PEG 2.0

Writer & entrepreneur. Bio. This is my very, very personal blog. All work that is my own is my copyright; rights reserved. Toutes mes oeuvres sont protégées par le droit d'auteur.

[pieratt]

TIL that in the womb, an embryo/fetus grows 250,000 new neurons per minute – a million neurons every 4 minutes – for 9 straight months.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK234146/

https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/6vnjho/til_that_in_the_womb_an_embryofetus_grows_250000/

(via pieratt)

[coramdeo3-deactivated20180623]

A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means-the only complete realist.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (via jasminecrystal)

[relatablepoetryandquotes]

[pegobry]

Solus Tragicus

Sorry, but no. The Reformation was not just “both tragic and salutary”. It was just tragic. This is one “sola” I’ll abide by. Let’s go through those baffling theses. 

...

1. 

"The first Protestants split from the Latin church that had, of course, already been in schism with the Orthodox church for almost five hundred years. In light of this reality, all Christian must be considered schismatics; no Christian church is immune from this accusation, including Catholics and the Orthodox"

This is part of a long hand-wringing list of justifications that seem to justify the schism of the Reformation on the basis of the Catholic-Orthodox schism...somehow. I guess I missed the “two wrongs make a right” part of the Sermont on the Mount. 

No Christian is immune from being accused by someone of being a schismatic. Orthodox can accuse me (a Catholic) of being schismatic, for sure. But it says nothing about whether the accusation is actually true. 

It is convenient though. It’s easy to say, well, everyone’s a little schismatic, so  what difference does it make. It dispenses one from having to ascertain not just whether the communions’ conflicting claims conflict, but whether they are true. How is that not the equivalent of the village atheist who confidently asserts that because there are so many competing religions, none of them can be true? 

“Therefore [Protestant churches] do not confront one another with the impossible choice between two mothers [the Catholic and the Orthodox Churches], both of whom have important, compelling, and yet contradictory claims of being the church. Protestantism protects from this double bind even as it protests this double bind, and this protest should not cease until the original schismatics are reconciled. Then it might be time to declare the Reformation over”

Pardon me, but why is this choice “impossible”? I’m reminded of Mark Twain’s line, asked if he “believed” in infant baptism; he replied “Believe in it? Why, I’ve seen it done.” The choice is quite possible, and people make it every day; every day people go from Catholic to Protestant, Protestant to Catholic, Orthodox to Catholic, Catholic to Orthodox, etc. They weigh competing truth claims and reach a decision. But fearful it is to fall in the hands of the Living God. Better to throw up your hands and pretend to yourself that something people do every day is impossible. 

Fundamentally, I don’t see what the big deal is about the Catholic-Orthodox schism. It wasn’t the first and it wasn’t the last schism. There was the Monophysite controversy. And before that Arianism, and for a while in the West, even after Nicaea, the Arian Church was bigger than the Catholic Church. But I guess one couldn’t be asked to choose between them, because the choice between whether Jesus is divine or a creature is just “impossible”. I mean, they both had “important, compelling and contradictory” claims of being the church! And therefore (somehow) because those claims are contradictory they are “impossible” to resolve. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“To become Catholic I would have to contract my ecclesial world”

Oh, poor you. Ah, the priceless Peter Leithart. Well, maybe. So what? Again, we have a statement of the fact that stopping becoming a Protestant would be inconvenient, not that it would be wrong. I mean, try these on for size: “To become a non-universalist, I would have to contract my eschatological world”; “To follow You I would have to give my wealth to the poor” (oops). 

In a sense, this is all reassuring. It keeps nagging at y’all, doesn’t it? You realize that some great catastrophe has been made, although you can’t quite yet realize the full magnitude of it, and so you need to come up with excuse after excuse to assuage the guilt, excuses that, I’m sure, like all excuses, don’t even convince you. 

[pegobry]

Proof of Catholicism through supernatural evidence

The internet is buzzing about this excellent Washington Post story about a clinical physician who assists Catholic priests in preforming exorcisms. It’s obvious why this story should be a fun social media yarn in the age in which we live: militant atheists are being thrown in a tizzy by a suggestion that there might be empirical evidence for the supernatural. 

The the rejoicing is ecumenical. The idea that the supernatural is real, and that it is emmixed in our lives, is an idea in which Protestants have a stake as well. 

I was thinking about this during Mass yesterday. That day’s Gospel is about the sending of the seventy-two in Luke’s Gospel, and includes this passage:

The seventy-two returned rejoicing, and said, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us because of your name." Jesus said, "I have observed Satan fall like lightning from the sky. Behold, I have given you the power to 'tread upon serpents' and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven."

The Gospels record Jesus giving His Church authority to defeat demons. And so it does. Every diocese has at least one exorcist on call. And the Catholic rites of exorcism are effective. “Even the demons are subject to us because of your name.” Yet we find no equivalent of this in the Protestant “church”. No hierarchy, obviously, but also no tradition or rites of exorcism. The Catholic Church has exorcists because it is part of her mandate from the Lord to fight demons, but also because there is demand, as the Post story makes clear. Where are all the Anglican exorcists? Why does the Enemy think the Catholic Church so deserving of attack? 

The novel and movie The Exorcist are based on a true story. The poor child’s Lutheran parents had to call on Jesuit priests. Despite the melodrama, after the exorcism the victim went on to lead a normal life. 

“Even the demons are subject to us because of your name.”

What grounds do Protestants have for denying the reality of these phenomena, if not atheist-materialist grounds? 

Starting in 1858, a “lady” appeared to the young, poor, abused, unlettered girl Bernadette Soubirous. Other girls who were with her could not see her. 

She appeared to her a number of times. At one point, she asked her to dig under her feet to find a spring of water, which she did. When asked to identify herself, the Lady replied “I am the immaculate conception”--words which Bernadette did not know. 

Since then, the immaculate conception of the Mother of God has become Catholic dogma, and Lourdes has become a global pilgrimage site. 

It has become a global pilgrimage site, as well as the site of a number of miraculous healings. This being Catholic-land, to be recognized as miraculous, a healing has to cross a number of hurdles. It has to be checked out by Lourdes’ local medical bureau, and then later confirmed to be scientifically inexplicable, and “exceptional”, by an International Medical Committee of 20 experts. 

I really encourage non-Catholic Christians to read these stories and to come up with a non-atheist-materialist rationale for them. To come up with any other rationale. 

What explanation is there for the belief that Mary appeared and proclaimed herself the Immaculate Conception, and is still working miracles? If not for the obvious one? And, of course, it it happened, then it must mean that the immaculate conception is true, and that the Catholic Church teaches the truth. 

Let’s stop obsessing over prooftexts and Church Father quotes. Study these things, and come up with an explanation. Genuinely ask yourself the questions. 

God bless.

[pegobry]

C’est un peu court, jeune homme

Cher M. Enthoven,

Dans votre dernière chronique sur Europe 1, vous entendez “poser une question” aux catholiques qui s’opposent à l’IVG, dont je fais partie. Permettez-moi donc d’y répondre. 

