Apologetics-low level scholarship

[SocaliCatholic]

Adam,

i admire your good honest search for Truth. lots of us been down a simillar path. read everything. i believe it said somewhere in the Bible that knowledge builds up? (pride?) here is the cliff note version:

Problem: i know everything = i am God

Problem: if i know nothing = i am nothing (or maybe Socrates)

Solution: if i know some things, and some things i do not = i am human (hard to admit for many)

Solution Key: (no peeking till your ready)

know everything = pride from satan

know nothing = reverse pride from satan

know some things = bewtween nothing and everything = humility before God

mabye i am stupid.

but you don’t need any more explanation. i bet your smart enough to know why i wrote it

 

[amarischuk]

So what it has boiled down to is: stop thinking so much…infact it is even sinful to search too deeply.

I would have expected this at a Lutheran forum but I am very disappointed here. All this talk about the heart…the heart is an organ that moves blood around the body, nothing more, nothing less. Or as Albert Ellis indicated, emotions are hasty cognitive assesments and reactions to a physiological change initiated by an external or internal event.

Oh, and Ray: there are many forms of mediation. Full lotus, half lotus, seated, walking, the Jesus prayer (popular in Eastern Catholic spirituality) and other vocal repetitions, the loci method, etc. Meditation does not mean being physically still but if that method suits you, fine. It is a state of mind.

And still all this talk about faith, yet without a sound definition of faith. It’s like I need a key to open a door to see what is inside, where do I get the key? It’s on the other side of the door.

 

[The_Barrister]

maggiec:

It may be worth a try to quiet your self and listen for Jesus.
Maggiec

Best advice I’ve seen.

Seems to me that the problem here is in putting too much emphasis on the means and not enough emphasis on the goal. The joy is in the chase and the chase is tiring and, ultimately, unfulfilling. You have overwhelmed yourself with various paths and - faced with incalculable roads to explore - your reaction is to fall into despair.

You don’t need any recommendations for reading - that can only take you further down the path you’re already on.

Simplify, my friend. Go to daily Mass, pray, and partake generously of the Eucharist and God’s healing graces in Reconciliation.

Don’t stop thinking or searching! Just simplify and listen for God. You don’t need a key - He will open the door for you.

Read no books! You will know when you’re ready to pick up another book. Peace!

Eh, but who am I? Just an armchair amatuer apologist.

 

[Prometheum_x]

Hi Adam,

Your message caught my attention. As an intellectual myself (or rather, an intellectual-in-training; I just have to decide whether to pursue music or philosophy at school), I soundly reject the notion that thinking deeply is bad. I have very little intellectual qualifications, having completed less than two years at a community college and, for all my love of reading, read (relatively) very little. So, bear with me.

The issue isn’t really one of how much we should think. The question is how and what we should think. I want to post more once I organize my thoughts. However, I have to go and do a fairly non-intellectual activity, namely, picking up my dad from work. I’ll try to post later.

 

[Pace]

The Barrister:

Best advice I’ve seen.

Seems to me that the problem here is in putting too much emphasis on the means and not enough emphasis on the goal. The joy is in the chase and the chase is tiring and, ultimately, unfulfilling. You have overwhelmed yourself with various paths and - faced with incalculable roads to explore - your reaction is to fall into despair.

You don’t need any recommendations for reading - that can only take you further down the path you’re already on.

Simplify, my friend. Go to daily Mass, pray, and partake generously of the Eucharist and God’s healing graces in Reconciliation.

Don’t stop thinking or searching! Just simplify and listen for God. You don’t need a key - He will open the door for you.

Read no books! You will know when you’re ready to pick up another book. Peace!

Eh, but who am I? Just an armchair amatuer apologist.

The Barrister,

You wouldn’t recommend that he see a particular movie while he’s not reading anything? What was “Mulholland Dr.”? And if we didn’t recognize God in that film will we recognize Him in the Mass or Eucharist? I wonder.

 

[amills]

Sometimes I get to reading so much intellectual stuff that I start to think I am really smart and know it all.

