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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: What should we do about 'our own' terrorists?
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Excellent. The uselessness of Evangelical piety, conservative and traditional distinctives comes to mind.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
Going back to the OP - is anyone here trying to argue that Christianity is harder to legitimately interpret in a way that endorses terrorism or other acts of violence than Islam? Can't we all agree that any religion with over a billion adherents, spread across very different cultures, and over a thousand years of history, not to mention many different strands of theology and (Gamaliel's favorite word in this thread) hermeneutics that developed over that history, cannot have a neat fence put around what are legitimate interpretations of its scripture and other doctrinal texts?
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
it's quite tempting to say that I have a hermeneutic, and you have an eisegetical interpretation.
And it is obvious which is which. One begins with the text and some principal methods of demystifying it, the other begins with a conviction or determination and attempts to justify it from the text.
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Excellent. The uselessness of Evangelical piety, conservative and traditional distinctives comes to mind.
Martin, any kind of piety is better than none. Evangelical piety connotes Calvin in a hard knocker to me and that is not my kind particularly if it is anti science and homophobic. However, YMMV.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
it's quite tempting to say that I have a hermeneutic, and you have an eisegetical interpretation.
And it is obvious which is which. One begins with the text and some principal methods of demystifying it, the other begins with a conviction or determination and attempts to justify it from the text.
Ouch.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Ha ha ...
Yes, my irony-ometer began to emit a shrill tone when I read that too!
Jamat, what is 'obvious' to you isn't always so to everyone else. Also what you think of as 'obvious' is itself a product of a range of factors, influences and conditions.
We none of us have simply the text.
Yes, yes, I know, I've said it before. So have lots of other people. But you still don't get it.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Martin, any kind of piety is better than none.
Unless one is a pious Muslim, Hindu etc.
quote:
Evangelical piety connotes Calvin in a hard knocker to me and that is not my kind particularly if it is anti science and homophobic. However, YMMV.
Creationism is anti-science. Maybe you didn't get the memo.
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arse
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Ha ha ...
Yes, my irony-ometer began to emit a shrill tone when I read that too!
Jamat, what is 'obvious' to you isn't always so to everyone else. Also what you think of as 'obvious' is itself a product of a range of factors, influences and conditions.
We none of us have simply the text.
Yes, yes, I know, I've said it before. So have lots of other people. But you still don't get it.
Just the text? Not suggesting anyone has just the text or that anything is obvious itself in itself. That's why you need hermeneutics. The question is first what is one and second,what is a good one.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
And it is obvious which is which. One begins with the text and some principal methods of demystifying it, the other begins with a conviction or determination and attempts to justify it from the text.
In all seriousness, Jamat, I believe that beginning "with a conviction or determination and attempts to justify it from the text" is exactly what conservative creationist Evangelicalism is doing.
If you can't see that this is how others perceive your theological tribe, then you might do well to look in a mirror.
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arse
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Excellent. The uselessness of Evangelical piety, conservative and traditional distinctives comes to mind.
Martin, any kind of piety is better than none. Evangelical piety connotes Calvin in a hard knocker to me and that is not my kind particularly if it is anti science and homophobic. However, YMMV.
But you ride all the dead horses thanks to your wooden saddle hermeneutic, polished with good English. I don't understand.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
On the Augustine thing, it also occurs to me that he has to share the 'blame' for the kind of Charlemagne / Crusader approach we all deplore. He believed it was fine for rulers to impose religious uniformity by force. From what someone has uncovered upthread it would seem that Charlemagne had a penchant for 'Gussie's writings.
Gussie? Mr. Ofhippo to you.
Yes, he was guilty of more than one crappy approach to Scripture, both allegorising it, and twisting it to suit his anti-Donatist obsession.
Christian state persecution of heretics predated his dominance, however.
The first victim, Priscillian, was executed at about the time of Augustine's conversion.
quote:
Cromwell's 'God made them as stubble for our swords' also, I submit, also largely derives from the Augustinian strand in Western theology and thought.
Possibly, along with the singing of Psalm 68, "Let God arise, His enemies be scattered" after his trouncing of the Scotch at Dunbar.
quote:
What I don't buy, and forgive me here if I contest something here that you aren't claiming, is the idea that the crappier aspects of Augustine's approach were a falling away from previous high standards, as it were.
