of Constantinople III is that both the dyophysite Nestorians and monophysite Eutychians were monothelites.14 In the case of both they were under the impression that to have one will and energy was to preserve the union of natures.15 For the Monophysites this followed from their insistence on one nature, for their reading of Cyril was such that the one incarnate nature actually meant a new combined divine-human nature.16And for them the concept of a theandric will meant a God-human composite will, not a deified will.

The reasons for Nestorian monothelitism are far more ambiguous and complicated. Their main motivation came from the Nestorian desire to affirm one prosopon.17 But the fullest definition of Nestorianism is something more akin to one prosopon and two hypostases which is why the Nestorian heresy is usually described as belief in two persons in the incarnation due to the historical ambiguities between those Greek words, and how prosopon and hypostasis became synonyms eventually. Nestorianism recognizes, along with all other Christians, that there must be a unity to the incarnation of some kind but that there must be a genuine duality as well. But rather than the duality merely being emphasized the duality came to be understood as two complete or independent dualities united by a prosopon, but the prosopon in question is not God the Son or even Jesus Christ but the conjunction of God the Son with Jesus Christ in two complete hypostases. 18 This is why Nestorius denied the term Theotokos as the virgin Mary’s liturgical title and opted for Christotokos instead and why he also denied the theopaschite formula. The human nature of Christ could not experience divinity and the divine nature of God the Son could not experience humanity so the prosoponic unity of these two independent natures must have been a unity of action or willing. And since willing seems intuitively to be personal as opposed to natural both the Eutychians and the Nestorians placed will in the person rather than nature.19 Here it is important to note Pope Leo’s (ad 391?-461) contribution to the discussion.

Since Leo’s Tome is an official part of the acts of the council of Chalcedon, all Christians who commit themselves to the binding teaching authority of Chalcedon are committed to Leo’s Tome as well.20 This is interesting because the Eastern Church will often remark that the Tome has problems, namely that it flirts with Nestorianism at worst and is ambiguous at best; even though they know it must be orthodox.21 In any case Pelikan shows that Leo’s phrasing of the natures doing things was essential for defeating monothelitism and paving the way for Constantinople III. As I’ve already admitted it seems appropriate to make “actions” or willing belong to person and not nature but the Christological problems with this intuition were at the center of the theology of the sixth council. According to Pelikan both heretical groups sought to reinterpret Leo’s language, in fact they completely altered it.22 They tried to read a single subject of action into the actions being performed.23 Leo’s theology was universally hated outside the churches that wanted to follow Chalcedon consistently.24

The actual phrasing that caused this trouble for the heretics was Leo’s claim that each “form” does the acts which belong to it.25 Pelikan explains:

“Without any change in the spelling of the Latin and with at most a very slight change in the spelling of the Greek, Leo’s formula could be read to say that the incarnate Logos ‘does, by means of each form, the acts that belong to it, in communion with the other,’ with the word “form” now in the ablative or instrumental dative. This was the interpretation of Leo set forth by Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople, an advocate of ‘one action.’ Yet if our transmitted texts are reliable, he elsewhere quoted the same passage correctly, ascribing the acting to each of the natures rather than to the single hypostasis of the Logos.”26

This issue is not an irrelevant vestige of Chalcedon because Constantinople III directly cites Leo’s Tome as its proof and basis for dyoenergism. The exact passage is quoted that the heretics tried to manipulate as evidence for their view.27 The significance of this point cannot be overstated for Constantinople III. A direct connection to Pope Leo I showing that Christ had two wills means that dyothelitism was self-consciously in step with Chalcedonian dogma. Regardless of intuitional problems there is no great difficulty in seeing how a will could be proper to nature and not person.28 It would be like a metaphysical appendage, just as legs or lungs are something a body has but do not themselves make up a physical body. A will is something that can be accessed and utilized but it is not the center of action or more importantly agency. In other words a person uses a will, but persons perform determinative and deliberative actions and the will is where those decisions are actualized. That is why we tend to think of and call ourselves agents or centers of action. So if anything were to be located in Christ’s person it would seem to be action. But Leo’s language prevents this conclusion! He has located action as well as will in each nature, because the natures are actually doing something not merely being utilized by the Hypostasis. Like my legs deciding to walk rather than my use of my legs to walk. If this is an accurate description of Leo’s theology then it would appear to be wholly unorthodox because of the conciliar distinction between person and nature, and seemingly lead to Nestorianism.29 Yet the theology of Chalcedon and Constantinople III, two anti-Nestorian councils, rests on Leo’s theology. It is therefore probable that agency and action are in fact different for conciliar Christology. Also the council of Chalcedon and Leo’s theology has to be read and understood in light of Cyril’s theology. For as Fairbairn argues Chalcedon was not a compromise between Cyril and Nestorius but was in fact a defense of Cyril’s theology.30 All of this makes a Nestorian interpretation of Leo, and therefore dyothelitism, highly incredulous.