Then on a clear night I go out and look at the stars. I see the universe and I think about the greatness of creation. I think of how big the world is that God has made. And I realize through all of my thinking that I am really very stupid. God is so powerful and so much beyond what I can even imagine. And in those quite moments I know that God is real.

 

[Ray_Marshall]

amarischuk:

Oh, and Ray: there are many forms of mediation. Full lotus, half lotus, seated, walking, the Jesus prayer (popular in Eastern Catholic spirituality) and other vocal repetitions, the loci method, etc. Meditation does not mean being physically still but if that method suits you, fine. It is a state of mind.

Adam:

You may be right. There may be hundreds of ways to meditate. But that’s not what the Psalmist was talking about.

He said, and I repeat:

**Be Still ** And Know That I Am God!

And I would say that very few people “meditate” while mowing the lawn!

 

[SocaliCatholic]

amarischuk:

So what it has boiled down to is: stop thinking so much…infact it is even sinful to search too deeply.

I would argue it is imposible to stop thinking.

You wouldnt be searching in the first place if you belived you couldnt find an answer

God made you a thinking person for a reason.
Your on the right path.

The frustration you feel is simply becasue very smart people like you need their more of their ducks lined up than another person who needs less ducks lined up.

Having more or less ducks lined up is not better or worse. Everyone can do different things with the different gifts God gave them

 

[toutestgrace]

amarischuk:

So what it has boiled down to is: stop thinking so much…infact it is even sinful to search too deeply.

Au contraire! I’m sure that most devout Catholics would freely admit that Catholism’s rich, complex, and yes, rational, theology is one of the aspects of our faith that makes it so exciting. It’s just that sometimes we all need to get our heads out of the books, breathe, pray, and give the Holy Spirit an opportunity to show us what it all means.

Who said, “Lord give me faith that I may understand, rather than understanding that I may have faith”? (paraphrased) I think it was one of the Big A’s - Anselm, Augustine, or Aquinas. Someone help…!

Something I have found helplful is to go on a simple retreat, where you can keep on reading, but prayer and reflection are intermingled. I might recommend the Trappist abbey at Gethsemani, Kentucky. Here, you pray the liturgy of the Hours with the monks, attend daily Mass, and listen to only brief reflections by one or two monks.

If you are an intellectual, don’t deny that part of yourself! Thank God for your gift and pray that He uses it to bring you closer to Him.

 

[OfTheCross]

This is something that was posted on another site. This a re-statement of some of what has already been written, but it is still a good read.

 "The truths of the faith are supernatural at root. One can, as Augustine, Thomas, Bonaventure and many, many others reason about the faith, but the definition of theology is fides quarens intellectum (faith seeking understanding). IF one makes the surrender of faith, then God gives the grace for reason to grasp the truth. That is what supernatural faith is, a strengthening of the

intellect to “stand under” a truth which sense knowledge alone cannot demonstrate. On the other hand, if you invert it and make theology understanding seeking faith, then one will usually find only darkness. This “scientific” way (which is the way of private interpretation that has produced modern theology) is “to reason about the texts” and so arrive at a theology. The Catholic way is to believe and then reason and so attain understanding.
You now belong to the ancient community of faith, imbibe it, absorb it and in time it will permeate you to your depths. The long history of great Catholic saints, theologians, writers, artists and musicians shows that this is how a Catholic spirit is obtained. It will be a lifelong struggle, as it is for all of us." Colin Donovan

Peter John

 

[OfTheCross]

Just wanted to mention something else. I may be misunderstanding your postings, but there seems to be an underlying theme of

complexity=higher scholastics= higher truth
simplicity= lower scholastics= stupidity/lower truth

I think the most brilliant folks are those who can think and speak simply but not shallowly.

My above comments are not meant to be anti-intellectual in any way. As Frank Sheed (one of those brilliant, simply spoken, deep folks) once wrote, “Ignorance is not a virtue”.

Peter John

 

[SocaliCatholic]

OfTheCross:

This is something that was posted on another site. This a re-statement of some of what has already been written, but it is still a good read.

