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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: "The Heresy of Modernism"
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
Spinning out of a thread in Dead Horses...
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
With them, I have the feeling that we are talking about a common faith, a seeking after God in which we all share. IngoB, I hate to say it, but I do not have that feeling with you. When you post about Catholicism it seems to be a religion as remote to me as that of the ancient Aztecs.
Beats me why you are shy about saying this. The feeling is entirely mutual, and I consider this to be more praise than insult.
We seem to be living in a time where a particular heresy, let's call it modernism, has become so dominant and widespread that it actually starts to overcome prior divisions due to heresy and schism. I usually have little hope for Christian unity, but if there is one thing that could bring together RCs, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, Calvinists, ..., Copts, Syriac Orthodox, ..., heck, perhaps even Muslims (which might have been a strand of the Ebionite heresy) and Jews, then it is that. Seriously.
Given my beliefs where the Church is at, I think the most important showdown will happen within the RCC. But that does not mean that there isn't a bigger picture. These sure are interesting times in religion, and perhaps (perhaps!) even apocalyptic ones. Certainly one can argue that a new world religion is emerging, a new Westerndom, even if it is not identifiably monolithic as Christendom used to be. [/QB]
I'm awfully curious about this, IngoB, so: How would you define this heresy of modernism, and how do you see it overcoming other divisions between not only Christians but between Christians and non-Christians?
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
But modernism is dead in the water, isn't it? Its funeral rites were read a while ago. It seems odd to resurrect a corpse, in order to denounce it.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
I thought we were supposed to be living in a POST-modern age, modernism having died out in the 1980s or 90s. The new religious fad for post-modernism is (from what I can see) the "Emerging Church" or "Fresh Expressions".
I cannot speak from experience, but I understand doctrine, dogma and liturgy are very much a "do your own thing" - it doesn't seem to matter to them.
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
Well, of course the problem with calling something "modern" is that it will be passed by something later, so after "post-modern" we'll have "post-post-modern" in that sense with no end to it. ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif) But I mean what IngoB means by it here, since he seems to have something specific in mind (and I don't know if he means the New Advent definition linked above).
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
I daresay that Ingo is too precise to call anything as recent as that "modern." Weren't popes lamenting "modernism" when they propounded indexes of forbidden books over a century ago? Post-modernism is probably an even greater threat in most respects, although I see a few silver linings in the cloud.
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
I'm awfully curious about this, IngoB, so: How would you define this heresy of modernism, and how do you see it overcoming other divisions between not only Christians but between Christians and non-Christians?
First, when I say modernism here, I would include "post-modernism" as a particular strand of it. That's because I don't intend to label something clearly defined, but more a fairly diffuse "spirit of the age". It's intended as a time & place-based label, something like post-enlightenment-ism or perhaps Western-ideology-after-the-18thC-ism.
It is also not just a single thing. Just like "rock" does not indicate just a single kind of music. But one can identify strong themes within it, that tend to get recombined and which re-emerge in ever new variations, just like there is punk rock and heavy metal and then grunge etc. Labels for major themes of modernism can be given, like humanism, materialism, positivism, utilitarianism, hedonism, ... and perhaps like we can say that all "rock" was born as "rock 'n' roll", so we can say that all modernism was born out of nominalism 'n' anti-teleology (sorry, note quite as catchy).
How does modernism unify Christians? Well, pretty much by stating that the old division do not really matter. 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).
Perhaps most interestingly though, this does not only unify the modernists. It also unifies the opposition. It is the good, old "the enemy of my enemy is my fried" principle at work. Basically, traditionalists (and, if you wish, "fundamentalists") of all kinds start to notice that it is only their former sectarian enemies who share their growing unease with the modernist advance. I consider it quite possible, for example, that we will see both the RCC and the Eastern Orthodox suffer major schisms, with the "anti-modernist" parts formally reuniting into one Church. (The modernist parts probably wouldn't unite formally, because they don't have to. That's just not so important to them.)
Of course, if that is all too wishy-washy, you can return to Saint Pius X and his Errors of the Modernists and Oath Against Modernism. But I actually think that it is a mistake to be that concrete here. Being wishy-washy is a core characteristic of modernism, and if one tries to clamp down too hard on any one aspect, modernism will slip out of one's grasp.
[ 15. July 2014, 21:51: Message edited by: IngoB ]
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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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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
The heresy of pre, non, un or anti modernism is that it legalistically freezes the trajectory of Christianity from Judaism back over 1900 years from when it just started and injects in all sorts of weird self-serving patriarchal stuff.