Tout d’abord, en guise de prolégomènes, je tiens d’abord à préciser que vous êtes un de mes philosophes “médiatiques” préférés, dans l’ensemble au-dessus du lot, que je vous ai vu en conférence et apprécié, et que je n’ai aucune animosité envers vous, au contraire. Ceci étant dit, vous m’invitez à répondre, je le fais, surtout dans la mesure où votre question montre ce qu’il convient d’appeler une confusion mentale grave. J’ai eu vent de cette chronique par les moqueries que j’en ai vu sur Twitter, et lorsque je l’ai enfin regardée elle s’est avérée--il n’y a pas de manière délicate de le dire--encore plus indigente que je l’avais imaginé. 

Votre argument est que s’opposer à l’avortement serait contraire au christianisme et au catholicisme parce qu’il assimilerait “la vie” à “la chair”, ce qui serait contraire au catholicisme. 

(Au passage : votre chronique aura au moins eu ce mérite de faire prononcer par Thomas Sotto(!) une phrase de l’Evangile à la radio, “Dieu s’est fait chair.” Verbum caro factum est et habitabit in nobis. Doctrine au centre du catholicisme, sur laquelle se sont écharpé les chrétiens pendant des siècles (vous êtes naturellement au courant de toutes les controverses sur le gnosticisme, le docétisme...), qui montre que le catholicisme est bien la plus “charnelle” des religions. Bref.)

Le procédé de dire “Vous n’êtes même pas en accord avec vous-même” plutôt que simplement “Je ne suis pas d’accord” est souvent irritant, et surtout lorsque (pardonnez-moi) on ne sait pas de quoi on parle. 

Je pourrais vous faire un long discours sur la place de “la chair” dans la religion catholique, mais ce serait répondre à ce que les correcteurs de philo au Bac appellent un “hors sujet.” 

(Je passerai aussi sur le bobard rebattu de l’avortement spontané, un non sequitur complet. Oui, les embryons ont un taux de mortalité plus élevé que les philosophes chroniqueurs à la radio. Les gens de plus de 75 ans, les pompiers et les mineurs de fond ont un taux de mortalité élevé aussi : donc...quoi, au juste ?)

Que, chez les mammifères, la vie commence avec la fécondation d’un ovule par un spermatozoïde, ce n’est pas une position métaphysique--théologique ou philosophique--c’est tout simplement un fait, enseigné dans tous les collèges depuis cent ans, présent dans tous les manuels de biologie, dans tous les manuels de médecine. C’est juste un fait, aussi factuel que la composition de l’eau en deux atomes d’hydrogène et un d’oxygène, ou que "Marignan 1515″. Pour reprendre l’expression de Wittgenstein, c’est “ce qui est le cas.” Et comme disait John Adams (ou Lénine, il y a débat), les faits sont têtus...

Donc, lorsque vous dites, “situer la vie à cet instant c’est récuser toute différence entre la vie et la chair”, vous ne montrez pas juste que vous auriez dû plus lire sur le christianisme, vous commettez un non-sens. Situer la vie à cet instant, c’est tout simplement constater un fait. 

La question qui préoccupe les chrétiens et tous les autres, ce n’est pas de savoir si un embryon est un être humain--c’est indéniable--mais quelle valeur accorder à quels êtres humains. J’imagine que vous connaissez la loi de Hume : il faut distinguer entre le “il est” et le “il faut”. Que la vie commence à la conception, c’est un “il est” ; vous pouvez l’admettre puisque, en soi, (à moins d’accepter une vision téléologique du monde, ce que j’imagine difficile pour vous, et qui nous emmènerait sur des terres très lointaines) ça n’implique pas de “il faut”. 

Certains d’entre nous pensent que toute vie humaine a une valeur infinie et est donc dotée de droits inaliénable, au nombre desquels la vie. Que cette valeur ne dépend pas de son diplôme, de sa station sociale, de ses circonstances de vie, de son âge, de son taux de mortalité, de son état de développement, de sa race, de son sexe, de ses gènes, de sa “normalité”. Car, pour le coup, accepter l’avortement, c’est bien déclarer que la vie a une valeur contingente, qu’elle n’a de valeur que si “désirée” par autrui. 

Personne n’est obligé de penser quoi que ce soit ! L’idée que chaque vie humaine a une valeur intrinsèque est, historiquement, contingente et relativement nouvelle. On peut dater son émergence précisément. Les premiers à penser cela étaient un groupe de doux dingues qui vénéraient celui “qui n’a pas vu son égalité avec Dieu comme quelque chose à quoi il devait s’accrocher, mais au lieu de cela, s’est vidé lui-même, et a pris la forme d’un esclave.” Car c’est bien cela au moins un sens de la Croix (et donc de l’Incarnation) : que l’infiniment grand se met, personnellement, radicalement, ontologiquement, du côté de l’infiniment petit, de l’”esclave” sous toutes ses formes, du “plus petit d’entre nous”. Et quel meilleur exemple de l’”esclave”, du “plus petit”, sinon le fœtus, entièrement dépendant physiquement, muet, humble, qui n’a même pas la décence d’être agrégé de philosophie ou de payer des impôts ou d’avoir le même taux de mortalité que tout le monde ? Celui qui est “rejeté et méprisé des hommes” et qui ne peut pas “cacher sa face aux crachats” ? Voir même dans celui qui ne nous ressemble pas un frère, et non seulement un frère, mais le Christ, ça, c’est sacrément chrétien. 

Le monde païen dans lequel le christianisme est arrivé comme un terrible orage dans un ciel paisible d’été ne pensait pas du tout cela. Pour simplifier brutalement, la vision païenne du monde était celle de cercles concentriques de valeur et de dignité. Les dieux étaient plus dignes que les hommes, les hommes libres que les femmes, les enfants, les étrangers, les esclaves. Et donc la valeur de la vie était absolument contingente, et contingente socialement. Un homme libre capturé à la guerre devenait esclave et sa vie n’avait plus de valeur, et c’était parfaitement normal. Et, évidemment, les enfants n’en avaient aucune. Déjà sous la Rome antique on se moquait des chrétiens parce qu’ils rejetaient la pratique de l’expositio, l’abandon des bébés non désirés sur le forum. La plupart mourraient, mais certains étaient “recueillis”, dans l’immense majorité des cas pour être esclaves, et l’exploitation la plus rentable d’un enfant esclave est l’esclavage sexuel, qui était parfaitement accepté et licite--sauf ceux qui étaient recueillis par les chrétiens. Dans la vision païenne, l’exploitation du faible par le fort n’est pas un fait regrettable, c’est l’ordre du monde, et leurs pratiques autour de l’avortement le montraient bien, et c’est notamment pour ça que ça fait 2000 ans que les chrétiens rejettent l’avortement. Et dire qu’il a fallu attendre Raphael Enthoven pour qu’on se rende compte que c’était incohérent...

Mais bon. Les chrétiens ne sont pas les seuls à prétendre que chaque vie humaine est dotée de droits inaliénables indépendamment de toute contingence. C’est aussi une idée officiellement proclamée par les Lumières ; et les penseurs laïques ou athées actuels nous répètent ad nauseam que cette conviction, historiquement issue du christianisme comme tous les penseurs des Lumières le reconnaissaient, peut continuer d’exister sans les racines théologiques et métaphysiques qui lui ont donné naissance. 