III. Dyothelitism

According to O’Collins, “at the level of Christs will and ‘natural’ activities, the Council upheld the Chalcedonian balance between a ‘Nestorian’ separation and a ‘Eutychian’ blending.”31 And clearly it was necessary for this clarification to take place because the heresy in question was not as gross or violent as Apollinarism or Arianism. It was and remains a subtler falsehood. This is evidenced by its widespread speculation in the orthodox churches.32 After Chalcedon it was clear to most of the church that Christ must have two natures. But was “will” proper to “nature?” This is why Collins says that it is a soteriological question.33 If the unassumed is the unhealed and part of human nature is a human will then Christ must have one if we are to be saved.

The concept of operation/activity or energy is less clear in the theological texts I have surveyed.34 But as has been shown it was important to Constantinople III, and apparently Pope Leo I. According to Pelikan, dyoenergism was a clear derivation from dyothelitism, which is strange considering two things. First, it is clearly an Aristotelian concept rather than a Biblical one.35 Second, if “action” comes after “willing” then why was there so much controversy over it being located in the person of Christ?36 In any case dyoenergism was seen as following from dyothelitism.

Conciliar Christology was defined by many things, but probably the most important of these was the principle of the unassumed being unhealed. So the sixth council affirms that Christ had to have two wills: one will shared with the other members of the trinity, and one will shared with human nature. The reason for this is quite simply that only God can save and in order for God to save something he must connect it to himself. That is essentially the first three councils in a nutshell. The argument against Arius:

1. Only God could save us
2. Christ has saved us
3. Therefore he must be God.

And contra Apolinarius human nature can’t be healed unless all of it is healed, Christ has perfectly healed us therefore Apolinarius was wrong. So Christ must be fully God and fully man as explained at Chalcedon. The Sixth council was really about how God saves us by giving further clarification to the fourth ecumenical council. There are still questions which need to be answered and puzzles that need to be solved, but it seems clear that the council thought of itself as merely a continuation of the previous five ecumenical decisions, which includes the theologies of Cyril and Leo. Right or wrong Constantinople III thought it was representing the continual and unified soteriology and Christology of the Chalcedonian church. And so if the theologians of this council were correct then the current Neo-monoenergism is in serious trouble.

1 Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy but this is also true of some Anglicans and Lutherans.

2 For much of this paper dyothelitism and dyoenergism as well as monothelitism and monoenergism will simply be equated with each other. The distinction between them is important and will be discussed but generally speaking they are so closely related as to be undifferentiated, at least from a historical Nicene perspective.

3Schaff, Philip and Henry Wace, eds., The Seven Ecumenical Councils, vol. 14 of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 342.

4Schaff and Wace, eds., The Seven Ecumenical Councils, 343. See also Leo Donald Davis, The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325-787) Their History and Theology (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1990), 282.

5 Schaff and Wace, eds., The Seven Ecumenical Councils, 352.

6 Gerald O’Collins, Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 197.

7 Davis, The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325-787) Their History and Theology, 280. This also seems to be the primary concern of Neo-monoenergism, which means that it is properly motivated even if ultimately wrong.

8 Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition (vol. 1): From the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon (451), 2nd rev. ed., trans. John Bowden (Atlanta: John Knox, 1975), 477.

9Andrew Louth, trans., The Early Church Fathers: Maximus the Confessor (London: Routledge, 1996), 9.

10And as we shall see later even earlier fathers whose theological arguments were entrenched in related but different issues. Nicene theology in the seven councils is a gradual unfolding and reestablishing of essentially the same theology in light of different problems. Lack of clarity in otherwise unquestionably Nicene fathers led to many of the heresies in question.

11Allen, Pauline and Bronwen Neil, eds., Maximus the Confessor and his Companions: Documents from Exile(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 3.