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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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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
In one thing I agree with IngoB. In conversations I have with progressive Muslims, I often feel that I have more in common with them than with conservative Christians. I don't see why this would be a bad thing.
I don't feel that we're united by a common enemy though. Contrary to what IngoB may be thinking, we don't spend our time dissing the Catholic Church. Most of our discussions are about what (small) things we can do to promote peace in the Middle East.
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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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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
It probably doesn't help (in terms of clarity on this issue) that here in the US (as I've been going on about ad nauseam on other threads on the Ship), we have this bizarre alliance between a certain type of "conservative" politics and "conservative" religion, with a lot of propaganda stating that "real" Christians wouldn't want to be anything other than extreme Republicans, who often seem to be advocating policies right out of Ayn Rand (not exactly a Christian in any sense of the word). Over in the UK and elsewhere it's not all like that. But in the US, from a lot of the same sorts of, bluntly, not very nice people, we get a lot of attacks on some of the things I think you may be characterizing as "modernist," in the name of being "traditional"/"conservative"/etc.--even if many theologically conservative/traditional/etc. Christians elsewhere believe those are good things to have, such as helping the poor. (Some of the people on the right wing--again, I'm speaking specifically of within the US--are positively shrieking at Pope Francis' statements about the need to do more to improve the lot of the weaker and poorer people in society.)
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
So then... are you saying that there's no specific doctrine or philosophy per se in modernism that you're arguing against? ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
I can argue against the specific doctrines of an individual modernist, but modernism as such (in my sense) is not clearly defined enough to allow a general response. At best one can pick one of the more common modernist ideas and argue against that. But there inevitably will be some modernists who agree with your critique, and then turn around and be modernist about something else.
In short, "modernism" is not false in the sense of say Pelagianism, but rather in the sense of Greco-Roman paganism.
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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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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
This is a dead horse. Rebury it.
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
We seem to be living in a time where a particular heresy, let's call it modernism, has become so dominant and widespread that it actually starts to overcome prior divisions due to heresy and schism.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I can argue against the specific doctrines of an individual modernist, but modernism as such (in my sense) is not clearly defined enough to allow a general response.
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?
quote:
Originally posted by A. Modernist:
Down with stuff!
Up with other stuff!
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
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Oscar the Grouch
Adopted Cascadian
# 1916
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by A. Modernist:
Down with stuff!
Up with other stuff!
Now that's my kind of protest movement! Where do I sign up?
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Faradiu, dundeibáwa weyu lárigi weyu
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by A. Modernist:
Down with stuff!
Up with other stuff!
Now that's my kind of protest movement! Where do I sign up?
At the place, near the thing.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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StevHep
Shipmate
# 17198
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Posted
Modernism is a heresy which I think priests still take an oath to oppose. What it consists of is most clearly laid out in the encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis of Pius X. It is not so much a coherent philosophy or theology as it is the spirit of the age. Pope Benedict XVI identified its current dominant strain as Relativism. Essentially it denies the existence of an absolute truth which is knowable to man and makes personal individual truth the measure of everything. In some ways it is a continuation by other means of the Protestant notion that private judgement of Scripture takes precedence over Sacred Tradition and the consensus of the Church.
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My Blog Catholic Scot
http://catholicscot.blogspot.co.uk/
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Posts: 241 | From: Exeter | Registered: Jul 2012
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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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?
quote:
Originally posted by A. Modernist:
Down with stuff!
Up with other stuff!
Yeah, I'm having trouble making sense of this. ![[Frown]](frown.gif) I'm not sure I'd call something as vague as this a heresy.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:At best one can pick one of the more common modernist ideas and argue against that. But there inevitably will be some modernists who agree with your critique, and then turn around and be modernist about something else.
How exactly can we clarify "modernist" beyond "stuff I or my church doesn't agree with"? And I say this as someone who has gleefully and snarkily referred to things from the Enlightenment era as "modernist," and with (I am afraid, for which I must repent) self-righteous scorn. (Knowing that one's position is a rare and minority one can encourage a certain type of arrogance, regardless of whether one's position is, in fact, correct.) (Side note: I personally genuinely do think we started getting some terrible and false ideas during the Enlightenment period--and I have absolutely (and, as mentioned above, deliberately snarkily--referred to That Sort Of Thing as "modernist"--but I don't want to derail the thread.)
quote:
In short, "modernism" is not false in the sense of say Pelagianism, but rather in the sense of Greco-Roman paganism.
