Four More Presuppositions that Challenge the Modern Evangelist

Archdiocese of Washington ^ | 8/18/2014 | Msgr. Charles Pope

[markomalley]

(This is a continuation from Msgr Pope's column from yesterday, posted here)

It is critical for us who would preach the Gospel to ponder what sorts of presuppositions our listeners bring to the conversation. Today, sadly, there are many trends that have poisoned the culture and make our task much more difficult.

Yesterday we explored six problem areas. Today four more. It helps to describe modern mindsets not to despair of them, but rather to look at them with some insight rather than being only vaguely aware of them. If we are more clear on the presuppositions that people bring to the table, we can better direct our message to them and ask them to consider if these notions are helpful or right. For indeed, most bring their preconceptions to the conversation subconsciously. Bringing their premises to light can act as a kind of medicine or solvent that will assist us in clearing the thorns so that the seeds of truth can be sown.

So, here are four more problematic presuppositions.

I. Reductionism is a philosophical position which holds that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents. Most commonly today reductionism is found in the explanation of complex human phenomena in terms of the laws of physics and chemistry.

Reductionism tends therefore to reduce the human person to the merely biological. Thus every thought, emotion, passion, desire, memory or wish is just a bunch of chemicals in the brain, and the firing of synapses etc. Even clearly metaphysical concepts such as justice, mercy, beauty, infinity, and so forth must somehow be explained in terms of brain cells, and physical processes. The human person is thus reduced to a sort of brain on a stick, or a bag of chemicals and atoms.

Yet, from the standpoint of causation (in particular formal and final causality) it is hard to say how something merely physical can generate that which is metaphysical. The term metaphysical means literally, “that which is beyond the physical.” Hence things such as beauty, goodness, justice, moral uprightness, the infinite, etc. are not “physical” things that can be weighed in a scale or spotted out for a walk together. One does not expect to walk into a restaurant and see justice sitting down to dinner with morality. These things are real, in fact so real that many of them have inspired marriages, and launched wars. But they are not physical. But since nothing can give what it does not have, one may reasonably wonder as to how a merely physical entity such as the brain, can “produce” metaphysical concepts. How can we who physically only know closed and limited time, “imagine” infinity?

Some say these are merely emanations of the physical mind, conceptualizations of the bicameral intellect, or abstractions of the brain. But pardon me for objecting that “conceptualizations,” and “abstractions” are metaphysical concepts, and you’re not allowed to use metaphysics to say there is no such thing as metaphysics.

“Never mind!”, say the reductionists, “Science will ONE DAY be able to explain it.” But, again I object that such an answer is a kind of a “God of the gaps” argument and I would like an answer today please, since you are reject metaphysics today.

The traditional answer still makes the most sense. Namely that the human capacity to grasp the metaphysical, the spiritual, if you will, points to a metaphysical or spiritual dimension to the human person. Our spiritual capacity points to a spiritual cause which can give what it has: a spiritual sense, an openness to things beyond the physical. Clearly the brain is an essential way in which the soul exercises many of its faculties, but we are not simply to be reduced to a brain.

But reductionism is a common view today and produces a culture that is hostile to those of us who point the to importance of the soul. While faith surely regards our body, it most surely also summons us to attend to our soul. But in a reductionist world, concerns for the soul are set aside as irrelevant. The local gym is full, the Church is empty. Obsessions about physical health abound, but there is little concern for the soul. Stop smoking, it could kill you, but there is little similar concern for sinning which could permanently land you in a smoky place.

Thus one form of reductionism reduces me to my body. But in a strange twist, many reductionists also play the other side of the fence simultaneously. And thus many also see their body as a mere appendage. My body is merely something I have, a kind of tool if you will. In this reductionism the “I” seems to be some soulful agent who can use his body without reference or effect on himself. And thus absurd statements can be made by some reductionists to the effect that “I” am a female, trapped in a male body. The self in this case is thus reduced to the “soul” and the body is a mere suit of sorts, a machine or something akin to that.

“Well this is crazy,” you might say. “Which is it going to be? Am I reduced to my body, or to my soul?” Well, your first mistake is to seek consistency in these dark days. But, to answer your question more directly, the form of reductionism you choose is whatever form benefits you in the moment to justify whatever you want to do. And don’t worry about consistency, because too many people are just too dazed to do all the math anyway; so you’ll likely get away with almost any crazy inconsistency you want to hold.

And while we’re on the reductionist kick, why don’t we reduce marriage from a life long loving union of a man and a woman bearing the sweet fruit of love in their children, to just two adults being happy for as long as they please? Yes, lets just take the one thing, and lose the rest. And how about sex too. Lets reduce it from being about love, pleasure and procreation, to just being about pleasure. Yeah, lets lose that necessary connection to procreation and pretend that the sperm and ovum aren’t ever there, or kill them and thwart their purpose. Who invited them anyway? And lets also play the other side of the fence and reduce the having children to a technology in a petri dish, and lose all that messy unpredictable marital embrace stuff, which is so unfair to “gay” people and people who want children but can’t find a spouse, or don’t want one.

Yeah, that’s it, lets just reduce everything down to its parts, and take what we like and leave the rest.

Well pardon me dear reader for my tongue-in-cheek portrayal of the increasingly dark world of reductionism. But for the evangelizer, we need to know some of the twists and turns of of the reductionism that dominates our age. The Catholic and Biblical world strives to speak to the rich tapestry and beauty of what God has done, and the connections he has intended. We living increasingly in a world that separates what God has joined and we are going to have to work long and hard to get people beyond a consumerist thinking that wants the part without the whole. We must work hard to show that a reductionist approach is ultimately fool-hardy and has many very bad consequences.

