I dunno...there are others who have nothing to do with Christianity who seem to be going OK. On a recent visit to Bhutan they seemed quite content with Bhuddism. Same in Mongolia...they were going OK.

Sellick has it right when he indicates that one has to believe. All over the world people believe in different things, and they all believe theirs is the right path to follow. And good on them. Whatever brings meaning and purpose to life is beneficial to a persons state of mind. I just get tired of endless moralising to the rest of us...be happy in your beliefs, but accept that others are happy with theirs and should be left to follow them. Who are we to tell others what they should believe...it smacks of arrogance to me.

And a word on the origin of the mid-winter festival, which christians chose to call Christmas. It is not the birth of Jesus...I don't think there is much evidence that he was born on Christmas...more like summer when the shepherds would be most likely out tending their flocks.

But...because there were already celebrations around this time. Mid-winter is a popular time for festicals, as is mid-summer. Feast of the Son of Isis, the Winter Solstice (Yule in northern Europe) and it was a convenient time which to have a celebration. It was Pope Julius the first who, in 350AD, decided that the birth of Jesus was to be celebrated on this day. He was a practical man, knowing that that he might be able to outcompete the other celebrations get more people converted to Christianity and stamp out the other festivals. As history shows, it was a masterly move.

Many Christmas symbols such as mistletoe, holly, and the Christmas tree, have their origins in pagan festivals rather than any real christian meaning. In fact trees were a problem to many fundamental christians who saw them as a pagan symbol.

Having said all this...Christmas is still a time when families can get together, irrespective of religion, and enjoy each others company and look forward to the coming year

When are we going to realise that the story of the Virgin Birth is all BS and that the Christian religion is based on belief rather than fact.

David

New depths of incoherence in this one, even for Peter. What does

"It is part of the economy of the human soul that we will say yes to something."

mean, for instance? (I say YES to cranberry sauce!)

"The point is made for all believers, that the Christ may be born in them through faith and that this engenders grace."

Then a lot of obstetricians are going to be in for a real shock...

Seriously, I hope this means something to Christians, because it means nothing to me. Arguing against it would be like trying to fight a jellyfish.

The fundamental human urge and need is not gross in its nature.
The fundamental human urge and need is not food, sex, power, things, or even physical survival.
The fundamental human urge and need is happiness---but not in the mere satisfaction-of-self sense.
The fundamental human urge and need is ECSTASY---or the free exercise of "self"-identity.

Therefore, true religion must retire to Light!

The heart must be permitted to achieve a universal feeling-ecstasy!

What would Happen if all of humankind were, now and forever hereafter, allowed complete, unobstructed, and Perfectly ecstatic access to Inherently egoless Truth Itself?

What would Happen if, instead of access merely to worldly or gross "realist", or exclusively exoteric, and traditionally "official" and anti-ecstatic, and anti-magical, and anti-metaphysical, and anti-Spiritual "ego"-truth and pseudo-Ultimacy, all of humankind were, from now on, allowed complete and unobstructed and Perfectly ecstatic access to Inherently egoless Truth Itself?

What would Happen if, from now on, the political, social, economic, and cultural totality of humankind were allowed to establish and perpetuate itself entirely and only on the Perfectly ecstatic basis of the Inherently egoless Truth That IS Reality Itself?

Both exoteric "religion" and secular materialism are magic-paranoid, and altogether, anti-ecstatic traditions, rooted in fear of the intrinsic magical power of existence-being.

Both, for many centuries now, have been actively (mis)-intructing and propagandistically coercing humankind to DISBELIEVE and to dissociate from ALL modes of association with magical, and metaphysical, and even Spiritual, and, in general, ecstasy-producing ideas and activities.

Peter, I was rather disappointed in this article.

“The appearance of the angel Gabriel… is a sign that we are here in the realm of legend dressed up as history.” A contentious statement for literalists. Yet I think rendered more contentious by taking an insertion a few centuries on as “gospel truth” and using it to underpin your article.

The recognition of Mary as theotokus is a two-edged sword: the use of this paradigm, once admitted, becomes somewhat dishonourable if the concept is proffered framed only by Christian theology. Indeed, the role of various women throughout pre-history and contemporary history at the time of the insertion of Mary into the texts, must be presented and entered into. It is central to the entire dispute regarding Mary’s role in current religious thought.

Similarly your comment on Luke 1:38 that “This is what the Church does. It ponders the word that is revealed to it.” Takes a huge leap from myth to divine word with no interim steps.

While still having no immutable idea of who wrote the gospels agreement that they were written at some time after the death of Jesus is by now pretty universally accepted, yes? No Boswell has yet been unearthed to provide us with verbatim quotes?

How then to give credence to the idea that the words of Mary, pregnant thirty odd years before the main action of the story begins, are anything more than an approximation, surmise, construct or poetic license?

While much has been made of the OT being the direct word of God by various religions, no-one has as yet claimed the gospels were written by anything other than human agency (or have they?). Where, at the time of the Marian inclusion, was anyone to be found who was witness to the annunciation?

I sincerely feel that your concept of the Marian doctrine and its importance to Catholicism is rather flawed.

Ps. As for “...we in the modern age, together with Henry Ford, believe that “history is bunk” “ I advise, as once before, a judicious and painful biting of the tongue!

Phil

I dunno either....after six months of cancer treatments. Belief systems are one thing, faith is another as many scholarly studies indicate. Following my fourth operation, which was significant, in the ICU the thought of friends praying for me was more powerful than any belief system. I was in a secular hospital but the nurses were mostly Catholic (I am Uniting but was raised Catholic). Lucky for me that in the wee hours of the night they helped allay fears with prayer. Hail Mary, full of grace, thank you for Jesus, and plase stay with me in the months ahead. Phil, may your faith be (re)born this Christmas. Thanks Peter, as always.

not exactly the friendliest or most inviting of christmas sermons. but it is christmas. i'll sing me some john lennon and let it pass.

Yes, the protestant church has distanced itself from Mary in the sense that it does not see her as divine unlike the Roman Catholic Church. However Mary unites us in her ministry. It’s a very tender ministry where the vulnerability of a young peasantry girl clashes with the great divine. Her mortality never departs from the reader and we journey with Mary as she flees to Egypt and later watches her Son wither on a Roman cross. The power of Mary is simply in her story.

Thanks Peter and Merry Christmas to all

We do not celebrate the birth of Jesus on Xmas Day. Myth.

"It is believed that Christmas' date was chosen to take advantage of the imperial holiday of the birth of the Sun God Mithras, more specifically Sol Invictus, which coincided with the "return of the sun" after the shortest day of the year." Wikipedia, renowned for the Catholic Church writing what they want in it. Yet this is still there. And confimed by many sources. And a merry old Sol is he! Sound familiar?

This was part of the Roman Emperor Constantine's self appointed gaggle of bishops who were ordered to gather all the documentation from the range of splinter Christian groups that had developed since it started, pre Jesus.

His orders were to cull the doco and produce a coherent tale for all to follow as he appointed himself head of the Christian Church and demanded fealty from all groups. Key ceremonies etc were retained from the larger of these many groups and this date was one such. Nothing to do with Jesus at all.

So do enjoy the birthday of Sun GoD Mithras again. After all, you have all your life so far.

Quite a range of perspectives I see.

My major difficulty with Peters message is this bit:

regarding the Angel Gabriel in Luke

<<His appearance is a sign that we are here in the realm of legend dressed up as history. There are many such instances in the Bible, the creation stories being a prime example. This has been the discovery of the historical critical analysis of biblical texts>>

The assumption here is that such an experience can only be 'legendary'.

Pete's evidence for this conclusion is found in his unquestioning acceptance of "Historical/Critical Analysis of Biblical Texts"

Actually, what he should be saying is "according to those which I've read".. in the sense that he has not embraced any more conservative views.

If one considers that Lukes Gospel is the product of research by a man who by his own testimony:

<<1Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, 2just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus,>>

Now.. the problem for the 'Historical/Critical' analyst is how he/she avoids the simple proposition that Luke simply ASKED Zechariah, who would in all probability still be alive..about the events.

It's not really that hard.

-Investigated 'from the beginning'...
-Orderly account...

I believe this more optimistic view is supported by the many clear evidences in Luke of his attention to detail such as in Chapter 3

<<1In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene— 2during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert. >>

Works for me.

Sells,
An interesting article although, I am afraid, it might attract the usual detractors who cannot accept that there are symbols of the Ultimate Reality they cannot understand, in this case of the yin pole in the Christian understanding and worship of the Unfathomable.

>> But if we Protestants are serious about the Bible we cannot escape the conclusion that Mary is a figure to be reckoned with ... she is not only theotokos, God bearer, she is pre-eminently the icon of the Church. <<

I must agree. "Even those non-Roman churches which have most rigorously criticised the "Mariolatry" they claimed to find in the dogmas of the immaculate conception and the assumption have frequently addressed praises to her in their hymnology that they would have hesitated to express in the prose of their dogmatic theology. Thus, in ways she could never have anticipated, all generations have called her blessed" (Jaroslav Pelikan, Yale professor and Lutheran - later Orthodox - theologian as part of the entry for "Mary" in Encyclopaedia Britannica).

Perhaps you would be interested also in this, from the same author:

" Clearly there was a close correlation between the subjectivity of the devotion to Mary as the Mater Dolorosa and the objectivity of the doctrine of Mary as the Mediatrix. It was not the correlation of paradox, as was the celebration of her under the rubrics of the Paragon of Chastity and the Blessed Mother, but the correlation of complementarity, at least until, in the modern era, the denial of her objective transcendence by many would deprive her of the title of Mediatrix even though the simultaneous rise of subjectivism would continue to find symbolic, if sometimes sentimental, expression in the Mater Dolorosa." ( Mary Through the Centuries, Yale University Press, 1996, p. 136).

I am not a theologian, but I feel that even “Coredemptrix” rather than “Mediatrix” would better reflect the yin-yang (at least psychological) complementarity in our view of the Unfathomable, although I know that this is theologically somewhat controversial.

Dear_George....

<“Coredemptrix” rather than “Mediatrix” would better reflect the yin-yang (at least psychological) complementarity in our view of the Unfathomable.>

Mate... sounds like you are conflating eastern mysticism with Christianity there..but that aside.. why not take the obvious and reasonable and logical approach and limit our view of Mary to that which the Scriptures give us. "She shall be called blessed".....that's 'it'..... indeed she was blessed. But there is nothing more special about her than that she was the human vehicle of the Savior's incarnation.

The "point"....of the incarnation was all about the Savior..not the means.

The 'immaculate conception' idea was an optional belief until the 19c when it was made 'dogma'.. i.e..compulsory.

<The dogma says that, from the first moment of her existence, she was preserved by God from the lack of sanctifying grace that afflicts mankind, and that she was instead filled with divine grace. It is further believed that she lived a life completely free from sin>

Now..that is going WAY outside the bounds of Holy Writ. It is not neccessary for Mary to be sinless, but it IS neccessary for our Lord to be so. What I don't understand about Catholic belief is this.

