tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post6562797911475945994..comments2024-03-29T17:55:30.203+13:00Comments on Anglican Down Under: The Blessed Isles DeclarationPeter Carrellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comBlogger69125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-78763440497719327172017-12-21T12:50:05.583+13:002017-12-21T12:50:05.583+13:00Bowman; your “curiosity”. All I have done, tried t...Bowman; your “curiosity”. All I have done, tried to do, is to situate human subjectivity. That is, if we locate our own subjectivity within itself, we finish up with a Kantian denial of the noumenal, reducing all things - including ourselves! - to the phenomenal. Or even the other way around: if all things are merely phenomenal, then even human subjectivity is removed from any due grounding, and we humans too are bricolage, as is only too evident - far too evident - nowadays ...<br /><br />An antidote. Augustine’s <i>Confessions</i> were the first and perhaps still the greatest case study in situating the human psyche. Nor is it little wonder that thereafter he progressed to probing what is now called the psychological analogy of the Trinity in <i>De Trinitate</i>. Which makes Jean-Luc Marion’s <i>Au Lieu de Soi/In the Self’s Place</i> even more vital for our time.<br /><br />As for dear William James: not only are all mystical traditions just that - traditions; there is no escaping the sharp chasm between monistic traditions versus theistic ones, the latter predicated upon there being a basic chasm between Creator and creature(s). And the vital clue to the Nicene Settlement (ref now Peter’s Incarnational thread) is that the triune God - who therefore is not merely ‘theistic’ - is precisely able to transcend his transcendence (as I put it in <i>LDL</i>, p.61).<br /><br />QED: “My own gloss” on Aug’s <i>De T</i> on p.103: “That is, for humans to image God properly is to <i>image God relating to God</i>, whereby we discern the image’s opening up of itself to its source, to enable <i>God</i> to shine afresh <i>into</i> the human image and fully <i>return</i> to himself according to the triune God’s own trinitarian dynamic, which is one of mutual glorification among the three (at least, this is my own gloss on Augustine’s presentation!)” - with a note to Marion’s <i>In The Self’s Place</i>. All of which presupposes a due perichoretic dynamic: among the divine; among the Incarnate One and the Triune God [where the notion of ‘perichoresis’ was first used anyway]; among the Body of Christ + Head; among humans; among humans and the rest of the material world, including their own bodies. We are not “ghosts in a machine”; rather, psychosomatic wholes, who when duly interpenetrated by the Triune God - who is “closer/more interior to ourselves than we are to ourselves” (Conf 10) - partake of eternal life. THAT is the final upstream - and downstream - reality. But Jenson wrote quite a bit about all this in his <i>On Thinking the Human</i> ... <b>Just so, due Confession and/or Worship of ‘that God’ <i>is</i> Life!</b>Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-82965162819020998852017-12-10T21:19:37.806+13:002017-12-10T21:19:37.806+13:00Dear Bowman; bit hectic these past days to adequat...Dear Bowman; bit hectic these past days to adequately satisfy your "curiosity" but shall make amends this week. Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-56253951343510440242017-12-10T21:17:42.343+13:002017-12-10T21:17:42.343+13:00Touché...!Touché...!Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-79353937068357184962017-12-06T20:59:39.932+13:002017-12-06T20:59:39.932+13:00Hi Bowman,
Point taken re "impaired/lost&quo...<br />Hi Bowman,<br /><br />Point taken re "impaired/lost". Thank you for reminding me of St.Maximus the Confessor's words: they are so sorely needed at this present time.Christ not only turning our eyes back to the woman he has given us; but saying that He has healed and blesses the relationship.Now, that is a relationship worth blessing.<br /><br />Reality for me, is finding and accepting those things, which I can happily have in my life, knowing full well that Christ knows they are there.<br /><br />Cheers, GlenGlen Youngnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-49492322773571054582017-12-06T14:34:42.586+13:002017-12-06T14:34:42.586+13:00Hi Glen,
