Perennialists and Digressers All, A brief announcement: happy as always to report a new article over at Pop Culture and Theology, this time on Cobra Kai Season 4. I would also point out that Roberto De La Noval and I have put out our Call for Papers for the volume on Anime, Religion, and Theology announced just before the end of the year.
I can somewhat see your point, but I still am not sure if it fundamentally holds water at bottom. Part of the problem is modernism. I don't think it will ever be acceptable to call oneself a Christian and not believe in say the resurrection and/or divinity of Christ. Likewise Pelagianism will always be wrong even 200 million years from now. Traditionalists have a strong point here, that there are certain immutable truths here. And sure it's more important to follow Christ's commands than to assent to propositions but it would be best to do both I'd think. Practice and theory should enhance one another. Another topic is classical theism. All the ridiculous modern attempts at theistic personalism and process theology are doomed to failure. There is definitely something lost when we try to get with the times like Archbishop Spong. But I will say there are also errors when we live too much in the past. Virtue usually lies in the mean.
I think that by reifying these traditions--"Christianity," "Pelagianism"--you are putting the cart before the horse. I'm hardly a theistic personalist or a process theologian, but I think my point is that late antique, medieval, early modern, and modern Christianities are all both distinct from one another and distinct from the religion of Jesus and the apostles, and there has never been one edition of them per time period either (there are many synchronic Christianities going on at any one time). The same is true for any other religion with premodern roots. We have to come to terms with the fact that religion, as a human phenomenon, changes as a function of time, or we will paint ourselves into a theological corner we won't escape from--namely, the idea that religion's divinity requires its immutability.
I meant no offense and I do agree with not reifying specific traditions. I agree more or less with DBH that we should go back to the view of religion as religio a virtue to be inculcated and not as simply a set of propositions to be assented to. I do think though that certain thought patterns or whatever you'd like to call them are nonnegotiable. As much as the understanding of these may be enhanced I don't think they can be changed too much or else they will lose all meaning. That's why I brought up classical metaphysics. For instance, I'm actually convinced by Lloyd Gerson that Platonism isn't just one philosophy among many, but that it just is philosophy and anything else is anti philosophy or downright hostile to philosophy. I don't buy the line I see in Losskys Mystical Theology that Christianity is above and can use any philosophy. Now I say this with a grain of salt because it is the concepts that matter. Vedanta maybe just as powerful as Platonism but to me that's because they are the same thing in different cultural idioms. Perhaps I'm agreeing with you. I do not know. I just think it important to embrace immutability as much as it is important to embrace change. I've seen some interviews where you've remakarked something to the effect that Heraclitus had the better part over and against Parmenides. I do not agree. I think Plato's genius was to unite the two in a more true and beautiful synthesis. As far as Aristotle deviated from Plato he was generally wrong to have done so, in my contention. But I'm digressing. My main point is that I believe it is important to update our beliefs continually with new information but we must always do so realizing that we are only discovering the ancient truth that has been there from the beginning. The atavistic tendencies of the traditionalist are not the problem, it is actually a failure to be truly traditional as in adhering to the Tradition of God rather than the traditions of men that produces the wayward traditionalists. I was among their number once and see them as rank modernists now, but their instinct to find the ancient truth is admirable it has just gone astray I believe. I think one can err on both sides here. I hope I was more clear and thank you for your interaction! Forgive me for grammatical errors. I'm typing on a cheap phone.
None taken! Disagreeing with me is never in itself grounds for offense. I'm making dinner just now, but I'll say that we're probably closer on some of this than maybe was first suggested. I agree, for instance, that Platonism, especially Neoplatonism, and Vedanta, are basically just what good philosophy looks like. I'm also not necessarily suggesting that the changes that have evolved in the major world religions are in themselves illegitimate. More what I mean to say is that change itself is endemic to religion and it's something we can neither escape nor avoid; we have to get comfortable with the fact of it and with the fact that any time we think we have "arrived" at the full, final perspective we have only succeeded in deceiving ourselves.
I can somewhat see your point, but I still am not sure if it fundamentally holds water at bottom. Part of the problem is modernism. I don't think it will ever be acceptable to call oneself a Christian and not believe in say the resurrection and/or divinity of Christ. Likewise Pelagianism will always be wrong even 200 million years from now. Traditionalists have a strong point here, that there are certain immutable truths here. And sure it's more important to follow Christ's commands than to assent to propositions but it would be best to do both I'd think. Practice and theory should enhance one another. Another topic is classical theism. All the ridiculous modern attempts at theistic personalism and process theology are doomed to failure. There is definitely something lost when we try to get with the times like Archbishop Spong. But I will say there are also errors when we live too much in the past. Virtue usually lies in the mean.
I think that by reifying these traditions--"Christianity," "Pelagianism"--you are putting the cart before the horse. I'm hardly a theistic personalist or a process theologian, but I think my point is that late antique, medieval, early modern, and modern Christianities are all both distinct from one another and distinct from the religion of Jesus and the apostles, and there has never been one edition of them per time period either (there are many synchronic Christianities going on at any one time). The same is true for any other religion with premodern roots. We have to come to terms with the fact that religion, as a human phenomenon, changes as a function of time, or we will paint ourselves into a theological corner we won't escape from--namely, the idea that religion's divinity requires its immutability.
I meant no offense and I do agree with not reifying specific traditions. I agree more or less with DBH that we should go back to the view of religion as religio a virtue to be inculcated and not as simply a set of propositions to be assented to. I do think though that certain thought patterns or whatever you'd like to call them are nonnegotiable. As much as the understanding of these may be enhanced I don't think they can be changed too much or else they will lose all meaning. That's why I brought up classical metaphysics. For instance, I'm actually convinced by Lloyd Gerson that Platonism isn't just one philosophy among many, but that it just is philosophy and anything else is anti philosophy or downright hostile to philosophy. I don't buy the line I see in Losskys Mystical Theology that Christianity is above and can use any philosophy. Now I say this with a grain of salt because it is the concepts that matter. Vedanta maybe just as powerful as Platonism but to me that's because they are the same thing in different cultural idioms. Perhaps I'm agreeing with you. I do not know. I just think it important to embrace immutability as much as it is important to embrace change. I've seen some interviews where you've remakarked something to the effect that Heraclitus had the better part over and against Parmenides. I do not agree. I think Plato's genius was to unite the two in a more true and beautiful synthesis. As far as Aristotle deviated from Plato he was generally wrong to have done so, in my contention. But I'm digressing. My main point is that I believe it is important to update our beliefs continually with new information but we must always do so realizing that we are only discovering the ancient truth that has been there from the beginning. The atavistic tendencies of the traditionalist are not the problem, it is actually a failure to be truly traditional as in adhering to the Tradition of God rather than the traditions of men that produces the wayward traditionalists. I was among their number once and see them as rank modernists now, but their instinct to find the ancient truth is admirable it has just gone astray I believe. I think one can err on both sides here. I hope I was more clear and thank you for your interaction! Forgive me for grammatical errors. I'm typing on a cheap phone.
None taken! Disagreeing with me is never in itself grounds for offense. I'm making dinner just now, but I'll say that we're probably closer on some of this than maybe was first suggested. I agree, for instance, that Platonism, especially Neoplatonism, and Vedanta, are basically just what good philosophy looks like. I'm also not necessarily suggesting that the changes that have evolved in the major world religions are in themselves illegitimate. More what I mean to say is that change itself is endemic to religion and it's something we can neither escape nor avoid; we have to get comfortable with the fact of it and with the fact that any time we think we have "arrived" at the full, final perspective we have only succeeded in deceiving ourselves.
I'd agree with that