WHY is is easy to believe that MARY was 'sinless' but not that our Lord, in his physical incarnation was in fact preserved from the stain of sin in humanity?
It is far more reasonable and theologically consistent to maintain that the physical process of conception and birth of the Messiah were protected from the consequences of the Fall, than that Mary herself, a natually born person was.

I think I understand the problem for the Church, and it relates to the idea of 'conception'......

If one of Mary's eggs was fertilized by an act of God...then clearly our Lords nature was genetically connected to natural humanity. If that's so, then he must have inherited the consequences of the Fall.
Thus.. it is reasoned..'this cannot be so'.. so Mary is declared sinless.

It would be more reasonable to declare the conception itself as 'preserved from the stain of inherited sin'..would it not?

Sells

You said

"This tradition of anchoring biblical texts in history does not stand the test of“did it actually happen”such as we modern day historians would insist."

The protestant churches simply do not know what to do with Mary.It is clearly not historical in the modern sense of something"that really happened"but nor can we accept the extended theological development of her story.We are left with an awkward story best relegated to the children's nativity play where the cuteness of the performers elevates the story to the level of the sacred making it theologically unassailable for pastoral reasons.

I like George's perspective on this even though I cannot embrace the main body of CatholicMariology.The roles the women play inthe Gospels in particular but in the Bible generally setup an interesting tension between the male dominated culture and Divine will.The mere fact the Resurrection is announced by a woman subverts the Priestly monopoly on Divine mediation.Even Mary's name points towards this subversive undercurrent inthe Biblical portrayal of women.Mary's name might mean'origin'but it cannot be escaped that in form and sound it is connected to the Hebrew word mara which means to be rebellious and disobedient.The name is also,importantly,a reference tothe prophetess Miriam,Moses' older sister.

There is plenty of evidence that women played a major role in the early church and that many of them were torn between Christianity and some of the Mystery religions which enjoyed great popularity among Roman women of the time.The presence of the story in Lukes Gospel is an historical and interesting fact even if the virgin birth is not.The milieu in which the early Church was formed dominated politically by the Roman Magisterium andinformed by Greek classical philosophy.It struggled to distinguish itself from the Mystery religions but it was built within the framework of Hebrew thought which us dominated by metaphor,symbol and theological narrative.

If Mary is a metaphor for the Church then perhaps here we have Biblical justification for including women as active participants in all aspects of the Church's life.Perhaps there is even an argument here for preferring women in leadership roles in the Church

Thanks for some interesting posts (and some uninteresting ones!). I disagree with Polycarp's biblical literalism (obviously). To speculate about an egg of Mary being fertilized by God is to miss the point of the incarnation. As for Mary so for us, the Christ must be conceived in our hearts. That means that we must believe the word of God when we hear it. The virginal conception of Christ is not a nature miracle but an account of how anyone comes to faith. Your interpretation demonstrates the extreme materialism that is our inheritance of the modern age as well as the extreme historicism that goes with it.

Peter Sellick

Dear Sells....our disagreemnt aside.. I was just plumbing the depths of Catholic theology..which to me seems a tad 'pharisaical' but not in the hypocritical sense..nay..in the "We have to have an answer for every question and a rule for every circumstance" area.

The Catholic theologians would not take the trouble to try to tie down the detailed issues of the conception and the other things unless they felt it was important.

To be honest.. up till this thread arose I've not thought about it myself too much, but the area of 'how' God insemminated Mary, as in.. did the Father fertilize one of Mary's eggs..or. place the Messiah as an embryo in her womb... is surely worth considering for sure.

But at least now, I see why the Church tries to answer all these questions and take a firm stance on it..because as night follows day, there will be some bright spark who suddenly latches onto this and turns it into a new cult or something.

On the 'conception of faith in our hearts' :) well... yes.. to me the whole thing is rather meaningless unless there is a rational and real basis for it. If it were not so, then we can all come up with quaint and profound ideas of our own...no?

Polycarp

You said

".. to me the whole thing is rather meaningless unless there is a rational and real basis for it."

Im sorry but I cannot agree that'meaning'is necessarily concomitant with 'rationality' and'reality'if by these you mean the strict adherence to logic and the rules of scientific investigation and require mere reporting of events that 'actually happened'.

Love reduced to 'rationality' becomes utilitarian, the antithesis of Love as Christ portrayed it. There is something more to the Gospel than the reporting of events that 'actually happened'.I suspect that the 'something more' is so important that it transcends any merely scientific/historical account of events.

If the Gospels were pure fiction and the story of Mary a work of pure theological imagination the message of Love would be no less powerful. Faith is a sort of irrational commitment to live as if Christ is by ones side. Theology is the rational business of questioning, challenging, refuting and refining that faith.As an intellectual abstraction in isolation from faith theology is a bit of a nonsense.

Sells interpretation of the Mary narrative as a 'model' for faith practice is interesting but I wonder if, when pressed,it doesnt degenerate into mere religious sentimentality.

It seems to me that Jesus turned Hebrew theology back on itself rather than radically transforming it into anything new. The realisation of what Jesus had done came slowly to His disciples but made sense immediately to the women precisely because they experienced Him immediately in the way that a slave embraces her liberator. Without particularly trying to rationalise Jesus' theology the women understood it as lived experience. The insertion of the conception narrative comes late to the NT because it was written by men who came only slowly to full realisation(if they can be said to have ever achieved full realisation) of the implications of the Gospel. Sells interpretation of the story is very rational and masculine. That may be appropriate in terms of the authors intent but its individual focus has a sentimental ring that, for me, is dissonant with the Gospel of justice and mercy that I read.

Dear Waterboy... you said:

1/ If the Gospels were pure fiction and the story of Mary a work of pure theological imagination the message of Love would be no less powerful.

2/ Sells interpretation of the Mary narrative as a 'model' for faith practice is interesting but I wonder if, when pressed,it doesnt degenerate into mere religious sentimentality.

I can't quite agree with your '1/ statement.. and the reason is found in your '2/ statement.

The point I was seeking to make is that "if" there is no real historical basis for the events portrayed in the Gospels.. then of course they are exactly what you said in '2/ "religious sentimentality".

That's the problem.

I don't want my life to be guided by "misguided" sentimentality....
This is what Paul answers in 1 Cor 15 when he says:

"If Christ is not raised from the dead, then we of all men are most to be pitied".

Now..he didn't just suddenly look back from a point in time where he realized "hey... how come I'm doing all this religious stuff...and suffering as I am.. and going without wife, and material possessions...hmmm I better justify it be inventing some kind of basis....i.e.. the resurrection..aahhh YES..that'll do it" :)

No..it was his encounter with the Risen Christ which set him on this path... that was his whole life rationale...

Just so, we must (in my view) avoid sentimentality for it's own sake..and tie whatever sentiments we have to the reported facts of Scripture. Then our sentiment will be solid and well founded.

Other than this it just becomes vague subjective mysticism. No ?

Polycarp

No, not mysticism at all!
(Perhaps Sells is right about post-enlightenment materialism that sees mysticism in everything that fails the 'solid facts' test.)

I dont think anyone doubts that the the Gospels refer to an historical figure, Jesus and naturally Jesus had a mother. The Gospels, however, tell the story of what God is doing.

The point is that Christology developed over a period of time. It wasnt fully-formed at the time of the crucifixion. The resurrection experience, whatever that was, represents the beginning of Christological reflection which took 400 yrs to mature into the sophisticated formula that we know today. As for Paul's Damascus Road experience, it, or something like it, was necessary to establish his 'apostolic' credentials. Given the tension that existed between him and James it perhaps isnt wise to make too much of that 'event'.

The Gospels, themselves, represent the culmination of many years of theological reflection. Their purpose was to proclaim the good news that salvation history had taken a significant new turn in Jesus. The facts of Jesus life are little more than the 'historical hooks' upon which to hang their theology. They place Jesus in the context of salvation history, in a continuity with Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah and so on. There were, no doubt, events that actually happened around Jesus, what we would call facts of history, but the Gospels are about salvation history which is quite a different thing.

The NT was, in its original context, politically subversive literature. It was provocative and dangerous. The sloppy, sentimental interpretations promulgated by contemporary fundamentalist and charismatic churches with their emphasis on personal salvation may satisfy modern materialistic sensibilities but the sharp end of the Gospel is a Church that challenges the magisterium on behalf of the outcast and the oppressed. Its not the heroic idolisation of the man Jesus.

Hi Waterboy....

that was an interesting response, which included:

<The resurrection experience, whatever that was, represents the beginning of Christological reflection which took 400 yrs to mature into the sophisticated formula that we know today. As for Paul's Damascus Road experience, it, or something like it, was necessary to establish his 'apostolic' credentials. Given the tension that existed between him and James it perhaps isnt wise to make too much of that 'event'.>

Are you suggesting that Paul simply invented his encounter? (1 Cor 15 is very strongly against such a view I feel)

Tension with James? I don't find that in Acts 15... the only tension was between Paul and Peter for a while, but that seems to have been reconciled.

Much has been made of the 'Paul' camp and "Jerusalem/James/Peter" camp thing... and I think farrrrr too much.
I never detected such a problem when I read the N.T. and when I read the theory my jaw dropped as I couldn't see what it was based on.

When I finally did see.. I found the case so flimsy as to be scornfully weak.

But let's keep with Paul for a moment. There is not just his 'Apostolic Credentials'.. any explanation must also account for his former life and adamant opposition to the Church....

You seem to be suggesting:

1/ Paul was a major and zealous persecutor of the Church, thinking nothing of dragging off men, women and children to prison and execution.

2/ For some reason.. Paul 'saw the error of his ways' and then..

3/ Invented an 'encounter' story to give him credibility with the object of his hatred.....the Church...

Hmmmmmmmmmmm :) or.. "ah huh" (picture an African American person saying that.. I'm sure you know the tone)

Dear Polycarp,
>>Mate... sounds like you are conflating eastern mysticism with Christianity there..but that aside.. why not take the obvious and reasonable and logical approach and limit our view of Mary to that which the Scriptures give us. <<

The yin-yang complementarity is part of Chinese philosophy, not mysticism, and it has become a universal way of seeing things. Like Aristotelian or mathematical logic, most of the concepts of modern science etc., all being of western provenance are accepted as universally valid conceptualisations of the reality humans face, all philosophy not mysticism. Also, thank you for advising me on what is and what is not logical, but I already received enough advice along these lines from Pericles.

Of course, you are entitles to your dislike of Catholic theologians' interpretations of the bible, so please accept my preference for the alternative, so succinctly expressed in the above reply to you by Sells. Let me repeat, I am just a mathematician not a theologian - Catholic or not - so you will have to find somebody who is, if you want to argue your points about how to interpret “infallibly” the bible. Certainly waterboy is better qualified for these things than I.

waterboy,
>> I cannot embrace the main body of Catholic Mariology<<.

