Conference lgp30::christian-perspective

    Over the course of time, religious thought can, and I believe should,
    evolve.  This is necessary because religion is not just a divine
    endeavor, but also a human one; and like all human endeavors,
    especially protracted ones, it is often subject to error, and certainly
    open to new insights.  Theologians therefore have a responsibility to
    interpret these new insights in terms of what constitute the
    authoritative traditions of their faith; in other words, they must
    maintain the essential character of that faith even as it evolves.

    Since tradition and evolution act in opposition to one another,
    reconciling them is not simple, either in theory or in practice.  The
    problem is even more difficult for Western theologies because of their
    special emphasis upon tradition and history, which, of course, comes at
    the expense of evolution.  Christian and Jewish theologies view God as
    having acted in history, through certain key events that are recorded
    in the sacred canon.  For both faiths, their canon was declared
    "closed" centuries ago, and neither is considered subject to revision
    or addition; believers must, therefore, by necessity, return to these
    original, ancient traditions in order to celebrate their faith.

    Different segments of Western religion celebrate the past in different
    ways, and even to different degrees.  Roman Catholicism, for example,
    celebrates a detailed liturgical calendar that many Protestants shun. 
    Yet, despite those differences, the fact remains that all branches of
    Christianity, both Protestant and Liturgical, return to the life of
    Jesus, the crucifixion, and the resurrection--events that occurred two
    centuries ago--as what defines their faith.

    What this means is that Christianity tends to be a conservative
    religion.  This, of course, leads to the perception that any
    theological evolution whatsoever is a threat to the very foundations of
    the faith.  It is true that some Christian denominations are more
    conservative than others, and some have even succeeded admirably in
    escaping these conservative roots altogether.  Perhaps the reason for
    the existence of liberal Christianity at all has to do with the fact
    that significant pressures for change do exist.  And those pressures in
    turn have to do with changes that have occurred in the world as a
    whole.

    Christianity was born a long, long time ago, in a culture and time
    radically different from our own.  The Christianity that emerged from
    that time necessarily reflected the understanding and cultural biases
    of the early Christians.  We do not view the world in the same way that
    they did.  When I say "we", I even include the strictest of religious
    fundamentalists, for all of us are a product of the modern secular
    culture whether we want to be or not.

    Scientific understanding, for example, is utterly unlike anything that
    Palestinian Jews of the First Century conceived.  We view the universe
    as operating autonomously, according to its own scientific laws, which
    over the centuries we have come to understand as operating regularly
    and predictably.  As Quantum Mechanics and Chaos Theory have taught us,
    it may not operate deterministically, but at least it is predictable. 
    What this means is that it is not necessary to view God's hand in
    things like comets or solar eclipses.  We understand that events like
    these happen because the universe has laws.  This certainly does not
    remove God from the picture, however; God can still serve as the
    Ultimate source of the universe and all its laws (this view of God as
    the First Cause is known as the Cosmological Argument, and was first
    popularized a long time ago by Thomas Aquinas).  But it does remove God
    from the sort of immediate, day to day intervention in our daily lives.

    Or does it?  Historically, Western religion resisted this conclusion,
    and even today much of the Christian faith which still look for divine
    intervention in the mundane realm.  Originally, as the modern, post-
    Enlightenment scientific understanding emerged, Western religion
    valiantly sought ways of rescuing the role of God in the everyday
    affairs of the world by invoking the "God of the gaps".  According to
    this view, God continued to be active in those areas of reality which
    science did not, or could not, explain.  Unfortunately for this theory,
    science continued show astounding success in understanding the workings
    of the universe, thus ever closing the gaps and leaving progressively
    smaller gaps for God to operate within.  This theory thus became
    utterly untenable.  As the physicist, and Christian author, John
    Polkinghorne has stated,

        The God of the Gaps is dead and with him has died the old-style
        natural theology of Paley and the Bridgewater Treatises.  No
        theologian need weep for them, for the God of the Gaps, hovering at
        the periphery of the known world, was far from being someone of
        whom it could be said that 'all understand that this is God.  When
        Aquinas spoke of God as 'first cause' he did not consider him thus
        as a jostling participant among the many efficient causes of the
        cosmic process.  Rather, he is the ground of all that is in the
        world and not to be identified with any part of its process.  He is
        the author and producer of the play, not a particularly striking
        actor upon the stage.

    What Polkinghorne is expressing here is the contemporary view of
    mainline Christianity toward science; these Christians have reconciled
    themselves to the modern scientific understanding, with no loss to
    their faith.  The struggle was hardly easy, but eventually the
    theological understanding did evolve to accommodate this outlook.  What
    this view came to understand was that Christianity is concerned with
    people's relations with each other and with God, and not with
    scientific dogma.

    However, this is not to say the images of God as some sort of Divine
    Magician or Divine Controller do not linger in the popular imagination,
    even as the mainline theologians deny the God of the gaps.  This is no
    doubt true even among mainline Christians, but it is especially true
    among fundamentalists.

    An extreme example of this sort of belief is the claim by the
    televangelist Pat Robertson to have induced God to steer hurricanes
    away from his Virginia home on more than one occasion.  While this
    claim of his might result in derision and negative publicity, there are
    many faithful who do take these claims seriously.  The fact is, the
    only difference between this and the belief that God heals the sick
    through prayer is one of scale; and many, many Christians do believe in
    praying for their sick friends and loved ones.  They believe that such
    prayer can actually affect the outcome of the illness.

    It is also not uncommon for many fundamentalist Christians to believe
    that God invokes natural disasters in order to punish people.  While
    these views are admittedly on the fringe, they do exist.  Such claims
    include the assertion that AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality,
    or that the 1989 San Francisco earthquake was an act of divine wrath
    against that city's liberal tolerance of homosexuality and other
    "vices".

    Many, of course, (including conservative Christians) would object that
    a large portion of those who suffer from these events are innocent of
    the acts for which God is allegedly punishing people, and that God
    would surely not paint his wrath with such a broad and inclusive brush.
    However, fringe viewpoint or not, this concept of theodicy, does not,
    in fact, come out of the blue, since similar acts of divine wrath were
    alleged in many parts of the Hebrew Bible; the Babylonian exile, for
    example. wrought suffering against all Palestinian Jews, even the
    oppressed poor and widowed on whose behalf God was allegedly carrying
    out the punishment in the first place.

    Clearly, then, despite the advances of modern theology, in much of the
    popular imagination God is active in the world--in the gaps.  The gaps
    are those shadowy, non-deterministic events, where ordinary Newtonian
    physics either does not apply or is impossible to apply, either because
    they are too minute or too complex.  No devout believer in divine
    miracles seriously expects a sudden, macrocosmic suspension of
    scientific laws.  Those who pray for the sick do not generally petition
    for amputated limbs to mysteriously grow back before their eyes; nor
    does, for example, an imminent accident victim pray for God to save
    them by magically transporting the onrushing vehicle through their body
    or over their head.

    Instead, alleged miracles generally involve an interpretation of an
    event that could just as easily have been a natural event.  The minute
    processes of body cells, for example, involve complex processes that
    cannot be observed in complete detail.  The body as a system is fairly
    well understood, but all the detailed events at the microcosmic level
    that occur at each and every moment, which in turn determine illness or
    recovery at the macrocosmic level, are simply too complex to be
    completely observable or known deterministically.  The best we can do
    is make inferences about what must be happening, based on measurements
    and tests.  What this means is that if you pray for a sick person to
    get well, and they do get well, who is to say that it was not because
    your prayer was answered?  No one observed every last event that
    occurred in the sick person's body, thus making the interpretation of
    divine intervention credible to the faithful.

