Why posting has been light

I recently lost my contract, and I am looking foe more work. Until I find it, I will not be able to post too much.

Prayers are appreciated.

Epistemological Modesty

I saw this here:

Epistemological Modesty [Jim Manzi]

Most of what I write about can be summarized in the following four sentences by David Brooks:

The correct position is the one held by self-loathing intellectuals, like Isaiah Berlin, Edmund Burke, James Madison, Michael Oakeshott and others. These were pointy heads who understood the limits of what pointy heads can know. The phrase for this outlook is epistemological modesty, which would make a fine vanity license plate.

The idea is that the world is too complex for us to know, and therefore policies should be designed that take account of our ignorance.

Which is fairly humbling, and not the greatest advertisement in the world for reading any of my essays.

I think the same applies to theology. There are a lot of "pointy headed" theologians who's ideas and teachings undermine key theological truth by layering on precept over precept--Bishop Spong is one famous example. There are examples in all churches I am familiar with. In fact, I think there is a good case that much of the Reformation was a reaction against the "pointy heads" who had some rather elaborate theories about justification for one. Well, if our theories are rally completely novel, such as "development of doctrine", then there is a really high chance that we do not respect pour own ignorance of divine things and end up rejecting what was revealed by God. Now, this is not to say that theology is useless, just that the "pointy heads" should be careful lest their theories supplant what we have received through divine revelation. In fact, I was subjected to this when I was an apologist against skeptics: my arguments began to supplant my faith in Christ, he became more of an idea I could hang other ideas around instead of the Lord of Life come to save me. Of course, my arguments were impeccable, though!

I really like this song

Is the Pope still Catholic?

An interesting statement by Pope Benedict:

"Luther, the pope had told his audience, had been right to insist in sola fide, that a believer was justified by faith alone!"

Now, before we get too excited, here is how the pope defined faith:

"The pope defined faith as 'identification with Christ expressed in love for God and neighbour'. Such love fulfilled the law. Being justified meant simply being with Christ and in Christ. Christ alone was sufficient."

Depending on what "identification with Christ" means, there may be something significant here. Lutherans believe the faith by which we are saved is that we believe and take as our own what God has promised in Christ. This faith is the gift of God the Holy Spirit given through the preached Gospel. I can't place my finger on it, but it does seem to me that the pope's definition of faith is a different one, and it seems to me that it is centered on "identification with...".

This may cause some e-apologists heads to explode though:

"Luther had correctly translated Paul's words as 'justified by faith alone', the well-known sola fide, Benedict affirmed, as reported in the newspaper."

This translation was a famous "scurrilous interpolation" by Luther who only wanted to import his subjective, private judgement into the translation of the Bible, according to more than one RC e-apologist I have read.

Link:
http://au.christiantoday.com/article/luther-rome-and-the-bible/5255.htm

This just makes me want to barf...

By their fruits.....

So, what does an atheist see in Christians while traveling in Africa?


"How can I, as someone with a foot in both camps, explain? When the philosophical tourist moves from one world view to another he finds - at the very moment of passing into the new - that he loses the language to describe the landscape to the old. But let me try an example: the answer given by Sir Edmund Hillary to the question: Why climb the mountain? “Because it's there,” he said.

To the rural African mind, this is an explanation of why one would not climb the mountain. It's... well, there. Just there. Why interfere? Nothing to be done about it, or with it. Hillary's further explanation - that nobody else had climbed it - would stand as a second reason for passivity.

Christianity, post-Reformation and post-Luther, with its teaching of a direct, personal, two-way link between the individual and God, unmediated by the collective, and unsubordinate to any other human being, smashes straight through the philosphical/spiritual framework I've just described. It offers something to hold on to to those anxious to cast off a crushing tribal groupthink. That is why and how it liberates. "

Read the whole thing!

Venerating Saints

I have been told that, by definition, worship is not given to saints in the RCC. It was easy, according to the RC apologists, to tell if worship was being given to a saint's relics or not--or even to a saint, or the Mother of God. If there is no sacrifice, no worship is given. That was actually a pretty good argument, because they are not beholden to a prot view of what worship is. No matter how similar the actions looked, or how similar the words sound to worship they could simply point to their doctrine that if one is not sacrificing, one is not worshiping; hence by definition saints are not worshiped.

QED

I recently came across these two verses of Scripture in another discussion forum:

Ephes 5:5 For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

Col 3:5Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.

While there may be a plausible explanation offered to explain why St. Paul is not really speaking about worship, I don't see it. I think it looks like the fine distinctions used to say that the saints are never worshiped in e.g. venerating bones is beginning to break down. The citations above show what amounts to "non-sacrificial worship", which should be a contradiction in terms, given the typical RC distinction made. The highlighted terms used in the passages cited above are EIDOLOLATRIS and EIDOLOLATREIA respectively, so St. Paul is plainly speaking abut worship, which is latreia. Maybe they could say that proper veneration of the saints is never latreia but proper dulia, but they cannot simply rule idolatry out of court simply because by nature nothing is latreia without a sacrifice. This means a lot more weight is given to what people actually say and do as opposed to a sort of objective yardstick to determine if worship is given.

