Alizia wrote: ↑Sat Mar 30, 2019 2:40 pm
You try to align it with modern scientific and evolutionary theory
No, I don't.
All I say is that the idea of an original mating pair isn't nearly as controversial as you had suggested. But I also said that Evolutionism is a just-so story, so you can see I'm definitely not trying to tether anything to it. I've not been shy about pointing out its inherent problems.
The purpose of that Story, though, is one that has merit. In the same sense that the Plato's Myths have merit. The difference, I am supposing, is that Plato's Myths were taken as and understood as illustrative stories to bolster a rational understanding: the philosophical conclusions he wished to communicate.
Ah, but it's not an either-or. It's not
either a story was true,
or it has philosophical content and meaning. A story can be
both true
and have philosophical meaning. Consider the Rubicon, the Maginot Line, or Waterloo. All are
both literal historical incidents
and things which have been assigned a powerful metaphorical implication subsequently.
Nietzsche was not 'wrong' (in fact he was right) in noticing that God has died and we killed him.
Apparently he was. Even if we understand "God" just as Nietzsche wanted us to, as a mere metaphor, we'd have to recognize he was wrong. People still do genuinely believe in God. Modernity did not "kill" Him.
The activity of modernism, of modern men, undermines the previous Stories upon which a literal view of Reality was built. Those stories have been decimated.
Apparently not.
Begin at the core -- Jesus Christ.
...I asked about Adam & Eve and their specific action because, according to the story, it was this action that has caused all of man's problems: exile and also the condition of sin. And the incarnation is a responsive even by the New Adam. It completes a circle I guess one would say. It represents a 'metaphysical whole'.
Correct. And this is the reason I addressed it.
In my last message to Belinda, you'll note, I also pointed out the connection you indicate here. But I don't want to go to war with you over the details -- let me speak of "Adam" and "Eve," and you can speak of "Og" and "Oog" the post-Neanderthals, if you prefer. It won't change the situation. You have a mating pair that either trapped by chance in a world in which evil already (inexplicably) exists, or a couple created by God that is morally out of sorts with their Creator. We can walk together from there, because although the details are a matter of importance, it's not the matter of
first importance.
So, yes, Jesus Christ is definitely at the core, as you say, but I do not think you could extract him from the entirety of the Picture.
Yes, quite.
You could ask: OK, so what are you up to with all of your assertions? What is the purpose of challenging my interpretation of the A&E story? I thought you were a Christian? Is it that you don't believe?
No, I feel comfortable with where you are. I think we can go forward.
These questions could go on. I am putting them in your mouth only because I wish to answer them! But I find it quite difficult because by revealing my inner thoughts, I reveal also a severe problem. This is, of course, related to the central idea of this thread which no one has actually taken up nor commented on. You for example have avoided the import of Nietzsche's 'prophecy' and also the core of his ideas.
I don't think I have. Did I not speak of him as "prophetic"? Indeed, was I not the first in this strand to say so? But I don't hold everything he "prophesied" to be the truth -- I do find most of it useful.
I gather that you can more or less 'leap over' those problems, which are radically severe, because you hold to your own faith position no matter what.
Not at all. Nietzsche was one of my early educators in the desolate consequences of Atheism. I'm grateful for that. Indeed, he and others pushed me radically in the direction of faith, because there is no hope in Nihilism. When a philosophy dead-ends with no answers, that's a great indication that one should backtrack a bit and look for a path. One is lost. But that process is a process of thinking-through, not of avoiding thinking.
It is really shown in what you wrote: Begin at the core -- Jesus Christ. You might not need anything else.
I didn't say nothing else mattered at all. But I do say this: if Jesus Christ doesn't matter, then nothing at all in Christianity matters. And, in fact, the Apostle Paul says precisely the same thing. So I'm on solid ground there, I think.
If Jesus Christ doesn't matter, then nothing in Christianity does. That realization was my own starting point. It was really a skeptical process, for me. I was not in a frame of mind to believe, but in one of complete hesitancy. I did not want to be fooled by "religion" if that was what stood to happen, anymore than I was willing to be dead-ended by Nietzsche. But this path deserved a look, at least before being dismissed; and I refused to fear it.
So I looked, and I saw, and I decided. I was willing to be unconvinced. I was willing to go elsewhere, if that "well" turned out to be "dry," so to speak. But as it turned out, it wasn't. And the rest of faith follows from Jesus Christ Himself: if He is who He says He is, it changes everything. If He was not, then we keep going.
