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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: "The Heresy of Modernism"
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Surely not, otherwise the Holy Spirit got it terribly wrong for two thousand years
Or the church did. Two different things.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Surely not, otherwise the Holy Spirit got it terribly wrong for two thousand years
Or the church did. Two different things.
False dichotomy. The Church is defined by the Holy Spirit. No Spirit no Church.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
But Christ promises his Church that the Holy Spirit will lead it into all truth. The modernists, I suppose, just don't believe that?
Yes; we're just rather more careful about parsing the future tense.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Ad Orientem: False dichotomy. The Church is defined by the Holy Spirit. No Spirit no Church.
Are you saying that everything the church does and has done over the last 2000 years has automatically been in accordance with the Holy Spirit? Otherwise, there's very much a true dichotomy here.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
But Christ promises his Church that the Holy Spirit will lead it into all truth.
All truth? Doesn't that make the Church's centuries-long battle against heliocentrism a little hard to explain?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I believe that the Holy Spirit will lead the Church into truth. I also believe that the church leaders have been (and still are) often rather terrible in listening to Her. My faith —and admittedly it's a faith against all odds sometimes— is that eventually they will.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Ad Orientem: False dichotomy. The Church is defined by the Holy Spirit. No Spirit no Church.
Are you saying that everything the church does and has done over the last 2000 years has automatically been in accordance with the Holy Spirit? Otherwise, there's very much a true dichotomy here.
Depends what you mean by "done". The Holy Spirit certainly has led the Church into all truth via tradition, that is, the faith handed down from the Apostles as expressed in the scriptures, the holy councils, the ancient liturgies, the fathers and the lives of the saints etc.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
But Christ promises his Church that the Holy Spirit will lead it into all truth.
All truth? Doesn't that make the Church's centuries-long battle against heliocentrism a little hard to explain?
I don't know. You'll have to ask a Roman Catholic about that.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think accusations of heresy often flow from a loss of power and control. Those who had it, think of a heresy which the usurpers can be accused of; a kind of fatal flaw which has (because of a quirk of history) given them more power.
Cue Koestler (rough paraphrase): "Comrade, we are just saying that you have deviated from the objective road described by the party, and you are in fact facilitating the rehabilitation of a degenerate and revanchist imperialism. But comrade! It is not too late to return to the objective path mapped out by the party, under the firm leadership of comrade X. Take care!"
In that case the relativism of the modernist is designed to create its own dictatorship, where we are forced to know nothing so that we can believe anything, that bad is good etc.
That sounds odd to me, since relativism promotes pluralism. You are not forced to know nothing - how could that work? This forum - in fact, this thread - demonstrates how pluralism works quite well. You are perfectly entitled to put forward your point of view, and so am I.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think accusations of heresy often flow from a loss of power and control. Those who had it, think of a heresy which the usurpers can be accused of; a kind of fatal flaw which has (because of a quirk of history) given them more power.
Cue Koestler (rough paraphrase): "Comrade, we are just saying that you have deviated from the objective road described by the party, and you are in fact facilitating the rehabilitation of a degenerate and revanchist imperialism. But comrade! It is not too late to return to the objective path mapped out by the party, under the firm leadership of comrade X. Take care!"
In that case the relativism of the modernist is designed to create its own dictatorship, where we are forced to know nothing so that we can believe anything, that bad is good etc.
That sounds odd to me, since relativism promotes pluralism. You are not forced to know nothing - how could that work? This forum - in fact, this thread - demonstrates how pluralism works quite well. You are perfectly entitled to put forward your point of view, and so am I.
Pluralism isn't the same as relativism. Relativism is the belief that there is no such thing as absolute truth. Pluralism is based on the belief that there may be an absolute truth but none of us are it's sole possessor. You can hold, for example, quite sincerely that Mr Cameron is the best thing since sliced custard and that Mr Miliband would be a disaster as Prime Minister whilst accepting that persons of sincerity and intelligence can hold the contrary view and that the best way of resolving the issue is to debate it extensively and then to put it to the popular vote.
Relativism is a kind of intellectual bug-a-boo in these debates as very few people are actually relativists. People who support, say, inter-faith dialogue don't do so because they think that there is nothing to choose between inter-faith dialogue and burning down mosques. They do so because they think that inter-faith dialogue is a good thing in itself. They might be wrong about this but they are not, thereby, relativists.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Ad Orientem: The Holy Spirit certainly has led the Church into all truth via tradition, that is, the faith handed down from the Apostles as expressed in the scriptures, the holy councils, the ancient liturgies, the fathers and the lives of the saints etc.
