“To the extent that we can succeed in being authentic,
as people and as cultures—succeed in creating
political forms or governments that allow people
and groups to flourish that way—we will have
a greater fullness than what people had
in the old age of enchantment.”
- charles taylor
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
19 comments:
jh,
St. Paul said much the same in 1 Cor 13:11-12, although in somewhat different contexts.
1 Cor 13:11 is about maturing, setting aside childish reasoning (the parallel here would be reasoning that was based on perceiving the world in an idyllic, enchanted way) in favor of a adult reasoning (based on more realistic, i.e., authentic, perceptions).
1 Cor 13:12 is about the passage from this life to new life, in which the God we perceive as hidden or veiled (a kind of negative enchantment) because suddenly and fully known.
It seems to me that there is a common theme here. And that is that we lead ourselves astray by creating idealized worlds, and reasoning as though those idealized worlds are real and achievable; and in so doing, we neglect the true potential of the real world. Certainly, once sees a lot of this kind of error in partisan discussions.
Bonhoeffer developed a very similar theme in "Life Together," in which he argued that we must continuously identify the ideal church in our minds, so as to kill it. It is only the real church in which Christian life can be lived.
I like this quote.
Sigh. "because" -> "becomes." I feel as if I'm losing my mind, and/or the once reliable connection between my brain and my fingers.
hi stu
your comment makes me want to
continue reading Life Together
i started it last christmas
but got side tracked by other books
maybe i will pick it up again now
i know there is a buddhist saying
"if you see the buddha, kill him"
the meaning of this saying
was explained to me recently
and i can't remember it now (sigh)
but maybe it was something similar
to what bonhoeffer was saying
Bonhoeffer--now, there's the enchanted life. (well, at least until imprisoned by nazis and strung up on...piano wire). Alas--if you still permit a few nano-seconds of dissent-- jh I find Doc Taylor a bit naive--Hegelians are supposed to be..somewhat opposed to utopians, are they not (as was say ..Dr Percy in a different way).
Hola S.
Hola J
i'm on the road
using other people's computers
still reading taylor
what taylor refers to is the tendency in catholic thought to allow for huge arenas of religious imagination
one way there was teaching about faith was to perpetuate this world of heaven earth and hell as the cosmos we know
today is the feast of all saints
i think it was the wisdom of the faithful in catholic circles to cultivate and appreciation for the saints for heros for hig steppin it in heaven a big party tonite all the saints jivin to duke ellington
that sort of thing
the enchantment taylor refers to is the enchantment that gave rise to great painting great works fo archetceture great images of sculpted beauty great legends and stories about heroes and villains
the enchantment that attended the age of chivalry the enchantment that gave rise to people like tolkein...and to a lesser extent cs lewis
taylor sees the surge of reason snuffing out or nearly so the religious imagination at least for reform minded christians and teh rise fo humanist atheism is the complete turning away from anything suspect of being superstitious like all religious thinking for instance
he does sort of work the whole schema out in hegelian terms positing the thesis of RCC and the antithesis of the reformation resulting in perhaps a new and more vibrant synthesis...he holds out some hope
i have this rich picture in my mind this very instant of all the saints gathered round smiling and cheering us on
i guffaw at rational efforts to disabuse me of my vision
down with hollywood
down down down with it all
it is the monster of deceit
only the saints will save us...as warriors of the lord
help us blessed edith stein help us
amen
jh
Wow. I was not aware of the fate of Edith Stein.
Heidegger probably had something to do with her arrest. (and Husserl doesn't look entirely innocent).
Tho'....events such as that do not exactly confirm one's faith.
au contraire dude
faith is truly faith
in the face of irreducible odds
edith apprehended something
something subtle and brilliant
something essential
and that was her faith
because she lived thought witnessed and died
she gives me courage to do the same
time is a jet plane
it moves too fast
jh
and for her conversion (and others as well)...she's rounded up by the nazis and..gassed.
