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thomas-merton

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was an author, poet, activist, and Trappist monk. His spiritual autobiography The Seven Storey Mountainnamed after the mount of purgatory in Dante’s The Divine Comedy (cf. 242)—was completed in 1946 at Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky. After being edited and redacted by his superiors, it was published in 1948 when Merton was 33 years old, quickly becoming the bestselling non-fiction book of the year and a spiritual classic.

This long and well-written memoir defies easy summation. The narrative is split almost exactly in the middle, narrating his journey prior to embracing Catholicism and after it.

The_Seven_Storey_Mountain,_by_Thomas_Merton,_book_coverI want to look briefly at two key points of this second half of the book regarding Merton’s vision of living the Christian life.

First, there is a strange quality—at least to these evangelical ears—to Merton’s conversion account. To be sure, it is clear that Merton is coming to the end of himself, tired of seeking satisfaction in the ways of the world. And it is clear that he has converted to Catholicism. What is less clear is whether he understands the objective work accomplished by Christ on his behalf. His overarching perspective—especially in conjunction with his sacramental understanding of Communion and baptism—is centered on incorporation and participation in the life of God, and recapitulation of the death and suffering of Christ, such that the forensic foundation of the work of Christ is so eclipsed as to be virtually invisible. Without this anchor, it is difficult to ground the Christian story in something more substantial and stable than mere “spirituality.” It cannot be entirely surprising, therefore, to learn that in the years following the publication of his memoir Merton grew increasingly attracted to Zen Buddhism as his monastic resentment grew.

Second, I believe that Merton had a defective understanding of God’s creational gifts and a misunderstanding of the call to bear our cross daily for Christ. He suggests that for a man to enter a religious Order and to serve in his vocation fruitfully, “it must cost him something, and must be a real sacrifice. It must be a cross, a true renunciation of natural goods, even of the highest natural goods” (319). It is true that Christ teaches self-denial and cross-bearing (Luke 9:23), but this is something required of all believers, not just a special few called to a set-apart life. It is not self-denial according to communal rules, but denial of worldly pleasures. It is not the rejection of natural goods, but the embracing of the Giver and all the good that he gives in Christ. The monastic version of the contemplative life embraced and advocated by Merton is difficult to square with Paul’s strong argument against asceticism in 1 Timothy 4:1-5. He speaks of the demonic deceit and conscience-seared insincerity of those

who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

At one point Merton says that he desires solitude, “to be lost to all created things, to die to them and to the knowledge of them, for they remind me of my distance from You” (461). But the perspective of C. S. Lewis is much more biblically faithful:

Creation seems to be delegation through and through. [God] will do nothing simply of Himself which can be done by creatures. I suppose this is because He is a giver. And He has nothing to give but Himself. And to give Himself is to do His deeds—in a sense, and on varying levels to be Himself—through the things He has made. (my emphasis)

By failing to ground his understanding of the gospel in the forensic work of Christ on our behalf, and by downplaying the gifts of the Giver as a means of communing with him, Merton provides an unstable framework for living the Christian life as it is set forth in the Bible. There may be valuable things to glean from Merton’s story and prescriptions, but much of it is surely cautionary and should be read discerningly.

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