God on the Mountain Top
I heard recently a Christian pastor’s conversation at an inter-religious event. The Buddhist and Muslim representatives approached him and talked about how we all believe in the same God and in the end all of our religions are different names for the same thing. The pastor responded, “So you’re saying it is like God is at the top of a mountain and we are all on different paths, but eventually we will all get to the top of the mountain and all be with God.” “Exactly!” they exclaimed, happy he was accepting their point.
Pope Benedict, Sacred Tradition and the people who should know better
I wrote a piece on my papal link blog that I think is important to republish here.
Does The Pope Use Tradition with a Double Standard?
Jamie Manson, a columnist for the National Catholic Reporter in her article, Pope treats tradition with double standard (again), manages to write a critique of the selective traditionalism of the Pope without making any distinction in her article between Apostolic Tradition and the various disciplines and ecclesial traditions that have sprung up over the centuries. One would think that would be an important thing to note.
Here's the gist of her argument against this "traditionalist" Pope's resignation
Subverting Moralizing Laws with the Natural Law
The natural law cannot and ought not be, in every instance, enforced by human laws. That is to say, human laws are a moral guide, but are not sufficient to make men moral.
Indeed, the lawgiver who wants to make other men saints by criminalizing all sin is actually stepping outside his authority over the community and is overreaching, according to Aquinas' understanding of the natural law. There are for Aquinas many things that are sinful and destructive, but which still ought not to be prohibited by human legislators. Such things, though evil, ought to be tolerated within society. Criminalizing such things causes reprocussions even more disasterous than the evil itself.
This struck me deeply.
Christian Morality: Happiness
Is there such a thing as "Christian morality", as in, a morality that is shaped by the Christian faith? If morality is universal, how can any religion or sect or belief claim to have a morality all to themselves, or claim that their morality is morality as such? As Catholics we have a strong belief in what is known as the moral law, or the natural law, or, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it, the "natural moral law", that is written on the hearts of every human person and is echoed in each conscience. Is Christian morality, then, an extra superimposed or added on to the already existing super-structure of natural law morality?
These are questions that have bothered me over the years. I think this is what drove the Enlightenment project of Immanuel Kant. He sought to remove from morality any supernatural basis and ground everything in the individual's practical reason, that is, in the capacity for rational thought about human action.