Thank you again for an account of your *...Hi Glen,<br /><br />Thank you again for an account of your *modus operandi*.<br /><br />The scriptures seem to say that the *image of God* is impaired in the unrgenerate, not lost. For use of that and related phrases throughout the canon, you might see--<br /><br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_of_God<br /><br />https://tinyurl.com/ybx8fn86<br /><br />Some confusion, in discussion about That Topic and others, arises from the use by all parties of *experience* as a proxy for *person*. However vivid, a experience or body of experiences is just one more bucketful from the stream of life. But experiencing that is thought to be characteristic of a soul is sometimes claimed as integral to the personhood that bears God's image. This implies that the characteristic experience is like a tile in a mosaic of the face of God-- take it away and the face is still recognisably there, but also recognisably marred. An *image*, the old fathers might say after Genesis, but no longer a *likeness*.<br /><br />I am not sure what you mean by *reality*. The collect for Easter IV has been with us for a long time, having traveled from the Gelasian Sacramentary to the Sarum Missal to the BCPs of 1549 and 1662 and thence to the pages of most contemporary recensions. I suspect that you would agree with what it says with a delightful precision--<br /><br />"O Almighty God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men: Grant unto thy people, that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."<br /><br />But it is possible that you are agreeing with Isaac of Stella that the regenerate soul is a microcosm of *reality* because, in having potential knowledge of all things, it bears them in itself. Or even with St Maximus the Confessor's famous claim that Christ in each soul heals the five post-Fall fractures of the cosmos-- Creator/creatures, things invisible/things visible, heaven/earth, paradise/world, and man/woman. <br /><br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_of_Stella<br /><br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximus_the_Confessor<br /><br />BW<br /> Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-12701424031614916722017-12-05T21:40:13.499+13:002017-12-05T21:40:13.499+13:00Hi Ron,
If your post at 5.40 pm refers to our ear...Hi Ron,<br /><br />If your post at 5.40 pm refers to our earlier posts concerning the relevance of experience in relation to gaining the "wisdom and understanding", by which we live our Christian lives;I am very sorry for you. This type of discussion took place at a very introductionary level of our Counselling studies.One needs to understand, as to whether they are being helped to be "set free" by the Holy Spirit; or just confirmed in their sinful ways. Glen Youngnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-21333869080924671092017-12-05T17:40:12.747+13:002017-12-05T17:40:12.747+13:00"Do not think of things too high for you"..."Do not think of things too high for you".<br /><br />Sorry <br />nil comprendo.Father Ron Smithhttp://kiwianglo.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-25251542957753277302017-12-05T15:36:05.708+13:002017-12-05T15:36:05.708+13:00Cont.
Until we have a handle on reality,we tend to...<br />Cont.<br />Until we have a handle on reality,we tend to evaluate experience against flawed markers;which can lead to a false sense of well being or to depression.<br />Experience is also very much a time/situation bound beast;requiring the wisdom of Solomon to analyse the value of a previous experience in a new time/situation circumstance.Who was it that said:"it's futile to keep doing the same thing and expect different results"?Glen Youngnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-92015692467853497342017-12-05T10:14:58.238+13:002017-12-05T10:14:58.238+13:00Hi Bowman,
My foundational assumption about man i...<br />Hi Bowman,<br /><br />My foundational assumption about man is that he was created to carry the image and likeness of God;but due to the fall,we now carry the image and likeness of man (Adam),in our spirits.Having descended from Adam and Eve ,we all share with them, the vulnerability to be deceived about the true nature and value of all things, including our human nature. Our biggest struggle in life is to find "REALITY";those things which have real meaning and those that don't. Our chase of things to satisfy the Adamic Archetypes of our spirits is like yearning for the "love of the lady who does not exist". Thus Solomon was to lament:"Vanity,vanity,all is vanity". Christ alone brings the peace into our spirits, which allows us to determine and accept REALITY.Glen Youngnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-54491524850053886302017-12-05T08:03:37.075+13:002017-12-05T08:03:37.075+13:00Oh heck! Only six: "One can distinguish at le...Oh heck! Only six: "One can distinguish at least six different meanings of experience, which partly overlap but also differ markedly: ..."<br />One of my lecturers at undergrad, who was as he used to say a self-confessed failed seminarian, drilled it into the unsuspecting: "facts never speak for themselves!" My response (having met Polanyi as a schoolboy) was a wry, delicious smile -"this is going to be fun!" Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-967166500920661672017-12-05T05:35:44.792+13:002017-12-05T05:35:44.792+13:00Cont'd
