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PRmerger
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Alan, “argue” is merely a philosophical term. It simply means to provide apologia. Or reasons for the hope that is in us. Which we are, of course, commanded to do.
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AlanFromWichita
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I agree. But I could take it one step further and use “argue” to mean how I’m going to respond to something that I think needs correction, in general.
In other words, I’m suggesting that sometimes the best strategy for winning an argument may not involve any particular words at all on the topic in question.
I’m thinking about a context where we are talking to a non-Catholic, with whom I am discussing Catholic beliefs. If I state the belief and they don’t agree, chances are slim that anything you actually say about the topic at that point will not even put a chink in the armor.
Like when I tell my kids they should be doing something differently and they keep what they were doing, as long as it isn’t something that causes too much grief IMO if they don’t do it wrong, I just might not even “notice” they didn’t heed my advice, and let them find out the hard way. Some people just have to learn.
Or we could similarly analyze this using a positive point of view. If I tell a person of a wonderful vacation spot that is the best I’d ever seen, they may say, “it can’t be as good as X.” If I’ve explained why I like it, and given an idea of the amenities, and they say I’m wrong, then I might just say, “OK, but you’re welcome to go with us next weekend.” Let them form their own conclusions.
Similarly, if I’m talking to Joe Average and he says, “Mary is part of the Trinity,” and I tell him, “my church has a different view on this,” and he says, “I know, and your church is wrong,” then what harm is it to let him go thinking that so we can look for other areas of commonality and get on with the attempt at evangelizing using other tools. Honestly, I don’t see why it matters one bit if non-Catholics think Mary is part of the Trinity. At least they’re on the right track … Mary is in heaven above us. Why do we have to insist they know and embrace all the details?
This is a matter of faith, so by definition if you do not share that faith then that fact can NOT be “objectively true” in that person’s world.
Alan
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PRmerger
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Actually, Alan, it’s a matter of Truth. And Truth matters–so if someone says that Mary is Divine, it does indeed cause GREAT HARM to believe this.
The only real reason to believe something, as Peter Kreeft says, is because it’s true.
Not because believing something makes us good. (An adult who believes in Santa Claus may be very, very good in order to receive more presents, but he’s a little bit loopy if he does this because he believes in Santa.)
Not because believing something makes us happy (take the example of the Emperor in the folk tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes. He’s quite happy in his erroneous belief that he’s donning the most beautiful garments, yet he’s actually a FOOL parading around butt naked.)
But because it’s True.
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AlanFromWichita
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Some people think the moon is made out of green cheese. I don’t find that troubling unless they want to tax me so they can go harvest it.
I can think of other reasons to believe something, even if on a tentative basis pending further learning. It’s called an axiom. It is something you agree upon as a starting point for sake of discussion and for other uses.
As an engineer, I don’t need to know absolute truth to design products that work. I just have to know the truth closely enough to develop a model in which I can describe a situation and a desired goal, and a mechanism of physical and/or intellectual property that makes things that meet the specifications.
As an electrical engineer, everything I know is ultimately based on three axioms. 1) the existence of electrical charge, 2) the formula of how one charge influences another, and 3) superposition – all effects of attraction/repulsion of charges add up in a linear fashion.
That’s it. I don’t care if those are absolute truths or not. To be an electrician I don’t need to know any of the three axioms I stated above. I can base pretty much anything I’ll ever come across in a lab on Ohm’s law, or maybe not even that far, but housing codes. I don’t have to know how it works in order to be able to construct a working system using parts that someone else did the engineering and design on. If we didn’t do this, we would make no more progress as a group than as individuals, throughout history.
Now, electricians say electrical current runs from negative to positive. Engineers say it runs from positive to negative. It makes a HUGE difference if you get it right or not. But they work together in such a way they never actually have to agree on that definition to get their jobs done; it is all taken into account.
Again, until Einstein, Newtonian physics were the Bible of physics. For example, conservation of mass and conservation of energy are ABSOLUTES and never can one exchange one for the other. And the world was happy. So along comes Einstein, son of Adam, and asks himself questions like, “what would it be like to take a ride on a light beam?” and he came up with stuff that was so extremely wacky it totally blew Newtonian physics out of the water, when dealing with things that were very heavy and/or going very fast. So if we want to analyze a TV tube, or how light bends around objects due to gravity (actually the light doesn’t bend; the space the light travels in bends around heavy objects), or build a particle accelerator, we had better take Einstein’s theories into account or we won’t even approach the problem right, much less solve it.