12Daniel Clendenin, Eastern Orthodox Christianity: A Western Perspective, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2003), 128.

13Demetrios Bathrellos, The Byzantine Christ: Person, Nature, and Will in the Christology of St. Maximus the Confessor, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 24-27.

14 Jaroslav Pelikan, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700), vol. 2 of The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 64.

15 Sergius Bulgakov, The Lamb of God, trans. Boris Jakim (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 75.

16 Allen and Neil, Maximus the Confessor and his Companions, 4.

17 O’Collins, Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus, 186.

18 Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition (vol. 1), 505-507. It should become clear later how this has impacted both Medieval, Reformed, and Neo-Monoenergist Christology. It is also possible to formulate Nestorianism in modern terms as a divine person and a human person coming together to form a new divine-human person. This sort of confusing language or unclear thinking can be found even in such a venerable document as the Westminster Confession where in Chapter VIII, article VII it says: “Christ, in the work of mediation, acteth according to both natures; by each nature doing that which is proper to itself; yet by reason of the unity of the person, that which is proper to one nature is sometimes, in Scripture, attributed to the person denominated by the other nature.” The problem does not lie in the two natures acting but of a seeming multiplicity of persons. As we will see shortly the two natures of Christ doing things is actually a mark of Chalcedonian orthodoxy against Nestorianism.

19 It is hard to see how the Eutychians did this. My conclusion is that they considered the will to be personal and hypostatic is due to the fact that they still maintain distinctions between the Father and the Son. So unless the Father is incarnated along with the Son they have to be monothelites. Of course this is part of the problem with Eutychian theology, even understood in its nuanced miaphysite formula, there seems to be confusion not just of the two natures in Christ but of what the incarnation actually consisted. Are the Father and Spirit just as equally incarnated as the Son? Does the divine nature die along with Christ on the cross? It has the exact opposite problems of the Nestorian ambiguities.

20 Teaching authority and simple intellectual adherence are completely different. The Neo-Monoenergists are generally not committed to the teaching authority of Chalcedon or Nicaea but they still wish to be Chalcedonian broadly.

21 This is an observation from my personal interaction with the Eastern Tradition. And the kickback against the Pope in question has more to do with Roman Catholic apologetics than it does with the East’s acceptance of Leo’s Tome. As we will see Leo is a fundamental pillar within the Eastern theological system, but while his Christology is clear and systematic they think that Cyril’s theology is clearer in terms of soteriology. This is probably true but shows how indispensable a multiplicity of teachers within the church has always been. Because where Cyril is ambiguous Leo is not and vice versa. Where Leo could be misinterpreted Cyril could not.

22 Pelikan, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom, 65.

23 Allen and Neil, 10.

24 Bathrellos, The Byzantine Christ, 32.

25 Schaff and Wace, eds., The Seven Ecumenical Councils, 256.

26 Pelikan, 65.

27 Schaff and Wace, eds., The Seven Ecumenical Councils, 342.

28 It is difficult for many current evangelicals, which is the basis of the occasion for the writing of this paper. It is not difficult for many other Christians, myself included, to think that will is natural rather than personal. I think my claim is substantiated by the fact that most Christians throughout history have been dyothelites, and so if they are/were wrong then it was/is an easy mistake to make.

29Bathrellos, 37. A better or more appropriate analogy than legs deciding to walk would be stubbing a toe while walking. Your leg is going to respond to that stimulus, it is going to do something: react to the pain. And so in the case of Jesus it could be that his nature’s doings are these sorts of things. He receives pain from his human nature, etc.

30Sanders, Fred and Klaus Issler, eds., Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective, (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2007), 82.

31O’Collins, 197. This is not a compromise position as much as it is an understanding of what the heretics were right about. For as I have tried to demonstrate Cyril and Leo are neither Eutychian nor Nestorian.

32Pelikan, 62.

33O’Collins, 197.

34Bulgakov seems to agree. The Lamb of God, 75.

35 This point is minor but usually extra biblical words like trinity or homoousios are used to defend what seem to be clearly biblical ideas or concepts, especially in the conciliar debates. But in this case it seems that what was generally understood by energia had to do directly with Aristotelian philosophy.

36 Pelikan, 63. Bulgakov disagrees that it was connected to Aristotle’s use of activity or energy, but David Bradshaw has argued a whole book opposing this point and Barthellos (cited above) agrees with Bradshaw. See David Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

The New Worlders Episode 3

My other podcast, The New Worlders, has finally published a new episode! It’s just a non stop Conservative talk a thon. 

