Manse Everard reflects that, because the Roman Empire converts the barbarians to Christianity:
"...the new Western civilization comes to birth where the old Classical one did, on the Mediterranean shore, not along the Rhine or the gray North Sea." (p. 552)
This thought flits through his mind. It is important. There is a fork in time and the potential for a Northern matriarchal monotheism challenging the Mediterranean patriarchal monotheism. The prophetess, Veleda, is the key. The Time Patrol has been regarding the North as:
"...the barest footnote to history." (p. 548)
Now they must intervene.
Well, it's doubtful if Western Civ started in the Mediterranean, IMHO. Sort of in France, I'd say, as a result of the mixture of Franks and Gallo-Romans.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Mr. Stirling!
ReplyDeleteI wasn't sure you were right--then I remembered how the conversion of Clovis, the first Merovingian king, to Catholicism, enabled the Franks to become truly assimilated into Gallo-Roman culture.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yeah, but the conversion in culture worked both ways. French incorporates a lot of Frankish vocabulary, and medieval French culture also incorporated a lot of Germanic cultural elements -- feudalism was a melange of Roman and Germanic notions, for example. The Germanic concept of kingship, modified by Christianity, profoundly influenced Western civilization for a very long time, and you can go on from there.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Mr. Stirling!
ReplyDeleteAnd that amalgamation of cultures was a big reason why the Frankish kingdom became the strongest of the post-Roman successor states. That strong Germanic/Christian concept of kingship, which became so deeply rooted in Frankish Gaul, was a big reason why stable monarchies arose in western Europe. As the English found out to their cost, during the Hundred Years War, when they couldn't break the stubborn attachment of the French to their legitimate line of kings.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yup. Tho' Henry V did marry into the French royal family. Unfortunately his son by the French princess was an imbecile.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Mr. Stirling!
ReplyDeleteEdward III and his great grandson Henry V had no right to claim the crown of France. The French had every right to make their own constitutional arrangements, such as their insistence that only male line Capetians could be kings of France.
Still, even under the ineffectual Henry VI the English might have conquered France after Agincort if Joan of Arc had not rallied the French in their hour of despair after that catastrophe. I like Daniel-Rops suggestion, in his history of the Catholic Church, that God raised up St. Joan to prevent a union of France and England. Because He did not want a king like Henry VIII ruling both countries and dragging them into schism and heresy, vastly increasing the harm done to Christianity by the "Reformation."
Many who disbelieve in God will, of course, reject such ideas. But I believe human affairs is not only chaotic and contingent, but that God also sometimes directly intervenes in them, as He does at Lourdes.
Ad astra! Sean
My take is that low-probability accidents rule all.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Mr. Stirling!
ReplyDeleteI have a great deal of sympathy and agreement for that. But, at the very least, too much has been recoded as indisputably factual by unimpeachable witnesses at Lourdes for me to believe that is always true.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
ReplyDeleteThe cures happen. They do not confirm Catholic doctrines to anyone who disagrees with monotheism on philosophical grounds or with Christianity on historical grounds. There are unexplained phenomena in other traditions like a yogi who is alleged to have lived without eating.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteUnconvincing. You reject philosophic arguments about or for God's existence. And I never used the Scriptures with you for such discussions, because you deny their divine inspiration. That practically forces God to use miraculous cures as a means of possibly "getting thru" to people who think as you do.
Unconvincing, those yogis you mentioned. allegedly being able to live without eating does not impress me, not when compared to the mercy God shows by healing people dying of bone cancer or ALS.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
ReplyDeleteI am not trying to convince you!
I reject those arguments? First I accepted them, then I tried to make them work, then I saw through them. I never merely rejected anything.
I deny divine inspiration? I know that there are many scriptures, not just the Christian Bible, which many people accept as divinely inspired. In ancient times, writing was invested with that kind of authority. I now see all writings as products of human mental labour. The Hindu Upanishads express insights and intuitions which to my mind are inspired in the way that all art and poetry is. I do not force God to do anything! If the ultimate reality is indeed after all a person (or a tri-person) then He (or They) sure are getting through to me by means of all that is taught by this universe and by human reflections upon it.
I am not trying to convince you about yogis! I mention it as another alleged phenomenon warranting investigation. There was a Catholic woman, Theresa Neumann, who allegedly did not eat so maybe this is some very rare condition.
Can we just discuss instead of trying to "convince" each other?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteYou believe philosophic arguments against the existence of God are convincing. Other philosophers defend arguments for the existence of a First Cause. I conclude philosophy alone cannot definitely resolve such questions.
The only scriptures I accept and believe to be real, true, and binding are those canonized by the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent in the OT and NT.
I have heard of people like Theresa Neumann, but I don't know much about her. I will simply say the Church disapproves of excessive/ostentatious asceticism and discourages it. Even Padre Pio the Stigmatist, canonized as a saint after his death, was suspected to be a fraud for many years by the hierarchy. And his superiors were right to be wary, because we have had too many con men and women over the millennia.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
ReplyDeleteBut all that each of us can do is to say what he thinks about First Cause arguments. The mere fact that there is still disagreement does not change what each of us thinks.
This was presented to us at school:
Every event has a cause.
An infinite regress is impossible.
Therefore, there was a First Cause, i.e., God.
Comments:
Both premises need to be proved.
There are uncaused events in quantum mechanics.
If every event is caused by an earlier event, then an infinite regress is not only possible but actual and there can have been no First Cause which, in any case, would be a past event, not an eternal person.
Seeing that this argument was inadequate, I tried to argue from contingent beings to a necessary being.
Comments:
Logical necessity is a property of tautologous propositions, not of beings.
The simplest tautology is "If p, then p," not "p," e.g., "God exists."
All existence is contingent.
It would still be necessary to prove that a necessary being had other properties ascribed to God.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteI am not denying what you say about "thinking." And I still conclude philosophy alone cannot definitely resolve such questions.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
ReplyDeleteBut I do not think that philosophy alone can definitely resolve such questions! But we have to do the philosophy.
What someone believes and how firmly he believes it is usually a matter of anything but rational thought.
Paul.