From a Catholic perspective, morality is supposed to be transparent to human reason. The natural law is available to all people. We are supposed to be able to tell right from wrong even without the benefit of special revelation (the Bible).

Some moral precepts are more transparent than others, it seems, insofar as not all moral realities enjoy the same moral clarity. The church's teaching office, the magisterium, educates us about various moral issues and explains the moral reasoning behind them.

Sometimes the church's moral reasoning is very compelling and sometimes it is much less compelling, for whatever reason. Now, not even the church would hold that every moral law (much less church law) should become a civil law. But what guides such a decision? Google "John Courtney Murray" if you are interested in a more nuanced consideration of this question.

In a pluralistic society, it would seem to make sense that one criterion for when a moral law should become a civil law is the amount of moral clarity that surrounds this or that moral object.

It would seem, too, that one guage of moral clarity is to what extent such a teaching has been received, first, within the church, also, within society as a whole. Very likely, the teaching's reception will also reflect the degree of transparency to human reason that such a teaching reflects. Also, the complexity of the issue can be measured by the diversity of opinions it generates.

Divergent opinions about moral realities already create problems for those seeking to codify this or that moral teaching into civil law, as based on natural law. Those fundamentalistic Protestants, who hold natural law theory suspect and rely solely on Scripture, are going to raise even more serious issues about separation of church and state (as well as science and religion).

There is no question that morality should influence politics, but how is another matter. It it seems to me that the only legitimate recourse available for exerting that influence is not through mere majority rule and popular vote but through our constitutional republic and reasoned debate that recognizes some form of natural law or other suitably nuanced metaethical theory.

To otherwise press one's religious and moral imperatives through sheer political coercion is to advocate theocracy (albeit in varying degrees by various political strategists). One must make one's moral case at the bar of human reason and, failing that, one should retire to one's academy and try to come up with more compelling reasons and more transparent arguments.

And this is why I state my emphatic dissent with those social conservatives who'd unwittingly caricature the Republican Party as the G.O.P. - or, in other words, God's Only Party. The moral objects associated with family values, sex and gender issues and, especially, a consistent ethic of life demand scrutiny and a rigorous moral analysis that evaluates moral objects in the light of human reason and dutifully recognizes those moral realities that are more versus less deserving of becoming legal realities in a pluralistic society.

It is not enough to be right. There is a right way of being right. And certain elements of the Religious Right are WRONG.

When one goes to the polls in the upcoming mid-term elections, and in the 2008 presidential primaries and beyond, don't be fooled by invocations of moral superiority or accusations of moral inferiority, for people of large intelligence and profound goodwill can disagree on many thorny issues that lack moral clarity. And be careful what moral laws and religious positions some would will into our constitution and especially how they go about it, judicially or politically. One might get their desired theocracy but it will remain always subject to the next theocracy, who'd invoke the same rights and privileges and employ the same tactics.

Litmus tests and single-issue voting is a related consideration and unjustified sanctimonium and moral grandstanding on gay marriage, stem cells or even the pro-choice debate would ill-serve the larger issue of war and peace and keep us from choosing that/those candidate(s) who offer a more compelling, practical approach to present and emerging crises, like WAR.

pax,
jb

JB . . . . Did you right that?

That's a good reflection, JB, and I think you make some good points. Things aren't as black-white, right-wrong as the religious right makes them out to be. I would add that they aren't usually as complex or confusing as the secular left presents them either (not wishing to straw man you here, just to note that as well).

The problem for politicians is that they have to be concerned about blocks of voters, and so they have to try to craft their language to at least not alienate the right or the left, depending on which blocks they depend on. Hence, you sometimes get people talking out of both sides of their mouth -- like, for example, John Kerry's unintelligible position on abortion rights, or Bush's fiscal conservativsm (which helps the economy while mounting huge federal deficits). What's missing in all of this is plain old integrity -- of people actually saying what they truly believe and why, then acting on that. People might criticize W. on his policies, but I don't think the man is without integrity.

Personally, I'll always go with the pro-life candidate, all other issues being more or less equal. The reason for this is that pro-life values generally predict a wide range of positions I'm in agreement with, espeically if the stance is not simply "anti-abortion." Pro-life candidates have a regard for the dignity of individual human life that I often find lacking in pro-choicers. Once you compromise the dignity of human life from conception to grave, many doors become opened to unconscienable moral positions, imo.

Excellent post, JB -- I couldn't agree more.

Phil - If only more "pro-lifers" were truly more than anti-abortion! Wouldn't our social policies look a whole lot diffrent?

We're spending a lot of money on "social policies." That hasn't really gone down under Bush, although the perception is often the opposite.

Here are a few articles on it:

http://tinyurl.com/rmqxy

http://www.usatoday.com/news/w...deral-spending_x.htm
� Medicare's new prescription-drug coverage is projected to cost an average of $80 billion a year over the next decade, adding nearly 20% to the health care program's annual price tag.

� Spending on social programs, from education to veterans health care, has risen faster than at any time since the 1960s.

Using a consistent life ethic to help focus political priorities would be wonderful, and it's something we ought to encourage in politicians and policies.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
[qb] Hence, you sometimes get people talking out of both sides of their mouth -- like, for example, John Kerry's unintelligible position on abortion rights [/qb]

Good point about Bush's tax and spending policy but perhaps a juxtaposition of his stem cell positions would provide an even better foil for a discussion of Kerry's position on same and the related issue of abortion rights.

Bush's incoherence or double-speak is more clear to me when he said, for example:

quote:

I'm the first president ever to allow funding --- federal funding --- for embryonic stem cell research. I did it because I too hope that we'll discover cures from the stem cells and from research derived.

Now, I cannot understand how he could boast like that if he thought that such stem cell research requires the destruction of life. That, I cannot understand. That is unintelligible.

