tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14247942.post7318561285278035688..comments2023-08-10T05:32:21.163-04:00Comments on An Examined Life: Trusting in One's Own MeaningfulnessVitae Scrutatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12808120163472036743noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14247942.post-66338088039463185042007-10-15T13:25:00.000-04:002007-10-15T13:25:00.000-04:00Mike,Thanks for clarifying Newman a little better....Mike,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for clarifying Newman a little better. I'm still not sure exactly what to make of it, and I think the Protestant could use the same idea in a modified form (namely, the object of assent). But, I'm going to have to think on it for now and see when I can get some relief from school work in order to work out a fuller reply.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14247942.post-44956654114769910312007-10-14T21:29:00.000-04:002007-10-14T21:29:00.000-04:00Kevin:I don't think it follows from Newman's accou...Kevin:<BR/><BR/>I don't think it follows from Newman's account that it is impossible for a Catholic to cease to be Catholic. What does follow is that, when a Catholic does cease to be Catholic, that is because he has chosen to abandon the principle of faith that is necessary for being Catholic. But his having chosen to do so while being Catholic would not be <I>because</I> he has exercised private judgment. Given Newman's account of faith and private judgment, the exercise of private judgment would be the result, not the cause, of that abandonment. The person who loses the gift of faith would, in other words, be choosing to reduce religion to a matter of opinion for reasons other than and possibly deeper than his so treating it in fact. His ceasing to trust the Magisterium is not the inevitable result of academic difficulties; rather, his treating such difficulties as doubts, which already involves loss of the gift of faith and thus of trust in the Magisterium, is the result of something else.<BR/><BR/>In my observation, that is how "difficulties," which are compatible with the gift of supernatural faith, become "doubts," which are not. You might want to have a look at my essay <A HREF="http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd2cg4kp_2fw7q6c" REL="nofollow">Faith, Private Judgment, Doubt, and Dissent</A>. If you have any comment to make on it, please e-mail me (mliccione[at]gmail[dot]com) and I should be happy to blog a reply.Mike Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18100363229707213441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14247942.post-84357823491291842482007-10-13T19:55:00.000-04:002007-10-13T19:55:00.000-04:00Oh, bloody hell. The last bit after /discourses is...Oh, bloody hell. The last bit after /discourses is /discourse11.html<BR/><BR/>As in:<BR/>http://www.newmanreader.org/works/discourses/<BR/><BR/>discourse11.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14247942.post-40749578509245884032007-10-13T19:52:00.000-04:002007-10-13T19:52:00.000-04:00Ok, the Newman link was cut-off. Here it is again:...Ok, the Newman link was cut-off. Here it is again:<BR/><BR/>http://www.newmanreader.org/works/discourses/discourse11.html<BR/><BR/>I should know this, but how do you link on a blog?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14247942.post-43206910178209782472007-10-13T19:45:00.000-04:002007-10-13T19:45:00.000-04:00Scott,It would be interesting to go over some of t...Scott,<BR/><BR/>It would be interesting to go over some of those historical arguments some time. Do you know of any high-level theological works that deal with these issues? Of course there's Newman, but he was only providing a guideline or methodology, with short historical glosses, hardly an adequate account of the various developments. Next to Newman, I've found Zubiri fascinating, but he still largely leaves it at the theoretical level. I don't know anyone else. Bloggers do this type of stuff more than the academics are willing to.<BR/><BR/>As for the issue at hand, yes, I do disagree with Newman. I found the essay/sermon that I was referencing (and it is from Discourses to Mixed Congregations):<BR/><BR/>http://www.newmanreader.org/works/discourses/discourse11.html<BR/><BR/>This is truly one of the most insightful of all of Newman's works. Basically the argument is that the Catholic cannot question the divine authority of his church -- such doubt equates to loss of faith. So any, as you say, cognitive dissonance, is a failure on the part of the human -- all is to be trusted to cohere. This, as I read it, rules out any possibility of the Catholic becoming a non-Catholic. A Catholic can investigate certain difficulties, but at no point is he allowed to say that those difficulties add-up to negating certain allegedly infallible claims of the Catholic Church. Like I said, I don't see how one can seriously argue this, but I do see how Newman was forced into this position (and this is a tribute to Newman's genius). The haunting spectre of private judgment is categorically ruled-out of play. So, investigate the claims all you want but regardless of what conclusions you come to, you have to leave it to Mother Church. So, indeed, when I say that both the Catholic and Protestant have the duty to investigate the claims of his church, we certainly mean two different things, since I believe this statement to only have real meaning if the investigated claims can actually turn out to be illegitimate. The Catholic can't allow that. It's more of a curiosity exercise for the Catholic. <BR/><BR/>Now we can get into the fact that I, of course, believe Protestants to have an adequate external authority which actually includes a necessary role for the visible church, but I want to get this faith-doubt issue down first.