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Arthur McGill: A Memoir
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
Extract
When on any occasion his father engaged in an argument with somebody … [Johannes Climacus] was all ears. … His father always allowed his opponent to state his whole case, and then would ask him very carefully whether he had anything more to say before he began his reply. … The father's rejoinder would follow, and lo! in a trice everything would be changed. How this happened remained a riddle to J. C. But his soul was delighted by such a drama. The opponent would speak again, and J. C. would be still more attentive, so that he should miss nothing. … [T]he father … would then perorate, and J. C. could almost hear his heart beat, so impatiently did he await what should happen.
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- Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1984
References
1 Kierkegaard, Sören, Johannes Climacus Or, De Omnibus Dubitandum Est (trans. Croxall, T. H.; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958) 107.Google Scholar
2 Holloway, James Y., ed., Introducing Jacques Ellul (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970) 6. Emphasis mine.Google Scholar
3 McGill, Arthur C., “The Ambiguous Position of Christian Theology,” in Ramsey, Paul and Wilson, John F., eds., The Study of Religion in Colleges and Universities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970) 123.Google Scholar
4 (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1961).
5 Ibid., 11.
6 Ibid., 153
7 See, e.g., McGill, Arthur C., “Identity and Death” (unpublished essay, n.d.) 35–37; Suffering: A Test of Theological Method (Philadelphia: Geneva, 1968) esp. 51, 68–73.Google Scholar The latter work has recently been republished with an appreciative and perceptive “Foreword” by Paul Ramsey and William F. May (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982); see esp. their remarks, 11–13. (All references to this work in the present essay are to the 1982 edition.) See also Gilbert C. Meilaender's reference to McGill in relation to “selfexpenditure” in Meilaender, Friendship: A Study in Theological Ethics (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981) 50–51.Google Scholar
8 McGill, Arthur C., The Celebration of Flesh: Poetry in Christian Life (New York: Association Press, 1964) 188.Google Scholar
9 Ibid., 188–89. Note in this connection Michael Peterson's reference to McGill's work in Evil and the Christian God (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1982) 17.Google ScholarPubMed
10 McGill, Arthur C., “Reason in a Violent World,” in The Distrust of Reason (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1959) 34.Google Scholar For another example of McGill's ability to carve out a unique perspective, see McGill, “Ambiguous Position,” 107.
11 McGill, Arthur C., “The Power of God and the Problem of Suffering” (lecture series at Princeton University, 1963) 1. 11, 13.Google Scholar I refer to these six lectures with some hesitation. McGill writes in a brief “Preface”: “In view of the informal character of all this material, I would like it understood that it is to be kept strictly within the local Princeton scene, and treated only for what it is, not finished theology but some rough and ready sketches of a theological topic.” Much that is contained in these lectures McGill later reworked and published as Suffering: A Test of Theological Method (see n. 7 above). Moreover, I find something of his compelling power more effectively captured in the “rough and ready” character of these lectures than in some of the more “finished” work, though McGill would surely want to call into question any reference to “finished theology”: see “The Unending Nature of Our Quest,” in Suffering, 128–30, where he declares, “All theology is provisional,” including his own.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid., 1. 14.
14 See McGill, Arthur C., “The Death of God and All That,” in Christian, C. W. and Wittig, Glenn R., eds., Radical Theology: Phase Two (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1967) 57.Google Scholar
15 Arthur C. McGill, The Crisis of Faith (Pittsburgh: Thesis Theological Cassettes, January 1974) 4. 12.
16 Ibid.
17 McGill, “Death of God.”
18 McGill, “Dogmatic Theology,” 196.
19 McGill, Celebration of Flesh, 55. See also p. 97, and other examples of how McGill switches tracks and turns tables in “Reason,” 39, and in “Identity and Death,” 23–24.
20 McGill, Celebration of Flesh, 134.
21 McGill, Arthur C., “Human Suffering and the Passion of Christ,” in Dougherty, Flavian, C.P., ed., The Meaning of Human Suffering (New York: Human Sciences, 1982) 192.Google Scholar
22 Kierkegaard, Sören, On Authority and Revelation (trans, and ed. Lowrie, Walter; New York: Harper & Row, 1966) 6–9.Google Scholar
23 See, e.g., Stringfellow, William, Count It All Joy (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967) 48–50.Google Scholar
24 McGill, “Identity and Death, “8.
25 Ibid., 9. See also McGill, “Reason,” 41–42: “And the hospital—the place where the battle is joined and where the monstrosities of medicine meet the monstrosities of disease—is a holy place of awe and stillness, where the only people who can walk with safety are the white robed initiates, the doctors and nurses.”
