37 pages • 1 hour read
Thomas MertonThe Seven Storey Mountain
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1948A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Index of Terms
Trappist
Trappist is the order of Catholic monks Merton decides to join. The word, he explains, originates from the idea of silence, which is a practice Trappist monks are committed to. While Merton was happy to try and join other sects of Catholicism for the sake of becoming a priest, none of them resonated with him the way Trappism did: not because it felt easy but because it would be hard work, and that felt right to him. The Trappist monasteries mentioned in the book are in Kentucky and Canada.
Catholicism
While Merton grapples with the meaning of Catholicism and juxtaposes it to Protestantism and Quakerism, there isn’t a coherent definition of Catholic in the work. Rather, Merton’s Catholicism is the sect of Christianity that draws him in because of its traditions and focus on God rather than the lives and outfits of other members of the church. He prods into the differences between Augustinian Catholics and so forth, especially toward the end, wondering how much of a contemplative life is possible and ideal.
Aseity
Merton takes the time to dwell on the concept of God, introducing a related concept that he thinks even Christians don’t understand: the idea of aseity. He writes:
Aseitas–the English equivalent is a transliteration: aseity—simply means the power of a being to exist absolutely in virtue of itself, not as caused by itself, but as requiring no cause, no other justification for its existence except that its very nature is to exist (189).
Drawing on the philosophical work of Etienne Gilson, he explains how the term is used to understand God and the Trinity. In doing this, he also wants to combat the notion that religion is counter to the intellect. Contemplation employs the intellect in a non-discursive way in approaching aseity. For Merton, this use of the intellect is higher than that which neglects and negates spiritual knowing. The book’s passages on theological topics like aseity are essential to understanding Merton’s journey from an intellectual to a monk.
Soul
The concept of a soul is essential to understanding Merton’s work, and it appears throughout the book as Merton tries to grapple with what it means himself. Eventually, he lands on this idea:
[A] soul is an immaterial thing. It is a principle of activity, it is an ‘act,’ a ‘form’ an energizing principle. It is the life of the body, and it must also have a life of its own. But the life of the soul does not exist here in any physical, material subject. So to compare a soul without grace to a corpse without life is only a metaphor. But it is very true (109).