D’autres ont toujours eu un soupçon lancinant, qu’une fois cet héritage chrétien excisé, que si, comme Thomas Jefferson, on coupe au rasoir l’Évangile pour en retirer les miracles et ne garder que l’enseignement moral d’humanisme et de compassion, peu à peu l’enseignement moral aussi passera aux oubliettes. Comme vous le savez, c’était certainement ce que pensait Nietzsche, et qu’il appelait de ses veux. Il avait énormément de mépris pour les chrétiens, mais dans une parabole connue, il se moque de ceux qu’il méprisait par-dessus tout. Il raconte que des siècles après la mort du Bouddha, on vénérait encore son “ombre” dans une caverne. Ceux qui vénèrent l’ombre du Bouddha, ce ne sont pas les croyants petit-bourgeois du dimanche que ce fils de pasteur rebelle honnissait, mais les incroyants qui pensent qu’on peut avoir la “mort de Dieu” mais pas la fin de l’éthique humaniste issue du christianisme. Il faudra lâcher la bride à la “volonté de puissance” des “surhommes” pour aller “au-delà du bien et du mal”... Evidemment quand on regarde le 20ème siècle on peut se dire que Nietzsche n’avait peut être pas tort. (Ce qui me désole, car je soutiens le projet des Lumières.)

Le 20ème siècle...et l’avortement. Car, pour vous retourner l’argument, et la question, le soutien à l’IVG est-il compatible avec les valeurs des Lumières que vous soutenez ? Car soit les droits de l’homme sont universels soit ils n’ont aucun sens. C’est bien l’aspect universel et intrinsèque des droits que les Lumières ont défendues, en opposition frontale avec le féodalisme qui avait bien le concept de droits, mais les rendait contingents au statut hérité et aux relations personnelles. C’est bien cela qui rend cette idée magnifique si puissante. Or accepter l’avortement, n’est-ce pas bien accepter que, comme dans La Ferme des animaux d’Orwell, si nous sommes “tous égaux en droits”, certains sont “plus égaux que d’autres” ?... 

J’aimerais finir sur une remarque sur la paresse intellectuelle, et le courage intellectuel. Vous connaissez bien le système médiatique français. Qu’y a-t-il de moins risqué en France en 2016 que de prendre parti de manière univoque contre l’avortement ? De rassurer et flatter son public en expliquant que l’opposition à l’avortement n’est pas seulement mauvaise mais incohérente et, en somme, à balayer du revers de la main ? N’auriez-vous pas pu vous renseigner sur la position catholique sur le sujet avant de la critiquer ? 

Même sans être “pro-vie”, c’était un peu court, jeune homme ; on aurait pu dire, oh, Dieu, bien des choses en somme... La conscience humaniste et progressiste n’est-elle pas dérangée du tout par le phénomène du “gendercide”, l’avortement sélectif des filles, qui a fait des millions de victimes et contribue au déséquilibre social de sociétés comme la Chine et l’Inde ? N’a-t-elle, vraiment, aucun doute lorsqu’elle voit le lien entre l’avortement et les maladies génétiques, et l’élimination “thérapeutique” des “inadaptés” ? N’y discerne-t-elle vraiment aucun écho des z’heures-les-plus-sombres ? Et que dire de la sociologie de l’avortement, que les femmes qui y ont recours sont souvent les plus pauvres et les plus précaires ? L’humaniste progressiste n’a-t-il rien d’autre à proposer à ces femmes en détresse ? Est-il absolument essentiel de refuser de se poser la question de comment permettre à ces femmes de s’éviter un acte que personne, dans l’absolu, ne désire, parce que ça voudrait dire concéder quelque chose à ceux “d’en face” ? 

Voilà beaucoup de questions que, sans être pro-vie ou catholique ou réactionnaire ou que-sais-je encore, un humaniste progressiste pourrait se poser. Mais il aurait dû pour cela avoir un peu d’humilité intellectuelle pour étudier son sujet avant de se prononcer. Et, surtout, risquer le bad buzz... Ça aurait été trop dommage, hein ? 

Cordialement.

[pegobry]

Source Criticism Is Not Credible

I’m late in catching up to the latest installment of "Ross Douthat vs the Society of Jesus”, the latest critical hit show on Netflix. 

The latest episode got started with this scholarly and valuable exegesis of the Markan and Matthean passages on divorce by John W. Martens. I view Ross Douthat’s response as invaluable, and I say this very sadly. I’ve read it several times now, each time with a deeper sinking feeling in my gut, a bigger ball of ice in my stomach, because it gets mercilessly at the problem of liberal Catholicism, or Catholic liberalism, which is that so much of it is not “liberal” in the political sense, but “liberal” in the theological sense of liberal Protestantism, i.e. all-too inclined to jettison not just small-t traditions but, at some point, the kerygma and the Creed. 

I think the important points have been raised. Dr Martens carefully raises the “f word”--”fundamentalism”--but Douthat points out that when “conservative” Catholics stubbornly point to the words of Jesus, their point is not so much that they have a “plain meaning” in the “fundamentalist” sense but rather that this is how the Church has consistently understood those words. The fact that a pretty good case can be made that they do have this plain meaning is, as it were, the icing on the cake. 

Douthat points out that Martens relies heavily on source criticism in his analysis of the relevant texts--indeed, simply takes it for granted. Leroy Huizenga is good at pointing out that an excessive reliance on source criticism goes against the grain of Dei Verbum and the Catechism, which is an important point, but I just want to raise here another, much more basic point, which is that source criticism is simply not credible as historical scholarship. 

A lot of people have used source criticism. Heck, John Paul II’s theology of the body makes extensive use of it (and a “conservative” Catholic is not going to criticize the theology of the body!).

The problem with source criticism is, quite simply, that there is no evidence for it, and that the evidence militates against it. And if we look at the historiography, we find that the idea at the heart of source criticism--that Biblical texts were collated from pre-existing and disparate sources--is almost never argued and almost everywhere (as in Martens’ case) simply presupposed. Almost every idea put forth in source or form criticism has later been shown not credible, but the overall framework itself is not questioned (except from fundamentalist quarters), even though you would think that if a theory produces results which are not credible, after a while you would start questioning the theory.

In the case of the Old Testament, Robert Alter--no fundamentalist!--has made an extremely convincing case that the best explanation for the famous repetitions and contradictions is not the collation or editing of disparate sources, but a literary device used by the Biblical author(s) to highlight different aspects of one story, and thereby make different theological/philosophical/psychological points. 

When approaching ancient texts from our own historically and culturally-conditioned perspective, I think it’s imperative to always keep in mind that we are on the other side of the reading revolution: ancient texts were written for an audience whose reception of books--especially, but not only--was not to simply read it, but to read it over and over and over again over the course of a lifetime. Books were structured, then, to yield their secrets over long rereading and rumination. On the ancient side of the reading revolution, the repetitions and contradictions in the Biblical text naturally appear as not only symphonic literary devices, but puzzles that invite the reader into a deeper meditation into the events described (and this is, of course, how the Talmud invites us to read the Bible). On the other side of the reading revolution, they look like oddities in search of an explanation (and on the other side of the materialistic and historicist revolutions, the explanation we look for involves power games and dissimulation, and not an earnest effort to faithfully testify to divine mysteries and salvation history). 

