Dr. Pence, in an earlier thread, implied that certain mainstream Judeo-Christian sects did not share the same faith that evangelicals consistently exhibit. I believe he is correct in his observations and hope that he might pursue the question.
At the core of the modern problem of faith, both public and private, lies the distinction or differentiation of the theologia supranaturalis and the theologiae civiles. (see E.V., CW, Vol. 11, History and Gnosis)
There is a significant, mostly implied, pressure within the mainstream churches for its membership to conduct their lives, including their spiritual lives, in a manner that emphasizes the civic virtues and to celebrate the spiritual aspects of their faith within the strict guidelines of doctrine which by its very definition eschews, or at the very least, limits, the reality of the engendering possibilities inherent in the Incarnation.
Without the ‘experience’ of the Christ/Incarnation/Logos the individual’s movement within the tension of reality is restrained, and pneumatic growth is retarded if not obliterated. Being can not move any closer toward Infinite Being. However, the engendering experience presents the danger of what Rudolph Bultmann referred to as “eschatological existence.”
The result has two possibilities: one’s faith can atrophy and potentially die, or that faith can devolve into a gnostic deformation. The atrophy is clearly discernible in terms of church attendance, while the gnostic derailment predicated on “eschatological existence” becomes possible if it’s experienced as the “integral existence of man.”
Man then, rightly exists in the “mystery of history” which includes that singular event of history, the Incarnation. But what of salvation emerging from the extremes of doctrinal existence and “eschatological existence?
August 21st, 2009 | 1:13 pm
Mr Cheeks
To begin by clarifying : Your abbreviated references are to Eric Voegelin’s six volume work Order and History. What do you mean by “engendering”?
I am glad to see you reference EV becuase my own comments are in consonance with what i think is the central argument of his work. My major criticism is against what I think of as an erroneous tenedency of conservative Catholic intellectuals who have somehow convinced evangelicals that their references to the Living God when dealing with civic life are not as nuanced and mature as the Catholic arguments from natural law and various “principles derived from a religious worldview”. This is a serious ongoing temptation for intellectuals. A very good book which gets at this argument is by an atheist David Chappel A Stone of Hope. He sees how the biblical prophetic language of the civil rights movement was much more effective than the univeralistic John Dewey logic for racial equality which was decades old befiore the fire of the prohetic Openly God cenetered language was lit. Voeglin beieved that the civic order could not be established or maintained without a reference to the trqnscendent. In America our reference is to a real God who has claled us together not only as a church but has organized men into nations. The morality and role of one’s nation in history becomes a central biblical way of understanding our lives together as Christians and fellow citizens. We know the nation is not the church. We do not confuse eschatology which we experience in liturgy with civic community or destiny. Another very good book showing a robust sense of civic comunity under God is Redeeemr Nation by Ernest Tuveson. Please accept these comments as first shot i know I have not directly responded to your paragraphs. You are more a philosopher than me. i am interested in the nature of public rhetoric and the necessity of oration and male personlaity and leadership in restoring the public natuire of political life. This can only happen I think when we become much more openly theistic and masculine in our language and public argument.
August 21st, 2009 | 6:28 pm
I understand EV’s use of the word, ‘engendering,’ to mean a ‘coming forth’ as an existent in the tension of existence (e.g. that God shares the metaxy of existence and participates with man in a movement of thought that is dialectics). The philosophical term that explains the appearance of the Logos in existent reality as an event in time, further differentiated by Paul as “the distinction between divine ‘invisibles’ and the ‘visibles’ of participatory experiences.”
I am interested in your thoughts on the “shining city on the hill,” re: the “destiny” of the nation in terms of foreign policy.
This is fascinating: “i am interested in the nature of public rhetoric and the necessity of oration and male personlaity and leadership in restoring the public natuire of political life. This can only happen I think when we become much more openly theistic and masculine in our language and public argument.”
Are you in favor of the theocracy? Are you looking for a means or method to unite the disparate Christian sects? Your project “…in restoring the public nature of political life” begs the question, How is that possible in a socialist regime?
August 21st, 2009 | 9:23 pm
The definition of “engendering” helps alot and reminds me of several Voegelin’ notions. In the New Science of Politics he talks about the “Aristotelian philia–the experiential nucleus of true community between mature men.” He had a sense that if men were open to the ordering of their souls (often led by a great souled leader) then the representation of society might also be a representation of some transcendent truth. This really can happen and does happen at different times in history. (There is a great book by Phillip Rieff about this communal opening to grace called Charisma–In that book Rieff explains that charisma is really an opening by many men or whole communities to the Spirit and grace. it is not the pinched protestant Max Weber notion of charisma residing in a singular historical founder and then followed by a devitalized bureaucratic institution through history. Great book Charisma by Rieff to read!!)).
