New belief among teenagers. What do you think?

[Fervent]

I do agree, the real, living impact of Christ’s death and resurrection can’t just be some abstract moral example. That’s really what faith is about.


But at the same time, trying to box that mystery into any one philosophical system misses something vital. The early Church wrestled with this too — Christ’s incarnation and resurrection go beyond our human ideas and invite us into a real, living encounter, not just a concept.


So sure, philosophy can help us put words to it, but in the end, this is a relational, embodied mystery we’re called to live into, with humility and openness.

This isn't about boxing it into one philosophical system, as there are numerous ways to understand the reality of universals. But denying them and relying on nominalist premises ends up severing any ontological connection between Christ's death and our apprehension. understand it as Aristotlean hylomorphism, or Cartesian immaterial substance, or Platonic idealism, or simply don't define it fully. But committing to modern nominalist sensibilities removes the substance of Christ's death, and denying distinct objective categories like male and female is a symptom of that overall disease.

 

[Fervent]

I notice that you’ve yet to refute anything I’ve said, though… Get mad, lash out, and yell “NUH UH!!!” you’ve done… But, again, that and your reliance on metaphysical beliefs don’t change the reality or the facts.

I tend to think this response is proof positive that you want to believe what you want to believe, despite not being able to articulate why, and that’s that.

You've provided your opinions and called them science, and then accused me of word salad. So what am I supposed to "refute"?

 

[FireDragon76]

This isn't about boxing it into one philosophical system, as there are numerous ways to understand the reality of universals. But denying them and relying on nominalist premises ends up severing any ontological connection between Christ's death and our apprehension.

God is encountered personally in prayer, service, and sacrament, not simply through abstract categories. The mystery invites us to live faithfully within tension, bearing paradox without losing the core realities that faith demands.

understand it as Aristotlean hylomorphism, or Cartesian immaterial substance, or Platonic idealism, or simply don't define it fully. But committing to modern nominalist sensibilities removes the substance of Christ's death, and denying distinct objective categories like male and female is a symptom of that overall disease.

Doubling down on a medieval scholastic framework—with all its philosophical abstractions, baggage and questionable fruit —can sometimes trap faith in rigid abstractions and diminish the dynamic, relational encounter that Jesus embodies. Clinging too tightly to scholasticism risks turning faith into a static system rather than a living mystery we participate in. True faith calls us beyond fixed systems into a continual journey of humility, relationship, and new creation.

 

[Fervent]

God is encountered personally in prayer, service, and sacrament, not simply through abstract categories. The mystery invites us to live faithfully within tension, bearing paradox without losing the core realities that faith demands.

Certainly not simply abstract categories, but appealing to mystery doesn't render my objections any less of an issue.

Doubling down on a medieval scholastic framework—with all its philosophical abstractions, baggage and questionable fruit —can sometimes trap faith in rigid abstractions and diminish the dynamic, relational encounter that Jesus embodies. Clinging too tightly to scholasticism risks turning faith into a static system rather than a living mystery we participate in. True faith calls us beyond fixed systems into a continual journey of humility, relationship, and new creation.

There are dangers to scholastic frameworks, but it seems rather...bigoted?...to dismiss alternative approaches simply because it is not one that you have found personally edifying. What you are saying sounds very much like fluff, with little clear substance. And serves more as a distraction than as any kind of meaningful reply to my objections.

 

[FireDragon76]

Certainly not simply abstract categories, but appealing to mystery doesn't render my objections any less of an issue.

There are dangers to scholastic frameworks, but it seems rather...bigoted?...to dismiss alternative approaches simply because it is not one that you have found personally edifying.

It's not bigoted in the sense that I am dismissing it out of hand. I look at its fruit, both personally, socially, and ecologically, and find it lacking. Roman Catholic scholasticism holds up legalism and rigorism as its fruits, and Protestant scholasticism ends in hollow dogmatism, with the heart untransformed. For all the perceived good you think these theological systems have done, they have also contributed to grave evils like colonialism, slavery, and ecological destruction, so we shouldn't trivialize this objection as mere bigotry.

On the other hand, really following Jesus' teachings, being engaged in a life of prayer and sacramental participation, changes lives at a deep level, beyond intellectual understanding.

What you are saying sounds very much like fluff, with little clear substance. And serves more as a distraction than as any kind of meaningful reply to my objections.

When I speak of mystery, I’m not offering vague fluff. Rather, I’m inviting a faith that is embodied, relational, and dynamic—one that calls us beyond defensive argument into real participation in the life of Christ.

If that sounds like a distraction, I would encourage you to consider that the fullness of truth might be bigger than any framework can hold.

 

[Fervent]

It's not bigoted in the sense that I am dismissing it out of hand. I look at its fruit, both personally, socially, and ecologically, and find it lacking. Roman Catholic scholasticism holds up legalism and rigorism as its fruits, and Protestant scholasticism ends in hollow dogmatism, with the heart untransformed. For all the perceived good you think these theological systems have done, they have also contributed to grave evils like colonialism, slavery, and ecological destruction, so we shouldn't trivialize this objection as mere bigotry.