The former critique was, basically, th...Cont'd<br /><br />The former critique was, basically, that high modernity wanted to envisage social man outside of his religion to see him as a proper citizen of Cosmopolis, and did so by hypothesising that his existence and consciousness is independent of God. We usually hear this model of the self attributed to Immanuel Kant, although his ethical writings seem at points to undercut that attribution. (As my 5:49 notes, we can see this happening in James's VRE where he posits that real religious experience is not of a tradition or institution, then turns to mystics as extreme examples of purely personal experience, and then reads out of their testimonies some criteria for optimal experience itself.) So when the naive cite experience to oppose religion, they are just treating a politics-driven hypothesis as a fact, and urging it on us as fellow citizens of Cosmopolis, and we in Christ should not be so naive as to be convinced by that. Indeed, we have prior convictions-- (a) that all humanity refers to Christ's humanity and (b) that our proper relations to each other are in the Body not in cosmopolitan citizenship. <br /><br />Your more recent comments to Glen-- who sounds to me as though he is understandably insisting on (b)-- criticise arguments from experience as paradigm-dependent. That is, if we embrace ignorance as a starting point for investigating something, it is only as we come to entertain some hypothesis that we have a replicable recognition of a fact, for it is only a hypothesis of some kind that will enable us to show others how to find perceptions in the flux of consciousness. So since modern science is not an explanation of common sense (methodological ignorance), it really does not have the "brute facts" that ancient and medieval science did have. This, as you say, is why it does not explain how the sun goes around the earth every day. <br /><br />And-- I think you will agree with this-- the whole procedure works well for phenomena far from consciousness but much less well for phenomena of consciousness itself. Can an investigating mind even have a *methodological ignorance* about its own operations prior to its adoption of a hypothesis? Is an investigator the same person before and after choosing a hypothesis about his own consciousness to investigate? And given that consciousness is somehow embedded in life, how can, say, a psychologist be as scrupulously non-teleological as a chemist? For that matter, given our reliable knowledge that much of our processing is unknown to consciousness, and that what is known is distorted by our physiology, what does it mean to seek a true account of consciousness? Might metaphysical hypotheses-- excluded from all physical science-- substitute for *methodological ignorance* in further investigations of consciousness? These are all non-theological problems for the project of constructing a science of the mind and self on the model of our sciences for matter and energy. <br /><br />Simply stated, Sola Experientia is just the *logical empiricism* that probably died in its robust form 50-80 years ago. This is not at all to say that experimentation and observation show us nothing about the mind, etc. To the contrary, the spread of evidence-seeking inquiry into human phenomena has been very fruitful in several kinds of projects that Christians especially should care about. But even very sound findings in the human sciences remain provisional and philosophical, and some of them may be unassimilable to common sense, however reconstructed. Some professional scientists on the frontiers of this work have used Buddhism to make sense of it, and it is not unthinkable that others may turn to practises more familiar to us.<br /><br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Koyr%C3%A9<br /><br />If that all sounds about right to you, Bryden, then I will move on to my question about St Paul. Believe it or not, this is all in response to Peter's OP.<br /><br />BWAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-33065536125268466422017-12-05T05:34:01.900+13:002017-12-05T05:34:01.900+13:00Thank you, Bryden, for your several recent comment...Thank you, Bryden, for your several recent comments here and there. The tenor of your critique has shifted in the past few weeks in a way that piques my curiosity. Before, you seemed to be critical of a standard late modern anthropology; now, you seem to be critical of reliance on, oh, let's call it Sola Experientia. Your change of focus is no contradiction, but since it brings a question about St Paul within range, I shall try to review for Peter's busy readers, doubtless missing much of the nuance of your own words.<br /><br />http://www.thh-friedensau.de/wp-content/uploads/Aufsatz13.pdf<br /><br />http://www.princeton.edu/~fraassen/abstract/FEYERABEND-synopsis.pdf<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-76824006942601755642017-12-04T22:55:37.286+13:002017-12-04T22:55:37.286+13:00Hi MichaelA
(i) See what Bowman says above!
