Some Christian theologians embrace a

holistic Holism is the interdisciplinary idea that systems possess properties as wholes apart from the properties of their component parts. Julian Tudor Hart (2010''The Political Economy of Health Care''pp.106, 258 The aphorism "The whole is greater than t ...

combination of Christian theology with ''some'' ideas of (ontological)

materialism Materialism is a form of monism, philosophical monism according to which matter is the fundamental Substance theory, substance in nature, and all things, including mind, mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. Acco ...

, a belief that matter is a fundamental substance of the world and that mental phenomena result from matter.

Historical background

Throughout history, Christian thought has struggled with the ideas of flesh, world, and spirit, and their interplay in each person's salvation. As

Cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal most commonly refers to * Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of three species in the family Cardinalidae ***Northern cardinal, ''Cardinalis cardinalis'', the common cardinal of ...

Joseph Ratzinger Pope BenedictXVI (born Joseph Alois Ratzinger; 16 April 1927 – 31 December 2022) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 19 April 2005 until his resignation on 28 February 2013. Benedict's election as po ...

(

Pope Benedict XVI Pope BenedictXVI (born Joseph Alois Ratzinger; 16 April 1927 – 31 December 2022) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 19 April 2005 until his resignation on 28 February 2013. Benedict's election as p ...

) said in ''What It Means To Be a Christian'' (2006), "Christian theology... in the course of time turned the kingdom of God into a kingdom of heaven that is beyond this mortal life; the well-being of men became a salvation of souls, which again comes to pass beyond this life, after death." This tendency of spiritualization, Ratzinger said, is not the message of Jesus Christ. "For what is sublime in this message," he stated, "is precisely that the Lord was talking not just about another life, not just about men's souls, but was addressing the body, the whole man, in his embodied form, with his involvement in history and society; that he promised the kingdom of God to the man who lives bodily with other men in this history." Christian materialism is a widely discussed position in contemporary analytic

philosophy of religion Philosophy of religion is "the philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions". Philosophical discussions on such topics date from ancient times, and appear in the earliest known Text (literary theo ...

, defended by figures such as

Peter van Inwagen Peter van Inwagen ( ; born September 21, 1942) is an American philosopher. He is the John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and a research professor of philosophy at Duke University each spring. He previousl ...

and

Trenton Merricks Trenton Merricks () is an American philosopher and the Commonwealth Professor of Philosophy at the University of Virginia. While Merricks' primary field of study is metaphysics, he has also published scholarship in epistemology, philosophy of lang ...

. Pope John Paul II's ''

Theology of the Body ''Theology of the Body'' is the topic of a series of 129 lectures given by Pope John Paul II during his Wednesday audiences in St. Peter's Square and the Paul VI Audience Hall between September 5, 1979, and November 28, 1984. It constitutes ...

'' lectures asserted that "The body, and it alone, is capable of making visible ... the spiritual and divine." Christopher West, in reviewing the words of Pope John Paul II, asserted Archbishop William Temple has remarked that Christianity is "the most avowedly materialist of all the great religions."

Rejection of 'materialism'

According to Constantin Gutberlet writing in ''

Catholic Encyclopedia ''The'' ''Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church'', also referred to as the ''Old Catholic Encyclopedia'' and the ''Original Catholic Encyclopedi ...

'' (1911), ''"materialism"'', defined as "a philosophical system which regards matter as the only reality in the world…denies the existence of God and the soul." In this view, materialism could be perceived incompatible with world religions that ascribe existence to immaterial objects. Materialism may be conflated with atheism; according to Friedrich A. Lange (1892), "

Diderot Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a prominent figure during t ...

has not always in the Encyclopædia expressed his own individual opinion, but it is just as true that at its commencement he had not yet got as far as Atheism and Materialism."

Mary Baker Eddy Mary Baker Eddy (née Baker; July 16, 1821 – December 3, 1910) was an American religious leader and author, who in 1879 founded The Church of Christ, Scientist, the ''Mother Church'' of the Christian Science movement. She also founded ''The C ...