Then why call it a heresy--and why not just focus on the individual notions (positivism, etc.) rather than grouping them all together?
quote:
Originally posted by StevHep:
Modernism is a heresy which I think priests still take an oath to oppose. What it consists of is most clearly laid out in the encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis of Pius X. It is not so much a coherent philosophy or theology as it is the spirit of the age. Pope Benedict XVI identified its current dominant strain as Relativism. Essentially it denies the existence of an absolute truth which is knowable to man and makes personal individual truth the measure of everything.
This is a bit more helpful, though, um, honestly, I think the snark about Protestants is perhaps less helpful. I also think that the worldly "spirit of the age" is perhaps always going to have its own false notions, dangers, and problems--perhaps even swinging wildly from one extreme to another as people try to correct the mistakes of their forefathers, and the next generation does the same, and so on.
Looking at PASCENDI DOMINICI GREGIS, there seems to be a lot of... ah... direct accusation of conscious malice on the part of people who hold the notions Pius X is arguing against. Can't people who don't agree, who are even Very Very Wrong Indeed, just be, you know, honestly mistaken?
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
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StevHep
Shipmate
# 17198
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Posted
I think Pius X was focussing his ire mostly on those Catholics, particularly priests, who were continuing to promote modernist ideas within the Church as if they were compatible with orthodoxy. By the time of the encyclical it had been made pretty plain that modernism had no place in the Church and those who wished to propagate it should leave. It was fundamentally dishonest to stay within the Church as a priest with a vow of obedience while being consciously and deliberately disobedient. This irked the Holy Father. There is room for a civil reasoned debate between Catholicism and modernism but that would be on a basis of two groups each external to the other.
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Posts: 241 | From: Exeter | Registered: Jul 2012
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
How does modernism unify Christians? Well, pretty much by stating that the old division do not really matter. 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).
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.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by StevHep:
I think Pius X was focussing his ire mostly on those Catholics, particularly priests, who were continuing to promote modernist ideas within the Church as if they were compatible with orthodoxy. By the time of the encyclical it had been made pretty plain that modernism had no place in the Church and those who wished to propagate it should leave. It was fundamentally dishonest to stay within the Church as a priest with a vow of obedience while being consciously and deliberately disobedient. This irked the Holy Father. There is room for a civil reasoned debate between Catholicism and modernism but that would be on a basis of two groups each external to the other.
Doesn't this kind of beg the question of whether "modernism" is coherent enough to be a heresy--indeed, coherent enough to be mutually exclusive with orthodoxy?
And, again, there's a difference between being maliciously destructive and honestly mistaken. The kind of imagined desire on the part of the dissenting people (priests or otherwise) to damage the faith seems ... like something I hardly ever see in the real world.
Obviously, something like (again) positivism or various kinds of existentialism are clear enough that one can say, "This claims this; however, our Christian faith teaches this," but I'm still a tad confused by the whole "modernism as something coherent enough to be lumped together and attacked." And I've wrestled with this; I believe one has to be very wary of saying "this is modernism and therefore false" but meaning "this is anything comparatively recently historically that I don't personally like, or in some cases am not sure I fully understand."
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Happy people getting on with one another - I'm really struggling to find what's terrible about this. Sounds like heaven.
I wholeheartedly agree with this part--less so with the positivism and such. But to me the whole idea that people should try to help one another and make the world a better place seems kind of central to acting like a Christian to me. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
Relativism, comparative religion and a general distain of tradition I think is a fair description of modernism. And if no one here thinks modernists never conspired against against a common enemy.....Vatican II.
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by StevHep:
Modernism is a heresy which I think priests still take an oath to oppose.
Not anymore. It was dropped with the introduction of the semi-Protestant Vactican II liturgy.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by StevHep:
Modernism is a heresy which I think priests still take an oath to oppose. What it consists of is most clearly laid out in the encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis of Pius X. It is not so much a coherent philosophy or theology as it is the spirit of the age. Pope Benedict XVI identified its current dominant strain as Relativism. Essentially it denies the existence of an absolute truth which is knowable to man and makes personal individual truth the measure of everything. In some ways it is a continuation by other means of the Protestant notion that private judgement of Scripture takes precedence over Sacred Tradition and the consensus of the Church.
I liked Pope Benedict XVI - it is a pity some people wouldn't listen to him more. ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
quote:
Originally posted by StevHep:
Modernism is a heresy which I think priests still take an oath to oppose. What it consists of is most clearly laid out in the encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis of Pius X. It is not so much a coherent philosophy or theology as it is the spirit of the age. Pope Benedict XVI identified its current dominant strain as Relativism. Essentially it denies the existence of an absolute truth which is knowable to man and makes personal individual truth the measure of everything. In some ways it is a continuation by other means of the Protestant notion that private judgement of Scripture takes precedence over Sacred Tradition and the consensus of the Church.
