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