Like others have said on this thread, I believe that the Holy Spirit will lead the Church into all truth. I don't believe that She has already done so.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Surely not, otherwise the Holy Spirit got it terribly wrong for two thousand years
Or the church did. Two different things.
False dichotomy. The Church is defined by the Holy Spirit. No Spirit no Church.
AO - I believe you are Orthodox, possibly of the Greek variety? Please forgive me if I am mistaken. Many years ago, when I was taught Patristics by an Orthodox priest, he said that the Church is always right, when acting as the Church. When the Church has made mistakes it was not being the Church. While this position does throw up other problems, it does recognize that the Church has been wrong at times in the past, and may well be so again in the future.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Ad Orientem: The Holy Spirit certainly has led the Church into all truth via tradition, that is, the faith handed down from the Apostles as expressed in the scriptures, the holy councils, the ancient liturgies, the fathers and the lives of the saints etc.
Like others have said on this thread, I believe that the Holy Spirit will lead the Church into all truth. I don't believe that She has already done so.
I'm forced to think this really. 500 years ago the Church thought that torturing heretics and autos da fé were a Good Thing. She no longer does; I like to think the Holy Spirit's personal position on the matter is closer to the latter than the former, so he has indeed led the Church into a truer truth since the 1500s, "Good morning Team, my name's Edmund Blackadder, and I'm the new Minister in charge of Religious Genocide."
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Karl: Liberal Backslider: 500 years ago the Church thought that torturing heretics and autos da fé were a Good Thing. She no longer does; I like to think the Holy Spirit's personal position on the matter is closer to the latter than the former, so he has indeed led the Church into a truer truth since the 1500s
I think I'm being caught up in semantics here. I do believe that the Holy Spirit is trying to lead the church. Sometimes we listen to Her, but often we don't. What I don't believe is that She has finished in leading the Church to all truth.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
This modernist knows that the Holy Spirit is leading us in to more truth than ever before. That is the error of the pre-ante-non-ante-un, they assume liberals reject tradition and orthodoxy. We ARE the orthodox.
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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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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Karl: Liberal Backslider: 500 years ago the Church thought that torturing heretics and autos da fé were a Good Thing. She no longer does; I like to think the Holy Spirit's personal position on the matter is closer to the latter than the former, so he has indeed led the Church into a truer truth since the 1500s
I think I'm being caught up in semantics here. I do believe that the Holy Spirit is trying to lead the church. Sometimes we listen to Her, but often we don't. What I don't believe is that She has finished in leading the Church to all truth.
I think we're broadly in agreement. I think there are errors we thought were truth hundreds of years ago (torturing heretics for example) which we no longer do.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Isn't that a bit contradictory? At first modernism is "a particular heresy", but then it's "not clearly defined enough", which seems odd for something so "particular". A dominant and widespread vagueness?
Call it a world view and a source of heresies then. It is particular in the sense of being fairly localisable in (cultural) space and time. As I've said, it's basically the Western mindset after the Enlightenment. But that mindset just is a mixture of various ideas and influences, and cannot really be captured in a couple of tightly defined sentences. And to repeat what I've said earlier, I do not believe that we have moved on to something else now. There have been developments, sure, not in the least because of the strenuous efforts of the West to kill itself off in two massive wars. But it is still recognisably the same intellectual mode. I consider postmodernism, for example, mostly as a cynical / skeptical form of modernism.
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
How exactly can we clarify "modernist" beyond "stuff I or my church doesn't agree with"?
I don't think that we can, at least certainly not in a few lines of text. Perhaps a book or two would do. It's like wanting a snappy characterisation of Greco-Roman paganism. But that we do not have a clear target does not mean that we do not have a problem. (Let me state clearly that I do not see my "modernism" as limited to what Pius X considered as "modernism".)
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Call me a heretic, but all the above sounds like a damned good thing to me that the world could do with more of. Happy people getting on with one another - I'm really struggling to find what's terrible about this. Sounds like heaven.
I know. I deliberately phrased this in the way that modernist present their utopia.
Utopias have this nasty habit of turning into dystopias when on tries to realise them. Perhaps we have seen some of that already. At any rate, time will tell.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
It's more understandable when you consider that the anti-modernist churches don't have even a single fuck to give about whether people are happy or getting along with one another. All they care about is whether people are under their authority or not.
