Truths

K. J. Lopez asks:

Juan Williams (on Fox News Sunday) wants the Catholic Church to stop dissing women (ordination) and ignoring the threat of AIDs (by embracing condoms). How about a little respect for the fact there's actual teaching behind this stuff and to look at those two topics with such a conventional view shortchanges those teachings?

That's a point I keep trying to make.  If it's an absolute that, say, braids are wrong, then no amount of societal approval of braids is going to change that absolute.  Any religion that changes its truth-claims based on secular culture is not worth its salt.  However, it's not wrong to find out if something is an absolute or is a truth-claim.  Arguing that "braids" simply refers to vanity and ostentation, rather than a specific hairstyle, is quite different from saying that it doesn't matter what the teaching is if it doesn't coincide with our ideas of what's right.

Two notes from elsewhere that I like, that aren't related to the NRO point but instead to the Bible verse:
Vedanta Desika wrote in his Satadushani (in my translation), "Censure does not serve to censure something that should be censured (in and of itself), but rather to praise that which is not censured."
And a French abbot in the 17th century wrote to a noblewoman (in paraphrase), "while it is good that you are not a slave to fashion, you err in dressing overly plainly, for that also draws attention to yourself, gives you a false sense of piety, and stokes your pride.  Instead, dress moderately, so you will be seen as having not high fashion, nor ostentatiously wrong fashion, but no fashion at all."

Comments

[Kenny]

Tell me more about this particular French abbott. There's something there that I've been trying to ascertain for some time now. Who might that be and where I might I learn more? Book or link, either or.

Enjoy as always. Have a great day!

[Adrianne Truett]

I can't recall his name, sorry. Was in a little book my grandmother had. Name begins with F? Sorry, doesn't help. I know he quoted St. Francis de Sales often, though, so de Sales might have similar views.

[Nik]

This is what I hate so much about Lopez, she has absolutely no ability to see any other side of an issue other than the one she is on. Unlike much of the rest of the NRO crew (who I mostly disagree with on almost every issue), she brings no intellectual firepower to the discussion, just a blind belief that what she thinks *must* be right.

What infuriated me about her post is that there are a LOT of things that are condemned in the Bible that even the most ardent believers don't think we should actually do now. E.g., stoning disobedient children to death, etc. A whole host of crimes we would consider minor that the Bible insists are punishable by death. Obviously, we don't believe these things to be that bad, neither the Church (or Jews for that matter) are suggesting that all Biblical prohibitions be given full force.

Its fine to cling fiercely to tradition or what you believe is God's word. I'm not saying that advocating against condoms or female ordination is wrong (even though I would disagree with those positions). But what is wrong is to claim that no argument can be mounted against these positions (at least from a religious standpoint) because there's "teaching" behind them. At least acknowledge that you're making *choices* about what to believe and what not to believe. And others can very legitimately argue that traditions such as opposition to birth control and female priests can be dropped, just as stoning of disobedient children can be dropped (as any one of countless other prohibitions).

[Adrianne Truett]

Right. I don't know what *she* meant to say, but what *I* meant to say (and what others have said) is that society's approval has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not something's right/true/divinely ordained.

I wouldn't say that no argument can be mounted against these positions because there's teaching behind them; what I would say is that the reason for (or the teaching behind) those positions should be understood before deciding they're wrong. Like no-meat-on-Friday -- just looking at it as such and saying it's nonsensical and a nuisance isn't a good reason for changing the official teaching on it. It should only be changed if the reason for that position is either wrong or inapplicable (say, it only became a rule because a Pope had a brother in the fish market who wanted a job boost; or it was well-founded but no longer holds good as it referred only to a specific cultural practice; or it should be seen as instead a general injunction to occasional fasting towards spiritual ends and not a specific rule), as in my example about braided hair above.

Others certainly can very legitimately argue that opposition to birth control, opposition to female priests, priestly celibacy, and stoning of disobedient children can be dropped. And they do. There's constant discussion about those things -- well, the first three! -- within the church. The difference is, they argue from within the tradition to make their points: saying, for example, respectively, that birth control is fine now because the command was to be fruitful and multiply so that the earth may be filled, and now it is; that female priests were forbidden because it would have caused such a great offense in that culture to have female priests that it would turn people off from the faith (and that, by that logic, now it's neccesary that they be permitted in certain cultures, because barring them turns people from the faith); that Peter, the first Pope, had a wife, and the rules on priestly celibacy were a later innovation to fight priestly promiscuity and priests who paid too much attention to their wives and not enough to their church, but that now it causes more harm than good and should be abandoned; and that the New Covenant, while it upheld the *nature* of all the laws, changed their application, and make them more situational and internal and serious, so being in unrepentant sin (such as disobedience, adultery, etc.) puts you in danger of eternal damnation, which is much harsher than just stoning.

