objective truth

Benedict’s Thinking – II

Benedict’s Thinking – II on July 16, 2011

If one divides into four parts Bishop Tissier’s study of the thinking of Benedict XVI, then the second part presents its philosophical and theological roots. By analyzing the philosophy first, the Bishop is following Pius X’s great Encyclical “Pascendi.” If a wine bottle is dirty inside, the very best of wine poured into it will be spoiled. If a man’s mind is disconnected from reality, as it is by modern philosophy, then even the Catholic Faith filtered through it will be disoriented, because it will no longer be oriented by reality. Here is Benedict’s problem.

Like Pius X before him, the Bishop attributes the prime responsibility for this disaster of modern minds to the German Enlightenment philosopher, Immanuel KANT (1724–1804), who finalized the system of anti-thought, prevailing now everywhere, which excludes God from rational discourse. For if, as Kant claimed, the mind can know nothing of the object except what appears to the senses, then the mind is free to reconstruct the reality behind the sense appearances however it may like, objective reality is dismissed as unknowable, and the subject reigns supreme. If the subject needs God and postulates his existence, well and good. Otherwise, so to speak, God is out of luck!

Bishop Tissier then presents five modern philosophers, all grappling with the consequences of Kant’s subjective folly of putting idea over reality and subject over object. The two most important of them for this Pope’s thinking might be Heidegger (1889–1976), a father of existentialism, and Buber (1878–1965), a leading exponent of personalism. If essences are unknowable (Kant), then there remains only existence. Now the most important existent is the person, constituted for Buber by intersubjectivity, or the “I-You” relationship between subjective persons, which for Buber opens the way to God. Therefore knowledge of the objective God is going to depend on the subjective involvement of the human person. What an insecure foundation for that knowledge!

Yet involvement of the human subject will be the key to Benedict’s theological thinking, influenced firstly, writes the Bishop, by the renowned School of Tuebingen. Founded by J.S. von Drey (1777–1853), this School held that history is moved by the spirit of the age in constant movement, and this spirit is the Spirit of Christ. Therefore God’s Revelation is no longer the Deposit of Faith closed at the death of the last Apostle, and merely made more explicit as time goes on. Instead, it has a constantly evolving content to which the receiving subject contributes. So the Church of each age plays an active and not just passive part in Revelation, and it gives to past Tradition its present meaning. Is this beginning to sound familiar? Like the hermeneutic of Dilthey? See EC 208.

Thus for Benedict XVI God is not an object apart nor merely objective, he is personal, an “I” exchanging with each human “You.” Scripture or Tradition do come objectively from the divine “I,” but on the other hand the living and moving “You” must constantly re-read that Scripture, and since Scripture is the basis of Tradition, then Tradition too must become dynamic by the subject’s involvement, and not just static, like Archbishop Lefebvre’s “fixated” Tradition. Similarly theology must be subjectivized, Faith must be a personal “experiencing” of God, and even the Magisterium must stop being merely static.

“Accursed is the man that puts his trust in man” says Jeremiah (XVII, 5).

Kyrie eleison.

Conciliar “Theologian” – I

Conciliar “Theologian” – I on June 5, 2010

The havoc wrought upon souls throughout the world by the 1960’s collapse of the mass of Catholic bishops at the Second Vatican Council, is immeasurable. So one can hardly reflect too much on the essential problem, because it is still very much with us, in fact more so than ever. It threatens to send all of our souls down to Hell. Last year the Italian fortnightly periodical, Si Si No No, published an article summarising the main errors of a pioneer “theologian” of Vatican II, the French Dominican Fr. Marie-Dominique Chenu. Laid out still more briefly below, his six errors point to the heart of the problem: the putting of man in the place of God (I have changed their order – thereby hangs a tale for another “EC”):

Turning to man, as though it is God that needs to be adapted to modern man, and not modern man to God. But Catholicism strives always to fit man to God, and not the other way around.

Submitting divine Revelation to modern ways of thinking, e.g. Descartes, Kant, Hegel. No more is there any absolute, objective Truth. All religious statements become merely relative and subjective.

Submitting divine Revelation to the historical method, meaning that every truth arose merely in its historical context, so that just as every historical context was or is changing, so no truth is unchanging or unchangeable.

Believing in pantheistic evolution, meaning that God is no longer the Creator essentially distinct from creation. He becomes no different from creatures, which come into being by evolution, and by evolution are constantly changing.

Putting feelings first in matters of religion, i.e. putting religious sentimental experience above either supernatural Faith in the mind or supernatural Charity in the will.

Denying the difference between good and evil, by claiming that the mere existence of a human act makes it good. Now it is true that every human act that happens has the goodness of being, but it only has moral goodness if it is ordered to its end, which is ultimately God. Human acts not ordered to God are morally evil.

The six errors are obviously inter-connected. If (1) religion is to centre on me, then (2 & 3) I must unhook my mind from reality, where religion centres on God. With the mind crippled, then (4) “nothing is but what is not,” so everything evolves, and (5) feelings take over (whereupon religion is by the fault of men feminized, because emotion is women’s prerogative). Finally, where feelings replace truth, (6) morality collapses.

In the Vatican II documents themselves, these errors are rather implicit than explicit, because the errors had to be disguised for the documents to get the vote of the mass of Catholic bishops who were attending the Council but were not yet sufficiently up-dated. However, these errors represent the fully up-dated “spirit of Vatican II,” which is where the Council was headed, and that is why the official Church has been on a path of self-destruction for the past 45 years: 1965 to 2010. For how many more years?

Kyrie eleison.

“Pascendi” – II

“Pascendi” – II on November 3, 2007

Before the centenary year of Pope St. Pius X’s great anti-modernist encyclical, “Pascendi,” closes out, let us give two examples of the light which it throws upon today’s undiminishing confusion in Church and world: the primacy of objective truth, and the non-binding nature of sedevacantism (the disbelief that recent Popes are true popes).

Over the last two centuries, the modern world has fallen more and more into the grave error of subjectivism, whereby every man (or subject) makes his own truth, so that he is free from any supposedly objective truth imposing itself upon his mind from outside. One hundred years ago this error threatened to undermine the objectivity of all Catholic dogma – hence the Encyclical. Yet one hundred years later, despite Pius X’s efforts, the mass of Catholic churchmen are awash in this error – hence Vatican II, Religious Liberty, Ecumenism, etc.

In Pascendi, Pius X nailed the unhooking of the subjective mind from objective reality as the foundation of the coherent Newfaith of the modernists’ Newchurch. What mental rest and spiritual relaxation to be able to lean on the one true religion given to us from outside and above by the one true God, without our having to pay heed to the mass of modern fantasies!

However the Conciliar fantasies have taken such a grip on many of today’s churchmen that the temptation arises to consider that none of them are churchmen at all, in particular the last few Popes. But Pascendi can offer a way out of this temptation by its same teaching that subjectivism unhooks churchmen’s minds from reality. Are they fully aware of how mad they are, when virtually everyone shares in their madness? And if they are not fully aware, do they necessarily disqualify themselves as churchmen? Pascendi suggests at least to me that sedevacantism is not binding.

By no means everyone agrees with letting the Conciliar churchmen off the hook in this way, but that is of secondary importance. Back to Pascendi – what is of primary importance is to give glory to God and to save our souls by submitting our minds to that one objective Faith which God has revealed, and without which nobody can please God (Heb XI:6).

Kyrie eleison.