(ii) I...Hi MichaelA<br />(i) See what Bowman says above!<br />(ii) I think the JD could learn from history and do better than the BCP/39A. That is, by not both saying that the first four councils are authoritative and sticking with the filoque clause.<br />(iii) Neither the BCP nor the 39A, as far as I know (not recently having read every word of the BCP), make a claim about a "plain and consensual" understanding of Scripture. The JD does and yet offers no sense of how we know we have either a plain or a consensual reading.<br />(iv) I suggest too much is claimed liturgically by the JD when it offers the BCP as some kind of Anglican gold standard. It is not just that some signers may have signed that which they knew not or even signed that which they did know they were not keeping. The Anglican world at large has embarked on considerable liturgical revision in the 20th century, much of it quite fair and reasonable, and not at all heretical, and it would not hurt the JD to acknowledge Anglican modern realities as well as ancient verities.Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-56713447137780545242017-12-04T20:51:19.588+13:002017-12-04T20:51:19.588+13:00Hi Bryden,
What if some external canon comes to o...Hi Bryden, <br />What if some external canon comes to our aid, but our subjectivity still drives us? ;o)MichaelAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-113267197942354162017-12-04T18:57:10.276+13:002017-12-04T18:57:10.276+13:00Personally Bowman, I love my croissants fully rich...Personally Bowman, I love my croissants fully rich and utterly decadent. Sorry folks; but just too much time spent in my youth ala France! <br />Analogously, I was always a real supporter of the RCD AC Covenant - until some hijacked the 8 May Session of the ACC ... <br />True; for some that's all 'history'; for myself, it was a litmus test about how serious we were as a Communion of churches within the Church. C'est vraiment la vie alors ...!Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-8054017400522732782017-12-04T17:49:07.510+13:002017-12-04T17:49:07.510+13:00Rowan Williams has a slightly more empirical way o...Rowan Williams has a slightly more empirical way of making Bryden's point. When the most experiential adherents of the world's religions-- let's call them mystics-- have experiences of the transcendence in which they believe, they do not all have the same experiences. Rather, they have experiences that reflect their lifelong trajectories of devotion-and-development. So their experiences do not stand outside of their thinking as a criterion of it; the thinking enables the experience to happen as it does by shaping their lives. <br /><br />Williams's point reminds me of the medieval English therapeia in which the mystic meditates on Christ's suffering on the cross in order to reproduce it in his own body so that his personality can be infused with Christ's own and his sinfulness healed. The practise clearly has its roots in the NT writings of SS Paul and John. Walter Hilton writes about it as theorist of the practise; Julian of Norwich is its best known examplar. She does not sound much like a Sufi experiencing illumination or a Buddhist approaching nirvana. <br /><br />Does this mean then that all talk about *inauthentic belief* is mistaken? William James's lectures on the Varieties of Religious Experience methodologically bracketed judgments between rival beliefs so that he could make judgments about optimal experience as a psychologist. That has prompted many since to reject altogether what he bracketed and to try to make personal integration-- the sense that the self has been pulled together into a better whole-- criterial instead. However-- (a) in practise, a criterion of authenticity is not diagnostically helpful; (b) actual mystics describe transformative breakthroughs, not selves being incrementally ameliorated. It seems that the demanding aspiration to authenticity that James inspired remains dependent on the traditions he bracketed both for positive direction and for a deep rationale for disrupting the self.