    This same principle applies to much grander events that are also
    impossible to understand at a detailed and deterministic level.  An
    example of this would be the weather--which, of course, includes
    hurricanes.  The weather is a terribly unpredictable and non-
    deterministic system, as anyone who pays attention to weather forecasts
    knows well.  The farther in the future we look, the less certainty we
    have about the weather.  An entire branch of science, Chaos Theory,
    exists just for describing and explaining "chaotic" systems such as the
    weather.  One well known principle that has emerged from Chaos Theory
    is the so-called "Butterfly Effect".

    According to this principle, the fluttering of a butterfly's wings in
    one part of the world can set in motion a chain of unpredictable events
    that could eventually lead to a hurricane in another part of the world. 
    In this sort of non-deterministic realm, where outcomes are random,
    unpredictable, and uncertain, it is easy to see how Pat Robertson can
    make his claim.  The skeptic might suggest that since it was the
    residents of South Carolina, rather than the residents of Robertson's
    state, who suffered terribly from Hurricane Hugo in 1989, this only
    proves that South Carolina should have had its own resident
    televangelist.  One might sarcastically follow this idea to its logical
    conclusion, and infer that if every state on the Atlantic and Gulf
    coasts had a televangelist with a direct pipeline to God, the U.S.
    would never again suffer another hurricane.

    The costs of not having such a divinely attuned televangelist were
    particularly devastating to the people of South Carolina, it would
    seem.  A year after the hurricane, a 1990 Associated Press news release
    reported that, in addition to the initial loss of 29 lives and the $5.9
    billion in damage, Hugo had wrought other, more enduring kinds of harm
    to the residents of that state.  Counselors and psychologists were
    finding that Hugo had generated many serious emotional scars that were
    lasting long after the event had passed, often with serious social
    consequences.

    It was estimated, for example, that some 20,000 South Carolinians
    suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome, from which they were
    expected to suffer long-term psychological problems.  Reports of rape
    in the Charleston area during the first three months of 1990 had
    increased by 112%.  The number of domestic abuse and divorce cases
    filed in Charleston County was up 17%.  The state Department of Alcohol
    and Drug Abuse reported that the number of people seeking help at the
    Charleston office had increased by 25%.  In addition, studies of
    children living in those areas which had suffered the brunt of the
    hurricane showed that they were suffering various emotional symptoms,
    such as flashbacks and fear of storms.  Alas, it would seem that
    Robertson's influence with God has some rather far reaching effects. 

    Aside from this sort of obvious philosophical and moral problem with
    Robertson's brand of Divine Magic, though, there also arises the
    question of how the believer can explain the fact that sometimes the
    outcomes they pray for don't occur.  Sick people do die, even when the
    faithful pray for them.  Natural disasters do occur, and the victims
    aren't always the wicked or the unbelievers.  This, of course, raises
    moral questions about theodicy, which is an issue that theologians and
    philosophers have wrestled with for centuries.  How does the believer
    reconcile these unfortunate outcomes with their belief in the efficacy
    of prayer?

    As a child growing up in a conservative Protestant faith, I was taught
    in Sunday School that God always answers prayer, but that sometimes the
    answer is no.  In other words, God, being omniscient, knows more than
    we do.  Some of the things we want may not actually be best for us,
    although we don't realize it.  This is one possible answer to the
    problem of theodicy among many, but it is a popular one in
    fundamentalist circles because it leaves all unanswered dilemmas to a
    higher authority, and thus puts an end to troublesome questions.  It
    also means that the believer cannot lose:  if the prayer comes true,
    then the belief in the efficacy of prayer is validated; if it does not,
    that just means that God answered "no".

    In contrast to all of this, Rabbi Harold Kushner has written several
    popular books that express a different theology.  In light of the
    Holocaust, many Jews have had to ask themselves some very serious
    questions about the role of God as a Divine Controller.  It is hard to
    believe in an omnipotent God who had the power to prevent the Holocaust
    but did not.  Kushner understands that this image of the Divine
    Controller and  Magician, though popular, is simply inappropriate, and
    praying for miraculous good fortune is not going to be very fruitful. 
    As he says in Who Needs God:

        Too often, we try to use religion as a way of controlling and
        manipulating God.  We think that if we say the right words or
        perform the right actions, we can get God to do what we want Him
        to.  If we stopped to think about it, we might wonder how an
        awesomely powerful, all-wise God could be controlled by a few words
        from the likes of us...

    Pointing out the analogy between the petitioner praying to God and the
    child pleading to the parent, who may relent to the child's request if
    the child knows the right way to convince (or finagle) them, he
    comments:

        Quite simply, God will not suffer Himself to be manipulated by our
        words or deeds.  That is not religion...

        Prayer is not a matter of coming to God with our wish list and
        pleading with Him to give us what we ask for.  Prayer is first and
        foremost the experience of being in the presence of God.

    Kushner has thus reconciled his faith with the modern scientific
    understanding.  He has successfully banished the God of the Gaps from
    his theology, something that much of Protestant Christianity is still
    struggling with.

    However, as much difficulty as contemporary Western theology has had in
    coping with scientific change, the resistance to sociological pressures
    for change have been even more profound.  Though the God of the Gaps
    may lurk in the shadows, particularly among fundamentalists, at least
    mainline Protestantism and post-Vatican II Roman Catholicism may have
    no trouble reconciling their faith with biological evolution or the Big
    Bang Big theory; yet these very same faiths continue to struggle, with
    great difficulty, with important questions posed by such issues as
    feminism, homosexuality, and militarism.  The role of tradition seems
    to play a much greater role in these areas, and resistance to evolution
    much stronger.

    I think there is an important reason for this.  Religion is very much
    concerned with the ways in which we interact with each other and with
    God.  Scientific questions do not ultimately affect these important
    human concerns, which would be just as important to us, fundamentalist
    objections notwithstanding, whether the age of the Earth is 6,000 years
    or 4.5 billion.  The traditions associated with sociological concerns
    are thus perceived as being very much more tied in with the normative
    theological and historical traditions.  But this view is really quite
    wrong.  These sociological issues are, in fact, just as subject to
    evolution as the scientific ones.

    An example of this problem is a news item from the Associated Press on
    April 3, 1990.  The report described a draft of a declaration by the
    U.S. Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, which proposed a greater
    role for women in the Church.  The draft did not mince words,
    describing the slighting of women as being due to "sexist patterns". 
    It called for more equality in the roles of "leadership, ministry,
    teaching, and policymaking."  And yet, in the very same document, the
    Bishops reiterated their opposition to the ordination of female
    priests, citing the practice as being rooted in the practice of Jesus
    and the apostles.

    How can these (male) Bishops speak out against sexism in one breath and
    yet defend the perpetuation of a sexist practice in the next?  As a
    justification of their opposition to female priests, they offer the
    normative historical traditions of their faith.  Despite the fact that
    these traditions arose in another time and culture, the Bishops appeal
    to them nonetheless as the basis for the continuation of an
    anachronistic policy two millennia later.  And yet, the pressure for
    sexual equality in our own time is not something that these men can
    ignore; so they call for greater equality within the church, at least
    on a limited basis.  And thus the bishops struggle with the conflict
    between tradition and evolution.

