tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post2893669268221580401..comments2024-03-28T21:41:32.110-04:00Comments on Grim's Hall: Tolerance and relativismGrimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-68671793112844424392013-12-28T02:07:55.844-05:002013-12-28T02:07:55.844-05:00Back in the 70's Shel Silverstein wrote (and i...Back in the 70's Shel Silverstein wrote (and illustrated) an article on touring London that was published in Playboy. In one of the associated illustrations he depicted a poshly-dressed young man who said something along the lines of "homosexuality is tolerated, but I shan't be satisfied until it's made mandatory!" RonFhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346484258194484053noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-10668220717628038522013-12-24T12:16:01.562-05:002013-12-24T12:16:01.562-05:00As suggested above by the remark about the "l...As suggested above by the remark about the "living Constitution," it's possible to ask Dionne's question about why the <i>law</i> should be taken seriously. If the Constitutional law can lead you to diametrically different conclusions about what is right, why should you take it seriously?<br /><br />I find it odd that he gives the same answer to interpreting the man-made law that he gives to interpreting the will of an eternal God. Here fundamentalism is surely appropriate, because we are free to change the law at any time. You can only understand what the law is at all if it is a set thing that doesn't change on its own. If we don't like what it is, we can alter it.<br /><br />Not so the divine order!Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-35188116344493121082013-12-24T12:01:07.730-05:002013-12-24T12:01:07.730-05:00The answer I take to be right is that the connecti...The answer I take to be right is that the connection to the divine is not closed: there is every reason to prefer divinely-inspired wisdom to human, but no reason to believe it can only be found in the fundamentals of scripture. It should be accessible to us through prayer, though conversation with others who are also made in God's image, and through reason applied to creation. You can surely learn about God by coming to know about his works. <br /><br />That makes relevant both scripture and culture, so long as the members of the culture are grounding this "living" influence in the right kind of way. We should be careful to understand what others who did the same before us believed was right, so that the culture of the moment doesn't influence us especially. <br /><br />That gives you three standards to check against:<br /><br />1) Scripture,<br /><br />2) Whether the argument currently being forwarded is properly grounded,<br /><br />3) The body of similar arguments in the tradition which were, in their day, properly grounded.<br /><br />That should give you a result that is far from inflexible, certainly not "dead" in Dionne's terms, but reasonably reliable for those who want to live a good life.Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5173950.post-48451656747747806702013-12-24T11:54:23.202-05:002013-12-24T11:54:23.202-05:00Dionne is himself a Catholic, and so has access to...Dionne is himself a Catholic, and so has access to a very coherent philosophy from which he can draw. The question he asks, though, is one he answers in a very strange way.<br /><br />His initial question is this: "If any given religion and its holy writings can be used to support diametrically opposed conclusions about how to live life and how to approach politics, why should religious faith be taken seriously?" <br /><br />He later rephrases the question in a better way: "This raises the question of whether the religiously based principles are merely cultural artifacts that we bend to our own immediate purposes."<br /><br />Now the obvious answer to both questions is that you will most likely find the "serious faith" or "non-artificial" principles by returning to the fundamentals -- things like the actual Scripture -- and studying them carefully, applying them with the bare minimum of interpretation. So it's very relevant just how you translate the original Aramaic, for example, or Greek; it's not very relevant what anyone living thinks about the same things today.<br /><br />The answer he settles on instead is the one most likely to produce religion that is a "cultural artifact": to adopt a "living tradition" (like a "living Constitution") in which 'changeless truths sometimes change.'<br /><br />That's the conflict playing out between Fundamentalism and liberal Christian interpretation. It's not really the right answer, I don't think; neither side is right here.Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.com