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“You Are a Very Ignorant Boy”Author(s): Robert Cook

Source: Flannery O'Connor Review , Vol. 10 (2012), pp. 82-96
Published by: Board of Regents of the University System by and on behalf of Georgia
College and State University

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 f l a n n e r y o ’ c o n n o r r e v i e w

Robert Cook

“You Are a Very Ignorant Boy”:

Romano Guardini’s Theology of Dogma in “The Enduring Chill”

et me make no bones about it: I write from the standpoint of Christian

orthodoxy. . . . I write with a solid belief in all the Christian dogmas” (17
Mar. 1956, HB 147). Elsewhere, Flannery O’Connor also wrote that “[t]he truth
in my stories is watered and fed by dogma” (1 Mar. 1955, CW 930). Flannery
O’Connor took dogma seriously. However, dogma itself plays a significant role in only one
of her stories—“The Enduring Chill,” in the climactic scene wherein Father Finn verbally
assaults Asbury Fox with questions from the catechism.1 O’Connor’s use of dogma in
“The Enduring Chill” reflects her theologically sophisticated view of dogma’s function in
the human person: to protect mystery and to serve as an instrument of freedom by which
one observes reality. Obviously, the Baltimore Catechism of her childhood did not teach
her this; how did she come to such a nuanced appreciation of dogma? This paper will
argue that O’Connor derived her position from theologian Romano Guardini, and “The
Enduring Chill” may be understood as a literary demonstration of Guardini’s ideas.
O’Connor drew from many theological influences—The Habit of Being’s index lists
nearly forty modern philosophers and theologians. In this area, she seems to have been
self-taught; there is no evidence that O’Connor formally studied theology as a student at
Georgia State College for Women or the State University of Iowa. While O’Connor was
a professed “hillbilly Thomist” (18 May 1955, HB 81) who claimed to read the Summa
Theologica twenty minutes every night before bed (9 Aug. 1955, HB 93-34), it seems that
twentieth-century French and German thinkers bore a greater impact upon her. Writing to
Cecil Dawkins in 1957 (at the same time she was creating “The Enduring Chill” [2 Nov.
1957, HB 250]), O’Connor described her pedagogical journey of faith—it reads like an
intellectual autobiography. She wrote:

[T]o discover the Church, you have to set out by yourself. The French Catholic
novelists were a help to me in this—Bloy, Bernanos, Mauriac. In philosophy, Gilson,
Maritain and Gabriel Marcel, an Existentialist. They all seemed to be French for a
while and then I discovered the Germans—Max Picard, Romano Guardini and Karl
Adam. (16 July 1957, HB 231)

This group of thinkers seems to shape the constellation of her theological formation.
In the area of dogma, however, one star outshines the rest: Romano Guardini. W. A.
Sessions, a long-time O’Connor correspondent, noted in 2006 that “. . . no single published
study (not even a dissertation) has dealt with this direct influence . . . except in a general
manner” (58). It is hoped that this paper will assist in filling that gap.

1. O’Connor’s Exposure to Guardini

There are three main sources from which to draw in assessing O’Connor’s reliance on
Guardini’s theology: her letters, the contents of her personal library, and her book reviews
for a Catholic newspaper in Georgia.
O’Connor appears to have discovered Guardini in late 1954, writing to Sally Fitzgerald
that “I am reading everything I can of Romano Guardini’s [Italian priest and theologian]”

