tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27612445.post4571671250263820976..comments2024-03-23T12:05:23.537-05:00Comments on The Wild Reed: Agreeing with the VaticanMichael J. Baylyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03087458490602152648noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27612445.post-33834214041968233902008-04-03T15:51:00.000-05:002008-04-03T15:51:00.000-05:00I don't know if I need to respond to liam's commen...I don't know if I need to respond to liam's comment...It's hard to tell if he's critical of what I posted. Let it be noted for the record, though, that I was not criticizing Augustine or Aquinas themselves, but that the Church has not readily admitted new insights into the process of moral 'theologizing' for many centuries. His comment on allowing the 'other lung' to breathe is well put. It is noteworthy that the Jesuits and Redemptorists for the past centuries have been notable in their efforts to employ that other lung in the confessional where in the internal forum, lots of 'objective evils' are handled 'pastorally.'kevin57https://www.blogger.com/profile/01681985465980196347noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27612445.post-82421680434088039672008-04-02T16:19:00.000-05:002008-04-02T16:19:00.000-05:00I think Thomism and even Augustinianism can be too...I think Thomism and even Augustinianism can be too easily be given a breezy bum rap. <BR/><BR/>There are certainly aspects of Augustine's theology that require very careful navigation - even the Church has been careful to do that. But we owe Augustine an understanding of how theology relates to the individual human person - if you value the longstanding Western fascination with the personal relationship of each member of the faithful with God, then you are in deep debt to Augustine. It's more fundamental to our theology even than his particular soteriology. So let's be cautious about assuming Augustine is necessarily a negative - there's lots in the writings by gay Catholics that I can see owes a lot to Augustine.<BR/><BR/>Likewise, we are in deep debt to Aquinas for his systematic theology of the harmony of grace and nature, of the objective and the subjective, and of so much more. <BR/><BR/>So instead of blaming Augustine and Aquinas, it be better to have a much narrower focus: that the Church's moral theology of sexual ethics breaths uniquely with the objective/deductive "lung" alone, rather than along with the subjective/inductive "lung" that it normally also uses. That's not really a function of Augustine or Aquinas as such, and its etiology would be worth addressing by someone capable of doing so well (that's not me).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27612445.post-85848985518944210962008-04-02T06:28:00.000-05:002008-04-02T06:28:00.000-05:00Yes, the Church's 'glory' these past several decad...Yes, the Church's 'glory' these past several decades has been her social ethics. She's been on board since the time of Leo XIII, and as liam indicates, well before that in the philosophical underpinings of her teaching.<BR/><BR/>Where she gets goofy is in maintaining a rigid Augustinian/Thomistic view of sexuality. Essentially, the Church has not admitted any new insights into this realm of teaching for almost eight hundred years...so the "Church" has moved beyond the hierarchy.kevin57https://www.blogger.com/profile/01681985465980196347noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27612445.post-81509367283910958532008-04-01T19:45:00.000-05:002008-04-01T19:45:00.000-05:00I would suggest that many of us progressives often...I would suggest that many of us progressives often neglect the fact that the Catholic Church is the chief institutional *philosophical* defender on this planet of (1) the inherent and inalienable dignity of each human being for the entirety of his/her life spin without regard to whether or how much that life is valued by anyone else, and (2) a moderate realism in terms of metaphysics and epistemology. <BR/><BR/>Not the UN. Pace the UN charter and related documents, the UN is fundamentally a an institution with subjectivist epistemology and a utilitarian/consequentialist ethics. As are almost all modern governments.<BR/><BR/>And, if you are GLBT, subjectivism anda utilitarian/consequentialist mindset are your most profound philosophical *enemies*, even if at more shallow levels they seems to serve one's interests. (Metaphysics and epistemology are key philosophical areas for demographic minorities, shock of shocks - because minorities are quite vulnerable to being utterly overriden by subjectivism and consequentialism - not that many people seem to realize that. But I digress.)<BR/><BR/>It is quite easy to get Roman in inverse with one's dissonance with Rome's approach to moral theology of sexual ethics - basically rejecting it with a kind of antinomian breeziness that can mask a rigidity that is the equal of anything coming from the Curia.<BR/><BR/>That's why more subtle writers like James Allison say: not so fast - it's not that easy - we are in fact called to a place that is not a warm and tidy *home* theologically where we can square up what's in and what's out and feel overly confident about it. Et cet.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com