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GoonSquad
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Kraichgauer
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13 Nov 2013, 9:23 pm
Bill, the image your post evokes is your pastor beginning the editing process on the Bible.
It sounds as if your pastor is treating religion more like philosophy in that philosophy begs us to question everything whereas religion relies on authority. Nobody, no matter how good or holy they are, will ever come up with anything that exceeds the authority of the Bible--or in the Catholic Church, tradition (I await any corrections and elaborations from our resident expert on Catholic theology).
Nor is this an attack on philosophy. One of the reason the West overtook the Orient is that the Chinese were stuck in something of a time warp. For them, being a good philosopher meant treating their masters as authorities not to be questioned. The best Chinese scholar was the one who mastered the classics rather than improve on them.
In the West, since the time of the Greeks, philosophy has been about doing better than one's teacher. The result has been steady innovation rather than the stasis that characterized Chinese philosophy.
Ironically, progressive liberalism has tended more toward the Chinese model than towards the traditional Western model of improving upon past masters. Freud is a prime example. Within the realm of psychoanalysis, Freud is the recognized master, and no other psychoanalyst can improve on his work. As such, psychoanalysis is based upon arguments from authority, much the same as Christianity. It is the same with modern PC. In Europe, questioning the tenets of PC is likely to land one in legal peril, while here it can cost one his job and result in social ostracism.
Bach mentioned the Frankfurt School in an earlier post. Part of this group's perversion of all values has been to make politics something based on authority and religion based upon reason. It is perversion on stilts.
I would certainly accord to your preacher the right to say and believe anything he wants. But removing the Greek influence from Christianity means the end result is no longer Christianity, but something else. Since words have meaning, I would not call anybody who does this kind of thing a Christian.
Untrue. He suggested the Greek influence, coming from a pagan culture, lacks the true connection to the Word that Judaic culture did. Trust me, my pastor is very conservative on theological matters. He is hardly the only one in line with this way of thinking, as it was popular at the very beginning of the Protestant Reformation. That's not to say that my Pastor believes all Greek studies in seminaries should end - far from it, as the oldest and most reliable books of the New Testament were written in Greek, the number one linguistic influence in the east end of the Mediterranean at Christ's time.
Bill, what is and what is not written in Greek doesn't mean anything; I am talking about the content, not the form.
With respect to your preacher, if a "conservative" is one who wishes to rewrite the Bible, pray tell, just what would a liberal be?
Who says he wants to rewrite the Bible. It's a matter of doctrinal understanding leaning on Hebraic based theology rather than Greek philosophy.
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Thelibrarian
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14 Nov 2013, 10:15 am
Bill, the image your post evokes is your pastor beginning the editing process on the Bible.
It sounds as if your pastor is treating religion more like philosophy in that philosophy begs us to question everything whereas religion relies on authority. Nobody, no matter how good or holy they are, will ever come up with anything that exceeds the authority of the Bible--or in the Catholic Church, tradition (I await any corrections and elaborations from our resident expert on Catholic theology).
Nor is this an attack on philosophy. One of the reason the West overtook the Orient is that the Chinese were stuck in something of a time warp. For them, being a good philosopher meant treating their masters as authorities not to be questioned. The best Chinese scholar was the one who mastered the classics rather than improve on them.
In the West, since the time of the Greeks, philosophy has been about doing better than one's teacher. The result has been steady innovation rather than the stasis that characterized Chinese philosophy.
Ironically, progressive liberalism has tended more toward the Chinese model than towards the traditional Western model of improving upon past masters. Freud is a prime example. Within the realm of psychoanalysis, Freud is the recognized master, and no other psychoanalyst can improve on his work. As such, psychoanalysis is based upon arguments from authority, much the same as Christianity. It is the same with modern PC. In Europe, questioning the tenets of PC is likely to land one in legal peril, while here it can cost one his job and result in social ostracism.