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(26 Dec. 1954, HB 74).2 As is evident, Guardini is new to O’Connor because she does not
yet realize that he is a German. She recommends his book The Lord to Fitzgerald, a work
she also advocates to two others—to T. R. Spivey (28 Sept. 1958, HB 296) and to Betty
Hester, writing that “In my opinion there is nothing like [it] anywhere, certainly not in this
country” (28 Aug. 1955, HB 99). Indeed, O’Connor made the humorous comment that “If
Msgr. Guardini is the Msgr. Sheen of Europe then that only says how far Europe is ahead
of us on that score” (11 Aug. 1956, HB 169). Over the course of her correspondence, she
encourages others to read Guardini, including Cecil Dawkins (16 July 1957, HB 231), and
Thomas Stritch (14 Sept. 1961, HB 449).
By April 1956, O’Connor published the first of six reviews of Guardini’s books for
The Bulletin, a Georgia Catholic newspaper. These reviews spanned a period of six years
and included the following titles: The Rosary of Our Lady (Apr. 1956), Meditations Before
Mass (Nov. 1956), Prayer in Practice (Feb. 1958), Jesus Christus (Feb. 1960), The Conversion of
Augustine (May 1961) and Freedom, Grace, and Destiny (Oct. 1961). O’Connor’s reviews are
all very positive, observing with pleasure that his work contains a “total absence of pious
cliché” (PG 16) and that he exhibits “a wealth of cultural background in his spiritual writing”
(17). She praises his work as “important” (23) and “as penetrating . . . as we are liable to get”
(114), noting that “[w]hatever his subject, he constantly illuminates it with . . . insight” (28),
making “all of Monsignor Guardini’s work so vital” (53).
At the time of her death, O’Connor’s library had eleven of Guardini’s works—second
only to novelist Francios Mauriac’s fifteen. In addition to those books reviewed for The
Bulletin, her collection included The Lord, The Death of Socrates, The Faith and Modern
Man, Prayers from Theology, and Sacred Signs (Getz 96-97). As such, Guardini is the most
represented theologian in O’Connor’s library.
W. A. Sessions recalls that “[d]uring those early years, Guardini and other writers
from France, Germany and Italy became favorite subjects for long conversations on [her]
wide screened-in porch or across the long table in the dining room that doubled in those
years as a living room” (57). When Sessions had the opportunity to study at the University
of Freiburg in 1957-1958, O’Connor wrote to him asking “[a]re you going to see Msgr.
Guardini . . . ?” (27 Sept. 1957, HB 243-44). Guardini seems to dominate her theological
interest from 1954 until the late 1950s—and, as will be discussed below, it was during this
period that she wrote “The Enduring Chill.” She continued to recommend Guardini and
review his books into the early 1960s (14 Sept. 1961, HB 449).
The bulk of her references to Guardini, however, occur in her letters to Betty Hester.
As Hester was becoming a Catholic at the time, these letters often contain catechetical
themes, and O’Connor uses Guardini to teach the faith. In total, Guardini appears in
eleven different letters to Hester. O’Connor’s initial reference to Guardini takes place one
month after their first letter, recommending The Lord and offering to send Hester a copy
(28 Aug. 1955, HB 99). Over the course of their correspondence, O’Connor sent other
works to Hester: Guardini’s monograph from Cross Currents magazine on The Brothers
Karamazov within the context of a discussion of Freud, Aquinas, and epistemology (1 Jan.
1956, HB 126; 15 Jan. 1956, HB 128), as well as his essay on Prince Myshkin as a Christ
symbol in Dostoevsky’s The Idiot (28 Dec. 1956, HB 191). She refers Hester to Guardini
for his definition of Romanticism and its relationship with sin (30 Sept. 1955, HB 106-07)
and the function of art (8 Sept. 1956, HB 173), and she notes that “Msgr. Guardini can
explain . . .” the answers to Hester’s questions regarding creation, free will, and humility
(24 Sept. 1955, HB 104).

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In Aug. 1956, it appears that Hester does not share O’Connor’s enthusiasm for
Guardini. O’Connor acknowledges that The Lord may not be “wearing well” over the years,
but she looked forward to the publication of The End of the Modern World in the autumn.
Within the context of defending him, O’Connor promises to reread The Lord “with what
you say in mind. However, my evaluations of these people all have a background . . . .” She
concedes, however, that “. . . almost any spiritual writer ought to wear thin for you. It’s like
reading criticism of poetry all the time and not reading the poetry. Spiritual writers have a
limited purpose and can be very dangerous, I suppose” (11 Aug. 1956, HB 169).
With regard to O’Connor’s reliance on Guardini in the area of dogma, the critical
reference occurs on 30 Jan. 1956—seven months before Hester seems to cool to him. In the
letter just prior to 30 Jan., O’Connor praises Guardini’s writing for its lack of “smugness”
–which she calls “the Great Catholic Sin” (17 Jan. 1956, HB 131). This letter apparently
raised some questions for Hester, as O’Connor’s 30 Jan. letter contains the following
response: “I have another of Guardini’s books that you may not have seen—The Church
and the Modern Man—that I’ll send you if you want to see it. Him discussing such things as
dogma and free will” (30 Jan. 1956, HB 133-34).
Interestingly, O’Connor mistakes the book’s title, not calling it by its actual name,
The Faith and Modern Man. Despite the misnomer, this letter makes plain that she read and
appreciated it for its explanation of dogma. O’Connor must have valued this book quite
a bit as, at the time of her death, she had a copy in her library—leading one to conclude
that she procured another copy after she presumably made good on her promise to send
her first copy to Hester. The letter of 30 Jan. 1956 is the strongest piece of direct evidence
creating a clear link between Guardini’s theology of dogma and O’Connor’s views, which
are remarkably similar.

2. Romano Guardini’s Theology of Dogma

Categorizing Guardini is difficult—he was a dominant figure in Catholic intellectual

circles for fifty years and wrote on topics as diverse as systematic theology, liturgy,
philosophy, spirituality, prayer, popular piety, literary criticism, and poetry, and he
translated the Psalter into German. He was a noted academic, having the chair of Philosophy
of Religion and Christian Weltanschauung at the University of Berlin, the University of
Tubingen, and the University of Munich. He was offered (but rejected) Martin Heidegger’s
position at the University of Freiburg. During World War II, the Nazi government forced
his resignation from teaching, but he continued to write (Krieg, Biographical Dictionary
230). His views on liturgy and cultural engagement mark him as one of the intellectual
forebears of the Second Vatican Council (Krieg, Precursor of Vatican II 193-99). He died in
1968 at age 83, with approximately seventy books and one hundred articles to his credit
(Krieg, Biographical Dictionary 230).