It is notoriously difficult to discuss the conception to resurrection, seamless garment, ethic of life, positions of pro-choice candidates because those positions are so diverse and so very highly nuanced. That contributes to unintelligibility. Still, why do you consider Kerry's stance, in particular, unintelligible? I understand why you might disagree with it but that is not the same thing as saying one cannot understand it.

pax,
jb

quote:

Originally posted by revkah:
[qb] Excellent post, JB -- I couldn't agree more.
[/qb]

revkah, I'm glad you agree and even more glad you understood because, for various reasons, sometimes I write rather poorly and remain in recovery for a jargon-addiction. I suppose it came about innocently enough from a near hermit-like existence coupled with reading voraciously and conversing sparingly. Now some might think that this begs the question about how Thomas Merton could therefore have written so very well. They should be aware, however, that he apparently had a LOT more fun prior to monastic and eremitic life (and, in some cases, even after) than I can claim to have had thus far in life. Maybe this advanced his humanization (same as divinization) and has retarded my own. If I can garner support for this view from other folks at Shalomplace, I'll be making such a case to my spouse and will let y'all know where it leads!

pax!
jb

JB, here's the entire quote from Bush that you posted above:

quote:

Embryonic stem cell research requires the destruction of life to create a stem cell. I'm the first president ever to allow funding, federal funding, for embryonic stem cell research. I did so because I, too, hope that we'll discover cures from the stem cells and from the research derived. But I think we've got to be very careful in balancing the ethics and the science. And so I made the decision we wouldn't spend any more money beyond the 70 lines, 22 of which are now in action, because science is important, but so is ethics, so is balancing life. To destroy life to save life is one of the real ethical dilemmas that we face. I helped double the NIH budget to $28 billion a year to find cures. And the approach I took is one that I think is a balanced and necessary approach to balance science and the concerns for life.

That's not so confusing, imo. The embryonic lines Bush refers to were already in place when he came on the scene; he's consistently opposed funding new embryonic lines. Re. Kerry and abortion, seethis article and how that relates to his Catholic faith. I intended "unintelligible" in that context. Kerry errs greivously in considering the Church's teaching on abortion an "article of faith" rather than an ethical teaching based on natural law. He also displays a lack of integrity in claiming to believe that life begins with conception and yet vowing to oppose a reversal of Roe v. Wade, even if he had an opportunity to do so.

Anyways . . . neither here nor there, in a way. Kerry is gone -- won't be re-nominated (though someone had better tell him) and Bush won't be around after 2008 either.

I see. When you said unintelligible, you didn't mean logically inconsistent or internally incoherent. Rather, you meant he was in error (and lacks integrity). Apparently, Kerry's not one of those pro-choice Catholics who agree with the magisterium's position. I do recall, now, from one of their debates, Kerry saying he respectfully disagrees (or something like that).

Back to Bush, unlike Kerry, who doesn't think murder is involved in stem cell research, he struck a balance by funding only so many murders but no more?

pax,
jb

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
[qb] Kerry errs greivously in considering the Church's teaching on abortion an "article of faith" rather than an ethical teaching based on natural law. [/qb]

Let's parse this.

You are right in that abortion is a moral object. In theo-speak, we're talking obsequium religiosum and not obsequium fidei, the former involving deference, the latter assent.

When it comes to religious authorities making moral pronouncements, any such announcements, as they'd advocate being codified into civil law, require a great deal of moral clarity and sufficient transparency to human reason, at least in a pluralistic society.

A lot less consensus exists on the abortion issue than many other moral issues, such as are already codified into civil law and taught by the magisterium. [And suggesting a government or NGO should cease and desist from distributing condoms to stop the spread of AIDS will generate even less agreement.]

To the extent a moral teaching by a religious authority is not transparent enough to human reason to be received (much less understood) by substantial numbers of prudent co-religionists,

then, if the only way the authority gains their adherence is through fidei obsequio, a submission of faith, and not through a matter of reason or inference but a matter of relational trust and assent,

it does not follow that others, neither subject to such authority nor deferential of same, should be politically or legally coerced into following that religious authority's teaching.

In such an instance, practically speaking, it would moreso resemble an article of faith than a natural law position.

One could then be internally coherent and logically consistent as a pro-choice Catholic. And they could maintain such a position with integrity. Of course, if one just outright dissents from various elements of a moral teaching, it is even easier to be consistent and coherent.

There is an object lesson here in epistemology insofar as consistency and coherency are necessary but not sufficient elements in one's search for truth. The argument then turns to the truth of one's premises, the empirical grounds, and the disambiguation of one's terms, which means the proper nuance and predication of one's definitions. The "proofs" of those grounds will involve both the physical and metaphysical. The discourse then devolves. What you get is then what we got.

pax,
jb

Back to Bush, unlike Kerry, who doesn't think murder is involved in stem cell research, he struck a balance by funding only so many murders but no more?

Are you pulling my leg, or do you really believe that funding existing embryonic stem cell lines constitutes an ongoing murder of some kind? A closer analogy would be harvesting body parts from the victim of a murder -- only the victim never gave permission to do so in the first place.

- - -

Your qualifiers for what constitutes a principle of natural law above is good, only I don't think there's any way that, following those considerations, one could end up being a pro-choice Catholic (nor, even, for that matter, a pro-choice human being).

The argument then turns to the truth of one's premises, the empirical grounds, and the disambiguation of one's terms, which means the proper nuance and predication of one's definitions. The "proofs" of those grounds will involve both the physical and metaphysical.

Much moreso, it depends on the *value* being argued for (which are the premises, I guess, following your schema). Values aren't necessarily an outcome of rational inquiry (Lonergan's 1st three levels of consciousness), but duties that seem to flow from the nature of and relationships between things (Lonergan's level 4). Re. abortion, it's not complicated at all, depending on which value one chooses as the starting point.

For the Church, there are two intermingling values that are primary:
1. That human life is a continuum from conception to death.
2. That it is wrong to destroy innocent human life.

These values are not contingent on revealed truth, but flow from the natural desires and aspirations of human beings everywhere. There are other values that could be proposed as counterpoints, of course, but they would not trump these two in the universality with which they are upheld, nor in the intensity of desire with which people everywhere hope that the rest of the world would apply them to oneself (a la the golden rule).

