Nicolás Paz, faculty member at Pontifical University of Salamanca and member of CNI follows up the conversation initiated with Ken Butigan´article and video presentation. His article, published at CNI, shares a reflection on Pope Francis´ Laudate Deum apostolic exhortation and nonviolence under the light of a theology of self-limitation.

Laudate Deum and Nonviolence

Towards a theology of self-limitation 

Pope Francis released on October 4 the apostolic exhortation Laudate Deumⁱ. This document is in itself a reflection on power, limits and self-limitation, as an ethical option.
The document begins with “Praise God for all creatures”ⁱⁱ and ends with “For when human beings claim to take God’s place, they become their own worst enemies”ⁱⁱⁱ. This alpha and omega of the text are not random but fully and consciously chosen, drawing attention to humans who have adopted an attitude of unlimited power over everything and everyone. This attitude is built on rationality without limits and, therefore, without purpose or meaning beyond power for power’s sake. However, limitlessness as an end in itself contains the paradox of being an end without end. And unlimited power is the most limiting of powers, for it precludes the basic and fundamental freedom to say No, it is enough. Real power is self-limiting. It is a power that, in its unlimited possibility, chooses self-limitation not only as an act of will and freedom but also as an ethical proposal, as a choice for a better life. It is not power-over but power-with^iv, power which has meaning built with others.

The concept of God is associated with the concept of omnipotence. But human beings have adpted a specific and reduced concept of omnipotence. It is this concept that has turned the divine attribute into a human “obsession”^v, a self-deified human being, and little emphasis has been placed on the self-limitation emanating from this same omnipotence. Is not a God with the capacity of choice and self-limitation more omnipotent than a God in whom there is no such possibility? Would not a God who is not capable of self-limitation be, simply speaking, less God than a God with the capacity for choice of self-limitation?And as a creature made in the image and likeness of God, is not a human being incapable of exercising the freedom and will to self-limit less human than a human being with the capacity to choose?

That is Laudate Deum and that is precisely the proposal of nonviolence too: Praise God and praise his horizon as a limit. Choosing God is choosing Gospel nonviolence.

Every human being is capable of violence, but those who choose nonviolence do so conscious of their chosen commitment, of their committed renunciation of the use of violence. Nonviolence is not an attribute of certain natures or personalities but precisely a choice. It is the choice to reproduce in the world “the sensitivity” and “the tenderness” of Jesus ^vi. A human being capable of exercising violence towards others decides not to use it, not to encourage it, not to facilitate it, not to legitimize it, not to justify it. That human being chooses the path of “mutual care”, “sacred, loving and humble respect” for all other creatures. And he/she does so also because he/she knows that nonviolence is real “power with”, not false “power over”. It is the power of love in action.

Nonviolence is that “sound ethics”, that “culture” and “spirituality”^vii which can self-limit human beings and offer them “a lucid abnegation” to which Pope Francis draws attention. It is not about what we can do, annihilating one another, but about what we choose to do and to be: caring for and respecting one another in our shared vulnerability. A nonviolence embodied in the relationship with others and with our common home, a nonviolence intertwined between creatures and Creation, inspired by the example of Jesus, that is, Gospel nonviolence.

In Laudate Deum there is no other key term more often repeated than “power”. And there is no reflection which more intertwines its content than “Rethinking our use of power”^viii. The text makes explicit why there is a need for this reflection that leads us to transformation, to daily and tangible action: “the greater problem is the ideology underlying an obsession: to increase human power beyond anything imaginable”^ix.

God, as a regulative concept for non-believers, and God as an embodied reality for believers, offers limits as an horizon and as a proposal of hope. God as an ethical horizon-limit of human freedom and will.

Let us limit ourselves as an ethical choice and as a spiritual practice. Let us choose nonviolence as a solid ethical decision, a way of life and an embodied spirituality. Let us make nonviolence our daily life, our inner being and our being in the world. Nonviolence is a freely chosen self-limitation but it is also the chosen omnipotence of “love, justice and solidarity”^x. Nonviolence is not a passive choice but a full, active decision in a violent world. It is action that creates “an environment”^xi, “effective dynamics”^xii, “joy of community and hope for the future”^xiii. Nonviolence is “multilateralism from below”^xiv, “the primacy of the human person and the defence of his or her dignity beyond every circumstance”^xv, “a different framework for effective cooperation”^xvi, “a new procedure for decision-making”^xvii, a “healthy pressure”^xviii with “the courage needed to produce substantial changes”^xix. All that to which Pope Francis calls us in Laudate Deum is the ethical proposal of nonviolence: courageous action based on love and justice capable of generating efficient dynamics of change. It is a way of life, a spirituality which sets limits to a human rationality and power that are nothing but “homicidal pragmatism”^xx. Nonviolence is “authentic faith, not only gives strength to the human heart, but also transforms life, transfigures our goals and sheds light on our relationship to others and with creation as a whole”^xxi.

“I am a different person” explained South Sudanese activist Eshaya Kuku Daud after being trained on noviolence at “Catholic Voices confronting Violence with the Power of Active Nonviolence in Africa”. Nonviolence is a “pilgrimage of reconciliation”^xxii, a “cultural change”^xxiii of personal, family and community habits, a widespread change in lifestyles. Nonviolence praises God and knows itself to be human, limited, in constant shared learning and conversation. To embrace Gospel Nonviolence is precisely to Praise God for all creatures.