Camus: The Plague

Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913 in Mondovi, French Algeria (now Dréan, Algeria). His father died ten months later in one of the early battles of World War I. Camus and his mother then moved to a poor area of Algiers. He developed tuberculosis when he was 17.

The Holy Spirit and the Sending of the Christian Community

1. The People of God in World-Occurrence (History)

Just as there is no Church without Christians, so we must now emphasize there are no Christians apart from the Church. And, just as we become Christians when Christ calls us, so Christ’s call is also what binds us together as Church.

We shall begin our reflections on the existence of the Church in the world by considering theologically the history of the world in which it exists and into which it is sent. To begin with, although world history as such differs from salvation history (which includes the Church), Jesus Christ governs both as King. So even though world history differs in its darkness from salvation history, it is not secular history because God has not abandoned it to its own destruction.

The Vocation of Man

1. Man in the Light of Life

Life is the justifying and sanctifying grace of God present in Jesus Christ. Light is witness to this grace by Jesus Christ. This light of life shines on us as sinners and liars. It shines through us in the event of our vocation. Our vocation is the event in which Jesus Christ establishes fellowship with us. He does this as he calls us into the service of his truth and therefore into the service of God and neighbor as witnesses to the truth.

The Falsehood and Condemnation of Man

1. The True Witness

Our being and action as sinners is exposed without exception by Jesus Christ. Our sinful falsehood in particular is exposed by Jesus Christ as the one true witness to God’s justifying and sanctifying grace. Sin as falsehood is the absurd obstacle we place between ourselves and the prophetic work of Jesus Christ as the one Mediator between God and us. Sin as falsehood is the darkness we oppose to the light of Christ and in which we attempt to conceal ourselves from God, from others, and most of all from ourselves. Falsehood includes all our efforts to conceal our pride and sloth but is not exhausted by them. It is our own false word by which we oppose God’s Word. Jesus Christ justified us, sanctified us, and reveals that reconciliation to us through his Word. In ridiculous imitation, the devil attempts to falsify these in pride and sloth and to cover over that falsification with lies.

The Glory of the Mediator

1. The Third Problem of the Doctrine of Reconciliation

Jesus Christ is not only our reconciliation with God but also its revelation. Our reconciliation with him is not only real but true. So Jesus Christ is not only our justification and sanctification but our vocation as well. In contrast, our sin is not only our pride and sloth but our falsehood as well. But in spite of ourselves as sinners, Jesus Christ gathers and edifies us as his community to send us out as his witnesses. And so as Christians our faith and love include our hope.

The Holy Spirit and Christian Love

1. The Problem of Christian Love

Just as justification and sanctification are inseparable yet distinct, so too are faith and love. Faith and love are not the same, but there is no love without faith and no faith without love in any of our acts as Christians.

Christian love, or agape, is distinct from all other forms of love in that it regards others as ends in themselves and not as means to its own ends. This other love, or eros, in all its forms is finally only a self-serving love which reveals itself sooner or later as such. We can never harmonize these two types of love. They move in opposite directions. If we as Christians love in both ways, it can only be as we move in conversion from one to the other, from eros as our only past to agape as our only future in Christ. As long as we continue to experience the tension between the two, the movement of conversion and Christian love continue. As soon as we attempt a synthesis, we abandon Christian love.

The Holy Spirit and the Upbuilding of the Christian Community

1. The True Church

There is a Christian community only when the Holy Spirit is at work. A Christian community is visibly the true Church only when, in the power of the Holy Spirit, it shines and so is distinguished from the darkness of both the world and its own sinful tendency to proclaim itself. But the being and visibility of a Christian community as the true Church are seen only with the eyes of a faith graciously awakened by that same Spirit.