Simone Weil, a twentieth-century French philosopher and political activist, possessed excellent academic training and worked in the Spanish leftist political movements. Around the advent of World War II, however, she became disillusioned with the totalitarian politics of Europe and made a reflective move inward. She began to convert to a Roman Catholic form of Christianity. Unfortunately, she died in obscurity before the war’s end as a result of a longstanding struggle with anorexia. She had labored at farms in the French countryside and entrusted a notebook/journal of writings to a French philosopher/farmer/friend. Seeing their value, he soon published these writings and a decade later, they were translated into English. They demonstrate an active mind and spirit seeking to understand reality amidst profound alienation.
These writings fall somewhere within the realms of personal philosophy and of a spirituality of a seeker. Though Christian in orientation, they do not teach any specific theological creed. They allude to religious rites like the Eucharist, but neither at length nor centrally. Weil was born into Judaism and graduated at the top of her class in philosophy at Paris. These writings show a clear – if not dominant – influence from these traditions.
The topics are varied, including love, evil, the social framework, and asceticism. She practices spiritual disciplines using the so-called via negativa (or negative way), wherein she acknowledges her own frailty and inadequacies in light of the Divine. (This seemed to go hand-in-hand with her anorexia.) She acknowledges two deep forces in the universe: gravity and grace. Gravity, intellectually understood from physics, holds the universe together, but God’s grace allows “the good” to grow. (Weil was a longtime Platonist.) She sees these two scientific and theological forces as complementary, not competitive.
Centuries earlier, another French genius Blaise Pascal left his Pensées, written on scraps of paper and published posthumously. Similarly, Weil’s writings were shared after her untimely death. Her life did not meet with nearly as much acclaim as Pascal’s did in scientific fields. Nonetheless, both’s forays into religious philosophy leave enduring legacies that deserve to be consulted by philosophical theists. Both maintain the role of a seeker, not a strict adherent to a creed, yet both overlap with orthodox Roman Catholic beliefs. They will be remembered in forthcoming centuries for their honesty and intellectual probing. Thinking Christians will value Weil’s contributions here, in her most accessible work that inspires spiritual pondering more than preaching.
Gravity and Grace
By Simone Weil
Translated by Arthur Wills
Copyright (c) 1952
University of Nebraska Press
ISBN13 9780803298002
Page Count: 236
Genre: Religion/Philosophy, Spirituality
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