In the case of the Gospels, source criticism is marshalled as an answer to the so-called synoptic problem (which wasn’t viewed as a problem for 19 centuries, but now we know that people everywhere are conditioned by their own historical and cultural settings, except for ourselves). Aside from the quite inconvenient fact that there is no positive evidence for the two-source hypothesis, what’s even more relevant is that this is simply not how people wrote texts at the time when the New Testament was written, and in the ancient world. 

We are told that many sayings of Jesus (nevermind the fact that there is simply no evidence for the widely-touted, and in Martens’ article, assumed, idea that the Gospels were compiled from compilations of “logia” that circulated before the Gospels) were inserted to solve theological debates within the Church ; but the problem is that we know from Paul’s earlier letters what the debates within the Church in the decades after the Crucifixion were, and they are simply not addressed by the Gospels, which in fact suggests that the authors tried to do careful historical work. We know from ancient historiography that although ancient historians did not have our concept of history-from-a-neutral observer they did require and demand facticity. We know that, say, a long investigative piece in the New Yorker is “edited” and “shaped” in countless ways to tell a story, highlighting some facts and not others, and weaving them through a narrative that, as an expression of authorial subjectivity as all narratives are, is not a “view from nowhere” (which is impossible anyway) and can therefore be engaged and questioned on that basis, but this is not the same thing as saying that parts of it are simply made up, or that if we read a New Yorker story that has narrative style, we can simply assume that the author twited or invented facts to suit his thesis. The same goes for Herodotus--he may have been biased, he may have had an agenda, he may have gotten some things wrong, but that’s not the same thing as saying he simply made things up when it suited him. 

The other problem of source criticism is just how little explanatory power it has. Because there is no evidence for the theory, what is or isn’t a source, and which source is authentic and which one is not, and which is earlier and which is later (and the assumption that the earlier source is the more accurate one, which is a non sequitur) is, necessarily, pure speculation. Source criticism doesn’t take us an inch closer to solving the problem pointed out by Schweitzer over a century ago, which is that the historical-critical hermeneutic can be used to validate every imaginable picture of Jesus (every imaginable one, except the picture of the Creeds, that is...), and therefore validates none. At the risk of tautology, a theory that has no explanatory power is not a useful theory. 

The Gospels quite clearly and explicitly present themselves as works of history and testimony, and the way works of history and testimony were written was not through compilation of sources and of “logia” but through something that to us looks a lot like journalistic reporting: interviewing of sources, research, and so on. Richard Bauckham makes an extremely compelling case for the Gospels being works of oral history, one that provides an elegant and explanatory answer to the “synoptic problem”. It’s worth noting that Bauckham’s thesis is not a full-scale return to the “traditional view”. For instance, he agrees that Mark is earlier than Matthew, and argues that the author of John’s Gospel is indeed the beloved disciple, and also the John the Elder who is mentioned in several later sources, but not John son of Zebedee and one of the Twelve, as tradition usually holds. (I don’t fault Dr Martens for being seemingly unaware of the latest scholarship in this area. Sometimes curious amateurs catch things that academic blinders can cause us to miss...)

Though this is never made explicit, given their own self-presentation and genre, the argument for source criticism is simply an argument that the Gospels are not simply potentially-flawed and imperfect human works, but that they are frauds. That’s what it is to write something that presents itself as history and testimony but is in fact largely fabricated. Now, as a historical hypothesis, it shouldn’t be dismissed a priori, but it certainly puts a heck of a lot of weight on those who would prove that hypothesis, a weight that the evidence for source criticism doesn’t even come close to lifting.

Now, of course, maybe that’s the case just because the “orthodox party” within the Church was so good at suppressing contrary evidence (and, implicitly, the scholar is so smart for deciphering the code). This is not a “hermeneutic of suspicion”, it is, quite simply, a conspiracy theory. The logic of the conspiracy theory is that the evidence against the theory is taken as evidence of just how deep the conspiracy goes. In every other context, we recognize this as just madness, that is to say, a logic which is completely circular and by its very nature unchangeable by fact or evidence. And we shouldn’t confuse conspiracy theories and serious scholarship.

To summarize, then, source criticism: 

Has no conclusive evidence for it.

Has strong evidence against it.

Relies on self-defeating logic.

Has no explanatory power. 

Gives answers that are less compelling than serious and reasonable alternatives to the questions it raises.

Therefore, quite apart from any theological considerations, we should stop considering it as serious scholarship. 

Since we are all so aware, these days, of how each generation is profoundly shaped by its historical and cultural context, we should take it for what it is: one of those very embarrassing fads of the ‘60s and ‘70s that we now never look without cringing, like Lacanian psychoanalysis or, in an earlier era, phrenology. 

[pegobry]

What Strauss Got Right, What Strauss Got Wrong (Or, There Are Two Shifts)

So, this is a quick take. My view of Strauss's views is mainly drawn from Arthur Melzer's excellent "Philosophy Between The Lines", but also from several articles from the great man himself and his disciples (including the excellent "History of Political Philosophy"). Because this is dashed off, I assume a lot of background.

What Strauss Got Right

He got the basic story about esotericism right. Strauss got the basic story of esotericism right, and that will remain his legacy and secures his place as the most important thinker of the 20th century. Everyone up until the 19th century wrote and read esoterically, and this has important implications for how we understand Western thought and how we do philosophy.

He got the implications of the historical fact of esotericism right. Strauss is also right that the rediscovery of esotericism disproves historicism, and vindicates classical rationalism. No, we are not a product of our own times--the esotericism of the great thinkers shows that they were perfectly aware of their historical biases and could rise above them. Yes, rationality is possible, and philosophy can rise above the morbid miasmas. The only problem with post-modernists is that they can't read. And Heidegger got it disastrously wrong: not only did the Ancients not miss the question of Being, they were alive to it in a way that Heidegger could never hope to match.

He got a lot of the story of Modernity right. He got one key element of the basic story of Modernity right: it was, at heart, a political project, "not to understand the world but to change it", to unite theory and praxis, and it was, to a much greater extent than is commonly understood, and that's saying a lot, a conscious effort to destroy not just the authority of the Church, but orthodox Christianity, and metaphysics at large.

What Strauss Got Wrong

He is, in the end, too Modern. I think the taxonomy of the excellent article "Everything Aristotle Has Said is Wrong" is very useful. In the debate between the Ancients and the Moderns, you have the Shiftless, who think there hasn't been a radical shift between Classical thought and Modernity, and the Shifties, who think there has been. Within the Shifties, you have the the Shifty Ancients (there's been a radical shift and the Ancients were right), the Shifty Moderns (there's been a radical shift and the Moderns were right), the Shifty Exclusives (there's been a radical shift and no one's right) and the Shifty Inclusives (there's been a radical shift and everyone's right). In this framework, clearly, Strauss is a Shifty Ancient. The (or, a) central question of philosophy is the question of theory and praxis; the Ancients thought theory and praxis could not be reconciled, and the Moderns think they can be, and the Ancients are right and the Moderns wrong.

The problem is that the whole framework is wrong. The whole notion of the "quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns" is an exoteric polemical strategy to rewrite the history of Western thought. In reality, there have been not one, but two shifts--first, between Classical and Christian thought, and second, between Christian thought and Modern thought. Strauss is actually good on this, showing how the Moderns used the Ancients as a polemical club against the Church, but he doesn't take it far enough, remaining of the One Shift school.

