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Bonsesquilistic Theology for Today
By Seward Hiltner

THE courage I have needed to prepare and present this address would not have been possible without help from John Calvin and Jürgen Moltmann. In his only recently discovered book, Second Thoughts from Geneva, Calvin wrote, "Theology should be serious but not solemnly without humor." And in a recent issue of Theology Today, Moltmann said, "Critical faith has achieved a reflective and free relationship with its basic traditions."

Guided by such considerations, I want to make a plea for a genuine examination of the bonsesquilistic theology of Guido Buonofunacci as of peculiar importance to the ecumenical potentialities of our time. Rightly understood, I believe that Guido anticipated the work of Luther, Calvin, the Council of Trent, George Fox, Jonathan Edwards, Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Harvey Cox, and Sam Keen, among others.

Until the great modem scholarly study of Buonofunacci by J. C. Smith, and some much more modest unpublished writings of my own, it is remarkable and reprehensible that Guido has simply been ignored by both Catholics and Protestants ever since he completed his twelve volumes in the fourteenth century. It is true that the slow development of printing in his time delayed for years the publication of his works in the modern book sense. And his writing Campanola and became Bishop of Pizza, be found time for his potential reading public. His was a relatively tranquil time. After he left his long pastorate at the Church of the Holy Buttons in Campanola and became bishop of Pizza, he found time for his voluminous writing. And by the date when his series was actually published, Luther, Calvin, Erasmus, Ciuto, Gebovitz, von Gliesbar, de Tuil, and others had entered the theological front stage. Without close examination, Protestants wrote him off as a Catholic. Catholics ignored him because he disliked Latin and Italian. Italians neglected him because he had written twelve books.

When I had the privilege some years ago of reading the manuscript of J. C. Smith's multi-lingual translations of Buonofunacci, along with his remarkably perceptive commentary, I saw at once that only Guido's position, within the whole of Christian thought, succeeds in harmonizing everything that needs to be in tune. Since each edition in Esperanto, Latin, English, German, French, Chinese, and Russian involved twelve volumes, along with the sixteen volumes of Smith's commentary, it was only with the greatest difficulty that he succeeded in finding a publisher, and I am proud

Seward Hiltner is Professor of Theology and Personality at Princeton Theological Seminary. The present article is a brief résumé of an address he presented at the great Vatican Congress on Calvin last August.

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to have given him some small help at this point. The University of South Mafia felt that its press had the funds to do the job; and a remarkable job they did in a technical sense. But since their charter was withdrawn two days after the issuance of the hundredth volume, they were never able to give the Buonofunacci works the publicity they should have had. The five thousand copies of the sole edition of Smith's hundred-volume work have of course been snapped up by art dealers and collectors, especially because of the magnificent reproductions of paintings from early days to the present century-most of which, in keeping with Buonofunacci's position, denied that there was any alienation between sacred and profane love. But except for the pictures, and Smith and myself, no one has paid attention to the ideas.

Before the University of South Mafia Press was closed, it offered free review copies to some distinguished theological contemporaries, including Barth, Tillich, Niebuhr, Ebeling, Pannenburg, Rahmer, and Pope Paul. But they all declined. I myself wrote a three-volume review; but this was rejected, successively, by Theology Yesterday, Theology Today, Theology Tomorrow, and Theology for All Seasons. Therefore neither Buonofunacci nor Smith has ever had a real hearing.

My principal concern is of course with the potentially salvatory theology of Guido Buonofunacci, especially as finally translated and interpreted by J. C. Smith. But Smith's own plight is disturbing, too. Although be still holds a tenured professorship at the University of South Mafia, that university is now defunct, and without either money or students. He has therefore been forced to earn his living by guarding the gold at Fort Knox. Smith, true to his bonsesquilistic principles, has no interest in money beyond what is needed for a small room and his special banana and olive oil diet. Happily, he has still managed to save one set of his great work. But the chiggers, termites, and bookworms in his room near Fort Knox threaten to eat away his inheritance in the near future. I am President of the recently-established J. C. Smith Emergency Fund for the Preservation of the Remnants of Bonsesquilism, a tax-free corporation licensed under the laws of Samoa; and any interested persons may write checks to this organization, sending them to me.

In my limited summary, I can present only the most brief account of the basic ideas of Guido Buonofunacci. As against rejectionism, he was for inclusionism. He was always faithful, loving, hopeful, and yet he took with seriousness the reality of evil and sin and suffering. He saw clearly that a bonsesquilistic theology must always be antipantapaedilistic. Many otherwise able modern theologies have of course foundered on their implicit acceptance of pantapaedilism. As Smith has shown so clearly, bonsesquilism requires theology to combine sequential developmentalism with a

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playful incarnationalism. Due attention is given to both the interpersonal and the interinstitutional factors.

There are of course a few dimensions of Buonofunacci's thought that must be demythologized, since he was a man of the fourteenth century. The purple color that he assigned to Satan's coat is no longer acceptable in view of recent liturgical developments. His view of contextual ethics requires modification. And his notion of heaven borrowed too much from Islam. Such errors, or provincialisms, are easily corrected. What is more difficult lies in the conception of God herself. But I believe that this transition, too, can be managed for the modern age.

In his commentary on Buonofunacei, the most brilliant work done by Smith was in eschatology, where he has emerged with a clarifyingly ambivalent reinterpretation that does full justice to the founder but is very relevant to the disbeliefs and ambiguities of our day. The future, he argues, is only the present in extension. But that extension from the present means that the eschaton is always present. Therefore, the present is always futurized and the future is always presented. Smith shows convincingly that this must be true both ways because the past is always the present, and vice versa.

Long before DDT and Rachel Carson, Guido Buonofunacci related ecology to hermeneutics, faith to group dynamics, racism to sexism, apologetics: to the dialogical disciplines, and antidisestablishmentarianism to limbo. Calvinist that I remain, I plead that this Congress will set up a committee to study bonsesquilism in the light of the needs of today. In such a study, I offer my own full cooperation. And I believe I may speak also for J. C. Smith.