Has Christianity suffered from too much rationalism?

David Cabrera said:

I feel that has affected mainly Protestantism and Catholicism (a few sections of Western Orthodoxy have that too).

The idea that some stories of Scriptures are just fantasy, Biblical characters such as Adam, Moses or Solomon did not exist, that the New Covenant is just about moral improvement (depending on what the "age" thinks though) rather than a change in your soul and body, rhe existence of evil spirits and the Devil, and even disbelief in Christ's virgin birth, resurrection and miracles.

Catholicism have suffered from stuff such as disbelief in sacraments, and the Saints but I might ask more about that in OCOB.

What do you think?

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Jesus quoted some parts of the Hebrew Bible, but not other parts. Some of these may have been like fables, like literature with moral teachings. One should look for the good passages in the Bible. Those who have seen miracles should not deny God’s existence, even though others might accuse them of being irrational.

Rene Loup said:

I'm referring mainly to online Christian communities I've been part of but there are members in my church who might as well move to the US because of their values.

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You mean God doesn't want us to give others life, liberty and the ability to pursue happiness?

David Cabrera said:

Can you find that on Scriptures?

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That's where the drafters of the Constitution found them.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Psalms 19:1 THE heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

Genesis 1:27 - So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Leviticus 24:22 - Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country: for I am the Lord your God.

Romans 2:11 - For there is no respect of persons with God.

Genesis 9:6 - Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

Exodus 20:15 - Thou shalt not steal.

Exodus 21:16 - And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.

Psalms 128:2 - For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.

Ecclesiastes 3:13 - And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.

Leviticus 25:10 - And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.

That's just the beginning...

David Cabrera said:

This has nothing to do with rights, they didn't even abolish slavery in the Old Testament. And the idea of "justice" existed previous to the creation of the US.

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Nobody said it didn't exist. The founders set out to create a government system based on Gods word. Read it yourself, they referred to God and scripture constantly.

I think what our friend here is trying to say is that there are people in the church that deduce the Word of God to a more palatable version for the skeptical mind that follows so called (rationality). Since God's thought processes are so much higher and different to average people(Isa 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.) who don't have any faith it confuses them and foolish pastors and teachers try to deduce it to a human standard of understanding not knowing that understanding of scripture is given by revelation(Gal 1:12 For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.) It is only when you have revelation of whom God is meaning you have met him and know him (Spiritually speaking), that scripture makes sense. That happens when you are born again since it is only the born again Christian who can know God.

The problem is that with the worldly person is that they do not know God and it is foolishness to them,
(1Cor 1:18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.)

David Cabrera said:

Most of the Founders were Unitarians, deists, and freemasons, I believe even Thomas Jefferson said that Paul corrupted Scriptures.

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Most of the signers of the declaration would be considered conservative Christian today. Read their own words, not what people trying to rewrite history say about them. Yes, Jefferson was a bit off the mark.

David Cabrera said:

I feel that has affected mainly Protestantism and Catholicism (a few sections of Western Orthodoxy have that too).

The idea that some stories of Scriptures are just fantasy, Biblical characters such as Adam, Moses or Solomon did not exist, that the New Covenant is just about moral improvement (depending on what the "age" thinks though) rather than a change in your soul and body, rhe existence of evil spirits and the Devil, and even disbelief in Christ's virgin birth, resurrection and miracles.

Catholicism have suffered from stuff such as disbelief in sacraments, and the Saints but I might ask more about that in OCOB.

What do you think?

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I see a lot of well written posts where we agree on what is happening -- that many people don't believe, basically. They believe instead for example something else, such that Christ is only a good person and didn't rise from the dead, for instance.

But I wonder if you feel you really know why it's happening though?

fhansen said:

Hmm, but how does natural law, that speaks of an objective morality, lead to a "path that falls into empiricism and ultimately materialism and relativism"?

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Because it tends to the physical and circumstantial, to situational and inductive reasoning. God's goodness transcends morality, like the law that can never reveal the truth of grace.

fhansen said:

But by your understanding then shouldn't the eastern churches have escaped from the errors of the west since they weren't "subjected to aristotelianism through Medieval scholasticism"?

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Don't know enough about the corrosive factors in the eastern theological tradition. I'd guess iconolatry played a part. But they're still into Philokalia and this poetics of joy-type of symbolic logic, which I find promising.

I'll add that I am obviously generalising, and many personal understandings no doubt remain profound, as the Living God condescends on a daily basis to change men's hearts and cause scales to fall from eyes. So we can continue to be in debt to both Greeks and barbarians. Praise His holy name.

The "God of philosophers" is not the full truth and it comes with its own baggage to sort out. Neoplatonism is kind of a forerunner to Christianity in some ways.

But philosophers often don't see the "God of the prophets" which is part of the Hebrew revelation of God. Even mysticism in general is overrationalized. It is quite person-denying, especially non-Christian mysticism.

The creation story in Genesis is itself overrationalized by many. Many see it through the lens of the newly-born scientific understanding that humans have developed. Plus they rationalize in themselves that the letter is the be-all end-all even though the New Testament says that the letter kills and the spirit gives life.

Jesus spoke in parables and yet we overrationalize that and say every single thing is nothing more than a symbol, even the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

Another common error due to lack of the passing-down of tradition and the overzealous love for the nation of Israel in general... Is the belief that the Old Testament is 100% absolutely historically accurate. This has been a struggle for a long time now, even with the Jews themselves in ancient past. But if you look into it enough you will see that the prophets sometimes spoke things by the spirit and they designated certain kinds of spirits to be certain kinds of Nations.