I respect this, especially because I highly value your writings that broaden my perspective of a theological dilettante. Though I do not know much about Catholic Mariology, it is true that I grew up surrounded by Marian devotion which, as a young man, I also used to attribute to the old ladies’ way of being religious. Life taught me otherwise, especially when I came to suspect that the yin-yang balance was missing in some Protestant approaches to the Unfathomable Mystery, as a former Buddhist monk, converted to Catholicism who then went to study theology in Rome, was explaining to me.

Maybe this is also the reason why I have difficulties to understand why the contribution of women to our society, even its religious, mostly symbolic, dimension, has to be reduced to just mimicking the male role often at the expense of their natural yin inclination, symbolised by poets in the “eternal feminine” (Goethe’s “Das Ewig Weibliche”), and by traditional Catholics in Marian devotion. But maybe, I am just too old.

V.V. Raman, a Hindu physicist, interested in the relation of science and religion, says: "since God is viewed differently in different religions, religious mystics tend to obtain knowledge, not of God in the abstract, but of God as envisioned in their particular tradition. ...Thus, in the Christian tradition it may be Christ or the Virgin Mary that the mystic experiences." (Variety in Mysticism and Parallels with Science, Theology and Science, Vol. 6, No. 3, 2008)

Again a yin-yang balance on the psychological (of course, not theological) level. May I add that it is perhaps the neglect of the gentler, yin, part in the “modern” Catholic understanding of religion that accounts for the increased number of Marian “apparitions” in our times, mirrored by the flight to other forms of emotional religiosity in the Protestant context.

George

Im not very familiar with the Yin-Yang ‘model’. I think it pertains to the way opposing forces interact with each other to form wholeness. Yin is not female but femininity is associated with Yin while masculinity is associated with Yang. Furthermore Yin and Yang may describe opposing forces within an individual as well as they might describe the ‘opposites’ in men and women which interact within the wholeness of humanity. Although yin may be characterized as feminine yet a particular woman might tend towards the yang end of the scale. Likewise a particular situation for a priest might require special awareness of and sensitivity to the yin.

That being the case isn’t it an oversimplification to ‘equate’ yin with female gender and yang with male. In fact wouldn’t it be a mistake to ‘construct’ any one-sided context as that would, perforce, be ‘out of balance’ and lack ‘wholeness’. Should the priesthood be exclusively yang? Is that even possible?

I have a problem with women being excluded from any role in the church simply on the basis of gender. Sometimes it might make perfectly good sense for a woman to function as a priest so why absolutely preclude it. Surely the priestly function has its own internal yin and yang dimensions as does every individual. Maybe a balance of yin and yang within the priesthood would be better achieved with a blend of women and men in the role. Having seen women working as priests I am totally convinced that they contribute to the wholeness of the ministry. I guess my nature and experience make me a natural protestant.

I am interested in the imbalance your Buddhist/Catholic theologian found in Protestantism. I feel it sometimes and his analysis may be informative. (In fact I feel it most strongly when worship is led by men.

Waterboy,
The Eastern 'yin' and 'yang' add a neglected (in the West?) aspect to an integration of opposites. With regard to human sexuality, masculinity and femininity in their 'truest' form are generally not well understood. Social practitioners say a "masculine" style of behaviour tends toward the assertive and task-based, while a "feminine" style is more relationship oriented and "democratic." The religious symbolism, as contained in Mary, and pointed out by Sells, shows far deeper portrayal - i.e. the 'charis' and 'grace' of womanhood. In our modernity we seem to have lost track of a traditional joy and thanksgiving so richly embedded within much of our religious symbolism - so closely associated with femininity.

One of the detractions of radical feminism is that it has deprived us of masculine leadership. This, however, is not totally ‘bad’. Traditional masculinity certainly appears to be suffering from a crisis of confidence, and some are saying it is not before time. Many of the world's most serious problems and illnesses, however, can surely be traced back to an exaggerated or distorted masculinity. The brutish spirit of "progress" that rides roughshod over nature, women, and indigenous peoples is largely a product of an heroic and conquistadorial masculine style - a hegemonic masculinity. The protestant approach, though its ignoring (or ignorance of) the importance of Mary from fear of idolatrous behaviour, has in part led to a society with a damaging 'industrialised' nature and exaggerated form of masculinity.

Perhaps the biggest problem of all is that the majority of men are still asleep. They are in deep, restful, undisturbed sleep, dreaming their patriarchal dreams, secure in their established cocoons, and not wanting to be woken up - anyone who dares to disturb their slumber is immediately demonised as a tyrant or social terrorist.

Religious symbolism, however difficult and unpopular, nevertheless speaks to us about a deeper and more profound wisdom. Mary is a case in point. The Crucifixion also can never be popular, but will remain something that only a very few can directly observe and endure, because it cuts across the life-instinct in all of us

Relda

Thank you for an interesting post.

Im not entirely sure what you mean by 'traditional masculinity' but I agree that men have yet to come to terms with the new competition they are facing from women proving themselves to be competent in all fields and at all levels. There are certainly still many men who would prefer not to have to deal with women as their supervisors/managers in the workplace for example. Likewise in marriage it is more difficult to deal with an equal partner than with a submissive inferior. Perhaps these are the sorts of things you mean by your 'crisis of confidence' in 'traditional masculine' leadership.

The notion that progress is to be associated with protestantism might be challenged by our catholic friends but the historical association is strong and you have made the point well that progress has a distinctly yang flavor in the 'traditionally masculine' mode. There is, of course, a lot to be said in favour of progress which suggests that good things can come out of imbalanced situations. Perhaps George's justification for maintaining an exclusively male priesthood can draw some justification from an argument along similar lines to this. I dont really understand why the priestly functions should belong to the 'male' domain though.

I find it interesting that the Gospel portrayals of Jesus have a very strong yin flavour. There is some historical evidence emerging suggesting that the earliest Christianity was a more overtly subversive and aggressively revolutionary movement than the Gospel accounts represent. It will be interesting to see if this historical work is able to attract academic interest and support as it is predicated on identifying the earliest Christians with the Essenes. That would indeed be a challenge to the traditional churches and to traditional dogma! It certainly makes for a much more historically satisfying explanation of Jesus' execution. The image of Pilate kowtowing to the Jews has never really rung true historically and we are yet to fully understand why the Jerusalem apostles denounced Paul as a liar.

Polycarp

We find throughout Paul's writings repeated defensive statements that he is 'not lying'. In historical studies this must be taken as strong evidence that he WAS being accused of lying by someone. It is fairly evident that these accusations were coming from the Jerusalem apostles.

What implications might this have for our understanding of Pauls motivation?
Could this affect our estimation of Pauls account of 'historical' events?

Your posts suggest that your interpetation of the Bible is dominated by your devotional commitment to the text as 'Scripture'. From an historical studies point of view this is a deeply unreliable interpretive framework. Your devotional prejudice leads to an unacceptable bias in your historical judgement.

Any historical assessment of the 'Damascus road' episode must be sceptical. It is much safer to regard it as a literary device following OT patterns intended to establish Pauls apostolic credentials. Its similar to the interpretive framework contrived to establish the 'miracles' performed by Mother Theresa in order to progress her sanctification.

Whatever happened on the Damascus road Paul interpreted it as an encounter with Jesus. That sort of thing happens all the time today. People see miracles in all sorts of ordinary events. Others claim to be preaching the Gospel and are not. And some people believe them!

Waterboy,
By traditional masculinity I mean the stereotypical focus on strength without vulnerability, tenderness or kindness; action without deliberation and retribution without any show of mercy. I can easily recall, the worst insult to be leveled against a man in this country was that he was behaving "like a girl", that he was as "moody" or as "changeable" as "a woman", that he was "feminine", or worse, "effeminate".

Alan Watts quotes a Chinese text in his book 'The Two Hands of God', "One Yang and one Yin, that is the fundamental principle. The passionate unity of Yin and Yang in the copulation of husband and wife is the eternal rule of the universe. If heaven and earth did not mingle, whence would all things receive life?" Plato viewed the archetypical man as bisexual and spherical in form, and his neoplatonic disciples (some of them Christian) imagined human perfection as an unbroken unity. Such philosophical speculations were also rooted in earlier mythological convictions, where the concept of God was neither entirely masculine nor feminine.

The Jewish community in Elephantiné in Egypt reverenced the Virgin Anath (A canaanite goddess) and was in some sense attached to Yahweh. There were, then, traces of the female deity even in the most refined manifestation of Yahwism - and much stronger traces, it would appear, in Hebrew folk religion. It is precisely to those traces we look if we are to begin to understand the emergence of Mary.

It is interesting to note Clement of Alexandria where he records the response of Jesus to Salome, the exotic dancer (in the Gospel according to the Egyptians), who wondered about the fulfillment of the prophecy. He answered in terms she would doubtless understand, "When you have trampled on the garment of shame, and when the two become one, and the male with the female is neither male nor female." The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas also holds a similar reflection.

Perhaps a little ironically, the cautious Romans with their "Sive Deus, sive Dea" (whether god or goddess), were theologically quite precise.

waterboy,
I can only endorse relda's thorough exposition of the Yin-Yang complementarity manifested indeed in female-male, or passive-active, but also (cultural) East-West etc. interactions. I think Yin-Yang is a more insightful way of interpreting reality - at least for me - than the Western coincidentia oppositorum (from Heraclitus to Nicholas of Cusa). Therefore I avoid referring to them as opposites (they are not supposed to cover rational opposites like true-untrue or ethical opposites good-bad, etc.) which might lead to seeing e.g. the male or West as superior to the female or East. I prefer to see them as complementing each other, and I think this is also the original meaning of it. Actually, the well known Yin-Yang icon is even more subtle about this complementarity, depicting the Yang in Yin complementing the Yin in Yang.

[Niels Bohr, the author the principle of complementarity in QM, had his own coat of arms featuring this icon and the Latin motto contraria sunt complementa. Here I beg to differ: some opposites (contraria), like good and bad, plus and minus, agreement and disagreement, etc., do not complement each other towards something higher, in spite of the fact that mostly the one cannot be conceived without the other. Here the dynamic scheme thesis-antithesis-synthesis of dialectics is perhaps a more appropriate model.]

This way of seeing things is a firm component of my world view, in distinction to my reservations, mostly grounded in my Catholic cultural tradition, about Catholic priestesses. Here the Catholic context is very important, since I do not see anything objectionable to female priests from a general Christian perspective with its variety of theological interpretations. Apparently traditionally - and possibly also doctrinally - a Catholic priest stands for something somewhat different from that of a priest in a non-Catholic Church. In spite of this, the relatively recent introduction of female priests and bishops in some traditional Churches did not help them to fare better than the Catholic Church in preventing the dwindling of their congregations. (ctd)
(ctd)

(ctd)
>>I have a problem with women being excluded from any role in the church simply on the basis of gender.<<

So have I (with emphasis on “any role“), even in the Catholic context. It reflects the situation inherited from the past, that I referred to above as confusing the Yin-Yang complementarity (manifested as female-male genders) with the idea of the supremacy of one over the other. However, the remedy must not necessarily be in redefining the role of the priest and bishop to fit a female “carrier”, but in increasing the influence and status of nuns and laywomen (as well as laymen) on decision-makings that ultimately emanate from the Pope. I believe, this is happening, albeit very, very slowly, since the Church is a very, very old institution, and old organisms move very slowly. The problem is not with female vs male influence but rather with destructive vs constructive influence: the first two alternatives are complementary, the second two are contradictory.