The three schools have three different takes on the theory vs praxis question. The Christian school has some aspects in common with the Classical, and some aspects in common with the Modern. It takes a nuanced view between the Ancient and Modern extremes: it still thinks of theory vs praxis as fundamentally unbridgeable due to original sin, but it still thinks they can and should be brought closer together than the Ancients did. The Modern shift cannot be understood without the earlier Christian shift, and the Christian standpoint provides a much better critique of the Modern shift than the equally radical Ancient thought.

Plotinus, Augustine and Aquinas Got It Right. I agree with Strauss and all the classical commentators that for all their exoteric differences, Plato and Aristotle taught essentially the same esoteric doctrine, that this doctrine essentially represents "classical rationalism", and that this doctrine is, to use a loaded word, right. I tend to agree with Strauss (though I am not sure) that Socrates' rationalism was essentially zetetic, dialectical, agnostic rationalism. Where I disagree is in Strauss's contention that this essentially sums up classical rationalism.

We mustn't forget that Plato wasn't just a disciple of Socrates, he was also a disciple of Pythagoras. And as good Straussians, we should be even more alive to this influence given how little it is explicitly mentioned in his writings. I conclude that Pythagoras's esoteric doctrine was essentially a theory of the Forms, one derived from his interest in music and mathematics and their metaphysical harmony, albeit one stripped of the exoteric myth-making and vulgar mysticism that we typically associate with Pythagoreanism. And I conclude that Plato's esoteric doctrine was a Pythagoreanism both enlivened and sobered by Socratic dialectical rationalism--aka what we now call Neoplatonism. And in turn that Aristotle's essential esoteric doctrine was the same, albeit presented from a different angle for pedagogical reasons.

I agree with Strauss that most of the pre-Socratics, and Socrates, and Plato, and Aristotle, and many more, were "atheists" with regard to the Greek pantheon, but this did not make them Modern-style agnostics. They believed in the possibility and power of metaphysical contemplation and speculation. Pythagorean Neoplatonism required just as much exoteric protection from persecution as "Socratic" omni-agnosticism--after all, Christians did have metaphysical beliefs and they were still called "atheists" and persecuted for that reason; Plato did not live to see that, obviously, but he still knew what Greek society would and wouldn't persecute.

(Note: I do believe that zetetic rationalism and also what we would straightforwardly recognize as atheistic materialism, were important currents in classical thought--in Democritus, in Epicurus, probably in Socrates in some disquieted form, in Cicero, in several of the Stoics. But my important point is that "classical rationalism" is not reducible to either of those, and neither is the main strand.)

"Alfarabi's Plato" did not teach the theory of the Forms, but does this mean that Plato's esoteric doctrine did not include the Forms? Maybe Alfarabi thought it didn't and was wrong? Or maybe, as I think most plausible, regardless of what Alfarabi actually thought Plato thought, Alfarabi's "Plato" did not teach the theory of the Forms because Alfarabi himself did not believe in the Forms and, therefore, by implication, in Islam. What Alfarabi tells us is that “Plato” was a silent but pointed critic of the religion of his day and age. If this is true, it tells us a lot about Alfarabi and about the Islam of his era, but nothing about Plato.

In other words, Plotinus, and by implication Augustine and Aquinas, were right. We know from their writings that they did read esoterically, and they were no dummies. Aquinas, having a more moderate view of the theory-vs-praxis question as a Christian, lifts, at least partially, the Plato-Aristotelian veil, and faithfully expounds genuine classical rationalism before fusing it to Christian theology.

(Now, I know that I'm setting us up for a Mexican standoff. My critique of Strauss's Plato is essentially that he's a mirror image of Strauss. But then again, who does my Plato look like? Still, I think the argument holds.)

Here we see Strauss as victim of another false Modern dichotomy, "reason vs revelation", Athens vs Jerusalem. Again, this is a One Shift dichotomy. There have, in reality, been two shifts, along two different dimensions--one, yes, that concerns "reason vs revelation", and another that concerns contemplative reason and active reason. As Strauss noted, in classical thought, philosophy is not a doctrine or an academic discipline, but a way of life, the via contemplativa. The Christians also believed in the via contemplativa, albeit one that is not completed until it leads up from reason to revelation. 

The key Modern shift, then, was not about “reason vs revelation” as such, but a shift from contemplative reason to what I’ll call active reason, reason active not just politically (theory vs praxis) but epistemologically and methodologically (the Cartesian turn). And while there is no necessary conflict between contemplative reason and revelation--some forms of revelation might conflict with some forms of reason, but other forms of reason might be in harmony with other forms of revelation--there is a necessary conflict between active reason and revelation, since revelation by definition demands an attitude of receptivity, and active reason by definition rejects precisely this attitude. 

Again, Heidegger was wrong and Strauss right: not only were the Ancients not blind to the mystery of Being, they were alive to it, bathed in it. And the Ancients might have said that Modern reason is essentially non-philosophy or anti-philosophy, since philosophy precisely starts with and from the contemplation of the mystery of Being, a fundamental receptivity to the mystery and puzzle of the world, which is a necessary pre-condition to the pursuit of the Truth as an end in itself, rather than as a means (to: écraser l’infâme, be “master and possessor” of nature, "enlighten” politics, and so forth). 

So Ancient contemplative reason could equally easily debunk the claim that Zeus lived on top of Mount Olympus, and recognize in the mystery of being the permanence of the Ideas, and their necessary origin in the One who is pure actuality without potentiality. When we miss the importance of the two dimensions of the Two Shifts, we retcon classical thought as being engaged in a quintessentially Modern, straightforward "reason vs revelation" conflict.

To sum up, if you understand Strauss, but keep in mind the Two Shifts, you grok about 90% of the grand sweep of Western thought. You’re welcome.

[pegobry]

#NowPlaying "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" by The United States Military Academy Band from Songs Of The Civil War

[pegobry]

“Propositionalism”, the deposit of faith, and the Wholly Other

As the Synod draws to a close, I want to touch on a few points about what doctrine is, and what it should be, and how we should relate to it. 

It has often been noted that the “Reform Camp” and the “Conservative Camp” (let’s agree to those approximations, however I almost wrote “Tradition Camp” but that would be tendentious) are talking past each other. 

And I think it might be useful, rather than to directly skip ahead to “what’s true”, to first try to, so to speak, walk two miles with the one who would press you into service from one, to try to see things from the other’s perspective.

And here I want to address a line of concern brought to me by a sympathizer of the Reform Camp, one which I view as important to address, which is the supposed “syllogistic” “propositionalism” of the Conservative Camp on the issue of communion for the divorced and remarried. 

Marriage is indissoluble. Second “marriages” are adulterous. Adultery is a grave sin. Communion in a state of grave sin is unacceptable. Wham-bam, thank you M’am.  

This dry propositionalism seems to miss the grandeur and beauty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the one who practiced open table fellowship with notorious sinners, the one who insisted that the sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath, the one, in short, who did not regard equality with God as a thing to be clung to, but rather emptied himself, and embraced the form of a slave for our sakes...