Check it out here.

The AK47 Podcast Season 2: Episode 16

Aaron and Kyle come together to discuss Hollywood, whether or not we should be financially supporting Hollywood, the Unplanned movie about Abby Johnson, and abortion in general. 

Listen to the episode here.

To learn how to support our podcast, click here.

Repeal the 22nd Amendment

I think its time for us to admit that the 22nd Amendment didn’t go far enough. It’s time to get rid of it and replace it with a restriction to one Presidential term. Maybe we should also lengthen that one term slightly (the Philippines restricts their presidency to one six year term), but there’s simply no need to have Presidents running for reelection. The executive branch needs to be put in further check, regardless of which party controls it.

Like most good ideas this isn’t novel, rather its very old. In an article for The Imaginative Conservative about Orestes Brownson’s “The American Republic” Peter Stanlis argued: 

“In 1865 Brownson showed remarkable prophetic insight into some future dangers to the American Republic, both in the written constitution of the state, and in the unwritten constitution of American society. Within the state constitution he warned of a danger that history has vindicated: “The danger that the general government will usurp the rights of the states is far less than the danger that the Executive will usurp all the powers of Congress and the judiciary” (p. 371). There had been a growth in “dictatorial powers” in the Presidency during the Civil War, and these “usurpations” and “abuses” continued after the War: “There is a growing disposition on the part of Congress to throw as much of the business of government as possible into the hands of the Executive” (p. 372). A possible cure for this “growing evil” was to make the President “ineligible for a second term” (p. 373). Another great abuse that Brownson feared within the state was the appeal to the “general welfare” clause of the Constitution to justify an enormous growth in the Federal Government’s power, at the expense of genuine private welfare…”

He then goes on to quote Brownson:

“The private welfare of each is, no doubt, for the welfare of all, but not therefore is it the “general welfare,” for what is private, particular in its nature, is not and cannot be general. To understand by general welfare that which is for the individual welfare of all or the greater number, would be to claim for the General government all the powers of government, and to deny that very division of powers which is the crowning merit of the American system”

And I’ll end with this last quotation from Stanlis:

“This perceptive statement, when applied to the “New Deal” of the 1930s, explains why the states have suffered in the division of powers between themselves and the Federal Government, and why the private welfare of individual rights has been obliterated by general welfare federal programs.”

(One brief counter to this idea of repealing the 22A. If the President only has four years there’s a chance that the executive branch will become even more unbearable. Imagine if Bernie Sanders were elected and had only four years to turn these United States into Sweden? He would be far less worried about upsetting the populace and losing reelection, thereby be far more willing to take unpopular risks. But its still only four years! And a good President would have the same incentive to not care about public opinion which might allow more rollback of entitlements. There are always trade offs, these trade offs seem better than the ones we currently live with in these United States.) 

The Art of Unplanned

Last year’s “Gosnell” and the recently released “Unplanned” present a thorny problem for Conservatives who choose to write about film. 

 

The morals that drive these films are undoubtedly in line with the cultural right since both are anti abortion films. That is their sole Raison d’etre. It is the reason the films were made and the reason viewers bought their tickets. 

 

So their status as art is dubious from the get go. The question of whether or not film, and photography generally, is an art is still seriously debated in certain circles. But leaving aside that very complicated discussion,  which seems to have no purchase on the popular imagination, these two films represent a perfect litmus test for whether or not a film enthusiast of the Conservative persuasion has integrity as both a person of virtue and critic of the moving picture.

 

Because neither film is a great exemplar of cinema. They are essentially serviceable films made in the Lifetime or TV movie mode. Neither is interesting in their own right as a film. Neither will be watched for their own sake. They will not be enduring classics, eventually relegated to that shadowy forgotten land where “The Cross and the Switchblade” and the “Thief in the Night” series rest undisturbed. Because if artistic outcomes mean anything they must mean that something is valued for its own sake. A great film is sought out for the same reason that a great dessert is, simply because it is delicious. 

 

The Conservative and especially the Christian must begin their philosophy of art with the doctrine of creation. God didn’t need to create, otherwise he would not be God. The classical conception of ultimate divine reality is at the very least a being for which nothing is required. God is perfectly sufficiently happy in and of himself. This is how he can be the source of all good things. He himself needs no source. He is the source. And so the things he creates are created for their own sake and not his. They are inherently useless to him. He does not need them.