Bach mentioned the Frankfurt School in an earlier post. Part of this group's perversion of all values has been to make politics something based on authority and religion based upon reason. It is perversion on stilts.
I would certainly accord to your preacher the right to say and believe anything he wants. But removing the Greek influence from Christianity means the end result is no longer Christianity, but something else. Since words have meaning, I would not call anybody who does this kind of thing a Christian.
Untrue. He suggested the Greek influence, coming from a pagan culture, lacks the true connection to the Word that Judaic culture did. Trust me, my pastor is very conservative on theological matters. He is hardly the only one in line with this way of thinking, as it was popular at the very beginning of the Protestant Reformation. That's not to say that my Pastor believes all Greek studies in seminaries should end - far from it, as the oldest and most reliable books of the New Testament were written in Greek, the number one linguistic influence in the east end of the Mediterranean at Christ's time.
Bill, what is and what is not written in Greek doesn't mean anything; I am talking about the content, not the form.
With respect to your preacher, if a "conservative" is one who wishes to rewrite the Bible, pray tell, just what would a liberal be?
Who says he wants to rewrite the Bible. It's a matter of doctrinal understanding leaning on Hebraic based theology rather than Greek philosophy.
Taking the Greek elements out of the Bible IS to rewrite the Bible. Even if Bach is right, and there is no real Greek influence on the Bible (which is open to debate), removing Greek influence from the liturgy, as well as modern Western thought patterns, is also a form of cultural genocide against the West, which has provided more freedom and innovation to the world that all other civilizations combined. It would make more sense to burn hundred dollars bills.
Thelibrarian
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14 Nov 2013, 10:44 am
Oh my I'm getting a brain workout.
A flabby brain is even more unbecoming than a flabby posterior. :oops:
BTW the Alexandrian School of theology was very Platonistic in its approach -- just to be fair to your position. Some Church Fathers didn't start out too well. Athens was a big university town in the 4th century (or 5th or 6th?), and I recall one future Church Father going there and having the time of his life!
A couple of quick anecdotes I find amusing: St. Augustine, arguably the greatest of the Church fathers, prayed for the gift of chastity--just not right now.
And another of the great Church fathers, St. Jerome, who is probably more responsible for the Christian Bible than any other human being, DID become chaste. He lived in a cave with a lion, and he was reputed to be so ill-tempered that people felt sorry for the lion. By Jerome's own admission, every time he got a sexual thought or urge, he would study Hebrew, and as a result he became the greatest Hebraic scholar the Church produced in its first fifteen hundred years.
Why exactly Christianity caught on is unknown to me. Rabbinic Judaism provided a rich exegetical and mystical tradition. And there were many traditions of interpreting the Law. Apparently it's a fascinating study to discover what was being taught then, but I don't know enough about it.
The theory I accept is that modern, rabbinical/pharisaic Judaism became much more legalistic, and complex, after the temple fell in 70--what is now called Talmudic Judaism. This is one of the reasons why Ashkenazi Jews are the most gifted people on the planet. Those who couldn't understand the religion fell by the wayside.
Something else I could mention that does not fit nicely with my position is that some of the earliest Christians were Judeo-philic Greeks--Greeks who admired the Jews but weren't willing to convert (primarily due to the circumcision requirement) even if Jews had been as willing to accept converts as Christianity has always been. So, in its earliest stages, Christianity was indeed a sort of de-ethnicized Judaism, especially before the Birkat Ha-Minim.
But separating Christianity from its Jewish roots only meant that it became amenable to all Western cultures. And in Christianity's formative years, Greek culture was definitely the sine qua non.
And, yes, to become a mass movement, Christianity had to be simplified so that average citizens of the time, who tended to be illiterate even if they were intelligent, could understand and appreciate it.
Does not preparation parallel Nietzsche's position on presumptions? What do you mean by preparation? And how could that not color what proceeds it?