I certainly agree with the Reform Camp that “propositionalism” is a heresy. It is a doctrine of the Catholic faith that the Truth is a Person, Jesus Christ, the divine Word of God, and that therefore no proposition can be the Truth, but rather, they can only ever testify to the Truth which is Christ, and only imperfectly so. Creeds can, and do, and indeed must change and evolve to better testify to the Truth that is Christ in every generation and in every situation (this is why Paul VI’s Credo of the People of God, for example, is for me one of the most beautiful and important texts out there). Indeed, Christianity is marked out from the other great monotheistic religions by the very profusion of its creeds (seriously, click that link and search for “Masai Creed”). 

It is also the case that it is erroneous to believe that the faith is a series of propositions one must assent to, rather than an encounter in the Spirit with the Son who leads us to the Father. It is also the case that it is erroneous to believe that Christian faith can be summed up in the demand for the performance of moral duties or adherence to laws in exchange for an afterlife reward or the avoidment of punishment. 

All of these are errors, and they are errors that have done tremendous damage to the Church, to the life of the Church, and to the faith, over the centuries. And it is certainly a very healthy instinct by the Reform Camp to have a sort of instinctive reaction of hostility to anything that even smells like this sort of error, which, yes, all to often leads to a dry and loveless Phariseeism. 

When Damon Linker describes the Conservative Camp in general, and Ross Douthat, as such: 

The church, for them, is primarily a rigorously consistent intellectual system that teaches a vision of the right way to live.

he is being unfair to the Conservative Camp in general, and deeply, deeply wrong about Ross Douthat in particular, but he is nonetheless accurately describing a certain kind of believer, one whom I can easily grant is overrepresented in the Conservative Camp, and one whom I agree is immature in his understanding of the Faith. 

With that being said, and well and truly said, here is something I wish the Reform Camp showed more awareness of. 

There is, first, the incidental point that the coherence and systematic harmony of Christian doctrine is a form of beauty, which is participation in, in Neoplatonist terms that Church Fathers East and West embraced (as well as the greatest Council Fathers), the Beauty of the One which is Beauty, Goodness and Truth, the One who is, switching to Thomistic gears for a second, the very nature of being itself. That Beauty is Truth and Truth Beauty is, or should be, known, by both the mathematician and the Christian. But this is incidental.

More importantly, there is the important point that belief in a deposit of faith--another article of the Catholic faith--is not synonymous with propositionalism. 

I am reminded of Ratzinger’s admiration for the too little known late 19th century systematic theologian Matthias Scheeben. Scheeben, who saw himself as a servant and expositor of Holy Tradition, is not associated with any major idea or school (he was by no means a “Neo-Thomist Manualist” (if such a thing ever existed, which I sometimes doubt) but he seemed to lack the animus for that school that characterized the Nouvelle Théologie which he preceded). Scheeben’s driving idea, implicit in his writings, according to Ratzinger, was that of God as that Wholly Other who comes to meet us. This Wholly Otherness of God, which makes itself known precisely in its Wholly Nearness (interior intimo meo et superior summo meo), is in Scheeben’s treatment the implicit theme throughout Christian dogma. Creatio ex nihilo is the logical consequence of God as the Wholly Other, who is perfectly transcendent of (and therefore perfectly immanent to) the cosmos. In soteriology, it is because God is the Wholly Other who comes to us (and how much this theme is found in the Psalms and the Epistles!) that it is always He who takes the initiative (ah, that head-scratching doctrine of prevenient grace...) to which we then freely respond. And, of course, this “Wholly Otherness” finds its supreme expression in the Incarnation, but also in the Eucharist...and in Revelation. 

The doctrine of the deposit of faith is, in the end, this, the belief that God is the Wholly Other who comes to meet us, that what Christians believe (and it is a consequence of sin that it must occasionally be stated in propositions) is not a human work but a divine work, one which, therefore, in its core if not in its expressions or developments (it is precisely because it is a divine work that doctrine must develop, as our all-too-human minds are stretched by it in the Spirit), is not an expression of a particular era or zeitgeist or culture, but rather, like the Logos Himself, eternal and unchanging. 

Hence the deep wisdom of the Rule of St Vincent. Hence the recurring motif in the Tradition, from the holiest, most love-inflamed, men and women in the history of the Church, urging us to zeal in guarding the deposit of faith, a venerable formula that seems to point to a certain attitude not always visible in the Reform Camp. 

These things are not, certainly not always “propositionalism,” they are not a dry legalism that drapes itself in the refuge of the Law out of fear of the sword of the Gospel of mercy, a fear which must be the only possible motive for doing things that look like tying up heavy burdens on people’s backs and not lifting a finger to help them.

Faith that there is a deposit of faith is ultimately faith that the Jesus whom the Gospels portray really is that Wholly Other, a 1st century Palestinian Jew, yes, and also the Logos through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made; it is ultimately faith that Divine Revelation is possible, a faith without which no faith, at least no recognizably Catholic faith, is possible.

And it is precisely because God is that Wholly Other that the deposit of faith will always be a sign of contradiction, will always be folly and scandal, and that the human response to God’s call must not be to try to change God,

Now, of course, I'm not saying that no one in the Reform Camp believes in a deposit of faith. We are arguing about the contents of the deposit of faith, not its existence, they will be quick to respond. And that is a very legitimate point.

But, as I said, this post is about trying to get at each other’s perspectives. The urge to “remain in the Truth of Christ” might, might, not be conceived merely as dry propositionalism but rather, like all genuine faith, precisely that response of love to the one who is Wholly Other. 

Or at least--and that is my only point--that is how many of us see it.

[dramoor]

Love more.

(photo via Orthodox Christian Network)

[catherineaddington-deactivated2]

For this passover to be perfect, we must suspend all the operations of the mind and we must transform the peak of our affections, directing them to God alone. This is a sacred mystical experience. It cannot be comprehended by anyone unless he surrenders himself to it; nor can he surrender himself to it unless he longs for it; nor can he long for it unless the Holy Spirit, whom Christ sent into the world, should come and inflame his innermost soul. Hence the Apostle says that this mystical wisdom is revealed by the Holy Spirit. If you ask how such things can occur, seek the answer in God’s grace, not in doctrine; in the longing of the will, not in the understanding; in the sighs of prayer, not in research; seek the bridegroom not the teacher; God and not man; darkness not daylight; and look not to the light but rather to the raging fire that carries the soul to God with intense fervor and glowing love.

Saint Bonaventure

from The Journey of the Mind to God (Cap. 7,1.2.4.6: Opera omnia 5, 312-313)

[pegobry]

Thoughts about Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Apparently you are required to have Thoughts about Ta-Nehisi Coates! So here are some Thoughts about Ta-Nehisi Coates, in no particular order.

He’s a very talented writer. When some of my friends on the right ping me and say “I don’t get it” I say “Read his memoir.” I have. It’s really good.

Is he as good as James Baldwin? I don’t know, I haven’t read James Baldwin. There, I said it. I have absolutely no doubt this is a failing on my part. 

Does he “deserve” his current adulation? Is he an affirmative-action pick, whatever that means? This is such a stupid question born of small minds. First, use every man after his desert, and who should ‘scape whipping? Second, insofar as that word has any meaning, he “deserves” what he has. He wrote the best-selling cover story ever for The Atlantic. That’s fact. That’s numbers. I don’t like Joe Scarborough’s show, but it gets ratings. Welcome to the real world. You drove a Hyundai to get here and I drove an $80,000 BMW, THAT’s my name. Hiring him was a genius business decision. Buying a steeply out-of-the-money call, which is what smart business leaders do. 