    Unfortunately, in this struggle the bishops are anything but objective,
    because their very existence as an authoritative body depends on a
    tradition.  To ask them to question any tradition opens up the
    possibility that they might question themselves out of existence.  The
    tradition that they rely upon, of course, is the claim that they have
    inherited an unbroken chain of authority traced back to the apostles
    themselves.  This doctrine of "apostolic succession", along with the
    Roman Catholic doctrine of papal authority (itself based on the claim
    of an unbroken chain of authority that, the argument goes, began with
    St. Peter), serves as the basis for the Roman church's position that it
    is the sole authority on matters of Christian theology.

    This doctrine has important implications for the Catholic self-image. 
    The Church does not consider itself to be merely one denomination among
    many; rather, it claims to be the sole true church, founded by Christ
    himself.  As an agency thus instituted by God, the Church can then
    proclaim that divine authority stands behind all of its doctrinal
    pronouncements.  The argument is that when the Church makes a doctrinal
    determination, none other than the Holy Spirit itself is working
    through it as a body.

    The Church, by claiming to be an instrument of the Holy Spirit, thus
    does allow for ongoing revelation in theology; the Holy Spirit
    continues to work in the contemporary world.  In that sense, then,
    Catholic doctrine has a progressive aspect.  New developments are
    possible in Catholic theology.

    However, in another sense, Catholic tradition is quite reactionary.  It
    is an ancient tradition that the Church appeals to, in the first place,
    to justify its authority.  Furthermore, as the sole repository of
    divine revelation, it does not have the liberty to reverse itself on
    doctrine. Certainly Catholics will admit that the Church has made
    mistakes in matters of practice; but to admit that it had erred on any
    particular doctrine, and worse still to admit that other denominations
    were at the same time correct on the same doctrine, would throw a
    serious monkey wrench into Catholic doctrine.  It would, in fact,
    question the very basis of the Catholic Church's claim to sole
    legitimate authority.  Dissent against Church doctrine, and against the
    Magisterium, then, would seem to be tantamount to dissenting against
    the Holy Spirit. 
 
    The much ballyhooed doctrine of papal infallibility is therefore, I
    believe, really the logical the culmination of traditional Catholic
    doctrine on Church authority.  Catholic apologists are quick to point
    out that the Pope is only infallible on those pronouncements that are
    made ex cathedra, which has only occurred twice since papal
    infallibility was established at the first Vatican Council in 1870. 
    The two "infallible" doctrines thus far, it turns out, both pertain to
    Mary, the mother of Jesus:  the first being the doctrine of Immaculate
    Conception, which claimed that Mary was without sin; and the second
    being the Assumption, which claimed that Mary was taken into heaven,
    body and soul, at the end of her life.

    The rarity of ex cathedra statements by Popes since 1870 is often used
    to demonstrate that papal infallibility has not, in fact, been abused;
    the argument is that Popes have not, in fact, invoked this doctrine to
    impose their impulsive personal theocratic authority on the Church.  In
    general, this is true, although some dissidents might suggest that two
    times is still twice too many.  In any case, it is the Pope himself who
    is the final authority on whether or not one of his pronouncements is
    to be issued ex cathedra.  There are no checks and balances involved
    here; no one has veto authority.  The restriction of papal
    infallibility to ex cathedra statements thus actually implies a further
    infallibility, namely the infallible authority of a pope to decide when
    the he is speaking infallibly. 

    This is an important escape clause for the pope, because otherwise the
    possibility of infallibility for an otherwise fallible human being
    would be caught in an unbreakable logical circle that would prevent the
    pope from ever making an infallible pronouncement in the first place. 
    This also means that, from a Catholic perspective, there is no need to
    use the rarity of ex cathedra pronouncements to demonstrate that papal
    infallibility has not been abused, since, as far as Catholic doctrine
    is concerned, the pope's infallibility on deciding when he is being
    infallible makes him incapable of abusing this authority in the first
    place.

    Catholics may make the additional point that there is a distinction
    between Catholic doctrine and Catholic teaching.  Catholic doctrine,
    they note, is infallible; teachings are contingent, and can be changed. 
    While this distinction is important, the fact remains that the Catholic
    Church believes that it, alone, as an institution, possesses final
    doctrinal authority.  Authority, they believe, rests in the divinely
    sanctioned institution, not in each separate individual.

    This institutional outlook contrasts with the Protestant approach. 
    Protestants believe that the Christian Church transcends any human
    institutions, and therefore deny that any institution has the right to
    claim a divinely sanctioned authority.  Protestants see all
    denominations, or at least those that conform more or less to
    acceptable doctrine, as legitimate institutions within the greater
    Christian Church.  Authority, for Protestants, rests not in an
    institution, but primarily in the Bible.  For fundamentalist
    Protestants in particular, the Bible is the sole authority.

    Resting all authority in a written document leads to its own special
    problems.  Even fundamentalists, as rigid as they are on the issue of
    biblical literalism, are, in fact, anything but monolithic on the
    questions of theology.  God's literal Word may be infallible, but
    believers still can't seem to avoid disagreeing among themselves on how
    to interpret that perfect Word.  For example, some fundamentalists
    (typically Pentacostalists) believe that "speaking in tongues" is a
    gift of the Holy Spirit available to contemporary Christians; other
    fundamentalists, on the other hand, patently reject that claim.  The
    list of doctrinal differences among Protestants is not trivial.  When
    moving outside the realm of fundamentalism, the differences can
    sometimes be significant.

    The multiplicity of Protestant denominations, and the lack of a central
    doctrinal authority among them, is the basis of the Catholic critique
    of Protestantism.  Catholic apologists argue that in relying solely on
    the Bible, rather than a catholic institution, as the source of
    authority, every Protestant in effect becomes their own pope. 
    Protestants might reply that this isn't such a bad thing, that no
    institution should come between the individual and God.

    The difference between the Catholic and the Protestant approaches to
    authority is, then, in whether final infallible authority should lie in
    an institution, or solely in the individual's interpretation of the
    sacred canon.  Both Catholics and Protestants believe that the Holy
    Spirit inspired the writing and the selection of that canon.  The
    question of how to apply that ancient writing to the modern world
    necessarily requires re-interpretation, however.  Catholics believe
    that the Holy Spirit continues to work through an institution (the
    Catholic Church), and, in fact, ensures that this institution will not
    err on doctrine.  Protestants, especially the more conservative ones,
    believe that the Bible speaks for itself as the final doctrinal
    authority.  Protestantism inevitably results in the possibility of
    individual differences of interpretation.  These differences can, and
    often do, fragment the Church.  The more rigid , doctrinaire, and
    fundamentalist the party in a theological dispute tend to be, the more
    certain the individual is that any theological differences are simply
    due to the fact that the other party has interpreted the Bible wrong.

    The Protestant approach to doctrinal authority represents a distrust of
    the power and authority of human beings and human institutions.  Why
    assume, the Protestant might ask, that a human institution, made up of
    fallible human beings, is nevertheless itself infallible on Church
    doctrine?  However, fundamentalist Protestants are prepared to make an
    exception to their belief in human theological fallibility when
    considering those humans who wrote the Bible.  In other words, just as
    Catholics believe that the otherwise fallible pope is infallible when
    he speaks ex cathedra, Protestant fundamentalists believe that certain
    otherwise fallible Biblical authors were writing infallibly when they
    penned the Bible.  Furthermore, it was the Catholic Church as an
    institution which selected which works were to be canonical, a decision
    that fundamentalists also implicitly consider infallible.  