All the complaints I'm seeing in newspaper articles about the Pope's positions argue not from within the tradition, but from external cultural ideas. Abortion is a woman's right, absolutely, so a church that has positions opposing it is wrong or anti-woman and must change its positions purely on that basis. (Social change / opinions may well provide the impetus for examining church teachings and seeing if they're right / still right, but it should not provide the reason for change. That should be done based on whether or not the teachings are right, no matter what popular opinion says.)

Examples from the Episcopal church and homosexuality:
-Countryman looked at the Bible passages on homosexuality and argued that they don't actually say that it's wrong, and they don't actually refer to it. Other language scholars have attacked him quite thoroughly, but he's arguing from within the tradition.
-Louie Crew (high-profile Episcopalian), on the other hand, agrees that the Bible says it's wrong, but then argues that the Bible shouldn't really have any bearing on church teaching, because it's just an old book -- the church wrote it, so the church can and should change it, he says. That's, well, *not* arguing from within the tradition.

I'd say that it's not that no argument can be mounted against the church position on homosexuality because there are centuries of teaching behind it; rather, no (good) argument can be mounted against it that fails to explain why that teaching doesn't actually hold.

...and, if that teaching truly doesn't actually hold, then the position should be changed. Like the cousin-marriage stuff again; the (stated) reasoning behind banning it was some huge rate of birth defects. Arguing that it should be legal because it's discriminatory etc. to ban it doesn't take into account the reasoning. Arguing that, as the Cousin Couples groups have been pointing out for ages and as CNN only recently reported, the reasoning is wrong, because the birth-defect rate is only marginally higher than that for non-cousin couples, and because we don't bar individual non-cousin couples with hereditary problems from reproducing, so we shouldn't ban cousin marriages, does take into account the reasoning and show why it doesn't hold. Of course, the CNN poll responders still say it should be banned (but with what reason?), but that's neither here nor there.

I hope I've been a bit clearer?

[Adrianne Truett]

Example of what I mean: NBC just said "the new Pope will have to change things to win back people turned off by this Pope's conservative positions" (in paraphrase). That's just the thing -- it's not (or shouldn't be!) a numbers game. If said positions are absolute truth, then abandoning them in favor of popularity is simply not an option. Looking at them to *make sure" they're right, however, is fine, but NBC didn't mention that option. The way NBC (and the people they quoted) put it, they're positions just taken for fun or to oppress people (the lady just said, "he didn't want to listen to women"), not positions taken out of a conviction that they are divinely ordained. That's the attitude I and, I believe, Lopez meant.

[R. Alex]

It's been really interesting watching watching, reading, and listening to the media talk about what the Catholic Church "needs to do" as if it were a political party or business organization. A church's precepts ought to dictate who the followers are, not the other way around.

[Adrianne Truett]

Why can't I do that? I tie myself in knots for, what, 8000 words, and you say the whole thing neatly in two sentences. Man!

[Nik]

Well, sure that would be great if the Church's precepts determined its followers, etc, etc. But that's not the case and never has been. Every religion accomodates when its purpose and drive is to seek out new converts. Look at church services in West Africa -- they look NOTHING like those in Europe or the United States. If we still have pre-Vatican II Latin mass in those places, you would not have seen the huge growth in the catholic church there. Go back to the beginning of Christianity -- early Christians accepts many pagan symbols and practices, molding them to fit the teachings of the Bible, in order to win converts by making the new religion seem more appealing and not so far of a jump from the old.

The fact is that the Catholic Church does actively seek converts and wants to stem the outflow of people from the Church. That's a fact. Given that, its no crime to suggest that one way to do that would be to let priests marry or ordain women or accepts gays or whatever else. (Put aside that all of these claims are incredibly America-centric, the rest of the world, which actually contains most of the catholics couldn't give a darn about these changes and would actively resist them).