However, let me repeat, here I am not on familiar grounds, my preferences (for priest-nun instead of priest-priestess) are more emotionally than rationally motivated.

Dear Waterboy...it's good to have a discussion with someone who has a knowledge of these matters.

You said:

1/ <<In historical studies this must be taken as strong evidence that he WAS being accused of lying by someone. It is fairly evident that these accusations were coming from the Jerusalem apostles.>>

COMMENT: now...that contains just enough truth to be almost believable. The true picture though, when the scripture is used as our evidence, is that there was ONE group among the Jerusalem Church, not James nor Peter, but a group called 'The Circumcision party' who insisted that Gentiles embrace a strongly Judaistic/Pharicaical/Law based faith, and were also circumcized.
So..it was not "The Jerusalem Church" who were at odds with Paul but a sect within their spiritual territory. Yes.. THEY were accusing Paul of lying.. this is very clear.

2/ You also said: <<Any historical assessment of the 'Damascus road' episode must be sceptical.>>

COMMENT:
Not at all! it must be as objective as possible. Objectivity does not include the 'exclusion' of the clear meaning of the text before the meaning is considered. Dare I say it..that's 'bias' :)

If you say "these things happen every day" or they are common... let me challenge you..

"Can you show me one example of a man like Osama bin Ladin or Kalid Mashal suddenly declaring their love for the Jews?" because until you can, I hardly think there are many near comparisons.

You claim my devotion to scripture blinds me? hardly.. I have the same evidence before me as you do, but until I can see convincing evidence to the contrary... IN the evidence itself.. I refuse to place a biased overlay on it's natural plain meaning.

Relda

Whoever the'Circumcision Party'were it is evident from the internal evidence that i)They were Christians ii)They were based in Jerusalem iii) They had authority within the Jerusalem and the wider Church & iv)They were converted Jews and believed Christianity must be in spiritual and cultural continuity with Judaism.
It is a proper historical question to ask whether we can identify the individuals who made up the 'Circumcision Party'.They obviously had authority in the wider church or they would have posed no threat to someone as important as Paul.It is a fairly safe assumption that they were leaders of the Jerusalem Church and qualified to pronounce on matters of doctrine.That pretty much identifies them with the group of Apostles.Unless you can prove that there existed some other group in Jerusalem that met these criteria then your proposition that the'Circumcision Party'does not include any of the Apostles is historically weak.

As you have described them,the'Circumcision Party'sounds very much like the Essenes which would prove to be very interesting historically if they turned out to be identified with the Jerusalem Church and led by any of the Apostles.

You also demanded'objectivity'in historical judgement.That surprises me since its'objectively'impossible to have an interview with a dead person and would preclude episodes like Pauls Damascus Road vision(let alone the resurrection itself).On this basis Paul is,at best,offering an interpretation of whatever 'really happened' on the Damascus Road but the 'historical' possibility remains that he was, in fact, lying in order to establish his Apostolic credentials. I think the former is more likely.

The story of the temptation of Jesus provides us with evidence that the early Church itself struggled with its lack of 'historical' foundation. Obviously this is in some tension with the miracle stories of the Gospels and Acts. From our modern scientific perspective we are forced to conclude that the miracle stories are just that (stories) or if they refer to actual historical events then there is also a 'natural' physical explanation for those events whether or not anyone knows the explanation.

All of this has obvious implications for the story of the virgin birth!

waterboy,
Your last post was obviously addressed to Polycarp (perhaps you were a little bleary eyed from end of year celebrations) – so I’ll leave Poly to respond.

Just a comment on objectivity, historical or otherwise, Immanuel Kant used the expression “Ding an sich” (the “thing-in-itself”) to designate pure objectivity. The Ding an sich is the object as it is in itself, independent of the features of any subjective perception of it. Beyond the ‘object’ we have subjectivity (or our perception of the object) – Plato asserted roughly that the greatest reality was not in the ordinary physical objects we sense around us, but in what he calls Forms, or Ideas. Our senses give us an experience of an ordinary reality but, according to Plato, Forms are a “higher reality”. Having the greatest reality, they are therefore the only truly objective reality, we could say.

Immanuel Kant’s “Ding an sich” (the “thing-in-itself”) designates pure objectivity but without our perception there can be no expressed reality. Our ‘Cogito, ergo sum’ rests only on our immediate knowledge and is therefore self-limiting. How we might relate to Paul’s ‘reality’ is certainly in need our own interpretation on as to what ‘really happened’ – I try not to be too limiting in my own apprehension of this.

Relda

Im not entirely sure that Plato is relevant here unless Pauls meeting with Jesus was 'accidental' and took the 'form' of an interview. At any rate it doesnt help us to confirm or deny the 'ding an sich' of Paul and Jesus chatting by the roadside although it may point to other ways of apprehending the 'reality' of that event without necessarily giving intellectual assent to the proposition that a dead person, Jesus, actually spoke with Paul in the usual 'concrete' sense of the notion of two embodied persons conversing.

Whatever 'really' happened on the road to Damascus, the story as Paul told it is real and has had far-reaching historical implications. It DID establish his apostolic credentials to enough people to form the foundation of a religious culture (the Western Christian Church) that has lasted, so far, 2 millenia. It has taken on a reality that transcends mere corporality.

Sells laments the fact that post-enlightenment historical thinking has led to our materialistic obsession with the facts of the historical Jesus. He seems particularly perturbed that this obsession has infected the faithful and become a distraction from the Gospel imperatives which include personal faith, proclamation of the Word, social justice and so on. I guess that's adding a bit of my own spin to Sells words.

Thanks for the provocative post!

George, Relda and Waterboy:

Thank you for some very thoughtful and stimulating posts.

I think Peter Sellick is calling for higher status for what Carl Jung called “intuition” and a diminished concern with “sensation”. The former approaches reality through symbols (often ambiguous, even mysterious), the latter through objects (or facts). While each is valid in itself, intuition has been greatly under-valued since the Enlightenment began.

The relationship of yin and yang is dynamic and non-linear. The traditional symbol, as George has pointed out, is very subtle in its refusal to depict a stark opposition.

Mary is the potential within each person to receive, to conceive, to nurture, to contemplate and to embrace. Thus she could be said to symbolise the feminine or yin principle. Mary’s receptivity represents the human potential to hear, rather than to see. In this sense she is darkness, rather than light.

In those cultures derived from Greco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian roots, the act of seeing is (usually unconsciously) considered to be an act of emission: the eye beams its linear ray and hits or penetrates a target. To see = to seize. This function could be described as masculine or yang, in contrast with Mary’s hearing.

I can only agree with Sells that the Protestant churches have, to varying extents, eschewed real reverence towards Mary to their detriment. The triumph of light (especially during the “En-light-enment”), reading (seizing) the scriptural word and fixation on linear direction (“progress”) have marked much of their doctrine, worship and behaviour in the world. Hence we have the aggressive evangelism and arrogant literalism which has brought so much misery to the world.

This is not to say of course that non-Protestant churches are without fault, nor is it to say that there have not been wise and compassionate individuals in the Protestant churches.

waterboy,
Plato is relevant only in terms of creating a foundational idea or 'Form', the basis he provides is important. The dialectic of the Fourth gospel, where the narrative recalls the Platonic method, has a prologue recalling the Platonist spirit. We also find the naïve dramatisation of a belief in an anecdote, the symbolic story, or the passage of a parable into a miracle. The developing theology of the gospels deepens an appreciation and removal of that ignorance of the world which haunts men with a variety of superstition and fear. No longer, as Paul preached, do we need worship in devout ignorance at the alter of 'an unknown god'.

I enjoyed your post crasby. It has been said, we need to cross the Biblical sea from our literal or material side to God's essential side. It is far more important to understand a single verse properly (i.e. allegorically or symbolically) than to know the whole Bible improperly ( i.e. literally or historically). "A scholar devours too much. A wise man eats little but tastefully. Scholarship and uncontrollable eating are the same. But wisdom and taste are also the same. Health differs from gluttony as wisdom differs from scholarship." - Skovoroda

George,
Carl Jung concluded that the“Self” is a coincidentia oppositorum, and that each individual must strive to integrate opposing tendencies (anima and animus, persona and shadow) within his or her own psyche. 'Heaven' and 'hell' can thus take on an essential significance or reality.

Postmodern thinkers such as Derrida make negative use of the coincidentia oppositorum idea to overcome the privileging of particular poles of the classic binary oppositions in western thought, thereby deconstructing the foundational ideas of western metaphysics. The use of coincidentia oppositorum in Jewish mysticism and its singular significance for the theology of one prominent Jewish mystical school, Chabad (or Lubavitch) Chasidism, is important. The Kabbalistic/Chasidic view that language (or representation in general) sunders a primordial divine unity and is thus the origin of finitude and difference. Skovoroda offered the opinion that, "to read the Bible and to judge it a lie are the same."

Dear Waterboy...ummm I think your last post was directed at me not Relda ? (u mentioned circumcision party)

You said:

iii) They had authority within the Jerusalem and the wider Church

Nowww...this is a very important point.. Did they? or.. did they just CLAIM authority?

If they had genuine widespread authority, then it would have been clearly evident in the Jerusalem Church.

What WAS evident...was a 'faction'...

Acts 15:5 Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, "The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses."

"SOME"...of the believers...who belonged to the Pharisees.
Clearly they were not the central leadership which was Apostolic -James...who is mentioned as a separate identity from the 'some'.

I absolutely believe that the case for this 'conflict' between the Jerusalam Church as a whole is not proven, in fact it is disproven.
Those who were giving the believers a hard time came from 'Judea'.... they may not have even been significant in the Jerusalem cogregation..hence the reference to 'some'.....

Some of you seem to be reflecting sentimental pseudo catholicism in your comments about Mary. I don't find any more to be said of her than Scripture..and 'revering' comes too close to 'worship' for me.

I cannot for the life of me see what possible reason there could be for special reverence for any other than God the Son..... in this matter.
Mary is gone... dead.... with Christ... just like Joseph.. king David, Daniel and all the prophets.

I save my reverence for He who said "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last"

I’ve not contributed since my earlier post as the discussion has wound its way – as all good discussion does – into different streams.

However, the direction of more recent posts brings me back to my original thesis: - the impossibility of anchoring Marion theology to Christian thought without reference to women per se and, specifically, early Church doctrine.

Thus I disagree with Waterboy’s statement that Plato is not relevant because: one of the reasons for the acceptance of Paul’s reputation as anti-female is because he is known as a Platonian scholar. The belief in his strictures against women – in particular the controversial 1.Cor.14:34-35 – was earlier made more plausible because of his Platonian roots.