Given these values, then, the only remaining two questions are: 1.) whether they should be applied to an embryo, and, if not, then why not to a newborn child, a toddler, a teenager, etc.? And 2.) are there circumstances when a woman bearing an embryo has the right to destroy this innocent life?

We've been around the block on this several times on this forum, and I've little heart to do so again. For those interested in a deeper dig, see this discussion, , this one, [url=http://shalomplace.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=000071#000003]and this. My debate with a pro-choice Methodist minister can be found here.

Call me "Religious Right" on this point. They're not wrong about everything, imo.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
[qb] We've been around the block on this several times on this forum, and I've little heart to do so again.[/qb]

I understand. You can have the last word.

I'll needle you again in a few months.

pax!
jb

Oh, keep going, by all means. Just not abortion.

What other religious right issues might we discuss?

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
Oh, keep going, by all means. Just not abortion.

Why discuss that further anyway? My polemical maneuvers pushed you so far across the Litani that, not only did your ordnance not explode, your last round of katyushas landed in South Lebanon. [Razz]

Seriously, just so it is clear, my argument is that there can be Catholic pro-choice positions that are logically consistent, internally coherent and intellectually honest, held with integrity. I am not arguing whether those positions are true or false. I don't have the heart for THAT in open forums.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
What other religious right issues might we discuss?

emergency contraception
artificial birth control
natural family planning
condoms and AIDS
stem cell research
needle replacement programs
civil unions
women's ordination
priestly celibacy
litmus tests for candidates
single issue voting
witholding Communion

I broadly conceive the religious right to include fundamentalist Catholics.

Alas, I am not interested in discussing these issues in particular as my interests are more metaethical, more focused on principles and guidelines and theory and less on application and practical matters.

I am mostly interested in locating the dialogical logjams, the true locus of hermeneutical impasses, the dissection of position statements, in order to keep folks from arguing past each other. I also want to combat all types of ad hominem arguments, both those with obvious animus and those that are more subtle, the latter including the summary and cursory dismissal of others' views based only on the psychological analysis of their motives, of their (de)formative influences and such.

Another thing that prematurely closes off debate, shutting down authentic dialogue, is the ad hominem maneuver of transrational gnosticism, on one hand, and the invocation of the naturalistic fallacy on the other. An example of the first is the Ken Wilber approach and the radically apophatic approach (how many times have you dealt with THAT!). The so-called naturalistic fallacy denies our ability to get from an is to an ought, undercuts the logic of natural law argumentation and transparency, relegating morality to aesthetic sensibilities.

However much morality is grounded in sometimes ineffable intuitions, it is our duty to eventualy "effable" them and articulate them and demonstrate their truth in logical formulation. At some point, there has to be agreement on what is, so to speak, self-evident and the nonfoundational critique says we do not know same a priori or unproblematically. Translation: We are fallible. Upshot: There have never been infallible pronouncements on moral objects, only faith objects. Practical effect: We cannot codify certain moral positions into civil law. (Didn't say should not but have argued that before with qualification.)

What all of these polemical maneuvers have in common is the denigration of human reason by the invocation of the arational, nonrational and faux-transrational (I say faux, because, as you know, there is an authentic transrationality).

Now, with all THAT, we have to addend the thread title with: And So Is the Secular Left [Big Grin]

Back to the WARs!

pax!
jb

(I mistakenly edited your post instead of replying to it; problem fixed).

emergency contraception
artificial birth control
natural family planning
condoms and AIDS
stem cell research
needle replacement programs
civil unions
women's ordination
priestly celibacy
litmus tests for candidates
single issue voting
witholding Communion

I need another vacation!

We've already had good discussions of most of these topics, if anyone is interested in doing a search. . . well, maybe not "needle replacement programs."

I broadly conceive the religious right to include fundamentalist Catholics.

For sure.

I am mostly interested in locating the dialogical logjams, the true locus of hermeneutical impasses, the dissection of position statements, in order to keep folks from arguing past each other. I also want to combat all types of ad hominem arguments, both those with obvious animus and those that are more subtle, the latter including the summary and cursory dismissal of others' views based only on the psychological analysis of their motives, of their (de)formative influences and such.

JB, I think you've dabbled a little in Spiral Dynamics -- I sent you a DVD, or a link to an online movie I did, I believe. What about regarding this approach as coming from the Blue vMeme perspective. It's what we see in
"God said it, I believe it, that settles it."

Religious Blue has a very strong tendency toward theocracy and a very difficult time getting along in a secular, pluralistic milieu. Blue is very much an either/or mindset, with clear lines drawn by the divine, and so to entertain opposing points of view can be tantamount to opening oneself to the devil. If it's healthy Blue (or Blue in a healthy system), however, there are most likely bridges to more expansive perspectives that value what Blue affirms while acknowledging the validity of other points of view. If not, then one can really get stuck there; so can entire communities and even religious cultures.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
[qb]
JB, I think you've dabbled a little in Spiral Dynamics -- I sent you a DVD, or a link to an online movie I did, I believe. What about regarding this approach as coming from the Blue vMeme perspective. It's what we see in
"God said it, I believe it, that settles it." [/qb]

I really enjoyed your presentation. SD did seem to me to well capture many of the value constellations investigators have found through the years in individual psychology.

As for social anthropology, SD, in my view, likely has less explanatory value because, well, cultural evolution is a LOT more complex. There's more going on that has to get factored in. Even then, I think it has great heuristic value and provides some interesting placeholders for ideas as we continue to explore humanity's journey. In that regard, my recollection is that I found Chris Cowan's development of Clare Graves work as modest and open enough.

As you might suspect, I don't appreciate Ken Wilber's integral SD, or SDI, as developed with Don Beck. They even use it to cloak the neoconservative narrative with legitimacy and precisely engage one of the ad hominem arguments I ranted about earlier in this thread: One doesn't then need rational argumentation or empirical claims to refute one's dialogue partner; rather, one simply characterizes another's stage of consciousness and the de facto inferiority of their positions. Good grief! But notice how BLUE that actually is!!!