Preparation as presumption? Hmmm. Preparation = the mind being open to grace. There is properly no proceeding from, say, Plato to Christ. There is rather a fertile ground in the mind prepared for Christ's reception. Presumption seems to connote something distinct.
A secular argument I'm familiar with goes thus: There was a general trend throughout the world starting in about the 5C BC for religion to become much more moral. Prior to that time, religions did contain some wisdom for daily life, but were more etiological than moral. But the gods, including the God of the early OT, tended to be of dubious moral character. This is especially true of Greek and Roman paganism. One of the processes that Platonism started was the notion that God, or the gods, were supreme moral actors who wanted us to behave likewise. Stoicism, while pagan, was heretical insofar as Zeus was portrayed as being a moral actor. This process definitely prepared the way for the reception of the Christian God as the ultimate moral actor (Kierkegaard notwithstanding).
Judaism was also a preparation (see above) for the reception of Christ. In some ways there is continuity, but what was radically new I think was God becoming man, showing us the way, and making final atonement for sin -- new stuff.
Are you a preterist?
Now, as for the liturgy that's a different story entirely! Greek and Roman elements are clearly present there. [/I]
Yes, that is my understanding. But the liturgy is part of Christianity.[/quote]
[I] Touche![/]
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14 Nov 2013, 11:35 am
Bill, the image your post evokes is your pastor beginning the editing process on the Bible.
It sounds as if your pastor is treating religion more like philosophy in that philosophy begs us to question everything whereas religion relies on authority. Nobody, no matter how good or holy they are, will ever come up with anything that exceeds the authority of the Bible--or in the Catholic Church, tradition (I await any corrections and elaborations from our resident expert on Catholic theology).
Nor is this an attack on philosophy. One of the reason the West overtook the Orient is that the Chinese were stuck in something of a time warp. For them, being a good philosopher meant treating their masters as authorities not to be questioned. The best Chinese scholar was the one who mastered the classics rather than improve on them.
In the West, since the time of the Greeks, philosophy has been about doing better than one's teacher. The result has been steady innovation rather than the stasis that characterized Chinese philosophy.
Ironically, progressive liberalism has tended more toward the Chinese model than towards the traditional Western model of improving upon past masters. Freud is a prime example. Within the realm of psychoanalysis, Freud is the recognized master, and no other psychoanalyst can improve on his work. As such, psychoanalysis is based upon arguments from authority, much the same as Christianity. It is the same with modern PC. In Europe, questioning the tenets of PC is likely to land one in legal peril, while here it can cost one his job and result in social ostracism.
Bach mentioned the Frankfurt School in an earlier post. Part of this group's perversion of all values has been to make politics something based on authority and religion based upon reason. It is perversion on stilts.
I would certainly accord to your preacher the right to say and believe anything he wants. But removing the Greek influence from Christianity means the end result is no longer Christianity, but something else. Since words have meaning, I would not call anybody who does this kind of thing a Christian.
Untrue. He suggested the Greek influence, coming from a pagan culture, lacks the true connection to the Word that Judaic culture did. Trust me, my pastor is very conservative on theological matters. He is hardly the only one in line with this way of thinking, as it was popular at the very beginning of the Protestant Reformation. That's not to say that my Pastor believes all Greek studies in seminaries should end - far from it, as the oldest and most reliable books of the New Testament were written in Greek, the number one linguistic influence in the east end of the Mediterranean at Christ's time.
Bill, what is and what is not written in Greek doesn't mean anything; I am talking about the content, not the form.
With respect to your preacher, if a "conservative" is one who wishes to rewrite the Bible, pray tell, just what would a liberal be?
Who says he wants to rewrite the Bible. It's a matter of doctrinal understanding leaning on Hebraic based theology rather than Greek philosophy.