, the founder of the

Christian Science Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices which are associated with members of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Adherents are commonly known as Christian Scientists or students of Christian Science, and the church is sometimes in ...

movement, denied the existence of matter on the basis of the allness of Mind (which she regarded as a synonym for God).

Josemaría Escrivá and Opus Dei

The most visible use of the term is found in the writings of

Josemaría Escrivá Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás (born Jose María Mariano Escribá Albás; 9 January 1902 – 26 June 1975) was a Catholic Church in Spain, Spanish Catholic priest who founded Opus Dei, an organization of Catholic Laity, laypeop ...

, a Spanish

Catholic saint In Christianity, Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of sanctification in Christianity, holiness, imitation of God, likeness, or closeness to God in Christianity, God. However, the use of the ...

of the twentieth century, who said that all temporal realities have a sanctifying power and Christians can find God in the most ordinary material things. As such, it is associated with the Roman Catholic prelature of

Opus Dei is an institution of the Catholic Church that was founded in Spain in 1928 by Josemaría Escrivá. Its stated mission is to help its lay and clerical members seek holiness in their everyday occupations and societies. Opus Dei is officially r ...

which Escriva founded. It is an organization which teaches that everyone is called to holiness and that ordinary life, even the most material activity, is a path to sanctity. Escriva criticized those who "have tried to present the Christian way of life as something exclusively spiritual, proper to pure, extraordinary people, who remain aloof from the contemptible things of this world, or at most tolerate them as something necessarily attached to the spirit, while we live on this earth. When things are seen in this way, churches become the setting par excellence of the Christian life. And being a Christian means going to church, taking part in sacred ceremonies, being taken up with ecclesiastical matters, in a kind of segregated world, which is considered to be the ante-chamber of heaven, while the ordinary world follows its own separate path." Instead, he affirmed the "high value of the material." According to him, "Authentic Christianity which professes the resurrection of all flesh, has always quite logically opposed 'dis-incarnation,' without fear of being judged materialistic. We can, therefore, rightfully speak of a ''Christian materialism'', which is boldly opposed to those materialisms which are blind to the spirit." (Italics and emphasis added) In an address to a theological symposium, ''Holiness and the World'', which studied the teachings of Josemaria Escriva,

John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...

referred to one of his homilies: :There is nothing that is outside of the concern of Christ. Speaking with theological rigor ... one cannot say that there are things — good, noble or even indifferent — which are exclusively profane; for the Word of God has made his dwelling the sons of men, he was hungry and thirsty, worked with his hands, knew friendship and obedience, experienced sorrow and death. In connection with this quote, John Paul II said that the Catholic Church today is "conscious of serving a redemption that concerns every aspect of human existence," an awareness which was "prepared by a gradual intellectual and spiritual development." He also said that the message of Escriva, which has contributed in this direction, stems "from a unique grasp of the radiant, universal force of the Redeemer's grace." He later called Escriva "one of Christianity's great witnesses."

Relation with "materialistic values"

The term "materialistic" is also used pejoratively in the sense of "economic" materialism.

Rowan Williams Rowan Douglas Williams, Baron Williams of Oystermouth (born 14 June 1950) is a Welsh Anglican bishop, theologian and poet, who served as the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury from 2002 to 2012. Previously the Bishop of Monmouth and Archbishop of W ...

, in a lecture to

Welsh Centre for International Affairs The Welsh Centre for International Affairs (WCIA) is a Welsh international affairs and strategy think tank, established in 1973 to promote the exchange of ideas on international issues, build international partnerships connecting Welsh people ...

, asserts that

Prosperity theology Prosperity theology (sometimes referred to as the prosperity gospel, the health and wealth gospel, the gospel of success, seed-faith gospel, Faith movement, or Word-Faith movement) is a belief among some Charismatic Christians that financial bl ...

which has been criticised as "materialistic". Prosperity theology in the eyes of Simon Coleman (anthropologist) and Kate Bowler (2013) is influenced by

New Thought The New Thought movement (also Higher Thought) is a new religious movement that coalesced in the United States in the early 19th century. New Thought was seen by its adherents as succeeding "ancient thought", accumulated wisdom and philosophy ...