    Both the Protestant and Catholic approaches to authority illustrate the
    need that many people in an uncertain world have for answers to their
    ultimate questions.  This need for a final authority, to which the
    seeker can turn which assurance, can rest, for example, in an
    institution or a document.  And as long as the answers provided are
    reasonably acceptable, there is no reason to question them.  If the
    answers are only occasionally unsatisfactory, probably nothing any more
    serious results than a faint stirring of cognitive dissonance in the
    committed believer.  Only when the conflicts between traditional
    doctrine and rational experience become more severe does the problem of
    authority become acute.

    When theology reaches this acute stage, it becomes impossible to avoid
    at least attempting to resolve the conflict.  Mainline Protestantism
    bravely attempts to cope with the God of the Gaps.  Roman Catholicism
    bravely attempts to cope with the role of women in the church.  The
    issue becomes one of how far to bend without breaking.  Change is
    reluctantly accommodated, but only while insisting that the prevailing
    authority must be maintained.  Like the epicycles added to Ptomelian
    astronomy, the Copernican revolution is stalled.  The result, it seems,
    is that authority ultimately wins.

    Mike,
    	you are incredibly prolific. My printer is still digesting your
    text - I made it through Part I before giving up - but I did note that
    you have dated Christianity as being 2 centuries old. You did mean
    millenium (millenia?), right? Thought so. Onward to read about God the
    Divine Controller.

    Whoops!  You're right, Dave.  That should be two millenia.  :-)
    
    -- Mike

re Note 26.7 by CSC32::M_VALENZA:

>     Whoops!  You're right, Dave.  That should be two millenia.  :-)
    
        I just figured that you must have had one of the VERY
        earliest personal computers!

        (Hey, I've never met you in person.  Perhaps you ARE 1800
        years old! :-)

        Bob

    Mike,
    
    I think you lost your senses when you decided to shelve this
    project.  ;-)  I hope you will consider dusting it off and resuming
    it.  You're onto something important Mike.  Is it possible you
    could send .1 - .5 to me via mail please?  
    
    I'm interesting and currently involved in something somewhat similar.  
    That is exploring why many of the world's great physicists (Einstein, 
    Schroedinger, Heisenberg, Bohr, Eddington, Pauli, de Broglie, Jeans 
    and Planck) became mystics.  I'm finding it fascinating!
    
    Good stuff Mike,
    
    Karen 
    

    Thanks, Karen.  :-)  I would be interested in hearing about your
    explorations in the physics and mysticism.
    
    -- Mike

    You're welcome Mike.  I will forward you the paper I've written
    later today on my study thus far.
    
    Karen.:-)

    Karen,
    
    Could you forward your paper to me too, please?  ;')  Your last paper
    was terrific and as you know has been most helpful to me in my own 
    studies.
    
    Thanks,
    
    Ro
    

    I'd be glad to Ro.  I'll also include my last paper on a look at the 
    religious revival currently happening in western society today.
    
    Thanks for your compliment.  I'm glad the last paper was helpful.
    
    Karen
                                          

    Karen,
    	might it not be better to find it a home in this file? Then we
    could all read it without swamping the oxide offices around the
    country. ;')
    
    	Dave

    
    
    Hey, me too Kb! ;-)  I'd like to read them.

    
    Carole

    Dave -1,
    
    As you suggest, in the spirit of sharing, I will find a home 
    for "it" in this file.  Watch for the open house notice... :-)
    
    Kb

re Note 26.16 by CARTUN::BERGGREN:

>     As you suggest, in the spirit of sharing, I will find a home 
>     for "it" in this file.  Watch for the open house notice... :-)

        If "it" is lengthy, the most appropriate way to distribute
        "it" is not to place "it" directly into the notes conference,
        but rather to put "it" in some directory that anybody can
        access from the network, and then place a pointer to "it" in
        this (or any other) conference.

        Bob

Subject: Vatican warns theologians they have no right of dissent
Date: 26 Jun 90 12:07:21 GMT
 
	VATICAN CITY (UPI) -- The Vatican warned theologians Tuesday they
have no right to dissent from church teaching and should refrain from
using the mass media to propagate their views.
	``To succumb to the temptation of dissent is to allow the leaven of
infidelity to the Holy Spirit to start to work,'' it said.
	The Vatican laid down its rulings in a 23-page document addressed
to all bishops under the title, ``Instruction on the ecclesial vocation
of the theologian.'' It was issued on the orders of Pope John Paul II by
Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith, once known as the Inquisition.
	The document was the Vatican's response to growing dissent among
theologians and some ordinary Catholics, particularly against the
church's rigid teaching on sexual matters such as its ban on artificial
methods of birth control.
	In early 1989, 163 European theologians signed a ``Cologne
Declaration'' challenging the pope's stand on a wide range of moral
issues and protesting against the Church's ``persecution'' of
dissenters.
	Several prominent American theologians have been censured in recent
years for dissent, mainly on sexual issues.
	``By virtue of the divine mandate given to it in the church, the
Magisterium has the mission to set forth the Gospel's teaching, guard
its integrity and thereby protect the faith of the people of God,'' the
document said.
	The Magisterium is described in the Catholic Dictionary as ``the
church's divinely appointed authority to teach the truths of religion.''
	The Vatican document said the theologian must work ``in communion
with the Magisterium, which has been charged with the responsibility of
preserving the deposit of faith.''
	``Even if the doctrine of faith is not in question, the theologian
will not present his own opinions or divergent hypotheses as though they
were non-arguable conclusions ... in any case there should never be a
diminishment of that fundamental openness loyally to accept the teaching
of the Magisterium,'' it said.
	``Standards of conduct appropriate to civil society or the working
of a democracy cannot be purely and simply applied to the church,'' the
document said. ``Polling public opinion to determine the proper thing to
think or do, opposing the Magisterium by exerting the pressure of public
opinion, making the excuse of a consensus among theologians ... all this
indicates a grave loss of the sense of truth and of the sense of the
church.''
	``The theologian should avoid turning to the mass media, but have
recourse to responsible authority, for it is not by seeking to exert the
pressure of public opinion that one contributes to the clarification of
doctrinal issues and renders service to the truth,'' it said.
	``The freedom of the act of faith canot justify a right to
dissent,'' the Vatican ``instruction'' said. It cited arguments used by
theologians to justify dissent in certain cases and said none of them
were valid.
	Among the causes of the ``phenomenon of dissent'' it cited ``the
ideology of philosophical liberalism, which permeates the thinking of
our age.''
	``Here arises the tendency to regard a judgment as having all the
more validity to the extent that it proceeds from the individual relying
upon his own powers,'' it said.
	Hinting that theologians and others who disagree with church
teaching should leave the church, it said, ``the church has always held
that nobody is forced to embrace the faith against his will.''