Taking the Greek elements out of the Bible IS to rewrite the Bible. Even if Bach is right, and there is no real Greek influence on the Bible (which is open to debate), removing Greek influence from the liturgy, as well as modern Western thought patterns, is also a form of cultural genocide against the West, which has provided more freedom and innovation to the world that all other civilizations combined. It would make more sense to burn hundred dollars bills.
How is the Greek philosophy divinely inspired the same way the Hebraic scripture is?
_________________
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Thelibrarian
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14 Nov 2013, 11:44 am
Bill, the image your post evokes is your pastor beginning the editing process on the Bible.
It sounds as if your pastor is treating religion more like philosophy in that philosophy begs us to question everything whereas religion relies on authority. Nobody, no matter how good or holy they are, will ever come up with anything that exceeds the authority of the Bible--or in the Catholic Church, tradition (I await any corrections and elaborations from our resident expert on Catholic theology).
Nor is this an attack on philosophy. One of the reason the West overtook the Orient is that the Chinese were stuck in something of a time warp. For them, being a good philosopher meant treating their masters as authorities not to be questioned. The best Chinese scholar was the one who mastered the classics rather than improve on them.
In the West, since the time of the Greeks, philosophy has been about doing better than one's teacher. The result has been steady innovation rather than the stasis that characterized Chinese philosophy.
Ironically, progressive liberalism has tended more toward the Chinese model than towards the traditional Western model of improving upon past masters. Freud is a prime example. Within the realm of psychoanalysis, Freud is the recognized master, and no other psychoanalyst can improve on his work. As such, psychoanalysis is based upon arguments from authority, much the same as Christianity. It is the same with modern PC. In Europe, questioning the tenets of PC is likely to land one in legal peril, while here it can cost one his job and result in social ostracism.
Bach mentioned the Frankfurt School in an earlier post. Part of this group's perversion of all values has been to make politics something based on authority and religion based upon reason. It is perversion on stilts.
I would certainly accord to your preacher the right to say and believe anything he wants. But removing the Greek influence from Christianity means the end result is no longer Christianity, but something else. Since words have meaning, I would not call anybody who does this kind of thing a Christian.
Untrue. He suggested the Greek influence, coming from a pagan culture, lacks the true connection to the Word that Judaic culture did. Trust me, my pastor is very conservative on theological matters. He is hardly the only one in line with this way of thinking, as it was popular at the very beginning of the Protestant Reformation. That's not to say that my Pastor believes all Greek studies in seminaries should end - far from it, as the oldest and most reliable books of the New Testament were written in Greek, the number one linguistic influence in the east end of the Mediterranean at Christ's time.
Bill, what is and what is not written in Greek doesn't mean anything; I am talking about the content, not the form.
With respect to your preacher, if a "conservative" is one who wishes to rewrite the Bible, pray tell, just what would a liberal be?
Who says he wants to rewrite the Bible. It's a matter of doctrinal understanding leaning on Hebraic based theology rather than Greek philosophy.
Taking the Greek elements out of the Bible IS to rewrite the Bible. Even if Bach is right, and there is no real Greek influence on the Bible (which is open to debate), removing Greek influence from the liturgy, as well as modern Western thought patterns, is also a form of cultural genocide against the West, which has provided more freedom and innovation to the world that all other civilizations combined. It would make more sense to burn hundred dollars bills.
How is the Greek philosophy divinely inspired the same way the Hebraic scripture is?
Bill, divine inspiration, or the lack thereof, is a matter of faith and cannot be rationally argued; the most we can logically say is that we believe or we don't. As far as my rational arguments for this position go, here is how I just responded to Bach:
"A secular argument I'm familiar with goes thus: There was a general trend throughout the world starting in about the 5C BC for religion to become much more moral. Prior to that time, religions did contain some wisdom for daily life, but were more etiological than moral. But the gods, including the God of the early OT, tended to be of dubious moral character. This is especially true of Greek and Roman paganism. One of the processes that Platonism started was the notion that God, or the gods, were supreme moral actors who wanted us to behave likewise. Stoicism, while pagan, was heretical insofar as Zeus was portrayed as being a moral actor. This process definitely prepared the way for the reception of the Christian God as the ultimate moral actor (Kierkegaard notwithstanding)."