One of the main reasons the book of Judith is rejected is because of what appears to be an historical accuracy error. In fact another rationalization is the idea that if you cannot find the Old Testament writings in Hebrew then they are not legitimate. Yet God decided to use Greek for the New Testament, because he is not only the god of the Hebrews but the god of the entire world.

So really "rationalization" is just whatever reason is in this or that person's head. Trying to abstract rationalization into an objective and concrete "demigod" has its pros and cons. but part of what the enlightenment tried to do was further build on the largely Christian influence of the high importance of Truth.

But now those atheist rationalist people worship a kind of reason that is supposed to be worshiped by all. It is in some ways good but it is not the same as mankind being an image of God. God is reason and therefore we are micro-reason in as much as we have a communion with God. Sometimes what appears to be irrational is only due to the lack of reason and capacity of a person.

fhansen said:

Modernism and a hyper-rationalism have been making steady inroads into Christianity since the "enlightenment", more so within the last 150 years or so.

This set up a questioning of the truths claimed by Christianity which has blossomed more fully in our own times, and which is not wrong in itself, but with a bias that places science and human capability to comprehend all reality by reason alone to a sort of supreme level.

Eventually cynicism, despair, and unbelief are the natural or inevitable results.

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Even though I know what you mean...it's valuable to ask questions. What really is 'hyper-rationalism' (even though I feel I know what you mean) ? For instance, is it only the idea that one could use logic extensively? I'm not trying to suggest the basic idea there is something wrong in "rationalism" (what does that mean exactly?) is wrong...

But, I feel there is more than one thing mixed in here.

See, to me, it isn't logical thinking that's the problem. (But, we do know it's a profound mistake to trust one's own understanding above all things.) It's instead one's assumptions, since logic only (solely) extends and works out the assumptions a person makes.

Put another way, it's the Garden of Eden mistake: to think oneself can replace God in being the Judge.

So, it's not logical thinking then in that case that is the problem at all.

Or am I just taking the word "rationalism" too literally?

Did you all really mean actually something else, like naturalism?
(I tried to explain exactly what naturalism assumes here in post #16: Has Christianity suffered from too much rationalism?)

GingerBeer said:

Has Christianity suffered from too much rationalism?
No. Christianity suffers from too much credulity. Too much irrationalism.

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That's an interesting take. It is a tendency that many non-scientists imagine science has much more complete answers than actual scientists know that it does, in most fields of science. So, imagining science has more extensive and definite answers than it does, and also seeing historical mistakes of the church like putting Galileo on trial for saying the Earth moves around the sun....people could imagine science is the ultimate knowledge (instead of only slowly accumulating knowledge).

But in reality science is merely the work, effort, to try to understand more about nature. It's sort of like groping in the dark with a small penlight, barely able to see much, often, in many areas of the sciences. Exactly because the effort is to discover what isn't already known. And what is unknown is, realistically, very much about nature. Most even.

At one time some discoveries in biochemistry of the brain led some to hope they could quickly begin to understand consciousness (broadly) because chemistry understands some things quite well; and in fact some naive hypotheses of consciousness as mostly biochemistry were made, but eventually new discoveries in other fields caused us to realize those chemistry of the brain aspects were only a part of whatever is going on in consciousness.

So, to some non scientists, perhaps science takes on a kind of magical quality.
But that's an irrational view of the sciences.

Neostarwcc said:

Because they wanted a CHRISTIAN nation with freedom of religion not a country with freedom of every religion...

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From the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
IOW, "The government will make no laws to establish any type of national religion, and we will permit all citizens to freely worship in whatever religion they choose."

Show me the word "Christian" or "Jesus" anywhere in the U.S. Constitution.

If they wanted a CHRISTIAN nation, that would have been spelled out. You know, something along the lines of "Congress shall make laws respecting the establishment of a CHRISTIAN nation, and give favor to those who exercise their CHRISTIAN religion freely."

Halbhh said:

That's an interesting take. It is a tendency that many non-scientists imagine science has much more complete answers than actual scientists know that it does

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I am a scientist, though I am retired now.

GingerBeer said:

I am a scientist, though I am retired now.

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What was your field if you don't mind me asking? The fields I'm most familiar with are various ones related to astrophysics, but I like to read widely at times.

Halbhh said:

What was your field if you don't mind me asking? (or you could PM me or just refrain from answering if you prefer)

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My first degree is in Chemistry. A double major in Physical & Inorganic Chemistry and also in Organic Chemistry. My second degree is in Mathematics. I ended up working mainly in computing because it is safer than Chemistry and pays better too

GingerBeer said:

My first degree is in Chemistry. A double major in Physical & Inorganic Chemistry and also in Organic Chemistry. My second degree is in Mathematics. I ended up working mainly in computing because it is safer than Chemistry and pays better too

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Ah, that's one of the fields of science where it appears to an outsider to have a fairly advanced level of completion. Is that correct? My father got a degree in chemistry, and worked in mostly practical applications his whole career.

In physics in contrast we have learned that we cannot account for about 95% of the matter and energy in the Universe, currently referred to as 'dark matter' and 'dark energy', and there are a great many competing speculative hypotheses about them.