 "The truths of the faith are supernatural at root. One can, as Augustine, Thomas, Bonaventure and many, many others reason about the faith, but the definition of theology is fides quarens intellectum (faith seeking understanding). IF one makes the surrender of faith, then God gives the grace for reason to grasp the truth. That is what supernatural faith is, a strengthening of the

intellect to “stand under” a truth which sense knowledge alone cannot demonstrate. On the other hand, if you invert it and make theology understanding seeking faith, then one will usually find only darkness. This “scientific” way (which is the way of private interpretation that has produced modern theology) is “to reason about the texts” and so arrive at a theology. The Catholic way is to believe and then reason and so attain understanding.
You now belong to the ancient community of faith, imbibe it, absorb it and in time it will permeate you to your depths. The long history of great Catholic saints, theologians, writers, artists and musicians shows that this is how a Catholic spirit is obtained. It will be a lifelong struggle, as it is for all of us." Colin Donovan

Peter John

Beautiful Quote. Where did you find it? I am interested in reading more.

 

[cmom]

Adam,
you have been using your head exclusively, now go out and use your hands and your heart. Think Peace Corps, Mission work, Habitat for Humanity stuff. Take a rosary and a prayerbook and the Life of St Francis and get to work.

 

[amarischuk]

For those of ou who have missed it and still insist on me being more active and less intellectually focused, I will repost and remind you that that is no solution.

For 4 years in University I prayed the rosary daily, went to Mass 4 times a week (there were two Masses on campus during the week and on Friday there was Mass at the soup kitchen were I volunteered…along with Sunday Mass). I also confessed bi-weekly, went on silent Opus Dei retreats, went to formation and vocation discernment meetings, a young adults discussion group, and worked at a soup kitchen every Friday. I also lived in a mission in Mexico for a month with the Zapatista’s in Chiapas with the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace.

Then after all that, just a month ago I returned from a seminary where I went to Mass daily for 9 months, confessed, had daily prayers, Eucharistic adoration, rosary, Vesper, Matins, Lauds, Complin, had silent retreats, worked with handicapped children, and tutored English. Only an hour from the Seminary (near Chicago) was the Trappist New Melleray Abbey which I visited a number of times.

But the problem isn’t prayer. Priests would advise me to be more ‘heart oriented’ and other BS. I think that that is just an excuse for not thinking. I have Mormon, Muslim, Baptist friends and they also all have the same ‘feelings’ towards their respective religions. I am not looking for feelings. I admit I am not looking for certainty in any Cartesian sense but I have grown very intellectually disatisfied with Conservative Catholicism, and I was one of the most conservative Catholics on earth for a while.

I’ve experienced “the dark night of the soul” before but this is different. I simply can’t really say that I believe in revelation anymore…

All these orthodox priests insist that you “read the bible and be with the passage for a while”. Well, like I said regarding the Abraham and Isaac passage, I find the bible disgusting, not inspiring. Read about the ban in the book of Joshua, or the kings Saul, David and Solomon, or even into the NT where Jesus himself says “narrow is the path to life and few the people who take it, wide and easy is the path to destruction and many take it” (read: most people are going to hell). I don’t want to be in a heaven with a God who condemns over half of humanity to hell, especially for things like the mortal sin of missing Mass on Sunday, voting for a politician who is in favour of same-sex marriages or having lustfull feelings for the girl down the hall…let alone the completely hap-hazard fact of some people being born in the wrong part of the world.

But it wasn’t from reading heretics that I came to these positions. It was from reading some of the most conservative Catholic intellectuals and then comparing their world system with the world I live in. It was the “magic bath” Baptism (without which you are surely going to hell in pre VII days) which was a good indicator. Catholic theology teaches an ontological change at baptism, but I have seen no change in actions. Or Catholic “sacramental” marriages ending in divorce just as often as other marriages…I thought the sacraments were meant to give grace, but there is absolutely no evidence for this.