A. Dogma Opposes Relativism

In the aftermath of the Second World War, cultural criticism of the post-modern ethos
became a prevailing theme of Guardini’s thought. Specifically, he decried the dominance
of epistemological subjectivity, warning in The Church and the Catholic “. . . how deeply
we are sunk in relativism, that is, the attitude of mind which either denies an absolute
altogether, or at least tries to restrict it within the narrowest limits” (58). In reflecting on

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contemporary currents, Guardini noted the rapid changes in culture, science, the arts, and
the social and economic order. He observed that modern humanity

live[s] in a perpetual flux. . . . [C]enturies of criticism have worn away all fixed belief
[and] the flux forces itself on the mind with an evidence from which there is no
escape. . . . Nothing any longer stands firm. Everything can be viewed from a thousand
different angles. What had seemed secure disintegrates, on closer inspection, into a
series of probabilities. . . . Man thus becomes uncertain and vacillating. His judgments
are no longer steady . . . . He is no longer capable of action based on firm conviction
and certain of its aim. (59-60)

This intellectual wavering causes a profound immobility, placing humanity “at the
mercy of the fashions prevalent in his surroundings, the fluctuations of public opinion,
and his own moods” (CC 60). Worse yet, humanity is paralyzed from making judgments as
“[H]e cannot overcome error by truth, evil and weakness by moral strength, the stupidity
and inconstancy of the masses by great ideas and responsible leadership, or the flux of time
by works born of the determination to embody the eternal values” (60).
Despite this cultural famine, humanity is blind to its penury—instead, it celebrates it.
Guardini opined that humanity’s

. . . spiritual and intellectual poverty is accompanied by a colossal pride. Man is morbidly

uncertain and morbidly arrogant . . . . Every social class deifies itself. Art, science,
technology—every separate department of life considers itself the sum and substance of
reality. There is despairing weakness, hopeless instability, a melancholy consciousness
of being at the mercy of a blind irrational force—and side by side with these a pride, as
horrible as it is absurd, of money, knowledge, power and ability. (CC 60)

As such, humanity is immersed in this odd combination of epistemological confusion

and cultural hubris.
The Faith and Modern Man contains Guardini’s most systematic presentation of dogma—
O’Connor chose well in recommending it to Hester. In that book, he states that relativism
manifests itself in religion as “Modern man fights shy of giving a clear yes or no to religious
matters, and prefers to leave everything in the hazy mist of feeling . . .” (156). Dogma,
being “a decision in matters of the Faith which the Church states in full consciousness
of responsibility and with the whole weight of her authority” (157), unavoidably causes
unease to the modern mind. Guardini writes that dogma’s role is provocative, as it is
necessarily “the object of controversy for, according to its nature, it issues from a decision
from whomever confronts it” (157).
Guardini says that dogma raises questions in the modern mind such as the following:
Do not precise formulations contradict religion’s nature as a living thing? Does not its final
and absolute character oppose the ever-changing nature of human life? Is not its precision
and severity contrary to the generosity of love? In responding to these concerns, he notes
that they “. . . are all modern in origin. . . . Not until [today] had matters of Christian belief
moved so far into the realm of sentiment and the subjective that the very notion of dogma
seemed questionable” (FMM 158).
The problem, according to Guardini, is that these concerns locate truth within personal
experience, which can result in a de facto rejection of divine revelation.

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As far as Jesus Christ is concerned, it is plain that He had nothing whatever to do with
modern subjectivism. He was not concerned with “edification” but with the truth,
truth in all the divine austerity of the word. His purpose was not to arouse feeling,
or to awaken religious inwardness, but to proclaim the Gospel of the Lord of the
world which reveals hidden reality, teaches divine truth, proclaims eternal salvation in
what is as much a gift. What Jesus meant by faith is certainly not “experience” in the
modern sense, behind which stands the self-glorification of man, but the obedience of
the creature to the self-revealing God. (FMM 158-59)

Taken in this light, “The real opposition to things Christian comes not from dogma,
but from the revolt against the majesty of the revealing God, from the falling away from
everything that in the full and honest sense of the term can be called truth . . . [so] peculiar
to the men of our day who have so amazingly departed from any pretense to objective
truth” (FMM 159). By submitting itself to reason, dogma is a direct challenge to relativism
and thus defends truth from being relegated to sheer personal experience or emotion
Guardini notes that

Distrust of reason is a very recent development in religious history . . . . A faith which

fears reason is no longer certain of its own immediate religious strength. Genuine
faith not only stands up under reason, but actually demands it. Dogma summons
reason into the service of faith and charges it with . . . expressing it clearly. In this way,
religious truth is protected from the ambiguity of mere experience. (COL 168)

This predicament leads modern culture to find new ways to reject the role of dogma;
humanity’s fallen condition allows a contortion of divine revelation’s truth. “Religious
history,” he writes, “is full of man’s determination to dominate the divine. He does
this . . . by trying to make the divine conform to his own image, and for that very reason
he falls victim to the narrowness of his own nature” (171). Dogma, then, is a flash point
at which the truth of Christ comes into contact with the notion that truth cannot exist
anywhere other than the self.