Now, your position is that divinely ordained truths cannot be changed simply because times change or attitudes change, but rather only if we decide that the specific prohibition was not what was actually divinely ordained. Fine, I think that's a great position and its consistent. But I would argue that you're ignoring the fact that our attitudes and beliefs (current ones) are what informs and constructs our views on what is *really* divinely ordained and what doesn't really mean what it says. At the time of the Old Testament, I'm sure that disobedient children were taken out and stoned. And the fact that this changed wasn't because 1000 years later someone suddenly figured out that this practice wasn't *actually* divinely ordained but, rather that it just meant that children should obey their parents, etc, etc. It was because our social mores changed and we decided, as a society, that this was really a practice we wanted to follow so, gradually, it didn't seem to us that this was meant literally.

I guess what we're disagreeing about is the process behind how what was once surely divinely ordained isn't anymore. I'm saying that we'll decide women can be ordained BECAUSE we've decided that women should be equal in all things, not because we reexamined the doctrine and (how coincidental) discovered that that wasn't what the rule *really* meant after all and the prohibition was not divinely ordained.

[Nik]

Consider the counterfactual: Tomorrow, 95% of the world's Catholics wake up and resolve that it is completely unacceptable that women cannot be priests (or that gays are excluded, or priests can't marry, pick you favorite example). They claim that they will leave the Church because of what they perceive as a grave injustice.

What do you think the new pontiff will do? I would stake a lot on the fact that Church doctrine, with all of K.Lo's "teaching" behind it, would change mighty quick.

Again, this isn't a knock on the Catholic Church, any religion that wanted to survive would do the same.

[Adrianne Truett]

I don't argue that religious teachings have and will continue to change based on what people think they should be. I still hold, however, that they *shouldn't*. If some position is, in fact, absolute truth, and a religious leader with the power to change official teachings (but no power, of course, to change whether or not it's absolute truth) believes that position to be absolute truth, he'd be extremely reprehensible if he actively began teaching a contrary position, no matter the consequences of not teaching it.

I don't think woman priests is a matter with bearing on salvation, in either direction, per se (and I also have no opinion on whether or not they should be permitted -- although I do think that they should not be mandated). But some people probably think it is. So let's take something that *I* think is, so that I can follow my own argument a bit better: for extremely basic, let's go with belief in God. Tomorrow 75% of the country's Episcopalians wake up convinced that there's no God.... wait, that one's already happened. Anyhow: tomorrow 95% of the world's Catholics wake up convinced that there's no God, or at least not one that's intimately concerned with our affairs, and say they'll leave the church if it doesn't stop requiring that unscientific belief. Well, the Pope is supposed to be concerned with people's salvation; if he keeps the masses happy, what avail? Donations, church upkeep, other power over temporal affairs, yes, but at the cost of the eternal souls of the people who follow his teachings. I'd hope he'd say that's not a good trade.

[Adrianne Truett]

Of course, on the more practical side, it's probably worth noting that, at least in this country, the religious groups (such as mine) that have updated their teaching to go with the times have lost members pretty quickly; it's generally the ones who think there's an unchanging absolute truth (like the pentecostals and the mormons and the muslims) that are growing.

[R. Alex]

It's interesting that you bring up the Mormons. They're perhaps an excellent example of a church that has had "revelations" (from God) whenever they've had to change their doctrine to fit in with the times (polygamy the best known example, the former barring of non-white church leaders another example).

[Adrianne Truett]

Yes :) they're rather amusing -- or a frightening and death-threat-making cult, depending on which former members you talk to. I suppose I shouldn't cite them as a group who stick to their story; rather, they're a group that grows either in spite of or because of having a message that is decidedly *not* in alignment with "the church must change or die" people. Yeah, I've changed topics :)

[R. Alex]

I wasn't criticising your inclusion of LDS in there, merely pointing out how the Catholic Church would look if the next Pope came in and started making changes to conform to society's norms. The LDS leadership is notoriously conservative. But unlike the Catholic leadership, they don't have their own nation to insulate them from political pressures.

I think it's an inherent problem with any church that believes that it's leader is chosen by God. If God told the chosen leader in 1901 one thing, how do you backtrack without looking as political as the LDS does? That's the advantage I think that the protestants have over the Catholics. They make no such claim and their views can adjust accordingly with a more "thorough" reading of the text: "Those words didn't mean what we thought they did."

[Adrianne Truett]

Ah, but the Catholics can always go and posthumously excommunicate former popes, saying, "well, he may have said that, but it's only because he was no longer God's representative by then." (Hey, they've even got Biblical precedent -- Saul was chosen by God, but then went bad, so God's authority passed to another.) I seem to recall a couple of sequential pope-excommunications, one of which may have involved dumping the predecessor's remains in the river? Ahh, gotta love church history :)