By the way: this is something I don’t get about conservatives and affirmative action. The conservative argument against affirmative action programs has always been that they’re not necessary because in a free market ambitious business leaders will hire underrepresented minorities as a way to arbitrage the labor market. Then when business leaders do exactly that, conservatives get pissed off? TNC’s career is proof conservatives are right about affirmative action!

Does he not have the requisite book-larnin’ for being a senior editor at The Atlantic? In a world where our entire media elite can get through their day without recognizing Max Weber when he slaps them on the head, it’s so weird to make this criticism specifically of TNC and not, you know, literally everybody else except Ross Douthat. Plus, I mean, come on. I know who Augustine is, but I haven’t read the Confessions or De Civitate Dei. There, I said that too. But I’ve read the gospel passage about the woman taken in adultery. So STFU. Plus there’s a Bourdieu thing going on. There’s a difference between the elite’s culture and culture period. Maybe TNC doesn’t know what I know about Plato, but given his family and his education I’ll bet he’s read tons of other literature and thinkers (in the black politics tradition but not only) that I haven’t and that I should have. Like James Baldwin. And hip hop.

Plus he’s so eager to learn. It’s amazing to see him on his blog plow his way through books on history and everything else. I spend my time on the internet pontificating and showing off my really-actually-not-that-impressive-and-mostly-veneer-thin book-larnin’. So I really don’t see how I could criticize him for that. 

I really, really enjoyed his Bloggingheads with John McWhorter where he was put on the spot and immediately apologized for a mean blog post he wrote. Also that post about his Bill Cosby profile and the rape allegations. That’s class.

Plus, the guy spent almost ten years out of work, publishing one or two stories some times? Damn. I’m impressed, but I’m especially impressed by his wife.

On his politics...

Well, obviously, they’re not mine. Part of me is sometimes frustrated by his lack of policy knowledge, but on the other hand we’re so marinated in pseudo-policy wonks it’s good to see someone focused on history and ideas. Plus as a white guy I’m naturally biased to discount his account so it means I need to listen to it more. I think his case for reparations is wrong but probably still important to listen to.

I mean, one story we tell ourselves is that once upon a time, long, long, long ago, America was super racist, but then there was the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement and in 1964 a switch got flipped and then America became Totally Not Racist At All(tm)! And, well, that’s not true. As much as progressives get wrong on this and so many other issues, there’s also a real problem with American society on this and we need people like TNC to write about it.

But still, the bad economics are bad. Slavery and white supremacy did not “build” America’s economy, they retarded it. Colonization was a net negative economically for the European countries that engaged in it. 

A friend described TNC’s worldview as “original sin without the salvation” and that sounds about right. In the end, everything is metaphysics. An atheist world is a word without hope and that’s the picture TNC paints, and it’s a picture I can’t, ultimately, see as trustworthy. It’s striking to me how he’s constantly surprised by positive developments in race relations and yet it doesn’t seem to alter his overall worldview. For example, he admitted that he was absolutely, utterly convinced that a black man could never get elected President of the United States within his lifetime. More recently that he did not expect that white, conservative state lawmakers in South Carolina would rally in favor of no longer displaying the Confederate battle flag on the Capitol. These are facts that clearly point to significant racial progress, that he has admitted he would not have thought possible, yet happened; and yet they don’t seem to have shifted his worldview, at least in a way that I can measure. (Yeah, I guess there too a pundit like myself shouldn’t throw stones. But still, if you ask me about his worldview, I think that part should be highlighted.) 

And TNC has the problem of vulgar Marxism that I think is such a problem with Leftist intellectuals. It’s amazing that one has to have to actually make the case that, like, culture matters and affects people’s choices. I understand TNC’s reluctance to give even an inch on this issue given that the “culture card” is sometimes used in racial politics to deny the existence of structural racism and essentially blame black people for the problems in the black community, but intellectual honesty should compel one to at least agree, as a general matter, that it’s not just dollars and cents, culture also matters, regardless of where one draws the line on the specific issues relating to the African American community. And one can do this (as I have) without denying that structural racism exists or that policies are needed to combat it. 

In some ways, original sin without the salvation seems more consistent with atheist progressive metaphysics than dumb progressive Whiggism.

The most striking thing to me in that profile was his utter--and admirably sincere!--astonishment at how the families of the victims of the Charleston shooting were able to forgive the killer. Truly able. 

Yes, humanity is not just meat and strife and domination. There are more things in Heaven and Earth. 

Also next time you’re in Paris let me buy you coffee.

[pegobry]

The Rorschach Option

One of my frequent complaints about the so-called Benedict Option has been a lack of clarity around what it actually means or entails. Rod, the Pope of the Benedict Option, has been saying that he’s still exploring that and we should wait for his forthcoming book--fair enough. But a large amount of Benedicters still seem to be pretty sure about what it is, and simultaneously angry that any critique is just a straw-man attack. 

But it seems to me we’re mostly talking about the Rorschach Option at this point. 

Rod quotes a wonderful passage from Wesley Hill about Eve Tushnet: 

Or say you grew up gay and happily irreligious, somewhere between a nominal religious tradition and outright atheism. Say that you’re such a gay activist, so secure in who you are and the cause you’re championing, that no one would ever consider you a candidate for a conversion to orthodox Christianity. But say, nonetheless, that in college you find yourself surrounded by a group of smart, sassy, enjoyable Catholics, and you find, to your growing dismay and/or amusement, that you gradually become more sure that the Catholic Church is right in what it teaches about sex and marriage than you are in your own conviction that gay sex is morally neutral. Say that you become so hungry for Christ—literally—that you end up looking back on your conversion several years later and writing these words: “To receive the Eucharist I had to sign on the dotted line (they make you say, ‘I believe all that the Catholic Church believes and teaches’ when they bring you into the fold), and I longed intensely for the Eucharist, so I figured, everybody has to sacrifice something. God doesn’t promise that He’ll only ask you for the sacrifices you agree with and understand.” Such, in brief, is the experience of the lesbian Catholic writer Eve Tushnet, one of the contributors to this blog. The experience of “burnished Catholic practice dazzling the pagan eye” happened to her, even if she might not put it exactly that way. And if it happened for someone like Eve—by her own admission, an unlikely convert—it can happen again. Such is an example of the kinds of conversions we might begin to hope for in the coming years. There won’t be droves of them, surely. But there will be some—more than we might expect right now.

Rod describes this as “the kind of Benedict Option I want to live.” He talks about being joyful and welcoming, not dour and off-putting. But as I was reading this, I couldn’t help but think of one thing, and that is--Eve Tushnet went to--and her encounter with Christianity happened at--Yale.

I get that the contours of the Benedict Option--both at this point, and by needs be given the complexities of life--are always going to be fuzzy, but I would think that if anything is a part of the Benedict Option, it would be orthodox Christians privileging the choice to attend strongly orthodox schools and universities rather than secular universities, and encouraging others to do the same.

I mean, Eve encountered those Catholics through the Yale Political Union, a non-religious society, so it’s not even like a part of the story was these students building some sort of Benedict Option within Yale.

