The Efficacious Christian Faith of Children

Some in our ambit have worried that a faith that can be comprehended only by way of years of study on abstruse theological and metaphysical topics cannot eo ipso be efficacious for ordinary people who have no time or inclination for such things; have suggested that, surely, God would have opened the portal of salvation even to those ready only for spiritual milk (I Corinthians 3:2), or even only for pap. They have on these grounds criticized classical Christian theology of God (as eternal, omniscient, and so forth), arguing that such notions as omnipotence are beyond the ken of most believers.

As indeed they seem to be. Does that matter to Christian theology? What is far more, does it matter to Christian life? I.e., is Christian theology beside the point, or worse, ruining the project of salvation in Christ?

Philosophical Skeleton Keys: the Anselmian Definition

In the greatest, most far reaching, most consequential, and therefore most important insight of human thought so far, Saint Anselm of Canterbury defined “God” so that we might settle completely, and profoundly, all worries we could ever have – about God, and so about any other and thus lesser thing that we might suffer. He defined “God” so that we could stop worrying altogether, and so be happy; be, i.e., good, as properly oriented to reality, and so therefore happy.

I’ve elaborated the Anselmian Definition a bit for the sake of this discussion:

God is that than which no greater can be conceived along any dimension of greatness by any mind whatever.

Reimagining the University

Imagine how different the universities would be if, as of old, all the professors were priests, who were – by lifelong vocation, and at great hedonic cost to themselves – explicitly devoted first and so only to the service of the Lord; of the Lógos; of the Truth; of Lux & Veritas, as the Yale sigil has it.

Imagine then how different the universities would be if all their students were expected to be novice monks or nuns, in the process of discernment; if, indeed, one could not gain admission to collegiate studies except by strict prior vows of chastity, abstinence and obedience while engaged therein.

Discernment of Spirits is 3 Fold

In approaching the problem of discernment, we should be clear that what we must discern are spirits: lives, and different ways of living them.

What, to begin with, are the criteria by which we may discern whether a given spirit is good or bad? Philippians 4:8:

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Pretty clear, no?

Spirit has 3 meanings. The spirit of sloth, for example, is 3 fold, and all 3 derive from the fact that spirit denotes life – that every spirit is a life:

The Necessary Devastation of Good Friday

The Apostles didn’t understand Jesus until after the Resurrection. They couldn’t have understood him even then, had not his horrible death completely ruined all their notions about him, and left them utterly emptied of all expectation, all preconception, all pretense of comprehension.

How to Increase Priestly Vocations

I heard the other day driving along and listening to Catholic Radio that in some diocese or other, the Catholic Church had one priest for every 12,000 laymen.

The mind boggles, right?

I can’t cite to a source, because I can’t even remember what program I was listening to at the time.

Obviously, there are not enough priests. And this itself must be an important factor of the dearth of priestly vocations. Imagine you were thinking about taking a job serving 12,000 people regularly even as, say, a cashier. It’s a non-starter.

The Church needs more priests. Fortunately, the recipe is not hard to discern – although it is a fair bit of work to implement. But then, once the men of the parish were engaged in the overall project, it could get to be lots of fun for everyone.

Dying, Jesus Suffered & Bore the Pain of All Sins; So, He Healed Them, All

On the Cross, Jesus in his omniscience knew, and so suffered, felt, endured, all the agony of all creaturely defections, and of all their vicious consequences.

Omniscience eternally and always knows all of that, of course. But in time, and in Jesus, he knows it particularly, and so, acutely, on the Cross. As a man, God knows all the pain of all his creatures, just as we know each our own pain. A staggering thought.

Indeed it is by the suffering of Jesus that omniscience knows the suffering of his creatures; that, i.e., the suffering of his creatures just is the suffering of Jesus. Matthew 25:40.

On the Immaculate Conception

It seems clear as a matter of scriptural fact that Mary was immaculately conceived: Gabriel, who is in a position to know, said as much, in Luke 1:28. He could not have noticed or said that she was full of grace if there had been a jot of sin in her anywhere; for, being a defect of being, sin is an emptiness – a defect of fullness of grace. OK, so far so good.

