The consequences are that you either remain a conflicted, compromised Catholic, you leave the Church, or you come to agree with her teachings.That’s interesting. So what do you follow in that case - the church or your conscience? And what is the consequences for say, following your conscience, if it directly conflicts with the church?
Sarah x
The Church inherited a world where all forms of slavery were a common practice, from indentured servitude as found in Israel at the time of Christ and before, to the worst type as practiced in America and other parts of the world. She didn’t create it but she finally formally denounced it, and denounced chattel slavery well before recent times. St Paul, a leader in a tiny non-political, persecuted religious sect who had absolutely no authority or power to end slavery, spoke of how slaves should be treated well. He never commented on its morality.
I would suggest that some of the cognitive dissonance is yours.
Do you have an example of the Church’s denunciation of chattel slavery prior to 1890 or so?
Thanks for the historic tour, John. I am just a dumb biologist and medical student. I have only recently come to enjoy history, and the role that various personalities have played. Yes, I do have much to learn. I think that science has changed a lot since Aquinas. I question whether the Church is always successful in keeping up.I would suggest that some of the cognitive dissonance is yours.
The suggestion that the early Church embraced moral relativism is patently false. The first conceptualisations of what has become lnown as natural Law can be traced all the way back to St. Paul. Look up Romans 2:14. St. Augustine of Hippo was a Natural Law theorist as was St. Thomas Aquinas, whose development of natural Law and Natural Law morality still reverbrates down through history. The encyclicals of John Paul II and benedict are merely reasserting the contrast between the objectivity of natural Law and its moral values with those of the humanist subjectivity which seems to hold much of the world in its thrall today. Have you ever heard of the Byzantine Emporer Justinian? He codified the Natural Law as a coherent legal system, using the Natural Law of the Romans plus the Natural Law philosophies of the early Church. We know it as the Justinian Code. That Natural Law tradition has been passed down through the nation states of Europe to our contemporary western societies. Do your homework before you come on these threads and state the catholic Church once upon a time embraced moral relativism. In fact, for tonights homework, I suggest you go read the Catholic Catechism, which is predicated on Natural Law morality. After reading that, work backwards through history, all the way to the Stoics.
Natural Law is a Science. It has been a science since The Stoics and Aristotle and Aquinas started to philosophically explore the things mankind had in common and what constitutes the objective ‘good’. An earlier poster referenced Inductive logic. That is where natural Law as a science is a constantly growing corpus of knowledge. It depends on science. It is not add odds with science, except in the heads of the moral relativists who abandon the scientific method in their deliberations, by definition.
What is science except the testing of hypotheses and the collaboration of observed results? All scientific enquiry requires agreement between observers. That is how objective results are arrived at. That is exactly how Natural Law philosophy is carried out. Aquinas knew it as such. However, the philosophical also leads to the Theological and one depends on the other. This was re-affirmed by John Paul II in his encyclical Fides et ratio and the relationship between faith and reason. Natural Law theory requires the use of reason. I also suggest you read Pope Benedict’s Caritas in Veritate, where he shows just how ludicrous is the drift into moral relativism that much of the world has allowed. Pius XII saw it all coming and said so in his encyclical Humani Generis in 1950. In Caritas in Veritate, JP II also reclaims the Classical Humanism which the early Church embraced and which was bastardised by the reformers of the Renaiisance. That’s a big history lesson and a quantum leap in historical knowledge and intellectual understanding some will have to make. That’s exactly where the breakaway reformers turned Objectivity into Subjectivity and gave the world ‘humanism’. What a screw up.
I will, however, give credit where credit is due. You are touching on information theory when you mention cognitive dissonance across a whole society, particularly in relation to the mass media. Good boy. You’re onto something! Now just extrapolate a wee bit and you’ll understand just how important is a repository of objective philosophical and theologogical knowledge. Can you think of one? I can!!