I have never argued for a golden age of sound hermeneutics from which subsequent exegetes lapsed.
What I would maintain is that there was an underlying and continuing grammatical-historical approach, with all sorts of corruptions of it in different areas and by different expositors in different eras, ie there was never an absolute exegetical free-for-all with no criteria at all,, which permitted anyone to say anything about how to interpret the Bible.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
What I would maintain is that there was an underlying and continuing grammatical-historical approach, with all sorts of corruptions of it in different areas and by different expositors in different eras, ie there was never an absolute exegetical free-for-all with no criteria at all,, which permitted anyone to say anything about how to interpret the Bible.
An assertion you've made numerous times without evidence or reasoning and which flies in the face of history.
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arse
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
What I would maintain is that there was an underlying and continuing grammatical-historical approach, with all sorts of corruptions of it in different areas and by different expositors in different eras, ie there was never an absolute exegetical free-for-all with no criteria at all,, which permitted anyone to say anything about how to interpret the Bible.
An assertion you've made numerous times without evidence or reasoning and which flies in the face of history.
What flies in the face of history is any attempt to explain the survival and development of Christianity in the face of the alleged simultaneous existence of innumerable discrete, atomised, exclusive and subjective methods of interpretation - hermetically sealed hermeneutics, as it were.
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I think it is a simpler explanation that people actually thought it was the right thing to do at the time.
He's right, Russ.
Read a recent history of the Holocaust, Rees or Cesarani for example.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
What flies in the face of history is any attempt to explain the survival and development of Christianity in the face of the alleged simultaneous existence of innumerable discrete, atomised, exclusive and subjective methods of interpretation - hermetically sealed hermeneutics, as it were.
I don't understand how your last six words apply to the rest of your rant. Maybe you can enlighten me.
And maybe you could also give some kind of evidence for your claims. That'd be nice. Then we'd know that you are more than just the sound of a nail going down a blackboard and are actually putting forward some kind of valid* analysis.
*where I'm using valid in the correct sense.
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arse
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
What I would maintain is that there was an underlying and continuing grammatical-historical approach, with all sorts of corruptions of it in different areas and by different expositors in different eras, ie there was never an absolute exegetical free-for-all with no criteria at all,, which permitted anyone to say anything about how to interpret the Bible.
An assertion you've made numerous times without evidence or reasoning and which flies in the face of history.
What flies in the face of history is any attempt to explain the survival and development of Christianity in the face of the alleged simultaneous existence of innumerable discrete, atomised, exclusive and subjective methods of interpretation - hermetically sealed hermeneutics, as it were.
I don't think anyone here is claiming that there were 'innumerable, discrete, atomised, exclusive and subjective methods of interpretation - hermetically sealed hermeneutics, as it were.'
If I've misunderstood your position regarding a putative golden-age of biblical exposition from which subsequent generations declined, then you may have understood the point I've been trying to make ...
One doesn't have to be a card-carrying RC or Orthodox to see that the unifying factor throughout the early centuries wasn't so much a single, unifying hermeneutic - although something akin to that gradually emerged - but a sense of what was or wasn't within the boundaries of received orthodox belief and the 'apostolic deposit'.
You can see the embryonic growth of that from some of the earliest Patristic writers. It's certainly there in Iranaeus.
So it was the community of faith working with the received texts in a symbiotic kind of way.
Nothing hermetically sealed about that.
Hence, there was room and scope for Origen's allegorising and even some of Augustine's more out-there views ... up to a point.
To this day one Augustus of Hippo is counted as, 'our father among the Saints' among the Orthodox just as St Basil, St John Chrysostom and the two Gregorys are ...
But that doesn't mean that they take on board some of the wilder extremes of his writings - they don't go in for double-predestination, of course, nor the whole Augustinian schema of Original Sin as understood in what became the Western sense.
It's an historical fact that certain Patriarchates were associated with particular hermeneutical models. As I've mentioned several times, the Alexandrians tended to adopt a more allegorical approach, the Antiochians a more literal one ...