That's just trash talk.
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
We ARE the orthodox.
Everybody is orthodox to those who share their beliefs, and heretic to those who don't. That's just what those words mean.
Well, here's a bit of scripture:
quote:
John 18:37-39
Pilate said to him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice." Pilate said to him, "What is truth?" After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again, and told them, "I find no crime in him. But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover; will you have me release for you the King of the Jews?"
So there we find a man who was close to two millennia ahead of his time, and thanks to him perhaps a more concrete name for a more particular heresy that is spreading from the modern West: Pilatism. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
False dichotomy. The Church is defined by the Holy Spirit. No Spirit no Church.
AO - I believe you are Orthodox, possibly of the Greek variety? Please forgive me if I am mistaken. Many years ago, when I was taught Patristics by an Orthodox priest, he said that the Church is always right, when acting as the Church. When the Church has made mistakes it was not being the Church. While this position does throw up other problems, it does recognize that the Church has been wrong at times in the past, and may well be so again in the future.
Pretty neat trick. Sort of like saying "I'm always right. When I'm wrong I'm not me." In a person the inability to admit mistakes is a symptom of borderline personality disorder. I'm not sure what it's called in an institution.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard: That is the error of the pre-ante-non-ante-un
Somehow I haven't found this one on Wikipedia's list of logical fallacies ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
quote:
Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard: they assume liberals reject tradition and orthodoxy.
I've always been puzzled by this assumption. My church group is very respectful of tradition. We'll chant Psalms, we'll discuss medieval Catholic philosophers... These things aren't done that often in more traditional churches.
quote:
Karl: Liberal Backslider: I think we're broadly in agreement.
So do I.
quote:
Karl: Liberal Backslider: I think there are errors we thought were truth hundreds of years ago (torturing heretics for example) which we no longer do.
Likewise, it's safe to assume there are errors we think are truth now which we (hopefully) no longer will hundreds of years from now.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I know what the truth is IngoB. Just like you do. And yes it is His word. So no, I don't suffer from Pilatism any more than you ... we orthodox can't. Admittedly I am more orthodox than you.
[ 16. July 2014, 14:06: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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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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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gildas:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think accusations of heresy often flow from a loss of power and control. Those who had it, think of a heresy which the usurpers can be accused of; a kind of fatal flaw which has (because of a quirk of history) given them more power.
Cue Koestler (rough paraphrase): "Comrade, we are just saying that you have deviated from the objective road described by the party, and you are in fact facilitating the rehabilitation of a degenerate and revanchist imperialism. But comrade! It is not too late to return to the objective path mapped out by the party, under the firm leadership of comrade X. Take care!"
In that case the relativism of the modernist is designed to create its own dictatorship, where we are forced to know nothing so that we can believe anything, that bad is good etc.
That sounds odd to me, since relativism promotes pluralism. You are not forced to know nothing - how could that work? This forum - in fact, this thread - demonstrates how pluralism works quite well. You are perfectly entitled to put forward your point of view, and so am I.
Pluralism isn't the same as relativism. Relativism is the belief that there is no such thing as absolute truth. Pluralism is based on the belief that there may be an absolute truth but none of us are it's sole possessor. You can hold, for example, quite sincerely that Mr Cameron is the best thing since sliced custard and that Mr Miliband would be a disaster as Prime Minister whilst accepting that persons of sincerity and intelligence can hold the contrary view and that the best way of resolving the issue is to debate it extensively and then to put it to the popular vote.
Relativism is a kind of intellectual bug-a-boo in these debates as very few people are actually relativists. People who support, say, inter-faith dialogue don't do so because they think that there is nothing to choose between inter-faith dialogue and burning down mosques. They do so because they think that inter-faith dialogue is a good thing in itself. They might be wrong about this but they are not, thereby, relativists.
Well, I'm not saying that relativism is the same thing as pluralism. But surely, the relativist will disagree that there are absolute truths, but s/he will tend to argue with the absolutist, and will not construct a dictatorship over him, as Ad Orientem suggested. Hence, many relativists are fans of pluralism. How about anti-modernists?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
Equating "modernism" with "stuff-I-don't-like-ism" (essentially a catch-all that implies that everything you don't like is part of the same grand, unified conspiracy against you) reminds me of the tendency of mid-twentieth century American conservatives to consider everything they didn't like "communism".