Now, off you go and start that homework
You are quite right. I am reading about the evolution of Natural Law now from Plato-Aristotle-The Stoics-Cicero-Christianity-American Jurisprudence-Islam-Hobbes-Cumberland-Catholic-Contemporary. The arguments that I have read here seem often to confuse Natural Law with natural science, or maybe I did not read them closely enough. Thanks for the pointer.I would suggest that some of the cognitive dissonance is yours.
The suggestion that the early Church embraced moral relativism is patently false. The first conceptualisations of what has become lnown as natural Law can be traced all the way back to St. Paul. Look up Romans 2:14. St. Augustine of Hippo was a Natural Law theorist as was St. Thomas Aquinas, whose development of natural Law and Natural Law morality still reverbrates down through history. The encyclicals of John Paul II and benedict are merely reasserting the contrast between the objectivity of natural Law and its moral values with those of the humanist subjectivity which seems to hold much of the world in its thrall today. Have you ever heard of the Byzantine Emporer Justinian? He codified the Natural Law as a coherent legal system, using the Natural Law of the Romans plus the Natural Law philosophies of the early Church. We know it as the Justinian Code. That Natural Law tradition has been passed down through the nation states of Europe to our contemporary western societies. Do your homework before you come on these threads and state the catholic Church once upon a time embraced moral relativism. In fact, for tonights homework, I suggest you go read the Catholic Catechism, which is predicated on Natural Law morality. After reading that, work backwards through history, all the way to the Stoics.
Natural Law is a Science. It has been a science since The Stoics and Aristotle and Aquinas started to philosophically explore the things mankind had in common and what constitutes the objective ‘good’. An earlier poster referenced Inductive logic. That is where natural Law as a science is a constantly growing corpus of knowledge. It depends on science. It is not add odds with science, except in the heads of the moral relativists who abandon the scientific method in their deliberations, by definition.
What is science except the testing of hypotheses and the collaboration of observed results? All scientific enquiry requires agreement between observers. That is how objective results are arrived at. That is exactly how Natural Law philosophy is carried out. Aquinas knew it as such. However, the philosophical also leads to the Theological and one depends on the other. This was re-affirmed by John Paul II in his encyclical Fides et ratio and the relationship between faith and reason. Natural Law theory requires the use of reason. I also suggest you read Pope Benedict’s Caritas in Veritate, where he shows just how ludicrous is the drift into moral relativism that much of the world has allowed. Pius XII saw it all coming and said so in his encyclical Humani Generis in 1950. In Caritas in Veritate, JP II also reclaims the Classical Humanism which the early Church embraced and which was bastardised by the reformers of the Renaiisance. That’s a big history lesson and a quantum leap in historical knowledge and intellectual understanding some will have to make. That’s exactly where the breakaway reformers turned Objectivity into Subjectivity and gave the world ‘humanism’. What a screw up.
I will, however, give credit where credit is due. You are touching on information theory when you mention cognitive dissonance across a whole society, particularly in relation to the mass media. Good boy. You’re onto something! Now just extrapolate a wee bit and you’ll understand just how important is a repository of objective philosophical and theologogical knowledge. Can you think of one? I can!!
Now, off you go and start that homework
I don’t know that ‘unguided chance’ would be the right way to put it, our origin certainly was guided by the physical forces of the universe and I am unaware of any confirmation that these forces were a part of ‘chance’.
I find that even when believing in a God the question of objective morality still persists as The Euthyphro Dilemma. Objective morals can and do exist with or without a God, whether those morals are objectively moral though is a different question all together.
I’m glad you think my tour to be ‘historic’!
You really must do your homework before asking questions. Start here..Second link is a good one. Check out the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, set up in 1603. Now, what were you saying about keeping up?
Moral relativism is the philosophical theory that morality is relative, that different moral truths hold for different people. It comes in two forms: ethical subjectivism and cultural relativism.
Yes.
Oh, you’ve only just begun.