Here's another angle -- following on your own intro of Lonergan on this thread.

Fundamentalism is spirituality, but impoverished.

Maybe another way of looking at fundamentalism, both interreligiously and interideologically, is in terms of conversion, both secular and religious.

Lonergan described 1) intellectual 2) affective 3) moral 4) sociopolitical (Don Gelpi, SJ) and 5) religious conversions, all which "transvalue" and influence the other conversions but each which otherwise proceeds mostly independent of the others.

There's a saying that "orthopraxis authenticates orthodoxy" and it means that one who lives in the proper relationship to ortho-doxy (true dogma and true glory) lends it authenticity by the way one truly puts it into practice (ortho-praxis).

A "people gathered as church" is, then, most orthodox when it most efficaciously institutionalizes these conversions. Those familiar with developmental psychology might survey Lonergan's categories of conversion and think of names like Piaget, Erikson, Kohlberg, Maslow, Fowler and others.

Properly considered, the human transformative journey has a trajectory, and fundamentalism, in my view, seems to mostly involve a failure to successfully institutionalize intellectual and affective (emotional) conversion. Such an institution or movement just cannot foster intellectual and emotional growth and may even be a positive hindrance to maturation processes.

A failure in affective conversion might be measured in terms of the need to rush to closure, inability to tolerate ambiguity, paradox and cognitive dissonance, neurotic (life detracting) vs existential (life enhancing) responses to one's emotional milieu and such.

Failures in intellectual conversion are more nuanced. They include such as rationalism and fideism. Overemphasis on the rational and inferential and underemphasis on the nonrational and pre-rational and suprarational is rationalism. Overemphasis on the nonrational, suprarational and pre-inferential and underemphasis on the rational and inferential is fideism . An overinvestment in human knowledge is epistemological hubris (radical modernism and even premodernism). An underinvestment in human knowledge is excessive epistemological humility (radical postmodernism). There are also insidious forms of arationality and false transrationalities (Wilber et al).

Don't let the jargon throw you off. The general idea is that all human knowledge goes BEYOND reason but not WITHOUT it! A suitable (optimal) investment in human knowledge is an epistemological holism , a/k/a fides et ratio.

Fr. Stanley Jaki has described how science was stillborn in many non-Christian societies. Google his name and you'll get a nice inventory of failures and successes at intellectual conversion throughout history.

Less obvious, but equally insidious, is Enlightenment fundamentalism, which is a form of rationalism. In this sense, then, we are not talking intelligence quotients, but attitudes toward the truth.

In fact, we are talking about attitudes toward all of the transcendental ideals and imperatives: truth, beauty, goodness, love, God (Who embodies these divine attributes).

Failures in intellectual conversion are occasioned by improper attitudes toward truth; affective/emotional conversion ... toward beauty; moral ... toward goodness; sociopolitical ... toward love and community; religious ... toward God.

Successes in institutionalized conversion: truth in Creed or dogma; beauty in Cult or liturgy; goodness in Code or law; social in Community; religious in Christ. Hence, the failures in the decay of dogma into dogmatism; ritual into ritualism and law into legalism.

The Enlightenment was "institutionalized" in America through a secularization process that properly separated church and state, strengthening both. On "the Continent" *secularization* gave way to *secularISM*, which marginalized religion.

Sorrowfully, there is yet another history, that of theocratization, for example, in what is known as Islam*ism* and, unfortunately, theocratization is a path many fundamentalists in America's Religious Right will take us down if we do not remain ever vigilant.

Intra-religiously, some have drawn proper distinctions as exist due to an hierarchy of truth. Another distinction is that betwen essentials and accidentals. The most radical traditionalists consider some accidentals of our religion as if they were essentials. The most radical progressives confuse some essentials for accidentals.

At any rate, fundamentalism is a resistance, sometimes sinful, often invincible, to ongoing conversion. And it isn't, in my view, correlated with educational attainment or IQ. It includes some otherwise *bright* people like Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, Daniel Dennett as well as a lot of otherwise intelligent religious people, who hold as rigidly to their scientific and philosophical dogmas as any other fundamentalist.

Of course, I cannot tell you, unequivocally, that fundamentalists are wrong, fallible as I am. I only mean to suggest that I think they are probably wrong. After all, I don't want to be fundamentalistic about all this

pax!
jb

Anyone terribly interested in a critique of meme theory, per my view, see http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/e...rb/srb/10-3edit.html

For a critique of Beck & Wilber's SDI, by Michel Bauwens, see: http://www.kheper.net/topics/Wilber/SDi_critique.html

Here's another rant against a position often associated with the Religious Right: creationism and intelligent design theory. It is redundant given many of my old posts but I try to increase its accessibility without losing the nuance. It is not jargon free but there is a lot of redundancy in stating and restating things in different ways with simpler words, when I thought that was necessary. If I didn't do that enough in places, please, just ask. Thanks.

Intelligent Design as a concept requires disambiguation, parsing.

The time-honored questions humankind has put to reality can be categorized. They include:

1) Is that factual?

2) Is that logical? and, if so, is one's inference:

a) abductive - hypothetical
b) inductive - from the specific to the general
c) deductive - from the general to the specific

3) Is that practical? and, if so, is it:

a) useful (pragmatic)
b) moral (good)

4) Is that beautiful?

5) To whom can we go?

6) What return shall we make?

The factual realm is positivistic and is concerned with the empirical and heuristic sciences, with speculative and descriptive enterprises, and employs falsification.

The next three realms - logical, ethical & aesthetical - are philosophic and are concerned with the normative sciences, with prescriptive enterprises and with both prudential and nonprudential evaluative enterprises. It employs both formal argumentation and nonformalizable inclinations. They can also be thought to articulate the questions: What can I know? What must I do? What can I hope for?