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14247942.post-14638746195859368952007-10-13T15:54:00.000-04:002007-10-13T15:54:00.000-04:00KevinThank you very much for the comment--you make...Kevin<BR/><BR/>Thank you very much for the comment--you make some very good points, and I certainly do not deny the very important historical arguments that you have mustered. Indeed, I very much agree that such historical considerations are essential to any assessment of this problem, and I would even agree with you that "Papal infallibility", as you put it, "didn't exist" back then, if by that what you mean is that it was not a doctrine that had fully developed in the Tradition. Indeed, it is not clear that it even makes sense to refer to such an ontological correlate as "Pope" in the years from 33-50, so <I>a fortiori</I> there could be no papal infallibility, at least not operationally.<BR/><BR/>Indeed, Holy Orders as such cannot really be said to have existed in the way in which Catholics now believe that they do, there were only those who were "sent out" by the Lord (the <I>apostoloi</I>). To recognize that the institutions of the Church evolve and develop over time, however, is not to assert that they are not real, and that they do not have the ontological status that the Church says that they now have.<BR/><BR/>But our central disagreement appears to remain. On the one hand, I don't think that any respectable Roman Catholic thinker would deny your assertion that it is the duty of every Christian "to investigate the claims of his church". Our difference lies rather in the meaning of such an investigation.<BR/><BR/>For you, if I'm understanding you correctly, even the decision to become a Roman Catholic and to believe what the Roman Catholic Church teaches is itself an act of private judgment, or, as you put it, "a probabilistic case mixed with a spiritual strengthening that results in an act of faith". (We may want to talk about what you man here by "spiritual strengthening"--if it is from the Lord, who would dare <I>not</I> become Catholic? But let's save that one for another day.) In short, it sounds to me as though you are denying the possibility of the sort of assent that Newman describes in his <I>Grammar of Assent</I>. Now, since you mentioned having read that work, I know you'll know what I mean when I say that I don't fully agree with you here:<BR/><BR/><I>Regardless, the convert decides that each teaching coheres with a predetermined whole, thus all difficulties are trusted to fit -- this trusting, that you find the great advantage of the Catholic position, is still grounded in an ultimately rationalist case that could easily be toppled if the Catholic discerns a difficulty to not fit. Of course, you say that the Catholic cannot conceive of this as a possibility, but can we not agree that the Catholic should be open to such a possibility?</I><BR/><BR/>In my view, it is quite possible for a Catholic to find himself in the position of bewilderment upon discovering a massive cognitive dissonance between what he thinks is coherent and what the Church authoritatively says is true. Indeed, it is precisely <I>because</I> I think this is <I>possible</I> for the Catholic but <I>impossible</I> for the Protestant (or perhaps a better word would be something like Private Judgment Defender, I don't suppose they have to be, technically, Protestants in the strict sense of the term--certainly there are plenty such folks who claim to be Catholic) to be in such a position. This, to me, is evidence in favor of thinking that there really is such a thing as authority beyond one's own inner sense of rational coherence.<BR/><BR/>Having said all of that, I do acknowledge that the historical case will seem problematic to the non-Catholic. Indeed, I agree that it is somewhat problematic. But I think it is problematic for everybody, not just Catholics. Because if the Church does not have the authority to say what must be believed, then there is really absolutely no reason to be a Christian at all, beyond simply thinking to yourself "Well, seems good to me!" But that would be silly, and it would put the Christian believer on precisely the same footing as the Jew, the Muslim, the Druid, or indeed the atheist. In short, if the Church has no authority to teach the truth, then the Joseph Campbells of the world are exactly right about the documents of our faith: they are an interesting sociological record of a fascinating movement in human history--but they are nothing else.<BR/><BR/>In short, if I were not a Catholic, I would be, not a Protestant, or Anglican, or Orthodox, or Jew--I would be an atheist. Because there would be <I>no rationally compelling reason</I> to believe anything that the Christians or any other religious folks say to be true about the world.<BR/><BR/>It is, of course, the stock answer here to say: "Ah yes, but an act of faith is required, and that act is a supernatural one, I don't need the Church for that." Yeah, right. It's interesting to me that the Private Judgment Defenders are wiling to make such claims about the authoritativeness of their own "supernatural" abilities to believe what they already think to be true on the basis of their own private judgment, but then they have the temerity to poke fun at the Catholic account of authority as "circular".