Voegelin says a social group is understood best by the type of personality it produces. The republican ticket of a practical insider careerist for foreign policy buttressed by an evangelical woman to get out the vote of “the base” is a great representation of the cultural inadequacy of the Republican coalition. To hit closer to home, the neoconservative young males I know were ostentatiously absent in signing on for the war in Iraq . The thin chested neocons and crunchy cons sipping coffee and reading Wendell Berry about local community but never visiting the local water dept or sewage system are a type of personality produced by the present conservative intellectual movement. They never got to that local sewage plant and they were replaced in Iraq by the hundred women who died there to our nation’s shame. BOth Left and Right agreed this was a big disagreement but there was certainly no reason for a draft. Especially a draft of all the young males–that would be sexist said the left that would be against freedom said the right. So the patriots and protectors went and many of them were women who thought they were feeding their families getting a weekend job in the Guard.
The thin chested young males are the conservative movement’s personality type as 50 years ago John Kennedy and Vince Lombardi and the first Richard Daly were personalites born of the deeply eschatological Catholic liturgy allowed to be free in Protestant America. Which personalities were most open to the transcendent—to a national destiny? I know what I think.
About the “city on a hill”. Voegelin says an ordered polis should be open to God and can be representative of the dialogue between man and God. That is no confusion of heaven on earth. It is a city of men– a mature friendship of men– acting in political community under God. My own thought about America is that she is the greatest fruit of the Protestant Reformation. America is a Protestant nation with her public rhetoric and symbols– a synthesis of classical rational thought of civic virtue and Calvinist Providence. The Protestant Reformation has eventually sent the Catholic clergy back into their proper role as proclaimers of the gospel even as the mainline Protestants have lost all semblance of apostolic type church authority. The one American religious movement which has deepened a sense of priesthood and apostolic formation are(sic) the Mormons. Their Christology is anti trinitarian but their vibrancy shows the resilience of the representational truth of strong masculine group formation protecting sacred marriages.
The last stand of the temporal Catholic church was led by Pius IX in 1870. He forbade Catholic laymen to participate in the civic life of the forming Italian nation. That edict was a prototype of clerical overstep into matters of lay competence. The full acceptance of the new church role in relationship to independent nations came with the formulations of Vatican II. The Church is learning her role. Now the nations have to step up and play our role in the narrative of salvation history. I think America has huge role to play as a Christian nation. Most of us are bound together as Christian brothers but we DELIBERATELY have erected a type of masculine protective public communion which does not demand a confession of faith from any man. I see the nation as the public city of all men of the territory joined in a covenant of protective agreement around the sacred temples inside our civic ring–those sacred temples are our churches and homes and schools—and those sacred temples are the bodies and souls of every woman and child under our collective care(that is not just your wife and kids!!)
Our communal life rests on the sovereignty of God / it really is He in whom we trust. Our brotherhood with non Christians rests on a shared duty to protect. There is no problem for Catholics to see how clearly the nation and the Church are robustly different institutions. We Christian brothers must bring this form of public communion –our joining in common duty as the analogical form for political life. This is not socialism. It is a biblical understanding of the nation—and remember the nation is a communal form which atheist European Unionists, Caliphate seeking jihadists and international Communists all agree must go(especially that particularly well armed Christian entity–America). The last battle is going to be fought by nations. You would like to be a nation ready to fight and recognize the coming of the Messiah.(I have no idea when or how that is going to happen. I do know if you have trouble accepting male leadership and wince when hearing an authoritative male voice–the second coming is going to be a bit of a challenge.)
You want to be in a nation that can act as a unit and accept leadership. If today you dont like the present civic authority then practice the virtue of civic obedience–it is absolutely necessary if down the road we are to be a coherent fighting force for Christ. He doesnt want six of you praising each other for your philosophical acumen and egalitarian marriages. He is a world leader and He will be assembling the nations. We wont be ready if none of us think in the wide radius trust circles of nation men. The city on the hill IS shining, but look closely at what the over churched John Winthrop and the non churched Ronald Reagan might not have seen or explained. The watchmen on the walls of the city are all the men in a citizen bond of duty while that light you see shining comes from the temples within where even deeper unions abide in openess to the living God.
Sorry for being way too long–i didnt have time to write a decent short note.
August 21st, 2009 | 9:34 pm
The definition of “engendering” helps a lot and reminds me of several Voegelin’ notions. In the New Science of Politics he talks about the “Aristotelian philia–the experiential nucleus of true community between mature men.” He had a sense that if men were open to the ordering of their souls (often led by a great souled leader) then the representation of society might also be a representation of some transcendent truth. This really can happen and does happen at different times in history. (There is a great book by Phillip Rieff about this communal opening to grace called Charisma–In that book Rieff explains that charisma is really an opening by many men or whole communities to the Spirit and grace. it is not the pinched protestant Max Weber notion of charisma residing in a singular historical founder and then followed by a devitalized bureaucratic institution through history. Great book Charisma by Rieff to read!!)).