You keep asserting that the historical evidence is on your side but have yet to demonstrate it.
No, there was never an exegetical free-for-all. If there had been then the Orthodox wouldn't have reservations about Augustine or some of the wilder ideas of Origen. Although their mileage seems to vary with him ...
What there was instead was a sense of a unifying body of core doctrines agreed upon by a particular community of faith. Of course, there were blurred edges, variations, but essentially it was a community and text thing, a community tradition and text thing ...
Which is what we have everywhere, of course. It's a community and text thing whether we are talking about Rome, the Orthodox, the Presbyterians, Anglicans, Methodists or a store-front church in the Southern United States.
It's not the community without the text nor the text without the community.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
What I would maintain is that there was an underlying and continuing grammatical-historical approach, with all sorts of corruptions of it in different areas and by different expositors in different eras, ie there was never an absolute exegetical free-for-all with no criteria at all,, which permitted anyone to say anything about how to interpret the Bible.
An assertion you've made numerous times without evidence or reasoning and which flies in the face of history.
But discussions like this are full of such evidence-free assertions. I can see that supplying evidence for such assertions is no mean feat - since you have to demonstrate both continuity and exceptions, but then what is the value of the assertions anyway? I don't get it.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But discussions like this are full of such evidence-free assertions. I can see that supplying evidence for such assertions is no mean feat - since you have to demonstrate both continuity and exceptions, but then what is the value of the assertions anyway? I don't get it.
It's about respecting the norms of the discussion. I'm not asking for a doctoral thesis, I'm simply asking for something which is capable of being examined and discussed beyond just a phrase written on this website.
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arse
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But discussions like this are full of such evidence-free assertions. I can see that supplying evidence for such assertions is no mean feat - since you have to demonstrate both continuity and exceptions, but then what is the value of the assertions anyway? I don't get it.
It's about respecting the norms of the discussion. I'm not asking for a doctoral thesis, I'm simply asking for something which is capable of being examined and discussed beyond just a phrase written on this website.
Sure, I'm not expecting a full-length demonstration of an assertion. However, there are solutions to this - obviously, first, reference to a full-length work which does demonstrate it, and secondly, rein back on assertions without evidence. They are meaningless, aren't they?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
I don't think assertions which claim that things are self-evident from reading the bible have much value. And the other assertions made in this thread seem to stem from a particular understanding of the scriptures and then extend backwards to interpret history.
Personally I don't think that's a particularly helpful way to understand history.
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arse
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
It reminds me, I have been arguing with someone about evolution, and how it works, and it's ridiculous for me to make blind assertions, but I did cite a major work on the Galapagos finches. I can see that theology is different, since it is not empirical, but historical statements surely should be backed up by something.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Well. I've been taken over the coals about this before, but I believe that history is by necessity subjective. That there is no truly "objective" way to understand it and thus one needs a framework within which to put the known facts in order to understand them.
Which is why I think the term "valid" matters, if we are using it in the sense of an understanding that at leasts attempts to explain the facts and put them into some kind of systematic method understanding.
Now, I'd agree that this is in itself an assertion and I know not everyone agrees with it.
But I think that kind of assertion - as to the nature of the underlying metanarrative needed to understand the past - is a different kind of thing than the claim that a given metanarrative is the only one which can be used.
I can't prove the former, but one can at least give some pointers as to why one might think the latter.
[ 04. August 2017, 12:06: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Amongst those who were literate, had access to the texts, and participated in theological dialogue, the underlying hermeneutic had to be essentially (though never uncorruptedly) historical-grammatical, because the arbitrary and subjective alternatives (such as freewheeling allegory) would have rendered communication and discussion and development impossible.
As far as I'm aware, the early church, rightly or wrongly, would not have thought rendering development impossible was a problem. I'm not sure they'd have been up for communication and discussion in the senses you're thinking of either.
quote:
Yes, he was guilty of more than one crappy approach to Scripture, both allegorising it, and twisting it to suit his anti-Donatist obsession.