I liked Pope Benedict XVI - it is a pity some people wouldn't listen to him more.
So true.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Ah, the Golden Age of the law over ethics. So sad its passing.
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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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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
How does modernism unify Christians? Well, pretty much by stating that the old division do not really matter. 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).
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.
Broadly speaking anti-modernists stress authority, hierarchy, tradition and nature and modernists stress reason, democracy, innovation and nurture. Outwith the SSPX and the Tendence Vladimir Putin wing of Orthodoxy most anti-modernists have come to some terms with the latter and, for that matter, most thoughtful modernists acknowledge some kind of place for the former. (The usual caveats about ideological legitimisation apply, of course, no-one on either side is immune to the charm of sloganeering or of watering down their doctrines when they become inconvenient). So when you come across someone claiming that the condition of modernity is a manichean clash betwixt the two, unless they have fallen through a space-time wormhole at the Battle of Stalingrad, they are probably indulging in a penchant for self-dramatisation.
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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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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gildas:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
How does modernism unify Christians? Well, pretty much by stating that the old division do not really matter. 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).
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.
Broadly speaking anti-modernists stress authority, hierarchy, tradition and nature and modernists stress reason, democracy, innovation and nurture. Outwith the SSPX and the Tendence Vladimir Putin wing of Orthodoxy most anti-modernists have come to some terms with the latter and, for that matter, most thoughtful modernists acknowledge some kind of place for the former. (The usual caveats about ideological legitimisation apply, of course, no-one on either side is immune to the charm of sloganeering or of watering down their doctrines when they become inconvenient). So when you come across someone claiming that the condition of modernity is a manichean clash betwixt the two, unless they have fallen through a space-time wormhole at the Battle of Stalingrad, they are probably indulging in a penchant for self-dramatisation.
Nicely put, especially the comment about a manichean clash. It's often said that we're all postmodernists now, which I think is often correct. In fact, some postmodernists seem to rehabilitate religion, since although pm has criticized 'grand narratives', it has also argued for a plurality of narratives, which in some ways, discombobulates the new atheists, who would prefer religious narratives to go into the dustbin of history. That seems unlikely.
I suppose the simplest tool of postmodernism is deconstruction, and it's difficult to see how some disciplines would proceed today, without that in their armoury. Ironically, modernism (although not in the theological sense) was pulverized by these developments. Frameworks bleed!
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Happy people getting on with one another - I'm really struggling to find what's terrible about this.
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.
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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 Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Happy people getting on with one another - I'm really struggling to find what's terrible about this.
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.
Bollocks! But that's another modernist error, that if something makes us feel happy it must therefore be good and right. But then modernists are some of the most smug people you'll ever meet who love the smell of their own farts.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Indeed q on G. MtM, cruel but fair The trouble is Christianity can only survive as a brand as long as it's Traditional AKA frozen in legalism. The cockeyed plus side is that we need these old apostate shoals to swim in.
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Love wins
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Happy people getting on with one another - I'm really struggling to find what's terrible about this.
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.
Bollocks! But that's another modernist error, that if something makes us feel happy it must therefore be good and right. But then modernists are some of the most smug people you'll ever meet who love the smell of their own farts.
Nothing like a bit of generalised ad hom when all else fails. But authoritarianism is all about declaring this group or that group to be irredeemably bad; it's how it justifies putting the frighteners on anyone who steps out of line - "carry on like that and you'll end up like one of those evil people so we're doing this for your own good."
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Dang K:LS, how are we to embrace the unembracable? Us raving pomo pinko affirming libruls to embrace the not?
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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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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
We can't embrace them if they don't want us to. An unwanted embrace is technically assault.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
I would think that this forum itself is an expression of postmodernism. It sets out to disturb, to ruffle feathers, to lift up fences, to see what's underneath them, to interrogate, and so on. AmIrite?
As to the relation between modern and postmodernism, it's too complicated to discuss, since in art and literature, modernism was considered defunct, but has been resurrected as new modernism, but clearly in theological terms, this is quite different. Art is the art of the undead.
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"modernism returns ghostlike, trailing philosophic counsel about how things slip inexorably in and out of style, looking bruised but unbeaten by the ravages of transit and offering instruction in disharmonious sentiment: nostalgia, threat, loss, revivification." (Martin Herbert)
#Gopussycatsgo
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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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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
But that's another modernist error, that if something makes us feel happy it must therefore be good and right.
Goodness. I had no idea Aristotle was a modernist.
For me, the basic problem with anti-modernists is that they appeal to an absolute (usually revealed) truth, which - oh my! - they just happen to be the sole custodians of, right down to the last semicolon. What a coincidence! It comes back to the depressing old equation "Orthodoxy = my doxy; heterodoxy = your doxy".