The vast body of work which now queries the attribution to Paul of such “misogynist” strictures however, (Hays, Barton, Muddiman, Borg, the editors of The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Conzelman et.al) unanimously cite deliberate interpolation by the early church for the seeming contradictions to be found in Paul’s writings.

Paul’s enormous influence being seen to include strictures regarding women’s role in the early church therefore caused later translator’s changes (e.g. feminine suffixes to masculine ones) to be seen as corrections rather than misinterpretations.

So thoroughly did this expunging of women from the NT work, however, that the Marian insertions became necessary if women were to consider themselves relevant in any way to early Christianity.

Pagan religions, with their belief in the importance of the female principle, ( yin and yang?) as well as those which saw women as theotokos – such as the Mithraen cult – were much more attractive to women than the Christian church.

Those who assert that Constantine never abandoned his involvement with Mithras, of course, see the growth of Marian ideology as springing from the conflation of his beliefs. Even if one accepts his complete conversion, however, the parallels between Mary and the original Asherah of the OT, Isis, Diana, Zisa or any other goddesses is inescapable.

This correction to my paper came from John Tonkin previously professor of history at UWA.

Hi, Peter,

I enjoyed your latest. But in characterizing certain attitudes as
"Protestant", you miss an important distinction between the Lutheran
and Reformed traditions. Mary has a large role in Luther's
understanding of salvation. She is seen as the archetypal faithful
Christian and he waxes lyrical about her, especially in his commentary
on the Magnificat.

Also, have you seen the ARCIC II documents on Mary?
>
>Cheers,
>
>John

relda,
Thanks for pointing out the ambiguities in my post. I guess it all depends on what one means by opposition. When I said I tried not to refer to Yin and Yang as opposing each other I meant to avoid situations where the one is understood as contradicting the other, i.e. where they are not compatible. You have used the term “binary opposition” which probably describes what I have in mind. I am sure Derrida’s critique of western thinking is valid to much extent, I have only difficulties with understanding what he is offering instead, and I am sure I am not the only one.

However, I agree that the distinction between the Western “coincidentia oppositorum” and the Eastern Yin-Yang balance or interplay is not that clear and I should have emphasized more that it is mainly my understanding of the terms involved that dictates my preferences for the latter. After all, Yin and Yang are often also referred to as opposites or poles, and in my remark on Niels Bohr I was carried away by his use of the term “contraria”.

Jung‘s anima-animus is nothing but (the projection into psychology of) Yin-Yang, although I do not know if he refers to that explicitly. Perhaps here (as in immigration) one should distinguish between “integration“ and “assimilation“, where the latter corresponds more to “coincidentia”. On the other hand, pairs like heaven-hell, good-bad, as traditionally understood, would rather fall into the category of “binary opposition“ or incompatibility.

When Cusanus says that opposites meet in God he means what one could describe also as the meeting of Yin and Yang (the preference for calling God our Father rather than Mother is cultural, and is a priori only to the extent that our Bible offers an a priori model of the Ultimate Reality) but not of features like good and bad that are incompatible by our very understanding of them. Statements about the Ultimate Reality that try to avoid conceptualisation are, or border on, mysticism. So on this level one indeed cannot distinguish between the coincidentia oppositorum and Yin-Yang approaches.

George

The idea of opposing forces is clearly an analogy from physics and while it suggests the required idea it is obviously has a particular bias that does not fully describe the idea of the yin and yang. The Jungian intuition-sensation dichotomy is closer to being a particular instance of a yin-yang pair rather than a general conceptualisation of the idea.

Clearly yin-yang includes the idea of pairs that operate together as tensive polarities in a specified domain of interest. So in the domain of human society one axis of tension which proves to be particularly creative has masculine and feminine as its poles. In the more specific domain of religious function (priestly role for example) the masculine-feminine axis of tension might or might not be informative depending on the theological and/or pastoral context.

I, along with some more liberal protestant traditions, assert that a mixed gender priesthood operates with a balance and wholeness that cannot be achieved in an exclusively male-gendered priesthood. As I understand you, you assert that a perfectly good balance is achieved having an exclusively male priesthood cooperating with female-gendered religious orders and female minor religious functionaries.

Conservative protestants argue that there is a Biblical dictate against the inclusion of women in the priesthood. Im not sure that you subscribe to this particular line of justification and yet you do seem to agree with its conclusions. One problem with Catholic Marianism is that Mary, though venerated above all other women, is still "less than" Jesus. The argument that Mary balances out the maleness of Christology has some force but the axis remains out of balance to some degree as Christ takes primacy over Mary. Protestanism, at least those protestant traditions which include women in the priesthood, are finding that including women in the priesthood certainly does produce a well-balanced proclamation of the Word.

Its getting late here so God Bless and I look forward to a continuing exchange of ideas

waterboy,
So, if I understand you properly, you agree that it depends on what one understands by "opposing", "opposite", whether or not one applies these terms to the Yin-Yang pair.

Also, I think our difference in preferences (I would not call it disagreement) in the question of female priesthood is probably due to different meanings attached to the term priesthood, and our different traditions. So within your definition "mixed gender priesthood operates with a balance" whereas the Catholic tradition understands on one hand the ordained priest as the "symbolic representative of Christ, the God incarnate" and on the other hand Mary (“venerated above all women“ AND MEN) as the very vehicle of this Incarnation, the symbol of uplifted humanity. As I stressed before, the Yin-Yang balance achieved through this veneration is on a purely psychological level (the need for both Father and Mother), not theological (obviously "Christ takes primacy over Mary" and the veneration of Mary takes primacy over respect for any particular priest). On this level it might play the same balanced role as for others the mixed gender priesthood. After all "including women in the priesthood" might not be the only way to "produce a well-balanced proclamation of the Word": For instance, the creator and head of EWTN, one of the most popular Catholic TV stations in the US, is a nun, and I have just recently been told by a young Catholic priest that one of their most respected professors of theology in the seminary was a female. For a Catholic, priesthood is more than just proclamation of the Word.

However, let me repeat, this is not my stuff, my preferences are grounded in my life-long liturgical and other experience, perhaps also emotions. I accept the rulings of the Catholic Church the same as I accept the Australian legal system, whatever their justifications are: if I were a theologian or a legal expert (which I am neither) I might be critical of this or that detail of the one or the other respectively, and suggest alternatives (which is not the same as preaching disobedience).

George

Reading your latest post I am struck by the fact that protestant doctrine is Jesus-centered and predominantly male gendered. Having said that, the Gospel portrayal of Jesus suggests a well-balanced individual rather than one who is strongly masculine. Given the protestant lack of balance at the doctrinal level the inclusion of both men and women in the priesthood seems to me a faithful 'representation' of the 'well-balanced' Christ and a solution of sorts to the obvious doctrinal imbalance.

Obviously, Im not as compliant as you with respect to acceptance of authority and I believe it is important to critique authority and challenge its assumptions. Some of the great injustices of history have been perpetrated under the auspices of church and secular government which suggests to me that there are times and circumstances where defiance is justified and even required.

I have known women who felt deeply hurt from being denied the opportunity to serve God in the way that they felt called and gifted.

Women are asking what it is about being female that renders them ineligible to 'represent Christ'. I know of nothing and I see women operating very effectively in that role. The exclusion of women from any role in our society simply on the basis of their gender seems to me to carry an implict diminution of their humanity which is totally unjustified. Secular governments have recognised this and legislated appropriately. When secular government leads the way on issues of justice while the Church resists it seems to me that the Gospel is being turned on its head and discredited.

One must surely ask if there is an issue of justice to be considered here which is of sufficient importance to justify a reassessment of tradition. Even our oldest and most revered traditions might have reached their use-by date.

waterboy,
>> I‘m not as compliant as you with respect to acceptance of authority <<
Well, unless you know a lot of physics and mathematics you have to “accept on authority“ what cosmologists tell us about the cosmos.

As for Jesus, for instance I did not read, and do not intend to, the recent book by the Pope (Jesus of Nazareth, Doubleday 2007), because I would probably not understand it, certainly not critically. The same about my acceptance of the reasons why the Catholic Church does not offer (yet?) an office of a priestess or bishopess, or why She interprets the Bible this or that way. I have my preferences, but they are just that, personal preferences which in this case happen to agree with the official position, whereas in other case (prohibitions in sexual morals, post-Vatican II liturgical reforms) they do only to a certain extent.

>> I have known women who felt deeply hurt from being denied the opportunity to serve God in the way that they felt called and gifted. <<
I do not understand: In this century and country they certainly can find a Christian church where they could find that opportunity. Whatever can be said of the Catholic church in the past, after Vatican II it respects as fellow Christians those whose conscience tells them to serve God in a way that is not available in the Catholic church. She welcomed with open arms Anglican priests who did not feel comfortable in their Church for reciprocal reasons, so it could work vice-versa.

Yes, as far as tolerance is concerned, She is a latecomer, nevertheless has learned to respect other Christians and their interpretation of the Bible, and perhaps can now expect the same from others.

For the third time: I do not feel at home with the topic of Christian priestesses, so please let us respect our different approaches to this question, and leave it at that.

George,
The 'Pope's favourite rabbi', Jacob Neusner writes, " We are in for interesting times". Neusner asserted that any thoughtful Jew must conclude that Jesus was actually "abandoning the Torah" and reject him. He also suggested that insofar as Matthew's arguments are based in Jewish law, Christianity may be flawed by its own standards. Ratzinger is in full cognizance of these remarks when he blurbed Neuser's, 'A Rabbi Talks' as "by far the most important book for the Jewish-Christian dialogue in the last decade."

The transformation of the R.C. Church, post Vatican II, has a way yet to tread, but I take heart at an approach that uses both depth and reasoning surpassing a two dimensional, impotent literalism. “Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and reason properly” – Pope Benedict. I believe you also embody this senetiment George.

waterboy,
As I also stand outside of the Catholic tradition and its 'authority' your remarks have some resonance. A transformation, from within Catholicism however, is occuring. Karl Rahner reminds us that it was the image of the woman Mary that has enabled the church in past centuries to prevent society, with which it was often too uncritically identified, from setting up a purely male domination.  He adds that the church had to learn slowly and painfully, amid the changes in secular society, to give woman what is due to her by nature and by right - an historical process which is still far from complete. 

A balance (or integration) occurs, not as a feminine 'complementary underside' of “masculine” domination, but emancipating only when seen as a radical symbol of a new humanity, freed from the relationship of hierarchical power. There is a very practical application to the metaphysical statement, “...there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ.” - Galatians

Relda, George, Waterboy:

It seems to me that beneath this conversation is a basic tension which has affected our civilisation for millennia. The light of the intellect by its very nature aims to divide and thus conquer darkness: it discriminates between objects, thus establishing rigid distinctions, often formulated as polarities. Humans cannot bear for long the essential tension of these opposites, and so we eventually either deny their validity or crumple in a psycho-spiritual malaise. I believe our civilisation is now at such a point. The debate about the status of Mary in religion, as well as women in the church and the world, is a prime focus of the tension.