I don't think it is fair to describe Augustine's attitude as an obsession.
quote:
What I would maintain is that there was an underlying and continuing grammatical-historical approach, with all sorts of corruptions of it in different areas and by different expositors in different eras, ie there was never an absolute exegetical free-for-all with no criteria at all,, which permitted anyone to say anything about how to interpret the Bible.
You appear to allow only two options: the grammatical-historical approach, which is essentially unaffected by 'corruptions', and 'an absolute exegetical free-for-all with no criteria at all.
One criterion that we know was adopted was fidelity to tradition.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Call me proto-Catholic or proto-Orthodox but fidelity to tradition seems to be the one 'constant' from those early centuries.
I know that begs all sorts of further questions and I've been grappling with those for years ...
But I'm sure it doesn't boil down to the binary divide that Kaplan appears to posit, that it's either the grammatical-historical method on the one hand or an unregulated hermeneutical free-fall on the other with added allegory on top. With ice.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Call me proto-Catholic or proto-Orthodox but fidelity to tradition seems to be the one 'constant' from those early centuries.
I know that begs all sorts of further questions and I've been grappling with those for years ...
But I'm sure it doesn't boil down to the binary divide that Kaplan appears to posit, that it's either the grammatical-historical method on the one hand or an unregulated hermeneutical free-fall on the other with added allegory on top. With ice.
The two shapers of tradition though, Augustine and Origen, were the very reason I would reject it. That and the separation of Christianity from Jewish hermeneutical approaches.
You are suggesting here that tradition is the answer while implying it is the problem. You can't have it both ways.
The one actual constant we do have is the Bible. Tradition has evolved and changed. If you look at The centuries between Augustine and Aquinas you have to ask, if you are Catholic, what validity has a tradition that took so long to form?
And thinking about Aquinas, his conception of the 'real presence' separating the 'accidents' from the reality in the mass actually created the Eucharistic Christ. So how could something conceptualised so late in the history of the church, have any validity?
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
You could say the same about your favoured doctrines, Jamat.
How come dispensationalism didn't gain traction until the 19th century?
As far as tradition goes, it's both part of the problem and part of the solution.
The Bible is a constant. The way people have approached and interpreted it has changed over the years.
How can it not have done?
Whatever one's tradition or Tradition there's also been a constant in the form of a community of faith - the Church (however we define that).
No Church, no Bible. No Bible no Church.
Both/and not either/or.
Do yourself a favour, think it through.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I think it is a simpler explanation that people actually thought it was the right thing to do at the time.
Nothing wrong with that explanation. Just note that it's "time" that's doing the work. If the consensus among 21st-century Christians, Buddhists and humanists is that massacring your enemies is an evil act, but the consensus among 8th-century Christians, zoroastrians and pagans of various sorts is that massacring your enemies from time to time is the rightful act of a strong king, then that says something about how cultural changes can happen over time. But doesn't say much about Christianity - we're back to the act being secular.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Well it's not 'secular' if it was done for religious reasons or with some kind of religious justification.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
That and the separation of Christianity from Jewish hermeneutical approaches.
Except that these 'Jewish hermeneutical approaches' run through the NT.
quote:
So how could something conceptualised so late in the history of the church, have any validity?
Aquinas was proposing a mechanism for an explanation rather than an explanation itself - from the earliest era in church history folk like Ignatius talked about the Eucharist in terms that are profoundly at odds with a purely memorialist understanding.
Crudely speaking you are proposing a kind of Trail of Blood view of church history.
[ 04. August 2017, 21:42: Message edited by: chris stiles ]
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Kaplan told me off for alluding to EH Broadbent but his shade haunts this thread, even if Jamat hasn't read him.
As for the Christian church departing from a Jewish hermeneutic, as Chris Stiles says, that runs through the NT and from what I can gather Jewish hermeneutics could be pretty allegorical as well as literal - and all stations in between.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
The two shapers of tradition though, Augustine and Origen . . . .
The two shapers of tradition? Two of the shapers, yes, but the two shapers, no, not by a long shot.
quote:
The one actual constant we do have is the Bible.
Tradition has evolved and changed.
Chicken and egg. Without the Tradition, there would be no Bible as we know it. It was the Tradition—the teaching "transmitted" or "handed down" (tradere)—that enabled the early church to discern which writings to accept as canonical and which ones to reject.
quote:
If you look at The centuries between Augustine and Aquinas you have to ask, if you are Catholic, what validity has a tradition that took so long to form?