Article           41
Path: shodha.dec.com!shlump.nac.dec.com!decwrl!looking!clarinews
From: [email protected] (DAVID E. ANDERSON, UPI Religion Writer)
Newsgroups: clari.news.religion,clari.news.features
Subject: Southern Baptist fight getting uglier
Keywords: religion
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 8 Jun 90 05:04:24 GMT
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Location: standing features
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Slugword: religion
Priority: advance
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Note: adv fri june 8
 (595)
 (Commentary)
 
_ _R_e_l_i_g_i_o_n_ _i_n_ _A_m_e_r_i_c_a
	Fundamentalists in the Southern Baptist Convention -- in control of
the denomination's presidency for 11 years and now extending their power
over other board and agencies -- are hailing ``a new day'' in the
church's life.
	But as messengers prepare to gather in New Orleans for the June
12-14 annual meeting of the nation's largest Protestant denomination,
church members might wonder what that ``new day'' will bring.
	There is, for example, Jerry Johnson, pastor of Central Baptist
Church in Aurora, Colo.
	Johnson is the fundamentalists' newest addition to the board of
trustees of Southern Seminary in Louisville, the conveniton's senior
seminary and one of its most prestigious.
	The pastor, who was 14 years old when the fundamentalist takeover
effort was launched and who did not attend a Southern Baptist seminary,
began his term in April with a bang, accusing seminary president Roy
Honeycutt and several faculty members of ``doctrinal infidelity.''
	``One would have to be as blind as a mole not see that Dr.
Honeycutt just does not believe the Bible,'' according to Johnson.
	How do you respond to such charges?
	``Since I learned to read, I cannot recall a time when I didn't
read the Bible, treasure its divine truths and seek to live out its
revelation,'' says the seminary president, who has been involved in the
academic study of the Bible as student, teacher and seminary leader
since 1947.
	But Honeycutt is not the only target of the attacks.
	In glib mockery of the historic Baptist belief in ``soul
competency'' or the ability of individuals to shape their own conscience
through prayer and Bible reading, the fundamentalists are also
threatening to fire Christian ethics professor Paul Simmons, who has
taught at the seminary for 20 years, for ``harm'' done to the school.
	Simmons' sin? He supports the law allowing women to have an
abortion.
	That action followed one by the denomination's Christian Life
Commission in which the trustees told the social action agency's
executive director that he should not invite anyone to speak to CLC
functions on any subject if they also happen to be ``pro-choice.''
	In mid-April, some historians took a look at the Southern Baptist
controversy and noted a loss of tolerance in the denomination that has
grown and thrived on its ``genius for compromise'' and ability to reject
imposed creeds.
	``During the 20th century, Southern Baptists have moved steadily,
if not reluctantly, toward creedalism, all the time insisting that it
was not really happening,'' said Bill Leonard, professor of church
history at embattled Southern Seminary.
	He said broad-based confessions, ``originally used by
denominationalists to preserve unity,'' have increasingly been
interpreted with narrowing, exclusionary specificity to the point where
they are turned into creeds.
	``By 1989, the real question was: How narrowly can the denomination
define itself and still remain intact?''
	And that remains the question as messengers (delegates) prepare for
yet another donnybrook between fundamentalists and moderates at New
Orleans.
	Seminary enrollment is down 14 percent in the last decade and the
number of missionaries sent abroad has declined in each of the last four
years.
	Those trends may represent a ``new day'' but hardly one to be
welcomed by most of the 14.7 million Southern Baptists the convention
claims.
	_a_d_v_ _f_r_i_ _j_u_n_e_ _8


    This note includes the text of "A Call for Reform in the Catholic Church:
    A Pastoral Letter from Catholics Concerned about Fundamental Renewal of
    our Church".  Call to Action is hoping to get 100,000 signatures in
    support of Catholic Church reform.  Call to Action describes itself as
    "Lay people, religious and clergy working together to foster peace,
    justice and love in our world, our church, and ourselves, in the spirit
    of Vatican II and the 1976 Call to Action (U.S. Catholic Bicentennial
    Conference)."  The address is
    
		Call to Action
		3900 N. Lawndale
		Chicago, IL 60618
		(312) 604-0400
    
    The text of the letter is as follows:

        
    In 1990 we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the historic document of
    the Second Vatican Council, "The Church in the Modern World" (Gaudium
    et Spes).  This document clearly turned the face of the church outward,
    and defined its agenda as service to the entire human community.  It
    stressed the importance of the laity bringing Christian values to
    society's dialogue on pressing issues in the home, the workplace and
    the political process.  Today these issues include:

	o  a threatened environment;
	o  growing poverty in a world of affluence;
	o  a plague of drug abuse reflecting deep despair;
	o  scientific advancements confronting us with life decisions
	without ethical principles to guide us;
	o  the need to resolve conflicts among nations, and groups within
	nations, when the temptation to use violence has the potential of
	destroying our planet.
    
    The church should be providing wisdom and encouragement to believers to
    enter the dialogue on these issues.  Unfortunately, today's church is
    crippled by its failure to address fundamental justice issues within its
    own institutional structures.  It thus becomes a stumbling block both to
    its own members and to society.

    We therefore appeal to the institutional church to reform and renew its
    structures.  We also appeal to all the people of God to witness to the
    Spirit who lives within us, and to seek ways to serve the vision of God
    in human society.

    Our call for reform covers many areas of church life.

    We see women experiencing oppression, violence and inequality.  Yet
    Vatican II's "Church in the Modern World" expresses respect for the
    fundamental rights of every person, and asserts that "every type of
    discrimination is to be overcome and eradicated as contrary to God's
    intent."

	We call upon church officials to incorporate women at all levels of
	ministry and decision-making.

    We see many Catholics deprived of the church's sacramental life because
    of the declining number of priests.  In particular, we see Catholics
    denied regular access to the Eucharist, the center of our worship and
    spiritual life.

	We call upon the Church to discard the medieval discipline of
	mandatory priestly celibacy, and to open the priesthood to women and
	married men, including resigned priests, so that the Eucharist may
	continue to be the center of the spiritual life of all Catholics.

    We see very few instances where the people of God are allowed by Church
    authorities to participate in decisions that affect their lives.  Yet in
    1970 Karol Woytyla, now Pope John Paul II, wrote in his book, 'The
    Acting Person':

    "Any authentic community is founded on participation...(Its structure)
    is correct only if it admits that practical effectiveness of opposition
    required by the common good and the right of participation."

	We call for extensive consultation with the Catholic people in
	developing church teaching on human sexuality, just as the U.S.
	bishops invited participation in developing their teaching on social
	justice for the pastoral letters on peace and economic justice.

    We see the pope and the Roman Curia selecting bishops throughout the
    world without input from local churches.  Yet, as stated in the Cologne
    Declaration of 1989 supported by hundreds of theologians from many
    nations, "The procedure of nomination is not some private choice of the
    pope's."

	We claim our responsibility, as committed laity, religious and
	clergy, to participate in the selection of our local bishops, a
	time-honored tradition in the church.

    We see groups marginalized in our church because of race and ethnic
    identity.

	We call for church leadership to speed up the enculturation of
	diverse peoples through new forms of liturgy, language and
	leadership drawn from the native culture of the people.

    We see theologians silenced, constructive opposition condemned, loyalty
    oaths imposed and blind obedience demanded.

	We call for open dialogue, academic freedom, and due process.

    We see church officials conducting financial dealings in secret without
    accountability to the people.

	We call upon the church to become a model of financial openness on
	all levels, including the Vatican.

    We see stalled progress by our church officials toward the reunification
    of Christian churches, even though countless believers of all
    denominations have already shared the experience of an ecumenically open
    church at the local level.

	We call upon our church officials to abandon their resistance on the
	remaining differences that separate the churches, and to translate
	the many results of their ecumenical dialogue commissions into
	serious concrete plans for reunion.

