On perennialism
My position is that perennialism, irrespective of whether it's true or not, is a fruitless position to hold. That is to say, it has no implications with respect to the life, and its quality, one leads. Before I explain further, let me try and say what I mean by perennialism. Consider the following two questions:
1) Is there any truth in religion?
2) Is any religion true?
The perennialist is someone who answers the first question in the affirmative and the second in the negative. Religions glimpse a single truth exclusive to none of them. They each merely point to this truth with words like God, Brahman, Nirvana, Tao, etc.
The religious inclusivist, by contrast, is someone who answers both questions in the affirmative. Let's take the Christian inclusivist as an example. For him, God, as revealed in the person of Christ, is the ultimate standard of truth, but dim, incomplete reflections and expressions of this truth can still be found in other religions. Thus, the perennialist subsumes God under a neutral truth X, whereas for the Christian inclusivist, God occupies the place of X (for there is nothing beyond God), just as Brahman does for the Hindu inclusivist, and so on.
Now, what follows from perennialism? I answer: nothing. If it turns out that all religions are merely groping in various ways toward some truth exclusive to none of them, then one has, ipso facto, ruled out belonging to any one of them. Apart from Unitarianism perhaps, every religious tradition proposes a set of exclusive truth claims that it is incumbent on followers to accept. But more than that, every religious tradition makes certain practical and behavioral demands of its follows. The Catholic must attend Mass, the Hindu, puja, the Jew, synagogue, and so on. The follower is obliged to pray, meditate, fast, give to charity, go on pilgrimage, etc.
The perennialist is estranged from all this. If he claims that he can still engage in certain of these practices without formally belonging to any particular religious tradition, that may be so, but a religion of one is, in reality, a religion of none. It isn't religion at all, but a form of eclecticism, for religion is an inherently communal and institutional enterprise. Such a person is seeking the benefits of religion without the costs, the costs being assent to a specific set of truth claims and obedience to religious authority, both of which are especially hard for modern man to accept. Simply put, it isn't certain that the benefits of religion can be had outside of it. Nor is it certain that they can be had within it either, but one may and ought to wonder whether they are better had within it than not. The religious hermit, for example, for all his solitude, still chooses to formally bind himself to a particular belief structure and religious institution, no matter how physically distant from the latter he may be.
In sum, perennialism leaves one in precisely the same set of circumstances one was in before its acceptance. For the individual who sees the possibility, merit, and even urgency of personal transformation, perennialism will be an empty consolation.
1) Is there any truth in religion?
2) Is any religion true?
The perennialist is someone who answers the first question in the affirmative and the second in the negative. Religions glimpse a single truth exclusive to none of them. They each merely point to this truth with words like God, Brahman, Nirvana, Tao, etc.
The religious inclusivist, by contrast, is someone who answers both questions in the affirmative. Let's take the Christian inclusivist as an example. For him, God, as revealed in the person of Christ, is the ultimate standard of truth, but dim, incomplete reflections and expressions of this truth can still be found in other religions. Thus, the perennialist subsumes God under a neutral truth X, whereas for the Christian inclusivist, God occupies the place of X (for there is nothing beyond God), just as Brahman does for the Hindu inclusivist, and so on.
Now, what follows from perennialism? I answer: nothing. If it turns out that all religions are merely groping in various ways toward some truth exclusive to none of them, then one has, ipso facto, ruled out belonging to any one of them. Apart from Unitarianism perhaps, every religious tradition proposes a set of exclusive truth claims that it is incumbent on followers to accept. But more than that, every religious tradition makes certain practical and behavioral demands of its follows. The Catholic must attend Mass, the Hindu, puja, the Jew, synagogue, and so on. The follower is obliged to pray, meditate, fast, give to charity, go on pilgrimage, etc.
The perennialist is estranged from all this. If he claims that he can still engage in certain of these practices without formally belonging to any particular religious tradition, that may be so, but a religion of one is, in reality, a religion of none. It isn't religion at all, but a form of eclecticism, for religion is an inherently communal and institutional enterprise. Such a person is seeking the benefits of religion without the costs, the costs being assent to a specific set of truth claims and obedience to religious authority, both of which are especially hard for modern man to accept. Simply put, it isn't certain that the benefits of religion can be had outside of it. Nor is it certain that they can be had within it either, but one may and ought to wonder whether they are better had within it than not. The religious hermit, for example, for all his solitude, still chooses to formally bind himself to a particular belief structure and religious institution, no matter how physically distant from the latter he may be.
In sum, perennialism leaves one in precisely the same set of circumstances one was in before its acceptance. For the individual who sees the possibility, merit, and even urgency of personal transformation, perennialism will be an empty consolation.
Comments (216)
This sounds a lot like Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "cheap grace":
You are right that "religion is an inherently communal and institutional enterprise". It is within the collectivity of a congregation that one finds religion. It is easy to claim that one is "spiritual" rather than "religious" because "spiritual" is amorphous, vague, undemanding, and solitary -- at least the way the term is commonly used.
Interesting quote. I will look him up now.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes, exactly! The bolded word in particular summarizes my point well.
What are the benefits? I don't think I agree with your assessment here. But, you seem to be describing a definite type of person that exists; the "spiritual but not religious", the type who wants to avoid conflict by painting over disparate views with a broad brush. They have a fear of commitment.
But it's possible to study religion and philosophy in more depth and come to a perennialist conclusion. You haven't actually shown an argument for why the idea of different religions having kernels of the truth is wrong. It looks like your argument is just that taking some religious stances but then not adhering to one is fruitless because it's undemanding.
On the other hand, the notion that different philosophies, different religions, might have bits of truth in them, amongst the dross, is a far more demanding prospect. It requires both a courage (the sense of leaving the familiar shore in favor of the uncharted sea), as well as a comforting reliance on the spiritual intuition which is the tool that uncovers those truths, and the very tool that sparks the belief in the perennial nature of truth.
@Wayfarer >:O
Yes, that's why they always carry a pink flying pony around, which they have to always hug tightly to their chests O:)
Good question. In my final paragraph, I alluded to what I would probably take to be one important benefit, namely, the ability to be personally transformed in a positive way. I would add the benefit of knowing the truth. I think people are attracted to a religion, or ought to be, first, because they believe it to be true and believe it will bring them closer to the truth, and second, because they desire personal transformation. Jesus, for example, says he comes not for the well but for the sick. Those who are well don't need a savior, so if one believes one is well, then that person has no need of and likely doesn't care about religion. That is fine by me, but I am not well and nor do I believe the world to be well either, so I am interested in religion.
Quoting Noble Dust
Yes, well said.
Quoting Noble Dust
Correct. This is exactly what I'm arguing.
Quoting Noble Dust
Not to mention, a pretty thorough knowledge of the world's religions so as to rule out any one of them being exclusively true.
Here's a question for you: would you join a religion while willingly knowing that not one religion is exclusively true? Could you do this while also submitting yourself to the demands of your religion? How would you reconcile your philosophical knowledge with your submitting to religious authority? Honest questions that I'm interested in.
Quoting Thorongil
Have you experienced religious transformation?
Quoting Thorongil
I think the irony is that everyone is sick.
You have reality backwards. "Perenialism" and any other set of -isms are not the sort of thing from which a description or exposition of which "LEADS TO", or has things that follow from. Perennialism is a gross categorisation of a complex set of positions.
There is no such thing as a perennialist, but if there were his position would be far more credible than the one which you seem to be groping towards. And nothing is implied in your definition of perennialism which suggests from the two questions that he might want his religious cake and eat it to. Just because a given religion might contain such truth does not mean that the "perennialsit" what ever the hell that is, wants something from that religion.
And I have no idea why you think your last paragraph means anything, or follows from anything.
I think it would be preferable if everyone returned to the mentality which underlay the 'Religious Wars' of Europe, where entire communities were engaged in murdering each other over over differences in doctrine. Or the highly fruitful Mughal invasions of India, wherein millions of Buddhists and Hindus were slaughtered for idolatry.
Societies should definitely clamp down on pluralism, also. Tolerating a range of perspectives on religious matters is surely a form of modern deviance.
All of which simply goes to support the ultimate truth, which is atheism. Atheists point out, rightly, that each 'religion' claims to have a unique truth, which is different to all the other 'religions', and can't co-exist with it. But from any rational or objective point of view, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that they all cancel each other out, that no 'religion' has or is the truth, but they're simply cultural projections and collective wish-fulfilment.
It's interesting you believe this leads to atheism.
Quoting Wayfarer
But why couldn't it be that religions are like peaks of a mountain range? There's different peaks which reach to different heights. But then there would be a religion which towers above the rest and is "most true" if we can so say - the highest peak. A religion which has access to the fullness of Truth.
I think your view is too black and white - all religions attempt to reach truth and fail (thus no religion is true).
No. That would be dishonest, and I respect the religious enough not to patronize them or to dissemble my beliefs in their midst.
Quoting Noble Dust
In terms of my joining a religion, I wouldn't demand that all of its claims be rational, just that they are not irrational.
Quoting Noble Dust
No. I often wish that I could, though.
And this was precisely my point. So thank you, dear charleton, for repeating it.
(L) >:)
I can't abide 'triumphalism' in any way shape or form. Or the implicit and sometimes explicit authoritarianism that is an inevitable consequence.
While I appreciate the sarcasm, this is a straw man. The obverse of perennialism is not, and need not be, a form of religious exclusivism that brooks no dissent and whose interactions with other religions are violent. My contrast with exclusivism was religious inclusivism, which is perfectly compatible with a religiously pluralistic society that upholds the freedom of religion.
Quoting Wayfarer
Why is this the only rational and objective point of view? I don't see that it is.
I can only guess as to what these unenumerated, numerous defects are, if you will not tell me what they are. The one defect you list here will itself require some elaboration.
I find this a painfully ignorant and hostile sentiment. That is what caused the sarcastic response.
I have a busy day ahead, and I could effortlessly produce 5,000 words on this topic, but I won't have time, so will try and keep it brief.
The idea of 'the perennial philosophy' has many precedents but the term 'philosophia perennis' goes back to Leibniz. However he was drawing on the Italian renaissance humanists, among them Ficino and Pico Della Mirandolla, whose Oration on the Dignity of Man was practically a perennialist manifesto.
But they in turn drew on many earlier sources, mainly Platonist or neo-Platonist //edit//and Hermetic//. Ficino was commissioned to produce Plato's complete works in Latin. (These are all great minds, of whom I only too readily acknowledge my scant learning.)
In the East, the Hindu sages have long held an idea of the 'sanatana dharma' which is the 'eternal faith' of which the Hindu vedas are expressions. But India naturally tends towards pluralism. That is why the Christian missionaries found it so hard to make headway there - throngs would come to their churches, sing hymns, praise God, and then move right next door and do the same for Ganesha or Hanuman. All the Divine, right? (Not forgetting that the Church of St Thomas in Goa is one of the most ancient Christian denominations in existence, founded by the Apostle. Little known fact).