Labor unions? Communism.
Race mixing? Communism!
Rock 'n Roll? Definitely Communism!!!
When you use the same word to mean everything, it eventually means nothing.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Yes, if it's everything that flowed from the Enlightenment, then we're all modernists, and in fact, probably we're all postmodernists. I see this forum as a splendid flowering of postmodernism, not because it rejects absolutes, but because it facilitates both people who accept absolutes and those who reject them, and people who don't know - to engage in sensible and mainly friendly conversation. Or as Deleuze said, in a rare moment of clarity, 'you never walk alone'.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I just realized that I don't know if I'm a relativist or not. Ha!
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Surely not, otherwise the Holy Spirit got it terribly wrong for two thousand years
Or the church did. Two different things.
False dichotomy. The Church is defined by the Holy Spirit. No Spirit no Church.
AO - I believe you are Orthodox, possibly of the Greek variety? Please forgive me if I am mistaken. Many years ago, when I was taught Patristics by an Orthodox priest, he said that the Church is always right, when acting as the Church. When the Church has made mistakes it was not being the Church. While this position does throw up other problems, it does recognize that the Church has been wrong at times in the past, and may well be so again in the future.
I'm not saying that the Church cannot overstep its bounds, if that's what you mean, but it cannot err in matters concerning the faith.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
The problem with this, and many similar issues, is that the central theme is a circular argument -
"I'm the sole custodian of God's Truth."
"Why should I believe you?"
"Because I'm the sole custodian of God's Truth."
Those of us who see these arguments as the (at least potential) fakes that they are, are left somewhat bemused. Unless, of course, we appeal to such counsels as "by their fruits shall ye know them," at which point so many cans of worms present themselves that we really need to buy a new tin opener.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
[QUOTE]I've always been puzzled by this assumption. My church group is very respectful of tradition. We'll chant Psalms, we'll discuss medieval Catholic philosophers
But that's not tradition or necessarily respectful of it.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Ad Orientem: I'm not saying that the Church cannot overstep its bounds, if that's what you mean, but it cannot err in matters concerning the faith.
You have the right to believe that. But what you've been saying is that anyone who doesn't believe this "doesn't respect tradition" or "doesn't believe the Holy Spirit will guide the church to all truth". Now, that's a false dichotomy.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Ad Orientem: But that's not tradition or necessarily respectful of it.
Care to explain why not?
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
The problem with this, and many similar issues, is that the central theme is a circular argument -
"I'm the sole custodian of God's Truth."
"Why should I believe you?"
"Because I'm the sole custodian of God's Truth."
Those of us who see these arguments as the (at least potential) fakes that they are, are left somewhat bemused. Unless, of course, we appeal to such counsels as "by their fruits shall ye know them," at which point so many cans of worms present themselves that we really need to buy a new tin opener.
The other odd angle to this, is that if you demur from the 'sole custodian' idea, you might be accused a la Ad Orientem of wanting to establish a relativist dictatorship! Eh?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Ad Orientem: But that's not tradition or necessarily respectful of it.
Care to explain why not?
Because singing a few Psalms or discussing Aquinas isn't tradition. Neither does one have to be respectful of it per se to do so. Tradition is much larger thang signing the Psalms nor is it idle scholastic speculation.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Ad Orientem: I'm not saying that the Church cannot overstep its bounds, if that's what you mean, but it cannot err in matters concerning the faith.
You have the right to believe that. But what you've been saying is that anyone who doesn't believe this "doesn't respect tradition" or "doesn't believe the Holy Spirit will guide the church to all truth". Now, that's a false dichotomy.
Then we must mean two completely different things by "lead into all truth", because I would also insist on that meaning that the Holy Spirit cannot contradict himself. The dead horse issues are a good example, though of course examples aren't limited to them.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Ad Orientem: Because singing a few Psalms or discussing Aquinas isn't tradition. Neither does one have to be respectful of it per se to do so.
Oh, I perfectly agree that tradition is larger than this. We can't do the whole of tradition in a church service.
I also guess that chanting Psalms or discussing Aquinas can be done in disrespectful ways. I can't prove that we're doing it in a respectful way to you of course, but I find it a bit weird that you already assume that we don't. Or that you'd call it "idle scholastic speculation".
What I also don't understand is when you say that these things aren't tradition. You probably have your own definition of what 'tradition' means. If I'm allowed to guess, it probably means something in the lines of "agreeing with me that the church cannot err in matters of faith". Well, I don't subscribe to that definition of 'tradition'.
quote:
Ad Orientem: I would also insist on that meaning that the Holy Spirit cannot contradict himself.