I think you're mistaking a general corrupting influence of secular authority and human selfishness with a principled approach to theological inquiry. Legalism and rigorism are about control, and a large reason such issues didn't crop up in the Eastern churches is their subjugation and existence as a church in captivity.

On the other hand, really following Jesus' teachings, being engaged in a life of prayer and sacramental participation, changes lives at a deep level, beyond intellectual understanding.

It isn't an either/or.

When I speak of mystery, I’m not offering vague fluff. Rather, I’m inviting a faith that is embodied, relational, and dynamic—one that calls us beyond defensive argument into real participation in the life of Christ.

I fail to see the relevance.

If that sounds like a distraction, I would encourage you to consider that the fullness of truth might be bigger than any framework can hold.

I'm quite aware, but its not as if we can be entirely free of frameworks. You just seem to take issue with one approach, while romanticizing another.

 

[RDKirk]

Male and female is a binary we as humans created to classify people scientifically and socially. There have been people to don’t fit into that classification since people walked the earth, it’s only now that we’ve expanded the classifications to more accurately reflect the complexities of gender. Nothing has changed except our understanding of gender and what makes us what we are.

Nature weeds out the genetic results of those who are not sexual males or females in the human reproductive cycle.

Besides which, non-binary gender has existed in the animal and plant kingdom for a millennia. It’s not like non-binary is a recently invented classification, just that we now know how it applies to us, too, and how it’s not an aberration, but a normal state of being and our classifications have flexed appropriately.

Animals have gender? I was told gender is a human social construct.

 

[FireDragon76]

I think you're mistaking a general corrupting influence of secular authority and human selfishness with a principled approach to theological inquiry. Legalism and rigorism are about control, and a large reason such issues didn't crop up in the Eastern churches is their subjugation and existence as a church in captivity.

I'm not saying Eastern Christian theology is a perfect system, but its way of knowing is actually consonant with actual embodied human experience (indeed, there are many resonances between Eastern Christian spirituality, and many indigenous and premodern or non-western ways of knowing). OTOH, Latin theology has tended to denigrate embodied experience: Augustine saw the human body as deeply problematic, and Aquinas builds on this legacy, and further complicates it by subtly denigrating participatory knowing as well.

I'm quite aware, but its not as if we can be entirely free of frameworks. You just seem to take issue with one approach, while romanticizing another.

It's not romanticism. I'm not appealing necessarily to Orthodoxy as an institutional religion, but the way of knowing embodied in patristic thought, reflected in the Orthodox church, but which is also found in certain contemporary streams of Anglicanism, Methodism, or contemporary Catholicism, and which has resonance with many traditional ways of knowing throughout the world.

 

[Fervent]

I'm not saying Eastern Christian theology is a perfect system, but its way of knowing is actually consonant with actual embodied human experience (indeed, there are many resonances between Eastern Christian spirituality, and many indigenous and premodern or non-western ways of knowing). OTOH, Latin theology has tended to denigrate embodied experience: Augustine saw the human body as deeply problematic, and Aquinas builds on this legacy, and further complicates it by subtly denigrating participatory knowing as well.

You're again mistaking the fruit of gnostic influences with a structured, principled approach to theology and philosophy. There certainly needs to be a return in academic theology to thinking in terms of the incarnation, but that's not exclusive to the Western approach to theology. At least not as a reason to exclude such an approach.

It's not romanticism. I'm not appealing necessarily to Orthodoxy as an institutional religion, but the way of knowing embodied in patristic thought, reflected in the Orthodox church, but which is also found in certain contemporary streams of Anglicanism, Methodism, or contemporary Catholicism, and which has resonance with many traditional ways of knowing throughout the world.

There's certainly cause for a more full bodied approach to faith, but that's no reason to demean philosophical rigor as if we have to choose between a fuller approach to faith and engaging with taxonomic approaches. There's cause for not reifying them as they have been, but simply because there have been abuses does not mean we should dismiss the approach entirely.

 

[FireDragon76]

You're again mistaking the fruit of gnostic influences with a structured, principled approach to theology and philosophy. There certainly needs to be a return in academic theology to thinking in terms of the incarnation, but that's not exclusive to the Western approach to theology. At least not as a reason to exclude such an approach.

There's certainly cause for a more full bodied approach to faith, but that's no reason to demean philosophical rigor as if we have to choose between a fuller approach to faith and engaging with taxonomic approaches. There's cause for not reifying them as they have been, but simply because there have been abuses does not mean we should dismiss the approach entirely.

All I know is that nobody ever truly encountered God without being willing to deeply challenge their categories of thought. An encounter with God has a habit of shattering our categories and expectations, as even Aquinas was forced to admit in the end, when he confessed his writings were "all straw".

 

[Fervent]

All I know is that nobody ever truly encountered God without being willing to deeply challenge their categories of thought. An encounter with God has a habit of shattering our categories and expectations, as even Aquinas was forced to admit in the end, when he confessed his writings were "all straw".

