Jul 10, 2012 -- 11:30PM, mokantx wrote:

Jul 10, 2012 -- 10:35PM, SeraphimR wrote:

Seraphim

I actually wonder a bit if Hewy meant pantheism, or panentheism, as they are different things I think. Personally, I probably tend a bit towards the panentheism model.  Regardless of that distinction, what I see in both of those models suggests a God that is so much larger than the God that is so often trotted out within Christianity. 

All that aside, one of the stark differences I see between Hewy's view and yours, centers on the "definability" of God.  From what I've read/studied, plus my own personal experience, I tend to side heavily with the concept of God as unknowable, by definition.  I think a BIG stumbling block for most formal religions comes when those at the top (and elsewhere I suppose) try to convince others that they know God, or can define God, or worse, can speak for God.  History, both ancient and current, is simply rife with the disasters that this will often bring (think suicide bombers, or even those who would simply impose their will on others "for the good of those others.")  Incidentally, this concept of God as "unknowable" has popped up in most religions worldwide, across time.

Now, we can qualify that word a bit, of course.  Christians tell us that Jesus came to disclose some knowledge of that God, and through his very existence, we did/do in fact experience God.  For me, there's a very fine line here.  I believe quite strongly that some of my life's moments when I most experienced God, was when I was in a community.  I loved my decades as a eucharistic minister: I think I really "got" what Jesus may have meant when he said "whenever two or more of you are together..."  So in that sense, the Eucharistic meal with the community is powerful stuff indeed.  Yet, I also think the minute you say you can define God, you end up with a circular disk of white flour and water, in the center of a monstrance, with people in silent, very personal adoration, and almost no sense of community whatsoever.  That whole experience gets twisted into a power play for those "elite few" who are somehow "empowered" to bring that gift to you (implying of course, that they also have the power of withholding that very presence of God from you if they so choose.  Somehow, the thought of another man being able to withhold God from me, if God wants to come, seems to me to weaken the power of that God tremendously: to the point of absurdity really.

You are right in your assessment about Vatican II, and this is precisely what those who didn't like where it took them are waiting for.  They don't even seem to recognize that by taking that position, they are trashing one of the very foundation-stones of the power they have claimed for centuries: namely that the highest authority in the church is not the pope, but a formal church council, sitting as council.  So by their games of trying to undo that council, the are effectively demonstrating that everything the church has ever taught is only as good as the current generation of men in power want it to be.  And if that's really the case, then does that not gut pretty much all things church?

Lastly, you are right, in that shism begets schism.  Which as I see it, is all the more reason for a religion to be MORE exclusive, rather than less.  The minute a religion moves in the direction of the conservative movement in the RCC today, or the jihadist movement in Islam (etc.), then I think those very movements are in fact begging for schism.  That's where it starts: the narrowing down of the message, the purging of those deemed to be "less pure (deserving, clean, etc...)"

So I'll circle back to my question: if you could write your own version, what would that include, and not include?

Stunning response, Mo

I've boldened that which speaks of much of what I think. I am especially attentive to the Church as community. I totally resent prelates in Rome destroying this by disrupting the simple but effective liturgy we were in wholeness with.

Panentheism works for me although the word and concept are new. (Had to look it up in my theology dictionary.) Many of us encounter what seems divine in a beautiful blue sky (which often see in North Georgia), at the ocean, watching the spontaniety of a young child, even in the antics of our dogs.

Great idea for a discussion.

Jane

Jul 10, 2012 -- 2:16PM, SeraphimR wrote:

The forces promoting schism are much strengthened by modern communications.  Most people feel most comfortable in communities that have shared values, shared beliefs and shared traditions.

I don't see how Hewey's idea of leaving God undefined would work.  He feels that pantheism holds the most meaning for him.  That is fine except I don't get this pantheism at all.  I keep wondering "and then what?" and have yet to hear an answer.  How would a Trinitarian having dinner with a Panthiest have any spiritual significance?

As many others smarter than me have noted, schism begets schism.  If you all leave the Catholic Church to form another you might find the only thing you all have in common is that you are all against Catholicism as embodied by the hierarchy.  And that is not enough to hold you together.

In a few decades, everyone who remembers Vatican II first hand will have shuffled off their mortal coils.  But there will still be a Pope with hundreds of millions Catholics who look to him as the highest spiritual authority.

I'm responding to the bolded question. 

I think it would come from awareness and attentiveness. We all see people out at dinner who are staring at their cell phones rather than their dinner companions. What is the spiritual significance there? I can assure you that there are very devout Trinitarians who are as addicted to their mobile devices as anybody else.

Jul 11, 2012 -- 8:51AM, TemplarS wrote:

If we are talking a "Christian" Church here, you would think the glue would be Jesus.

As to defining God, again for a Christian the answer lies in (trying) to understand God as Jesus did.

I've given above my understanding of what Jesus was about, based on what was actually written about him, viewed through the lenses of the world he lived in and the world we live in.

The problem seems to be that, of course, as regards unity, we cannot agree on our Jesus either.

