Assuming the following quotes are accurate. . .this is why the LCWR is currently being "monitored" by the CDF:
“If we are to rethink in terms of religion, we have to think in terms of cosmology. . .” [I doubt very seriously that she means "cosmology" in the same sense that physicists understand the term. She's talking about Brian Swimme's pseudo-mystical/quasi-scientific blend of eastern bumpersticker philosophy and bad 70's head shop poetry, The New Universe Story. This book has been The Thing among the LCWR crowd since sometime in early 2000.]
“If we are to rethink in terms of religion, we have to think in terms of cosmology. . .” [I doubt very seriously that she means "cosmology" in the same sense that physicists understand the term. She's talking about Brian Swimme's pseudo-mystical/quasi-scientific blend of eastern bumpersticker philosophy and bad 70's head shop poetry, The New Universe Story. This book has been The Thing among the LCWR crowd since sometime in early 2000.]
“We have to understand the order of the whole. . .There is no cosmos without God, and no God without cosmos.” [We do have to understand the order of the whole. And there is no cosmos w/o God. So far, so good. Then she loops into pantheism: no God w/o the cosmos? This is a complete rejection of the Judeo-Christian understanding of the Creator, His creation, and our relationship to both. Pantheism is attractive to gnostic types b/c it allows them to claim authority/power through "specialized knowledge." In the 21st century, the most specialized knowledge out there is scientific.]
The reporter paraphrases: "A mixture of Scripture, philosophy from Plato and other Greek thinkers
helped develop our theory of Jesus Christ — unchanging, static — a
mechanical God." [This is the standard handful of ignorant mud thrown at the scholastic theological tradition. It's nonsense. Deus caritas est. How is that static, mechanical, etc.? God is pure act, according Thomas, and there can be no more perfect act. What she's worried about, of course, isn't an unmoving God, but an "unmoving church" that won't accommodate her personal theological preferences and those of her fellow-travelers.]
“We have an incredible, dynamic, expanding universe. Simply from the
point of science, this is awesome,” Sister Ilia said, adding,
“Literally, we are stardust." [True, we are stardust in the most literal sense. And this is awesome from more than just the point-of-view of science. In fact, we've pretty much known for a long time now that we're stardust. . .say, since Genesis, at least. But apparently she believes that cosmic forces somehow took stardust and randomly evolved human consciousness from the assembled particles. Remember: no cosmos, no God; therefore, God couldn't have assembled the particles or given them life. He had to wait until we randomly evolved before coming into existence, which means that in some sense, God's existence is contingent on us.]
“Does evolution continue through us? The physical structure of the
universe is love. The way physical life works, it is not background to
the human story. It is the human story.” [Is physical evolution the sort of process that "continues through" individuals? I thought evolution happened at the level of species over billion of years. The physical structure of the universe is matter and energy. Love is not physical; it's relational. Of course, if you're a pantheist, God is identical to the universe and since God is love, then the universe is love. Whoa. Dude. Pass the bong.]
No mas. I'm done. This is exhausting. St Irenaeus dispatched most of this nonsense back in the 2nd century.
Next!
__________________
Follow HancAquam or Subscribe
Next!
__________________
I don't remember mechanicism being a trait of the Greek philosophers as much as of the Renaissance ones...
ReplyDeleteAnyway, why do gnostic sisters look like lesbians? Really, she went out of her way to look like a man in the release picture. What gives?
We are made of stardust. So is chicken poop. This is chicken poop theology.
ReplyDeleteThese badly trained sisters are out there confusing the already confused laity with this nonsense? The sooner the Vatican shuts them down the better for all of us.
ReplyDeleteIt's obvious that many of these women never took a real philosophy class like metaphysics or epistemology. In the 60-70's they were allowed to enter theology doctoral programs with little or no philosophy, substituting sociology, psychology, etc. It shows.
DeleteTechnically we are not star dust but will return to dust of the earth. Even if we were on a space ship, died and returned to dust there, we would still not be star dust. The only time we would be star dust is if we collided w a star and in our disintegration became mixed w the particles. But still, the star would know it wasn't us not by the knowledge these women threw away in place of garbbbage; it would 'know by its makeup and how it was formed- bonds. Now, if they reflected on that point, similarities could take u to heights....
ReplyDeleteThese girls are Gnostic only in an inverted and degraded sense. They identify the physical universe with God, while Gnostics identify it as a prison, the fallen product of the pseudo-divine Demiurge, not the Godhead. And they are hellbent, pardon the irony, on their egalitarian and utopian social causes, something no Gnostic would give five minutes to, they being spiritual elitists and convinced that this world and its systems are incapable of being salvaged, much less saved.
ReplyDeleteDespite the sloppy and ideological use of Gnostic (usually stemming from Voegelin) as a stand-in for social and political programs of "immanentizing the eschaton", Gnostics were far more like monastics living an "angelic life" in this world than the foolish utopian social engineers the LCWR represents.
But we tolerated and accept Protestants now. We called them separated brethren despite the fact they may follow Calvinism a modified pelagianism or Lutheranism a form of Marcionism or Evangelicals that could be following a type of Arianism all the way to Gnosticism. So if we can cut them some slack why not our unseparated brethren and their views.
ReplyDeleteJason,
ReplyDeleteToleration of Protestants (as one of which I was raised) differs from full inclusion in the Body of Christ. If they do not understand and affirm what the Church teaches to be Truth, but rather vigorously oppose it, then they are not truly and fully a part of the Body of Christ. I would suspect, although I am not by any means an expert, that some of them have separated themselves from the Body of Christ by deliberate rejection of infallibly taught dogma. I say suspect, because I do not have all of the facts, nor am I a theologian nor a canon lawyer, simply a relatively recent convert doing my best to conform my life to the teachings of the magisterium.
Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer
Thanks for the Thomistic analysis of the gibberish. But in a way you are being too charitable in assigning it to a lack of philosophy. That's true, of course, but anyone who learned the Baltimore Catechism (as many of these sisters did, judging by their age) would know that God does not need the cosmos. He is the Creator of all. It's hard to understand how these sisters don't get something so basic to the Catholic faith.
ReplyDeleteThey get it. They just don't believe it. They've allowed their itching ears to be scratched by pseudo-scientific poetry.
DeleteCatholics might want to reconsider the order of creation. It appears more likely that God is a creature of the Cosmos than the other way around. He bears all of the earmarks of a very human craftsman.
ReplyDeleteYea. No thanks. I'll with being a Christian.
DeleteThat illustrates the difference between putting Jesus on a pedestal and actually following him. Christians stick to the former practice.
DeleteFollowing Jesus begins by accepting and understanding that the Christ is the final and unique revelation of God. He's not a Hindu avatar or a Buddhist bodhisattva. He is God. The God Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; our Lord revealed in the Old and New Testaments. That God -- the Christian God -- is not a product of nor a part of the cosmos. He is the Creator of the cosmos.
DeletePutting Jesus on a pedestal begins by being deceived into thinking that Jesus is the child of a cosmic Creator. It ends in failing to take the guy seriously.
DeleteI couldn't agree more. Jesus is not the child of a cosmic Creator. And not taking him seriously is dangerous indeed.
Delete