Voegelin says a social group is understood best by the type of personality it produces. The republican ticket of a practical insider careerist for foreign policy buttressed by an evangelical woman to get out the vote of “the base” is a great representation of the cultural inadequacy of the Republican coalition. To hit closer to home, the neoconservative young males I know were ostentatiously absent in signing on for the war in Iraq . The thin chested neocons and crunchy cons sipping coffee and reading Wendell Berry about local community but never visiting the local water dept or sewage system are a type of personality produced by the present conservative intellectual movement. They never got to that local sewage plant and they were replaced in Iraq by the hundred women who died there to our nation’s shame. The left thougth an all male draft would be sexist and the right thopught it would be a inconvienence to their freedom–so a different group of patriots fought and died in the war.
The thin chested males are the conservative movement’s personality type as surely as John Kennedy and Vince Lombardi and the first Richard Daly were personalities born of the deeply eschatological Catholic liturgy allowed to be free in Protestant America. Which personalities were most open to the transcendent—and prepared to participate in a national destiny? I know what I think.
About the “city on a hill”. Voegelin says an ordered polis should be open to God and can be representative of the dialogue between man and God. That is no confusion of heaven on earth. It is a city of men– a mature friendship of men– acting in political community under God. My own thought about America is that she is the greatest fruit of the Protestant Reformation. America is a Protestant nation with her public rhetoric and symbols– a synthesis of classical rational thought of civic virtue and Calvinist Providence. The Protestant Reformation has eventually sent the Catholic clergy back into their proper role as proclaimers of the gospel even as the mainline Protestants have lost all semblance of apostolic type church authority. The one American religious movement which has deepened a sense of priesthood and apostolic formation are(sic) the Mormons. Their Christology is anti Trinitarian but their vibrancy shows the resilience of the representational truth of strong masculine group formation protecting sacred marriages.
The last stand of the temporal Catholic church was led by Pius IX in 1870. He forbade Catholic laymen to participate in the civic life of the forming Italian nation. That edict was a prototype of clerical overstep into matters of lay competence. The full acceptance of the new church role in relationship to independent nations came with the formulations of Vatican II. The Church is learning her role. Now the nations have to step up and play our role in the narrative of salvation history. I think America has huge role to play as a Christian nation. Most of us are bound together as Christian brothers but we DELIBERATELY have erected a type of masculine protective public communion which does not demand a confession of faith from any man. I see the nation as the public city of all men of the territory joined in a covenant of protective agreement around the sacred temples inside our civic ring–those sacred temples are our churches and homes and schools—and those sacred temples are the bodies and souls of every woman and child under our collective care(that is not just your wife and kids!!)
Our communal life rests on the sovereignty of God / it really is He in whom we trust. Our brotherhood with non Christians rests on a shared duty to protect. There is no problem for Catholics to see how clearly the nation and the Church are robustly different institutions. We Christian brothers must bring this form of public communion –our joining in common duty as the analogical form for political life. This is not socialism. It is a biblical understanding of the nation—and remember the nation is a communal form which atheist European Unionists, Caliphate seeking jihadists and international Communists all agree must go(especially that particularly well armed Christian entity–America). The last battle is going to be fought by nations. You would like to be a nation ready to fight and recognize the coming of the Messiah.(I have no idea when or how that is going to happen. i do know if you have trouble accepting male leadership and wince when hearing an authoritative male voice–the second coming is going to be a bit of a challenge.)
You want to be in a nation that can act as a unit and accept leadership. If today you dont like the present civic authority then practice the virtue of civic obedience–it is absolutely necessary if down the road we are to be a coherent fighting force for Christ. He doesn’t want six of you praising each other for your philosophical acumen and egalitarian marriages. He is a world leader and He will be assembling the nations. We wont be ready if none of us think in the wide radius trust circles of nation men. The city on the hill IS shining, but look closely at what the over churched John Winthrop and the non churched Ronald Reagan might not have seen or explained. The watchmen on the walls of the city are all the men in a citizen bond of duty while that light you see shining comes from the temples within where even deeper unions abide in openness to the living God.
Sorry for being way too long—I didn’t have time to write a decent short note.
August 24th, 2009 | 3:56 pm
[...] our friend Joseph, who finds me pernicious, lately, will enjoy discussing it. None of it is really new, though. Why America needs Thomas Aquinas: Fr. Robert Barron writes: Thomas Aquinas was a deep [...]
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