What irks me about @Agostino is the undercurrent of Christian triumphalism, accompanied by crypto-facist political tendencies. Let's not forget that the Inquisition had torture instruments inscribed with the motto 'For The Greater Glory of Christ', eh?
My philosophy is (for some reason) deeply informed by Platonic Christianity - I found the modern classical writers on Christian mysticism highly attractive (Dean Inge, Evelyn Underhill among them. I have also just recently discovered radical orthodoxy - had I encountered these kinds of teachings I might well have stayed Christian. But, as everyone here knows, I converted to Buddhism. However one salient point about Buddhism is this: it is a vehicle, a raft. It doesn't proclaim that it owns the truth, it points towards it, and every individual has to work out how to get there. 'Work out your own salvation with diligence' were reportedly the last words of the Buddha, who left no heir. Ultimately, he said 'all dharmas are to be abandoned, to say nothing of a-dharma'. Work that one out!
We do live in a pluralist culture - I mentioned this before, Agustino regards it as a consequence of sin (is that right?) But I think a plurality of perspectives and views is unavoidable. We can't proclaim 'one truth faith', especially on a philosophy forum (although I think it is perfectly acceptable to believe it.)
Anyway I have to tear myself away, busy Saturday, wife will be very annoyed with me 'playing with my invisible friends', I will leave you with this memento from the late great Huston Smith.
Sure.
I never intended to be hostile, unless you interpret any perceived opposition to your views as amounting to hostility.
Quoting Wayfarer
:-|
Quoting Wayfarer
So far, this is just a genealogy of certain figures apparently associated with perennialism, not a refutation of anything I said. The genealogical approach to religion, incidentally, is employed John Milbank, the titular head of the so called "radical orthodoxy" movement in Christian theology, which you mention later in your post. I must say that I side with Paul Griffiths in the following video on this subject (who, by the way, recently resigned from his post at Duke due to pressures from the leftist thought police, as shown here).
So, how is what you're doing not simply an endless prologue, as even Milbank admits this approach can become? You said my post had defects, but you don't tell me what they are! Instead, you give me genealogies and criticize @Agustino, who hasn't even really featured in this thread.
Quoting Wayfarer
Why cannot he claim that what he takes to be true is, in fact, true? What's wrong with "triumphalism?" To the extent that he does display it and that you do not mean to use the term purely pejoratively, he doesn't do so for no reason. You seem to be assuming some kind of malevolence that may not be and, I suspect in his case, is not there.
Quoting Wayfarer
He's doesn't appear as a fascist to me, which is such a tiresome accusation. Is there really no other way to describe his views than by linking him to what is popularly conceived to be the worst thing ever? Can you actually back up the claim? I'm open to seeing him in a new light if you can provide the evidence.
Quoting Wayfarer
Are you not here simply assuming that Agustino has "forgotten" the Inquisition?
Quoting Wayfarer
This is bizarre to me. Why not reconvert to Christianity if radical orthodoxy has convinced you of its truth? Is someone forcing you to be a Buddhist? Do you feel you must continue to be one out of habit? I would say the same thing if the positions were reversed. In other words, if you had been a Christian the whole time and recently discovered Buddhism and thought it to be true, I would see no reason why you ought not to convert to Buddhism. Truth is truth. Or has radical orthodoxy provided you with something different? What is it about this theological movement that would have made you stay a Christian?
Quoting Wayfarer
I don't buy it. The truth of nirvana is the truth itself, the very highest form thereof, for one obtains perfect knowledge of the nature of existence. The Buddha's teachings are a raft meant to bring one to this truth. In Buddhism, there are only two truths, the truth of ordinary language and perception and the truth of enlightenment. There is no third which subsumes the latter, as in the perennialist's scheme.
Quoting Wayfarer
That's weird you would think that. Why can't we?
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, I can see that you can't abide it, but your inability to abide it doesn't mean that it's not true, which is what we should be discussing.
The point with your criticism of me with regards to pluralism is that you deny the triumph of truth. You don't seem to understand that there is a relationship between truth and authority - in that truth is authoritative. If truth is no longer authoritative, then we end up in a post-truth world, and I think we have actually been in a post-truth world for a very long time - largely because of people like you, I would add. When you irrationally undermine authority and 'triumphalism' then you also undermine truth, for how can truth exist if it is not authoritative? Is it not its authority that guarantees its truth so to speak? Its unavoidableness? It is the authority (its unavoidableness) of the law of gravity that guarantees its truth.
Your argument is basically - well if we accept any non-pluralistic truth or set of beliefs, then we are more likely to have conflicts than otherwise. Conflicts are bad (since they can lead to things like the Inquisition), the truth is good and therefore truth cannot be non-pluralistic. It's a pragmatic argument through and through, it has nothing to do with what actually is true, but with what you think truth ought to be on a pragmatic level. So you don't even consider non-pluralistic truths - you reject them, almost on an a priori basis. How it that being rational - being a seeker of truth - rather than of your own fancies?
Quoting Wayfarer
Yeah there's Big Brother on one side, and Brave New World on the other. We're so close to the latter, that swinging towards the former is just a way to avoid imminent disaster.
Quoting Wayfarer
No, not as a consequence of sin, but rather as a consequence of weak-willed people, who no longer believe in truth - they prefer social utility to truth. To avoid conflict, they will renounce truth - exactly like you! "Oh let's not talk about that because it's a hot button issue" - really Wayfarer, who are you kidding? Yourself? You either stand up for truth, or you don't - if you lack the courage to stand up for truth, then you should at least admit to it, instead of pretending that's not the case and forming ad hoc rationalisations to explain your behaviour such as hot button issues and the like.
"Oh, it's useful to say all religions are true, I'll get along better with my coworkers! Let's do that". New Agers pick and choose truth based on how useful it happens to be in the particular circumstance. But how is usefulness to be decided? Certainly not based on truth! It is rather decided on their whims and desires - their whims and desires become truth - they become authoritative.
See, I am not like you. I would rather be rejected by the whole world and society and hold fast unto truth, rather than accept untruth in order to be well liked, respected, with many friends, etc.
Quoting Wayfarer
Why can't we proclaim 'one truth faith'? Again, this is an a priori for you. You're just rejecting it because it's not socially useful - it's likely to lead to conflict. But that has nothing to do with what the truth is, which is what you should be considering, independently of your prejudice.
I'll check it out. Thanks for the heads up.
Quoting Agustino
This is a philosophy forum. There are many Christian theology forums out there.
So is a philosophy forum not meant to be for people who are searching after the truth? What if this truth happens to be a one faith truth? :s I'm just asking you to consider the possibility.
That is why I would like to think that there is an over-arching reality of which the different faith traditions are expressions. But that seems too much to countenance here on this forum so I'll shut up.
In a philosophy forum I look to argument, not proclamation. Proclamation is for propagandists, and belongs elsewhere than here. I also look for mutual respect among people who accept each other as intellectual equals, whatever our differences.
Okay, that's all fine, I'm not questioning that. I'm rather interested to know if you ever considered that truth may be a "one true faith" kind of truth, and if so, why did you rationally - and not emotionally or based on considerations of usefulness - reject that idea? That's all. I have no qualms with you believing in perennialism, I just want to know why you think it's true rather than why you find it useful, etc.
I think it's this:
Quoting Thorongil
Huston Smith, whom I mentioned, was a living refutation of this assertion. He was born of Methodist missionary parents in China, and maintained a lifelong Christian faith, whilst also being educated in, and practicing, Sufism, Advaita Vedanta and Zen Buddhism.
There are many other such scholars in today's world. But I think it unnerves the authoritarian personality, because of the difficulty of dealing with multivalence and the apparent contradictions between traditions. They want clear answers, hence their appeal to the One True Faith. I think that comes out in their politics also. Speaking of which, I think I am of the 'religious left'.
But can't the same be said about you? Can't it also be said that your own commitments with regards to this come out of your politics? I mean I've been asking you for why you think your position is true, and you haven't yet given one single reason. Instead you tell me about a genealogy of you and your family, how you live in a Christian household, etc. but that's not what I'm asking at all :s ...
I'll be completely honest: went to an Anglican school with services three days a week. I think I always felt an affinity with Jesus, and I still do. But when it came to confirmation, I baulked. Part of it was the amount of work: you had to learn the catechism, which seemed an awful lot of memorising, and go to a large number of services over 6 weeks. I was a lousy student, and I said to my dad, don't want to do this. And he was quite happy, because he was pretty anti-religious.
Over my teenage years -this is the sixties, remember - there was the whole Woodstock thing, the hippies, Vietnam protests - I participated - and so on. I got high with a little help from my friends. I wasn't the least bit interested in religion, but I sure was interested in enlightenment. I had glimpses of the clear light - I thought, hey there's something here that none of 'the straights' understand. This is why they're, like, f**** up the world with nuclear arms and so on.
But the kinds of figures I learned about, again, weren't 'religious'. Religion was for straights, I was interested in alternative spirituality. The books I got were like, Autobiography of a Yogi, Teachings of Ramana Maharishi, First and Last Freedom by Krishnamurti, then Alan Watts and D T Suzuki. (Not to forget The Politics of Ecstasy, by that rascal, Leary.) In there, somewhere, was the way to get to that state they were talking about. I took it seriously enough to do a degree in comparative religion, anthropology, psychology, philosophy and history, and then, decades later, a master in Buddhist Studies. I was studying a curriculum which I could only teach myself, because nobody around me understood what I wanted to learn.
Ultimately, I came back around to Christian teachings again, because I now was able to understand them from a different perspective. But I went to an Anglican service with my dear one around Easter, and there's no way I am going back to church. My spiritual path is simply not based around the Bible.
So - no, I emphatically do not agree that Christianity is the 'one true faith'. One question I would ask is, if it were, why is Christian history so bloody? They have spent centuries arguing over what 'the one true faith' is, and they're still at it. On the other hand, I nearly always defend Christianity against atheism, or rather evangatheism, because the latter are falling into the pit of nihilism, often without even knowing it. People nowadays are spiritually, and philosophically, illiterate (present company excepted, I hasten to add.)
But my belief about universalism or perenialism, is that it is the nearest we'll get to a scientific understanding of religions. It reveals the topography of the spiritual world. Within that framework, I can perfectly understand and even validate Christian teachings. But as Jesus himself said, 'I have other sheep that are not of this flock'. The world is a much bigger place nowadays.
Amen to that ;-)
"Justice. To be ever ready to admit that another person is something quite different from what we read when he is there (or when we think about him). Or rather, to read in him that he is certainly something different, perhaps something completely different from what we read in him.
Every being cries out silently to be read differently."
Would you say that you were more like a progressive or a liberal when you were young and have become more socially conservative over time as you aged then? Or did you lean towards social conservative from youth, apart from being "on the left" religiously?
