The same ostensibly and even ostentatiously orthodox theological circles that have in recent years displayed a certain political quietism as an expression of decadence and indolence, born out of a lack of contact with the poor, also take a rejectionist view of theodicy, deriving from a wholly untraditional scorn for metaphysics, which can hardly be said to recall Augustine, Anselm or Aquinas.
Faced with, say, the Japanese earthquake and its wider tsunami, we are just told to celebrate the Mass, perform acts of charity, and not ask why God allows these things to happen. So much for Job, or the Psalms, or Irenaeus, or Augustine. This ‘Mass’ is certainly not the Source and Summit of a rich ecclesial life in the world, the daily contradiction of both capitalism and Marxism.
Any Christianity that refuses to engage with metaphysics, and not least with theodicy, has nothing to do with the Scriptures or the Fathers, and will never convert anyone or anything inside or outside the Church. Furthermore, it is only possible in the most decadent circumstances that there have ever been.
At the root of this problem is the sale of the pass as regards the theological critique of philosophy, by presupposing the anti-metaphysical strand in French Postmodernism and working from there in an attempt to contrive an ostensibly non-metaphysical theology in order to gain for its advocates professional and social acceptance among the biens pensants.
There is no more of a case for this than there was for the attempted contrivance of a theology subordinate to Logical Positivism or Gramscian Marxism, both of which have, of course, been attempted. The truly radical and truly orthodox response to all things ‘post-metaphysical’ was that of John Paul the Great in Fides et Ratio, the template for post-secular thought.
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You must really have set them off with Friday's posts. They will not have enjoyed one bit being confronted with how much better-educated than them you are. But most people are better-educated than your critics. They are talentless hacks who happen to come from the right families and schools. Especially the "Labour" ones.
ReplyDeleteIf any of them can understand a word of this post, or knows what Whig oligarchs were and how the Spencers could have been so described, or gets your reference to Gladstone, or has ever heard of him, or knows the first thing about the history of warfare in Buddhism, then they are dangerously overqualified to make some MP's or newspaper editor's coffee. But none of them does, so none of them is. They have found their natural level, but unfortunately they will not be staying there.
David will have annoyed them most of all with his post on a book by a philosopher on how opposition to abortion is entirely reasonable. That, and earlier in the week with the facts about Kinsey.
ReplyDeleteWhich is your books is this from?
ReplyDeleteOh, the second one that might very well never see the light of day, despite the achingly high-powered preface, because no one is buying theology at the moment.
ReplyDelete