The fifth and sixth realms are relational and are concerned with interrelationship dynamics and they trade in the grammar of relationships such as that of assent, trust, love, fidelity and loyalty. They also ask the questions: Why is there something rather than nothing? Why is there something and not rather something else?

When it comes to ultimate explanations, Godel's incompletness theorems suggest that we have a choice. We can have a consistent but incomplete explanation. Or, we can have a complete but inconsistent explanation.

The practical upshot of this is that ALL of our explanations are going to be tainted by paradox, one or another. The biggest challenge to one who accepts common sense notions of causality is how to stop an infinite regress of causes. Every attempt to stop such a regress opens another paradoxical door with every closing of an explanatory window. Every explanation is either tautological, question begging or introduces a causal disjunction (a cause that no one understands in terms of modern physics).

Human knowledge then does not rest on fully formalizable argumentation or proof. Even then, even though we cannot prove the truth of our various axioms, it does not mean that we cannot see their truths. We do not have to proceed half-way through the Principia with Russell and Whitehead, like they would, in order to know that 2 + 2 = 4.

Human knowledge is, inevitably, at bottom, conveyed through storytelling or metanarrative. It must go beyond the factual but never without it. It must go beyond the logical but never without it. It must go beyond the practical but never without it. It must become relational even if that ultimately results in a nowhere anchored, unjustified paradoxical trust in uncertain reality (cf. Kung on nihilism).

Now, it has been said that reality is not only stranger than we imagine, but stranger than we CAN imagine (Haldane). And Chesterton said: We do not know enough about reality to say that it is unknowable. So, I qualify Haldane's position with a "for now."

G.H. Pugh said that, if our brains were so simple that we could understand them, then, we would be so simple that we couldn't. (Or something like that.) Put Pugh's statement in your irreducible complexity pipe and smoke it! (Inside joke to ID proponents.)

Maybe reality is too complex by design to prove it empirically and rationally and practically? All Thomism ever aspired to was to demonstrate the reasonableness of the great arguments for God's existence, not to empirically demonstrate same.

I suspect those who one day see the face of God with more clarity than me won't be effabling about the Ineffable when it happens. They'll tell me a story though in the manner they live and move and have their being. It's called hagiography, the study of the saints.

How does this digression apply to Intelligent Design?

Well, ID has an empirical component. It can and does deal with facts.

It also is subject to mediation by the normative sciences. Logically, it is a valid hypothesis. It's abduction can be formalized into an if-then statement and it is logically consistent, internally coherent and externally congruent.

In all of these ways, it enjoys an epistemic parity with evolution.

At the same time, when it comes to both empirical facts and logical inferences, the volume of available facts and fact patterns that generate a virtuous cycle of multiplying inferences - abductive, inductive and deductive - is SO disproportionate for evolution over against ID, which is to say SO overwhelming, that evolution has made its way into textbooks as a theory via peer reviewed journal literature backed by over a century of research and attempts at falsification.

At this point, the ID abduction, which is the weakest of the three forms of inference, cannot be formalized into a hypothetical argument that is falsifiable before the eschaton. Because of its other strengths, it might deserve the play it gets in highly speculative scientific and philosophical journals but, otherwise lacking epistemic parity with evolution, it doesn't deserve equal time in general science textbooks. It would make for a good topic in a graduate seminar in metaphysics, but only for an object lesson in epistemological virtue (and nonvirtue).

Because its factual and logical foundations are so weak, ID theory has no real practical application, which is to say that it cannot yet answer affirmatively to the question: Is it useful? The Theory of Evolution, on the other hand, has gifted us with modern medicine. More epistemic disparity.

In the relational realm, for instance, in answering the question: Why is there something and not rather nothing? --- the ID Abduction is purely tautological. As Hume and other philosophers would say, no new information is added by taking existence as a predicate of being. That's a high-fallooting way of saying: Why say "being exists"? However, just because something is tautological does not mean it is not true. It remains logically valid even as the soundness of the argument eludes us. Here, it enjoys epistemic parity with those who would maintain that the reality we encounter with all of its primitives, givens and axioms are here as a brute fact. That, too, is tautological, question begging. It seeks to eliminate the paradox by invalidating the question.

Now, don't get me wrong, science per se does not venture past the empirical and logical and pragmatic-practical realms into even the moral-practical realm, much less the relational realms. It simply is not asking those questions, in principle, by virtue of definition. Those who do think science ventures into these realms practice what is known in philosophy circles as scientism. It enjoys epistemic parity with creationism as a metanarrative.

Now, as far as adjudicating claims of otherwise disparate metanarratives, let's say, creationism and scientism, using nihilism as a foil, Kung would suggest that scientism represents a nowhere anchored and paradoxical trust in uncertain reality. I'd soften that a bit and suggest that it offers an account that aspires to completeness and thus suffers inconsistency. By stopping its infinite regress with brute facts, it has to dismiss with our common sense notions of causality. It basically avers that we are asking the wrong questions.

Creationism, on the other hand, preserves causality but introduces a causal disjunction paradox into its tautological account, which is to say that it invokes an analogy of being that has far more dissimilarities than similarities in its description of such causes that are like those we know but unlike them in so very many more ways. Hence, logical consistency is there but explanatory adequacy is woefully lacking. We thus confront the Mysterium tremendum et fascinans. This account, then, is incomplete but consistent.

Now, we do not confuse Mystery with unintelligibility. While maintaining that reality is utterly incomprehensible, we do not mean to suggest that it is not at least apprehensble in part. To be sure, we have discovered it is intelligible and supremely so.

Our Catholic approach is Goldilocks-like, not too much epistemological hubris (like Carl Sagan, Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins), not too much humility (like the nihilists and radically deconstructive postmodernists), but just right (Fides et Ratio). Dennett even wrote a book called: Consciousness Explained. I can explain what he said but not why he bothered.