B. Dogma Protects Mystery

In this context, Guardini views dogma’s function quite clearly: it protects the mystery
of God’s revelation and defends against humanity’s tendency to conform the truth to
itself. He employs the images of a wall and an iron band to describe its role: “. . . dogma
does not explain, but safeguards the whole. It is like a wall built about a sacred source to
keep the contents from running out, or an iron band surrounding the mystery to hold
it intact” (FMM 168-69). Elsewhere, he offered the similar image of the walls of a well:
Dogma “explains nothing. On the contrary, it deepens and intensifies the mystery. It
surrounds it, so to speak, with protective concepts and in this way preserves the sacred
reality of Christ pure, complete and unified. It is as if a spring bubbled up and then the
well-builder came to enclose it. Surrounded by the solid ring of the wall the spring flows
continually providing life and refreshment. The reality of Christ surpasses the bounds of
our understanding” (COL 78). Drawing upon Church history, Guardini used the Council
of Chalcedon as an example of how dogma protects mystery. He believed that humanity
possesses two tendencies (which he called “psychological structures”) by which the mind

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 f l a n n e r y o ’ c o n n o r r e v i e w

approaches reality. The first, represented by the church of Alexandria, emphasizes linkage
between things and their relationships. For this approach, “Existence, throughout, is felt to
be an interrelated whole. Differences are merely on the surface. The essential phenomenon
is relatedness” (FMM 161). The second, represented by the church of Antioch, emphasizes
differences: “It sees everywhere dividing lines and boundaries. The values that appeal to it
are precision, firmness of opinion, decisiveness, all of which rest on the establishment of
clear distinctions” (161).
Guardini notes that both positions have merit (“and both are in fact right”) because
“. . . reality corresponds to both types of vision, but only partially to each.” Problems occur
because humanity’s fallen nature inclines a person “to claim one’s particular approach as
an absolute” (FMM 162) as “Man is forever trying to simplify the fullness and magnitude
of the Gospel, and to bring it down to his own level. This he does by attempting to make
it conform to his own psychological structure” (169). These two theological schools came
into conflict at Chalcedon over Christ’s dual natures: the Alexandrians emphasized unity
and merged Christ’s two natures completely, such that “The human disappeared into the
divine” (163). Taken to an extreme, this position resulted in a “pantheistic mysticism” in
which God is no longer truly God, and man is no longer truly man. The school of Antioch,
on the other hand, sought to keep the natures apart, so as to “preserve the genuineness of
the divine as well as of the human” (164). In its extreme, this view destroyed the unity of
the whole, so that “. . . there could be no talk of the God-Man except figuratively” (165).
To resolve this clash, the Council developed the dogma of the hypostatic union—
that Jesus Christ is both true God and true man. In so doing, the two extreme positions
are declared error and “The truth contained in each is recognized and . . . held in right
proportion. In this way, the two contending points of view are brought together into a
unity—a unity of a special kind . . . when pressure and counter-pressure achieve a balance so
that a living tension ensues, a tension which arches and supports” (FMM 166). According
to Guardini, this “living tension” is mystery, and dogma ensures the necessary balance and
arch to maintain it. “And what does [dogma] explain? Nothing.” He continues:

On the contrary, the statements make one realize how fathomless the mystery is. It may
be said that the juxtaposition of the statements has the purpose of safeguarding and
emphasizing the mystery . . . . In [the schools of Antioch and Alexandria] the mystery
had been simplified, but falsely simplified . . . and the divine mystery consequently
done away with. The Church faced this situation with dogma and restored the sacred
reality which, in its freedom and fullness, transcends all types of mind. (166-67)

To the modern mind, however, this is not a source of comfort as “. . . man’s urge to
assert his will in the realm of the divine is not so easily overcome. It pierces into the Faith
itself, even into his manner of grasping revealed truth . . .” (FMM 172). As such, dogma
should not expect a warm reception from its modern hearer.

C. Dogma as Confrontation

Put another way, the claims of dogma are necessarily challenging. Guardini therefore
thinks that dogma functions to call the hearer to conversion. That is, dogma necessarily
confronts a person with the truth and demands a response—“. . . he is confronted by
Truth divinely guaranteed and unconditional” (CC 63). He writes that “. . . the collision

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 f l a n n e r y o ’ c o n n o r r e v i e w

is sharpest with those who, out of religious experience and burning desire for knowledge,
have committed themselves to some particular interpretation of the Faith” (FMM 173).
For such people, he predicts that their first reaction is to reject dogma, feeling it to be a
human creation and suppression of religious liberty. They then “appeal directly to divine
truth . . . and turn to the Spirit of God who speaks in the believer’s conscience” (173).
Assuming a properly formed conscience, the person “will come to realize that an authority
is speaking, an authority to which Christ has entrusted the truth, namely, the Church”
(173). The hearer, therefore, will comprehend that dogma emanates from a source to which
God has committed the truth.
The force of dogma’s confrontation requires a reply. Guardini writes that the hearer

is faced with a decision, one in which the ultimate consideration is not whether he
is able to think more deeply or judge more keenly. “Revelation” does not mean that
God is offering a high truth for man’s contemplation, but that He is proclaiming who
He is, and in doing so, demanding of man assent of heart and mind, adoration and
service. (FMM 173)

He concludes: “The answer required by revelation is obedience” (173).