Quoting Wayfarer
Why do you think Christian history being bloody would preclude Christianity being true? And I'm not even claiming Christianity is true here, for the sakes of this discussion, any other religion in a exclusivist sense could be the true religion. In other words I don't see the relationship between a religion having a bloody history and the religion being false, or not the only (or rather highest expression of) truth.
And regarding Simone Weil on Truth:
"It seemed to me certain, and I still think so today, that one can never wrestle enough with God if one does so out of pure regard for the truth. Christ likes us to prefer truth to him because, before being Christ, he is truth. If one turns aside from him to go toward the truth, one will not go far before falling into his arms."
It's too vague to agree or disagree with. It could be interpreted in a variety of ways. Some of these interpretations I would agree with, others I would disagree.
Quoting Beebert
Yes, I encountered this one before. I agree, Christ is both.
"Electra weeping for the dead Orestes. If we love God while thinking that he does not exist, he will manifest his existence."
"One cannot imagine St. Francis of Assisi talking about his rights."
"To die for God is not a proof of faith in God. To die for an unknown and repulsive convict who is a victim of injustice, that is a proof of faith in God"
"To claim that theft or adultery or lying are "evil" simply reflects our degraded idea of good-—that it has something to do with respect for property, respectability, and sincerity."
"The supernatural greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering but a supernatural use for it."
"Either God is not all-powerful, or God is not absolutely good, or God does not command wherever He has the power to do so. So the existence of evil here below, far from being a proof against the reality of God, is what reveals Him to us in truth."
"Creation is, on God’s part, not an act of self-expansion, but a retreat, a renunciation. God and all his creatures are less than God alone. God accepted this diminishment. God emptied Himself of part of His being. God emptied Himself in the act of His divinity. This is why St. John says, ‘The Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world.’ God permitted things to exist other than Himself and worth infinitely less than Himself. By the act of creation, God denied himself, just as Christ told us to deny ourselves"
"Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith ; and in this sense atheism is a purification. I have to be an atheist with that part of myself which is not made for God. Among those in whom the supernatural part of themselves has not been awakened, the atheists are right and the believers wrong."
"What evil violates is not goodness, for goodness is inviolate; only a degraded good can be violated."
"To love purely is to consent to distance, it is to adore the distance between ourselves and that which we love"
"The true God is the God we conceive as all-powerful, but Who nevertheless does not command it where He has the power, for God is found only in the heavens or here below in secret."
"We should seek neither to escape suffering nor to suffer less, but to remain untainted by suffering"
"Why do you think Christian history being bloody would preclude Christianity being true? And I'm not even claiming Christianity is true here, for the sakes of this discussion, any other religion in a exclusivist sense could be the true religion. In other words I don't see the relationship between a religion having a bloody history and the religion being false, or not the only (or rather highest expression of) truth."
How do you consider the following as an answer to what you said there? I guess you know the one behind the words ;) :
"A god who is all-knowing and all-powerful and who does not even make sure that his creatures understand his intention could that be a god of goodness? Who allows countless doubts and dubieties to persist, for thousands of years, as though the salvation of mankind were unaffected by them, and who on the other hand holds out the prospect of frightful consequences if any mistake is made as to the nature of the truth? Would he not be a cruel god if he possessed the truth and could behold mankind miserably tormenting itself over the truth? But perhaps he is a god of goodness notwithstanding and merely could not express himself more clearly! Did he perhaps lack the intelligence to do so? Or the eloquence? So much the worse! For then he was perhaps also in error as to that which he calls his 'truth', and is himself not so very far from being the 'poor deluded devil'! Must he not then endure almost the torments of Hell to have to see his creatures suffer so, and go on suffering even more through all eternity, for the sake of knowledge of him, and not be able to help and counsel them, except in the manner of a deafand-dumb man making all kinds of ambiguous signs when the most fearful danger is about to fall on his child or his dog? A believer who reaches this oppressive conclusion ought truly to be forgiven if he feels more pity for this suffering god than he does for his 'neighbours' for they are no longer his neighbours if that most solitary and most primeval being is also the most suffering being of all and the one most in need of comfort. All religions exhibit traces of the fact that they owe their origin to an early, immature intellectuality in man they all take astonishingly lightly the duty to tell the truth: they as yet know nothing of a duty of God to be truthful towards mankind and clear in the manner of his communications. On the 'hidden god', and on the reasons for keeping himself thus hidden and never emerging more than half-way into the light of speech, no one has been more eloquent than Pascal a sign that he was never able to calm his mind on this matter: but his voice rings as confidently as if he had at one time sat behind the curtain with this hidden god. He sensed a piece of immorality in the 'deus absconditus' and was very fearful and ashamed of admitting it to himself: and thus, like one who is afraid, he talked as loudly as he could."
Compare the following two quotes:
Quoting charleton
Quoting Thorongil
But he doesn't merely proclaim it to be true. If he did, you have a point.
Quoting Wayfarer
This doesn't make him a perennialist. It makes him a Methodist who dabbles in other religious practices. In other words, as a Methodist, he believes in the distinctive truth claims of Christianity.
So long as we're name dropping, I think of someone like W.T. Stace as a paradigmatic example of a perennialist. He didn't formally belong to any religion but thought that all religions propose symbolic structures to describe a single ineffable reality.
You've not ever asked the question you think you have.
Maybe I'm small-brained, dear charleton, so could you please enlighten me?
So if Huston Smith, who wrote a best-selling book called The Religions of Man, which is still taught throughout the University system, is not 'a perennialist', then who is? Perhaps there are no 'perennialists', and the entire thread is devoted to attacking a straw man.
Quoting Agustino
How very condescending. As I explained, I have studied comparative religion, anthropology, philosophy, and history at the University of Sydney.
As for the question which you said I hadn't responded to:
Quoting Agustino
My political views tend towards what in the US would be democrat with respect to health, education, taxation and financial services regulation, but I am socially conservative. Small-l liberal, would probably be close to the mark.
Quoting Thorongil
I had thought that the OP was a criticism of the idea that there are universal truths that different religions embody in different ways. If it's not, perhaps you could illustrate your point with respect to who you think represents this purportedly 'meaningless perennialism'.
Well, sorry, I didn't mean to be condescending, I just honestly said what you answer sounded like to me...
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes but notice that again this isn't what I asked. I asked you if your views - these views that you're telling me about now including the social conservatism - were different when you were young than they are now when you are presumably older? In other words, did you change your views over time, or were you always pretty much holding these views?
The salient point of my earlier response was that, earlier in life, I was not much interested in what I understood as 'religion', but in 'enlightenment'. I believed there is such a state, and that it was real, important, and mostly neglected, ignored or misunderstood. That view hasn't changed.
Subsequently I discovered in the course of my studies that the term 'enlightenment' originated as the translation for the Buddhist word 'bodhi', chosen by Thomas Rhys-Davids, founder of the Pali Text Society. He partially chose the term because it had connotations of 'the Enlightenment', and because he saw in Pali Buddhism, a 'scientific religion'which was more suited to the scientific age.
As to Christian beliefs and enlightenment - I have come to the view that for the Christian, enlightenment is 'living in the light of Christ'. In that sense, Christ embodies enlightenment. Of course, the Christian lexicon and doxology (belief system) is very different to the Buddhist one, but I don't believe that they're fundamentally at odds or antagonistic to one another.
Here's a statement: "Chicago is the capital of Illinois".
One person could say that the statement is true and must be accepted by everybody as true.
Another person could say that the statement is false and must be accepted by everybody as false.
Another person could say "I did not know that there is such a thing as Illinois. You learn something new every day!"
Another person could say "This inspires me to visit Chicago! Secretary, book a flight for me!"
Another person could say "Capital?! I use "capitol". Where can I associate with like-minded people?"
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
The number of possible responses could rival the number that represents the human population.
Different people have different goals, needs, desires, etc.
I would argue that if anything is fruitless it is trying to prove that only one response is appropriate for all people. That's not an appeal to pluralism. It is recognizing that personalities and character vary greatly and that there is nothing that every single individual is going to fit into.
Alas, that diversity of personalities and character means that there are, and probably always will be, some people--atheists, theists, "spiritual but not religious"sts--who try to make everybody fit into something.
I literally just gave you an example.
Quoting Wayfarer
Sigh....
Quoting Wayfarer
It wasn't an attack on perennialism per se. It was making a point about its implications (or lack thereof), which does pose a problem for a certain kind of person (read the last paragraph again). You may not be that person. In any event, you have consistently ignored most of what I have said and asked you, so you're really not in any position to make sarcastic quips.
Apologies, so you did. W T Stace.
Quoting Thorongil
Alright, apologies again. I got drawn to this thread because @Agustino pasted my name into it about four posts down. So, when I read it, I took it as a criticism of the approach I generally take on the Forum, which is why I thought that Agustino had mentioned it - which is often based around the 'perennial philosophy' - which I see generally as a noble pursuit.
I did encounter W T Stace during my studies, but where the question of the universalism of mystical experience came up, was in respect to an academic called Steven Katz. He argued that there is no such thing as a universal spiritual experience, that all such experiences, insofar as they are 'experiences', are culturally mediated and the product of a particular kind of cultural milieu.
Opposed to him was another scholar by the name of Robert Forman. This became known as the 'Katz-Forman Debates'. Forman was a universalist, Katz a constructivist. I side with Forman, on the basis of the kinds of ideas found in James' Varieties of Religious Experience, and Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy. Also I should mention D T Suzuki, whose influence in American public life was quite considerable in the 50's and 60's; it's a little-known fact that his wife was a prominent Theosophist, and I will certainly own up that theosophy has left a mark on me.
I wrote my Hons thesis on the American Transcendentalists and R M Bucke, basically along the lines of 'redefining religion', which is what I think they were doing.
But anyway, if you're criticizing a kind of non-committed syncretism, with bits taken from here and there, and no real commitment, then I agree with that and sorry for being so prickly.
I have to say I'm with on this. Truth may or may not triumph, because it is only truly potent insofar as it is found in, and founded upon, personal experience and/or or freely believed on the basis of conscience and intuition. Truth has nothing whatsoever to do with authority.
Take, for example, Christ's teaching of non-resistance to evil by violence, or resistance to evil by non-violence, if you prefer. That teaching, which is absolutely central to the gospels, has never been institutionalized, practiced or even recommended for practice by any ecclesiastical or political authority.
The "law of gravity" example seems glaringly inapt because gravity is beyond dispute; whereas no doctrine is indisputable. The attempt to objectify doctrine is the first step towards religious bigotry and fundamentalism. When it comes to religion, truths are not determinate like empirical matters of fact; religion and spirituality are, and should remain, deeply personal, uncoerced, matters. There is no religious or spiritual truth apart from that.
Tensions are a bit high around here in general, it seems. ;) Sadly it ends up being contagious.