I forget the official RC line on .."the problem of evil" (per Plantinga)--something like God allowed Hitler and Stalin and WWII as a test of faith,and to prove valor or something.
edith stein was killed as a jew
yet she was never ashamed of her jewishness...and she went as a follower of christ
a brother in her faith
she
a 20th century witness if ever there were one
i don't think there is a catholic line concerning why god permitted 20th century implosions of civilization
the catholic line has always been
god permits for free will
if that free will becomes expressed in terms of megolamania
well so be it
let's hope people learn a lesson or two
again i think the phenomenon of human evil from the very private sort to the collective movement of ethnicide is merely the result of stupidity a genuine lack of understanding
and who is going to resolve that dilemma
seems endemic
jh
yve probably heard the skeptical chestnuts (and theological ones) ad nauseum yet wouldn't a monotheistic Being know a priori as it were what his creature Humanity will do, sort of like a mad scientist would who builds robots in his garage? So let's grant..He exists and sets the parameters for free will (or..some degree of freedom)..yet given omniscience, doesn't He know what will happen --human and natural history itself?? (including Hitler) So..a Voltaire might say that seems to implicate the traditional, loving "God" in the..greatest crimes against humanity (indistinguishable from..the Devil). So ...one changes the definition...or some return the ticket.
god being god has contended with those who believe they are as powerful as god since time since humanity began
a good read of a 20th century overview of european megalomania is
michael burleigh's --sacred causes
man should not presume to know what god knows
god seems to work best through human love
when human love is absent from the march of culture when other values are put in its place
then god appears as christ on the cross hands nailed
what are you going to do?
maybe god has second thoughts about granting humanity free-will
i like to think he trusts us to get it right eventually
when that will be is up to us
love is the seventh wave
jh
my point however quotidian may be more applicable to the Calvinist-prot. conception of God (who supposedly does know all--predestination). "Nobodaddy" as Blake called him IIRC
Catholic tradition is a bit more mysterious and the Aristotelian elements....nearly suggest polytheism of a sort IMO (ie. ..or per hindus..the asuras and devas sort of battle it out over centuries,and at times a darker figure..Shamsan Kali, pissed for some reason, shakes her ass and sends an order to the ..gremlins in charge of the earth's tectonic plates, and..tsunamis roll. Hardly any weirder than saying natural disasters are due to original sin, as Plantinga and others in the theo-biz have ).
J,
I'm with you on predestination. It makes for a sterile, mechanistic faith. Although I like baroque music better than Jazz, I think it is better and more fruitful to think of God as the leader of a Jazz ensemble, and we his unruly band, than to think of him as an orchestral composer/conductor, and we as simply playing the scores that he wrote for us, in time with the beat he provides.
There is action and reaction in the dance between God and man: real action, and real reaction, not just a three-stooges farce. And as much as there is evil in the world, I tend to the opinion that religious views of Satan represent theological projection: we take the selfishness and disobedience of our own hearts, and we project it onto a mythical enemy of God and ourselves, and ourselves into to role of unwitting/unwilling victims of this external demon of our own creation. But we're the ones who disobey, and we're the one's that put our desires over our neighbor's needs. The devil on our shoulder speaks with our voice.
That may occur, but....what about Hitler and Stalin, etc. Not merely projection (certainly not to Edith Steins people--) And what about natural disasters, tidal waves, earthquakes etc? I wager many people would question their faith were their..relatives washed away in a tsunami--(not just dying, but slowly drowning, gnawed on by a shark etc). Sounds ..preposterous but its the religious people who insist that God pulls the strings behind natural phenomena (eg, Robertson barking that the Haiti quake was the work of God--to punish France or some BS). In those cases, Kali will do as well as JHVH ..or the devil
j makes an interesting observation
what are we to say then with the age old utility phrase - an act of god - that nearly universal notion that immense acts of natural destruction do refer somehow to a power we liken to being something only god has
what we know about edith stein is that she studied she used her mind to attempt to grasp the mysteries of religion and she did it successfully...in her heart i suppose there was fear when she died but i suspect too that her faith in christ allowed her solace that is generally unheard of but i think it is fairly common none the less
to presume to know why god does something is another matter altogether...i have a friend who is convinced that the aids epidemic was so intense in haiti that the earthquake had to happen....all that death and suffering shook the island
i stand back and wonder when i hear things like that but at the same time i am fascinated by the logic
sorry i got to this so late
jh
Post a Comment