Once again, the irony is remarkable. And I say that as a Protestant.
quote:
And thinking about Aquinas, his conception of the 'real presence' separating the 'accidents' from the reality in the mass actually created the Eucharistic Christ. So how could something conceptualised so late in the history of the church, have any validity?
Tradition pretty uniformly taught the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist from the earliest days of the church until the time of the Reformation. (And the Lutherans, Reformed and Anglicans continued to teach it, albeit with different understandings.) Transubstantiation was an attempt in the Western church to explain the Real Presence. In other words, it was a new spin on a very old teaching.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Nick Tamen: Once again, the irony is remarkable. And I say that as a Protestant.
So..Let me guess. This is more about a monumental lack of self awareness? Thanks for the heads up. I feel so educated.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Call me proto-Catholic or proto-Orthodox but fidelity to tradition seems to be the one 'constant' from those early centuries.
I know that begs all sorts of further questions and I've been grappling with those for years ...
But I'm sure it doesn't boil down to the binary divide that Kaplan appears to posit, that it's either the grammatical-historical method on the one hand or an unregulated hermeneutical free-fall on the other with added allegory on top. With ice.
I think you are kicking an own-goal.
One of the reasons why the apostolic tradition survived during the early centuries was that the church, using what was basically a grammatical-historical approach, protected it against fanciful idiosyncratic versions of it, such as that of the Gnostics.
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Gamaliel: Kaplan told me off for alluding to EH Broadbent but his shade haunts this thread, even if Jamat hasn't read him.
Have you read him? Or do you know just enough to skim the top? I think he must have been a truly great man.
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
So..Let me guess. This is more about a monumental lack of self awareness?
No, it's about the selective questioning of the validity of teachings that developed later in the church's history.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
So..Let me guess. This is more about a monumental lack of self awareness?
No, it's about the selective questioning of the validity of teachings that developed later in the church's history.
First I heard of that, then. Please continue.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Yes, he was guilty of more than one crappy approach to Scripture, both allegorising it, and twisting it to suit his anti-Donatist obsession.
I don't think it is fair to describe Augustine's attitude as an obsession.
Depends how you define obsession.
Richard Price, in the Fount Christian Thinkers series, points out that Augustine "produced over thirty years a whole series of works reiterating patiently, if monotonously, the great lines of the anti-Donatist cause", and suggests that his "defence of state oppression which drove many Donatists to suicide borders on the obscene".
Robin Lane Fox, in his Augustine: Conversions and Confessions reminds us that in his Expositions of the Psalms he proposes that Psalm 10 be sung in specific opposition to the Donatists, whom he describes as "fierce teeth who tear the body of Christ and put poison in the milk of their childlike followers".
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Jamat
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# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
You could say the same about your favoured doctrines, Jamat.
How come dispensationalism didn't gain traction until the 19th century?
As far as tradition goes, it's both part of the problem and part of the solution.
The Bible is a constant. The way people have approached and interpreted it has changed over the years.
How can it not have done?
Whatever one's tradition or Tradition there's also been a constant in the form of a community of faith - the Church (however we define that).
No Church, no Bible. No Bible no Church.
Both/and not either/or.
Do yourself a favour, think it through.
You are dodging. You want tradition but you realise it is full of anomalies whereby church doctrine was shaped and altered continually and for Catholicism, was not fully settled till after Aquinas. You also know that the medieval church was a political monster that punished opposition. This continued right through to the Dominicans and the Jesuits. Relatively recently in historical terms. And yet you treat it as some kind of necessary litmus test of truth? I think, yes, the ' church' always was preserved..but which one? Probably, Broadbent's 'pilgrim' church.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
Of course I've read Broadbent.
Heck, even Kaplan recognises how unhistorical he could be ...
As for this being the first time your selective reading of church history and the development of Christian doctrine goes, you clearly haven't been listening as people have been pointing that out to you here in the Ship for as long as I can remember.