Maybe I don’t believe in grace anymore. It is all the dualism: body-soul, matter-spirit, nature-grace, mind-matter, heaven-earth…Maybe I am a Sadducee…but without the Torah. There is a huge intellectual gap between Aquinas’ unmoved mover/first cause, necessary being and the petty God of the OT and NT who reveals himself in a collection of 73 (67 if you are a Protestant) books then magically vanishes leaving a bunch of rituals in his wake.

 

[MIDGIE]

Adam, maybe your problem is that you have yet to recognize the fact that all your goodness is nothing but filthy rags in God’s sight? I think we must get to the point that we recognize there is nothing good in us and that we are sinners who need a Savior. No repentance, no salvation.

God bless you

 

[Mary3]

amarischuk:

Well, to those who think I place a high value on reason and the intellect…you are correct.

… but if someone could explain this “Jesus encounter” thing a bit better I would appreciate it.

Adam,

I am new to this forum and this is my first post. Your heartfelt description of your pain and confusion touches me, as I have been where you are.

I agree with others who have encouraged you to simplify, and spend time in silence with God. Dear Adam, you are burned out from trying to embrace God with your intellect. Continuing to follow that path, as you have learned, will only exhaust and depress you at this point.

You will love exploring the intellectual again, but for now you must rest from that pursuit. You must step into the “cloud of un-knowing”. When I came to the place where you find yourself, a spiritual director advised me as follows. Each day, starting with only 5 minutes and gradually increasing to more time, find a place where you can be alone and uniterrupted. Close your eyes, and imagine yourself before God. But do not allow any images of God or heaven to enter your mind. I imagined myself in sort of the ante-room of heaven, a vast black hall with no furniture or light or other people. It was dark and cool. I simply placed myself there and listened, rejecting any stray thoughts or distractions that presented. I did not ask anything or ‘say’ anything. I waited in silence.

After several months of this daily practice, I began to notice that I felt peaceful, refreshed, and attentive to hearing God. I eventually emerged from my exhaustion with a great sense of joy, and a strong sense of the Lord’s personal interest in me, and a great certainty about His love. I grew to understand what He wanted me to do next (which is a story too long to tell here), but suffice it to say that His plan for me was perfect in every way.

I pray that you will take the suggestions seriously about stilling yourself. That is not at all a ‘rational’ thing to do, but it will be the pathway to healing. Surrender, Adam, be patient, and learn how precious you are.

 

[georgeaquinas]

Dear Adam,

Forgive me if in my reply I use my own personal history. I have thought and prayed for the last couple of days on how to respond to you. In many ways I see my past in what you have written. I lost my faith in college through a deep immersion in philosophy (my major). I should add that I have not studied theology as deeply as you have—but I don’t think that is important, as you are facing a crisis of Faith, not Thought.

My answer to your crisis is simple: the people you are reading who are drawing you away from the Faith are wrong.

Having said that I would quickly add that arriving at this conclusion is not gong to be simple for you, indeed, it might be the hardest thing you can do.

When I returned to college to finish my studies (in philosophy), I found that much of what I had found to be self-evidently true, was patently absurd. How do I arrive at this conclusion? Not through Reason, but rather through life. In the years between my studies I had lived my life and learned the Truths that you can only learn by living them. This may sound trite to you, but it is true. Age and maturity does bring wisdom (certainly not anything Solomonic in my case!). This wisdom gave me the courage to say “no, your’e wrong” to much of modern philosophy. But this saying of “no” was based on reason, as I could now see the false foundations that much of modern philosophy is built upon----foundations that are demonstrably false by reason.

This would be my second piece of advice for you: go back to the beginnings of the Enlightenment and the Reformation. And remember: not all truth is arrived at through Reason. Descartes’ retreat to the Ontological argument and the folly of Logical Positivism comes in mind here.

My final point is about a comment you made about Faith being childlike. You seemed to indicate that childlike Faith is based on naivety (I think most people without children view it that way). Once you have a child you realize that a chldlike Faith comes from Trust, the Trust that comes from Love. A child has Faith becuase she is told about the faith by someone she trusts and loves completely. That is the Faith we are called to.