The angst is all about theological structure, which for so long has been based on the masculine principle. The concept of the Holy Trinity is a prime example of this. Throughout history human thought has tended to consider the odd numbers as “masculine” and the even numbers as “feminine”. Much as I value the Trinity, I wonder if human spiritual growth is now calling for a Quaternary through the inclusion of the feminine in the Deity. May this provide a healing symbol for the angst of three?

I hope no one is offended by this suggestion. I offer it simply as a possible way towards peace.

Crabsby.
Sorry, there is no room for a quaternary. Jesus is the second person of the Trinity not because he represents human masculinity but because he is the eternal Word generated from before all time began. He represents the speech of God in the world that brings forth a history out of nothing and establishes the people as the people of God. Any attempt to balance the books to include a female member would do terrible harm to the name of God. I think that it is about time the feminists accepted the fact that we receive the tradition via a patriarchal vehicle that itself is under threat from the gospel.

The other formula that has been tried to achieve gender equality in the name of God is that of Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. I have found this formula in seventeenth century English theologians and even in the great Karl Barth. The problem is that it produces a kind of modalism in which the Son is precluded from the work of creation and the Father from the work of redemption. It also severs the link between Father and Son as one of generation and the link with the Spirit which is proceeding. The best way forward is to retrieve and develop the theology of the Trinity so that it informs us who this God is that we worship.

Peter Sellick

Sells,
One of the fallacies some feminists often use is, "If God is male, then the male is God." To see God as a Father, in other words, has confirmed the status quo of "patriarchal" society, and has sacralised the domination of women by men. It is far from clear that matriarchal religions, or religions with a mixed pantheon of gods and goddesses, were ever reflected in a higher status for women. There is, in fact, considerable evidence to the contrary.

Merely the ‘vehicle of patriarchy’, as you put it, should not offend. Equality should be ‘based on the recognition of the inherent, inalienable dignity’ of women and men – not, as many social constructionists would have it, to reject the system of gender altogether. Feminism is misguided if it overlooks or eliminates difference in favor of a sense of a common essence.

I have little problem with the definition of Jesus as the Son of God, and the consequent rider of God as His Father, which underlie all the books of the New Testament. These were certainly the fundamental dogmas of primitive Christian theology. Jesus is recorded as referring to God as his father some 170 times and at no point does Jesus imply that God is merely like a Father to him - his message is that in truth God is actually his Father. It is perhaps hardly possible to call to mind a single feminist theologian, of whatever shade or disposition, who does not find the image of the Father-God a challenge and a direct confrontation.

Rather than emasculate the ‘Trinity’ we can allow the Virgin to pro-create it. In 1950 Pope Pius XII proclaimed the dogma of the Ascension of the Blessed Virgin. Jung set high value on the dogma because of the importance it attributes to the feminine element which stands for nature and matter. The declaration of the physical ascension of Mary leads to the presumption that nature/matter can be received into the metaphysical realm. According to the earlier view, this realm was reserved only to the masculine principle, to spirit alone.

Relda, Sels et al,
What an interesting exchange of Christian perspectives!

I knew that Benedict appreciated Neusner in the book mentioned, though I did not know the details, and probably would not understand them (e.g. Matthew's arguments based in Jewish law). I somehow feel more resonant with his emphasis on the Hellenic contribution to Christianity that he developed in his misunderstood (by some Muslims) Regensburg lecture.

>> feminine 'complementary underside' of “masculine” domination <<

Complementary, as I (and Niels Bohr inspired by the wave-particle complementarity in QM) use it, is a symmetric, “horizontal“ relation, there is no “underside“ to it. “Masculine domination” is incompatible with it, although in the past this assymetry had its practical, economic, reasons in any society until very recently. I think that one should appreciate the contribution of technology to our ability to treat the female-male relation on a fairer (hence evolutioinarily more advanced) level. Emancipation should mean changing the vertical relation of domination into a horizontal relation of mutual complementarity, but it should not be equated with elimination (of the different nature of the two poles).

>> the importance it attributes to the feminine element which stands for nature and matter <<
This reminds me of my own “coat of arms” which contains the Yin-Yang symbol with a tiny cross on top of it, and an “M” underneath it. Here “M” can stand for Maria, Mater or Materia (which includes nature).

I agree with Sells on “no room for a quaternary“. There is no room for Yin-Yang in the “revealed structure” (Trinitarian) of Deity, only in our approach to it, our psychology (there was no revelation needed to tell humans there were males and females). The Trinity is perhaps better seen as related to the Aristotelean triad beauty-truth-goodness, corresponding to the three levels or aspects of our understanding of reality: experiential, rational and ethical/teleological. I wonder what those better grounded in theology might think of it.

I had an interesting conversation with an old friend last night concerning the Virgin Birth. He was telling me that at a gathering of fellow protestant Christians, the question was asked whether they thought that it would matter if the story of the Virgin birth was not true. Fifty percent of those present though that it would not affect their belief in Jesus.

On another track, it appears that no one is certain what Paul's affliction was. How would it turn out if his affliction was schizophrenia. His confrontation on the road with Jesus would have been completely real to him, even if it never happened at all.

David

David (VK3AUU),
>> it would (not) matter if the story of the Virgin birth was not true<<
This is one of many stories in the Bible, the trueness of which is principally impossible to check (we have no access to Jesus’ genes or DNA), although if it were true, it would represent not only a violation of what is acceptable to contemporary science, but also a puzzle, a mystery. So it depends on what one accepts, defines, as true.

May I offer a Catholic layman’s solution: we believe that the consecrated host (the Eucharist) IS the Body of Christ, without defining what the IS here means (certainly nobody thinks a laboratory test could detect a difference between a consecrated and non-consecrated host); it is referred to as a mystery.

I also believe that Christ “appeared“ to Paul, or the Virgin to Bernadette of Lourdes, however I do not believe that if a camera was present it would have detected anything. In both cases the apparition is a “reality“ of the kind where the state of mind of the subject is an essential part of it. The difference between this kind of “apparitions“, officially recognised by the Church (although a Catholic is supposed to accept only the first one of them as “real”), and mere hallucinations (of a sick mind) is to be found in the subject, and is about the same as in general between a genuinely mystical and merely a psychotic experience: how the event(s) influenced the rest of the subject’s life.

Anyhow, theologically sound or not, this is how I understand these things.

George, The "Mystery" to me is "How can so many otherwise rational people believe such a heap of twaddle when there is no scientific evidence to support it?"

David

David,
The pure empiricism of Sigmund Freud has certainly led to an insightful observation. His 'oral, anal, genital, and Oedipal ' view of humanity, however, relieves us of a personality devoid of responsibility i.e., I am who I am and I do what I do not because of me but because of early experiences over which I had no control. I am not responsible for my actions -- my mother is.

Human civilization is more than a struggle between Eros and Thanatos, as depicted by Freud. In a certain sense the famous monograph of Freud that 'religion is an illusion' is true, but one must be careful to distinguish between illusion and delusion. It is not so much the subjectivity of the 'Damascus experience' which is at stake but ultimately whether Paul's message was one of distortion and delusion or the revelation of a 'deeper', psychic truth.

Unlike empirical assertions, the assertions of religion are generally not based on observations of the external world which can be either verified or falsified, but rather on inner convictions that neither seek nor require rational justification. The shift in psychoanalytic gestalt of which Kuhn speaks of in 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions' is perhaps underway, it is paradigmatic and therefore has the appearance of something irrational. A translation of meaning occurs, as with Newtonian mechanics and Relativity and its radical reordering of perception .

Freud would have it, the worship of God can be explained in terms of a fantasy substitute for the earthly father. Jung has it, the ancient symbolism in which the wind, both in Greek (pneuma), Hebrew (ruah) and Arabic (ruh), stands for God and spirit. The feminine aspect of the Divine comes to life in the symbol of Mary.

David (VK3AUU),

I apologise, my contribution to this discussion should obviously not have been addressed to you.

I am aware that there are many people who have difficulties with understanding symbolic representations of reality - e.g. in contemporary physics (relativity, QM, string theory etc.) through non-intuitive mathematics - and hide behind (nineteenth century ideas of) scientific evidence. Nevertheless, I hope relda’s explanation will help you to understand that also as far as human experience is concerned, there is more than what meets the eye (and the scientific instrument).

George.
Your suggestion that truth, beauty and goodness may relate to the persons of the Trinity must be rejected. Firstly, I am rather at odds with the pope on the necessity of Greek philosophy as a ground for Christian theology as though it were universal. Colin Gunton's book "Act and Being" spells this out very well. We may say that truth, beauty and goodness are attributes of God, although I would even hesitate here. But to identify them with the persons of the Trinity would be to introduce modalism in which the persons are distinguished by their attributes rather than their actions. The Son is differentiated from the Father because is generate from the Father and the Spirit is differentiated because he is spirated from both the Father and the Son. Augustine insisted that when God acts, all three persons are implicated. We see the truth of the Father in the Son by the power of the Spirit. So you see to give attributes to either of the persons does not work.

Karl Barth has described the Trinity in terms of God as the Subject, predicate and object. The subject, the Father, has as his object of action the Son and what he does in the Son is predicated in the Spirit. The Son is thus the historical presence of the Father and what he is as this is revealed by the Spirit.

Peter Sellick

Thank you Sells, Relda and George for your responses to my suggestion of formulating a quaternary as a way forward. I am persuaded that the Holy Trinity should be left as is. My thoughts now return to how best to approach Mary.

Relda suggests that Mary be held up as the pro-creator of the Trinity. According to the Nicene Creed, Jesus Christ is “eternally begotten of the Father…begotten, not made, of one being with the Father.” Thus Christ always was with the Father, and presumably with the Spirit, even before “he came down from heaven and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human.”

If Mary, with God the Holy Spirit, was procreator of Jesus as a human being, how does this proposition fit with the notion that Mary pro-created the Trinity? I suppose one could say that before the incarnation humans did not perceive a third person in the Godhead, but following Jesus’ birth (and his ascension) the concept of the Trinity could be born in the human mind. That would make Mary the pro-creator of human awareness of the Trinity, rather than of the Trinity in itself.

Relda: Is this what you are proposing? And how do you others see it?

Sells: In your article you present yourself as a member of a “Protestant” church. You also say that Mary is “almost written out of Protestantism”. I have been reading the document “Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ” (2004), which presents the agreement reached by the Anglican and Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC II). Your article, in its view of Mary as a symbol of the Church, seems to be in accord with the ARCIC agreement. The Commission, however, reached agreement on many more points concerning Mary. Can you tell me what status the document now has in the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches? Further, as an Anglican, to what extent do you agree with the ARCIC II agreement as a whole?