As far as divine inspiration goes, again, it's a matter of faith rather than logical argument. But the facts are what they are.
Kraichgauer
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14 Nov 2013, 11:48 am
Bill, the image your post evokes is your pastor beginning the editing process on the Bible.
It sounds as if your pastor is treating religion more like philosophy in that philosophy begs us to question everything whereas religion relies on authority. Nobody, no matter how good or holy they are, will ever come up with anything that exceeds the authority of the Bible--or in the Catholic Church, tradition (I await any corrections and elaborations from our resident expert on Catholic theology).
Nor is this an attack on philosophy. One of the reason the West overtook the Orient is that the Chinese were stuck in something of a time warp. For them, being a good philosopher meant treating their masters as authorities not to be questioned. The best Chinese scholar was the one who mastered the classics rather than improve on them.
In the West, since the time of the Greeks, philosophy has been about doing better than one's teacher. The result has been steady innovation rather than the stasis that characterized Chinese philosophy.
Ironically, progressive liberalism has tended more toward the Chinese model than towards the traditional Western model of improving upon past masters. Freud is a prime example. Within the realm of psychoanalysis, Freud is the recognized master, and no other psychoanalyst can improve on his work. As such, psychoanalysis is based upon arguments from authority, much the same as Christianity. It is the same with modern PC. In Europe, questioning the tenets of PC is likely to land one in legal peril, while here it can cost one his job and result in social ostracism.
Bach mentioned the Frankfurt School in an earlier post. Part of this group's perversion of all values has been to make politics something based on authority and religion based upon reason. It is perversion on stilts.
I would certainly accord to your preacher the right to say and believe anything he wants. But removing the Greek influence from Christianity means the end result is no longer Christianity, but something else. Since words have meaning, I would not call anybody who does this kind of thing a Christian.
Untrue. He suggested the Greek influence, coming from a pagan culture, lacks the true connection to the Word that Judaic culture did. Trust me, my pastor is very conservative on theological matters. He is hardly the only one in line with this way of thinking, as it was popular at the very beginning of the Protestant Reformation. That's not to say that my Pastor believes all Greek studies in seminaries should end - far from it, as the oldest and most reliable books of the New Testament were written in Greek, the number one linguistic influence in the east end of the Mediterranean at Christ's time.
Bill, what is and what is not written in Greek doesn't mean anything; I am talking about the content, not the form.
With respect to your preacher, if a "conservative" is one who wishes to rewrite the Bible, pray tell, just what would a liberal be?
Who says he wants to rewrite the Bible. It's a matter of doctrinal understanding leaning on Hebraic based theology rather than Greek philosophy.
Taking the Greek elements out of the Bible IS to rewrite the Bible. Even if Bach is right, and there is no real Greek influence on the Bible (which is open to debate), removing Greek influence from the liturgy, as well as modern Western thought patterns, is also a form of cultural genocide against the West, which has provided more freedom and innovation to the world that all other civilizations combined. It would make more sense to burn hundred dollars bills.
How is the Greek philosophy divinely inspired the same way the Hebraic scripture is?
Bill, divine inspiration, or the lack thereof, is a matter of faith and cannot be rationally argued; the most we can logically say is that we believe or we don't. As far as my rational arguments for this position go, I would encourage you to read my latest response to Bach.
But I am talking about faith in divine inspiration. That, and trust in Christ, not mere academics is the heart of Christianity.
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Thelibrarian
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14 Nov 2013, 11:58 am
Bill, the image your post evokes is your pastor beginning the editing process on the Bible.
