People And Planet
November 3, 2010
or google Marie Schickel Rottschaefer
Resume Blog 2
11-4-10 Last time in blog 1 of my resumed blogs I extended Peter Steinfels’ metaphor of a church further adrift to it being run aground. Its foundation based on the incarnation and resurrection beliefs have to evolve into a new faith phenomenon.
Prior to this in my post 10-24-10 to PCV in response to Steinfels’ piece I said the bedrock, the theological infrastructure of Christianity i.e. the doctrines of the incarnation and resurrection appear to have collapsed. Biblical-historical scientific scholarship and philosophical reasoning e.g. epistemology in exposing the circular argument of the "faith-revelation' issue are bottom line reasons why educated people can no longer practice Christianity. This Axial Age religion has run its course. A post-Axial Age faith phenomenon is evolving. Biblical-historical science and epistemological reasoning are intersecting to strengthen the position that we are moving into a post-Axial Age faith phenomenon.
The Axial Age cultural cohesion seeking personal wholeness and social coherence was functional but over time has moved into significant dysfunction. (See Loyal Rue: Everybody’s Story and Religion Is Not About God.) Dysfunction has its own reasons and causes. Who has not encountered dysfunction in some form in his/her individual life? The history of Homo sapiens tells the story. Momentous issues such as the advancement of human knowledge and the dire state of planet earth and its inhabitants propel humanity into indispensable and unprecedented change. Anyone of us can notice small, subtle cutbacks in goods and services that just a few years ago were not the case. But for a large percentage of the planet the situation of scarcity is multiplied drastically.
Besides the biblical-historical scientific scholarship, epistemological reasoning necessitates examining the circular argument inherent in the faith and revelation issue be it a Catholic or Protestant viewpoint. We are nudged into the realization that our long-standing Christian faith has finished its course. A provisionally named post-Axial Age faith phenomenon is our only recourse if we are to continue as faith-seekers. I say provisionally because this definitive century will name itself. So what is the problem with the faith-revelation issue?
First let’s refresh our memories as to the definition of ‘begging the question’. Begging the question is a form of logical fallacy in which a statement or claim is assumed to be true without evidence other than the statement or claim itself. When one begs the question, the initial assumption of a statement is treated as already proven without any logic to show why the statement is true in the first place. [For those who have not studied philosophy, logic is another branch of philosophy as is epistemology]. We can see why both science and philosophy are essential tools in constructing a post-axial age faith. We need the evidence of science but the reasoning power of philosophy to correct possible errors of thinking and enhance our cognitive capacities.
So, returning to Thomas Sheehan’s “Revolution in the Church” article mentioned in resumed Blog 1 he explains the circularity in the faith and revelation connection. “In other words, the Catholic argument from revelation seems to end up either begging the question (the infallible interpreters of revelation must first interpret revelation as constituting them infallible) or taking refuge in a quasi Protestantism that throws believers back on their personal experience of God's revelation. But if one follows the second path, -- the same circularity of revelation of himself is what brings faith about; yet only from within faith can the believer know that there has been revelation and what has been revealed.” “Over and above the scientific gains that the Catholic liberal consensus has made, its major achievement has been to rediscover the ineluctability of this hermeneutical circle of revelation and faith. -- In any case, this rediscovery seems to be bringing the Church to what can be called the end of Catholicism, that is, to the limits of what it can say about God and the human condition.”
I fine-tune this for my own understanding as follows. The circularity = the explanatory circle of revelation and faith i.e. revelation brings faith about yet only through faith can the believer know that revelation exists. A circular argument has no epistemic ground; its foundations, scope and validity are not available. See Robert Audi’s Belief Justification and Knowledge for more on the circular argument.
What works for me in developing a post-Axial Age faith is to consider my own contingent (dependent) being. Therefore there must be a Necessary Being, a Supreme Being, the Origin of my being from which I exist. I am a person and so my personhood came from the fullness of personhood i.e. this Necessary Being Who is the fullness of the Personal. My being is generated from the One Who is Person, but not in the Christian sense of Trinity. (Jesus as second person of the Trinity appears to be an obsolete reality; read more of the biblical scholars including Sheehan to check this out.) If there was no incarnation and resurrection of Jesus then the Trinity concept needs to be replaced. All people -- believers of any religion -- a non-believer who says that we could have come from nothing, (I actually heard someone say this!), might consider it more logical to believe that we came from necessary being than from non-being – all of these people might come to a common understanding of our own contingency. Understanding our contingency means that knowledge is our goal and belief is subject to change. We express our being in and with and through our Necessary Being, who is with us in every breath we take, every thought we consider, and every behavior and action we generate. Awesome!
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