M
montanaman
Guest
This thread comes from my all-consuming thinking on the subject right now. I’m 99% sure of a certain course of action, but there’s always that nagging doubt. That got me to thinking about “knowing.”
First things first: I am not a subjectivist, relativist or any other truth-negotiating kind of person. I’m an orthodox Roman Catholic whose faith grows a little bit every day (and occasionally slips backward just a bit).
Maybe this thread goes somewhere else, but I want to know what we mean by “knowing,” particularly in relation to marriage–or the priesthood. Many people here just “knew” within weeks or months of when they met their future spouse. (This is my mom’s line, too). This knowledge seems to rest completely on the heart, on emotions, in other words. Perhaps their hearts are more virtuous than most, or perhaps God choses to reveal more of his Plan to these people. I don’t know. But it seems to me that resting such an important decision on something as shifty as emotion is, well, shifty.
I’m NOT implying dishonesty.
I think that our squishy, touchy-feely culture is drunk on its luxury to be able to consider such things as romantic love in the degree it does. In the past, (and I’m obviously only speculating here) it seems as though a whole bunch of other, more pragmatic concerns were involved. Sometimes it was arranged marriage. Before the population exploded around the time of the Industrial Revolution, there might have been very few people to choose from in a town or village. Marriages were more often whole-family affairs, where more “profitable” matches were arranged. Maybe this was more of an upper class phenomenon, but that’s just my impression of the past.
So, if I’m not being too obtuse about this, let me know your thoughts. Simply put, I’m asking people to consider that the “I just know” philosophy is relatively new, and what are your thoughts about it?
First things first: I am not a subjectivist, relativist or any other truth-negotiating kind of person. I’m an orthodox Roman Catholic whose faith grows a little bit every day (and occasionally slips backward just a bit).
Maybe this thread goes somewhere else, but I want to know what we mean by “knowing,” particularly in relation to marriage–or the priesthood. Many people here just “knew” within weeks or months of when they met their future spouse. (This is my mom’s line, too). This knowledge seems to rest completely on the heart, on emotions, in other words. Perhaps their hearts are more virtuous than most, or perhaps God choses to reveal more of his Plan to these people. I don’t know. But it seems to me that resting such an important decision on something as shifty as emotion is, well, shifty.
I’m NOT implying dishonesty.
I think that our squishy, touchy-feely culture is drunk on its luxury to be able to consider such things as romantic love in the degree it does. In the past, (and I’m obviously only speculating here) it seems as though a whole bunch of other, more pragmatic concerns were involved. Sometimes it was arranged marriage. Before the population exploded around the time of the Industrial Revolution, there might have been very few people to choose from in a town or village. Marriages were more often whole-family affairs, where more “profitable” matches were arranged. Maybe this was more of an upper class phenomenon, but that’s just my impression of the past.
So, if I’m not being too obtuse about this, let me know your thoughts. Simply put, I’m asking people to consider that the “I just know” philosophy is relatively new, and what are your thoughts about it?
