Posted by Brian Coyne There is an interesting but depressing article featured on CathNews this morning about John Paul II's conservative seminarians. You'll find the link here to the original article in Newsday: http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-woprie243507942oct24,0,1239532.story?coll=ny-worldnews-headlines The following is my response which I have posted on the CathNews discussion board this morning. [http://members4.boardhost.com/cathtelecom/msg/99283.html] John Paul's men some reflections on today's feature article Posted by BrianC on October 28, 2003, 10:42 am Dear all, The Newsday article featured on CathNews this morning makes for interesting reading. [See Seminarians embrace pontiff's conservative vision.] It seems to me that there are four major paradigms operating within the Church at the moment putting forward solutions (or in one case not) as to how the Church is going to make itself more relevant in the coming decades. The Newsday article is focusing on what might be loosely described as the John Paul II, Cardinal Pell or conservative solution. Of the four solutions it is the one that can be most easily labelled and identified with particular individuals. In itself the conservative solution tends to define the other main solution which it sees itself as being opposed to. This might be dubbed the liberal solution which it would see as a "feel good", let's-reach-an-accomodation with modern secular society and its mores kind of cop-out. I am not actually convinced that there are many, if any, people actually putting forward such proposals anymore. There might have been once. I suspect the largest group of all in the Church are the "don't knows". These are people who are battle weary. They are honestly fed up to the back teeth of all the ills of modern secular society but they are equally disillusioned with the conservative alternatives who put forward their simplistic certitudes that, in the eye's of the don't knows carry the seeds of just as much social destruction, personal disequilibrium and mental disquiet as that offered by the most unrestrained nihilists. The fourth alternative is the most difficult to categorise and identify. Part of the reason for that is that it has no high-profile leaders associated with it. It also suffers from the disadvantage that it does not easily fit within some neat political categorisation. It seems to me that the chief characteristics of this fourth alternative is that it is fundamentally driven by a search for "truth" but not "Truth" in the way that "Truth" is interpreted by the group that the Newsday article is focussing on. The conservative faction tends to see "Truth" as some set of cast-in-concrete absolutes that were carved into the building block molecules of the universe at its creation and which can never change and will never change. The job of humankind, as the conservative faction would see it, is to be discovering these truths and living by them. One suspects that they believe that humankind has already uncovered about 99% of what these fundamental "Truths" are. I would submit that the fourth alternative sees "truth" in an entirely different way to the manner in which it is presented by the conservatives. To understand this different concept of "truth" though one does not need to focus so much on the concept or definition of the word "truth" but on that which is the source of "truth". It seems to me that the great dividing line in the Church today comes down to two different and, one suspects, ultimately incompatible understandings of who God is and what our relationship is to Him. Flowing out of that come these two different concepts of what "truth" is that also, in a related way, are ultimately incompatible although both categories of thinkers would share in common a belief that the ultimate "holy grail" is the truth in the sense of "In the beginning was the Word" (Jn 1:1). Let me try and delineate as I see it some characteristics of the differences: The conservative alternative tends to see God as a male. The relationship of this Man to mankind is seen as paternalistic much like the relationship of a father to a pre-adolescent child. The Father is the font of wisdom and all knowledge and is never to be questioned. How we access this wisdom and knowledge is through a priestly caste again male which was instituted by God to interpret what God says and thinks. These precepts are to be obeyed and if they are not there are significant penalties ranging from various types of excommunication in this life to hell and damnation in the next life. The fourth alternative has now largely rejected the foregoing notion of God. They tend to view God as the embodiment of "truth" itself. God is neither male nor female. The relationship of humankind to God and to truth (the Word) is dynamic and relativistic in the sense of relativistic that we are discovering through scientific insight and such things as Albert Einstein's Theories of General and Special Relativity. They are not "relative" in the liberal sense of "anything goes" or "one person's opinion is as good as any other person's opinion". God is seen as the ultimate source of "truth" but those operating in this fourth paradigm also perceive that God called the human family into a dynamic relationship with him. This gives "truth" different characteristics than how it is perceived in the conservative paradigm. Let me try and explain it this way: in the first paradigm "Truth" is perceived to be some kind of enormous canvas that was painted by God back at the year dot. What is slowly happening through the passage of time is that this canvas is slowly being uncovered and eventually we will be able to see "all of Truth". The fourth paradigm now largely rejects that perception of truth. They tend to see "truth" as this almost bottomless sacred vessel. The further time advances the more we discover but, and this is the crucial paradox, the more we also discover what is still yet to be discovered. "Truth" then is not something that is slowly being uncovered but in fact, as time goes on it becomes more mysterious, more wondrous, more exciting, more challenging. I would also submit that flowing out of the foregoing are important differences as to how those in the four paradigms I have been describing relate to that crucial set of questions: (i) what is the purpose or meaning of my life, and (ii) how do I "get there" or "achieve" what the answer to (i) is. That is a subject for another post. Blessings all. Have a great day. Brian Coyne Vias Tuas Communications Phone: 618 9389 9829
on October 28, 2003, 11:21 am
Kevin,
144.136.238.87
Coadministrator CathNews Discussion Board
bcoyne@cathnews.com
ABN 24 740 067 125
7/63 Stirling Highway, NEDLANDS WA 6009 Australia
email: viastuas@bigpond.net.au
Web: http://www.viastuas.net.au/
Message Thread:
« Back to thread