 

In fact the Christian story of creation is not only useless to God but dangerous. Because unlike most conceptions of the divine the Christian believes that God became human and literally died. He came back to human life of course, but still the perfectly happy one created something that he knew would require his own pain to save. This is a far thornier problem than the traditional logical problem of evil for someone desiring a perfectly “rational” faith. For present purposes it is not helpful to dwell on this, the reader simply needs to understand that the Christian doctrine of creation being the foundation of the Conservative philosophy of art entails that true art be inherently useless. It must be something valued for its own sake not its utility.

 

Tolkien’s Legenderium is a perfect example of this aesthetic. In particular “The Lord of the Rings” is delightful just because it is delightful. The prose itself is marvelous, simultaneously unpretentious yet beckoning the reader forward with its sheer uncomplicated gravitas. Tolkien’s perfectly chosen words both serve the wondrous narrative and are consumed greedily for their own sake. 

 

But it is true that Tolkien was attempting to create a distinctly English myth. Therefore his works of fiction were done in service to English culture. And a healthy English culture serves to create healthy Englishmen. So he was striving after some utility.

 

But the truer truth is that Tolkien, being the original Lord of the Nerds, created the worlds of Arda in order to have a medium to formulate and play with his own invented languages. In other words the Elves were created for Elvish, or more specifically the Noldor were created for Quenya. The inherent uselessness of this endeavor is what makes his writings so culturally useful as a distinctly English myth. The idiosyncrasies of Tolkien as a person, particularly his philological genius, are what give “The Lord of the Rings” its depth and enduring cultural capital.  

 

This does not refute the claim that true art is useless because it merely shows that the concept of useless and useful are not opposed to each other. But something that is only useful can never be art. 

 

Hollywood makes this mistake all the time with their Oscar bait films. For decades now half the films that are nominated for best picture, and most of the films that win, are simply not among the best of their respective years. Some infamous examples serve to highlight this point. “Jaws” lost best picture to “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, “Star Wars” lost to “Annie Hall”,  “E.T.” to “Ghandi”, “Raiders of the Lost Ark” to “Chariots of Fire”, “Field of Dreams” to “Driving Miss Daisy”, and most notoriously if “The Dark Knight” had been nominated it would have lost to “Slumdog Millionaire”. 

 

The irony is obvious: when great art is the goal the product is more often than not completely forgettable. This is a crime against art itself and it will be an enduring legacy of decadent mediocrity for Hollywood until they purify their aesthetic worldview. Because the problem with most of the “artistic” films that become darlings of the Academy is that they trade narrative prowess for morality du jour. “Moonlight” won best picture in 2016 and no one will ever watch it again. But at least four of that year’s losing nominees feel like they could become what marketing guru Ryan Holiday calls perennial sellers.

 

For Hollywood real Art, art that “matters”, is morally useful. For them the only virtues that matter are the ones they can easily signal. A good story with excellent performances is simply not good enough. Its gotta have intersections to be worthwhile. 

 

Sadly this is the reason that Contemporary Christian Music, Evangelical production companies like Sherwood Pictures, Thomas Kinkade, and actors like Kirk Cameron are so embarrassing to Christians and Conservatives that care about culture. These things attempt to emulate and compete with popular culture, just without the swears and ugliness. And because they choose to serve their simplistic vision of morality they continually fail to create anything of enduring quality.   

 

Thankfully “Gosnell” and “Unplanned” escape this cultural ghettoization because they know what they are. These are message films with no anxiety about competing with Hollywood for eyeballs. They probably should have been documentaries because they are both based on true stories. But the trouble with documentaries is that no one watches them. If you want to get a message out to a lot of people the packaging is important. “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down”. And the medicine these films convey is deeply unpalatable. Abortion is probably the single most unpleasant subject of our times. And not just because of the political firestorm it generates. 

 

Abortion is far more ethically complicated than most are willing to admit. It represents the intersection of every contradiction western society has been built on. In many ways it is the philosophical climax of Classical Liberalism's failure, so eloquently outlined by Patrick Deneen. Calling abortion murder doesn’t encapsulate its gravity. The idea that humans could or should have the ability to completely control realities as complicated as sex and pregnancy is an inexhaustible hubris.