But maybe it is not that; maybe the things we tend to disagree about are layers which have accreted on to Jesus over two millennia (and most particularly over the last 500 years).  Most schisms have come about due to things which either have nothing to do with Jesus (generally, issues of authority in various Churches), or over issues which are mentioned peripherally if at all in scripture.  Many of these have no impact on how we live our lives in Christ, and hence should be easy enough to get past. As regards the Filioque, for example, while it is interesting from a perspective of abstract theology to discuss this, since the Trinity is admitted to be a mystery anyway (in the old sense of something unknowable rather then the modern sense of a puzzle to be solved) what difference does it make to my life every day whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from God, or God and Jesus?  To use another example, people have spent an inordinate amount of energy arguing about how exactly Jesus is present in the Eucharist, when the point should be, if he is present, what does that mean to us?  And Protestants love to argue about faith vs. works, yet only the hardest of hardline antinomians would contend that we should not do good works as Jesus commanded.

Temp

As I think I noted earlier (or at least tried), I agree with your prior points on the message(s) of Jesus.  I also not only agree with your concept here that I might describe as "barnacles on the boat" having grown so thick as to pretty much render the boat ineffective.

What i think we're seeing these days, is a growing number of Catholics (in this case, though it likely applies to many if not most religions) who are wanting to strip off the barnacles and get back to what the vehicle was when it first started.  We certainly see this in the neocon movement, who seem to think that Vatican II was just another layer of barnacles.  But they, of course, want to remove only those "new" ones, so as to expose the older layers of barnacles that they so dearly loved.  For a growing number of people however, the church that is seen today looks very little like what we see in the life of Jesus, or even in the early church.

I'm guessing that Cher's point on Ted's thread (Schism) may be on target here: what we're witnessing here is something more on the order of magnitude of a new reformation.  It's in the early stages, but I DO see it coming, in part because those at the top are incapable of change.  If what they have is NOT reaching people, then clearly the trouble is with the people, right?   (*sigh*)

I do like this whole question of "knowing" God, and all that spins around the question. 

Serpahim, I rather agree with St. Basil, though for me "energies" needs a bit of explanation.

I think we cannot know the essence of God. But we can know something about him from his actions.

Something of the Creator God can be known from his creation. This is why I see the possibility of cooperation rather than confrontation between religion and science.

Something of God can be known from the life of Jesus. Something of God can be known from the death and resurrection of Jesus.  And BTW I see these as inseparable; you can't have the Jesus of the resurrection and ignore Jesus as he walked the earth; or vice versa.

Something of God can be known from our experiences as the Holy Spirit lives within us and motivates us to become more holy.  We can also glimpse something of God from the way the Holy Spirit acted through other people of faith and the saints who have gone before us.

The problem here is that this is like the fable of the blind men describing the elephant.  There are a lot of pieces; to get a feel for the whole picture- this is where we need a community where these things can be discussed and shared and passed along. Nobody has the whole picture; but between us we can get closer than we can as individuals.  Christianity has always been a communal religion.

Temp, Seraphim

Not all that long ago I read an interesting piece by a physicist.  On the surface, this guy professes athiesm.   But the interviewer eventually hit on the right questions, and then the world opened up, so to speak.

For this theologian, "atheism" is really just a rejection of the "traditional" view of God.  Based on his words, I suspect he's more into an advanced form of agnosticism (maybe...)  But as I read what he was saying, I found it fascinating, because what he was describing was a very different concept of God.   I think the interviewer eventually caught on, which helped shape the discussion.  

So to this guy, it is the "rules" of creation in which you see the hand of a creator.  Those rules are usually absolute, and when they are not, it generally means we just don't yet know enough to understand why what appears to be a violation, really is not.   And the "language" of that creator is math.  Math, not so much as we learned it in school (anybody remember all of those "proofs?"), but math in the extreme (no doubt, he was talking about math at the level of the cosmologist/physist crowd, wherein it becomes a (or perhaps even the only) language in which to express concepts and thoughts.) 

I gathered that for him, the real struggle was whether there was a difference between "rules" and "math" I think what he was trying to get at as he grappled with the question of whether there is a difference between math and "rules" rings true of the comments here on the difference between pantheism, and panentheism.  IF rules and math are one and the same, the implication is that it's a pantheistic creation.  If however, rules exist and math is the language/tool by which we discover those rules, or perhaps the building blocks from which those rules emanate, then perhaps creation is more panentheistic in nature, and here, he surprised me a bit by suggesting that the creator would actually BE the math, or at least, that may be as close as we will ever be able to get to "knowing" the creator...

So all of this got me to thinking.  First off, I think the guy expressed something quite interesting when he, at least for himself, defined "athiesm" as a rejection of the  traditional views of God.  That's a FAR different animal than the rejection of a God of any/all ilk.  So I wonder how often the term "athiest" is self used by people who simply no longer want to mess with the "standard model" (sorry, couldn't resist) presented by religion, or the people that push it...

Secondly, the concept that God might actually be something "impersonal" like math is probably not something that should be completely written off.  I know that the Christian model calls to a personal God.  Yet, the questions of the ages has always been "where was God," or maybe "how could a God who cares allow that to happen?", etc...   I guess the point is that as much as humankind WANTS God to be a personal, caring, loving entity that knows us all individually and cares individually, that model has issues and problems.  In response to those truly vexing questions,  religions (or more accurately, the clerical part of those religions) often have to tie logic and theology in knots to try to address those kinds of questions.  Along the way, there can be some rather strange outcomes (like perhaps the old model of original sin?)

I don't remember where I read this stuff, but it probably doesn't really matter.  Still I an interesting link to the topic of pantheism, panentheism, and the "knowability" of God...