Men can contradict Her though. Including men in the church.
[ 16. July 2014, 15:10: Message edited by: LeRoc ]
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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Ad Orientem
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# 17574
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Posted
And how do you differentiate between the two?
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
One of the interesting distinctions between modernism and postmodernism (according to some postmodernists!), is that modernism still accepted the existence of facts and also the ideas of progress and rationality. (I'm not convinced by this, since the early 20th century saw a deep disillusionment in such things, but anyway).
But Nietzsche, the godfather of postmodernism, argued that there are no facts, just interpretations. He called this the fabling of the world.
This has also been called 'weak thought', but of course, it can become nihilist, since everything is undermined. What do we go home to after this?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
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Posted
quote:
Ad Orientem: And how do you differentiate between the two?
Differentiate between men following Her and men contradicting Her, you mean?
I admit that this is more difficult for me than for someone who just believes "whatever a bearded man in a funny robe says about faith is right". But I guess I do it in the usual way: a mix between the Bible, tradition, church community and experience.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The contrary position, that the Holy Spirit is still leading and will continue to lead us into all truth, not just those bits of truth that were settled by the speaker's adolescence, is more commonly associated with theological liberalism.
Surely not, otherwise the Holy Spirit got it terribly wrong for two thousand years, not leading into truth but creating confusion. Either what God has revealed is true for all time or he is s liar and not God at all, for the faith was delivered once to the saints, to quote the scriptures.
That's like saying that because your post contains neither the truth that 2+2=4, nor the truth that the atomic number of hydrogen is 1, your post is therefore leading people into error.
Merely because one has not told the truth does not mean one has lied. One might have been silent.
What God has revealed as true for all time is true for all time. It does not follow that everything that is true for all time has yet been revealed by God. God may have revealed some things and not revealed other things yet. Hence the future tense in 'will lead you into all truth'.
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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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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Well, I'm not saying that relativism is the same thing as pluralism. But surely, the relativist will disagree that there are absolute truths, but s/he will tend to argue with the absolutist, and will not construct a dictatorship over him, as Ad Orientem suggested.
Relativism is the belief that what I, or we, hold to be true cannot be proved by rational argument to people holding sufficiently different views. A relativist holds that the only ways to change other people's minds are by emotional rhetoric or by force.
There is therefore nothing in relativism that requires one to rule out force as an option. One might say that the archetypically relativist position is, those fundamentalist Taliban over there can't be convinced using reason (relativism), therefore we have to bomb them until they are no longer a threat.
Samuel Huntingdon's neoliberal Clash of Civilizations is a relativist work.
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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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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Well, I'm not saying that relativism is the same thing as pluralism. But surely, the relativist will disagree that there are absolute truths, but s/he will tend to argue with the absolutist, and will not construct a dictatorship over him, as Ad Orientem suggested.
Relativism is the belief that what I, or we, hold to be true cannot be proved by rational argument to people holding sufficiently different views. A relativist holds that the only ways to change other people's minds are by emotional rhetoric or by force.
There is therefore nothing in relativism that requires one to rule out force as an option. One might say that the archetypically relativist position is, those fundamentalist Taliban over there can't be convinced using reason (relativism), therefore we have to bomb them until they are no longer a threat.
Samuel Huntingdon's neoliberal Clash of Civilizations is a relativist work.
Very good reply. I agree that relativism does not rule out force; I'm not sure about ruling out arguing with other people. The Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo is a kind of nihilist, and appears to reject any kind of 'foundation for knowledge' in the modern age. Well, he spends a lot of time writing about this!
But someone like Vattimo is a paradox, since he must be using rational means to an extent in order to write books. However, I don't know whether this is bad faith, cognitive dissonance, or what. Curiously, Vattimo has returned to Christianity, but not in a straightforward way, but as an example of the 'dissolving of strong structure'. Hmm. (material taken from IEP).
But postmodernism will talk about multiplicities, chaos, emptying out, the lack of an ending, the surface, and so on. I find this very attractive, so I suppose you are right that this works via emotion and intuition, not reason. Yet I have to describe this to an extent via reason, I can't just present a chaotic blob, and say there it is.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
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Originally posted by IngoB:
Those sectarian concerns are mere labels (nominalism) which fade into obscurity against the need to help people (humanism) in an optimal way (utilitarianism) , where their well-being can be determined (positivism) in terms of how the get along in the world (materialism & anti-teleology) and how they feel about it (hedonism).