Einstein wrote the formulas to explain how much energy you’d get per unit of mass converted into energy, and vice versa. That is his famous equation E = MC^2 that show us that if we take the speed of light squared, and multiply it by the mass, we get the energy released when they mass is turned into energy. Newtonian-only physicists considered it heresy to even suggest such a thing.
So what did this discovery get us? First thing it got us was the atomic bomb.
But we still use Newtonian physics in deriving train schedules. If the trains were going 10,000 miles per second we’d take relativity into account, but we don’t have to. So we still build houses and roads without training everybody in relativity. We not only don’t have to know relativity, we can believe it is false – in a world where i’ll never do anything that requires my knowing the truth, we all got along fine until …
Quantum physics. OMG. This is the most bizarre yet. Turns out when things are very, very tiny they don’t act anywhere near like what Newtonian physics would predict, although many of the Newtonian formulas are still useful.
Quantum physics is intimately responsible for the advances in electronic equipment. Without it we wouldn’t even have iPhones, and maybe not even laptop computers.
But guess what. We still use Newtonian physics for train schedules and for designing bridges and skyscrapers. And it’s OK if they tell me quantum physics doesn’t exist. As long as there isn’t a need to know, there isn’t a need to know.
Then there was … you guessed … another one … string theory!! I have many feelings about string theory, but anyway that’s the current Big Thing in physics, which IMO is interesting and useful, but overrated. It is not the end all; string theory never gets down to the level of Absolute Truth.
Agreed. This could explain my biggest issue in this discussion, that I don’t believe that you have to believe in the 100% accuracy of comprehensive set of abstract thoughts and rules, in order to live a good, abundant life, NOR to become closer to God except in the consequences of believing those things, not the things themselves.
Absolutely agree.
Yes.
But I say that to me, I can view “true” as meaning “true enough” or “absolutely true,” and it doesn’t change a thing as long as we’re working in a system where that is the rule. That includes the Church. I don’t care if she’s wrong on Mary. She isn’t, but if she did it would make no tangible difference to me or the state of my soul.
Alan
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Julia_Mae
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No. And it’s a foolish term, anyway. We are all “cafeteria” Catholics. But some people call what they pick and how they interpret “Orthodox.”
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AlanFromWichita
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PRmerger
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Heh.
I get what you’re saying.
The problem with your argument is, however, that I can’t think of a single doctrine that has separated Christians that is in isolation of other beliefs.
That is, “no doctrine is an island”. All doctrine/belief/truth/creed professed has everything to do with everything. At least, that’s the Catholic understanding.
This seems to be a common Protestant argument regarding Mary (at least among those who don’t find our Mariology explicitly blasphemous.). They will proclaim, “If you want to believe that Mary was a perpetual virgin, I don’t find that troubling, for what does that have to do with salvation in the first place?”
Of course, the above question belies a great ignorance regarding Marian doctrines, for each and every dogma/doctrine/truth proclaimed about Mary only serves to enhance, confirm and affirm our understanding about Christ and the economy of salvation.
Thus, if you can find a “truth” that’s been proclaimed by another Christian that stands in isolation of others, and it really doesn’t affect any other beliefs, doctrines, dogmas, then you have a valid argument.
I just don’t think you can.
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PRmerger
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I don’t think so, Julia.
Pope JPII has called the Catechism the “sure norm” for the faith. Thus, by definition, orthodoxy is that which affirms the beliefs found in our Catechism.
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Julia_Mae
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Do you know how many threads have been sustained by those who interpret the CCC differently from one another? It’s not exhaustive, it’s a precis. And that isn’t the definition of “orthodoxy.” Although it is one definition. Also, “one’s” definition.
People who believe they are interpreting correctly think they are orthodox and those who interpret differently are heterodox. Everyone chooses what to believe regardless of the source.
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PRmerger
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Fair enough.
Can you give an example of a teaching that’s found in the Catechism that has given rise to some heterodox beliefs?
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PRmerger
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This is absolutely not true, Alan.
It’s all threads that are part of the garment of the economy of salvation. To have a deficient understanding of Mary is to have a deficient understanding of Jesus.
Catholics provide the best catechesis and arguments for the Divinity of Christ to Muslims and other non-Christians, because they have the fullness of truth regarding Mary.
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Julia_Mae
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Oh, I suppose I can but really, I see no point. Probably derail the thread and I imagine many examples of people arguing about CCC paras with pictures and arrows and Papal bull references and all of that will arise soon enough.