Guardini recognizes that a response of this form is not easy—indeed, it is a call to the
“conversion spoken of in the Gospel . . . that means a laborious transformation of the
whole inner world which takes place through severe inner crises” (FMM 174). He seems to
have familiarity in this area, as he notes that “anyone who has gone through such hours of
decision knows how hard they may be” (173). The conflict with dogma, however, leads to
a true conversion in that “More and more it confronts man with the demands of the Faith,
enables him to practice obedience, to renounce the claims of his natural ‘psychological
structure’” (174-75). Dogma, then, is the agent of conversion.

D. Dogma Clarifies Vision

Acknowledging that modern culture values practicality, Guardini notes that assent
to dogma results in spiritual benefit: one can expect dogma to illuminate one’s vision of
reality. By accepting dogma, humanity is freed from the narrowness of its own nature “by
enabling him to construct his religious existence not according to his own thought and
experience, but according to the word of the Lord of the world” (FMM 172). Modernity
views dogma as a man-made limitation on freedom. However, “If he obeys, then dogma
turns its other side to him. Before the decision, the dogma appeared only as a law with all
the hardness of that rock on which Christ founded His Church; afterwards it shows itself
as breadth and fullness” (173). Guardini uses the image of dogma as light to illustrate his
point:

One could put it this way: first, the dogma confronts man as the object of decision
and obedience. As soon as he obeys, it moves behind him, behind his mind, his
eyes. It becomes something from which, and through which, everything else is seen, a
mental ordering, a feeling of right direction, a light which illumines his view. (173-74)

Rather than being something that inhibits vision, dogma actually makes it possible,
allowing the world to be seen as it truly is.

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In addition to providing a light by which to observe reality, dogma provides a sense

of internal order founded on truth. Writing in The Church and the Catholic, Guardini
references the relativism in which modern humanity lives, how “. . . everything appears
subject to change” (63). This condition leads to a state of anxiety which is only relieved
by assenting to something absolute—indeed, the Absolute. In so doing, modern man
exercises the humility, sincerity and trust necessary to have “a correct valuation of
himself. His judgments are clear, free and humble. . . . [H]e is aware that there is an
Absolute, and that it confronts him here and now in its plentitude. By his faith, he
receives the Absolute into his soul” (63-64). At this point, humanity is now able to root
its existence in truth:

Man is aware of something, which is absolutely fixed. This becomes the axis upon
which his entire mental world turns, a solid core of truth which gives consistency
and order to his entire experience. For it becomes the instinctive measure of all his
thinking even in the secular sphere, the point of departure for all his intellectual
activity. Order is established in his inner life . . . . The soul becomes calm and joyful,
able to acknowledge its limitations yet strive after infinity, to see its dependence and
yet overcome it. This is what is meant by becoming human. (64)

Guardini continued to develop this idea in The Faith and Modern Man. In assenting to
dogma, one assents to “its safeguarding the fullness and freedom of sacred truth” (FMM
176). This assent allows truth to function for its own sake, not as a means to an end.
“Truth,” he writes, “has no purpose, only meaning. It does not serve life but shines by its
own light. And the proper response to it is not a decision of the will to work with it, but
reverence for its grandeur, and gratitude for its fullness of meaning.” He continues:

There is nothing at all which truth should be made to serve. It stands above all
purposes, all designs. If it really holds this sublime place in a man’s mind, it will
construct an order in his existence from which issue right desires and acts. . . . We
must perceive that the truth of revelation is not given to us, primarily, that we may do
something with it, but that we may adore it and live by it. (177)

Dogma, then, is much more than a mere doctrinal formulation. It is the revealed
truth of God that confronts humanity to bring about conversion. In assenting to its truth,
humanity is able to rightly order reality and thus assume the proper position before God—
adoration.

3. Guardini’s Theology in “The Enduring Chill”

“The Enduring Chill” was first published in Harper’s Bazaar in 1958. O’Connor began
the story in autumn, 1957 (2 Nov. 1957, HB 250)—the same period in which she wrote to
W. A. Sessions inquiring about Guardini (27 Oct. 1957, HB 244) and recommended him
to Cecil Dawkins (27 Oct. 1957, HB 243). As will be shown, Guardini is still exerting a
profound influence on her as she writes this story.
O’Connor described the story as follows: “A wretched young man arrives at the point
where his artistic delusions come face to face with reality” (28 Feb. 1958, HB 271). The
story’s climax occurs in an interaction between Asbury, a failed artist who thinks that