It really sounds more like what I once (inevitably) called the Francis Option: not “retreating”, say, to Franciscan University--I will be accused of straw-manning for using that word, even though Rod has used it himself to describe the Benedict Option--, but advancing even more into the peripheries.

Eve encountered joyful, Christ-filled, Gospel-filled Christians and was drawn in and by the grace of the Holy Spirit converted to Christ. That’s wonderful. But it’s also a scenario that has happened literally millions of times in every era, country and cultural context.

So, again, if this is “the kind of Benedict Option [Rod] want[s] to live”, I have to honestly ask myself: great, but what is it that distinguishes this kind of Benedict Option from just Mere Christianity?

[pegobry]

Oui, ta gueule, c’est le Magistère

(Coup de gueule...)

Je repense parfois à cette excellente citation de C.S. Lewis...

Le plus grand obstacle que j’aie rencontré [dans l’évangélisation] est l’absence presque totale dans l’esprit de mon auditoire de tout sens du péché. [...] Les premiers prêcheurs chrétiens pouvaient présumer chez leurs auditoires, qu’ils soient juifs ou païens, un sens de culpabilité. (Que ce sens fut présent communément chez les païens est montré par le fait que l’épicurisme aussi bien que les cultes ésotériques prétendaient, bien que de manière différente, pouvoir l’apaiser.) Le message chrétien était donc dans ces jours-là sans équivoque l’Evangile, la Bonne nouvelle. Il promettait la guérison à ceux qui savaient qu’ils étaient malades. Nous, nous avons à convaincre nos auditeurs du diagnostic malencontreux avant que nous puissions nous attendre à ce qu’ils accueillent la nouvelle du remède.

L’homme des temps anciens approchait Dieu (ou même les dieux) comme l’accusé approche son juge. Pour l’homme moderne, les rôles sont inversés. Il est le juge: Dieu est sur le banc des accusés. C’est un juge plein de mansuétude. S’il pouvait s’avérer que Dieu ait une bonne défense pour avoir permis les guerres, la pauvreté, la maladie, il est prêt à écouter. Le procès pourrait même se terminer par l’acquittement de Dieu. Mais ce qui compte, c’est que l’homme siège et que Dieu est sur le banc des accusés.

J’y repense grâce à cet au demeurant fort excellent billet de l’ami Fol Bavard.

Croyez-moi, j’y crois, à la liberté de conscience, au débat, à la discussion, tout-ça tout-ça. Vraiment. 

Mais parfois, parfois, ça me ferait tant plaisir, ça me soulagerait tant, que nous tous (moi y compris!) nous faisons au moins semblant de croire ce que nous sommes censés croire en tant que catholiques: que l’Eglise n’est pas simplement une institution humaine, mais divine, dont les organes officiels (donc le Magistère) sont habilités par le Christ lui-même, Dieu fait homme, à enseigner sa vérité. 

Parfois, ça me ferait tant plaisir que nous soyions capables de prendre un minimum de recul par rapport à nous mêmes, et soyions capables de ne plus habiter le réflexe, qu’aussi bien notre nature orgueilleuse que "l’esprit de l’époque” nous a inculqué chaque jour depuis notre naissance, que je suis le détenteur de la vérité révélée, ou en tous les cas le juge proprement habilité de la vérité (parce queeee! Le libre arbiiiiiitre! Et la libertééééé! Libertéééé de penser! Liberté de conscieeeeence!), juge clément d’un Magistère qui peut certes parfois (par heureuse coïncidence?) avoir raison, mais est sur le banc des accusés.

Et que donc, parfois, parfois, parfois, l’un ou l’autre soit capable d’entendre un “Ta gueule, c’est le Magistère” et de répondre tout simplement, voire même de le penser, “Oui, c’est vrai, tu as raison, merci.”

Ce serait, à proprement parler, une divine surprise. Et quel soulagement, aussi. 

[pegobry]

Jean Yanne and Charlie Hebdo

Jean Yanne is a French humorist, screenwriter actor and director who produced a very well known scene in French cinema that may perhaps serve to explain the "Charlie Hebdo spirit" and why French people take its crudity in stride.

In the film Tout le monde il est beau, tout le monde il est gentil (roughly, "Everyone Is Pretty, Everyone Is Nice"), Yanne plays a radio comic, who is hired by a mainstream, commercialist radio station. Yanne's character says too many bad words on air, and skewers too many sacred cows, advertisers drop the radio, and Yanne is dropped. The climax of the movie is the character's farewell address on the radio, addressed to Plantier, the CEO of the company.

Here is my translation, which is necessarily poor, since Yanne's address rhymes and is metered (another hard-to-carry-over aspect of French humor):

Plantier, you're an ass. You think I'm crude? My friend, I think you're vulgar. You don't understand the difference? Let me explain. To say shit, or ass, that is simply crude. Now, what is vulgar? To, with a comely voice and larvae-like tone, sell to your audience the horoscope or rubbish dating advice; to appeal to Jesus to sell detergent; to produce the lowest shows; […] to appeal to people's worst instincts just to sell consumer goods; that is vulgar: it stinks, it makes us worse. In a word: to sell everyone shit, while never saying a bad word. 

This, in a word, is the distinction. And we know it. Super-Bowl halftime shows are almost unfailingly a vulgar orgy of objectification of women, but don't you dare show a nipple.

Charlie Hebdo is certainly crude; commentators, who, in the wake of the heinous murder of its staff, make a point of sniffing at their crudity are vulgar. 

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Anti-Anti-Zemmour

Après l'attentat contre Charlie Hebdo, plusieurs publications étrangères m'ont contacté pour écrire à ce sujet, et sur les problèmes plus larges de la société française qui y seraient (ou pas) liés: islam, islamisation, immigration, etc. (Encore une fois, ou pas: ce n'est pas mon point ici.)

Je me suis donc mis à regarder plusieurs interviews d'Eric Zemmour, que j'avais jusqu'à aujourd'hui soigneusement évité, puisque son livre sort au même moment et qu'il est un des personnages clés, que ça plaise ou non, de la conversation française autour de l'islam aujourd'hui. 

En bon libéral je n'ai qu'une sympathie modérée pour ses thèses et son analyse, que je trouve souvent grossière (au sens propre: pas assez fine). Mais p---n de b---l de Dieu que ses contradicteurs sont mauvais! Des procureurs à la petite semaine, des petits commissaires politiques disciplinés, des cherche-merde qui ne cherchent qu'à le prendre en flagrant-délit de crime de pensée. Mauvais pas seulement au sens d'incultes et incompétents (mais mon Dieu qu'ils sont incultes!), mauvais au sens de néfastes. S'ils sont à ce point des opérateurs idéologiques, sans aucun intérêt pour le fond, ne se rendent-ils pas compte à quel point ils contribuent à la "zemmourisation des esprits" qu'ils prétendent combattre, avec leurs procès staliniens de pacotille à heure de grande écoute? 

Zemmour m'énerve autant qu'il me plaît, et peut être qu'il provoque aussi un peu la controverse pour vendre des livres, et il ne serait ni le premier ni le dernier, mais c'est avant tout quelqu'un qui a une passion pour la France, pour les idées et le débat d'idées, pour l'histoire, pour la culture, et ça fait de lui un géant au milieu des pygmées, un borgne dans ce pays d'aveugles.

EDIT: Tiens, et vous pouvez me mettre la même pour Finkie.