By the way, I must agree with George that we are having a very interesting and worthwhile exchange of views!

crabsy,
My suggestion here (re: Mary's procreation) is merely speculative - not an attempted rewrite of theology. Nevertheless, one of the most profound and most persistent roles of the Virgin Mary in history has been her function as a bridge builder to other traditions, other cultures, and other religions. For Catholics, she is the Theotokos through whom God enters human history; for Muslims, she and her son are signs to humankind (Sura 23:50) - thus making clear God's concern for humanity's universal, spiritual needs, even those of which humanity is unaware. Ironically, Mary's submission to God is very Islamic in orientation.

In classical Sufism, Mary provides "the medium by which [God] comes into concrete existence in terms of human perception." Therefore, she is a window through which each tradition's conception of the Godhead may be explored - logically, my allusion to Mary 'giving birth' to the Christian Trinity or Godhead seems to follow. Primarily, it is only through the feminine that the deity is initiated and revealed.

The three Cappadocian Fathers taught that God is one ousia in three hypostaseis, thus both preserving Christian monotheism and accounting fully for the biblical confession of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I think it noteworthy to say the deepest thinkers within each religious tradition express a profound sense of mystery, insisting that the ultimate reality to which their faith is oriented lies in its fullness beyond the range of our comprehension, but interestingly, there is no objective tribunal from which to weigh their relative truth value (and I do not count on papal infallibility). An almost hysterical Saint Jerome, (376), wrote to Pope Damasus about the phrase 'three hypostases', "Accordingly, now - O woe! - after the Nicene creed, after the Alexandrine decree (with the West equally in accord), I, a Roman, am importuned by the Campenses, that offspring of Arians, to accept a newfangled term, “three hypostaseis.” What apostles, pray tell me, authorized it? What new Paul, teacher of the Gentiles, has promulgated this doctrine?"

So take heart anyone who reads, not even the Saints are apt to understand.

Ive been away a few days and what a fascinating turn this conversation has taken!

My take on the Trinity is that the limitations of discursive language preclude us from any complete and satisfying verbal representation of God.This would explain why attempts to systematically 'clarify' Trinitarian doctrine invariably lead us into one or another of the heresies... modalism for example.

It is necessary to use metaphorical language to extend our ability to talk about God.Trinitarian language is metaphorical which is why it works.Furthermore no one metaphor can be adequate in itself so,again,it is necessary to use a wide range of metaphors.This leads us to the notion of clusters of metaphors and symbols which are needed to facilitate talk about God within any given community/society. This, of course, opens Pandora's Box with the infinite possibilities of metaphorical language which could lead us almost anywhere.

Father, Son and Spirit constitute a sufficient set of metaphors which work together as an organising principle for all metaphorical language that would qualify as Christian.

This is not the same thing as saying that the Trinity is the only language we should use or that it is a complete formula for all that God is. So if the langage we use with regard to Mary converges with our other metaphors for God then that is fine provided we do not violate the organising principle of the Trinity. Thus we can recognise the 'Godliness' of Mary or see God as 'mother' through a Marian perspective. Is it necessary then to include Mary in a 'quaternity'? Only if we understand the Trinity as literal, discursive language asserting that God is male gendered. To say that God is father metaphorially does not make any assertion about the gender of God and so it would be unnecessary to introduce a new person into the 'n'ity of God simply to eliminate the 'male assertion'. If, on the other hand, we assert Gods gender through a proposition that God is a father then, yes, it would be better to introduce a new person into the 'Godhead' in order to negate that assertion.

George

I have the greatest respect for your thoughtful and generous approach to theology. I am more than happy to call an end to our 'priestess' debate and 'agree to differ'.

On the other hand I WILL defend my anti-authoritarian credentials thus:

If Einstein had been prepared to accept Newtons 'authority' then it would have been left to someone else to 'discover' relativity. Even so, when faced with the equation e^2=m^2*c^4 he failed to discover anti-matter as a result of his 'conventional' dismissal of the negative root.

In theology, even more so than in physics, it is important to question and challenge the most 'sacred' traditions. In at least this respect theology may claim to be 'scientific' in its method if it proceeds by the path of 'informed suspicion'.

Sells,
Thank you for an interesting exposé of the theology behind the Trinity doctrine. However, I do not understand why a personal perspective - that does not want to contradict the “official“ explanation of the doctrine - “must be rejected”.

The three aspects or levels of a person’s contact with outer reality, namely

(a) aesthetic,
(b) rational,
(c) ethical,

with their three norms or ideals

(a) beauty,
(b) truth,
(c) goodness

pursued through

(a) seeing (perceiving without analysing or judging),
(b) reasoning, analysing,
(c) acting,

are the foundational blocks of a personal philosophy that is hard to explain in 350 words. It is a prism through which one gains an outlook that makes many things more comprehensible, at least for me, or - In Tillich’s words - for anyone “who is willing to look in the same direction, ... (making) the reality which these ideas are supposed to reflect (more) understandable.“ I certainly never claimed that this is how the doctrine SHOULD be interpreted. Perhaps the same is true about the interesting interpretation by Barth that you refer to.

The correspondence I had in mind goes something like this:

(a) when one looks at and admires the Creation one has in mind the Father, the author of the created Beauty;
(b) one usually associates, at least in the Catholic tradition, the Holy Spirit with learning, i.e. the rational aspect of our contact with reality (the singing of “Veni Sancte Spiritus” at the beginning of the school year);
(c) the God Incarnate became our Teacher not so much of aesthetics or logic but of ethics, of how to live a moral, good life.

Also, I am not sure the Pope suggested “Greek philosophy as a ground for Christian theology”. In his words, an “inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of the history of religions, but also from that of world history“, though he indeed warned against “dehellenisation of Christianity”, and gave as an example sola scriptura. (ctd)

(ctd) This reminds me of the two (complementary?) interpretations of the Divine that we had already discussed on this OLO: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob revealed to us in the Bible, and the God of philosophers (and scientists) revealed to us through our investigative nature and culture. This is how I understood Benedict’s emphasis on the “inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry”. However, who am I, a theological semi-literate, to defend Benedict!

waterboy,
I hope I too am anti-authoritarian, where authoritarian, according to my dictionary, means “enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom”. This has nothing to do with either

(a) accepting the opinions of specialists in a field beyond my expertise (acceptance on authority), or
(b) accepting the rules of an organisation, body (a state, a Church, sporting competition, etc) that I am or want to be a part of.

Nobody wants you to accept anything on specialists’ authority - case (a) - in a field where you feel as knowledgeable as was Einstein in physics. There were certainly people, who thought they could improve on Newton, but who did not become “Einsteins”, and I am old enough to have seen a lot of nonsense written by people who wanted to “correct” Einstein, without understanding what he was saying.

That is all I wanted to say: I am not a theologian, nor an exegete, so I accept the opinions of specialists in these fields, of which there are many, and the Pope happens to be one of them.

I also agree that it is important “to question and challenge the most 'sacred' traditions” in theology or elsewhere. I have only difficulties with various fads that seem to be just chasing the zeitgeist. I have probably read (and understood) more theology written by Protestant than by Catholic theologians. The more languages you speak the deeper understanding you have of your own mother tongue. The same about one’s “mother” and “foreign” interpretations of the Christian world view.

George, an interesting couple of posts.

The specialists, in this case the Catholic church are not always right. One only has to look at the way they treated Galileo when he showed that the earth was not the centre of the universe. Once again, science prevailed over dogma.

Our concept of ethics was born long before the advent of the birth of Christ. The Christian church gives itself too much credit for those things in the world which are good, but it is very tardy in accepting responsibility for those thing in the world which are evil.

George

The beauty of metaphorical language is that it allows for interpretation through models such as the one you have outlined without being bound by them. You have said that this model works for you and that is good theology... provided the model is not subsequently 'made law'. For my part I would like such a model to include wisdom. Wisdom would be another category by which actions are measured. Actions may be ethical/unethical and wise/unwise where these are two quite distinct and (more or less) independent dimensions.

I have a few comments about you model. Firstly it seems individualistic by which I mean its focus is on your interactions with 'reality' as an individual. Secondly it begins with you and your points of contact with the physical world. There is nothing wrong with this. I am not making judgements... just observations.

Other models I have seen begin with the notions of tradition, revelation and inspiration. This puts the focus on 'points of contact' with the Divine. It is still somewhat individualistic but at least places the individual into a social context from the beginning. I offer this just as an illustration of how different models may work and how they have different emphases. By no means do I suggest it is a 'better' model. No one model can be a complete and accurate representation of God so it is good to appreciate a wide range of models that each point to different aspects of life in relation to God, to others and to the world.

George.
You seem to be suggesting that we base the doctrine of the Trinity on human subjectivity. Rather, the Trinity is how God reveals himself and this revelation subverts all attempts at gaining knowledge of him by our own means, philosophically or by an analysis of nature. That the name of God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit means that God the Father reveals himself in the Son in the power of the Spirit. What is revealed is that God is love in that he sent his Son and this sending is revealed and extended in time in the Spirit. God is revealed as the one who loves in holiness, taking from biblical narrative. Christians may then make the outrageous statement that God has revealed himself in his fullness to them and that they share in his holiness. Not that we have seen God, as John says, but that the Son has made him known because he dwelt among us full of grace and truth.

The attributes of God must be explained in Trinitarian terms. Who is God,? God is the One who loves in freedom/holiness who calls us into the life of the Spirit, not a life that is in opposition to the material but a life that is authored by the Spirit in holiness.

I know that this requires a more systematic treatment and as usual my language is influenced by the latest book I am reading. (Gunton, Act and Being, highly recommended)

Peter Sellick

Sells,

In case you missed it, I refer you to my earlier post (5 January 2009) regarding the agreement reached by ARCIC II about Mary. I would be very interested in your response.

David,
In Galileo‘s times people did not clearly distinguish between science, philosophy and theology, although Galileo was closer to this understanding than his adversary Cardinal Bellarmine. It is always problematic to judge the past with present-day standards. However, even in our times, John Paul II allegedly wanted to use the Big Bang as an explanation of how the world was created, until cosmologists persuaded him that it would not work. Richard Dawkins uses neo-darwinism as an argument that the world was not created, but nobody seems to have explained to him that it does not work, because he mixes different perspectives like the 16th century Bellarmine.

The Catholic Church (or Christianity) certainly did not invent ethics. Morals, the sesnse of good and bad, are partly determined by our genes (called natural morals by Catholic theology) and partly by our culture, where Christianity has had its input, including the specifically Catholic version.

waterboy,
Thank you for a very interesting comment. I am not sure whether I would use the term “model” or even “metaphor” to describe the three aspects of our encounter with outer reality that I spoke of.