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he is dying, and Father Finn, a gruff old Jesuit invited to Asbury’s bedside who should
understand “the unique tragedy of his death” (CW 550).
The conversation does not go as expected; a shouting Father Finn verbally bludgeons
Asbury with Catholic teachings, calling him “a very ignorant boy” (CW 566) and “a lazy
ignorant conceited youth!” (567). This visit leaves Asbury traumatized with his artistic
delusions ripped from him. However, he is now in a position to know the truth about
himself as he experiences the terrifying descent of the Holy Spirit, in the form of a water
stain shaped like a “fierce bird with the icicle in its beak” (568).
Father Finn’s “sick call” lasts for less than two pages. Nevertheless, it is the dramatic
crescendo that allows for the story’s resolution. Finn’s verbal assault with Catholic doctrine
is the vehicle by which Asbury is prepared to receive the Holy Spirit—precisely because
dogma functions in the way Guardini says it should: it opposes relativism, it protects
mystery, it confronts the hearer with a call to conversion, and it provides clarity of vision.
Given O’Connor’s exposure to Guardini’s thought and her reliance on him to explain
dogma, “The Enduring Chill” may be understood as a story about dogma’s effect on the
human person.

A. Dogma Opposes Relativism

Recall Guardini’s contention that dogma first operates to challenge the epistemological
relativism of contemporary culture. O’Connor shares Guardini’s horror of relativism—
especially in that it denies mystery. Just as Guardini warns that human nature inclines
one “to claim one’s particular approach as absolute” (FMM 162), O’Connor notes in her
essay “Catholic Novelists and Their Readers,” that “Those who have no absolute values
cannot let the relative remain merely relative; they are always raising it to the level of the
absolute” (MM 178). Without the mystery that dogma protects, everything is raised to
the plane of certainty. Like Guardini’s observation that the modern mind is determined
to “make the divine conform to his own image” (FMM 171), O’Connor writes in her
essay “Novelist and Believer” that “. . . modern man . . . recognizes spirit in himself
but . . . fails to recognize a being outside himself whom he can adore as Creator and
Lord; consequently he has become his own ultimate concern. He says with Swinburne,
‘Glory to man in the highest, for he is the master of things,’ or with Steinbeck, ‘In the
end was the word and the word was with men’” (MM 159). The modern secular world’s
disconnection from God leads a loss of mystery as “It does not believe in sin, or in the
value that suffering can have, or in eternal responsibility . . .” (185). In “The Enduring
Chill,” Asbury is portrayed as a garden variety relativist—his response to Finn’s question
regarding humanity’s creator is the relativist’s credo: “Different people believe different
things about that” (CW 565). Because he discounts God as “an idea created by man”
and Christianity as “the myth of the dying god” (565), he deifies his conception of art
(which O’Connor amusingly spells with a capital “A” to underscore Asbury’s misplaced
devotion).
In reality, Asbury has only deified himself. In The Incarnational Art of Flannery O’Connor,
Christina Bieber Lake writes that “Perhaps more than any other O’Connor character,
Asbury Fox is at the center of his own, self-created universe. His imagination has become
his god, and he creates all the high drama for his own life” (185-86). The irony, of course,
is that he is “completely impotent. Asbury cannot actually produce anything, least of all his
own death” (189-90). Asbury is, in essence, an idolator. He has created a god of his self-

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image as an artist and worships at its altar. Asbury’s relativism is the vehicle by which he
permits himself to supplant God. That is, he so values his own subjectivity that nothing
outside of it can have real meaning. As he lies on his sickbed, Asbury feels impelled to seek
some final experience:

There was something he was searching for, something that he felt he must have, some
last significant culminating experience that he must make for himself before he died—
make for himself out of his own intelligence. He had always relied on himself and had
never been a sniveler after the ineffable. (CW 568)

Asbury’s truth lies solely in his own experience—he has become the center of the universe.
He has become a god. In commenting on “The Enduring Chill” in a letter to T. R. Spivey,
O’Connor writes that

I suppose what bothers us so much about writing about the return of modern people
to a sense of the Holy Spirit is that the religious sense seems to be bred out of them
in the kind of society we’ve lived in since the 18th century. And it’s bred out of
them double quick now by the religious substitutes for religion. There’s nowhere
to latch on to . . . . They are all so busy explaining away the virgin birth and such
things, reducing everything to human proportions that in time they lose even the
sense of the human itself, what they were aiming to reduce everything to. (19 Oct.
1958, HB 299-300)

Asbury, then, is the ultimate relativist, reducing everything to his level, while losing
himself in the process. Being thus described, he is in a position for dogma to do its work
in him.

