During celebrations in the Forum, Corentinus, backed by his small congregation, preaches from the steps of the former Temple of Mars, now his church. He tells Ysans that their Gods' time is past and that those Gods, now demons, are leading them:
"'...to the burning that waits down in hell...'" (p. 289)
Offensive nonsense. In the extremely unlikely event that an omnipotent creator has designed the universe in such a way, first, that most of us are damned and, secondly, that we do not believe that we are damned, then obviously we cannot do anything about it. We will continue to live and act according to our beliefs, not according to Corentinus'. If we are to be judged unjustly, that is out of our control.
Ysans ignore Corentinus except for Dahut who runs forward, momentarily making the preacher hope that maybe he has made a convert. Instead, she denounces him as a liar and affirms that the Gods are strong. Dahut is wrong in one respect. Corentinus is not deliberately speaking falsehood.
Ludicrously, he asks her:
"'...you have but seven years in this world. How can you know?'" (p. 290)
- a question that he would not have asked if she had embraced his Faith. But how can a seventy-year-old know anything about an alleged afterlife? And what is the relationship between the verbs, "believe" and "know"? Corentinus' religion is about belief, not knowledge.
The Ysan festival needs to generate enough music and other sounds to drown out Corentinus' sermon. At other times, when he is preaching without giving offense at a festival, some Ysans should stop, listen, ask questions, present alternative views and demonstrate their ability to "think," as he urges them to do.
32 comments:
The actual doctrine is that everybody without exception -deserves- damnation (except Christ, and possibly Mary), but that it can be escaped by the gift of God's grace.
The way grace operates is, of course, a matter of dispute between Christian factions.
(If you want a really ludicrous version, try John Calvin.)
I think Christianity had a rather sour approach to human beings, originally... 8-).
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Wrong, not offensive even if I think Corentinus' method here was clumsy. Christianity is based on revelation from God, knowledge that that could be attained by merely natural means. I believe we are free to accept or deny that revelation.
Mr. Stirling: Considering how flawed, imperfect, prone to vice, crime, folly, etc., all humans are, Calvin's extremely sour view of mankind was understandable, erroneous tho it was.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: it all depends on your expectations.
I don't think any worse of human beings for acting like... well, like human beings.
In fact, I like human beings in general (not necessarily individuals, of course!), and have no desire to change them.
Sean,
You know my responses by now. Do you claim to know or to believe? If I see no reason to accept a set of doctrines, that is not me freely choosing to deny those doctrines. It is just me not having sufficient reason to accept them.
Paul.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: I can't be quite so optimistic. The unending stream of squalid revelations coming out of DC about "Josip", his sleazy family, and the corrupt hypocritical Democrats makes it hard for me to be so blase about human beings.
Paul: I both believe and know. I believe the Scriptures and the teachings of the Church imparts divine revelation, and is also knowledge.
No, if you see no reason to accept a set of doctrines, that still boils down to choosing to believe there are insufficient reasons for accepting them.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Belief or disbelief is not a matter of choice. It is a matter of reason and evidence.
You believe that you know?
Paul.
Sean,
You are full of hate against one of two political parties. Surely the whole system deserves to be criticised? The role of money on both sides, for a start. And do you agree that Trump incited violence leading to five deaths?
Paul.
Kaor. Paul!
No, acceptance or not of a set of beliefs is both a matter of choice and belief there are sufficient reasons for or against them.
Yes, I am infuriated against the Democrats, esp. the disgusting leftists who have dominated them for decades. They are destroying and ruining the US with their false, catastrophic, weird, and evil ideas. And I am not forgetting how they been inciting crime and violence for years, even decades.
I agree Trump at least tacitly allowed or encouraged violence of January 6. I repeat, again, that I don't want him to be President again.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Belief is not a matter of choice. I cannot choose to believe that the Earth is flat. This is the basic problem with Evangelicals. They think that someone who does not believe in God is choosing to reject God.
Paul.
I just can't think of a crime bad enough that the appropriate punishment would be being tortured *forever*. With a possible exception for building a dungeon in which to torture people forever.