 

This is what makes “Unplanned” a truly interesting narrative in its own right. It is a deeply Conservative (read Burkean) film in a way that “Gosnell” could never be. Because the story of the sociopathic Kermit Gosnell isn’t ultimately about abortion. It’s about an aboritionist gone mad. It’s about the failure of mainstream media to care about truth over ideology. It’s about the ineptitude of government to protect the individual. In other words it’s a right vs left culture war story through and through.

 

“Gosnell” makes the blood run hot, partially because it’s clearly the better film as a film. Earl Billings is a legitimately great actor. His performance as Gosnell is truly chilling. Whereas the villain of “Unplanned” was played cartoonishly by Robia Scott, a veteran of low grade television. 

 

But what really makes “Unplanned” Conservative isn’t its lack of incendiary subject matter (because there certainly is some) but rather that it lays bare the entire enduring reality of abortion in America with genuine empathy. And it does this with uncompromising moral clarity about the unborn. 

 

It is only able to do this because it adheres faithfully to Abby Johnson’s life story. Her story is not merely that of a Planned Parenthood turncoat, it is the story of a woman who had more than one abortion. It is a story of the gradual moral transformation of a young Texan who truly thought she was helping women and tragically learned that she was not.

 

This narrative is not compelling because it was told with the Hitchockian brilliance of a Christopher Nolan. That was never the point. Abbie’s story is compelling because it’s true, and more than that it’s good. The tapestry God has woven with her painful life overcomes the film’s cinematic shortcomings and gives the viewer a deep look into how the Conservative vision of Social Justice is supposed to work. The Radical vision requires unbridled emotion and violence. The Radical demands justice today and always winds up enduring tyranny tomorrow. But the Conservative knows that the world belongs to what Russell Kirk called an enduring moral order. 

 

“That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent.”

 

This is almost explicitly stated by Abbie’s husband during a conversation about viability. Viability was always Abbie’s cut off. Anything after viability was a baby and interfering at that point was wrong. But Doug challenges this with simple logic and science beecause medical knowledge keeps pushing viability back. So should our ethics be based in ever changing science or eternal principles? 

 

It was for this reason that “Unplanned” was made. It is a testimony to the wisdom of patience and love in the face of horrendous evil. Human flourishing is only possible when we go with the grain of the universe. Shaming, blaming, and shouting at people to not get abortions does no good. Murdering abortion doctors does not save any babies. Persuasion through reason driven by the peace that surpasses understanding is what ultimately changed Abbie. The virtuous humble activists with the Coalition of Life loved her away from Planned Parenthood. This is much more explicit in Abbie’s book of the same name. 

 

At one point in the film Abbie actually outlines that the success rate for convincing women to get abortions decreases when people are praying at the fences that surround Planned Parenthood clinics. Apparently PP collects actual data that shows prayer does something to the women inside the clinic. And this should not surprise us! Jesus promised his disciples that the fence of hell (paraphrase) could not triumph against his followers. 

 

But people can only pray at the fences as long as love reigns and not passion. The Westboro Baptist types within the pro life brigade are literally doing no good. They give PP excuses to have the civil activists removed. Psychologist Jeffrey Schwartz once wrote: 

 

“here’s a piece of practical advice: don’t be reckless about openly showing your disapproval...It’s an easy time to make needless enemies. Discretion may not be the better part of valor, but it is a part of it.” 

 

“Unplanned” may not be a great film in its own right. But Abbie’s life is a work of art, beautifully forged by divine providence. And this is the goal to winning the abortion battle, because it starts in our hearts and minds. The Conservative must be willing to submit his mind to the truth that everyone, on both sides of the Planned Parenthood fence, are fearfully and wonderfully made. That everyone was knit together in their mother’s womb by God. Peace within the womb starts with peace inside ourselves. Without love we have nothing to offer anyone. 

 

God could have chosen not to create and we would have been spared the pain of existence. This is what makes human life and the beautiful tragic story God is telling in humanity the greatest work of art. None of this needed to happen. It was not necessary. Yet God chose to do it for the simple joy of creation, even knowing what it would cost him. 

 

“For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” 

AK47 S2E15: The return of the Socialist!

My friend Alex is back to give us his Democratic Socialist analysis of the Democratic party's presidential candidates. We also discuss the Mueller report.

You can listen to the episode here.

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