But it's the "non-commitment" part that is worthy of criticism, not the "syncretism" part, no? The question then is as to what one should be committed to. I would say that one should be committed to attempting to follow, to live in accordance with, what one understands and believes to be the most authentic, honest, compassionate, loving impulses that one can find in oneself, and the ideas that best support those. And that does not necessarily mean abandoning an eclectic tendency when it comes to religious/ spiritual ideas or a commitment to any particular religion or to any sect of of any religion.
Well, can't disagree with that. But as I think you know, when you're committed to the work of self-realisation, ego has a way of appropriating the cure so as to make it part of the malady. And that is certainly something perennial; you see it in Buddhism or any kind of spiritual path. Any of them are subject to corruption. But there is something that is not subject to corruption.
From a blog post:
Right, he mentioned your name. I didn't. Truth be told, as soon as he did, I had a feeling you would come here with guns blazing, and it seems I wasn't far off the mark. However, you ought to have taken my OP at face value and not to have read into it some kind of implicit hit job on your views, regardless of whether I disagree with them.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yeah, I've read a paper by Katz before. His views don't convince me either. Though I didn't explicitly say it, I sort of implied that I'm most partial to inclusivism. Neither extreme, perennialism/universalism on the one hand and exclusivism/constructionism on the other, convinces me.
Quoting Wayfarer
Don't worry about it. I have a high tolerance for banter and frosty exchanges, even among friends.
I agree with all of that.
Just look at all of the exchanges in this thread.
One person says this. Another person says that. Another person says he agrees with this. Another person says he agrees with that.
If there is anything that 99.9% of people seem to have in common, it is that they believe that there is categorically one behavior or set of behaviors that every person's life must be reduced to.
Another thing that they all have in common: they almost never seem to have any concrete, vetted evidence of the consequences of failure to reduce life to such a behavior or set of behaviors. It is always a lot of speculation, anecdotes about violent conflicts/confrontations that historians have narrativized (as if the work of historians is unbiased and infallible), utopian fantasies about how the world would be perfect if everybody accepted this belief and rejected that belief, etc. They act as if they are reporting relationships that are as certain to rational people as the relationship between ocean tides and the moon.
And if you point out the oppressive/repressive nature of their whole struggle over beliefs, spirituality, etc. they will play the "relativism" card against you like it is somehow a trump card. Maybe it is a trump card--in a game where they have made the rules.
The challenge in life is not finding the right way, the coherent way, that rational way, etc. The challenge in life, as this thread so clearly illustrates, is safely navigating one's way through the cesspool of collective human thought and somehow experiencing some fulfillment and satisfaction along the way.
In addition to, and support of, Janus reply to your point. Again, I think your attitude is probably based in fear of disorder or social collapse, and as a consequence, the belief in the necessity of a strong authority to maintain order and the tradition. It is basically conservatism, although as I have noted previously in your case this extends to admiration for strong-man leaders like Putin and a disdain for democracy, so it is more like authoritarianism than conservatism as such. You are entitled to your view, but I don't think it has anything to do with the 'gospel of love' that I take to be central to Christianity. 'My burden', said Jesus, 'is light'.
https://youtu.be/FdYYCUoKH9M
Obviously one of the main motivations of Lutheranism was to disintermediate priestly authority and restore the individual's direct relationship with God through Christ and scripture ('sola scriptura'). But that has also had many, shall we say, unintended consequences.
I personally hold Patristic model of the orthodox faiths in higher estimation - I suppose you could say Greek rather than Latin Christianity - not least because they preserved the Platonistic elements of the tradition better. But even so, the Orthodox churches have also probably been complicit in the support of authoritarianism. (I say 'probably' because I haven't studied the matter, but I would presume it's there to be found.)
But, the role of Zen Buddhism in the Japanese Imperial Army also has to be acknowledged. As numerous people have pointed out (including Zizek), the Japanese devised elaborate rationalisations for such abominable practices as suicide bombing in terms of the Buddhist ethos by adapting, or distorting, it, to the so called 'way of the warrior'. This was not uniform, there were Buddhist monks and priests who were conscientious objectors, but there were others who 'blessed the fleet', and so on.
Human nature is corruptible, and religion is a human institution. Furthermore, when it proclaims itself the custodian of the 'treasure of salvation' then it puts itself into a position of extraordinary power. I think suspicion or rejection of that is commendable, albeit not at the cost of going to the other extreme of outright antinomianism, nihilism or materialism.
Well that's certainly one side of Christ. The other side of Christ is taking the whip and chasing the money-lenders out of the temple.
Quoting Janus
:s why is it potent only insofar as it is found? I'd argue that someone who is immoral for example hurts their and other people's souls (whether they are aware of this or not), just as objectively as an apple falls to the ground when dropped. Truth is necessarily an authority, for it is as it is regardless of what one thinks of it - in fact, even if one is unaware of it.
Quoting Janus
Mystical truths are not determinate like empirical matters, but I would argue that moral truths are determinate, even though we live in an age where we seem to always disagree over what is moral and immoral.
Quoting Wayfarer
Well, we are already in moral disarray pretty much, so what's there left to fear? The question is how to solve this. The higher truths presuppose these lower ones.
Quoting Wayfarer
I think authority and love are intimately interlinked. Lovers are always grasping after the security that only authority can provide - in this case the authority of God. What did Kierkegaard write in his Works of Love? Did he not say that two lovers are in despair lest they swear their love by the Eternal - by God - who alone can secure it and raise it from the vagaries of time? This is one of the reasons K. framed his relationships, even in Sickness Unto Death, as the relationship between self, other and God.
You mean, the authority of one born in a manger. What kind of authority is that?
What I'm talking about is 'authoritarianism', generally, which overall I think ought to be resisted. The alternative to authoritarianism is not necessarily decadence or moral decay.
Authoritarianism is different than authority. Authority has a rational basis for its enforcement, whereas authoritarianism undermines its own authority by destroying the rational basis people would have for following it.
Have you not read Revelation?
So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. – John 2:13-15 NIV
It's not clear that he actually struck anyone with a whip. In any case even if Christ did use violence, presumably he knew what he was doing and why. The principle of non-violence is for mere mortals who cannot be sure they would be justified in causing harm to, much less killing. others.
In other words, even if Jesus used real violence ( which is highly questionable), that could never justify anyone else in its use. What I am saying is predicated upon Jesus' divine status as the Son. If we think Jesus is a mere enlightened mortal, then of course, his actions could be seen as an unjustifiable momentary moral lapse brought about by justifiable anger. Enlightenment does not mean perfection; no mortal person is perfect. Moral lapses on the part of exemplars cannot justify any deliberate moral actions of others that imitate them.
Quoting Agustino
I think we are speaking of different things. What I mean is that the truth is potent, in the sense of authentic, only insofar as it is intuited and experienced. In other words if people merely pay lip service to what they have been told is the truth, then their service is not authentic (potent). I don't have much time for the churches; although I recognize their value as regulative authorities for the masses who might never think for themselves or exercise genuine conscience. I also recognize their value as keepers of the tradition. The unfortunate part is that they have distorted the teachings. This distortion happens, I believe, in all religions.
Quoting Agustino
I agree that moral truth is real, and that if you are in the right mind you will naturally intuit what is good and what is evil in any circumstance. Aristotle refers to this right thinking as "phronesis" or 'practical wisdom'. I have no doubt you are already aware of this. But I don't think moral truths can be inter-subjectively determined and corroborated in any ways analogous to the ways in which empirical facts can.
Agree - but then there is the issue of subjectivism and/or relativism - what if my 'spiritual experience' is simply a delusion? What if it is being driven by my own unconscious lack or desire? God knows delusions are real, they rule nations nowadays and there are plenty of spiritual practitioners who have fallen victim to delusion. That is where I understand the appeal to 'authority' - although in the sense of a 'spiritual mentor' or director who can validate or critique your experiences. Which is exactly what spiritual orders are supposed to do.
Which, again, is one of the main values of understanding the perspective of perennial philosophies - because through that perspective, you can understand how these problems have been handled in a wide variety of traditions and cultures. That is, again, where the theosophical (small t) approach has value.
I never disagreed with your point, I just disagreed with the one-sided interpretation you were initially giving of Jesus.
However, I will say that in some cases the use of violence is justified. In case of war for example, violently resisting the oppressor is justified. But I agree with your point that violence should only be a last resort in critical situations where another alternative doesn't exist.
Quoting Janus
I agree with this.
Quoting Janus
I would disagree here, I think quite the contrary, the churches have preserved the teachings, despite the serious defects that they have shown through history.
The problem I see, though, is that it is still up to you to decide who is an authentic "mentor" or "director". Surely one relies upon one's own spiritual 'intuitions' in choosing what traditions. what literature, communal life, practices, to be inspired by, or what 'master' to follow. or whether to follow any master, belong to any institution, and so on.
Quoting Wayfarer
I agree that such a broad knowledge might be helpful, but it might also lead to confusion. I think that when it comes to following spiritual practices it is the strength and depth of the intuitions of the aspirant, and the commitment to follow those intuitions that really count.It seems to me that there are no hard and fast rules, and that every individual case is different.
.
If you accept Jesus' proscription against violent resistance to evil, then it is not justified even in the case of self-defence. There really is no hope for humanity if everyone just keeps arming themselves against their neighbours. Someone has to be courageous and take the risk of vulnerability in order to stop the rot. How much is spent on armaments and defence systems today that could be spent on schools, hospitals, feeding the poor? I would say there is always another alternative, but hardly ever anyone courageous enough to take it. Tolstoy is good on this interpretation of Christianity; see his The Kingdom of God is Within You.
I agree, the church preserves the tradition; and develops it as well. This may not always lead to distortions, but much of ecclesiastical "development" has been self-serving. Of course churches have to survive if they want to fulfill their missions.Obviously it's a complex issue, and I would never advocate simply getting rid of the various religious institutions. even if that were possible. It also pays to remember, I think, that the scriptures of the various religions would likely have been preserved in any case, just as any other literature (and art, architecture and music etc.) that is deemed to be important has been, wherever possible, preserved.
[quote=The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2306.]Those who renounce violence and bloodshed and, in order to safeguard human rights, make use of those means of defense available to the weakest, bear witness to evangelical charity, provided they do so without harming the rights and obligations of other men and societies. They bear legitimate witness to the gravity of the physical and moral risks of recourse to violence, with all its destruction and death.[/quote]
It is worthwhile to read the entire chapter:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a5.htm
I do wonder about that. The recent movie, which I didn't see, Hacksaw Ridge, was about a 7th Day Adventist who refused to bear arms and performed heroically as a medic, evacuating wounded marines under extreme risk. There are many other such examples. Sure the Churches haven't got clean hands but I don't think you can make this blanket statement.
The Catholic church has perpetrated horrendous violence, and the mainstream churches, at the very least, have capitulated to warmongering governments.
