Ross Douthat has a nice summary of the religious problems facing the world as he contemplates a creche in a NYT editorial this week.
He describes the manger scene as "intimate, miniature and comprehensive" with both a vertical and horizontal import. "...[there is]...the vertical link between God and man — the angels, the star, the creator stooping to enter his creation. But it’s also about the horizontal relationships of society, because it locates transcendence in the ordinary, the commonplace, the low."
This was--and is--revolutionary, a spiritual revolution from the everyday life of common people, something the great critic Erich Auerbach wrote, “neither the poets nor the historians of antiquity ever set out to portray.”
Douthat then breaks the contemporary views down to three visions: the Biblical, the spiritual and secular. The Biblical accepts the manger scene literally, the spiritual vision keeps the theological outlines of an active divinity and personal spirituality that includes "red staters" Joel Osteen and "blue staters" Oprah and a vague "Christian-ish" civic religion.
The secular picture, he says is rare among the general public but dominant among intellectuals. "...[this]...worldview keeps the horizontal message of the Christmas story but eliminates the vertical entirely. The stars and angels disappear: There is no God, no miracles, no incarnation. But the egalitarian message — the common person as the center of creation’s drama — remains intact, and with it the doctrines of liberty, fraternity and human rights."
All of these views involve a faith of one sort or another. Interestingly, he describes the attack on the Biblical view as practical: The pressures of commercial and sexually liberated society are wearing it down. The spiritual view might be less satisfying but has more flexibility; when challenged, it can morph into something looser. More, it ignores evil and carries no real guilt.
His view of the secular picture is revealing. "...[it]... seems to have the rigor of the scientific method behind it. But it actually suffers from a deeper intellectual incoherence than either of its rivals, because its cosmology does not harmonize at all with its moral picture. In essence, it proposes a purely physical and purposeless universe, inhabited by evolutionary accidents whose sense of self is probably illusory. And yet it then continues to insist on moral and political absolutes with all the vigor of a 17th-century New England preacher."
All three of these views have significant flaws, the Biblical practical, the spiritual unrewarding, and the secular logical. Any number of evolutions are possible here. But one wonders if an illogical argument can stand for long. And, if it erodes, what, if anything, will replace it.
He describes the manger scene as "intimate, miniature and comprehensive" with both a vertical and horizontal import. "...[there is]...the vertical link between God and man — the angels, the star, the creator stooping to enter his creation. But it’s also about the horizontal relationships of society, because it locates transcendence in the ordinary, the commonplace, the low."
This was--and is--revolutionary, a spiritual revolution from the everyday life of common people, something the great critic Erich Auerbach wrote, “neither the poets nor the historians of antiquity ever set out to portray.”
Douthat then breaks the contemporary views down to three visions: the Biblical, the spiritual and secular. The Biblical accepts the manger scene literally, the spiritual vision keeps the theological outlines of an active divinity and personal spirituality that includes "red staters" Joel Osteen and "blue staters" Oprah and a vague "Christian-ish" civic religion.
The secular picture, he says is rare among the general public but dominant among intellectuals. "...[this]...worldview keeps the horizontal message of the Christmas story but eliminates the vertical entirely. The stars and angels disappear: There is no God, no miracles, no incarnation. But the egalitarian message — the common person as the center of creation’s drama — remains intact, and with it the doctrines of liberty, fraternity and human rights."
All of these views involve a faith of one sort or another. Interestingly, he describes the attack on the Biblical view as practical: The pressures of commercial and sexually liberated society are wearing it down. The spiritual view might be less satisfying but has more flexibility; when challenged, it can morph into something looser. More, it ignores evil and carries no real guilt.
His view of the secular picture is revealing. "...[it]... seems to have the rigor of the scientific method behind it. But it actually suffers from a deeper intellectual incoherence than either of its rivals, because its cosmology does not harmonize at all with its moral picture. In essence, it proposes a purely physical and purposeless universe, inhabited by evolutionary accidents whose sense of self is probably illusory. And yet it then continues to insist on moral and political absolutes with all the vigor of a 17th-century New England preacher."
All three of these views have significant flaws, the Biblical practical, the spiritual unrewarding, and the secular logical. Any number of evolutions are possible here. But one wonders if an illogical argument can stand for long. And, if it erodes, what, if anything, will replace it.
No comments:
Post a Comment