Last week I was thinking about how the current two poles of polarized Catholicism can be distinguished by where they think authority for judgments of truth and goodness comes from. Does it come from outside yourself, from an institution that was founded by God, or does it come from inside yourself, from your cultural formation and reasoning about all you have heard and seen. This week I am thinking that cultural formation is the whole answer.
When you are a kid, there is a source of authority. You learn what you learn about what is true and good from parents, teachers, religious leaders, the conventional sense of the people you live with. Even later, there is a source of authority for stuff you can't know by yourself: the cause of gravitational pull, the inner workings of the nervous system, what medications to take to cure the disease, most things scientific. There are innumerable bits of information in the universe, and most of the known bits we have to take on the authority of the community of inquiry that has studied the questions.
So the question is not about authority really. It's about where your cultural formation has taught you to look for its source and the language you use to talk about it. Anybody likely to be reading this is convinced the source of authority is human discovery. And I suspect most would say that the "divine" quality, or the mysterious something beyond us, is in the knowledge-discovering consciousness of humans that drives cultural evolution. If we use the word "God" it is in a non-theistic sense, reference to the mysterious creative force we can't comprehend. However, if you were formed entirely within the language usage of the Roman Catholic Church, you are likely to say it comes from God and given to men, the particular men who make up the institutional church. Voila! All about cultural formation and the language usage of your thought patterns.
Thinking about it this way makes me feel better. There is still a point in going head to head with someone who is formed in a different culture and using a different language, but there is no sense to indignation and blame for the other's lack of comprehension. What do you think?
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Authority
What is the difference between liberal and conservative Catholics? I'm thinking it's about authority. How do we know truth and how do we judge what is good? On what authority can we rely?
Imagine the interior life as an ocean journey, navigating your ship from one island of solid ground to a new and better one as you go. Some people find a continent and settle for life. Some want to search the whole archipelago and then set sail for the next continent.
Or imagine jumping across a wide flooding stream from rock to solid rock, the prospect of falling in and being swept away always on your mind.
Or imagine climbing a steep rock face, finding sure handholds and toeholds, on your way to the vista at the top.
The metaphors are about solid ground, the sure places a person has to find to live or to move forward. I'm thinking that no matter how unreflective a person might be, or how unarticulated the fundamentals are, to be sane we have some trusted ground under foot. It's the sense of who we are, what it is all about.
The Catholic Church, in its current institutional format and culture, is like one continent, a big old solid piece of ground. It says you can count on its slow sifting of what humans know and its declarations of truth and goodness to guide your whole life. It claims divine guidance for itself in that process of assuring its members of the true and the good. You can rely on its authority. Conform your thoughts, obey, and you are safe.
If, instead of looking to the current Catholic teaching authority, you look to the 2000 year tradition of Christianity for footholds and toeholds,solid ground to stand on, you will have to make your own study, your own judgments, or join a Christian community to identify with, to depend on for guidance to solid ground.
But if your life's journey has taken you to other cultural continents, other islands big and small, you may have a different perspective on what is true and good, what is solid ground to identify yourself on. What authority do you rely on for your identity, for judging what is true and good?
You piece together an identity from all you have seen and heard, you keep questioning and listening to the serious voices around you, you act from your best judgment of the moment. The authority is within yourself within the human community. You could say the divine guidance comes through humanity as a whole in its slow and painful evolution toward some end, the truth and goodness of which we only hope for.
Is a person who calls him/herself a liberal Catholic a person who acknowledges a cultural formation within the Catholic tradition, and the deep wisdom in the tradition, but who, nevertheless, does not rely on the authority of the pope and bishops for a final judgment about what is true or good? Or maybe it's a relative matter: no one relies for final judgment on the pope and bishops, but "conservative" Catholics want to affirm that solid ground exists in institutional form somewhere in the world.
What do you think?
Imagine the interior life as an ocean journey, navigating your ship from one island of solid ground to a new and better one as you go. Some people find a continent and settle for life. Some want to search the whole archipelago and then set sail for the next continent.
Or imagine jumping across a wide flooding stream from rock to solid rock, the prospect of falling in and being swept away always on your mind.
Or imagine climbing a steep rock face, finding sure handholds and toeholds, on your way to the vista at the top.
The metaphors are about solid ground, the sure places a person has to find to live or to move forward. I'm thinking that no matter how unreflective a person might be, or how unarticulated the fundamentals are, to be sane we have some trusted ground under foot. It's the sense of who we are, what it is all about.
The Catholic Church, in its current institutional format and culture, is like one continent, a big old solid piece of ground. It says you can count on its slow sifting of what humans know and its declarations of truth and goodness to guide your whole life. It claims divine guidance for itself in that process of assuring its members of the true and the good. You can rely on its authority. Conform your thoughts, obey, and you are safe.
If, instead of looking to the current Catholic teaching authority, you look to the 2000 year tradition of Christianity for footholds and toeholds,solid ground to stand on, you will have to make your own study, your own judgments, or join a Christian community to identify with, to depend on for guidance to solid ground.
But if your life's journey has taken you to other cultural continents, other islands big and small, you may have a different perspective on what is true and good, what is solid ground to identify yourself on. What authority do you rely on for your identity, for judging what is true and good?
You piece together an identity from all you have seen and heard, you keep questioning and listening to the serious voices around you, you act from your best judgment of the moment. The authority is within yourself within the human community. You could say the divine guidance comes through humanity as a whole in its slow and painful evolution toward some end, the truth and goodness of which we only hope for.
Is a person who calls him/herself a liberal Catholic a person who acknowledges a cultural formation within the Catholic tradition, and the deep wisdom in the tradition, but who, nevertheless, does not rely on the authority of the pope and bishops for a final judgment about what is true or good? Or maybe it's a relative matter: no one relies for final judgment on the pope and bishops, but "conservative" Catholics want to affirm that solid ground exists in institutional form somewhere in the world.
What do you think?
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