I appreciate that no one would wish to lay down their arms and submit to oppressors. There are no easy answers to the problems posed by the human situation. But I really feel there is no hope if military spending continues as it has. This insane escalation of weaponry is the result of either the wish to dominate or the fear of being dominated.
But the context was, I had asked Agustino why, if the 'truth of the Christian church' was so self-evident. and so superior to all other religions, so much blood had been shed by Christians in the religious wars. His answer was along the lines that this doesn't detract from the purported truth of the Christian gospel. At which point, I gave up on that line of argument.
has linked a chapter from the catechism that he recommends in relation to this. As soon as I find time I'll read it and respond. Meanwhile, can you think of any examples of non-resistance being "institutionalized, practiced or even recommended" by the mainstream churches? I am aware of unusual subversive examples like the Cathars.
I believe I do agree with Agustino about one thing; and that is that Christ's teaching is the highest, the most profound of any of the traditions. I acknowledge that I think that because it has the most affinity with what I understand to be the truth about the human condition; that salvation is to be found in authentic love and repentance, which infallibly leads to real transformation. Where we might disagree is about the importance of being affiliated with some church or other.
That was from a catechism from the Catholic Church. You italicized mainstream. Is your point that the Catholic Church is not a mainstream church?
Incidentally, there is similar language in the Catechism of Trent (16th century):
So, the Catholic Church has clearly recommended, consistently, a non-violent approach.
As for "practiced", of course hundreds of thousands of Christians (a conservative number by the way) have practiced non-violence since the beginning of Christianity.
Then we come to "institutionalized". Yep, the Church has also institutionalized non-violent practices, again from its early beginnings. To cite only one example, Christians have been building and supporting monasteries (an intrinsically non-violent institution) for centuries. The first "armed monks" in Christianity appeared with the Crusades, more than 1000 years after Christ; and they are gone, while the non-violent monks remain.
I have a scientific background. I find it useful, when one is studying ideas, institutions, and history, to imagine a "control group". The question is not "was institution X recommending non-violence" -- I'm sure we can find, if we dig deep enough, some Nazist statements that can be interpreted like that, and it becomes the proverbial "table tennis without nets". The question must be, "if that period, with those peoples, did not have institution X, would their behavior be better or worse than it actually was?"
No, my point is that the Catholic Church has not institutionalized and practiced non-violence. I don't count, and am not concerned with, the "recommendation" of non-violence in familial and societal contexts; that is simply a normal prescription for social and familial harmony. The Catholic church (and other mainstream churches) have never advocated that its members refuse to bear arms or go to war in the service of the state. For another example, the churches have never come out strongly against gun ownership. Another historical example: the Vatican failed to speak out against Mussolini.
So, the churches' "recommendation" of "a non-violent approach" looks somewhat toothless; it seems to be another case of mere lip-service.
Quoting Mariner
I have no argument with this angle; and I have already stated that by saying that I would never recommend, even if it were possible, abolition of religious institutions. I have also said that I think they are beneficial, perhaps even necessary, influences on the thinking and behavior (well, at least the behavior) of those who cannot, or will not think for themselves. My argument has more been concerned with the failure of religious institutions to take authentic stances on the principle of non-violence, while acknowledging all the risk and vulnerability that would bring. I see Christ as a radical advocate of that very vulnerability and risk; in fact as the greatest ever such advocate. I have also been concerned with what I see as the irrelevance of the religious institutions to spiritual aspirants who can and will think for themselves, and are genuinely willing to practice what they preach in good faith.
I support Kant's and Hegel's shared principle that we (at least those of us who are capable and willing to) need to step out from under the shadows of the "aegis of tutelage".
Your claim was, and I quote (again): Take, for example, Christ's teaching of non-resistance to evil by violence, or resistance to evil by non-violence, if you prefer. That teaching, which is absolutely central to the gospels, has never been institutionalized, practiced or even recommended for practice by any ecclesiastical or political authority.
You were concerned with recommendation back then.
Quoting Janus
You are, as I pointed out, confusing the Church hierarchy and the Church authority. They are not the same thing. In a Christian Church (including the Catholic Church), the highest authorities are the saints -- which is why they often rebuke priests, bishops and popes (in the case of the Catholic Church, of course).
In any case, the idea that the evangelical counsel against violence is translatable into "let us not have guns", or your other points, is clearly debatable. (Christ said that his disciples should acquire some swords, remember?)
Quoting Janus
Not all people are spiritual aspirants who can and will think for themselves, and salvation is for all, not just for an elite.
Yes, but my claim is not that the church does not recommend non-violence per se, but that it does not recommend non-violent resistance to evil. The latter is a very different issue.
Quoting Mariner
I am only concerned to address the manifest behavior of the churches as institutions; I am not making any claims about the internal relations between "hierarchy" and "authority".
Quoting Mariner
This is really the point. What does Christ mean by "turn the other cheek", "give the thief your shirt as well"? If these are interpreted as being injunctions to adopt radical non-violence as the true path to salvation, then it seems obvious that the churches are at variance with this, because this has not been the 'official' interpretation of the churches.
On the other hand what does Jesus mean when he says "I come not to bring peace but a sword"? I don't recall a passage in which he says the disciples should acquire swords. Could you provide a reference for that?
Quoting Mariner
Sure, and I have already acknowledged that. But this does beg the question as to what exactly constitutes salvation. If you think it only consists in genuine repentance, then I would ask you whether you believe a genuine repentant would bear arms against others under any circumstances. And more broadly I would ask you whether you think there are many genuine repentants among us. Or does 'salvation is for everyone" mean something else?
Quoting Mariner
Are 'the elite' anything like 'the elect' in Calvinism?
Yes, I tend to favour that interpretation, too.
Then his disciples say, Master, here are two swords, and he says, that's enough.
At least it is enough to open up an interesting debate on PF :D.
Quoting Janus
Repentance is not the same thing as salvation. One can repent some sin and still refuse the gift of Christ. And similarly, one can accept the gift of Christ and keep on sinning, since salvation and sanctification are also not the same thing.
Salvation is that you accept that Christ died for your sins (past, present and future), and that your sins are blotted out to the extent that you adhere to Christ. It is not a magic trick like the cartoon conversion (hey, I was baptized, so let me sin a lot). St. Paul has a lot to say about this stupidity. It is a constant, lifelong endeavor for most good Christians.
Would a genuine repentant bear arms against others "under any circumstances"? Sure. I used to present the thought experiment of someone getting home and finding a guy raping his wife or child (or both). Would not most people use violence (and most likely lethal violence) to stop this? Note that I say this as someone who has publicly (in the old forum for those who remember) defended the notion that any killing is evil, including the killing of the rapist in this scenario. If I met this scenario, I don't know what I would do. I'm quite sure that I would violence, I don't know whether I could restrain myself to non-lethal violence, and I'm absolutely positive that killing the guy would be wrong -- even though it is a live possibility that I would kill him.
Are you familiar with the Catharist heresy?
Calvinism is a good example of the stupidity that St. Paul warns us against.
Quoting Mariner
I read The Perfect Heresy: The Life and Death of the Cathars, Stephen O'Shea, a few years back. Interesting - and depressing.
incidentally, Ed Feser, noted Thomist philosopher, is a staunch and principled advocate of the death penalty for capital crimes. I myself can see the justification for capital punishment in many case, but in practice, if it is institutionalised, there will always be innocent persons executed, for which reason, I oppose it.
Where are you getting the idea that all killing is wrong? Have you not heard of the principle of double effect, which is taught by the Catholic Church and accepted by most non-consequentialist philosophers? Murder is wrong, intrinsically so, which means that it is never justified. Killing a rapist to protect your wife is not murder, however, but manslaughter. The Hebrew word sometimes translated as "kill" in the commandment, "thou shalt not kill," is vague and has been traditionally interpreted by both Jews and Christians to refer to murder. Both admit that there are legitimate exceptions to the commandment regardless, such as in the case of your example.
I got it from introspection.
I see. Well, did you ever consider becoming a Jain?
Nope.
By the way, @Wayfarer, I`m familiar with Feser`s site and argument about the death penalty. I agree with it (namely, that it [death penalty] is not opposed, in principle, to Church teachings).
This is not to say that the law should not concern itself about the juridical gradations. But it is to say that when the law does that, it is grading evils, and the scale never reaches a killing which is so "slight" that it becomes a non-evil.
My apologies Janus for the very delayed response. I do appreciate your comments and our discussions, so please don't take this as disrespect towards you and your comments in any way. It's absolutely not meant in that manner. I've been meaning to respond, but unfortunately I had to deal with a situation wherein the Three Stooges tried once again to *liquidate* me since I was becoming too dangerous - but luckily I survived one more time >:O
I do hold that murder even in self-defence is ultimately wrong, but a "necessary" wrong if I may say so - or at least an excusable one. However, even if a courageous one - or many - take the risk of vulnerability, it will not stop the rot. They will inspire a few people here and there, and their name may get recorded in the history books as praise by those who will never be courageous.
Nothing can stop the rot, it's part and parcel of this world it seems. It can be limited, but never exterminated. I don't remember if I ever looked at Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You, but I have read his Gospel in Brief for sure which has a similar message to what you've mentioned here.
I don't feel any disrespect from you Agustino and I likewise enjoy reading your comments and discussing with you; I think we are quite close on many things; and I have certainly gained insight from our points of disagreement. I'm glad you were not liquidated; I think this site would certainly be much the poorer without you. :)
I get what you are saying about violence in self-defence; and I would probably employ it to defend my loved ones and myself if needed, since I am not morally perfect. I guess my concern is more with what the churches prescribe or don't proscribe, and whether it is in accordance with Jesus Christ's radical teachings, and not so much with what people would actually do, since I don't expect other people to be ethically perfect just as I realize I am not.
Nations spending obscene amounts of money arming themselves, though, is done often in unreasonable (to say the least) anticipation of threats from other nations. The churches don't speak out against this egregious and gratuitous paranoia. It is the general atmosphere of distrust that is problematic for (relative, I don't think perfect is possible of course) peace and harmony on Earth. That is why Christ told people "Love thy neighbour as thyself". I doubt he expected perfection on Earth, any more than I do.
But as I told you in the other thread, killing in self-defense is not murder. It's manslaughter.
But it would be morally permissible to kill your assailant in self-defense. That wouldn't be murder but manslaughter. Look up the principle of double effect, which effectively states that the cause of a cause is the cause of its effect.
yet* :P >:O
Quoting Janus
Thank you, those are very kind words for you to say! I have also found the discussions with you very interesting and insightful as well! :)
Quoting Janus
Have you become possessed by the banned spirit of Thanatos Sand with the ".:)" ? >:)
Quoting Janus
But then I think I would do that as well if I was in charge of a country. I'd want my country preferably and ideally to be well armed and prepared in case of war. I mean don't you think it would be irresponsible for a leader not to prepare his country, and then have to face the possibility of someone like Kim Jong Un force his country into slavery? If you were that leader, wouldn't you feel that you have to take the measures necessary to protect your people, and in fact, that it is your responsibility to do so? I think a leader should feel bad if he places his country in peril's way, because the livelihood of many people depend on him.