Thanks John. You are right, that I am quite ignorant on Catholic doctrine. That is why I am here. I’m not sure why you are so condescending, but I guess that is more your problem than one that I should be concerned with.I’m glad you think my tour to be ‘historic’! You really must do your homework before asking questions. Start here..Second link is a good one. Check out the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, set up in 1603. Now, what were you saying about keeping up?
Moral relativism is the philosophical theory that morality is relative, that different moral truths hold for different people. It comes in two forms: ethical subjectivism and cultural relativism.
Ethical subjectivism holds that morality is relative to individuals; cultural relativism holds that it is relative to culture. Both deny the existence of moral absolutes, of objective moral truths that hold for all people in all places at all times.
Yes.
Usury refers to charging usurious, or unconscionable interest. The world’s first bankers, the Templar Knights, charged interest on loans, but were not unconscionable.
Slavery in ancient times was not as we know it today. Homework here.
Marriage has always been a contract between a man and a woman and solemnised in the eyes of God by the Church. Homework here.
Oh, you’ve only just begun.
I have advanced a similar argument, that regardless of a universal ethic, its application must always be relative. That notion is not well accepted around here, though I have yet to see a refutation which satisfies me.
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The value of something does not depend on being recognised. Otherwise it would be a figment of the imagination. There are objective reasons why things are precious. Life, for example, is precious because it is a source of opportunities for development, creativity, enjoyment and fulfilment.
Of course what is good “for society” might be something like the extermination of
No. I don’t think He can be summarily excluded using the spacetime-dependent handcuffs of logic. Logic that is predicated on “before/after” or “to/from” doesn’t count. When a person rejects God based on “proof”, they are no different than a goldfish who insists that there is no proof that the Steinway exists in the next room. Our fishbowl is spacetime. If someone insists that the laws governing spacetime must be applied to determine whether God exists, the argument stops. God has His “being” outside of time and space. Greek methodology wielded by creatures whose cognitive grids are formed by spacetime cannot hope to detect Him this way.
I have no idea. Human language cannot describe Him anyway. His ways are inscrutable. I believe there is sufficient reason to think He created everything, is a good God, cares about His creation and that history is going somewhere. These things are not provable but that’s ok. It would make sense that, to me anyway, any God you could inject into a gas chromatograph and discern His substance could not be God anyway.
There is a potentially large chasm between the concept of “immutable morality” and the human discernment and means to enforce that morality. This is above my pay grade but it would seem that killing your neighbor is probably bad whereas dancing could probably be argued. Just the notion that there is a good vs evil reality in place is a good starting point. Starting with Zoroaster, the connection was made between how we conduct ourselves on Earth and our ultimate fate after death. I personally take a “quantum mechanical” interpretation where reality on the subatomic level is merely a continuum of probabilities. Particles do weird things based on whether or not you are looking at them. There is a continuum of possibilities all across the religious/philosophical spectrum. I believe that the highest probability for God-revealed fullness across that spectrum is Christ. It’s difficult to believe that a God who created it all would now be static. Since stasis is also dependent on spacetime, I’m not sure I would use that word regarding Him. You certainly have a lot of meat in your observations. Thank you for posting.
Good answer, and I basically agree. I think, however, we should be careful with equating all these diverse concepts that some tend to lump together as synonymous under the title of Evil, or leading toward evil: atheism, humanism, utilitarianism, nihilism, moral relativism, socialism, communism and the like. I have singled out humanism (I realize there are different types) on this thread as being somewhat apart from many of the other concepts I mentioned in the sense that it does advocate a culture of life, a mutual human bond of solidarity and interdependence, moral values such as love, kindness, mercy, justice, social and individual rights, and so on. Specifically, Camus’ humanism (which he evolved toward from his initial existential philosophy) is not the same as Sartre’s existentialism, which denies any universal form of morality in favor of the individual’s own.
But if it is a matter of nutrition (what is good for you as opposed to what may be **bad **for you) it is objectively certain that fruits and vegetables are better for you than candy and potato chips.