That's your Sophie's Choice, epistemologically. You can opt for godelian completeness with inconsistency, like scientism and id-style creationism. Or, you can opt for incompleteness with consistency, like Aquinas, Scotus, McInerny, Jaki, Jack Haught, Joe Bracken, Chris Corbally, the Vatican Observatory et al.

pax,
jb

JB, there's very little difference between Cowan's presentation of SD and Beck's. They parted company over the so-called "Mean Green Meme" issue and Beck's alliance with Wilber, which I think has been good for both. As my primary issue with Wilber is his conflation of human consciousness with the divine, I think the rest of his four-quadrant approach has much to recommend itself.

quote:

As you might suspect, I don't appreciate Ken Wilber's integral SD, or SDI, as developed with Don Beck. They even use it to cloak the neoconservative narrative with legitimacy and precisely engage one of the ad hominem arguments I ranted about earlier in this thread: One doesn't then need rational argumentation or empirical claims to refute one's dialogue partner; rather, one simply characterizes another's stage of consciousness and the de facto inferiority of their positions. Good grief! But notice how BLUE that actually is!!!

I've never come across this, except that they do tend to see view the M.E. crisis in terms of Islamic Red/Blue as resistant to Western (Orange/Green) values. Well . . . ? That's true! But neither condones the neo-con agenda. See this essay by Wilber on Iraq. Note that his ultimate solution to these kinds of issues is a balanced and nuanced response by a Yellow-rooted International agency (which the U.N. is not).

In short, I don't think SD is relevant only to individual psychological development. Such happens in a culture that transmits beliefs, attitudes, perspectives, and SD is saying something about rather predictable themes we find in how cultures shape their perception of reality.

I'll get back to you soon on your posts above.

Continuing . . .

Sorrowfully, there is yet another history, that of theocratization, for example, in what is known as Islam*ism* and, unfortunately, theocratization is a path many fundamentalists in America's Religious Right will take us down if we do not remain ever vigilant.

They seem to be mostly wanting to advocate for policies that reflect their values, which is what basically every lobbying group does. There are quite a few steps between, say, wanting to see our permissive abortion laws changed and running the country according to the Bible (however that would go). We have a Constitution and judicial system that discourages theocracy, so they'd basically have to overturn the former or write a wide range of amendments into it to succeed (which is not likely). They would also meet cultural resistance, especially from the majority of Christians who see the value in separating church and state. None of these kinds of constraints exist re. theocracy in countries that have Islamic majorities.

At any rate, fundamentalism is a resistance, sometimes sinful, often invincible, to ongoing conversion. And it isn't, in my view, correlated with educational attainment or IQ. It includes some otherwise *bright* people like Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, Daniel Dennett as well as a lot of otherwise intelligent religious people, who hold as rigidly to their scientific and philosophical dogmas as any other fundamentalist.

I can go along with that, although it begins to render the term fundamentalist (as currently used in the culture) almost too broad to be useful. What you're proposing is: fundamentalist = dogmatist and I can see the sense in that. It could be definition b. in a dictionary, with a. referring to an inflexlible literalism re. religious teaching/scripture. For whatever reason (and Spiral Dynamics has something to say about this), I agree with you that the resistance to ongoing conversion is what is most problemmatic. In the case of Christian fundamentalism, however, at least one can say that there are many bridges within Christendom connecting to wider perspectives of understanding and appreciation of the same truths and principles held by the fundamentalists. This is more dubious re. Islam, and even, to some extent, scientism.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
[qb] As my primary issue with Wilber is his conflation of human consciousness with the divine, I think the rest of his four-quadrant approach has much to recommend itself.[/qb]

I look at parts of Wilber's approach as a great heuristic skyscraper, a towering frame with giant steel girders, built on the sand of his misconception of what integrality entails.

Sometimes, I imagine this very same heuristic, built on the bedrock of a truly catholic foundation, and what I picture is an architectonic that would be a marvel to behold by Aquinas, himself!

Integrality, properly considered, is not always a mixed porridge made of the meals of several grains, sometimes it is succotash.

Sometimes realities interact dialectically like an Hegelian system of thesis-antithesis and then synthesis. Sometimes they present as a truly catholic creative tension, a both-and, not blending but still gifting us with novel realities.

Sometimes syncretism seems right. At other times it doesn't make sense.

Maritain said we distinguish in order to unite. Peirce saw fields of human thought and discipline living distinctly, breathing different airs, if you will. Putnam reminds us that not all distinctions are dichotomies.

I've said much of Wilber's faux-transrationality before using my mantra of beyond but not without. So, just to say it all again, in a different style ---

To Wilber, integrality
1) is too often porridge, too seldom succotash
2) is too often hegelian, too seldom catholic
3) is too often syncretistic, too seldom not
4) is unitive in a way that distinctions get lost
5) reduces too many true dichotomies to mere distinctions

Take the objective, subjective, interobjective and intersubjective. Wilber is right to see them as autonomous disciplines of human inquiry, asking distinctly different questions of reality. I even see some overlay in what I set forth above in terms of the factual, logical, practical and relational.

I will continue with where he goes wrong later. I have a three hour drive in front of me to, oh boy, go see the Saints play Peyton Manning. The things we do for love ... like walking in the rain and the snow ...

pax,
jb

Bernadette Roberts on enlightenment:

quote:

"There is no multiplicity of existences; only what Is has existence, an existence that can expand itself into an infinite
variety of forms that constitute the movement and manifested aspect of itself. Though what Is, is the act, movement, and changing of all forms - and is form itself it is, at the same time, the unchanging, unknowable aspect of all form [and thus referred to as Nothingness, void].

Thus, that which Is, continually observes the coming and going - the changing and movement
- of its own form or acts, without participating in any essential change itself. Since the nature or essence of Itself is act, there can be no separation between its knowing, acting, existing, or between any aspect of itself, because that which acts, that which it acts upon, and the act itself are one without division. It never goes outside itself to know itself because the unmanifested, the manifesting, and the manifested are One." Roberts, B. 1984. The Experience of No-self. Boston: Shambala, p. 144.

In this excerpt above, there are some important distinctions drawn and lessons taught. We can learn from Bernadette's distinctions even if, in my view, her interpretations of this experience teach the wrong lesson.