<br /><br />BWAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-4583088924417017922017-12-04T16:55:03.355+13:002017-12-04T16:55:03.355+13:00This comment has been removed by the author.Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-89708014374150855962017-12-04T16:28:11.222+13:002017-12-04T16:28:11.222+13:00"There is much that is agreeable in the JD. I..."There is much that is agreeable in the JD. In summary my critique is not that it is a poor document but that it is imprecise." -- Peter<br /><br />We all like our favourite ingredients-- chocolate, vanilla, butter, etc. We all use lists of them to remind us to buy them. But if a list is not for shopping but for baking-- a recipe-- then we have to further ask how the ingredients will combine in the mixing bowl, set in the dish, bake in the oven, and taste when they come out of it. Imprecision about quantities and qualities of the ingredients will matter when this baker turns them into a cake with a good rise, a fine crumb, and a tasty glaze, but that one produces a burnt waste of floury chocolate with a puddle of butter on top. Behind the success and failure is the chemistry of the way ingredients interact, and the wonderful thing about a real recipe is that it enables even non-chemists to be adequate bakers. If more depends on the baker than the recipe, then the latter is not enough of a guide. <br /><br />In this thread, voices mainly disagree over their prior sense of how much Anglicans today need one or more new documents to identify and inform those exercising doctrinal authority among us. Those who see little need for that are content that the JD is a list of their favourite ingredients, and may even be a little upset that Peter avers that the list is too vague to be a well-composed recipe. <br /><br />But those who see a continuing authority problem in one or more areas of Anglican life and mission naturally ask whether the JD, as the founding document of a movement widely taken to be a renewal of authority, can actually mix, set, bake, and serve its ingredients in a way that enables us to collaborate where we are presently stuck. If not, then the search for a list that truly is a time-tested recipe-- and perhaps for bakers who can use it with skill-- begins. <br /><br />Now the latter voices have been discussing the state of Anglican identity and authority in ADU for at least two years. These critics do not deny that the JD is a list of tasty things; they do deny that it actually guides anyone to think or do anything missional about problems that Anglicans cannot or should not avoid. It is hard to see what more they can say to those who think that, except for That Topic which itself poses no problem of either identity or authority, God's in his heaven and all's right with the world. But it may be important to stress that we bake every day to eat every day, and the guests are coming at dinner time.<br /><br />The former voices eat every day too. But it sounds as though they never noticed that the JD was not a recipe because they do not bake anything anyway-- they just nibble the ingredients raw with great gusto, If the ingredients never interact, then one can indeed be much less picky about them-- eg cacao content of the chocolate, whether the "vanilla" is just vanillin, how much water is in the butter, what proteins are in the flour, etc-- because they have no chemical interactions to go awry. You can't go wrong in something unless you are trying to get it right.<br /><br />Now if those who love the JD want to advocate for more nibbling and less baking-- more candy bars, fewer croissants-- I am sure that patient Peter will give them abundant screenspace. And since even bakers nibble and tipple a bit, the critics of the JD will agree that some ingredients are tasty even raw. But readers will still be perplexed about the JD: if the list was never really a recipe, then what ever was the use of it, and why should anyone care about it now?<br /><br />BW<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-25661172568672151902017-12-04T10:24:16.003+13:002017-12-04T10:24:16.003+13:00cont.