Ian G Barbour in his ground breaking “Myths, Models and Paradigms: The Nature of Scientific and Religious Language“ (SCM Press 1974) defines models as “a symbolic representation of selected aspects of the behaviour of a complex system for particular purposes” and metaphor as proposing “analogies between the normal context of a word, and a new context into which it is introduced.” I used the term “prism” through which one can see reality, and yes, here prism is a metaphor. Another such “prism“ is the Yin-Yang complementarity, or the Hegelian dialectics thesis-antithesis-synthesis, they all can provide insights for those “who are willing to look in the same direction” as Tillich put it. I agree that such insights should not be “made law” (like e.g. Hegellian dialectics in the hands of marx-leninists). (ctd)

(ctd) Thank you also for calling my attention to the quality “wisdom“. There are many concepts one would like to see through my prism, whithout wanting to categorise everything according to some criteria depending on this prism. Wisdom (“the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment“ in my dictionary) is more like intuitive, “unstructured” knowledge, where the structure is given by rational argument or analysis, whose pure form is logic, today more-or-less all mathematisable. Hence it cuts accross the rational, where analytical qualities are required, as well as the ethical levels, where teleological considerations come into play. There are many concepts or qualities that cut across the three levels, and I think a fourth member in this triad is out of the way. However I agree that an action can be (b) wise/unwise the same as it can be (c) good/bad, and also (a) pleasing/unpleasing, the latter, of course, depending on the “eye of the beholder”.

As for being “individualistic“ (I would prefer the term personal), I think this is a level (c.f. Decartes’ Cogito ergo sum) where every thinker has to start: When we were born, we began using only our own “personal” eyes (and other senses), before we learned to communicate with others, thus increasing the “quality depth“ of what we were perceiving, and reaching a level where we could ponder not only what was (a) pleasing to us (for that one does not need input from others) but also what was (b) rational, truthful, and (c) moral, good. Every thinker is an individual person (communities do not think), as much as he/she needs the community or culture he/she is part of to reach a level of thinking that goes beyond perceiving only what is pleasant for his/her individual self.

Sells,
I agree with everything you wrote (except for the first sentence), and again, I appreciate your clear exposition of the doctrine.s. As mentioned above I do not claim objective validity to what can be seen through my “prism”, only an insight for those who are willing to “look through it“.

George, do you not think that in looking through a prism you are distorting reality. As for Sells' latest comment, we had a saying in the army when I was young that "buIIshit baffles brains" and that certainly applies in his case.

David

David

Each of our senses 'distorts' information about the reality around us in one way or another. Sight and hearing are limited to certain frequencies and so on. The prism metaphor is an excellent metaphor for all of our perceptions of reality because it acknowledges the fact of distortions.

In theology, as in journalism, history and so on it is important and of great ethical importance to acknowledge the limitations of our 'perceptions' and admit our biases. Therefore I commend George for his use of the 'prism' metaphor as it exemplifies the honesty, integrity and thoughtful presentation of ideas that characterises all his posts.

I reserve my contempt for those who purport to be giving balanced views while concealing their own biases and motives and pretending to have 'perfect perception'. I trust someone who says "This is where I am coming from and this is what I believe." over the phonies who say "Believe me! I know the truth because I have seen it with my own eyes.".

And Sells last post was a bit of an eye-popper wasnt it? Quite an extended string of Christian cliches. I guess this is a consequence of his propensity to discursive discourse on matters that are better approached through metaphorical language and dialogue. What, for instance, does "... God the Father reveals himself in the Son in the power of the Spirit." mean?

David,
Maybe you are right, prism is a wrong metaphor. In my dictionary, prism is also “used figuratively with reference to the clarification or distortion afforded by a particular viewpoint”. I obviously ignored the “or distortion” part of it. On the other hand, waterboy thinks it is appropriate, and I again appreciate his explanatory comments.

Anyhow, I picked “prism” on the fly while writing the post. In my original writings (not in English) I used the split-image focusing in (old) SLR cameras: the camera used to depict reality is neither part of the observer (not “subjective“) nor part of reality (not “objective“) but a mediating tool. So perhaps “lens” might be a better metaphor to describe what I have in mid with the triad aesthetic-rational-ethical, or the pair Yin-Yang or the dynamic trio thesis-antithesis-synthesis.

As for Sells’ exposé, you are certainly not the only one who does not understand (his) theology, although other people would not describe culturally entrenched symbolism they cannot comprehend the way you did. (I could not quote you, because the OLO ordered me to “remove the profanity”.) Nevertheless I have to agree with waterboy that Peter’s writings are indeed sometimes very hard to make sense of. One has to have some familiarity with the symbols involved to understand the meaning of their purported interaction, and I think this applies especially to theology.

I know from my own experience that there is also a lot of pure mathematics - by itself also only symbols of physical reality - that an outsider cannot comprehend. Nevertheless, it is necessary to describe (to model) this physical reality in order to have an understanding of it, and possibly make use of this understanding. Something similar might be true about the symbolic world of theology that models the extended, “Ultimate“ reality, that encompasses also us - individuals as well as humanity as such - and perhaps also something extra, that science, including psychology, cannot reach.

Correction. Pllease replace the ambiguous

“Nevertheless, it is necessary to describe (to model) this physical reality in order to have an understanding of it, and possibly make use of this understanding“

with

“Nevertheless, mathematics is needed to describe (to model) this physical reality in order to have an understanding of it, (and possibly make practical use of this understanding)“.

George, waterboy et al,
Symbolic representation combined with Tilich's, “who are willing to look in the same direction” give an important underlying dimension. Tillich freely recognizes that the "Spiritual Presence" is experienced in all religions – his “protestant principle”, however, follows and evolves from Augustine, through to Luther to the present.

Tillich, as with others was willing to be drawn out of isolation by meeting adherents of other faiths (I imagine Sells draws exception to this): "An existential contact with outstanding representatives of non-Christian religions forces one into the acknowledgment that God is not far from them, that there is a universal revelation." Tillich suggests that the Eastern understanding of reality leads to "a profound compassion for the universality of suffering under all dimensions of life." The Bodhisattva's path to disinterested compassion for all beings comes from the same sort of ego-transcendence Tillich ascribes to Jesus.

Tillich's theology grew from the orthodox - it forms his underlying basis, but he cautions that people who try to deny the symbolic nature of the language begin to worship the symbol rather than the infinite God: “Faith, if it takes its symbols literally, becomes idolatrous! It calls something ultimate which is less than ultimate” The philosopher, according to Tillich, in seeking truth about the structure of being "looks at the whole of reality" and tries to grasp "the universal logos," while the theologian "must look where that which concerns him ultimately is manifest," that is, "at the logos manifesting itself in a particular historical event." Tillich contends that all created possibility is expressed in its essential perfection by the father in the Logos. In a similar fashion, Teilhard contends that a theory of creation which cannot be shown to complete the Godhead both devalues creation and cripples human creativity within it.

Tillich, like Teilhard, considers the Alpha to be the Christ, standing outside time, yet entering somehow into Creation. In line with our topic it is worthy to note, the philosophers of the early Church saw Christ as the embodiment of the Sophia as well as the Incarnation of the Logos.

Relda, when are you people going to realise that God is the creation of Man and not that Man is the creation of God. As Gore Vidal once reminded us, "Man has made God in his own image".

David

David,
I take heart, in a strange way, from Friedrich Nietzeche, the famous atheist and ardent enemy of religion and Christianity - he knew more about the power of the idea of God than many faithful Christians. Understand the symbolic story of Zarathustra who says to the Ugliest Man, the murderer of God, "You could not bear him to see you, always to see you through and through... You took revenge on the witness... You are the murderer of God."

"..Why try to escape from a reality of which we are a part? There is no reason to flee from a god who is nothing more than a benevolent father, a father who guarantees our immortality and final happiness. Why try to escape from someone who serves us so well? No, those are not pictures of God, but rather of man, trying to make God in his own image and for his own comfort. They are the products of man's imagination and wishful thinking, justly denied by every honest atheist. A god whom we can easily bear, a god from whom we do not have to hide, a god whom we do not hate in moments, a god whose destruction we never desire, is not God at all, and has no reality." - P.T.

Psychiatrists (our modern confessors) are familiar with the tremendous force of resistance in each personality against even trifling self-revelations. Nobody wants to be known, even when the realisation that and salvation depend upon such knowledge. We do not even wish to be known by ourselves. We try to hide the depths of our souls from our own eyes. We refuse to be our own witness.

"The protest against God, the will that there be no God, and the flight to atheism are all genuine elements of profound religion. And only on the basis of these elements has religion meaning and power." - P.T

Don't you have an original thought in your brain. Why do you have to regurgitate the thoughts of others all the time. Religions are all about power to control the masses, something which I see in you. You are being controlled by the fear that if you do not conform then your alleged spirit will not live on.

David

David,
>> Religions are all about power to control the masses <<
Well, this is anything but an "original thought in your brain". I heard it "regurgitated" by my marx-leninst teachers (in Eastern Europe in the fifties) hundreds of times, but in distinction to you, I did not have the luxury of asking "why do you have to regurgitate the thoughts of others all the time" if I wanted to stay at school/university. We are so lucky that we can learn about different world-views, being free to voice our disagreement with some of them. So there is no need to be impolite.

Anyhow, Ludwig Feuerbach's "Man created God (to his image)" - "regurgitated" by Gore Vidal if you like - is just the reverse of the biblical "God created man to His Image". They are just two sides of the same coin, the same reality:

It is a simple fact that people who cannot understand abstract concepts need to visualise them, to make “images of them“ that they can comprehend. Like e.g. those who are not enough versed in mathematical physics visualise elementary particles as tiny balls, and the atom as a miniature planetary system, string theory as replacing the tiny balls by tiny strings, etc. The same with the (Christian) concept of God etc.

Some naive people believe that one day we will know “everything" about the (material) world; more sophisticated scientists are satisfied with the belief that their theories are getting closer and closer to understanding this world.

Similarly, some naive people believe in their constructions of the Ultimate Reality "made to their image" and usually based on a verbatim interpretation of some "sacred text" (e.g. the Bible); others have a more sophisticated understanding of what religion and belief in God is all about, but are then in danger of getting reactions from those who cannot follow, like relda got from you now, (and we both got from a couple of emotional atheists on this OLO many times).

David,
Again, I’ll be unoriginal and join with George in his excellent response to your verbatim replay of Gore Vidal’s regurgitation. To be non-religious can perhaps be a blessing, but to be fervently anti-religious because of a fear of institutional power, stems perhaps from an ignorance on the ‘nature’ or ‘substance’ of God. As George would rightly suggest, your fear is far better to be focused on the materialist and pervasive Marx-Leninist philosophy, and the institutions that are established in their name.

"When we say yes to something other than the Christ we are immediately in the company of demons who will imprison us and destroy our lives."

Is this for real? As a Christian you have rejected then thousand other faiths and other gods. You are an atheist in the eyes of the followers of those ten thousand faiths, yet you have the hide to condemn all who do not believe what you do as companions of demons.

It is a pity the bible had so little to say on humility.

(It did? Oh)

It is a pity the bible had so little to say on conceit.

Aldous Huxley, in his ‘Brave New World’, was contemptuous not only of an old Capitalism, but also of an old Socialism. It was also a revolt against the Utopian dream of man who, in his fantasy, imagines his existence apart from God. "It is only by becoming Godlike that we can know God - and to become Godlike is to identify ourselves with the divine element which in fact constitutes our essential nature, but of which, in our mainly voluntary ignorance, we choose to remain unaware." – Aldous Huxley.