Nor do I. Diversity and disunity are not the same thing.
That’s a valid point; I was thinking of it today, precisely in those terms of the difference between “diversity” and “disunity”
I think my notion of what constitutes disunity and what doesn’t is probably a lot more liberal. For me, “disunity” means that two parties are not living harmoniously, despite their differences – viewing each other with mutual hostility and suspicion; killing each other over their differences, even. By this standard, even the break-up of a relationship (“living apart”) is not necessarily a failure.
Intrinsic to the Catholic vision of unity, as I understand it, is the belief that the diverse gifts of humanity are all compatible with the Gospel of Jesus and the teachings of the Church. However, considerable development may be necessary in the latter case before that is evident.
This is one of the great insights of Vatican II, it seems – that the Holy Spirit is indeed present elsewhere than in the Church, just as God – the author of all that is created – is present everywhere in his creation. What this would mean, ideally, is that the Church has the fullness of truth, but that other parties outside the church have at least partial experiences of the truth.
What is more paradoxical are cases where those
outside the church seemingly had more clarity on certain truths than those
inside the church; cases, even, where the church has learned something important from the outside world as regards the nature of the truth that it possesses. I’m thinking of the concept of religious tolerance as one example, which was espoused with great clarity by the likes of Roger Williams (“A Plea for Religious Liberty”, 17th century) or Thomas Jefferson (the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, 1779). Voltaire, too, had written a “Treatise on Tolerance” (1763).
On a simplistic level, one would expect that if the church has “the fullness” and outside parties only have “a partial view”, that outsiders would not be capable of expressing this partial view with such clarity and understanding that they teach the church something about “its fullness” that it did not fully understand, itself (can it have an incomplete, a *partial *understanding of this fullness?)
the Church encounters a serious dissident movement or a major non-Christian tradition, a long period of dialogue and interaction is necessary before the Church figures out how to incorporate what is good in those traditions into her own Tradition.
That’s saying a lot, potentially – the Church has the fullness of truth, but that fullness of truth has only partially manifested itself. It is still being revealed, in a sense (and some new insights are actually being articulated outside of its circle, which the church is then incorporating into itself, or using as aids to gain better clarity on its own tradition). It’s as if the “lifeblood” of truth is all there, but not all of it has been oxygenated.
(For instance, my paternal ancestors come from the Shetland Islands, where a Scandinavian language called “Norn” used to be spoken
Interesting story
The Gaelic language seems endangered among the Irish, just as the Occitan language of Southern France was subsumed by the Parisian dialect. It’s hard not to have the sense that something is not lost, even though traces survive (in place names; in surnames; certain loan words; or, failing that, in the memory of linguists and historians). Religion itself, like culture, is organic; possibly, even more so, because a new religion sometimes can spring up more easily than a new language or dialect (Shakers, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Christian Scientists, Mormons).
I find it compelling–I do feel the same sadness at the thought of, say, Zoroastrianism ceasing to exist that I do at the thought of some threatened language ceasing to exist.
I can only imagine how sad many Christians would be, if Judaism had ceased to exist, in the same way Zoroastrianism almost has. They do seem to be a living reminder of the roots of Christianity.
I am personally sad when I think of the various schools of philosophy that were forcibly shut down, in late antiquity (due to the preeminence of Christianity). Stoics, Skeptics, Cynics, Epicureans, Platonists, and Aristotelians had schools of tradition – which had lasted several hundred years, at that point – and where the continuity was broken.
I also regret the disappearance of the Cathars, as I had mentioned.
Thanks for the three points you had made, as a response from the perspective of orthodox Christianity. My own upbringing had involved 12 years of Catholic school and 4 years of Catholic college, which is my own Catholic connection vis-a-vis this forum.
Skepticism and doubt have always been important to me, for whatever reason. I tend to believe that all human individuals and institutions are viewing transcendence “through a glass, darkly”; that there are no guarantees against error and distortion, no more than – for a Christian – there are guarantees against sin. All religious doctrines could be in error, in terms of being only imperfect approximations of the truth. Even assuming Jesus were God, I believe that – when the first evangelist dipped his quill into the ink pot (to use an anachronistic analogy) that the waters were muddied (“and I stained the water clear”). Distortions, imperfect knowledge or an imperfect reflection of the truth, is all I believe we can have. But an imperfect reflection is still a reflection, nonetheless – which is still saying a lot. I suppose I view all religions in the way that Catholicism views the
non-Catholic ones, ironically.
In my mind I thought, gee I must be really bored to be doing this. Little did I know what was really going on. This went on for a year.
