The Priest in a Secularized Society

Your interpretation of deconstruction (and not “deconstructionism”, by the way) is so naive, I think. Derrida never rejected the practicality of local epistemological systems that are trustable. He merely suggests, and demonstrates, that the more we are removed from the original locale in which the said epistemological system was constructed, the more difficult it is to make coherent and trustable theorem-statements inside of it. This is derived from the basic hypotheses of language theory which you seem to completely overlook. Read Eco. Read Chomsky. Read Godel. Re-read Derrida. Please.

Also, your dismissal of perennial philosophy is just shocking. Especially since you suggest that a simple book-reading will convince anyone that religions could not possibly be the expression of the same metaphysical reality. I, for one, have done a lot of comparative study of religious texts and I have not been convinced of that at all. Just look at sufism vs. chan buddhism vs. kabbala vs. christian mysticism.

All in all, I have been reading you for some time and your irrational fear of such ideas (that are not new by the way, just newly articulated) seems to me like the symptom of an important deficit in the faith department. Faith is much closer to hope than certainty, and much better served by some kind monist relativism than the dualist positivism you seem to endorse.

Anyways, that’s my two cents. May the Holy Spirit be with us all.

Vincent,

I don’t recall dismissing perennial philosophy at all, if by “perennial philosophy” you mean Aristotle and St. Thomas. Personally, I don’t dismiss it, but I think it is fair to say that the post-modern West certainly has (and that was my point, echoing Adams).

Regarding religions being expressions of the same metaphysical reality, of course they are, in the sense that they draw their source from the same quest. As a Catholic I have no problem with that idea, thanks to our doctrine of the “logos spermatikos” (the “seeds of the word” found in creation itself). That being said, while they are expressions of the same metaphysical reality, they *are* different expressions! Resurrection and reincarnation are mutually exclusive realities, for example.

John Hick tried to reconcile the world religions in his work, and he discovered that the only thing they can be truly said to have in common is something called “Ultimate Reality” – not even God is universally common. Those who seek universalism behind religions often wind up trying to define those religions for the people who practice them.

Regarding Derrida and deconstruction in general, the simple fact is that there is a difference between the originator of the approach and how it has been lived as a received idea. That’s why I tend to add the -ism at the end, because I find that what could be a strict academic approach to literary analysis has become a kind of universal pattern of thought for many. I don’t recall mentioning Derrida by name once. But deconstruction, in the way it has been lived in academia, has in many cases turned into a soup of (non)meaning. The story of Alan Sokal’s submission to the journal Social Text is a good example.

In fact, I think that deconstruction is something that arises precisely *because* the West has rejected Aristotle and St. Thomas. The whole manner of defining words is different from a Realist perspective, which respects the analogy of words, rather than from a more Idealist perspective which seeks the commonality of meaning behind the uses of the words. Even the approach to the plurality of religions is very different when you approach it from an Idealist vs. Realist perspective.

Finally, I didn’t get the part about irrational fear. What am I afraid of? And how is that fear irrational? I actually consider myself a pretty hopeful guy!

And yes, may the Holy Spirit be with us all!

OK, let’s get back to what you said, in order, then. Let me know if you DIDN’T say any of the following (because they are all false) :

- Deconstruction is a dimension of “rejection of thruth”.

- In a conjuncture of “intellectual market”, an intellectual agent will tend to start with the easiest, simplest meta-narrative. (And it’s not good.)

- You cannot do theology in general, you have to start from a tradition.

- It’s actually an empirically verifiable fact. You can go and read the books of the various religion, and you can see whether or not they say the same thing. And anybody who does the study knows that they don’t.

And then there is your tone, from which I get the “fear” thing. I won’t argue over that. But you certainly don’t “sound” hopeful to me. At all. The Mac-Donald part with the turban-and-what-have-you-people thing is, well, low in hopefulness. At best… And how would you qualify the apocalyptic-godlessness-is-more-than-ever-everywhere impression that transpires from everything you say and write? I’m a roman catholic. I love the Church, its history, its tradition and its evolution. I also recognize that the human part of it has been wrong many times in the past and that it is probably wrong on a lot of things today. But I’m also human. And I love humanity, its history, its traditions and its evolution just the same. So I trust that the discussion in the cafeteria, to use your favorite metaphor, will lead us to a renewal of the meaning we attach to fundamental notions like God, good, truth, etc. And I believe that this renewal will owe a lot to the cafeteria conjuncture. But for you to come and join us in the said cafeteria would mean to pick up a slimy tray and get dirty like everyone else. Partying in the cafeteria requires more humility than doing it in the cathedral in full robes. But intellectual humility and the ability to doubt, to listen without debating is key here, and I don’t sense that with you. Apologetics is sooo what we DON’T need.