I suppose 'twas ever thus and ever will be, but I'd pay a lot more attention if someone actually said, "Yes, I believe in an absolute truth, but I don't think I know what it is. Let's go and find it together."
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
But that's another modernist error, that if something makes us feel happy it must therefore be good and right.
Goodness. I had no idea Aristotle was a modernist.
For me, the basic problem with anti-modernists is that they appeal to an absolute (usually revealed) truth, which - oh my! - they just happen to be the sole custodians of, right down to the last semicolon. What a coincidence! It comes back to the depressing old equation "Orthodoxy = my doxy; heterodoxy = your doxy".
I suppose 'twas ever thus and ever will be, but I'd pay a lot more attention if someone actually said, "Yes, I believe in an absolute truth, but I don't think I know what it is. Let's go and find it together."
Would "I believe in an absolute truth, but I don't think I know what it is, and I don't think we'll ever really know, but let's see what we can find." do?
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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:
Ad Orientem: Relativism, comparative religion and a general distain of tradition I think is a fair description of modernism.
I guess I'm theologically as far removed from you as they come but I love tradition, also within my religion.
In the Netherlands it's to a large degree the alt.worship groups (like the one I'm part of) that have brought certain traditions back within the liturgy, something that has been taken over later by the more mainstream churches.
[ 16. July 2014, 11:04: 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)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Would "I believe in an absolute truth, but I don't think I know what it is, and I don't think we'll ever really know, but let's see what we can find." do?
Plenty of room for that in my doxy.
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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 Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
But that's another modernist error, that if something makes us feel happy it must therefore be good and right.
Goodness. I had no idea Aristotle was a modernist.
For me, the basic problem with anti-modernists is that they appeal to an absolute (usually revealed) truth, which - oh my! - they just happen to be the sole custodians of, right down to the last semicolon. What a coincidence! It comes back to the depressing old equation "Orthodoxy = my doxy; heterodoxy = your doxy".
I suppose 'twas ever thus and ever will be, but I'd pay a lot more attention if someone actually said, "Yes, I believe in an absolute truth, but I don't think I know what it is. Let's go and find it together."
But Christ promises his Church that the Holy Spirit will lead it into all truth. The modernists, I suppose, just don't believe that? Of course they don't because they choose relativism and syncretism; there is no revelation, God does not reveal anything to us.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
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?
I'm not sure if I'm a modernist, but I do.
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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
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
How does modernism unify Christians? Well, pretty much by stating that the old division do not really matter. 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).
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.
As put like that it's a capitalist consumerist paradise. Which is all very well, until you realise that capitalism doesn't deliver on its promises.
Actually I'd always thought that the similarities between utilitarianism and free market stuff the poor capitalism were simply structural parallels. Now I find that Bentham and James Mill, the most prominent early utilitarians, really did think that government action to relieve poverty and boost wages was contrary to the general good, and therefore morally wrong.
So, what's wrong with all of the above is that it leads to Cameron and Osborne stamping on a human face forever.
Still I'd agree that it's preferable to conservative Roman Catholicism; if only because conservative Roman Catholicism has found itself strangely able to make bedfellows with consumer capitalism from time to time.
As an aside, Charles Taylor's book A Secular Age? is a description of how the emphasis on this-worldly ordinary life fulfilment is a development out of themes in Christian theology.
I think the problems that I'd see with what IngoB calls modernism are more what I'd call economicism - the belief that all human goods are of a sort that can be handled within an economic framework. The reason IngoB's enemy is so diffuse is because he hasn't addressed it correctly. And therefore he's seeing where it isn't and not seeing it where it is.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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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?
Say rather that they believe the process is still ongoing. Whereas the anti-modernist churches appear to believe that the Holy Spirit has already lead the church into all truth, and no further exploration or examination is required.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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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? Of course they don't because they choose relativism and syncretism; there is no revelation, God does not reveal anything to us.
Other way around. Conservatives believe that the Holy Spirit had led the church into all truth by the time of Jesus' arrest, and after that there's been no leading done.
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.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
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!"
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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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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
How does modernism unify Christians? Well, pretty much by stating that the old division do not really matter. 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).
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.
As put like that it's a capitalist consumerist paradise.
How on earth did you get that from what you quoted?
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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 Dafyd:
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? Of course they don't because they choose relativism and syncretism; there is no revelation, God does not reveal anything to us.
Other way around. Conservatives believe that the Holy Spirit had led the church into all truth by the time of Jesus' arrest, and after that there's been no leading done.
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.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
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.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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