<BR/><BR/>Maybe it's a standpoint thing. If you're a Protestant, the Catholic position looks silly or circular or ahistorical or just plain made up politicization of religion. But I can assure you that from the Catholic standpoint the Protestant view looks much worse, if only because it's so much more hubristic. At least from a Catholic standpoint--I understand that from the Protestant standpoint it doesn't look bad at all.<BR/><BR/>I'd like to point out, by the way, that it is now 3:00 here in the states, too--PM, though, so I'm still awake, if only just barely after having read through my comment. I hope to hear more from you, however, because I value your critique and I think you do an excellent job of keeping me on my toes, even though I recognize my own shortcomings as an apologist!Vitae Scrutatorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12808120163472036743noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14247942.post-88648910243715594402007-10-12T22:00:00.000-04:002007-10-12T22:00:00.000-04:00how can an individual, relying on his private judg...<I>how can an individual, relying on his private judgment, discern the difference between orthodoxy and heresy during the years A.D. 33-50?</I><BR/><BR/>I don't see how the Roman Catholic position fares any better to this question. I presume your answer would be that the people could look to the apostles and, trusting in their authority, say such-and-such is orthodoxy. Of course, James and others (including Peter for a time) didn't do a good job with the whole orthodoxy thing, until Paul came along and set them straight. But then you will say that the Jerusalem council has the authority, so the people look to the ecumenical councils; but you're just reading back later developments, not countenancing that it was hardly clear for a long time that ecumenical councils have infallible, binding authority (e.g., Nicaea largely ignored, indeed refuted, by most of the Church for a century or so). The councils were ultimately believed to be infallibly guided insofar as the parties agreed to its orthodoxy and submitted (though this was exegetically-grounded to the extent that they took the Spirit's guiding of the church to be the premise). Of course, the "universal jurisdiction" of the pope, with his <I>ex cathedra</I> infalliblity, would have been helpful during this time, but that didn't exist yet (sorry, I had to throw that in). Regardless of whether you take my historical gloss as valid, I am of course going to come back to the boogeyman in your argument, "I and my inner source of authority." I truly don't see such a qualitative difference that you see between the Catholic and Protestant position. The Catholic is bound just as much as the Protestant to investigate the claims of his church. Many a Catholic has determined the Petrine, Marian, Soteriological, etc. claims of the RCC to be illegitimate and thus have left; many a Protestant has found such claims to be valid and have converted. In each case, the judgment (a mix of historical, rational, and, above all, spiritual discernment) of the individual decides. For example, the Catholic convert builds a probabilistic case mixed with a spiritual strengthening that results in an act of faith -- or to put it in Balthasarian terms, the convert sees the (aesthetic) form and assents. Regardless, the convert decides that each teaching coheres with a predetermined whole, thus all difficulties are trusted to fit -- this trusting, that you find the great advantage of the Catholic position, is still grounded in an ultimately rationalist case that could easily be toppled if the Catholic discerns a difficulty to not fit. Of course, you say that the Catholic cannot conceive of this as a possibility, but can we not agree that the Catholic should be open to such a possibility? But if so, we're back to private judgment. I think Newman saw this in one of his sermons (can't remember which one, from <I>Mixed Congregations</I> I believe), and thus resorted to the position that the Catholic simply cannot allow this possibility since such is doubt, the antithesis of faith (i.e., the Catholic would no longer be Catholic). I don't see how you could argue for this. <BR/><BR/>Well, there's much more to be said, but I got to go to bed. It's 3AM here in Scotland.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14247942.post-9549389055496734882007-10-12T21:06:00.000-04:002007-10-12T21:06:00.000-04:00Thanks to Fr. Kimel for the notice, and thanks to ...Thanks to Fr. Kimel for the notice, and thanks to Dr. Carson for the exposition. <BR/><BR/>The only answer I have thus far received is "Well, Scripture is external to me, and I accept Scripture as an authority." My response is two-fold:<BR/>1. One's view of Scripture as an authority was not authorized externally.<BR/>2. Interpretation is an internal operation as well, and without some external authority over the process, it still amounts to the authority of one's own internal witness.<BR/><BR/>I think that pretty much exhausts the possible answers.CrimsonCatholichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08623996344637714843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14247942.post-91863150257812912162007-10-12T17:37:00.000-04:002007-10-12T17:37:00.000-04:00Pontificator's Ninth Law:"If a Catholic cannot nam...Pontificator's Ninth Law:<BR/><BR/>"If a Catholic cannot name at least one article of faith that he believes solely on the basis of the authoritative teaching of the Magisterium, he’s either a saint or a Protestant."Striderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07859685939890312325noreply@blogger.com