The Downside Of Modernity In the Face Of Religious Truth

[C.Ray]

Along with the rejection of superstition, there has also been a rejection of what we strongly believe or know to be true.

It becomes more difficult to accept the truths of any faith when a fair number of its claims have been undermined by empirical observation. If the faith claims the world was created in six days, but scientific investigation refutes that claim with evidence to the contrary; or when Genesis describes the world as a flat disc surrounded by waters above and below it, but photographs taken by astronauts in orbit show our world to be a very fortunate chunk of rock, it becomes more difficult to accept other claims (such as virgin birth and the Resurrection).

I don’t know quite how to square these things myself, except it to speculate that God just isn’t interested in piffling details. Which I think is quite possible. Sam Harris has wondered why it is the Bible doesn’t say anything about electricity. What makes him think that God finds electricity at all interesting? I can relate to that idea: after all, I don’t find the composition of the concrete in the foundation of my house worthy of discussion.

For myself, the problem with modernity is with its fruits. While the Christianity and its Faith have produced wonders of architecture, literature, music, and wisdom, modernity and its Facts have given birth to a culture of junk.

 

[Neithan]

I don’t know quite how to square these things myself, except it to speculate that God just isn’t interested in piffling details.

Or it’s easier to understand a message and more inspiring when it’s in a creative story, rather than somewhere in a list of facts. We can explore what the world is made of and how it works on our own, (to an extent, in our limited way) but only God can tell us what it all means and why.

 

[C.Ray]

only God can tell us what it all means and why

True. Also, I find it difficult to imagine Moses laying on the children of Israel a bunch of weirdness about quantum gravity fluctuations.

 

[Magnanimity]

While the Christianity and its Faith have produced wonders of architecture, literature, music, and wisdom, modernity and its Facts have given birth to a culture of junk.

A very good point, indeed. Junk is everywhere, and it is practically a necessary outworking of a capitalist society inebriated by the desires of neverending acquisitiveness. Very ugly.

However,

It becomes more difficult to accept the truths of any faith when a fair number of its claims have been undermined by empirical observation. If the faith claims the world was created in six days,

The church desperately needs to get away from this revisionist-history. Prior to the scientific revolution for centuries upon centuries, the church fathers read the Old Testament allegorically, including Genesis. They looked for Christ in the text, and read it allegorically. As an example, Origen, Sts John Chrisostom and Abert the Great all read “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” to mean “in Christ, (who is himself the beginning—John 1) God created the heavens and the earth…” They speculate nothing about time and they frankly couldn’t care less about such lowly concerns. The deep, spiritual truths of Genesis is what they were after, and so should we be.

Oracularist literalism is a product of Modernity (and so is the young-earth creationism that came from it). It’s just silly, and one is hard-pressed to find any early church father or medieval theologian who advocated such an empty and baseless approach to Genesis. Total, ahistorical garbage.

 

[C.Ray]

They looked for Christ in the text, and read it allegorically.

The modernity problem as I understand it is to take this allegorical reading a step further and say then, “well, if Genesis is to be read allegorically, then we can read the Gospels allegorically, too.”

Christ’s Resurrection goes from being a particular bodily Resurrection to being “the Church is the resurrected body”. And this path leads to dissolution.

 

[C.Ray]

Modern capitalism is also part of modernity, usually leading to secular views.

The real problem is affluence. Capitalism is merely the freedom to exchange one thing for another. But capitalism is efficient at wealth creation and it is the the wealth that drives a wedge between God and man.

 

[Magnanimity]

The modernity problem as I understand it is to take this allegorical reading a step further and say then, “well, if Genesis is to be read allegorically, then we can read the Gospels allegorically, too.”

Christ’s Resurrection goes from being a particular bodily Resurrection to being “the Church is the resurrected body”. And this path leads to dissolution.

According to the fathers, the purpose of an allegorical reading was to obtain a “true” reading of the story. As in, what truths is God trying to communicate to his people? Not, what is the one and only true reading but what is a true reading (among many). Truth (reality) is multivalent–there are many significant truths to be obtained from Genesis (and any biblical writing), and those truths subsist on many levels. The sacred scriptures are inexhaustible, in this sense.

Even with Christ’s resurrection, the brute historicity of it may form the basis of further reflection. But those further reflections get a person into the really interesting places. What is this “spiritual body” that St Paul speaks of? Christ is the first-fruits of the resurrection (1 Cor 15), but it seems fairly clear that the spiritual, resurrected body is above and beyond these natural bodies that the rest of us now have. There is a physical-ness to this resurrected body, yes (he eats, he walks, you can put your finger in his hands and side), but he also seems to just appear in the midst of people. He also goes away at will. He ascends to heaven. There seems clearly some extra-dimensionality to it (we might put it like that today).

So, he didn’t simply rise from the dead (re-vivify). The first glimpse of the total re-creation of everything (new heavens and new earth) is what the resurrection of Christ is. So, in this way, the brute, historical fact of the NT is something, but it’s far from being everything and may not even be the most interesting thing to ponder in our hearts.

 

[abucs]

Modern capitalism is also part of modernity, usually leading to secular views.

I would date capitalism to the medieval period of 14th to 16th centuries.
Whether one calls that modern or not depends where each would consider the beginning of modernity. I wouldn’t include this date as modernity.

Capitalism is a financial process independent of any firm belief in government or ethics. A certain structure of government and ethics is needed to support capitalism and maximise its benefits but that lies outside of capitalism itself.

Capitalism leads to people becoming richer and often concentrating the mind on material things that they now have. This leads some away from the spiritual reflection and living.

 

[ralfyman]

I know something about enclosures and modern capitalism, but I was thinking about globalization coupled with the Green Revolution during the twentieth century, when world population soared.