Whether it is morally permissible to kill an assailant in self-defence may well be arguable. It would obviously depend on the context created by your presuppositions. I have been specifically concerned with the context of radical non-violence; which Christ's teachings can be interpreted to exemplify.
Whether someone causes their own death by being an assailant in a case where they are killed by their intended victim obviously depends on whether you assume that the victim has a choice about whether to defend themselves or not.
I don't make a difference between the two of them. That's another reification right there in my opinion. It's the same underlying action, you're just using two different words to differentiate based on CONTEXT not on the action.
Ha, corrected! I sometimes neglect to leave the required space between the full stop and the emoticon; in which case it fails to appear...>:O
whoops!!!
>:O
Quoting Agustino
Ah, I see, you must have performed some exorcism on your own self :-O
What if TS were me under an alternative account? It's not impossible. I could have created another account under a different email to let my alter ego out for some exercise. ;)
Joking of course...
Yes sand is very unpleasant when it gets in your Janus. >:)
He did actually open a new account under the name of John Harris, so wouldn't say it's that impossible >:O - but that one is unfortunately also banned now.
Quoting Janus
>:O >:O
But how do we determine the morality of an action if not the intent of the agent who performed it? The only other way to determine it is by the consequences of the action. In that case, intent doesn't matter. But I never took you for a consequentialist.
Assuming he does, then if he chooses to fend off his attacker and in so doing happens to kill him, despite not intending to, then he had the right to. That is to say, it was not wrong for him to do so.
On a serious note I'm not sorry to see Harris or Sand go, but in a way I think it would have been better if people had simply learned not to respond. To ignore someone is to effectively ban them; if not from the site, at least from one's own sight.
The action itself - murder - killing another human being - is wrong. Not based just on the intention of the agent, which in both cases is to kill a human being (for different reasons though), and not based just on the consequences. It's a combination of intention, consequences, internal state of the one who performs the action and the context. It's quite a complicated thing, one which I think is best to couch in Aristotelian terms rather than the more modern Kantian vs consequentialist kind of thinking.
This is very easy to see that neither intention alone, nor consequence alone are sufficient to determine right/wrong. For example. Suppose I kill someone accidentally. I haven't intended it, but I've still done wrong. Or suppose I am a doctor and I apply the best treatment possible to a patient, and he dies - I haven't done wrong, despite the consequence.
As I said whether or not defending yourself is right depends on what principles you hold. Personally, I think it would be better if people universally refused to defend themselves under any circumstances, but in that case there would be nothing to defend yourself from. As I said, I am not claiming that I could resist defending my loved ones or myself; I am almost certain that I could not. I still hold it as the highest principle though. It is certainly a complex issue. :)
Maybe you are right, if you look at it that way, it is a missed opportunity. I'm perhaps too often confrontational with such people, and in the end I suppose that's not wrong if you can control that. But if I never resist - or try to - I never see if I can or not. Wayfarer was talking about this recently in one of his posts too.
Sure there are many grey areas, where deaths occur but it can't be determined if it's murder, manslaughter or self-defence - but the law, and life, are like that. (Unfortunately we can't use the phrase 'shades of grey' any more.)
Why?
Because I think all four components are required to give a full moral account of the situation - an account that can be comprehensive of all situations that arise.
One thing I don't like about your position is that it makes it impossible not to commit wrongdoing. In my view, it creates more wrongdoing than there actually is in the world.
:s so let's see - if we're in a chemical laboratory, and due to my negligence I forget the gas on after I leave, and there is a big explosion later killing many people, have I done no wrong because I didn't intend to?
Quoting Thorongil
In some situations it is (virtually) impossible to avoid wrongdoing though. It's just how life is.
Correct. You are to blame for the action, but not morally to blame. If an inanimate object caused the explosion, has it done wrong? Like you, it never intended to cause the explosion.
Quoting Agustino
This is excellent fodder for the anti-natalist.
Then in what sense am I to blame? I think I am absolutely to blame morally, if I wasn't negligent - a vice - the tragedy wouldn't have happened.
Quoting Thorongil
Is that inanimate object a moral agent?
Only if you have some absolute revulsion from wrong-doing. I have a revulsion from it, but not absolute.
In the sense that you are the cause of it.
Quoting Agustino
It doesn't matter. The lack of intent is the same in both cases.
So if I am the cause of it, how am I not morally to blame for it if I could have stopped myself from being the cause of it for one?
Quoting Thorongil
It's not the same at all. In one case you're dealing with a moral agent who has, amongst other things, a capacity for intention, and in the other case you're dealing with an inanimate object that has no capacity for intention (or internal states for that matter) whatsoever.
?
What's your point? Yes negligent homicide is not as immoral as wilful homicide (due to lack of intention amongst other things), but that isn't to tell us that it's not immoral at all.
Of course you are to blame for having Done wrong but if you are healthy you Will blame yourself. But morally blame? If it was a mistake? Dont be ridiculous. You have Done wrong, a mistake that had fatal consequences, but to call it a moral wrong is primitive. That is What people thought 8000 years before christianity.
How is it not a moral wrong when it is caused by my negligence?! Is negligence a moral virtue or a vice? If it is a vice, then I am morally culpable.
I wanted to challenge you on this. Is freedom a value in itself? And if so, then why? For example, is the freedom to murder a value?
Yes, because it is the foundation of any value. The freedom to murder is a value just as existence, rationality, agency, are values. Without these realities, there are no values.
Note that a freedom that does not include "to murder" is not really a freedom.
How come? I don't follow the logic.
Quoting Mariner
My point is that it seems that your conception of freedom is purely negative - being able to do whatever you want. Whereas I tend to conceive of freedom more along the lines of doing what you ought to do. I wouldn't say someone who gives in to their lusts is free for example.
Ah, well you should have clarified that. Now why is ethical freedom a value? I think the freedom in question is the necessary presupposition of any value, but it is not a value itself.
Arguments please!
What are the necessary traits for some X to be "a value"? If ethical freedom is really freedom, the answer is "none". No one can say that X cannot be a value because of some structural defect in the constitution of X.
This is the theoretical aspect. The practical aspect of the same phenomenon is that if we don't consider ethical freedom a value, we'll boss people around. The disregard for ethical freedom produces orcs.
Produce eudaimonia?
Quoting Mariner
Well, I don't think murder or hate can be a "value".
Quoting Mariner
That doesn't follow, because I said ethical freedom is necessary for values to be possible, but it's nevertheless not a value itself. It's just the starting point.
Says you.
See the problem here?
Of course, for a serial killer, eudaimonia will probably be different than for you or me.
Because being the cause of something isn't the same as to be morally blameworthy. That ought to be a simple distinction to understand.
Quoting Agustino
The lack of intent is the same. An even occurred due to an intentless action in both cases.
Yes, especially a Christian should understand this. Because God is "the first cause".
If a person is the cause of something evil, then they are morally blameworthy, at least if they could have prevented it. I think your view actually leads to quite many absurdities, not to mention that it encourages absolutely terrible behaviour. Basically it tells me that I have no moral blame if - say - I forget the gas on and there's a big explosion and many people die. It's not a morality that gets me to be careful about what I do, and understand myself in relation to others. It's a self-contained kind of morality, that's broken off from the real world.
No, I actually don't see the problem. The serial killer may THINK his eudaimonia is different, but he would be wrong in his judgement. I'm actually very very surprised you take this position.
Listen to this for a few minutes from where I linked it 23:30.
Sure, so what? It doesn't follow that the action is not immoral, since that would be simply to presuppose that morality consists in not intending evil.
:-} I will answer your 10 posts or so in due time. Now there's some work I need to do, because I'm still behind on work... that's what having to deal with sexism accusations does to you >:O
Says you. It is easy to say that John Doe is wrong when we are discussing serial killing. But some moral issues are not so beyond the pale.
Note, I don't disagree that John Doe is wrong (in other words, I'm no relativist) -- what I'm disagreeing with is the notion that you, or I, can decide for others what is the correct way to reach eudaimonia.
Mortimer Adler had no right to go about bossing people around, even if he was right about how to reach eudaimonia. This also applies to you, and to me.
Is it possible to arrive at a rational judgement with regards to the morality of the said issues?
Quoting Mariner
But we can establish what is eudaimonia right? We may not be able to tell others how to get from where they are to the respective state, with that I can agree.
For ourselves. Yes, we can. Because we are ethically free. Hence the value of that freedom.
Correct. I see nothing absurd about this. You are at fault, may have to pay damages, etc, but not morally at fault. If there was no malicious intent to kill people, then you've done nothing morally wrong.
I say to you, Agustino, that if you and I were building a house, and you accidentally slipped while holding an electric saw that then flew out of your hands and wounded me in some way, I would hold you responsible, but not morally responsible. I would demand nothing of you. I wouldn't say that you had committed evil. I wouldn't say that you yourself are evil. I would simply say, "It's okay, Agustino, I know you didn't intend to hurt me. I'm sorry you tripped, which caused me to be wounded. Think nothing of it."
To be held morally responsible for things one doesn't intend is an inversion of justice and precisely what postmodernist leftists peddle all the time. It is to be guilty before proven innocent. To say that there are evils one can commit without intending to commit them is to make everyone a moral monster. The only logical conclusion is to isolate oneself in a grass hut, far away from the material consumption and human interaction that cannot but implicate one in evil without one intending to. That is the only way to be moral on your account.
Quoting Agustino
But I think it does. Remember that I asked you why you chose the criteria you did, to which you merely repeated yourself. If you get to presuppose your position, then I get to presuppose mine.
:s No, not just for myself, for everyone. I do share the idea of happiness/eudaimonia expressed in the video I linked you by Adler, namely that happiness/eudaimonia is the same for all human beings.
Now it's true that for action X to be moral it must be freely embraced, so in that regard freedom is important. So in other words, I cannot desire that other people are moral without desiring that they are free, but freedom alone is not sufficient for morality.
You can think they are for everyone, but people may disagree with you. Because they are free. And you must cherish this ability that they have, of disagreeing with you even when you are right, because a world without that freedom would be horrible beyond imagination.
The idea that reason can guide us towards finding the right action is an idea I agree with. But my agreement does not make it right.
There is a subtle point here that I'm not sure you are grasping. There are distinctions between (a) X being the right action, (b) M thinking that X is the right action, and (c) M being justified in thinking that X is the right action. The locus of ethical freedom is (b). But you keep on pointing to (a) and (c).
Out of curiosity, why?