Finally, if you look at it closely, resurrection and reincarnation are NOT mutually exclusive realities. They are merely two geometries (one hyperbolic-like, one euclidian-linear-like) of the same dimensions : principle and finality. But you’d need some studying of both and of the notion of what geometry really is to get it. See, here, I would be the one who’d argue that you took the “easy” path (resurrection and reincarnation are mutually exclusive realities) to retrofit the whole thing in your own meta-narrative.

Unless a miracle happens, this is the kind of conversation that will lead one of us treating the other of nazi or such. It was weak from me to start it. But I get all choked up when I read/hear a brother talking like you do.

Hopefully, this crisis will end some time before there is no one left alive.

Hello Vincent,

There is so much packed into your last comment, I would not even know where to begin to respond. In fact, I don’t even know that I should – you wrote that you’d prefer I listen rather than debate. So I’m listening.

Still, please understand that this blog is a public forum, and I have a responsibility to the other readers to respond to issues where I believe there is an important lack of clarity. If I say “reincarnation and resurrection are mutually exclusive” and you say they aren’t, well only one of us can be right (unless we are using the words themselves differently). The fact of this exchange between us, however, now raises questions in the minds of readers, and if we have raised the questions we have a duty to try and help others find answers. Were we conversing in a private forum, say over coffee or email, the tone could be quite different.

Rest assured, I will never call you a Nazi!

Really? So let’s skip right away to the part where I (still) believe that you’ll see me as a nazi or a secular extremist or anything you please. You may not express it explicitly, but I know that’s the kind of thing you pulled up in the past in similar situations.

The problem is a little more complex than mere semantic agreement over a certain number of words. Some propositions (sentences with more than one word) are to be promoted as axioms before there can even be a discussion. You need those axioms because some arguments for or against them have ceased to produce meaningful dialogue a long time ago. Here are some examples of such axioms, not necessarily related to theology :

1) Human activity causes global climate disturbances.

2) Smoking tobacco is bad for your health.

3) Humanity is not a discontinuity in the biological evolution that started on Earth with the “pre-biotic soup”.

Of course, you can always want to discuss these, but don’t be surprised if most of the people around you refuse to engage in an argument on the legitimate basis that they have long ceased to be enriched by it.

So besides #3, which is a corollary of the following B), in order of importance, here are some non-negociable theological axioms that the “council in the cafeteria” universally acknowledges (accepting them is what I mean by “picking up a slimy tray”) :

A) No science studies reality as it is. All sciences (including theology) are merely articulations of how we would like reality to be.

B) There is no evidence for any kind of punctual intervention of the divine.

C) All theological “spaces” are isomorphic and for each two religions, there exist a mapping between all their respective theological objects.

And then, from those axioms, it is possible to derive important theorems :

THEOREM1 : Per A) Truth is a convention of knowledge validity. Since conventions are being defined only for a given local and temporal context, truth is therefore morphologically an unstable thing. Historically, knowledge conventions have only been challenged by bringing up new models that gathered a broader consensus. The Church’s councils are actually a good example of that. Since more and more people are educated and able to formulate an opinion, the process of consensus gathering resembles that of democracy (again, a principle from which the “œcumenism” of the councils was drawn). In that context, the term “revelation” refers to anything that significantly helps to articulate our “models” of reality. And there are many examples of texts that quietly ceased to be part of the Judeo-Christian “revelation” (eg : Jephthah burning his daughter, Judges 11:29-40).

THEOREM2 : Per B), theology is the only science where God (or the divine) is a necessary hypothesis or object. Whenever it is available and coherent with the current scientific episteme, any hypothesis other than God or the divine is preferable, rendering a previous theist hypothesis unnecessary. Whenever a theist hypothesis becomes unnecessary, theology must yield to the phenomenological science(s) that produced the replacing hypothesis.

THEOREM3 : Per C), conversion roughly amounts to changing one’s mother tongue, which, of course, is pointless, most of the time.