As put like that it's a capitalist consumerist paradise.
How on earth did you get that from what you quoted?
Let's see: hedonism is the belief that there are no goods beyond desire-satisfaction. Utilitarianism is the belief that all desires are qualitatively identical - the only essential difference between enjoying reading poetry or a novel, enjoying seeing the Taj Mahal, and enjoying eating chocolate is which one gives you more enjoyment. This is effectively the claim that money can serve as an effective measure of desire. Positivism, in this context, is the belief that I can't be meaningfully said to have any goods or desires beyond those that I'm actually willing to pay for.
That looks pretty much like the basics of neoclassical economics to me.
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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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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Dafyd:
[qb] I agree that relativism does not rule out force; I'm not sure about ruling out arguing with other people.
The idea goes that you can only argue with people if you share sufficient premises / principles of argument. Relativism says that truth is relative to some X, e.g. cultures, so that having different e.g. cultures means having different premises / principles of argument. Therefore, you can't argue with someone who has a different culture. Well - you can go through the motions of arguing, but if either of you is convinced it's not for any reasons the other person put forward.
quote:
The Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo is a kind of nihilist, and appears to reject any kind of 'foundation for knowledge' in the modern age. Well, he spends a lot of time writing about this!
But someone like Vattimo is a paradox, since he must be using rational means to an extent in order to write books.
One can always use rational means with people with whom one shares sufficient premises, even if those premises are underdetermined by any rational method.
Also, one can always use emotional methods to persuade people.
quote:
But postmodernism will talk about multiplicities, chaos, emptying out, the lack of an ending, the surface, and so on. I find this very attractive, so I suppose you are right that this works via emotion and intuition, not reason. Yet I have to describe this to an extent via reason, I can't just present a chaotic blob, and say there it is.
I don't think one can make those kinds of generalisations about postmodernism. Mostly postmodernism is defined negatively - not enlightenment rationalism, not grand narratives, etc. The slogans and methods of one postmodernist thinker will be different from those of another.
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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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Callan
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Posted
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Utilitarianism is the belief that all desires are qualitatively identical - the only essential difference between enjoying reading poetry or a novel, enjoying seeing the Taj Mahal, and enjoying eating chocolate is which one gives you more enjoyment. This is effectively the claim that money can serve as an effective measure of desire. Positivism, in this context, is the belief that I can't be meaningfully said to have any goods or desires beyond those that I'm actually willing to pay for.
That was certainly Bentham's take but one doesn't have to hold that view to be a utilitarian. Better Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied and all that jazz.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
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Russ
Old salt
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
not saying that the Church cannot overstep its bounds, if that's what you mean, but it cannot err in matters concerning the faith.
What the heliocentrism issue demonstrates is that the Church can err in deciding whether a particular issue is a matter of faith or not.
Calling that "overstepping its bounds" seems a fair description.
But it removes any certainty about whether the Church is right on any particular issue...
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
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Ad Orientem
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# 17574
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Posted
Then we shall just have to agree to disagree. It is possible to discern whether or not the Church is overstepping its bounds.
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
But it removes any certainty about whether the Church is right on any particular issue...
That's just polemical spreading of FUD.
Even at the time the matter was judged to be uncomfortably at the interface between religion and science (or natural philosophy). Cardinal Bellarmine stated "I say that if a real proof be found that the sun is fixed and does not revolve round the earth, but the earth round the sun, then it will be necessary, very carefully, to proceed to the explanation of the passages of Scripture which appear to be contrary, and we should rather say that we have misunderstood these than pronounce that to be false which is demonstrated." The official decree in of the Congregation of the Index in 1616, which prohibited Copernican works did so "donec corrigatur", namely with the requirement for correction that heliocentrism be presented as hypothesis, not as established fact. And that's pretty much it as far as official interference with the scientific process itself goes. Yes, Galileo was put under house arrest. But that's because he violated the terms of his parole, and publicly and fairly openly called the pope - who had been financially supporting him - an idiot over sticking with geocentrism. But that's a matter of Church discipline, and perhaps undue secular power, not doctrine. And yes, in the wake of this some scientists spend too much time trying to make some form of geocentrism work. But that's a social knock-on effect, not a doctrinal matter.