An example with which to close. For centurie...cont.<br />An example with which to close. For centuries we experienced the sun rising every day, going across the sky, and setting again. And from a geocentric frame of reference, that was understood in ways that allowed an Apollo to race his chariot across the sky. Fast forward to a set of further experiences and understandings governed by the likes of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo. That is to say, we evaluated our understanding of this common experience to come up with a very different frame of reference, which we now of course all take for granted—the solar system! Curiously, we still speak of sunrise and sunset! QED: what was so natural and obvious to our forefathers is not so natural and obvious after all!<br /><br />In today's Church the crux of many a debate circles around precisely what will actually be the frame of reference we use, what we turn to, when seeking to <b>evaluate</b> any <i>understanding</i> of our experience(s). Will our subjectivity drive us? Or, will some external canon come to our aid?Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-4546923943912170712017-12-04T10:23:41.129+13:002017-12-04T10:23:41.129+13:00Dear Ron and Glen,
It's at this point we have...Dear Ron and Glen,<br /><br />It's at this point we have to make a call: what might "experience" mean? What range of meanings are available?<br /><br />Ron, you quote that venerable hymn which begins "Through all the changing scenes of life", written by Tate and Brady near the end of 17th C. There the point is to trust and see if God will deliver on his promises. And no surprise! During the course of our concrete lived lives - our experience - this will show that God shows up, again and again. For his constant love is faithful.<br /><br />What I am addressing, followed by Glen, while using still that same word "experience", is both different yet somewhat the same: the range of this word's meaning allows for precisely this polyvalence. For human experience, what we naturally traverse in the course of our concrete lived lives, is necessarily, to be human, both experienced yet also processed for its meaning: it's understood as such and so. In the hymn's case: "make but trial of his love" = trust and see what results; and what will result - in our concrete experience - will demonstrate God's faithful love. Our experience is understood as an encounter with God's constancy. This is the meaning of our Christian experience.<br /><br />Three hundred years later, the situation we in western culture face is a sheer preponderance of human subjectivity. That is, we are so very prone to generate our own meanings/understandings of what we are experiencing, out of ... these very experiences. "If it feels good, ..."<br /><br />This runs exactly counter to what BW so naturally posted: "True, I had been personally blessed with a vivid illumination of the Resurrection that seems to be rare, but apart from the resources of our tradition I would not have known what to do with it." Here we've an experience precisely interpreted from an external frame of reference; the meaning of the experience is to be understood not from within, subjectively, but from an objective view point.<br /><br />Just so, what I've banged on about so often on ADU is that a fully adequate hermeneutic will seek to evaluate all (previous?) understanding(s) of our experience(s) by means of objective, external frames of reference. And this runs so counter to our prevailing culture. For what also makes any human experience human is the way these experiences come inevitably wrapped up in human language forms. In fact, we've the tendency to preload our experiences with large doses of preunderstanding, simply because our culture soaks into us the language we use to understand stuff ahead of many an experience. What this means especially for Christians is the vital need to sift these preunderstandings, the forms of language we're given by the culture we 'naturally' swim in. For things might not in fact be what they appear to be.Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-31594704674816080892017-12-04T10:02:35.900+13:002017-12-04T10:02:35.900+13:00Hi Michael,
Agree with all you say, with the prov...<br />Hi Michael,<br /><br />Agree with all you say, with the proviso that it is the right of any layman,who is not under submission to General Synod;to disagree with all 39 Articles if they so wish. However,this not the case for all General Synod members,Bishops,Priests holding a Bishop's licence and laymen who sign a submission to G.S. They hold and maintain the Doctrine as defined in the Constitution.Glen Youngnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-63732666748073876182017-12-04T01:18:08.667+13:002017-12-04T01:18:08.667+13:00… cont. from previous
