As regular readers of the TLT sub-forum know, I am attempting to work my way through a book written in the late 70s called "Does Sin Change?" by Father Sean Fagan, Society of Mary. I promised to start some threads on topics from or related to the reading as I progressed.
This is actually a very challenging book so far, and not entirely what I expected. Honestly, I thought I'd just start typing out excerpts from someone I kind of expected to be a better educated holier man than I am, but one who had similar progressive liberal instincts and would wind up saying a bunch of things I mostly agreed with, but having extra facts, insights, and better use of language and analogies at his disposal.
Instead, I am finding something quite different.
Father Fagan comes out of the gate sounding very conservative. For like 50-60 pages. You can kind of see in there a touch of liberalism, like implied criticism of what one might refer to as pharasitical attitudes in the pre-Vatican II church and the quotations of somewhat ridiculous sounding detailed clarifications (At one point, he quotes something that tried to define whether it was morally licit to scratch an inch in a literal sense that happened to be in an area that might cause arousal and, if so, under what conditions and to what extent, it was permissable, in detail), hints of someone who thinks that morality depends on context and that that context can change in fundamental ways, and so on and so forth. However, really, this is not as far of from reading Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's (Pope Benedict) writings in overall tone.
This was written by someone who was presumably a young priest in the 60s and 70s, and one can sense a sort of flavor of that era in the writing itself. Some of the writing style itself just shouts "1950s!" at me in the same way watching select old episodes of The Twilight Zone do. By 1950s, I don't mean the actual stances he takes or slang terms, but rather an intense studied interest in society and digressions into why civil laws are needed and how they generally serve to make people become better people, and to increase efficiency, in the latter case by, for example deciding whether we all drive on the left or right side of the road, because everyone deciding for themselves would cause problems, even though there is no moral difference or even rational reason why the left side is better than the right side or vice-versa. The distinguished but accesible way he communicates makes me think of a man in a black and white movie or television show who goes to a white collar middle class job with a suit coat and tie, greets the wife, and then heads to the study to smoke his pipe and read a newspaper.
Yet, one can see the influence of the next decade or two in that he questions things and comes to interesting conclusions.
Largely, he has traditional notions about sin being a very significant thing, and is a John the Baptist type figure calling for people to refocus on it and repent, while "calling out" some of his liberal contemporaries (Not by name) for disregarding the importance of sin.
He buids up this sort of discussion of man's relationship to God and everything else in such a way that I think most modern conservatives (At least the JP2 types, not the SSPX types) would be pleased with the foundation he lays out.
Then, all of the sudden, based on the foundation, he briefly and casually slips in a significant deviation from the way a conservative would think of natural law, and a view that humankind's nature has been intrinsically changed by civilization and technology. And calls into question whether artificial truly has any meaning, and whether whether something is natural or not means much in a Christian context in the way that is usually used. This, of course, totally tears the "logic" behind Humane Vitae to shreds (Without ever directly mentioning it, or Pope Paul), and one begins to see why I could not find an inpramatuer on the back of the title page.
Despite the opening for some moral uses of artifical contraception and several other things, I don't feel like I'm really reading something that would make Christianity easier for people in most circumstances. Its challenging. And he does not come off as someone who is a leftist is the way a Marcus Borg or John Shelby Spong is, or even most liberal Catholic theologians.
He's using a conservative, albeit not traditionalist, framework to build structures of logic that are just a hair different on each level and in some cases build to liberal or progressive conclusions, but do so in such a way that he still seems very much the product of a conservative culture.
I guess the big thing I see that isn't conservative is that he tends to question authority. But its not a hugely significant amount of the text so far, nor does it seem like an act on authorities.
Its hard to really get a handle on. Its interesting, but not in the way I thought it would be.
He speaks of relationship being more important than specific rules when it comes to understanding God, but its mostly in the vein of Jesus' disciplines plucking corn on the Sabbath or the bible story of rescuing someone who'd fallen into a hole on the Sabbath. A personal relationship with God and being anti-legalism doesn't seem especially radically liberal to me today, but maybe it was then when there was a strong traditionalist faction at the council that got voted down but was still in power in places who were still active in the Church and actually did want those rules that detailed exactly when and for how long you could scratch yourself before it becomes a sin brought back.
I really struggle with understanding and defining the book so far in some ways. It doesn't fit into pre-defined categories and one can tell its an old book also, in addition to ways already mentioned, in that he doesn't seem to really take a side and fit with a modern faction of people. Some of what he says and thinkings seem like the building blocks for JP2/Benedict's theology, and others like the precurers for progressove Catholics. He seems like a man who is not yet done the journey of defining himself, and like this is sort of a step towarss who he will become, but that he isn't there yet.
See, and when I started typing, I didn't think I'd have enough to write. I don't know what I think of the book yet. Its confounding my expectations and is hard to categorize.
I may do more of these as I continue to progress in the book, but I may not. I am not really sure where it is going.
I will leave you all with this random quote from the book:
"It is a misleading oversimplification to think of the Bible as God's revelation dictated to the sacred writers. It is more correctly understood as the written account of the religious experience of the people of God in the Old Testament and of the Christian communities in the New Testament. These writings are inspired in the sense that not only the experiences, but the understanding and recording of it were under the influence of the Holy Spirit. That experience was primarily of the special relationship of intimacy to which they believe God had called and introduced them."