26 McGill, “Identity and Death,” 8.
27 Ibid., 15.
28 McGill, Arthur C., “The Religious Aspects of Medicine,” in Shriver, Donald W., Jr., ed., Medicine and Religion (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1980) 78.Google Scholar
29 Ibid., 81. But see McGill, “Ambiguous Position,” 116.
30 McGill, “Religious Aspects,” 92.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid., 92–93.
33 Ibid., 89.
34 McGill, “Reason,” 47.
35 McGill, “Identity and Death,” 25.
36 Ibid., 34.
37 McGill, “Reason,” 50.
38 See McGill, “Human Suffering,” 180–82.
39 McGill, Celebration of Flesh, 19. Emphasis mine.
40 McGill, “Dogmatic Theology,” 37.
41 Ibid., 41.
42 Ibid., 44. Emphasis mine.
43 Ibid., 47.
44 Dean, Abner, Wake Me When It's Over (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1955) 59.Google Scholar
45 McGill, “Dogmatic Theology,” 73.
46 Nitzsche, Friedrich, Thus Spake Zarathustra, in The Philosophy of Nietzsche (New York: Random House, 1954) 114–15.Google Scholar
47 McGill, “Dogmatic Theology,” 74.
48 Ibid., 109.
49 Ibid., 111.
50 Ibid.
51 Ibid., 112.
52 McGill, “Identity and Death,” 25.
53 McGill, Arthur C., “Suffered Under Pontius Pilate-Theological Brief,” in Evans, Robert A. and Parker, Thomas D., eds., Christian Theology: A Case Study Approach (New York: Harper & Row, 1976) 149Google Scholar; see also McGill, “Identity and Death,” 26.
54 See especially McGill, Suffering, 64–82; see also McGill's comment regarding the omission of the Holy Spirit from the discussion, 128. But see McGill, “Power of God,” 3. 1.
55 McGill, “Identity and Death,” 34.
56 Ibid., 35. See also McGill, “Power of God,”5. 7.
57 McGill, “Identity and Death,” 35. See also McGill, “Power of God,” 3. 13.
58 See McGill, “Human Suffering,” esp. 181–82. Does Jesus suffer two kinds of death upon the cross, a death demonic and a death divine, a death of sin and a death of creatureliness, a death which leads nowhere and a death which leads to life? One death is sounded in “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34), the other in “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46).
59 Ibid., 179.
60 Ibid., 176.
61 McGill, “Power of God,”5. 7.
62 Rougemont, Denis de, Love in the Western World (trans. Montgomery Belgion; Garden City: Doubleday, 1957) 321.Google Scholar
63 McGill, “Human Suffering,” 181. Note the ambiguity of “comparable” in this passage. I am suggesting that McGill wants to assert a qualitative distinction between demonic and divine power: “comparable” does not mean “as great as” (quantitative) but “of the same kind” (qualitative). McGill must mean “comparable” in kind.
64 The Fourth Gospel claims a special place in McGill's thought. Therein, McGill interprets, death is not extermination but “the process of generating and communicating life” (“Identity and Death, 24–34). McGill cites John 12:13—“In truth, in very truth I tell you that a grain of wheat remains a solitary grain unless it falls to the ground and dies; but if it dies, it bears a rich harvest” (Ibid.).
65 Ibid., 36. If God holds our lives, we are free to live with a certain abandon. Only as we let go can God get a grip on us. See McGill, “Theological Brief,” 148–53; see also “Power of God,” 2. 4.
66 When demonic power collapses, resurrection is not “intervention” but what happens continuously in the rhythm of the divine life. See McGill, “Power of God,” 6. 10.
67 McGill, Suffering, 97.
68 Ibid.
69 McGill, “Power of God,”6. 9.
70 Ibid. See also “Power of God,” 3. 3.
* This is a revision of a paper first presented at the American Academy of Religion, Southeastern Regional Annual Meeting, 19 March 1983. The author is presently engaged in editing the unpublished papers of Arthur McGill. Copies of recordings (tapes) of McGill lectures are solicited and would be appreciated. Please contact the author at Mary Washington College, Fredericksburg, VA 22401.