I hope my comments help you, but I fear that they will not. You are in my prayers and I ask thay I be in yours.

Remember, we are called to be Holy, not Intellectual. We are also tempted by that which we desire most.

Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe…but we preach Christ crucified…folly to the Gentiles. 1st Corinthians

See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe and not according to Christ. Colossians.

Yours in Christ,

Tim

 

[DenRat]

amarischuk:

Simply put I am experiencing a growing pain in my faith, where it truly is being revolutionized as I try to assimilate everything into a single coherent whole.

Adam,
I am not a scholar, but this sentence spells out a lot. As someone else noted in a previous post, you appear to be going through a dry spell. Dry spells are valuable (similar to other struggles in our lives). I think they eventually help us refocus ourselves.
One person mentioned Mother Teresa’s fear after taking her vows. Right after I was confirmed (as an adult) I was drawn away from the Church for awhile. A few years later I came back with a stronger faith than had I stayed. I’m not suggesting you do this (leave the Church) but you understand my point.

God Bless,
Denise

 

[SteveG]

amarischuk:

I admit I am not looking for certainty in any Cartesian sense but I have grown very intellectually dissatisfied with Conservative Catholicism, and I was one of the most conservative Catholics on earth for a while.

I think everyone giving you advice to read less, or think less, or do this or that thing, is on the wrong path. You sound like you ‘know’ all the advice being given anyway. I think instead you need to be challenged on some of your frankly silly assumptions and statements. I don’t know if I am the one to do so, but if not, maybe somebody more up to the challenge will pick up the ball. First of all, I’d love to know how you’d define ‘conservative’ Catholic. You’ve thrown that term around quite a bit, but from the descriptions you’ve given, It doesn’t sound a bit like the ‘conservative’ Catholics I know. Who exactly are you talking about?

amarischuk:

I’ve experienced “the dark night of the soul” before but this is different. I simply can’t really say that I believe in revelation anymore…

Wow! Are you so sure about that? We’ve all experience pain (many far greater than you, I suspect), and felt that we are in the dark night. Often times this really turns out to be just a dark storm, but we’d all like to be a good bit further along on the journey, so we think ourselves to have been through something much greater than we have. I’d suggest listening to Father Groeschel’s ‘Mountains and Valleys of the Spiritual Journey’ to make a better assessment of whether this is really so. Just because you have read John of the Cross, and experienced some of the things he has, don’t be so quick to assume you’re further along than you are. Someone bold enough to say ‘I’ve been through the dark night.’, likely hasn’t.

amarischuk:

All these orthodox priests insist that you “read the bible and be with the passage for a while”. Well, like I said regarding the Abraham and Isaac passage, I find the bible disgusting, not inspiring. Read about the ban in the book of Joshua, or the kings Saul, David and Solomon, or even into the NT where Jesus himself says “narrow is the path to life and few the people who take it, wide and easy is the path to destruction and many take it” (read: most people are going to hell).

Narrow is the way you are reading scripture. Do you really think that this is all Christ meant in the passage? Good Lord man! Are you a fundamentalist reading every jot and tittle of the bible in a literast way? Will you do as they do and fire off random, isolated scripture quotes, stripped from the context of the entire gospel to prove how disgusting it is. If you think that all this means to a ‘conservative’ Catholic is that very few people are going to heaven, but lots are going to hell, then you are sadly mistaken. I am not going to do any exegesis on this passage, but I’d advise you that if you do read scripture, you start reading it with some of the low-level scholars like Scott Hahn in order to understand the mind of conservative Catholics. It might also help to start learning a bit about the culture in which these things happened/were said so as not to strip it from that context as well.

amarischuk:

I don’t want to be in a heaven with a God who condemns over half of humanity to hell, especially for things like the mortal sin of missing Mass on Sunday, voting for a politician who is in favour of same-sex marriages or having lustfull feelings for the girl down the hall…let alone the completely hap-hazard fact of some people being born in the wrong part of the world.