Her metaphysical language seems to be very much cast in classical Thomistic concepts like existence, forms, acts, essential, change and movement. In saying there is no multiplicity of existences, she departs from the Thomistic account at the very outset of her consideration, explicitly denying, then, a distinction between Self-subsisting Existence and contingent existence.

My interpretations use analogical and equivocal predications in some places where she speaks univocally of, what are to me, otherwise distinct realities. This is not what I want to talk about though.

Whether one stipulates to the Thomistic account or that of Bernadette, I want to discuss the wisdom in this:

quote:

That which acts, that which it acts upon, and the act itself are one without division.

This speaks directly to my contention that, Wilber's integrality, improperly conceived, 1) is unitive in a way that distinctions get lost and 2) reduces too many true dichotomies to mere distinctions.

One thing that is tell-tale in accounts like those of both Roberts and Wilber, is that, for all their unitive striving, they cannot describe their nondualistic thrust on its own terms and thus remained trapped in the same unintelligible dualisms they are trying to escape. In the same way that nonfoundationalism, for example, deconstructive postmodernism, is not a
philosophcal system in its own right but a critique of foundationalism, an apophatic approach does not stand over against the kataphatic but, rather, draws attention to the analogical nature of our metaphorical statements, helping us to properly nuance all language (whether scientific, philosophical, metaphysical or theological) with equivocal and univocal predications as needed to more accurately describe reality. This would describe, for example, reconstructive postmodernism.

Translation:

Our common aim is descriptive accuracy. Kataphatic descriptions increase same through affirmation; apophatic descriptions increase same through negation. They necessarily complement all analogical statements and, especially, those metaphorical statements, which invoke rather weak analogies, for example, God-talk.

The notion that "that which acts, that which it acts upon, and the act itself are one without division" is, itself, not dualistic. Not at all dyadic, it describes all knowledge as irreducibly triadic.

Returning to my original list of interrogatories, 1) factual? 2) logical? 3) practical? 4) relational? - let us restate Bernadette's Zen koan:

The interrogator, the interrogatories and the interrogation are one without division.

Our act of judgment, our abstractions and our senses are one without division.

Probabilities mediate between what we conceive as possibilities and perceive as actualities.

The practical mediates between the logical and the factual.

What we learn from both Zen and the American pragmatist tradition is that the way to transcend duality is through mediation, which is to say, through an interloper, which opens the dyadic to a new level, the triadic. Such a triadic account seems to better describe reality and can be stated in its own terms, unlike the mutual unintelligibilities of those terms employed by
the dualistic accounts: dualism and nondualism.

Nondualism ends up being nothing but the obverse side of the same coin of the dualistic realm, the apophatic stated over against the kataphatic, as if either of these were philosophical systems and not simple language predications.

The practical upshot of this thinking, in correcting Wilber's architectonic, placing it on a better foundation, is that one can then apply the rules of semantical vagueness to his categories and come out with a truly coherent scheme. The rubrics of semantical vagueness suggest that, when considering possibilities, excluded middle holds and noncontradiction folds;
actualities, both excluded middle and noncontradiction hold; probabilities, excluded middle folds and noncontradiction holds.

Translation:

When considering Wilber's objective, subjective, interobjective and intersubjective quadrants as categories of interrogatories (or possibilities, or abstractions), these categories are indeed autonomous. The questions they pose are distinct and the answers they yield narrowly pertain to each discrete category. We move beyond one human horizon of concern to the next without regard for questions and answers pertaining to other horizons.


When considering Wilber's objective, subjective, interobjective and intersubjective quadrants as categories of interrogations (or actualities, or sensations), we bracket these categories and their attendant abstractions and judgments, methodologically, in order to better attend, with beginner's mind, to unfiltered reality.

When considering Wilber's objective, subjective, interobjective and intersubjective quadrants as categories of interrogators (or probabilities, or judgments), these categories "are one without division" as the interrogator, the interrogatories and the interrogation comprise an irreducible triad of dynamical human realities. We move beyond one human horizon of concern to the next, inescapably influenced by (which is to say, not without regard for) questions and answers pertaining to other horizons. This is authentic transrationality.

The trick is knowing when to go beyond but not without and when to go beyond and without, between distinctions and dichotomies, porridge and succotash.

Where the nondualistic Wilber and Roberts go wrong, on one hand, and their dualistic counterparts go wrong, on the other, is in approaching reality dyadically. The Wilberian schema honors the rubric I've put forth for handling human sensation and abstraction quite well. In their view, with the proper asceticisms, sensations and abstractions yield truth. Bring forth your interrogatories, commence the interrogations and get the interrogators out of the way. Enjoy the show as reality's fractals
and holons collide kaliedescopically before ... ..., well, no one. This is faux transrationality.

In a way, this may seem to place the 1) factual 2) logical 3) practical and 4) relational in the same hierarchical scheme as Helminiak's positivistic, philosophic, theistic and theotic, as different horizons of human concern open themselves to ever expanding vistas. I have previously considered Helminiak's strategy as a remedy to Wilber's but have struggled with its hierarchical nature of progressively widening foci, the narrower constraining the wider. It seems to be enough to say that per one rubric human foci of concern are autonomous and per another they are integrally related, as I set forth above. It seems to be proving too much to say more than that.

To situate the positivistic inside the philosophic might get misinterpreted by some as being, well, too positivistic. Falsification, as a scientific methodology, and the tool par excellence of the positivistic horizon, is already inherently normative, which is to say, philosophic.

To nestle these horizons of concern one inside the next seems to smuggle in certain implicit presuppositions about epistemological issues, such as notions of truth, knowledge, justification, justified true belief, and such. In plainer speak, epistemology is inherently normative and any notion that a positivistic "is" can be arrived at either independent of, or prior to, a philosophic "ought," doesn't square with human experience.