I am supposing (I do not know) that your position is a unique Protestant position, one that enables you do do numerous different things in respect to 'traditional Christianity'. I will leave you to clarify because I do not want to guess (and we often have to guess and assume in this medium).
Yes, I suppose you could call me a non-traditional Christian. And if I liked the term "Protestant," it might be roughly applicable to me. But I like the term Christian better.
In one sense I can say honestly that I 'envy' your position. But your position is not mine. And it is not, in this sense, an 'original Christian position' nor one that could mesh with traditional Christianity and Catholicism. I do not have a specific objection to that (again, if I am right in my guessing).
That's the great thing about positions: they can change.
What I worry about for your sake is the sense that you express that Nietzsche has nailed your feet to the floor with his "God is dead" idea. You seem to feel that's a trap from which no one is allowed to escape. Well, you could be right, from your position. But it's not the only position there is, and not even perhaps the only one you could eventually occupy.
The thing is not to let Nietzsche dead-end you, unless the end is
really dead. I suggest it's not, and the door out is the person of Jesus Christ Himself.
My situation is very different. The way I am forced to see these things...
Yes, see, that's what I'm worrying about: "forced". I want to suggest that you're not "forced." You can choose to stop there and accept what Nietzsche has served up for you, or you can backtrack a bit and look for better answers.
Nietzsche's pretty compelling IF his assumptions are correct. But are his assumptions correct? I think not.
A 'fallen condition' means something that comes about as a result of some cause. What the state of being was, and even where it was, prior to the falling, now takes on more importance. And, additionally, the idea of 'sin' that produced a fallen condition, requires revision. Or a sharpening of understanding.
But this surely isn't a good enough answer, is it? For "fallen" recognizes the existence of evil, whereas "something that comes about as a result of some cause" is morally neutral. "Sin" is morally negative; "requires revision" or "a sharpening of understanding" are neutral.
But the problem is the existence of evil. That's a very serious one. The cost of reframing it as morally neutral is that one loses the right to speak of "evil" at all. That's one very profound element of the Atheist's dilemma...he has no account of genuine evil.
But I will now jump in another direction. Like it or not, accept it or not, Nietzsche and others have opened a 'can of worms' so to speak. What is that can? What would this can mean for someone -- I'll use my embarrassing self as an example! -- who struggles to make their Christianity (and Catholicism) real in a devilishly complex and dangerous Present? How do I extract out of it the moral and ethical and indeed existential content while also holding to, our of respect, the Established Forms?
Are you asking me? Okay, I'm not shy to answer.
Simplify. Look at what is "core" and nothing else. If the core is rotten, you don't need to worry about the peripherals, the "established forms" if you will. If the core has integrity, then the peripherals may or may not. But no core, no truth. Go to the core first, I suggest.
The core is Christ. Nothing else matters until your assessment of Him is settled. It is, after all "Christianity," not "Piusanity," or "Churchianity," and certainly not "Nietzscheanity." So that makes sense.
Doesn't this imply a kind of 'dualism'? That is, I observe the form and 'respect' the content of the Tradition, when in fact I admit that I 'see through it'. But Christianity is filled with 'tropes': it is in fact built on them.
My greater worry is that it could imply a kind of "bad faith," Kierkegaardian style: namely that one mimes one's way through the traditions, while secretly at sea and unbelieving in the things one's actions are affirming. That just looks to me like a recipe for confusion and sadness. It's the real "sickness unto death."
You may or may not get what I am referring to in all this. (Only because these are questions and issues you may not have looked into directly).
I do get some. I am not unaware of the traditions you are speaking of.
But there is another element, too. It is that one almost needs to renovate the very figure of Jesus Christ, as a metaphysical emblem, in order to accord with the Present.
Well, would this not be to "tell" Christ what He is allowed to be? Would it not be to make "the Present," whatever we mean by that (because it changes constantly) the master-interpreter of Christ Himself? That would, in my view, be the wrong thing to do...and profoundly morally wrong, I mean, though also less-than-perspicuous from an epistemological perspective.
Why not take what you see, and work from the data to the conclusion? Start with Christ Himself, and see what He warrants for you.
Surely, to go the other way is to impose a later-created tradition -- whether Nietzschean or Catholic or whatever -- back onto the data. That's only a way to warp one's reading of the evidence, and to force a conclusion before the investigation even starts, isn't it?
Well, personally, I didn't go that way. And if you're asking me, then I can only suggest that you don't either. My advice is to go from Christ to Christianity, from the Core to the outside issues.