B. Dogma Protects Mystery

Mystery, for O’Connor, was deeply connected to her sacramental world view which
perceived God’s grace in the physical world. In modernity, she witnessed a disturbing
trend in which spirit and matter were viewed as separate realms. As Susan Srigley notes in
Flannery O’Connor’s Sacramental Art, O’Connor observed a “religious mindset that tended to
disregard fact, or the concrete experiences of life, in favor of a more spiritualized existence”
(24). O’Connor warned of a spiritual posture in which the divine and the human do not
come into contact. O’Connor saw this division as a modern manifestation of Manicheism
and predicted that “. . . there will follow a further set of separations . . . . Judgment will be
separated from vision, nature from grace, and reason from imagination” (MM 184).
In the absence of a meaningful connection between the spiritual and the material,
humanity is in a state of blindness. Unable to see grace in nature, the modern person lives
in a disjunctive universe where either all spirituality is found in the human expression or
divinity is separated from creation and unable to be known in the world. “Spirit and matter
are separated for him,” observes O’Connor. “Man wanders about, caught in a maze of guilt
he can’t identify, trying to reach a God he can’t approach, a God powerless to approach
him” (MM 159).
However, O’Connor knew that God does approach us; her sense of sacramentality
perceived that humanity’s participation in God’s salvific action occurs in the material

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world. For O’Connor, the locus of God’s saving acts is the place of mystery. These
manifestations of grace create within the human person a natural desire to comprehend.
Deeper understanding, in turn, deepens the mystery: “Mystery isn’t something that is
gradually evaporating,” she wrote to Alfred Corn. “It grows along with knowledge” (12
Aug. 1962, HB 489). As such, it is of utmost importance to both protect mystery and to
seek to understand it. O’Connor assigns these tasks to the Church and, in particular, to
the role of dogma.
Guardini’s image of dogma protecting mystery seems to have had a deep impact on
O’Connor. In “Catholic Novelists and Their Readers,” she uses a near direct quotation of
The Faith and Modern Man: “. . . dogma is about the only thing left in the world that surely
guards and respects mystery” (MM 178). She continues to use Guardini’s language in her
letters. To Betty Hester she writes that “Dogma can in no way limit a limitless God. . . .
For me, a dogma is only a gateway to contemplation and is an instrument of freedom and
not of restriction. It preserves mystery for the human mind” (2 Aug. 1955, HB 92). She
told Cecil Dawkins that “Dogma is the guardian of mystery. . . . The Church stands for
and preserves always what is larger than human understanding” (23 Dec. 1959, HB 365).
In “The Enduring Chill,” Asbury denies mystery in that he rejects the nature of his
illness and, as a result, dogma rushes in to defend. His illness, he believes, does not have a
physical cause—rather, his impending death is the result of having “failed his god, Art, but
he had been a faithful servant and Art was sending him Death. He had seen this from the
first with a kind of mystical clarity” (CW 564). He thus chastises his mother for sending for
Doctor Block as “What’s wrong with me is way beyond Block . . .” (549). In an ironic twist,
it is only when Asbury learns that his sickness is truly physical that he can come to know
his spiritual infirmity, which then allows for the terrifying descent of the Holy Ghost. As
such, O’Connor feels that Asbury’s recognition of his physical illness is a crucial step in
recognizing his true spiritual problem: “. . . it’s the knowledge [that it is] . . . only a cow’s
disease that brings the shock of self-knowledge that clears the way for the Holy Ghost” (19
Oct. 1958, HB 299).
Of course, the day before the diagnosis, Father Finn had revealed the actual character
of Asbury’s predicament, leaving him “pale and drawn and ravaged, sitting up in his bed,
staring in front of him with large childish shocked eyes” (CW 567). Finn’s dogma defends
the mystery of Asbury’s authentic spiritual state. It shocks Asbury with the truth about
himself and sets the stage for him to learn the extent of his illness—physical, and yet
spiritual, but not in the way that he thinks. Dogma allows Asbury to enter into the mystery
of who he is before God, by maintaining the contact between the spiritual and material
realities.

C. Dogma as Confrontation

O’Connor seemed particularly influenced by Guardini’s idea that dogma confronts

the hearer, issuing a call to conversion. O’Connor’s personal library contained Guardini’s
Meditations Before Mass, which observes that “When a man accepts divine truth in the
obedience of faith, he is forced to re-think human truth. The conversion he must make
embraces his whole conception of the universe, which he must conceive anew in its entirety.
His readiness to do so is the measure of his enlightenment” (160-61). O’Connor found this
passage remarkable—she underlined it in her personal copy (Kinney 69) and quoted from
it in a book review of Beyond the Dreams of Avarice by Russell Kirk for The Bulletin (PG 23).

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It is hard to envision a situation where dogma confronts the hearer in a stronger

way than the interaction between Father Finn and Asbury. Only by physically striking
Asbury with the Baltimore Catechism (a la Mary Grace’s use of Human Development in
“Revelation”) could Finn have been more confrontational. Asbury’s altercation with the
teachings of the Church sets the stage for “the last film of illusion” to be “torn” away from
him (CW 572). This result is made possible by a confrontation with dogma; it functions
for Asbury just as Guardini says it does.
O’Connor acknowledges that Asbury is now on the road to conversion. She wrote
that he “undeniably realizes that he’s going to live with the new knowledge that he knows
nothing. That really is what he is frozen in—humility. Faith can come later” (28 Dec.
1957, HB 261). But is his conversion complete? Not quite yet. “It’s not so much a story
of conversion as of self-knowledge, which I suppose has to be the first step in conversion.
You can’t tell about conversion until you live with it a while.” As O’Connor planned a
book based upon Asbury’s effort to live with the Holy Ghost (19 Oct. 1958, HB 299), one
presumes that his ongoing conversion will continue.