My experience is that God isn't restricted by our predilictions and we can't force encounter. But again, it's not an either/or proposition as if we have to choose between academic rigor and a rich spiritual/tactile/relational life.

 

[FireDragon76]

My experience is that God isn't restricted by our predilictions and we can't force encounter. But again, it's not an either/or proposition as if we have to choose between academic rigor and a rich spiritual/tactile/relational life.

Jesus didn't say "Blessed are the bookworms", but "Become as little children". That's the heart of the matter.

My critique of "academic rigor" isn't out of bigotry, either. I have seen how empty, hollow academic rhetoric hollows out religious institutions. As the Korean proverb goes, "the empty cart makes the most noise". A theology that is not grounded in lived transformation and Christlikeness: humility, wonder, and love, simply isn't worth paying attention to.

 

[Fervent]

Jesus didn't say "Blessed are the bookworms", but "Become as little children". That's the heart of the matter.

My critique of "academic rigor" isn't out of bigotry, either. I have seen how empty, hollow academic rhetoric hollows out religious institutions. As the Korean proverb goes, "the empty cart makes the most noise". A theology that is not grounded in lived transformation and Christlikeness: humility, wonder, and love, simply isn't worth paying attention to.

Sure sounds like you're working with a set of rather inflexible categories.

 

[FireDragon76]

Sure sounds like you're working with a set of rather inflexible categories.

Here’s a question to hold with care: Where is Christ in your certainty? Not the idea of Christ, but the One who meets us in real, lived relationship, revealed in sacraments and known in the heart?

 

[Fervent]

Here’s a question to hold with care: Where is Christ in your certainty? Not the idea of Christ, but the One who meets us in real, lived relationship, revealed in sacraments and known in the heart?

I find it rather insulting that you would dare to present me with such a question, as if I am your inferior in the faith.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

You've provided your opinions and called them science, and then accused me of word salad. So what am I supposed to "refute"?

I hate to break it to you, but non-binary organisms in the animal and plant kingdom, the reclassification of Pluto due to additional space discoveries, and our expanding knowledge of the world around us due to science is not an opinion… It’s basic fact.

Talking about the metaphysical in your version of Christianity is, however, an opinion.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

Nature weeds out the genetic results of those who are not sexual males or females in the human reproductive cycle.

Well at least we now have you admitting that non-binary people exist. Next step is to get you to understand that because they exist, they deserve equal rights and that not liking or not understanding them is not a valid reason to deny them that.

I’ll ignore the “nature weeds out the genetic results” nonsense because, clearly, because there are still a plethora of non-binary people, they’re not being “weeded out” via evolution.

Though I will say the casualness at which you talk about people being “genetic results” to be “weeded out” means you can’t call yourself pro-life with a straight face anymore.

Animals have gender? I was told gender is a human social construct.

Hmmmmm… If you don’t know about gender in the animal and plant kingdom, I’m not sure you’re equipped to have this discussion.

Especially since when I’ve seen people talk about gender as a social construct, they’re talking about using it as a metric to decide rights, value, and societal roles. Not “no gender exists at all in any way.” Sounds like you’re not understanding the discussion (which given your surprise that animals have gender, it is a distinct possibility) and this probably isn’t the debate for you until you bone up on the basics.

 

[RDKirk]

Well at least we now have you admitting that non-binary people exist. Next step is to get you to understand that because they exist, they deserve equal rights and that not liking or not understanding them is not a valid reason to deny them that.

We're not talking about rights (which are a human social construct), we're talking about nature.

I’ll ignore the “nature weeds out the genetic results” nonsense because, clearly, because there are still a plethora of non-binary people, they’re not being “weeded out” via evolution.

I see you don't know how mutations and evolution work.

Though I will say the casualness at which you talk about people being “genetic results” to be “weeded out” means you can’t call yourself pro-life with a straight face anymore.

When did I call myself pro life? You got a link to that post? Or are you making a presumption?

Hmmmmm… If you don’t know about gender in the animal and plant kingdom, I’m not sure you’re equipped to have this discussion.

Ah, there you go, conflating sex and gender when you want to for the sake of your argument of the moment.

 

[hedrick]

I think you're getting punked. If they really thought they were animals there couldn't be any Internet groups involving them, since they wouldn't be able to read or write. It might be the basis for an interesting attempt to get out of going to school, but I doubt parents would bite.

 

[BCP1928]

It's not merely about classification, and re-classifying Pluto as a micro planetoid is hardly analogous to claiming that men can become women or women can become men.

Your use of the word "become" there is misplaced. Unless you think Pluto "became" something different than it was when it was reclassified.

Your notion that categories are simply abstract taxonomical strucctures reflects a broader philosophical conception that sees such things as epistemic rather than metaphysical, when Christianity in many ways depends on metaphysical distinction among universals.

Christianity does not depend on it. Your theology apparently depends on it but that is not the same thing at all.