Okay, first of all, I don't think this example is the same as the one I gave. It's one thing if an incident that ends up harming someone happens by accident, and another if it happens by negligence. If I leave my child on the side of the balcony while I go grab a beer from the fridge, and my child unknowingly pushes him/herself over the edge and dies, then I am morally blameworthy for that, even if I didn't intend it, because I was negligent with him or her and didn't perform my duty as a parent (by the way, this story that I told you is a true story, it happened to one of my friends' dad).
Quoting Thorongil
To say that there are evils one can commit without intending to commit them is to understand that intention isn't the only factor at play. Yes it is a factor, a very important one, but not the only one. Why else do you think we sentence people to prison if they accidentally - say while building a house - kill a co-worker? That is a barbaric practice that we should eliminate or what?
In a nutshell, because the freedom to search for the right ethical values is the freedom to search for God. Without this freedom, man's happiness would not be anchored on God's love (as it is in our world). It [happiness] would be exterior, and dead.
Blameworthy and negligent, yes, undoubtedly, but not morally so. I'm still missing the reason why it is the latter.
Quoting Agustino
The problem is that your position is arbitrary. How do we determine which factor is the one to use to confer moral blame in a given scenario?
Can a stone be blameworthy? Can an animal be blameworthy? Or is it only moral agents that can be blameworthy?
Quoting Thorongil
All the four I've listed will be relevant, some more-so than others. But you still avoided to answer my question.
Quoting Agustino
I distinguished between moral blame, which is to assign moral responsibility, and simply blame, which is to assign causal responsibility.
Quoting Agustino
This question doesn't affect my position at all, so I ignored it. I'm here to defend what I take to be moral, not what qualifies as imprisonment-worthy.
So then O:) - a stone that falls from the rooftop on someone's head has "simple" blame? :D
Quoting Thorongil
Do you hold that there are situations when we should imprison people based on factors that are NOT also immoral in nature?
Yes, in the sense of being the cause of the event. The stone is responsible for it, but it isn't morally responsible, clearly.
Quoting Agustino
I think there may be prudential and admonitory reasons for prison sentences in the absence of moral culpability. However, I also think such sentences can be gratuitous as forms of punishment. I would probably prefer sentences of community service or some form of charitable work instead.
Having answered your question, I still feel it's a red herring and would like us to stick to the topic at hand.
I agree with Thorongil
Anyway, it is simple reason and fact to know that someone who is blameworthy because of having caused something bad without having done something immoral per se, often has a much greater tendency to learn something, benefit from and accept a sentence to prison or something similar(because he knows he has for example been neglient and thereby been the indirect cause of something horrible) than someone who has intentionally done something horrible. Why? Because of the difference of the attitude towards the one and the other from the judges.
This is a very important subject. You are aware that this is not the position of either the Roman Catholic or the Eastern Orthodox church with regards to morality right?
There are many problems with the view that good and evil are mere matters of simple intention. For example, what if someone authentically thinks that killing you will do you good because it would send you to heaven for example? If they try and kill you, then they intend to do good (even if they're wrong) no? According to you, they have done nothing wrong (morally) by killing you, since they intended to do good.
There is a saying out there - "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".
Morality cannot be a mere matter of intention. Intention is only a matter of the will, but the will doesn't act independently from the intellect. If the intellect thinks X is good, then the will will pursue X. But that judgement can be mistaken, so the will can pursue evil while intending to pursue good. Thus, mere intention is not sufficient to give an account for morality.
If the stone is as blameworthy as the individual who - by negligence - drops a hammer onto his co-worker's head, based on what considerations do we put one in prison, and we don't do anything to the other?
No. Show me.
Quoting Agustino
No, examples like these don't affect my position. One can be mistaken about what constitutes a good intention, such that even if one thinks that one's intentions are good, they may not be.
Quoting Agustino
An asinine saying. If good intentions lead one to hell, then do bad intentions lead one to heaven? If they were truly good, they couldn't lead one to hell.
Quoting Agustino
You've partially made my point here. To finish it, I would add that the fact that one can be mistaken about the good doesn't mean there isn't the objectively good for one to intend.
Quoting Agustino
I literally just answered a previous iteration of this question. In fact, your post quotes the answer I gave you.
Christ says quite clearly though that if you say you don't know, that is, it you dont know, you are without sin(without blame in this case), but if you say you KNOW, your sin remains.
Is Dostoevsky 's view on morality Orthodox? If so, then this statement is either false or a lie. Unless Dostoevsky's view is ''heretical''
https://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=1033639
https://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=325189
https://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=198249
Quoting Thorongil
Well don't you think it's possible to have a good intention, and - for example - because of lack of knowledge produce a terrible result? In that case, would your good intention (say - your desire to save someone from death) morally excuse the results you have produced?
Quoting Thorongil
Yeah, of course, I agree there is an objective good, HOWEVER, my point is that in striving to reach for that objective good you may fall into something that is immoral, due to various factors. That would still count as a sin.
I really encourage you to have a look at those links, and let me know what you think. You can share your thoughts in private if you don't want to derail the thread further down this route! (Y)
Does Dostoevsky's view on morality represent the Orthodox Church? No. That, however, doesn't mean that it's heretical.
Well, I started out by saying that the view with regards to morality that Thorongil expounds here is quite similar to Kantian deontological ethics, and that's not the view adopted by the Church. The Church adopts virtue ethics instead. And in virtue ethics, having good intentions isn't sufficient to be moral.
I think for the most part it does. Why would you say it doesn't?
Remember that the East seems to have had access to Aristotle's works earlier than the Catholics. However, it's less spoken of in Orthodoxy (where other things are emphasised) than in Catholicism since Orthodoxy isn't a Scholastic religion :P
And Plato's ethics isn't virtue ethics? :s
By the way, a solid argument can be made for Aquinas being much more of a Neo-platonist than a Aristotelian. The neo-platonists had, for the most part, absorbed Aristotle.
Quoting Agustino
Of course.
Quoting Agustino
They would morally excuse the individual performing the action.
Quoting Agustino
What makes something immoral? If you reply by saying, "that which is contrary to God," as one of the other forum's posts you linked says, then that assumes the truth of theism, which I have not done in this particular conversation.
Also, I know what you mean about Aquinas, but his theology/philosophy, just like most other early theologians are also influenced too much by Athens, whether it is Plato or Aristotle, and thereby their theology is dependent upon their time in many ways it seems to me. Catholic thinkers and theologians of to day take their inspiration from different thinkers like Aquinas, Eckhart, Kant, Kierkegaard, Heidegger and even Nietzsche and Feuerbach. In the East, we see that the great russian religous renaissance was inspired by mainly Dostoevsky and Solovyev, but also Kant and Nietzsche(and Plato to some extent).
I think Solovyev was the most important figure but he was very much influenced by Platonism (a system of thought which includes virtue ethics).
From Wikipedia:
It's true that the Orthodox don't speak as much about ethics or philosophy as the Cathloics, but that's not to say it isn't there.
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2018.htm - especially articles 3 & 10 (circumstance/context/consequences matter)
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2019.htm#article1 - especially articles 1 & 2 (intention matters)
You can't get more specific than this since the Catholic church doesn't have ONE philosophy only.
Also, if you want the Catechism:
Right, so in that case, intention alone wouldn't be sufficient to decide on good or evil, no?
http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php/topic,30018.90.html
I'm not sure about this, his analysis of the emotions is quite good.
Quoting Beebert
Why would you say Aquinas is incapable of that?
Quoting Beebert
Sure, except that you don't get to choose amongst them, rather the choice is made for you based on how you answer some questions (not very good questions, I will admit).
To decide what?
To decide whether the action/behaviour is moral or immoral.
Well by deciding on whether the action or behaviour is moral or immoral, we are also deciding with regards to the person no? Or do you reckon that the person is separate from the way they act?
Here what we have is a conflict of intentions, which we might also call a conflict between different orders of volition (in the Augustinian sense). One intends to do something objectively good, helping one's neighbor, by means of something objectively bad, lying. But what is lying if not intending to deceive? Thus, one intends to do good by intending at the same time to do bad, which is contradictory and therefore unjustified. Put differently, one wills to do good as one's long term goal (first order volition) by willing the bad in the present (second order volition). So no, I don't think anything you or the Catechism says conflicts with my position.
Second, it assumes that "terrible" means "immoral." It need not. Remember that I distinguished between immoral and tragic actions. I agreed with your question because "terrible" can mean "tragic" and I took it to mean this.
I don't think it is right to say that when one lies, for example, to sexual predators or exploiters in order to protect innocents from harm, that one intends to to do something bad in order to fulfill an intention to do something good. Lying in circumstances like that is not "objectively bad" at all, it is good. What matters with moral actions is one's authentic intention to do good to the best of one's understanding.
Also, examples like Agustino's earlier one of killing someone in order to send them to heaven or whatever don't work because such an act takes no account of the wishes of the one acted upon. One's intentions towards another cannot be considered to be truly good at all unless one takes into account to the very best of one's ability the others wishes. This is the "golden rule". This is what it means to treat others as ends in themselves and never as means.
So, the end justifies the means?
No, intention to do good justifies the means. But bear in mind I would say an action cannot be considered to be the expression of a good intention if it takes no account of harms it might cause to innocents or even if it takes no account of substantial harms it might cause to perpetrators.
So, for example, say we lie to a pedophile about the location of a child in order to protect the child from the actions of the pedophile, it cannot rightly be said that we have harmed, or intended to harm, any innocent. If, however, we killed the pedophile, then that would be a different matter altogether.
I think that moral principles can only be given in examples like these which we understand through conscience. This would be where I would agree with Agustino, as this is a kind of 'virtue ethics' practice. It is a cultivation of phronesis, which can never be formulated as a set of general rules and principles that cover all cases.
But you could be mistaken about what the good is.
Sure, you can only exercise what you understand to be good intentions to the best of your understanding and ability. There is no final definitive formulation of the good to be arrived at; it is better and better known through better and better understanding, intuition and conscience. Morality can never be encapsulated in any definitive set of rules; it is a living spiritual and ethical journey.
A Christian might not agree with that, insofar as this is exactly what the 'revealed word' is supposed to be. On the other hand, in the Buddhist world, the Vinaya is indeed a 'definitive set of rules' for the monastics. It is true, however, in a broader sense, that the Dharma (Buddha's teaching) is in the end 'a raft to cross the river', rather than a final destination. Nevertheless, one ought to beware of 'the dogma of no dogma'.
There's another point, which is that 'you never know what is good for you'. This is amplified past the point of reason in Calvinism, but the fundamental principle is, again, something found in many different spiritual traditions: that as long as one acts from self-centredness and ego (and, who doesn't?) then you can't even aspire to the Good. Everything you choose, everything do you, will be tainted by self-interest. That, I think, is the inner meaning of Augustine's 'Love, and do what you will' - by that I take him to mean, that love itself is the sacrifice of ego.
Incidentally there's quite a good encyclopedia article on the perennial philosophy here.