But that I submit is not the real nub of the issue. It is, rather this: stipulated that Mary was indeed free of Original Sin from her very conception, why was that necessary? Why was it necessary that the Mother of God should be without spot or stain of sin? As Gabriel went on to say in Luke 1:37, all things are possible with God; so, why couldn’t God have raised up his Son from a sinful woman, or for that matter from some stone? Matthew 3:9.

On Personal Discernment

I here now camp on to Alan’s most recent post on this topic.

Personal discernment is not of course for any partiscient creature – any creature, that is to say – ever optional. We are here below the orbit of the moon all at bottom, and obviously, left to our own devices, in figuring out what we should do. Such is the condition of Fallen man, alienate from the Truth of his Creator, so subject to Original Sin, ergo mistaken about moral reality, and thus misled – thus tempted, as temptable: as, i.e., concupiscent. This is not at all controversial. It is the perennial teaching of the Church, aye and of Israel. It is no more than what we all find to be the case, qua humans. Everyone whatever admits the truth of it, implicitly; for, in no other way might there be such a thing as a moral difficulty or question, such as we all always suffer, and that ever wrack our minds. So, to discourse upon it one way or another is feeble, beside the point, and so rather a waste of time. Nobody has any option but to do his best to discern the truth, and so the right way forward, according to his best lights. This is obvious. It is as obvious as arithmetic; nay, moreso.

Nuff said re that.

Nobody questions the inescapable requirement of all sentient creatures that they should exercise discernment. On that matter of discernment hangs the entire colloquy of freedom, sin, redemption, atonement, and salvation – which is to say, the entirety of soteriology, and of the practical Christian enterprise (also those of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam (and Taoism, that apotheosis of the protoevangelium)). So, never mind that. It is not the true question at issue.

The real question is whether in the process of discernment one should admit of correction or guidance from anything other than oneself. If the answer be no, it is ipso facto a repudiation of discernment per se; for, if our process of discernment allows for no influence from without us, why then it is a process, not of discernment properly so called, but rather only of adventitious self will. It is in that case, not discernment at all, but the opposite thereof: simple pride.

Which is to say, fantasy. Which is to say, solipsy.

Further Study of Bruce Charlton’s Theory of Christian Epistemology

Bruce has more to say about Christian epistemology in his latest post, titled Should Christians hand-over their eternal salvation to… historians? Romantic Christianity at the cutting-edge.

He is wrestling with one of the two foundational issues of the Protestant Reformation: How do we know Christian truth? Who or what is the ultimate authority and source of our knowledge of Christian truth?

This is not just a historic, Reformation-era issue. Because contemporary times are characterized by the catastrophic failure of so many of society’s authorities, many, many people are wrestling with this vital question. Bruce is like the canary in the coal mine.

As in my pervious post on this topic, my comments are left-justified, and Bruce’s words and Scriptural quotations are block-quoted.

 

Charlton:

At the cutting-edge of experienced-life –

The Church = What (some) Historians Say.

All claims of knowledge reduce to intuition/s; but for traditionalist Christians, the baseline intuition is that The Truth is a matter of history; and history is known through the work of ‘historians’ – broadly conceived.

 

No, truth is a matter of What Really Happened. But What Really Happened is not available for us to inspect directly. We must rely on secondary sources.

But we do not believe these secondary sources just because they say so. They must make a persuasive case, based on generally accepted modes of reasoning and the common experience of their likely readers.

For example. Christian teachers should point to the written Word of God, the Bible. They must point to the actual words used, along with their conventionally accepted meanings. Sometimes the full meaning cannot be known without additional, specialized knowledge, such as the unique nuances of meaning possessed by the original Greek or Hebrew words, or by the unique cultural customs of ancient times to which the text of Scripture refers or alludes.

But in all cases, the meaning is a matter of publicly-available knowledge (even if highly specialized knowledge.)