Note that I am not the one slandering God by claiming he does that.
Jim,
Even that would not be bad enough.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul and Jim!
Paul: And that is not what I meant or was thinking. And I still believe a movement of the will, pro or con, plays a role in how we believe anything.
Jim: And that is not what orthodox Christians, Catholics, believe. The teaching of the Church is that no one goes to hell who does not choose to first hate and reject God. Even the most monstrous sinners, if they repent at the moment of death, can be saved.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
It is certainly true that many people believe just what they want to believe. Philosophers and scientists try to learn the truth.
Assuming a hereafter (which I don't), why should moral development cease at death? In CS Lewis' THE GREAT DIVORCE, it is possible to leave Hell in which case it has just been Purgatory.
Paul.
"The teaching of the Church is that no one goes to hell who does not choose to first hate and reject God."
I am atheist because I do not see sufficient evidence for God. If I don't believe X exists I can't hate X except in the very limited sense of hating a fictional character such as Sauron or Voldemort as portrayed.
However, my impression is that many theists consider not believing in God would be reason for God to put one in hell. Also many Christians seem to think that being the wrong sort of Christian would put one in hell.
They do.
I think that this idea that only those who choose to hate God are damned is a modern refinement. It used to be thought that there was no salvation outside the Church.
An omnipotent creator of everything other than himself creates our motivations. He could have created everyone so that they would never be motivated to hate.
I was taught that certain actions, like a Catholic missing Sunday Mass, were mortal sins. Anyone who died having committed such an offence and not repented it went straight to Hell.
Sean: if you think this period is politically squalid try the 1880's.
In that decade, the NY State legislature passed a law essentially legalizing corruption -- no third party's testimony about an accusation of taking bribes could be admitted. Which meant one or the other party had to 'fess up!
The special train that took delegates from NYC to Albany had a special private car attached, in which lobbyists could bribe legislators in privacy... and due to the law, with legal immunity. The rest of the car had a banquet-and-hookers atmosphere.
And in Illinois, during the 1890's, a reporter for a reformist newspaper was handed an unmarked envelope from streetcar magnate Charles Yerkes with a huge bribe inside because the reporter was sitting in the chair the state legislator it was intended for usually used... and the bagman was too vain to wear his glasses.
Yerkes was also noted for going on drives through the Chicago streets in an open (very fancy) carriage with his wife -and- his mistress, simultaneously.
This is one of our long threads that goes everywhere.
Kaor, Paul and Jim!
Paul: I agree, philosophers and scientists, many of them Catholics, try to learn more and more about what is true.
And that is what Purgatory is, a time of preparation, purification, growing knowledge, etc., for those who repented, even as late as the moment of death.
No, what you called a "modern refinement" is nothing new. It can be found as long ago as the PURGATORIO of Dante, where we see characters in that poem who were notorious sinners during their earthly lives. It is simply what the Church teaches.
And there is no salvation except thru the infinitely sufficient grace of Christ, with His
Church as the ordinary means of salvation. IIRC, Dante himself worried about the salvation of those who never heard of Christ. Again, IIRC, he was told that God would judge such persons mercifully. Which I understood to mean they could find salvation by means unknown to us.
All these ideas you persist in calling "new" are actually old, old, ancient in the Catholic Church!
We are not going to agree. The risk of loss of salvation has to be real if it's to mean anything. What you propose would turn men into mere robots, or Zolotoyans!
Jim: And I am not an atheist because I see insufficient evidence for atheism. Anyone can argue like that!
The "theists" you mentioned seem to be "low church" Protestants, with a simplistic, naive theology I do not take seriously.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But what of the mortal sin doctrine: if you miss Sunday Mass, don't confess and die, you're damned?
A person who is created/born with basically good motivations so that it never crosses their mind to act wrongly is not a robot.
Paul.
Dante's poem can hardly be regarded as a revelation?
Kaor, Paul!
Still trying to catch up.