THEOREM4 : From THEOREM2 : Besides the fact that consciousness (other than the observer’s) cannot be demonstrated or experienced, discoveries in the cognitive sciences (psychiatry, psychology, computer science, etc.) have greatly diminished (if not totally eradicated) the whole concept of volition. This lead to a moral relativism that is very similar to what THEOREM1 is to science. The most important result that followed was that most genetic, economic, cultural and sexual criteria cannot be a priori taken into account when denying one’s opportunities or responsibilities. This is the fundamental theorem of civilization (in any culture, not just in the christian world). Something is good when it “maximizes” civilization. Nothing is above this : the Church (and all its institutions) is subject to civilization as much as it is an agent of civilization, just like any instance of corporate or governmental authority.

And it goes on like this for as long as you wish. Again, I don’t think the conversation can evolve in a nice way here. Maybe we can sit and talk about this? Theology goes so well with some San Pellegrino on the rocks! Ha! After the San Pellegrino, you can write anything you want in here for the people you think you owe answers to.

Hello Vincent,

Trust me, I won’t call you a Nazi short of you joining the Nazi party.

Your most recent comment is very enlightening regarding your point of view, particularly the “axioms” bit. Yes, indeed, for any conversation to have meaning there has to be a certain agreement on the terms of reference.

That being said, I think it is fair to say that I disagree with your terms of reference. You call them “non-negotiable theological axioms”, but that is precisely where I have a problem. If these are non-negotiable, then they are points of view taken, basically, on faith. Alternative points of view are also possible.

For example, one of your stated axioms is: “There is no evidence for any kind of punctual intervention of the divine.” I would counter that there is plenty of evidence — where people differ is in the interpretation of that evidence. Examples include:

i) The Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano

ii) The phenomenon of incorruptibility of the bodies of various persons widely acknowledged as holy.

iii) Numerous reports of spontaneous, inexplicable, and total healings of people with grave and incurable illnesses, many of which have been verified by medical panels which included atheist doctors (several such reports have been produced in connection with the healings in Lourdes, France, for example).

So the evidence is there. Of course, it is possible to simply explain it away by stating it was all due to natural processes that are currently unknown. I’m open to that, in that I don’t think faith should necessarily rest on the fantastic. On the other hand, though, I must admit that the most reasonable explanation for these phenomenon would seem to be a direct intervention from God. I simply cannot imagine another explanation of how a piece of bread could spontaneously change into a piece of heart muscle. Any other explanation would also have to be taken, essentially, on faith.

And so it goes.

I’m not a big fan of San Pellegrino, but if you don’t mind me having a good single-malt instead I’d be happy to connect. I’ll email you.

OK for the nazi thing. I won’t mention it again. I’ll be waiting for your email.

You can’t continue your discussion here? Others were reading, y’know….

Yes, do continue your discussion here…I’m one interested reader.

I’m not sure if this is the continuation of the discussion or not, but I’ve recently been reading (shall I say started to read, for it is a huge book) A Secular Age by Charles Taylor. Two quotes:

A Shift In Background
“It is this shift in background, in the whole context in which we experience and search for fullness that I am calling the coming of a secular age….How did we move from a condition where, in Christendom, people lived naively within a theistic construal, to one in which we all shunt between two stances, in which everyone’s construal shows up as such; and in which, moreover, unbelief has become for many the major default option?…We have to understand the differences between these two options not just in terms of creeds, but also in terms of differences of experience and sensibility. And on this latter level, we have to take account of two important differences: first, there is the massive change in the whole background of belief or unbelief, that is the passing to the earlier “naïve framework, and the rise of the “reflective” one. And secondly we have to be aware of how believers and unbelievers can experience their world very differently….We have moved from a world in which the place of fullness was understood as unproblematically outside of “beyond” human life, to a conflicted age in which this construal is challenged by others which place it (in a wide range of different ways) “within” human life.”

And another quote:

“I will be making a continuing polemic against what I call “subtraction stories”. Concisely put, I mean by this stories of modernity in general, and secularity in particular, which explain them by human beings having lost, or sloughed off, or liberated themselves from certain earlier confining horizons , or illusions, or limitations of knowledge. What emerges from this process –modernity or secularity – is to be understood in terms of underlying features of human nature which were there all along, but had been impeded by what is now set aside. Against this kind of story, I will steadily be arguing that Western modernity, including its secularity, is the fruit of new inventions, newly constructed self-understandings and related practices, and can’t be explained in terms of perennial features of human life.”

My point in introducing the two quotes in this context is (1) to question Fr.Dowd whether his talk on secularity fell into the trap of “subtraction stories” and (2) to introduce you to a book that takes a looooooong look at why belief in God isn’t quite the same thing in 1500 and 2000.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.