FWIW, I'd suggest that if we wanted to pin-point the precise period when Roman Catholicism became more distinctive,if you like, then I'd posit the 1200s, the Lateran Council of 1215, followed by further developments in the later middle ages and then Trent as THE defining moment in the 16th century.
If we wanted to identify defining moments in the development of evangelical Protestantism we could cite the First Great Awakening of the mid-1700s, the growth of missionary societies in the late 1700s/early 1800s and then the various millenarian movements of the mid-1800s ...
Jamat writes as if it's only the nasty RCs who have undergone development and as if his brand of fundagelicalism has remained constant from the outset - rather being a development from forms of 18th and 19th century Protestantism.
On Kaplan's own goal charge, I'd like a referee's decision on that. I suspect a linesman would tell us that the ball didn't even cross the line let alone hit the back of the net as Kaplan fondly imagines.
No goal.Not even an open goal.
The goalie had two hands. Scripture and tradition. Both/and.
It ain't one or the other. It's both.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Gee D
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# 13815
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Posted
IIRC, the proud boast of the Jesuits was that they were never involved in the Inquisition or any other persecution. There was a fair bit of punishment of the opposition on the other side as well. Perhaps a fair amount of that conducted under Elizabeth I can be attributed as much to political as to religious concerns, but the judicial murders following the Synod of Dordt were purely religious.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Jamat
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# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Gamaliel: Jamat writes as if it's only the nasty RCs who have undergone development and as if his brand of fundagelicalism has remained constant from the outset - rather being a development from forms of 18th and 19th century Protestantism
Not at all. My point is that you claim church tradition as a truth story or perhaps a security blanket of reliable truth, but you cannot do this to such a moving target. While certainly not sanitising Protestantism or even evangelicalism as you appear to claim, I still look back to scripture as that security blanket even acknowledging the interpretive and hermeneutical issues.
As for Roman Catholicism, the actions of this church, when it was a political force, tell the tale of whether it spoke for God. If I had been a French Huguenot I fear I would rather have doubted it did.
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mdijon
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# 8520
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Posted
Well that's evangelicalism as a candidate voice of God in the US under Trump done for in the same breath then.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Jamat.
Read.my.lips.
I am not defending or condoning medieval Roman Catholicism, the Inquisition or the Papal Magisterium.
All I am saying is that you can't have the Bible as a comfort-blanket as you put it without a tradition to go with it.
Our hermeneutical methods and approaches are all part and parcel of that tradition.
That is the case even if we are sat on the john in glorious isolation with only the Bible and the Holy Spirit for company.
As for the Huguenots, yes, they were treated appallingly. They also did bad things in return. Same as the Covenanters in Scotland. They were persecuted. Yes. They also carried out acts we would today regard as terrorism.
No-one comes out of these things smelling of roses.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Well it's not 'secular' if it was done for religious reasons or with some kind of religious justification.
But mr cheesy's theory is that the reason is not to be found in the difference between religion and no-religion, or in the difference between Christian and other faiths. But rather in the difference between 8th-century thinking and 21st-century thinking. That was just how people thought and behaved at the time.
That people justified the act to themselves and to others in terms of their own religious culture is unsurprising. But that's just how they excused what they did. If you believe the "at the time" explanation, the cause of their behaviour is secular rather than any doctrine that is peculiar to or characteristic of Christianity.
You argue that Christianity is diverse - that the range of allowable interpretation is wide. I don't disagree (although I see that as only half the story). But the more you argue that, the harder you make it to pin the blame for any act on Christianity as such, rather than on the time-and-place culture which drove the interpretation.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
Going back to the OP - is anyone here trying to argue that Christianity is harder to legitimately interpret in a way that endorses terrorism or other acts of violence than Islam?
Focussing on terrorism rather than other acts of violence, yes.
I perceive terrorist acts in the world today, driven by Islamic doctrine, and condemned by those of every religion and none.
Whereas the examples of "Christian violence" being discussed are arguably where Christians went along with and failed to challenge prevailing secular standards of moral behaviour.
Do you see the difference ?
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
But mr cheesy's theory is that the reason is not to be found in the difference between religion and no-religion, or in the difference between Christian and other faiths. But rather in the difference between 8th-century thinking and 21st-century thinking. That was just how people thought and behaved at the time.