. New Thought, to

William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States, he is considered to be one of the leading thinkers of the late 19th c ...

, has roots in

idealist Idealism in philosophy, also known as philosophical realism or metaphysical idealism, is the set of metaphysical perspectives asserting that, most fundamentally, reality is equivalent to mind, spirit, or consciousness; that reality is entir ...

rather than materialist ontology.

List

Christianity and
dialectical materialism Dialectical materialism is a materialist theory based upon the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels that has found widespread applications in a variety of philosophical disciplines ranging from philosophy of history to philosophy of scien ...

* Denys Turner, Catholic theologian and Marxist who remarked that the

hylomorphism Hylomorphism is a philosophical doctrine developed by the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, which conceives every physical entity or being ('' ousia'') as a compound of matter (potency) and immaterial form (act), with the generic form as imm ...

Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas ( ; ; – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest, the foremost Scholasticism, Scholastic thinker, as well as one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the W ...

had materialistic traits and asserted "strong compatibility" between Marxist materialism and Christian

Theism Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of at least one deity. In common parlance, or when contrasted with '' deism'', the term often describes the philosophical conception of God that is found in classical theism—or the co ...

. Unlike many contemporary materialists, he uses 'materialism' to ''argue for'', rather than against, the

resurrection Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions involving the same person or deity returning to another body. The disappearance of a body is anothe ...

and immortality of the body. He is an Opus Dei member. * Y. T. Wu and much of Sino-Christian theology * Marxism and religion#Communism and Christianity * Liberation theology, as claimed by

Slavoj Žižek Slavoj Žižek ( ; ; born 21 March 1949) is a Slovenian Marxist philosopher, cultural theorist and public intellectual. He is the international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, Global Distin ...

Ontological-materialist Christian philosophers espousing
Mechanism (philosophy) Mechanism is the belief that natural wholes (principally living things) are similar to complicated machines or artifacts, composed of parts lacking any intrinsic relationship to each other. The doctrine of mechanism in philosophy comes in two diff ...
or
Mechanical philosophy Mechanism is the belief that natural wholes (principally living things) are similar to complicated machines or artifacts, composed of parts lacking any intrinsic relationship to each other. The doctrine of mechanism in philosophy comes in two diff ...

Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679) was an English philosopher, best known for his 1651 book ''Leviathan (Hobbes book), Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influential formulation of social contract theory. He is considered t ...

Pierre Gassendi Pierre Gassendi (; also Pierre Gassend, Petrus Gassendi, Petrus Gassendus; 22 January 1592 – 24 October 1655) was a French philosopher, Catholic priest, astronomer, and mathematician. While he held a church position in south-east France, he a ...

Non-
Nicene The Nicene Creed, also called the Creed of Constantinople, is the defining statement of belief of Nicene Christianity and in those Christian denominations that adhere to it. The original Nicene Creed was first adopted at the First Council of N ...
writers

* Joseph Priestley and Dissent *

Joseph Smith Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805June 27, 1844) was an American religious and political leader and the founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. Publishing the Book of Mormon at the age of 24, Smith attracted tens of thou ...

, the founder of the

Latter Day Saint movement The Latter Day Saint movement (also called the LDS movement, LDS restorationist movement, or Smith–Rigdon movement) is the collection of independent church groups that trace their origins to a Christian Restorationist movement founded by ...

, taught: "There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes; We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter." This spirit element is believed to always have existed and to be co-eternal with God. * Parley P. Pratt stated that "God, the father is material. Jesus Christ is material. Angels are material. Spirits are material. Men are material. The universe is material ... Nothing exists which is not material." Parley P. Pratt, “Materiality,” The Prophet (New York, New York), May 24, 1845.

References

{{reflist

External links

* https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/the-monstrosity-of-christ-paradox-or-dialectic/ Materialism Christian philosophy Christian anthropology Opus Dei