“If it is part of the hist...… cont. from previous<br /><br /> “If it is part of the historic creeds then that is in contradiction to the four Ecumencical Councils referred to here” – If you accept the Eastern Orthodox view, sure. But we aren’t Eastern Orthodox. What you are really pointing out is that the JD follows the BCP, which in turn follows a long western tradition in support of the filioque. You might think that contradicts the four ecumenical councils, but many great theologians over millenia would disagree with you. If you won’t listen to them, then you won’t listen to me so I will say no more. <br /><br />“Are each and every one of the Thirty-Nine Articles authoritative for Anglicans today?” – Why wouldn’t they be? Millions of Anglicans all over the world don’t have an issue with anachronistic wording like “at the commandment of the Magistrate” – we can follow the principle readily enough. If you don’t like the theological content of the Articles then that is your right. I am just saying that its not a basis for suggesting that they or the JD contain “theological howlers”. <br /><br />“I note, for instance, two versions of the Thirty-Nine Articles, one for the USA which has no monarch and one for the Anglican churches still under the monarchy” – Unless you are suggesting that there is any significant difference between them, why is this important?<br /><br />“to say nothing of whether certain Articles are authoritative for Anglo-Catholics“ – Perhaps let them speak for themselves. Many of them have been happy to assent to the JD. And if you are holding out for universal popularity then no church anywhere will ever agree about anything, including Jesus. <br /><br />“I would be a bit surprised if GAFCON envisaged that and thus I call them out on whether they really do mean "authoritative" in this part of the declaration.” – They’ve already said what they mean. So perhaps they don’t find your logical extrapolations about calling new councils compelling? You don’t have to agree with them, but that doesn’t prove that the JD contains “theological howlers”. <br /><br />“Here's the thing, there is a lot of liturgical stuff happening, even in conservative Anglican churches, which does not abide by this rubric.” – Assuming you are correct that your examples don’t fit into “local adaptation”, how does this show a “theological howler”? After all, saying that some people who have signed this don’t abide by it does not in any way show that its theology is incorrect. It may even show the reverse!MichaelAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-63823900884171413592017-12-04T01:11:24.166+13:002017-12-04T01:11:24.166+13:00I am sorry Peter+, but I do not understand the bas...I am sorry Peter+, but I do not understand the basis of your critique of the Jerusalem Declaration, particularly when you compare it unfavourably with the 39 Articles and the BCP. It seems to me that virtually every critique you make would apply equally or even more to the Articles and the BCP, and many would apply to the Creeds and Councils as well. <br /><br />“Theological howlers, see 2,3,4 and 6 above. Those clauses look good - speak plainly, sure, but they cannot bear the weight placed on them when scrutiny is brought to bear.”<br /><br />Where is this “scrutiny”, Peter? I am not finding it in your post. For example, you write: <br /><br />“There is no agreed or "consensual" "plain and canonical" sense of Scripture in the Anglican world” – So what? Neither the BCP nor Articles make allowance for those who adopt a different interpretation of scripture to their authors, nor do the Creeds or the Councils. How is the JD any different?<br /><br />“neither here nor elsewhere in the JD is there any attempt to set out how the Bible is to be interpreted correctly” – Again, so what? Neither do the Articles or the BCP or the Creeds or the Councils. <br /><br />“What body of teachers (synod? house of bishops? doctrinal commission?) assists the church when the "plain and canonical sense" is breached?” – Why are you assuming that there is any? And why take the JD to task when the Creeds, Councils, BCP and Articles say no more?<br /><br />“Who or what determines that this reading rather than that is "a" or even "the" consensual reading of Scripture?” – Show me anywhere in the BCP or the Articles that answers this question, then I might be able to see why you think that they are in some way superior or different to the JD. <br /><br />“Where this statement runs aground is on the Filioque clause in the Nicene Creed: is it part of the "historic Creeds" or not"? The Declaration does not say.” – Even if that were accurate Peter, how does this assist your contention that the BCP and/or the Articles are in some way superior to the JD? The BCP in several places directs that the Creeds as stated in our services are to include the filioque. In other words, the BCP concedes no ground whatsoever to the Eastern Orthodox view. You may or may not agree with that, but it gives no basis for critiquing the JD as compared to the BCP. <br /><br />So no, the JD doesn’t “run aground on the Filioque clause” at all. It simply stands with the BCP, which turn stands on the western divines going back to St Hilary. <br /><br />To be cont....MichaelAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-48403147913430012862017-12-04T00:16:13.041+13:002017-12-04T00:16:13.041+13:00“Malcolm, have you not realised that the ONLY comm...