You are wrong on several counts here. And you either should or do know better. You know that church teaching here is that it takes a lot more than these simple ‘facts’ to condemn someone to hell. While certainly most folks would agree that these things ‘could’ be mortal sin, you certainly know that the actual judgement of that is far more complicated and can be judged only by God. And need I defend the understanding of invincible ignorance to someone as educated as you? Despite your protests below, this understanding predates VII by a considerable period. Certainly the understanding of what invincible ignorance is seems to have expanded since VII. But the concept itself has been with us for an Long time (I’d argue that it can be found even it St. Paul’s writings, though since scripture now seems so detestable to you, I’ll not go there). Do I need to argue this with you as if you’re a radical traditionalist, or are you simply trying to bait us low-level conservatives? It may not be up to your ‘standards’, but I’d recommend C.S. Lewis’s fictional story ‘The Great Divorce’ for some interesting insights into this.
…CONTINUED…

 

[SteveG]

amarischuk:

But it wasn’t from reading heretics that I came to these positions. It was from reading some of the most conservative Catholic intellectuals and then comparing their world system with the world I live in. It was the “magic bath” Baptism (without which you are surely going to hell in pre VII days) which was a good indicator. Catholic theology teaches an ontological change at baptism, but I have seen no change in actions. Or Catholic “sacramental” marriages ending in divorce just as often as other marriages…I thought the sacraments were meant to give grace, but there is absolutely no evidence for this.

You’d go faster than grace my friend. What’s disgusting is your reference to baptism as a magic bath. I have read fairly widely, and never gotten the impression that this was Catholic understanding. Baptism is the first outpouring of grace that must be followed by a lifetime of struggle to make its effects realized. That’s Catholic understanding. As far as marriage goes, I’d of course have to ask if you’re married? If not, you know not that of which you speak, and would do better to remain silent. To use the cases of folks who are ill-formed in their faith, who don’t know what the church teaches marriage is, and who aren’t even bothering to try to follow church teaching on sexual and marital mores, is totally disingenuous. For those of us who actually try to live the teachings out (all of them, even the ‘hard’ sayings regarding contraception), I assure you the experience of grace is truly transforming. In particular for those of us who have ‘converted’ to a faithful understanding the transformation from our formerly ‘dead’ life is indeed miraculous. This may be subjective, but it’s true for nearly every person I have ever encountered who has embraced the churches understanding of marriage and tried to live it out.

amarischuk:

Maybe I don’t believe in grace anymore. It is all the dualism: body-soul, matter-spirit, nature-grace, mind-matter, heaven-earth…Maybe I am a Sadducee…but without the Torah. There is a huge intellectual gap between Aquinas’ unmoved mover/first cause, necessary being and the petty God of the OT and NT who reveals himself in a collection of 73 (67 if you are a Protestant) books then magically vanishes leaving a bunch of rituals in his wake.

For someone so educated, I am really surprised at how much you seem to not know? Dualism and Catholic? You’re kidding right? The Catholic church is the only body in the history of the world who has even made an honest attempt, and had some success, in fighting Gnosticism, and you accuse them of dualism? If you want to read something, I’d suggest you start with the sections of the catechism that deal with the Catholic understanding of the soul. Faithful Jews and we are the ONLY ones who rightly understand the whole person as embodied soul. Soul and body so fully integrated that soul without body is a ghost, and body without soul is a cadaver. True that as we have tried to explain and live that truth out in history, individuals have imperfectly done so and at times given false impressions. But dualism is manifestly NOT Catholic. If you need the antidote to this thinking, I’d recommend studying the Pope’s Theology of the Body. Then again, maybe even he’s to low-level for you.

After reading most of what you have written here, this plain, conservative Catholic is wholly unimpressed with the smallness of your mind. You increasingly come across as a spoiled child who when things aren’t working out to their satisfaction wants to take their ball and go home. I fear that the heart of your problem is that you’re just very immature, and the only remedy is going to come when you grow up a bit.