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PresterJohn
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Name: Joshua
Country: United States
State: Mississippi
Birthday: 2/4/1982
Gender: Male
Interests: Writing, Drawing, Theology, Philosophy, Obscure Science, Literary Criticism, Ancient and Medieval History, Mythology, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Mythopoeic Literature, The Lives & Works of The Inklings
Expertise: Writing, Mythopoeic Literature, Literary Criticism
Occupation: Website Design
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Member Since:
1/30/2004
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| Plato's dialogue Euthyphro presents a logical problem about the meaning of piety (or more broadly, the Good) in a polythestic society. The basic question: "Is something good because the gods approve it, or do they approve it because it is good?"
In its original polytheistic context, it was a way for Plato to point to the fact that there is some external moral standard that even the gods must bow to.
Occasionally, modern skeptics or atheists will attempt to use the same line of argument to make the idea of a monotheistic God problematic. This modern adaptation follows the these lines.
"Is something good because God approves it, or does God approve it because it is good?"
1. If we answer that something is good because God approves it, then it would seem that the good is merely arbitrary, and that tomorrow God could declare cannibalism and adultery good. Clearly a God of this sort wouldn't be a God worthy of worship.
2. If we answer that God approves something because it is good, then it would seem that there is something superior to God that even God must obey. This sort of God clearly isn't omnipotent, and thus isn't the sort of God that monotheistic religions worship.
But the problem with this line of argument is that it presupposes a contrast between God and the Good which isn't possible in the classic monotheism of Augustine, Aquinas, etc. In their conception, there can be no contrast between God and the Good because God is the Good. The self-identity of God as the Good renders the question itself nonsensical.
"Is something good because the Good approves it, or does the Good approve it because it is good?"*
The question no longer poses a problem. The answer is simply, yes, it is good because the Good approves it, and yes, the Good approves it because it is good.
This classic conception of God as the Good is shared across the monotheistic religions, but it was originally worked out specifically in relation to the idea that Christ is the Logos. The word Logos has many meanings in the philosophical tradition, but they include things like Reason, Moral Law, Wisdom, etc.
Because of this, arguments which depends on a contrast between God and the Good can only succeed with a sort of super-voluntaristic understanding of God's sovereignty which override an understanding of God's unchangeable nature as the Good itself. | | |
| As a fairly conservative Catholic who believes that the male-only priesthood is correct, one of the things that bothers me is the really bad arguments that conservatives often make in order to justify the Church's practice.
The problem with most of the arguments I've heard is that they imply that Christ assumed manhood, but not womanhood.
Now, this might not sound so bad to a lot of conservatives, but having recently been studying how the early Church hammered out Christology, it strikes me as incompatible with one of the fundamental principles of Christian doctrine.
"That which is not assumed is not healed" -- Saint Gregory the Theologian
If Christ assumed manhood, but not womanhood, then following St. Gregory's principle, women cannot be saved. Obviously this is heretical. But it seems the natural conclusion of the arguments conservatives typically use.
So, the trick is to find a way to articulate the necessity of an all-male priesthood without saying that Christ assumed manhood, but not womanhood.
Perhaps rather than focusing on manhood/womanhood as if they were things that could be assumed independent of each other, we should speak of Christ assuming Human Nature as a whole, including the sexual differentiation that encompasses both manhood and womanhood.*
Of course, that might mean no longer attempting to use Christ's incarnation as male to explain the all-male priesthood. On the other hand, perhaps there is a way to do so without running afoul of St. Gregory's principle. I'm just not sure what it might be yet.
* The medieval mystics, notably Julian of Norwich, managed to conceive of Christ as both male and masculine while simultaneously feminine (though not female). | | |
| Contra certain converts, the Eastern Orthodox tradition does seem to have a place for the Latin concept of "created grace."
'There is nothing strange,' Palamas writes, 'in using the word "grace" both for the created and the uncreated and in speaking of a created grace distinct from the created.' In what sense can one use the same word 'grace' about fundamentally different realities? We have seen that Palamas was aware of the many meanings of the word; he defines the matter thus: 'All that flows from the Spirit towards those who have been baptized in the Spirit according to the Gospel of grace, and who have been rendered completely spiritual, comes from the Source; it all comes from it, and also remains in it.'
A Study of Gregory Palamas by John Meyendorff, pg. 164
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| I took a practice GRE test over the weekend. The results were slightly disappointing. They will not remain so. | | |
| Blessed Virgin unconsumed, I long to enter the overshadowing fire, the flame which burns more brightly than the seraphim. Be with me, I pray, as you were with the Church at Pentecost, that by your prayers and intercessions I may be made a holocaust on the altar of Him who burns with love for us.
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