    We see the Vatican downgrading the importance of national bishops'
    conferences.

	We affirm in the U.S. the collegial and collaborative leadership
	style of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, and call upon
	the universal church to affirm this traditional and effective
	exercise of church leadership.

    We see the pain of countless people at the closing of their parishes and
    schools throughout the United States.

	We call for a process that allows all those affected to be heard
	from, and to take part in these decisions.

    We see many young adults and children of Catholic families, who are
    reluctant to affiliate with a Church they view as authoritarian and
    hypocritical.

	We call for a fundamental change so that young people will see and
	hear God living in and through the church as a participatory
	community of believers who practice what they preach.

    Twenty-five years ago Vatican II clarified the mission of "The Church in
    the Modern World": to be a sign of God's saving work and a servant to
    the entire human community.  The world is wracked by terrible
    problems--ecological perils, poverty and injustice, conflict and
    violence.  To be a clearer sign and a better servant to God's global
    family, our church must reform its own structures.  We call on all
    people within our church, in the spirit of co-discipleship and
    co-responsibility, to use their imagination and creativity.  For the
    world's sake, let us make the church more faithful to its mission.

Article          424
Path: shodha.enet.dec.com!bacchus.pa.dec.com!decwrl!looking!clarinews
From: [email protected] (DAVID E. ANDERSON, UPI Religion Writer)
Newsgroups: clari.news.religion,clari.tw.education,clari.news.issues,clari.news.top
Subject: Pope says Catholic scholars must obey church teaching
Keywords: organized religion, religion, higher education, education,
	censorship, social issues
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 25 Sep 90 11:00:38 GMT
Lines: 72
Approved: [email protected]
Xref: shodha.enet.dec.com clari.news.religion:424 clari.tw.education:211 clari.news.issues:545 clari.news.top:1962
ACategory: washington
Slugword: catholics
Priority: major
Format: regular
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Codes: ynrorxx., yndhrxx., ynxerxx.
Note: (adv 6 am edt)
 
 
	WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Pope John Paul II released the Vatican's long-
awaited -- and feared -- norms for Roman Catholic universities and
colleges Tuesday, restricting the range of permissible dissent from
church doctrine.
	Contained in a 49-page Apostolic Constituion, the norms declare that
Catholic colleges and universities must, as part of their identity,
include ``a recognition of and adherence to the teaching authority of
the church in matters of faith and morals.''
	It is the first papal document ever issued for the entire Catholic
higher educational community throughout the world, a system of some 950
colleges and universities, including 230 in the United States.
	The document appears to heighten the local bishop's power to
safeguard doctrinal obedience at centers for higher learning within
their dioceses.
	``The church, accecpting the legitimate autonomy of human culture and
especially of the sciences, recognizes the academic freedom of scholars
in each discipline in accordance with its own principles and proper
methods, and within the confines of the truth and common good,'' the
pope said.
	Earlier drafts of the statement, circulated in 1985 and 1989, were
greeted with alarm and protest by Catholic educators in the United
States, including presidents, adminsitrators, theologians and teachers.
	Catholic education leaders have made a number of trips to Rome in an
effort to forge a compromise between the Vatican's earlier insistence of
strict obedience to its view of doctrinal truth and the role academic
freedom plays in college and university life in the United States.
	In the United States, the Association of Catholic Colleges and
Universities cautiously accepted the document, noting that concerns
raised by U.S. educators had been included in the new text.
Specifically, the document recognizes the institutional autonomy of a
school and the notion of academic freedom.
	Sister Alice Gallin, executive director of the association, called
the new document ``a call to renewal for those who believe in the
distinctive character of a Catholic university.''
	Many of the Catholic institutions of higher learning the United
States receive significant amounts of public and other non-Catholic
funding.
	The University of Dayton, a Catholic school with a 1989 budget of
$123 million -- including $10 million in federal aid and $3.5 million in
Ohio student grants -- was especially concerned about earlier versions of
the Vatican document that severely restricted acadmemic freedom.
	In particular, educators are concerned about the implications of the
church applying canon 812 of the Code of Canon Law (the rules governing
the church), which require Catholic theologians to teach only material
that is approved by the bishops and the Vatican.
	While the new rules do not stress canon 812, it does make use of it
in insisting ``Catholic theologians ... are to be faithful to the
Magesterium (teaching authority) of the church as the authentic
interpreter of sacred Scripture and sacred tradition.''
	It also gives local bishops ``the right and duty to watch over the
preservation and strengthening'' of a school's Catholic ``character''
and the power to ``take the iniatives necessary to resolve'' issues that
might be counter to Catholic teaching.
	A number of incidents in recent years have pitted Catholic scholars
against Vatican teaching.
	In the most celebrated case, the Rev. Charles Curran was stripped of
his ``mandate'' as an official Catholic theoligan while at the Catholic
University of America because of his dissent from official church
teaching on such issues as birth control, abortion, homosexuality and
premarital sex.
	But the church did not invoke canon 812 in the Curran case because it
indicates authorities external to the university can interfere with its
affairs, a violation of academic freedom.
--
This, and all articles in this news hierarchy are Copyright 1990 by the wire 
service or information provider and licenced to Clarinet Communications 
Corp.  for distribution.  Except for free samples, only paid subscribers 
may access these articles.  Any unauthorized access, reproduction or 
transmission is strictly prohibited.  We will reward the first provider of 
information that helps us stop violators of this copyright.  Send reports 
to [email protected].  

    Mike,
    
    I totally support the letter calling for church reformation
    which you posted in .20.
    
    Too bad my signature wouldn't count. :-(
    
    Karen 

    Mike,
    	a favor? Could you cut some of your excerpts down a little? Say by
    replacing the first screen or so with "Header Deleted" ?  It would help
    some of us get to the meat of the entry that much faster without having
    to figure out where it starts. I know, I'm lazy and pathetic, perhaps
    not in that order. At least I'm not apathetic.

    Sorry, Dave.  I'll do that in the future.
    
    -- Mike

Article: 8837
From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: An Unpleasant Experience
Date: 9 Sep 91 03:02:10 GMT
Sender: [email protected]
Organization: University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
 
This posting is about a recent rather unpleasant experience I have had. 
I have been a contributor to soc.religion.christian for a while, a reader for 
much longer period of time so some of you may have seen some of my articles
in the past. I would describe myself as a Pentecostal Christian with a
mildly liberal view of scriptures. The particular demonination I attend is
an Elim church which was formed out the Welsh revival earlier this century.
I have been a member in good standing for several years and have taken an
active role in home group leadership, teaching, and music. Occasionally
I have been called upon to preach.
 
I found myself being regularly attacked in home group this year by a
young single man who held what I considered to be extreme fundamentalist views
of scriptures and tension built up between us. One night he called me and
asked if he could come and see me and I agreed. He came and asked what I
thought the basic problem between us was. I said that our views of 
scripture were different and explained my outlook on the Bible.
He then pulled out his pocket New Testament and read from a passage
in Matthew 18 which says if your brother sins against you, you should go
to him in private and tell him of his sin and if he repents you have gained
a brother but he didn't repent to get witnesses and if he still doesn't 
repent get the elders, and if he still doesn't repent treat him as a tax
collector or sinner. He then declared my views to be sin and called for me
to repent. I declined as gracefully as I could under the circumstances.
Then there came a long period of pointed accusations, I had elevated the
authority of science above that of scripture (because I said scientific
evidence does not support the contention that the world was created in 
six 24 hour days), I had called God a liar (because I did not take the
flood story as literally true whereas in one of the letters of Peter it
says the world was destroyed by a flood), I had elevated the authority
of my intellect above the authority of scripture (because I dared to decide
tht some parts were not to be taken literally), I had destroyed the 
foundations of faith (by not taking the story of Adam and Eve literally)
and therefore I had no faith and therefore could not be a real Christian.
He made his final plee for repentance and again I declined as gracefully as
I could. So he said he would have to proceed with the next step of getting
witnesses and warned me if I did not repent he would seek to have me
excommunicated from the church.
 