Furthermore, often times, prior to either our philosophic or positivistic concerns, humans necessarily are involved with prephilosophical concerns and relational issues that play out in terms of fundamental trust and mistrust of uncertain reality itself. Such ultimate concerns are expressed in that realm known as faith. One who engages on a positivistic adventure has already placed one's trust in reality's intelligibility (over against nihilism), in human intelligence (over against skepticism), in first principles (like noncontradiction and excluded middle), in belief in other minds (over against solipsism) and a wide array of faith-like maneuvers in prephilosophical presuppositions that cannot be emprically demonstrated (positivistically) or rationally proved (philosophically). Who's then to say that maybe even a theistic intuition, however incohate, might not justify one's trust in uncertain reality, only later to be articulated philosophically?

All of this is just to suggest that I have grappled with how to "fix Wilber" for some time even while preserving Helminiak's basic insight of one focus constraining another. I looked for my answer in Fides et Ratio, which describes these processes of human intellection as circular. And, I kept in mind Maritain's distinctions that are made to unite. And I want to honor Lonergan's developmental insights vis a vis conversion. And, indeed, when one combines a circular process with a developmental vector, one gets a spiral dynamic. And I can thus find much to recommend in Clare Graves' spiral dynamics (prior to its marriage to meme theory).

And this has been one of the thornier issues I've struggled with. I thought I could see what was wrong with Wilber's edifice, and I saw some truth in Helminiak's strategy to fix it, but I couldn't articulate my inchoate notions.

Since this is a rather novel strategy, even to me, my own confusion is going to be marked by a certain lack of clarity, which, unfortunately, translates into a certain amount of inaccessibility. This may otherwise seem a rather oblique topic for a Religious Right topic, but the SD tangent vis a vis neoconservative agenda seemed spot on, since I see Wilber as bluer than blue.

pax!
jb

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
[qb]
They seem to be mostly wanting to advocate for policies that reflect their values, which is what basically every lobbying group does. There are quite a few steps between, say, wanting to see our permissive abortion laws changed and running the country according to the Bible (however that would go). We have a Constitution and judicial system that discourages theocracy, so they'd basically have to overturn the former or write a wide range of amendments into it to succeed (which is not likely). They would also meet cultural resistance, especially from the majority of Christians who see the value in separating church and state. None of these kinds of constraints exist re. theocracy in countries that have Islamic majorities.[/qb]

Oh, I'm quite aware of the existing constraints. Praise the Lord. Only one wonders what these people really want and how things would otherwise be if they had their way. It is one thing to note the practical constraints that exist. That's a rather trivial observation. What I am addressing, rather, is what that cohort's theoretical stances are and I am maintaining that those stances, however explicit or implicit, need to be countered by a critical exploration of their underlying principles. Otherwise, thwarted by practical constraints, some might resort to "work-arounds," like, for example, mudering doctors and bombing clinics. It does matter which types of abortion and emergency contraception one labels murder versus merely an offense against human dignity. And it does matter that they at least understand the reasonableness and integrity of others who hold different opinions.

Sure, basically every lobbying group is busy about advocating policies that reflect their values. The point is that not all advocates can make an equally compelling case at the bar of human reason with the same amount of moral clarity and transparency to human reason. Theocracy is a path MANY of these folks would take us down. And a secularistic society is one many others would take us down, for that matter. Vigilance there, too!

Of course, if your point is that we needn't be alarmist in our call for vigilance against this element vis a vis the Constitution and judicial system, perhaps not. I'd like something more restrictive than Roe V Wade, myself, but, do see the political obstacles to that as problematical enough not to, let's say, object to Rudy's GOP nomination One effect that the adamantly social conservatives can have is by fostering a ruinous GOP nomination process, enhancing the opposition party's chances of taking power, shooting off their own evangelistic feet.

pax,
jb

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
[qb] In the case of Christian fundamentalism, however, at least one can say that there are many bridges within Christendom connecting to wider perspectives of understanding and appreciation of the same truths and principles held by the fundamentalists. This is more dubious re. Islam, and even, to some extent, scientism. [/qb]

There is built-in protection when systems are in place that reflect Gospel values, even when, as in the case of fundamentalists, people believe in the right thing for the wrong reasons. In that regard, there are wider bridges of appreciation but the connections to understanding ? Many of those Christian fundamentalists, I'd have to believe, would be radical Islamists except for the accident of their birthplace. Their logic for why they believe what they believe is the same. The Koran said. I believe it. That settles it.

The real shame is that one would think they'd have built-in protection against such kookiness given our educational system, too. Apparently, we have a long way to go. I'm thankful for how far the American experiment has gone but do not take it for granted.

pax,
jb

JB:

You're somewhat mixing apples and oranges. The spectrum of Christian fundmentalism includes many who hold rigid credal notions about the second coming of Christ, yet view the fate of other religions as managed after His return, and therefore not treated as radical Islamists would those who resist its own appeal of a caliphate. So it's one thing to muse over what the likes of Pat Robertson would do with absolute power, and another to say that Christianity could be taken hostage as easily as Islam seems to be. Christian fundamentalists don't seem widely interested in turning the world into an ecclesial community through their own efforts.

quote:

Originally posted by w.c.:
[qb] JB:

You're somewhat mixing apples and oranges. The spectrum of Christian fundmentalism includes many who hold rigid credal notions about the second coming of Christ, yet view the fate of other religions as managed after His return, and therefore not treated as radical Islamists would those who resist its own appeal of a caliphate. So it's one thing to muse over what the likes of Pat Robertson would do with absolute power, and another to say that Christianity could be taken hostage as easily as Islam seems to be. Christian fundamentalists don't seem widely interested in turning the world into an ecclesial community through their own efforts. [/qb]

Thanks for your points.

I would not want to be interpreted as saying any of THAT.

I stipulate to this: that Christianity could NOT be taken hostage as easily as Islam seems to be.

As for Christian fundamentalists, or even Catholicism, for that matter, and how the rest of the world perceives any type of conversion menace or theocratic triumphalism or not, I couldn't speak to that sociological data. Whatever the case, Of God, and Man, in the Oval Office makes some good points.

pax,
jb