This is actually a very challenging book so far, and not entirely what I expected. Honestly, I thought I'd just start typing out excerpts from someone I kind of expected to be a better educated holier man than I am, but one who had similar progressive liberal instincts and would wind up saying a bunch of things I mostly agreed with, but having extra facts, insights, and better use of language and analogies at his disposal.
Instead, I am finding something quite different.
Father Fagan comes out of the gate sounding very conservative. For like 50-60 pages. You can kind of see in there a touch of liberalism, like implied criticism of what one might refer to as pharasitical attitudes in the pre-Vatican II church and the quotations of somewhat ridiculous sounding detailed clarifications (At one point, he quotes something that tried to define whether it was morally licit to scratch an inch in a literal sense that happened to be in an area that might cause arousal and, if so, under what conditions and to what extent, it was permissable, in detail), hints of someone who thinks that morality depends on context and that that context can change in fundamental ways, and so on and so forth. However, really, this is not as far of from reading Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's (Pope Benedict) writings in overall tone.
This was written by someone who was presumably a young priest in the 60s and 70s, and one can sense a sort of flavor of that era in the writing itself. Some of the writing style itself just shouts "1950s!" at me in the same way watching select old episodes of The Twilight Zone do. By 1950s, I don't mean the actual stances he takes or slang terms, but rather an intense studied interest in society and digressions into why civil laws are needed and how they generally serve to make people become better people, and to increase efficiency, in the latter case by, for example deciding whether we all drive on the left or right side of the road, because everyone deciding for themselves would cause problems, even though there is no moral difference or even rational reason why the left side is better than the right side or vice-versa. The distinguished but accesible way he communicates makes me think of a man in a black and white movie or television show who goes to a white collar middle class job with a suit coat and tie, greets the wife, and then heads to the study to smoke his pipe and read a newspaper.
Yet, one can see the influence of the next decade or two in that he questions things and comes to interesting conclusions.
Largely, he has traditional notions about sin being a very significant thing, and is a John the Baptist type figure calling for people to refocus on it and repent, while "calling out" some of his liberal contemporaries (Not by name) for disregarding the importance of sin.
He buids up this sort of discussion of man's relationship to God and everything else in such a way that I think most modern conservatives (At least the JP2 types, not the SSPX types) would be pleased with the foundation he lays out.
Then, all of the sudden, based on the foundation, he briefly and casually slips in a significant deviation from the way a conservative would think of natural law, and a view that humankind's nature has been intrinsically changed by civilization and technology. And calls into question whether artificial truly has any meaning, and whether whether something is natural or not means much in a Christian context in the way that is usually used. This, of course, totally tears the "logic" behind Humane Vitae to shreds (Without ever directly mentioning it, or Pope Paul), and one begins to see why I could not find an inpramatuer on the back of the title page.
Despite the opening for some moral uses of artifical contraception and several other things, I don't feel like I'm really reading something that would make Christianity easier for people in most circumstances. Its challenging. And he does not come off as someone who is a leftist is the way a Marcus Borg or John Shelby Spong is, or even most liberal Catholic theologians.
He's using a conservative, albeit not traditionalist, framework to build structures of logic that are just a hair different on each level and in some cases build to liberal or progressive conclusions, but do so in such a way that he still seems very much the product of a conservative culture.
I guess the big thing I see that isn't conservative is that he tends to question authority. But its not a hugely significant amount of the text so far, nor does it seem like an act on authorities.
Its hard to really get a handle on. Its interesting, but not in the way I thought it would be.
He speaks of relationship being more important than specific rules when it comes to understanding God, but its mostly in the vein of Jesus' disciplines plucking corn on the Sabbath or the bible story of rescuing someone who'd fallen into a hole on the Sabbath. A personal relationship with God and being anti-legalism doesn't seem especially radically liberal to me today, but maybe it was then when there was a strong traditionalist faction at the council that got voted down but was still in power in places who were still active in the Church and actually did want those rules that detailed exactly when and for how long you could scratch yourself before it becomes a sin brought back.
I really struggle with understanding and defining the book so far in some ways. It doesn't fit into pre-defined categories and one can tell its an old book also, in addition to ways already mentioned, in that he doesn't seem to really take a side and fit with a modern faction of people. Some of what he says and thinkings seem like the building blocks for JP2/Benedict's theology, and others like the precurers for progressove Catholics. He seems like a man who is not yet done the journey of defining himself, and like this is sort of a step towarss who he will become, but that he isn't there yet.
See, and when I started typing, I didn't think I'd have enough to write.
I don't know what I think of the book yet. Its confounding my expectations and is hard to categorize.I may do more of these as I continue to progress in the book, but I may not. I am not really sure where it is going.
I will leave you all with this random quote from the book:
"It is a misleading oversimplification to think of the Bible as God's revelation dictated to the sacred writers. It is more correctly understood as the written account of the religious experience of the people of God in the Old Testament and of the Christian communities in the New Testament. These writings are inspired in the sense that not only the experiences, but the understanding and recording of it were under the influence of the Holy Spirit. That experience was primarily of the special relationship of intimacy to which they believe God had called and introduced them."