After he was gone I has shattered and nearly in tears and did not sleep
much that night. The next day I recieved a phone call from my home group
leader asking me to meet him regarding the young mans' accusations.
I met him for about an hour. I was given a rather thorough but much
gentler grilling. I had to go through the articles of faith of the church
and was questioned closely on each of the twelve articles, my views of
various matters of interpretation were sought. When he had finished I was
a bit rung out and the home leader had close to ten pages of case notes to
work on. He declined to state where he stood on the matter, but would say
that he could not agree with much of what I had said.
 
He then wrote up his notes over the next week and passed them to me for
comment which I did and then returned them to him.
 
The second stage of the excommunication process did not take place
but the matter was refered to the Pastor who felt it was too serious a 
matter to decide on his own and asked the matter to be refered to the eldership.
 
They considered the matter once and then I was called, this time only by 
phone, for a lengthy questioning. Every aspect of my life and motivation
was questioned, was I seeking to secretly destroy peoples faith, did I
live an immoral life, was my worship just a external show so that I could
attack the weak in faith. When I asked if I could be told at what stage
things were at and how the elders saw things I was refused. I continued to
be phoned a regular intervals for several weeks to be asked more questions.
 
The elders met a second time to consider the matter again. They reached
a decision and I was called in to see the Pastor and my home group leader.
At this stage I had begun to fear the worst. I need not have. They proceed
to tell me that I had passed the essential doctrinal test with flying 
colours and  my manner of life and worship were above suspicion. I felt
somewhat releived to hear that. But then the matter of non-literal 
interpretation of the scripture came up and they felt that my views were
sufficiently out of line with the type of church Elim is that they could
not be officially tolerated. So they were imposing a ban on any teaching
in an authoritative capacity, no leading of studies in home group, no
Sunday school teaching, no communion leading, no preaching and so on.
I told them that I felt this was a very sad thing to happen, as up until
that time my teaching had been held in high regard by everyone who heard
me. I appealled to the ``by their fruits you shall know them'' principle
and asked them to consider my track record. They acknowledged my past 
contribution but felt I was too dangerous to allow to continue.
 
There was little more that could be said, I accepted the decision 
reluctantly and left.  At the moment I feel a little deflated and
I will have to carefully consider what to do now. I have no intention
of leaving the church but realize that my ability to contribute to the
life of church has been greatly restricted.  The other main protagonist
is currently away for two weeks and will be informed of the elders decision
when he returns. The total time from initial accusation to resolution was
slightly over five weeks.
 
I have in the past been in two churchs which have split apart. In the first
instance I has the only person respected and listened to by both factions
and I worked hard to prevent the split but failed. In that case I saw little
of the anger between the two factions for I always met with them 
seperately. In the second case I had no knowledge of the impending split 
until it happened. This is the first time that I have seen first hand that 
incandescent zeal for truth coupled with intolerance which splits churchs 
apart and causes deep divisions between brothers. It is a frightening 
experience. I am glad that they do not burn people at the stake for heresy 
today.
-- 
                                                                     ___
Bill Rea                                                            (o o)
-------------------------------------------------------------------w--U--w---
| Bill Rea, University of Canterbury, | E-Mail   [email protected] |
| Christchurch, New Zealand           | Phone (03)-642-331 Fax (03)-642-999 |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: .25  Mike

> I have no intention of leaving the church...

This is what I don't understand.  Why would this guy want to stay in a church
like that?  Sounds to me like it's time to shake the dust off his feet...

				-- Bob

	RE: .25 I too would leave that church. Not that I think the limits
	his church placed on him are unreasonable. Clearly they are quite
	fair and reasonable. To allow him to preach things contrary to the
	accepted doctrine of the church would be irresponsible. If he wants
	to I would have to doubt his motives. He should attend where he can
	be supportive.

			Alfred

    
    I want to say something about how I feel about .25 but just cannot
    formulate it into words very well.  How destructive this approach is.  It's
    like Big Brother watching over your shoulder all the time.  What
    a misuse of the bible (IMO)!  I bet God is sorry that that book
    was ever put together.
    
    Carole

    Many of us are very uncomfortably with the treatment you have received.
    It seems to be tainted with Phariseeism as presented. 
    	Your views seem to be honestly held, so it come down to a contest
    of positions. The hard fundamentalist position seems safe in that it
    places faith above reason, but its actually IMHO a sign of weak faith-
    a faith that can't tolerate questioning.
    	Unfortunately, saying I believe the bible literally word for word
    means according to my preconceptions and prejudices.
    	If you let the bible define its own terms and context and
    recognize that truth can't be arrived without the Spirit of Truth, you
    will be on safe ground.
    	As time goes by more and more of the bible history is being
    confirmed by archaeology etc. Things that were offered a prime
    evidence of biblical inaccuracy have been shown to be false.
    	I studied enough Geology to be rather cynical of its
    pronouncements. Whether it should even be called a science at all is
    open to question with me.... I'll offer a couple of examples.
    At historical rat of sedimentation the Nile river would completely
    fill the Mediterranean basin in only about 250,000 years. Worldwide,
    river delta's show an age of only 3-4,000 years.
    
    
    john
    

    Continuing this discussion from topic 335...
    
    Jeff, I know that you believe there is "ONE Truth and ONE Church,
    that has the crystal clear Truth" (that church, of course, being the
    Roman Catholic Church).  I don't accept your premise, but I stated
    already that I find you conclusion consistent with your premise.  You
    seem bent on justifying your premise to me, for some reason.  If you
    believe that the Roman Catholic Church is really the repository of the
    final Truth, then it is probably a good thing that you are a member.

    I also agree with you on the importance of studying the great thinkers
    of the past when trying to formulating one's own views.  In fact, I
    believe that one of the values in seriously studying of the history of
    philosophy, and the interplay of ideas, is that it has the potential of
    helping one to overcome what Whitehead called "the dogmatic fallacy".  
    You can claim, if you wish, that  the Church can "prove" other churches
    wrong by "reason"; personally, I think that is rather optimistic.  It
    reminds me of August Comte's confidence in positivism, in which he
    believed in the power of pure reason and empiricism to resolve issues
    surrounding strongly value-laden issues. 

    I read Aquinas with the same critical but interested eye that I read
    anyone else.  If you want to suggest that I am wrong about my
    theological views because my "opinions, habits, lifestyle, etc." have
    interfered with my reasoning, you can.  Perhaps it is so, although I
    would suggest that the same can be said of anyone, including you,
    including those who formulate Roman Catholic doctrine.  It comes with
    the territory of being human, and quoting Aquinas to justify one
    institutions self-serving claim of infallibility does not change that
    fact.  In fact, the idea that "virtue is knowledge" is at least as old
    as Plato, and is interesting, but like so many other philosophical
    assertions (including the notion of "Natural Law"), is also debatable.