I will strive to be briefer with the next presuppositions.

II. Scientism – This is a form of reductionism itself. Scientism is the position that emphatically states “The physical sciences explain all reality.” The only problem is that the statement itself is not a scientific statement, it is a (flawed) metaphysical statement. There is no way the claim can be verified scientifically. Thus while defending (boastfully) the physical sciences as being the only necessary explanation for everything, the boaster must step outside of science, and set aside science, to make the claim. Its not a good idea to break the very rule you are announcing in the very act of announcing it.

Clearly the physical sciences are a great boon to our modern age. But the physical sciences can only attend to the physical world. The physical sciences are good at addressing material and efficient causality, but are not able to speak to formal and final causality. The physical sciences are good at addressing the many aspects of how things physically come about, but are not equipped to answer the deeper background questions related to “why.” Why does anything exist at all? And what is the final purpose to which all things tend? These are not questions science is equipped to answer.

But clearly we live in times where many practically idolize the physical sciences and are dismissive of anything that cannot be weighed on a scale or seen under a microscope. Evangelization is more difficult and we must increasingly spend a lot of time showing how many very real things (justice, loyalty etc) that effect very real changes are not physical, but they are real. We must reinvite many to discover the necessity and beauty of the metaphysical realities of art, ethics, philosophy, and theology.

III. Heresy and Designer Religion - Even within the realm of believers are legions of Catholic and Protestants who feel utterly entitled to design their own religion and God. We used to call this heresy and idolatry.

In the past the heretics and idolaters at least had the decency to commit formal schism and found their own religion. But in lazy times like these, many prefer to stay within the religion they reject at fundamental levels, and still live off the money, resources, and in the buildings of of the faith they boldly disrespect. It’s just so much trouble to have to go and build your own buildings and find your own followers, you know. So, the lazy modern form of this is to say, “I am a faithful Catholic, but…..” And then out comes the list of pick and choose Catholicism, or Christianity.

The word heresy means “to choose.” It is a true fact that many of the truths of our faith are held in some tension. Are we free or is God sovereign? Both says, orthodoxy, and holds the tension accepting that there are mysteries and limits to our knowledge that prevent us from simply resolving every tension. But heresy will not abide the tension and thus chooses one and discards the other. Is God loving and merciful? Yes! But then why is there judgment and a Hell? Both must be held, says orthodoxy, and while there are mysteries, clearly God will not compel our yes. No way, says heresy, so it rids itself of the tension by redesigning God, or discarding the clear revelation of judgment and hell.

Many today feel utterly free to call themselves Christian, to call themselves Catholic and then go on to pick and choose what they like. They see this as a kind of God-given right and are supported in this but new-age spiritualities and the “God-within” movements of Oprah et al. Yes, “I gotta be me….gotta be true to myself.” So the real Jesus has to go.

And because most of these moderns cannot abide the Jesus of Scripture, they rework him and tame him. They take some qualities they like, his love and ministry of healing, and discard his less pleasant warnings about judgment, or his summons to carry the cross, or his demand for a chastity so thorough that he even excluded unchaste thoughts.

And never mind quoting scripture to them. They are essentially post-scriptural and cannot be bothered with details of the actual revelation. God has spoken to them personally, and God is love and he would never do or say anything that might upset anyone. One line trumps every other word and line of scripture: God is love.

This is heresy. Pick one thing discard the rest. This is a designer Jesus, one who coincidentally agrees with everything the dissenters wish to do or think. And don’t even thing of Quoting St. Paul.

Here too we who would evangelize are going to have to keep chipping away at this. But have confidence, there are many who have come out of this fog, we need to keep working.

IV. Arrested Development - A final factor I would like to cover is not so much a presupposition or mindset as it is a simple lack of maturity. We live in a culture in the West that I would argue is best described as developmentally fixated on teenage issues. Collectively we behave like a classic teenager: hatred of authority, demanding all the rights and rejecting any responsibilities, titilated and imprudent about sex, obsessed with “fairness” but only in an ego-centric way, constantly pushing boundaries just to assert ourselves, insisting we know a few things and being resistant to being taught (too cool for school), reckless in behavior and dismissive of consequences, obsessed with trends and fitting in, always asserting our independence but insisting others pay our way. I could go on, but you get the point. I have written more on this problem here: Stuck on Teenage

But for the evangelizer we must be sober and aware of our need to summon many people to maturity and to get there ourselves. Someone has to be the adult in the room. And we must be very careful not to try and appeal to the world about us by asking “Mother Church” to don jeans and adopt teenage foolishness. The Church must be kind, but clear in insisting that everyone come to full maturity in Christ.

What's Captain Kirk doing up there at the top of the post? He is engaging a destructive robot name “Nomad.” Nomad has flawed programing and needs to be engaged in his error by Captain Kirk. And while Kirk ultimately causes Nomad’s destruction, we who love God’s people seek their salvation.

[markomalley]

Msgr Pope ping

[Tax-chick]

Bringing their premises to light can act as a kind of medicine or solvent that will assist us in clearing the thorns so that the seeds of truth can be sown.

If you throw enough metaphors at the wall, one of them's bound to stick, Msgr.

[Salvation]

**Heresy and Designer Religion**

Prevalent today.