Can we say the Creed together? Yes. I think that’s enough.
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PRmerger
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Says who?
Why do you get to decide what’s “enough” when the Church which provided us with this Creed has said it’s *not *enough?
And why would anyone think a bare minimum is sufficient for anything?
Would you be happy if your husband said, “I think kissing you good morning, every morning, is enough. I mean, really, why do I need to do anything more”?
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Jocko_VT
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There’s been a bit of a debate regarding the death penalty and what the Catechism says about it. According to one poster, the Catechism has led some Catholics to be anti-death penalty, whereas, according to him/her, the death penalty is not only allowed, but its use is sometimes the duty of the state.
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AlanFromWichita
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The first recorded use of the word Trinity was 140 years after Jesus died, and surely it took some time for it to cover the globe. Are you suggesting that ALL of the early Christians had a “deficient” understanding of Jesus?
And as for fullness of truth, I’m sorry but I’m just going to have to say it. It’s nice but I’m through being put down by people who know more than me and say that I have a problem for not knowing or agreeing to it all when in fact they are the ones with the problem. (present company excepted) Having an organization that has the “fullness of truth,” which I’m interested in hearing the the Church defines that term anyway (impossible to know all truth, period, and any subset it not the equivalent) is neither sufficient nor necessary for salvation.
We can go to heaven with or without even knowing enough to consent to the Church’s rules. Not saying they aren’t good or useful, just saying they aren’t necessary. Neither does knowing all the rules get you into heaven.
How many hundreds of times can we go listen to 1 Cor 13 at weddings, and then turn around and chide each other (not saying you do but many/most do) for not having the same take on the knowledge base? What part of it is so complicated to understand?
1 Cor 13:
1 If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
2 And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
3 If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
NOTHING!!! You can know everything and still be NOTHING. That means NO THING. IOW you don’t even exist without love, in God’s world.
Love and knowledge can be built together, but usually they are not.
Let’s look at another discussion about the spiritual value of knowledge. Let’s stay with Corinthians, this time chapter 8
I cor 8:
1 Now in regard to meat sacrificed to idols: we realize that “all of us have knowledge”; knowledge inflates with pride, but love builds up.
2 If anyone supposes he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.
3 But if one loves God, one is known by him.
It blows my mind that people will argue uncharitably (again, not you personally) over knowledge, when they are doing exactly the wrong thing. That mentality ensures that one stays in the worldly realm and makes it very difficult for God to work in us. Uncharitable posts automatically cut us off from God, so our knowledge and our attempts at work of mercy “instruct the ignorant” are all for naught spiritually, and the enemy has caused you to waste some of the precious time of your life working for ego instead of God.
PSST!! Always remember: KNOWLEDGE INFLATES WITH PRIDE.
Let’s quit worrying so much about our heads and see what we can do to be renewed at heart.
Alan
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AlanFromWichita
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That poster is correct.
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Julia_Mae
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Peace be with you.
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Julia_Mae
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I’ve been reading a lot of Saint Francis lately and he told his friars if they didn’t know how to read, don’t bother with wanting that. The ones who could read prayed the hours, the rest prayed the Our Father. Francis was all about - I guess becoming holy or pursuing sanctity - he was about action and sacrifice and love. I think he would very much agree with your quote and feared too much knowledge and love of that almost as much as he feared money and love of that.PSST!! Always remember: KNOWLEDGE INFLATES WITH PRIDE.
Let’s quit worrying so much about our heads and see what we can do to be renewed at heart.
Alan
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PRmerger
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Not sure what you mean by the quote about treating others well and everything else being commentary. Who said that?
It’s like, in a discussion about the death penalty, and when asked what the Church’s position is, I respond with a rather cryptic:
That does nothing to further the discussion, eh?
Or, a worse example is when in dialogue with a fundamentalist Christian who offers apparent random Bible verses in response to your question.
So if you ask, “Why do you believe that bracelets need to be worn only on Wednesdays” they’ll offer this:
[BIBLEDRB]Malachi 1:8[/BIBLEDRB]
Incidentally, the “rest is commentary” paradigm is rather curious, coming from a Christian. It would appear to be rather dismissive of the atoning death of Christ. That’s merely commentary? Really?
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PRmerger
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A rather dogmatic proclamation, don’t you think, Alan?Let’s quit worrying so much about our heads and see what we can do to be renewed at heart.
Alan
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