    One problem here is that we disagree over epistemology.  What you are
    apparently advocating is a correspondence theory of truth. Philosophy
    is one discipline that generally has a hard time claiming for itself a
    sense of dogmatic certainty, although many have tried, and many have
    tried to establish a program for achieving this elusive end (for
    example, Immanual Kant in his "Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics"). 
    However, in some cases I lean towards Karl Popper's concept of
    verisimilitude, although I am not sure how much this applies to moral
    philosophy.  This comes up in your assertion that those who reject the
    concept of an authoritative institution or document that defines
    matters of theology "should not even be a Church because their teaching
    is strictly their opinion that is not based on anything, because
    nothing is true"; that is very much contrary to what my denominational
    affiliation is all about.
    
    Even the Catholic Church claims to come to its conclusions through a
    process of reason; the act of discovering what is true and what is not
    is a process, and in no way implies that "nothing is true".  The
    question is not whether or not anything is true, but how we frail human
    beings arrive at what we come to know.  What is at stake is whether any
    document or institution can claim infallibility for itself, not whether
    anything is true or not.  Where I agree with Popper is in his
    conception of verisimilitude as applied to at least certain aspects of
    human understanding; unlike Feyerabend, I don't believe that human
    knowledge travels in circles.  In the case of moral philosophy, it gets
    very complicated, but I think that dogmatic finality is even more
    difficult or achieve.  I do believe that in many cases our knowledge
    and understanding can progress.  Even if we seem to return to earlier
    ideas, it is with a newer understanding.  But I am convinced that this
    process requires full academic and intellectual freedom, in order to
    work.
    
    Certainly this freedom for people to think for themselves comes with
    the risk that they can be wrong about things; but the point is that, if
    you reject the idea that any human institution is infallible, then that
    institution that would otherwise suppress dissent has just as much
    potential for being wrong.  That is the argument for academic freedom. 
    A positivistic confidence in the power of reason to achieve certainty
    on moral issues has not proved successful in any of the humanities,
    although the Catholic Church would like to claim success for itself in
    the realm of theology.  The fact that the Church may have once examined
    an issue, and thus declared the matter "settled", is irrelevant; in the
    history of ideas, many so-called "settled" issues are later returned to
    in the light of new information or new paradigms.

    If you want to believe in an infallible institution (or document) as a
    source of truth in some domain of understanding, then yes, of course,
    the concepts of verisimilitude and intellectual freedom are meaningless
    in that realm.  But the point is that not everyone accepts that
    premise; they see the world in different terms that you do.  Claiming
    that non-creedal denominations that reject infallibility "should not
    even be a Church" really reflects your own faith paradigm, and does not
    reflect the fact that other denominations (including the one I belong
    to) may operate under a different mode of understanding.  Telling my
    denomination that it has no right to exist, is, I think, rather
    presumptuous, and I take exception to that assertion.

    -- Mike

    Hi Mike,
    
    I'm sorry if I seemed "bent" on justifying my premise to you Mike, 
    it was not intended.  Its just when I get into these dicussions I
    do not like to mess around, I find it easier to just make my point
    complete and leave it at that.
    
    From your reply its pretty obivious we come from two totally different
    directions when it comes to the discussions of what Church is.  I do
    respect your opinion, which was very well stated in your last reply.
    I don't agree with it, but after seeing the last few replies it seems
    you have it "bent" to make this into a rathole when I never intended
    one.  I think it would be best to let this arguement end here.
    
    I'm sorry if I offended your Church, it was not intended.  I was only
    arguing from my point of view that if a place does not have a
    infalliable truth somewhere in their doctrine that place is not really
    considered a Church because their teaching is not based in any kind of 
    certainty.  Its only a name however, and I should not be the one to
    decide what qualifications makes a Church and what does not.
    
    Peace be with you,
    
    Jeff

    Okay, Jeff, fair enough.
    
    -- Mike

re Note 26.31 by NEMAIL::WATERS:

>     I was only
>     arguing from my point of view that if a place does not have a
>     infalliable truth somewhere in their doctrine that place is not really
>     considered a Church because their teaching is not based in any kind of 
>     certainty.  

        I personally believe that Christ proclaimed a radically
        different view of what "truth" is.  Truth, ultimately, is not
        a proposition;  it is not something that can be represented
        (fully) in a set of doctrines.

        Truth, ultimately, is God's existence.  Period.  "I am ...
        the truth ...."

        I believe that every theological (i.e., God-based)
        institution has an "infallible truth somewhere" (although
        not, as you suggest, in their doctrine).

        Bob

        P.S. to Mike:  I am in awe of your philosophical fluency!  I
        know nothing of philosophy.  I suspect that the above
        represents some approach that has been much better explored,
        and perhaps even demolished, by philosophers and theologians
        over the centuries.

    Thanks, Bob.  To be honest, I think my fluency is limited to certain
    very specialized areas; any true philospher would show me up in no
    time.   
    
    -- Mike

    I ran across the following interesting passage.  It comes from a recent
    book by Hilary Putnam, who had been a pioneer in the functionalist
    theory of the human mind (this theory attempted to model the human mind
    on the computer).  Although this theory still has a following, Putnam
    himself views the matter differently now:

        I am, thus, as I have done on more than one occasion, criticizing a
        view I myself earlier advanced.  Strangely enough, there are
        philosophers who criticize me for doing this.  The fact that I
        change my mind in philosophy has been viewed as a character defect. 
        When I am lighthearted, I retort that it might be that I change my
        mind so often because I make mistakes, and that other philosophers
        don't change *their* minds because *they* simply never make
        mistakes.  But I should like now, for once, to say something
        serious about this.  I have never forgotten the conversations I had
        with Rudolf Carnap in the years 1953--1955, and in particular, I
        have never forgotten how Carnap--a great philosopher who had an
        aura of integrity and seriousness which was almost
        overwhelming--would stress that he had changed his mind on
        philosophical issues, and changed it more than once.   "I used to
        think...I *now* think" was a sentence construction that was ever on
        Carnap's lips.  And, of course, Russell, who influenced Carnap as
        Carnap influenced me, was also criticized for changing his mind. 
        Although I do not now agree with Carnap's doctrines of any
        particular period, for me Carnap is still the outstanding example
        of a human being who puts the search for truth higher than personal
        vanity.  A philosopher's job is not to produce a view X and then,
        if possible, to become universally known as "Mr. View X" or "Ms.
        View X."  If philosophical investigations (a phrase made famous by
        another philosopher who "changed his mind") contribute to the
        thousands-of-years-old dialogue which is philosophy, if they deepen
        our understanding of the riddles we refer to as "philosophical
        problems," then the philosopher who conducts those investigations
        is doing the job right.  Philosophy is not a subject that
        eventuates final solutions, and the discovery that the latest
        view--no matter if one produced it oneself--*still* does not clear
        away the mystery is characteristic of the work, when the work is
        well done.  I could add that what I just described as "changing my
        mind" is not a matter of "conversion" from one view to another; it
        is rather a matter of being torn between opposing views of the
        nature of philosophy itself.  When I was a "scientific realist," I
        felt deeply troubled by the difficulties with scientific realism;
        having given up scientific realism, I am still tremendously aware
        of what is appealing about the scientific realist conception of
        philosophy. 	("Representation and Reality", pp. xi-xii)

    Thanks for putting that in, Mike.  I enjoyed it very much.
    
    j