Assuming for the sake of argument that the end never justifies the means, I might invoke the principle of double effect once again to respond to your example. This means that it is the pedophile who is the cause of his being lied to, not the person who lied. An ordinary lie is freely told to deceive the innocent, and is thus wrong, but a lie told to a pedophile when a child's life is on the line is not freely told and not told to an innocent person, but to a criminal.
Isn't it a matter of degree, though, and not an 'all or nothing' thing? It seem obvious to me that different people are more or less self-interested or loving, and that the same person may be more or less loving at different times and in different situations. There is no absolute perfection in humanity.
Quoting Wayfarer
Here again, it is not all or nothing, I would say. People act more or less from ego. If we could not aspire to the Good, and come to understand it ourselves through firstly discursive thought, and then conscience, intuition and finally wisdom, then there could be no hope whatsoever of any redemption.
So I am not saying there are no general principles of morality, but that real situations may present us with circumstances wherein we are forced to contravene one general moral principle or the other in order to act morally at all. The principles can only ever be guidelines to be mediated by wisdom, not hard and fast rules. So I would say the "dogma of no dogma" is not really all that relevant to what I have been saying.
Think of the Bodhisattva (or was it just a monk, I can't remember?) who is said to have had sex with a woman because she desired him so greatly that he believed she would have killed herself if he did not. Or what about the story of Abraham and Isaac?
As we're discussing religious philosophies, as a matter of fact, this is exactly what Christ is supposed to be. Take it or leave it but it's is a fundamental principle of Christianity. Not that I'm preaching - it's simply a matter of definition.
The broader point, however, is one which is represented in 'the perennial philosophy'. I mean you could take one of the Gospel sayings - 'not my will, but Thine, be done' (Luke 22:42) and find equivalences in many different religions. The principle is, that the ego or one's sense of self, is what has to be surrendered or laid down, in the spiritual life. So the active agent, the intelligence, that then comes into play, by this act of self-renunciation, is what is named and conceived very differently in those different traditions, as a higher intelligence, or as spirit, or as 'the Christ within'; but I think that the outlines or dynamics can be traced in all of them.
So rather than arguing about whether 'Christianity is better than Buddhism', what this kind of comparative approach seeks to do, is to understand how some of these fundamental principles are represented in different faith traditions. That did help me, for example, to come to a new understanding of my own hereditary religion.
That's true, but I think Christ's perfection is understood to be a special case that is due to his divinity. Some Christians do not believe that Christ was God Incarnate, and I doubt such Christians would, in consequence of that belief, have any consistent grounds for thinking him to be perfect.
I agree with the rest of what you say, and i wouldn't want to argue that Christianity is "better than Buddhism" per se; although I do find it to be more in accordance with my own thoughts about the human condition, it resonates more with me that is, and therefore i will say that I think it is closer to the truth; the truth as I perceive it to be, of course.
Not sure if this is merely a cultural thing because I was raised in a secular family, never went to church except on special occasions such as baptisms and marriages, and first became interested in spirituality through reading Zen texts, and particularly the Bhagavad Gita, and working in the context of Gurdjieff's teachings (not to mention extensive explorations of hallucinogens/entheogens).
Well, I don't think it's possible for them to disbelieve that and still be Christians. That's the core of Christianity almost.
I think that is for the most part the most common Christian view; but there are alternative interpretations. Have you heard of 'the Cosmic Christ' for example? As far as I understand the idea the Cosmic Christ is the divine-in-incarnation and is universally present in Creation. So, Jesus would have been one who fully realized the divine in himself; and we can all potentially realize the same. This understanding is incompatible with the doctrine of atonement. The idea of atonement makes no sense at all to me, although I acknowledge it is a predominant view among Christians.
Yes, of course, I have heard about it - that was quite common with the Theosophical Society and also Steiner's movement if I'm not mistaken. There's also many other less esoteric forms of non-Trinitarian Christianity which take the same principles.
However, the early church fathers and the earliest records that we have show that the earliest Christians did believe that Jesus was God and claimed to be God.
I don't know if that is at all certain. I have noticed a very interesting book on Amazon called When Jesus became God, which argues that
Also it shouldn't be forgotten that one of the causes of the Great Schism was the argument over whether Jesus was the same substance (I would say 'being') as the Father.
Jesus did say such things as 'I and the Father are One' but whether this amounts to him declaring that he actually is God, is another matter altogether.
Quoting Janus
As I understand it, the Orthodox churches do not accept the 'doctrine of vicarious atonement', i.e. that Jesus 'died for our sins', which is fundamental to most Protestant churches. Of course, they accept the Atonement, but they interpret it in a different way to the Protestants.
All of these questions are, however, theological rather than philosophical in nature.
Check out Jesus` reaction (after the resurrection) when St. Thomas says, "my Lord and my God".
Quoting Wayfarer
I have a question on this point: are you opposed to arguing about not just whether one religion is "better" than another, but whether one religion possesses the fullness of truth?
As I distinguished in my OP, there is obviously truth in religion, but the more interesting and important question, for me, is whether any particular religion is true. The comparative approach is drearily academic. It has no existential import, and it leads nowhere, since there is no such thing as "religion in general" to convert to. There are only religions, plural. A neutral observer, such as myself, can notice and appreciate the similarities between religions, but this doesn't affect my life one iota. It merely adds to the pile of facts that I know, leaving unfulfilled the yearning for wisdom, which is more than simply knowing a set of facts.
Whatever else religions may be, they are surely wisdom traditions, vehicles not simply for the accumulation of bland, discursive knowledge, but for personal transformation and for better states of knowledge. It doesn't seem possible to experience these things without being on the inside of a religion. But the desire for them can't be made the primary reason one converts to a religion. That reason ought to be because it is true. Unless one is reasonably confident of the latter, then attempting to experience the former will be impossible whether inside or out. On the inside, one would be forced to lie, and on the outside, one would be forced to coldly appropriate. Either way, the cognitive dissonance would be too great to give one any peace, which, in part, is precisely what one is seeking. This is why the search for whether any religion is true ought to come first and the search for similarities between religions second, which in fact will follow as a matter of course from the first.
I have previously described that my approach to religion was originally through the quest for spiritual enlightenment (Janus and I have a lot in common in that respect). At the time - late teens and 20's - had you said I was interested in religion per se, I would have denied it. To me, 'religion' was the ossified remnants of past truths, which had lost its vitality and relevance by being repeated by followers who didn't understand its original meaning; 'crystallised into dogma', I would have said. I thought that religion had originally arisen from maverick individuals who stepped outside what I called the 'consensus reality' and realised the state which is symbolically referred to as being 'the Kingdom of Heaven', Nirv??a, Mok?a or liberation. Aldous Huxley, Huston Smith, D T Suzuki, Alan Watts and Krishnamurti and the Adyar Bookshop were all central to this phase in my development. I was also deeply moved by one of the 'ur-texts' of the New Age, R. M. Bucke's Cosmic Consciousness. He says that religious revelations describe a state of being which humanity is evolving towards, a state which is as far above ordinary human consciousness as we are now above animals. His book also was cross-cultural, aimed at showing that the state he called 'cosmic consciousness' was a constant that varied only in its cultural trappings. Ergo, my attitude was generally 'counter-cultural' - Theodore Roszak's books Where the Wasteland Ends and The Making of a Counter-Culture were also big influences. I was convinced that the mainstream understanding was fatally mistaken. (In that I haven't changed.)
I can see a lot to criticize with this now, although I will still defend it, on the grounds that it does provide a paradigm within which religious truths are 'truths of experience'; they are 'experiential', even if not 'empirical' in the ordinary sense. That is why I earlier posted the Huston Smith diagram. The different traditions all depict the 'topography of the unknown' - the landscape of spiritual realisation, as presented in the writings of numerous sages, seers and traditions.
As I indicated in my first (sarcastic) response, this mitigates against the atheist argument: that religions, generally, are all exclusivist, and contradictory. Atheists will generally argue that each tradition says that it alone possess the Ultimate Truth - and yet they all disagree with one another. What better evidence that they're all talking malarky? Whereas, in this 'experiential' view, what we see in the 'testimony of sages' are glimpses of a genuinely higher domain of truth:
A reader review of Huston Smith's book Forgotten Truths
None of this mitigates against Christianity, per se, although it plainly can't be reconciled with the idea that Christianity is the only true religion; and I think that attitude is very deeply embedded in Western culture. It is one of the reasons that Western culture seems to oscillate between fundamentalism and atheism; you either accept the one true faith entirely, or you reject it completely, and it's all a matter of belief. How many of the debates about religion on this and other forums are underwritten by that implicit view?
But as far as individual practitioners are concerned, if they can put that 'triumphalist' attitude aside, I think they are fully justified in accepting that their particular path is indeed THE path, and the only one that is needed, even if others exist.
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Wayfarer
Namasteeee
Although it is a bit magniloquent sentence, i can say that it epitomizes a perennial position.
On the other hand, the paths in question are different (or cognate) traditions whom people can follow, then i can say that without traditionalism, perennialism turns into a kind of unamenable syncreticism. All new age bullshists comprises of this type of unamenable manners. We can compare traditions with different kind of architectural systems. All of them are tested, practiced and developed throughout ages, they contained experiences of ages and if you decide to construct any kind of building you would practice one of them. If you are a master, you can devise new one, possible.
However, there is no doubt that all masters are not real masters, some of them are false and this is another subject. Without a reliable path(tradition), you can not reach the goal. Because of this reason, most of well-known perennialist ( such as Sayyed Hussein Nasr or Rene Guenon) are also traditionalists.
You lost that bet. Where can I collect?
;)
I definitely agree to the first point. They aren't about "bland, discursive" knowledge but rather "personal transformation." What stands out for me above is your insistence we our reason for converting should be that the religion is true, as if your current living/actual but not entirely satisfactory religion is "Truth" nevertheless. I'm not saying this is wrong or bad, just pointing it out. Religion is still being framed in terms of knowledge, though not "bland, discursive" knowledge.
I think it's possible to question objectivity as a supreme value. In practical terms, we have no choice. But metaphysical truth is different. What if positing objectivity as a supreme value is a "mad" or "irrational" leap? I understand that if we are talking about personal resurrection, hell-fire, etc., then truth or falsity is paramount, but that takes us back to prudence, and religion is swallowed by an inclusion of the super-natural within nature. God would be a promising/threatening object invisible to certain instruments and methods, like an asteroid heading toward our planet that most of us don't see coming.
I think Feuerbach is right that we can only revere or worship human virtues. If God isn't love or wisdom and instead just a sort of important machine, then not worship but something else (fearful, prudent submission to the superior "alien") is appropriate. In short, the perfected or ideal human being is (for me) the only reasonable religious object.
"Go, tell them that the worship of God is honoring his gifts in other men, and loving the greatest men best, each according to his genius. " (Blake)
Then i would like to make a conversation with two people in question.