It sounds as if your pastor is treating religion more like philosophy in that philosophy begs us to question everything whereas religion relies on authority. Nobody, no matter how good or holy they are, will ever come up with anything that exceeds the authority of the Bible--or in the Catholic Church, tradition (I await any corrections and elaborations from our resident expert on Catholic theology).
Nor is this an attack on philosophy. One of the reason the West overtook the Orient is that the Chinese were stuck in something of a time warp. For them, being a good philosopher meant treating their masters as authorities not to be questioned. The best Chinese scholar was the one who mastered the classics rather than improve on them.
In the West, since the time of the Greeks, philosophy has been about doing better than one's teacher. The result has been steady innovation rather than the stasis that characterized Chinese philosophy.
Ironically, progressive liberalism has tended more toward the Chinese model than towards the traditional Western model of improving upon past masters. Freud is a prime example. Within the realm of psychoanalysis, Freud is the recognized master, and no other psychoanalyst can improve on his work. As such, psychoanalysis is based upon arguments from authority, much the same as Christianity. It is the same with modern PC. In Europe, questioning the tenets of PC is likely to land one in legal peril, while here it can cost one his job and result in social ostracism.
Bach mentioned the Frankfurt School in an earlier post. Part of this group's perversion of all values has been to make politics something based on authority and religion based upon reason. It is perversion on stilts.
I would certainly accord to your preacher the right to say and believe anything he wants. But removing the Greek influence from Christianity means the end result is no longer Christianity, but something else. Since words have meaning, I would not call anybody who does this kind of thing a Christian.
Untrue. He suggested the Greek influence, coming from a pagan culture, lacks the true connection to the Word that Judaic culture did. Trust me, my pastor is very conservative on theological matters. He is hardly the only one in line with this way of thinking, as it was popular at the very beginning of the Protestant Reformation. That's not to say that my Pastor believes all Greek studies in seminaries should end - far from it, as the oldest and most reliable books of the New Testament were written in Greek, the number one linguistic influence in the east end of the Mediterranean at Christ's time.
Bill, what is and what is not written in Greek doesn't mean anything; I am talking about the content, not the form.
With respect to your preacher, if a "conservative" is one who wishes to rewrite the Bible, pray tell, just what would a liberal be?
Who says he wants to rewrite the Bible. It's a matter of doctrinal understanding leaning on Hebraic based theology rather than Greek philosophy.
Taking the Greek elements out of the Bible IS to rewrite the Bible. Even if Bach is right, and there is no real Greek influence on the Bible (which is open to debate), removing Greek influence from the liturgy, as well as modern Western thought patterns, is also a form of cultural genocide against the West, which has provided more freedom and innovation to the world that all other civilizations combined. It would make more sense to burn hundred dollars bills.
How is the Greek philosophy divinely inspired the same way the Hebraic scripture is?
Bill, divine inspiration, or the lack thereof, is a matter of faith and cannot be rationally argued; the most we can logically say is that we believe or we don't. As far as my rational arguments for this position go, I would encourage you to read my latest response to Bach.
But I am talking about faith in divine inspiration. That, and trust in Christ, not mere academics is the heart of Christianity.
I absolutely agree with your statement, at least as far as you go. What you are alluding to is what the existentialist theologian Soren Kierkegaard called the leap of faith, which must be the very essence of being a Christian. It is not something rational. But once that leap is taken, it becomes the founding assumption upon which a logical theological edifice can be constructed. That edifice is what is under consideration here.
[Bach, since Kierkegaard was a Danish Lutheran, I am curious as to your input]
14 Nov 2013, 7:58 pm
Hi, all. I only have two comments right now because I have to go teach a class on prayer (me teaching on prayer is like Helen Keller giving a lecture on opera, haha), but I digress.