D. Dogma Clarifies Vision

In her eloquent writing on how dogma frees the writer to observe reality, O’Connor’s
essays plainly bear Guardini’s imprint. In “Catholic Novelists and Their Readers” she
emphasizes that, rather than being limiting, dogma’s effect is the opposite: “There is no
reason why fixed dogma should fix anything that the writer sees in the world. On the
contrary, dogma is an instrument for penetrating reality” (MM 178).
Dogma allows one the liberty to observe reality with clarity. Indeed, she found a
tremendous relief in such independence as it is only through dogma that one “is entirely
free to observe” (MM 178). This freedom exists because

He feels no call to take on the duties of God or to create a new universe. He feels
perfectly free to look at the one we already have and to show exactly what he sees.
He feels no need to apologize for the ways of God to man or to avoid looking at the
ways of man to God. For him, to “tidy up reality” is certainly to succumb to the sin of
pride. Open and free observation is founded on our ultimate faith that the universe is
meaningful, as the Church teaches.

For O’Connor, dogma does not limit vision; it clarifies it. Writing to Shirley Abbott, she
notes that “I find that this in no way limits my freedom as a writer and that it increases
rather than decreases my vision” (17 Mar. 1956, HB 147).
O’Connor portrays Father Finn’s use of dogma as the thing that increases Asbury’s
spiritual perception. The common thread running through Finn’s visit, Dr. Block’s
diagnosis, and the descent of the water stain is O’Connor’s use of eyesight as a metaphor
for knowledge of truth. First, it is Finn who bears the truth—literally, in that he brings dogma
to Asbury. She describes him as being “blind in one eye, but the good eye, blue and clear,
was focussed sharply on Asbury . . .” (CW 565). Finn’s vision is thus because he assents to
dogma. As the visit continues, O’Connor describes his eye as “fierce” and “inflamed” to the
point that Asbury felt “as if he were pinned to the bed by the terrible eye” (567). The visit
concludes with Finn pounding his fist on the bed stand as he roars that “The Holy Ghost
will not come until you see yourself as you are—a lazy ignorant conceited youth!”

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O’Connor continues to use eyesight and vision to describe Asbury’s reaction to

Finn’s harangue, which leaves him “staring in front of him with large childish shocked
eyes” (CW 567). Asbury’s vision has been jolted—exposure to dogma has dismantled his
self-view. And so, when Block arrives the next day to deliver his diagnosis, O’Connor
again describes Asbury’s reaction in terms of his eyes: “They looked shocked clean . . .”
(572). O’Connor twice describes Asbury’s eyes as being shocked—once after Finn’s visit
(representing the spiritual realm) and once after Block’s visit (representing the physical
realm). Both Finn and Block deliver the same message, albeit in different ways: Asbury’s
problem is that he has made himself a god; he is a conceited, arrogant young man with a
common cow’s fever. When the Holy Ghost descends, O’Connor again describes Asbury
in terms of his vision: “Asbury blanched, and the last film of illusion was torn as if by a
whirlwind from his eyes” (572). Finn and Block each had shocked Asbury’s eyes clean,
allowing for him to receive the Holy Spirit, who removes the final “film of illusion.”
This process began with Finn’s revealing the truth to Asbury through Catholic doctrine.

Conclusion

After she completed “The Enduring Chill,” O’Connor’s interest in Guardini seemed to
subside—by 1961, he makes his final appearance in her letters but she notes that “I’m much
taken, though, with Pere Teilhard . . .” (14 Sept. 1961, HB 449). At about the same time,
Guardini began to fade from prominence—in 1962, poor health forced him to give up his
beloved chair at Munich. He would never enter the classroom again. Flannery O’Connor
died on 3 Aug. 1964, while the Second Vatican Council debated Church doctrine. Romano
Guardini, too ill to attend the Council, lingered for a few more years, dying in 1968. And,
as they entered into eternity, O’Connor and Guardini fully encountered the Mystery that
dogma protects.

Notes
1
“A Temple of the Holy Ghost” and “The Displaced Person” contain passing references
to the Apostle’s Creed, Catholic liturgical/devotional practices, and “the doctrines of
the Church.”

2
Guardini was also known to those within O’Connor’s literary circle. Caroline Gordon
and Allen Tate were known to have corresponded about him (Waldron 323). Walker
Percy cited Guardini as one of the modern theologians “who’ve meant the most to me”
(qtd. in Lawson 118), especially for his description of the “existential predicament”
(qtd. in Lawson 74). In fact, Percy used a quotation from Guardini as the epigraph to
The Last Gentleman.

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Guardini, Romano. The Church and the Catholic. Trans. Ada Lane. New York: Sheed, 1953.
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---. The Church of the Lord: On the Nature and Mission of the Church. Trans. Stella Lange.
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