On Gravity and Grace: The Theopoetics of Simone Weil

Having just apologized for not writing posts for a while (because of my recent discovery of video blogging), I thought I’d actually do something about it, and write on something I’ve been wrestling with recently.

Over the last few weeks I have been delving into the work of Simone Weil. Weil is a difficult thinker whose work combines politics, mysticism and a deep appreciation of human suffering, to create an obscure, fragmented and poetic vision of what it means to be human.

One of the ideas that I find particularly appealing in her work lies in her various reflections on the themes of Gravity and Grace. For Weil, “Gravity” is the name for the world of force. Gravity defines, not simply the laws of physics, but the ways cause and effect operate in the very depths of our inner life. Gravity is not only the term that describes why one billiard ball moves when hit by another billiard ball, but it also describes how affliction causes affliction, how violence breeds violence, fire leads to fire, and hate to more hate.

Yet, in the world of Gravity, there are moments of short-circuiting that Weil describes as Grace. Grace does not describe another world beyond the world of Gravity, but rather refers to an event that occurs within the world of Gravity. In the universe of tit-for-tat and Mutually-Assured-Destruction, Grace opens up a space for something novel to occur.

Instead of violence begetting violence, fire begetting fire, and hate begetting hate. Grace puts a spanner in the works, creating the possibility of violence being confronted with peace, of fire hitting water, of hate encountering love. While the world is one in which affliction leads to more affliction and suffering expands until it swallows up everything in its path, Grace is the name for a spacing that stops the inevitability of hate winning. To cultivate a life of Grace means to cultivate a sensitivity to these little sparks in the world, giving oneself over to them and attempting to fan them into greater intensity.

In a world where we are overtaken by the heavy reality of Gravity – getting lost in one-dimensional life and the basic concerns of day-to-day survival – Grace offers freedom and peace.

In Continental Philosophy, one of the perennial questions concerns how to avoid falling into the problems caused by either the idea of a two-tier universe  on the one hand (a Cartesian duality of mind/body, material/immaterial, heaven/earth) or a reductionistic materialism on the other. Indeed, many of the philosophical movements of the 20th century can be seen as responses to this very dilemma. What Weil offers can be seen in the light of this attempt to avoid both these traps. Gravity and Grace combine in a similar way to how being and nothingness intertwine in a sculpture to create a thing of beauty.

If you want to hear me reflect more on this, just click here and look for Gravity and Grace.