The distinction seems to a notion one keeps in one's head because St. Paul blatantly called actions without sacrifice worship, and I think he has a lot of authority. And as we all know, it is very easy for us to rationalize what we think we are doing even if we are doing something wrong. That is why the "kinetic" and material parts of worship are important. One could think one has the proper distinction in one's head, but in reality one is actually giving idolatrous worship to something made with hands and is deceived because of what one does. If the definition or worship is more "kinetic" such that it by definition rules out a given set of acts actually being worship, this is not nearly as much of an issue. Absent the "kinetic" bulwark though, traditional prot critiques of e.g. bone venerating have a lot more force. It can be very easy to become an idolater--especially when the actions of adoration of an icon look so similar to worship.

The Bible, God's Word

Perhaps we should allow God to speak for himself:

"Is not my word like fire", declares the LORD, "and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets", declares the LORD, "who steal my words from one another. Behold, I am against the prophets", declares the LORD, "who use their tongues and declare, 'declares the LORD.' Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams", declares the LORD, "and who tell them and lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness, when I did not send them or charge them. So they do not profit this people at all", declares the LORD. [Jeremiah 23:29-32]

I think we would agree that these are the words of God, and that those prophets and Apostles who speak his word are speaking his word and not the word of another. Also, when they write his word down, it remains his word, just as much as when they spoke his word, and it does not lose its power or effect because it is written and not spoken.

So, it seems elementary that the Bible is the Word of God, so long as one accepts that the Bible is inspired.

"Nuking" Theology

"Nuking" Theology

A little background first.

When I was in the US Navy in the '80s, there was a shortage of nuclear technicians for the various submarine and surface vessels in the fleet. If you scored high enough on the ASVAB, and were a male, you would be encouraged to join the nuclear program. If you agreed, you would be called a "nuke" and receive faster advancement, more pay etc. "Nukes" had to have a rate besides being a nuclear technician. (A "rate" is like a job in the Navy, a rate would be cook, electronics technician, machinist's mate etc.) One of the rates a nuke could learn was Electronics Technician--my rate when I was in the Navy. So the "nukes" went to the same schools as the regular electronics Technicians (ETs) with a slightly modified curriculum.

Now, the "nukes" had a reputation of over analyzing things to such a degree that they would miss the obvious. Because of their often greater intelligence, they would bring irrelevant facts to bear on simple questions and come up with the wrong answer while "Charles the Simple" would look at the question, realize "b" made the most sense, answer the question and move on to the next question. It was considered great sport to listen to the grandiloquent explanations from the "nuke" as to why his answer--the product of his superior knowledge and intellectual acumen--is really the best answer while "Charles the Simple" was missing key nuances. This was known as "nuking" the question, and the instructor would often tell the "nuke" to keep it simple, and to pay attention to the question and not to over analyze it.

"Nuking" is basically taking our reasoning a step or more too far, and thereby losing sight of the obvious. It is as if someone asked me directions to the Albany Academy and instead of saying "go down New Scotland and make a left at Academy Road" I begin to think that though a left turn is how he should get to the Albany Academy, he is currently facing East so Albany Acedemy is on his right, so I tell him to turn right--he subsequently gets lost.

I think a lot of "nuking" has gone on throughout Church history and I am growong more and more convinced that it is the source for all heresy.

So where do I see writers and theologians "nuking" a question? Chiefly in the Medeival Church.

The Scholastic theology of the West was one giant "nuking" of the Gospel in many ways. There were elaborate theories about how someone could be justified before God. There were those who asserted God accepts an arbitrarily minimum effort on our parts for him to justify us, AKA the "via moderna". The problem is, that God accepting the minimum we can do and justifying us because of that sort of leaves Christ out of the equation. If God chooses to accept a "minimum" why is the Incarnation necessary? Instead of accepting what the Scriptures and tradition say about justification before God, they brought Ciceronian concepts of "justice"--that justice is giving everyone what he or she deserves--and then claimed that God as sovereign simply chooses the minimum we are capable of as payment. What was missed is that God justifies sinners--something inherently contrary to Cicero's definition of justice because sinners don't get what they deserve, Christ gets what they deserve. Their philosophical understanding of "justice" trumped what was right before their eyes. This bit of nuking more or less lead to the Reformation: we are justified by grace through faith, not by what we deserve; i.e because of our works. The reformation overturned the reigning theological paradigm of the day.

I think it is dangerous to the Church when "nukes" are running theology. Just look at what the Arians did!

The real Presence and Discerning the Body and Blood

I don't think we can discern the actual Body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament of the Alter. The question is, not whether we can discern the body of Christ physically, but whether we can discern the effects of the body of Christ. For instance, Medieval people could discern the effects of infection, but could not always discern the cause of infection. The only "empirical" evidence was the effects, not the cause. This did not cause them to deny the reality of infection, far from it. Through experience they even learned to mitigate the effects. Later in history, we learned more details about infection, that they are caused by bacteria or viruses. In other words, the cause of the infection was later "revealed" through investigation. So, in a like manner, the RP was revealed, not only in Christ's words of Institution, but by their effects on those who profaned the Sacrament. This is true even though, like bacteria and viruses, we cannot now see the Body and Blood of Christ with our senses. And like the "revelations" of science, God will reveal all things to us in his good time. But in the mean time, it is not correct to assert that we have no empirical evidence, what we have is enough evidence to believe, which should be sufficient this side of eternity.