Arguably, at the time of issue it wasn't even factually wrong to demand that heliocentrism be flagged as hypothesis. Though this prohibition certainly was kept on the books for too long. At any rate, the doctrinal scope of this is pretty damn minimal. It certainly was no dogmatic declaration that geocentrism is true, and arguably it wasn't even really a doctrinal statement about that. It was a ring-fence against claiming that available data already forced an update of biblical exegesis. It was hardly the brightest hour of what actually was an ongoing success story of the RCC supporting scientific inquiry. But it wasn't some doctrinal disaster either.
To claim from this specific incident that now all the dogmas and doctrines of the RCC are questionable is just bullshit. There was no definitive declaration of faith and morals. This says nothing about RC dogma. There was not even really an explicit doctrinal teaching about this, merely an overreacting defence against potential implications. No RC document declared geocentrism to be proven by faith This says little to nothing about actual RC doctrine. What this does tell us is that a powerful Church can end up messing around unnecessarily in areas where she better shouldn't be messing around. If tomorrow some Cardinal declares that epigenetics is the work of the devil, then the Galileo case tells us to be skeptical. But that's about it. This simply is not the king's road to dismissing all RC authority on faith and morals.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Even at the time the matter was judged to be uncomfortably at the interface between religion and science (or natural philosophy). Cardinal Bellarmine stated "I say that if a real proof be found that the sun is fixed and does not revolve round the earth, but the earth round the sun, then it will be necessary, very carefully, to proceed to the explanation of the passages of Scripture which appear to be contrary, and we should rather say that we have misunderstood these than pronounce that to be false which is demonstrated." The official decree in of the Congregation of the Index in 1616, which prohibited Copernican works did so "donec corrigatur", namely with the requirement for correction that heliocentrism be presented as hypothesis, not as established fact.
And that's pretty much it as far as official interference with the scientific process itself goes.
I guess you don't count the inclusion of astronomical beliefs amongst the heresy charges against Giordano Bruno a few years earlier, which led to his execution...
But the point is not how repressive or reasonable the official decrees and acts of the Church were. The point is that the subject matter of those decrees and acts demonstrably strayed beyond what today we would recognise as issues of faith into matters of scientific fact.
Whatever guidance from the Holy Spirit the Church may have received, it did not include any insight into the boundaries of its sphere of competence.
So whatever authority the Church claims, it obviously does not include authority to determine what the boundaries of its authority and competence are.
Put another way, it is entirely possible that over the next century a science of human well-being will be developed, and some of the topics on which the Church currently defends its pronouncements will turn out to be matters susceptible to Bellarmine's "real proof".
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
quote:
One might say that the archetypically relativist position is, those fundamentalist Taliban over there can't be convinced using reason (relativism), therefore we have to bomb them until they are no longer a threat.
One might say that, but one would be seriously fucked up if one did.
If someone is a normative relativist, surely they are required to tolerate the behaviour of others since there is no absolute sense of right, wrong, good or bad. From a moral perspective, there are no grounds for action against the Taliban. Indeed, the commonest complaint against relativistic morals is that they allow perceived evil to go about its business unchallenged.
I'm pretty sure someone starting out with a relativist position and ending up advocating bombing will have jettisoned normative relativism somewhere along the line. That would be hardly surprising, since advocating actually doing anything at all from that position requires wriggling up ones own fundament at least a couple of times.
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
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ChastMastr
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# 716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
...I can't just present a chaotic blob, and say there it is.
Yes, this is giving me trouble in trying to make sense of this. If something isn't clearly defined as to be a clear statement, then it's not easy to say that/how/why it's false--or, for that matter, true.
Presumably in the mass of semi-defined notions there are things within modernism that are also good and true, and one should try to divide the contemporary wheat from the chaff?
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
...I can't just present a chaotic blob, and say there it is.
Yes, this is giving me trouble in trying to make sense of this. If something isn't clearly defined as to be a clear statement, then it's not easy to say that/how/why it's false--or, for that matter, true.
Presumably in the mass of semi-defined notions there are things within modernism that are also good and true, and one should try to divide the contemporary wheat from the chaff?
I'm channeling a floating signifier here; yes, is there anyone here with an uncle Bob, he is trying to tell you to avoid floating signifiers, and anything yellow. Well, that's enough from uncle Bob. And I believe auntie Doris is coming through with a message about empty signifiers, well, that's all for tonight, folks, the bandwidth is very crowded.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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