The Lesser Yes.

Pedantic Musings on Reception

The “no” is less than the “yes.” The “yes” opens possibility, and therefore opens the future. The “no” closes the possibility. The “no” is, as Rahner says, “eternal loss. “ The “no” literally carries death.

There is a “no” that is really a yes. When we say “no” in an act of moral intention, we are really saying “yes.” When I say “no” to the potential realization of an illicit fantasy, like the man saying “no” to the sexual proposition (à la Hauerwas’ example in “The Peaceable Kingdom”), or the “no” to the ethically ambiguous action because of a promised promotion, etc. etc., in this lies a “yes” and this is either a thematic or anonymous (cf. Rahner) “yes” to God. This kind of “no” also is an opening to the future.

In other words, these “no’s” are really yeses to the greater thing, no less than God himself.

There is also a “yes” in every “no.” We are saying “yes” to another thing. Refusal is never outright negation into nothingness. It chooses another thing. This is the refusal of reception, and is the hubris that is idolatry. This was, of course, St. Augustine’s insight: evil is good disordered.

Adam and Eve said “no” in the Garden, but they were really saying “yes” to themselves. They said a lesser “yes” and because of that lesser nature, it was a “no” - and as a result, it wielded a kind of destruction that touches even the smallest organism atomized. All because of a lesser yes.

The ability to know what is a greater or lesser yes is the substance of wisdom.

When we say “no” to one another, we refuse the other. This is at the heart of colonialism. Even in this “no,” there is a “yes” but this “yes” is to something outrageous and profane and completely self-orientated - the myth of the “superior root” among all the roots, as Glissant might say. This is the province of the “commodores of the earth.”

What happens when we cannot say “no”? When we are coerced into a yes? This also is a “no” - it is the refusal of the idea that a person has freedom and responsibility. It makes person “object” rather than “subject” - it is the worst kind of violence. Making what is human sub-human. It makes all of creation cry out, soaked with Abel’s blood.

Can the “no” be redeemed? Only through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Because only in Jesus is return possible. Because only in Jesus is resurrection after death. Only in Jesus, can “no” be turned from loss to gain.

I’m convinced this is why repentance is crucial. Not because without it, we are unforgiven. It’s clear that we are forgiven, because of the boundless mercy of God. And forgiven for even the things we do not know we do (“Forgive them for they know not what they do!”). But the turn back toward God is the invitation toward life… to participate with God in the making of the “no” into the “yes and amen” of Christ.

As Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy once wrote: In Christ, “… even absolute failure and death could be made fertile.”