1) You can't take the Greek, Roman, Gallican, Irish, German, etc. etc. out of anything, because the act of taking these things "out" (or I should say the act of thinking you are taking these things out) is really your putting something new "in" to the mix of Christianity -- call it American, modernist -- whatever -- you'll never arrive at the "purity" you are looking for. Guys, we can't undo history. When the Catholic Church reformed itself after the Reformation and after Vatican II, those reformations were affected greatly by the cultures and theological traditions of those times. So, if you are a pastor and you are going to reform your church, just be aware of what you are doing. You might be introducing more elements of your culture and personal predilection than you realize.
2) I like Kierkegaard. I think he was an Aspie. 
Thelibrarian
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14 Nov 2013, 8:57 pm
1) You can't take the Greek, Roman, Gallican, Irish, German, etc. etc. out of anything, because the act of taking these things "out" (or I should say the act of thinking you are taking these things out) is really your putting something new "in" to the mix of Christianity -- call it American, modernist -- whatever -- you'll never arrive at the "purity" you are looking for. Guys, we can't undo history. When the Catholic Church reformed itself after the Reformation and after Vatican II, those reformations were affected greatly by the cultures and theological traditions of those times. So, if you are a pastor and you are going to reform your church, just be aware of what you are doing. You might be introducing more elements of your culture and personal predilection than you realize.
I agree. Again, unlike Islam, which tries to be a comprehensive system, Christianity is the locus of culture rather than culture itself. So, a church in a given country is both shaped by and a shaper of that people's culture.
I suspect we will strongly disagree on the legitimacy of Vatican II.
Having said this, it is my understanding that one of the things the Council of Trent did was to take hitherto very different national Catholic churches and give them a degree of standardization they had never previously known prior to the Counterreformation. Is this not the case?
2) I like Kierkegaard. I think he was an Aspie.
I'd never thought of Kierkegaard as an aspie. But he was one seriously verbose writer. Some of his books, such as Either/Or, are well over a thousand pages of dry, dense prose. So, he certainly had aspie-like intensity.
One story about Kierkegaard I always found amusing: He wasn't able to effect the reforms he wanted of the Church of Denmark he wanted through his writings. So, to bring attention to his reforms, he would sit on the steps of one of the main churches in Copenhagen and drink beer during services rather than attend.
I do understand that Kierkegaard labored under very severe guilt; he thought he was hell-bound, though I can't recall exactly why. His writings make it clear that he was extremely pious, which provides an interesting contrast on attitudes about salvation today. He also had a love affair that didn't work out, which seemed to upset him. Since it is God's place to judge us, and since there were bound to be other suitable women, Kierkegaard definitely overreacted, which is another aspie trait.
Do you agree with Kierkegaard's the modes of being: The aesthetic, the moral, and the divine?
14 Nov 2013, 10:27 pm
The aesthetic, the moral, and the divine? Not familiar enough to agree or disagree. Kierkegaard was filled with shame because he discovered as a boy that he was the illegitimate child of his father and a servant girl. He was a picky eater and only ate one type of fish and he had to have his shoes lined with a particular cork.
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14 Nov 2013, 10:37 pm
Yes, the aesthetic, the moral, and the divine are the three modes of existence for humans. The aesthetic is just what it sounds like; we live for pleasure. The moral mode would be like much of the left, and some Christians. The aesthetic mode is the highest, where we realize that God is not bound by the same morals we must abide by. It is what happens when we take that leap of faith. This is from Kierkegaard's work on Abraham coming close to slaying Isaac, "Fear and Trembling". This was his explanation as to what God was trying to convey.
I wasn't aware of the other stuff. I do have a biography on Kierkegaard I bought several years ago, but have not read it yet. Books are one luxury I do indulge in. I've got quite a nice library if I do say so myself.
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15 Nov 2013, 11:24 am
Maybe sensual / intellectual / spiritual would be how I'd modally divide humanity.
Kierkegaard's argument is that while God may always be moral, God's actions don't always appear moral to us. So, if God is moral, it is a master's morality to our slave morality. And God commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac is a case in point. God placed obedience to his will above conventionally moral behavior.