That people justified the act to themselves and to others in terms of their own religious culture is unsurprising. But that's just how they excused what they did. If you believe the "at the time" explanation, the cause of their behaviour is secular rather than any doctrine that is peculiar to or characteristic of Christianity.
No, that's clearly not the case. It wasn't a post-factum excuse, it was the reason for doing the thing - namely that people thought that they were acting on behalf of the deity and therefore the usual rules of probity didn't apply.
quote:
You argue that Christianity is diverse - that the range of allowable interpretation is wide. I don't disagree (although I see that as only half the story). But the more you argue that, the harder you make it to pin the blame for any act on Christianity as such, rather than on the time-and-place culture which drove the interpretation.
I'm not sure why you are making such heavy weather of this.
People are influenced in their thinking by many things and the crusaders committing things we'd all agree are atrosities were acting because of the situation they were in, commonly agreed acceptable behaviours and the specific hermeneutic of the scriptures. It isn't possible to separate them out.
But the one thing that we can clearly say is that it is possible to read the scriptures and see a justification for extreme violence.
It is entirely possible that this reading is onl makes any sense in a particular cultural setting. But you can't then somehow claim that this means that those committing the violence are just trying to cover the acts - which they know are bad and evil and wrong - with religion after the event.
Because that's nonsense.
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arse
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
It does appear looking at history that otherwise good people have approved of things that look unconscionable now. There were always people who condemned the slave trade; however, rather more than we might wish seem to have found they could live with it. People have always managed to think that massacres committed by their side are more excusable than massacres committed by their enemies.
A faith that moral intuition is always sufficient to avoid moral wrongdoing seems to me morally reckless. I don't think we're capable of moral infallibility; behaving as if we are is a good way to exacerbate our moral failings. It would also I think imply that we are always capable of an accurate assessment of our own moral state; I think that's clearly untrue.
Just to say that I'd pretty much agree with all of that. But that doesn't deny moral intuition, only stresses its weakness and fallibility. If moral intuition were sufficient, we wouldn't need moral philosophy. If moral intuition were non-existent, moral philosophy would have nothing to reason about.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Just to say that I'd pretty much agree with all of that. But that doesn't deny moral intuition, only stresses its weakness and fallibility. If moral intuition were sufficient, we wouldn't need moral philosophy. If moral intuition were non-existent, moral philosophy would have nothing to reason about.
Yes but "God told me" is a stronger motivator than moral intuition. See Kierkegaard's Teleological Suspension of the Ethical.
Simply suggesting that people can't possibly think that massacres are the right thing to do shows a dismal understanding of history, a lack of empathy and a failure of philosophy.
[ 05. August 2017, 10:26: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Russ, I'm not trying to pin the 'blame' on Christianity or on the NT - heck, I'm not an atheist.
If I were, then I might pursue that line of argument.
'All religion, any religion is wrong because look what happens ... it's supporters kill people and claim religious justification for their actions ...'
Which would be a pretty crass argument. Nevertheless, it's one that some atheists make.
I'm not trying to condone, excuse or justify any act of religiously motivated violence, be it carried out by Dark Age rulers, medieval Crusaders, 16th and 17th Catholics or Protestants or Islamic jihadists or anyone else ...
All I am saying is that given particular sets of circumstances - theocratic rulers applying Pauline injunctions about the legitimate powers of civil authorities to themselves - and so on, it is possible to use these texts to do so.
That's not saying that the hermeneutic is justifiable.
It's just to acknowledge that our hermeneutic isn't separate from our settings, context and traditions but part and parcel of the same.
Our hermeneutics do not operate independently of our settings and context.
I really don't know understand why that is such a controversial view to hold.
It doesn't undermine any special authority invested in or intrinsic to the scriptures.
It's simply an observation as to how these things work.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Depends how you define obsession.
I would define obsession as an irrational preoccupation with a particular subject or a tendency for ones thoughts to return to a subject resulting in insufficient attention being paid elsewhere.
Conflicts between Donatists and Catholics were ongoing in Augustine's province; it's not surprising that Augustine paid the matter ongoing attention.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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