All mortal sins, if the sinner dies unrepentant of them, leads to damnation. I thought that point was plain.
Again, you seem to be missing an obvious point: Dante was an educated, even learned man of his time. Theologically, his poem (the DIVINE COMEDY) was far more sophisticated and nuanced than Lewis' THE GREAT DIVORCE. Nor was Dante claiming any divine revelation, he based his work on perfectly ordinary Catholic beliefs and theology, esp. as taught by Scholastics like St. Thomas Aquinas.
C.S. Lewis was a great man in many ways, and wrote many interesting works. But, he wrote as an Anglican, not a Catholic, and thus with emphases and stresses a Catholic will not always agree with.
So, I have a higher regard for Dante's the DIVINE COMEDY than for Lewis' THE GREAT DIVORCE. I even have three different translations of the COMEDY, those by John Ciardi, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Allen Mandelbaum. I recommend reading any one of them.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The point is plain but there is a contradiction between two propositions: that a Catholic who misses Sunday Mass is damned and that only those who choose to hate God are damned.
Of course it is obvious that Dante was educated but what he was told in the COMEDY is his opinion and nothing else.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I will try again. What you were told about the Sunday Mass obligation lacked nuance, due to clumsy or inept teachers. If, because of illness, injury, or bad weather making even short journeys risky, there is no sin if those things prevents attendance at Mass.
I don't understand your comment about Dante. What in the COMEDY was merely his opinion?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I think that the basic point at issue gets forgotten in a long exchange of blog comments like this. Indeed, I am having to reread the earlier comments in order to retrieve the points.
I was taught this Catholic stuff so I do know that illness, injury etc made it ok to miss Mass. That is not the present point. The point is this. You have said that the damned are only those who have chosen to hate God. That contradicts the proposition that a Catholic who through his own fault misses Sunday Mass is damned. That is the point that I have been trying to make all along.
As for Dante, I will reread earlier comments and come back to it.
Paul.
IIRC, Dante himself worried about the salvation of those who never heard of Christ. Again, IIRC, he was told that God would judge such persons mercifully. Which I understood to mean they could find salvation by means unknown to us.
In the COMEDY, Dante was told that God would judge such persons mercifully? But you quote this as if it were a revelation or a definition of doctrine addressed to Dante. It is in a poem written by him so it is his opinion.
Sean,
We need evidence for a positive proposition, e.g., "God exists," not for a negative proposition, e.g., "God does not exist." Anyone cannot argue like that.
(This is in response to a reply to Jim earlier in this comments thread.)
Paul.
If anyone asserts that there is a China tea service in orbit 50 miles beyond Pluto, then he has to prove that. I assume that there is no such tea service. I do not have to prove that.
Kaor, Paul!
Then what you were told was simply wrong or unnuanced, which I would blame on incompetent teachers. A classic example being how some teachers used to teach Limbo as defined doctrine, which it was not, simply a permitted theological opinion. And I don't believe what I said was a contradiction--because I had in mind all kinds of mortal sins.
No, I was not citing Dante as tho he was teaching a revelation from God. All he ever did, in the COMEDY, was to state ordinary Catholic teachings when it came to doctrinal matters.
Far better to read a good translation of the DIVINE COMEDY, one of the three or four dominating masterpieces of Western literature.
And I am equally free not to believe in atheism or materialism, for similar reasons as yours.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Of course you are free not to accept atheism! That is not an issue, is it?
I have read the COMEDY.
I was taught for 2 years by Catholic lay teachers, 4 by Marists and 7 by Jesuits. They all said the same thing all that time, as did text books that they used.
Paul.
Similar reasons as mine? Can we agree that a positive proposition requires evidence or proof whereas a negative proposition does not? I do not believe that there are cities buried under the surface of Mars but I am not obliged to prove that there are not. Anyone who asserts that there are such cities must certainly present good evidence that they are there!
People really do get mixed up about this. I know someone who scoffed at the suggestion that there are no Martian cities just because we can't see them! He felt entitled to assert anything and prove nothing.
Post a Comment