“Malcolm, have you not realised that the ONLY common denominator between these (so diverse) entities is their common aversion to 'you-know-what -. This is hardly a theological convergence, merely a common aversion to adiaphora.” [Referring to North American Anglo-Catholics and Sydney Evangelicals]<br /><br />Such a statement Fr Ron, says far more about its author than about either group. There are actually many common denominators – hence why there is so much working together. MichaelAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-54439938432080133552017-12-03T17:40:24.884+13:002017-12-03T17:40:24.884+13:00Cont'd
A few years ago, I was attending a wee...Cont'd<br /><br />A few years ago, I was attending a weekly seminar to which I often carried some theological book or the other. The Hindu sitting next to me, having noticed the books between us and connected them to some things I said, asked to meet for lunch. When we had ordered, she explained that she was perplexed that we both knew the same sciences about the material basis of life and the mind, and yet she could not maintain her once passionate devotion to Krishna while I seemed to be ever more involved in Jesus. <br /><br />For her, there was a stark choice between the traditional religion she practised in India and the contemporary neuroscience we were both investigating. But for me, she said, tradition and science seemed to be equal partners in some sort of harmony. And most perplexing to her, the other Christians she had observed were nothing like this-- they seemed to be moral people, but they feared science--especially her science-- and they did not read fat books about Jesus. That proved to her experimental mind that, although Christianity is about Jesus, my adherence to it was not the cause of my continuing devotion to him. So she wanted me to tell her what the real cause of my devotion was, whether what worked for me would work for her, and if so whether it could help her to get her Krishna back. Over lunch.<br /><br />Now, as you can imagine, that was a real life situation in which Anglican identity really mattered. True, I had been personally blessed with a vivid illumination of the Resurrection that seems to be rare, but apart from the resources of our tradition I would not have known what to do with it. Even so, I could not answer her sensible questions with any of the usual definitions of the tradition that I had found so nourishing. Glance again at the JD and ask yourself how you would use it to answer her questions.<br /><br />Conversely, the answer that I did give her was about Jesus-- he himself is the harmony in which all things hold together; the creation was made so that he might be born in it-- as I had learned to experience him in scripture, eucharist, prayer, and calling. If one wants to live out a life in that faith, one does not strictly have to be an Anglican or a scientist, of course. But, to be honest, my colleague was not mistaken in her observations of other Christians, and many have found it much harder to integrate all of this in other kinds of churches. And Anglican scientists have never been rare. A statement that explains our identity well will explain from first principles why this is so.<br /><br />Ideally, it will also point to the strengths, limitations and vulnerabilities of our identity, and to the spiritual resources that help us to live with them. We do schools well, but at least in my country Quakers are better with childhood development, and Baptists better evangelise their children. I can think of several Anglican parishes with arts ministries-- poetry circles, concert series, art galleries, drama groups-- but very few with the clinics, soup kitchens, or homeless shelters more often supported by Catholics. It is an immaturity to think that one defines one's religion only as an ego defense (although a good definition may be strengthening), or as a club to clobber others (although a good definition may elicit some desire to improve). <br /><br />Now I will admit that I am insisting that an identity document be a pastoral document, and indeed one of rare profundity. It sounds much more like the Decrees of the Council of Trent or the Vatican II Constitution on the Church in the Modern World than a pithy list of denominational distinctives. A authoritative document like that would require the input of Anglicans from all around the world. One would certainly want the review and approval of at least a representation of the world's bishops. But if they did convene someplace-- maybe Jerusalem?-- and produced a document that solves C21 problems in the global village, would they not be a new doctrinal centre in world Anglicanism? <br /><br />BWAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com