Just supposing you are a traditionalist Christian who wants to submit to the objective authority of The Church; because you believe that The Church has been ordained by God and Jesus Christ as the timeless repository of objective truth...
What then?
First you will join that church.
Immediately you are confronted by a problem: Which particular branch of that church do you join? Where do you go? Who do you ask? What do you believe?
There is dissent, there are conflicts, the validity of various churches within the church is contested - often vehemently. One branch says that another branch is apostate, or heretical - these judgments may indeed be reciprocal.
Where do you even begin to start to join the true church, when it is not clear what "The Church" actually is?
At the very first hurdle the traditionalist has no alternative but to use his own personal discernment.
He cannot obey or submit until after he has personally decided who is worthy of his obedience and submission.
And this absolute and unavoidable requirement for personal discernment never stops!
Even once he has converted, and is within his chosen branch of the True Church; he will find conflicting beliefs and instructions. He will not discover coherent uniformity, but instead dissent and conflict.
The traditionalist may be absolutely genuine in his motivation to obey and submit to absolute eternal Truth as defined by the Essential Church - but at every turn he will be compelled to discern who and where this Truth is located - because there are always multiple and exclusive claimants of authority.
The traditionalist does not want to choose - indeed his faith is built upon the conviction that personal discernment of Truth is inadequate and spiritually perilous - yet he cannot escape the necessity!
What then is his reaction to the brute fact of endemic and inescapable discernment?
Sadly, too often, his reaction is to deny that it is happening.
His reaction is to claim (or pretend) that - as a traditionalist - he is simply obedient; humbly submitting to the external and objective authority of The Church.
His essential and frequent acts of personal discernment are swept under the carpet, hand-waved into oblivion, suppressed and then forgotten...
And instead the traditionalist maintains his attention externally, outside of himself; by embracing a zealous stance of near-continuous attack on anyone who dissents from what he has personally discerned to be the ideal of submissive obedience to the One True Objective Church's Authority.
Well, people can apparently convince themselves of almost anything; but they cannot prevent others from seeing just exactly what they are doing.
7 comments:
Although those who engage in what you have described seem oblivious to what they are projecting, I find the conspicuousness of it all vicariously embarrassing, in the German "Fremdsham" sense.
Anyway, what interests me in the case of zealous, pugnacious converts is the initial discernment that led them to digress from their original form/denomination in favor of the One True Church or any other church they deemed as true or truer. Somehow that discernment, almost always arrived at individually and personally via some inner searching, is regarded as totally valid/necessary in order to stifle any further individual/personal discernment. The free decision to deny to oneself inescapable freedom.
The individual/personal led them to the universal/objective in order for the universal/objective to snuff out the individual/personal.
The whole business strikes me as paradoxical. Following and believing on Jesus entails a continuous awareness and sharpening of individual/personal discernment, not the opposite. Converts/true believers who deny that they are indeed discerning entangle themselves in a sticky web of bad faith, both existentially and spiritually.
This is, in my opinion, one of the most straightforwardly correct thing of yours that I have ever read.
I've often noted that seemingly very small things (e.g. denying that first act of discernment was actually personal discernment; the assertion of a logical contradiction as truth, like 'The Trinity' or 'Transwoman') quietly lead to massive compounded error.
Thanks Derek - I appreciate the compliment!
@Frank - In the end it is our own business that has to be primary, and even our loved ones are essentially autonomous. I can only try to be as clear as possible for myself, and if it is True - then to trust that this understanding will be incorporated into creation. And if not, then not.
Non-physicians choose their personal doctor (in the States) based on personal discernment and then respect that doctor’s authority. Like the religion industry, the medical industry has disgraced itself over the past few years, along with practically every practicing doctor. However, it remains better for the average man to trust the authority of his doctor rather than to try to internet-diagnose himself for every condition. He will still have to use personal discernment to decide when or when not to get a second opinion or to do his own research, especially for anything with major symptoms or requiring a major intervention, but he is still better off to put himself under medical authority. The legal saying about “the man who represents himself” might make even better sense for medicine.
So is that the situation of the average Christian today, or is every one of us called on to be a “doctor” of the Church? I do not mean that to be a rhetorical question. Maybe we are all meant to spend a good part of our lives in contemplation and wrestle intellectually with the great theological questions. Some people will be better suited for that than others, of course, but that doesn't mean that it’s not required of us. On the other hand, maybe some people are not meant to be their own doctor, but to find and have guides and to fight for their faith in other ways.
Thinking of the Church as a community of beings, the traditional churches do have the advantage of being a wider community, one not artificially cut off from those Christians who went before us. A newer sect seems more likely to be cut off in this way, though there is still a tradition of nonconformism, perhaps, that they can call on to bring them in community with a wider set of beings. The personal discernment required to join such a community, and the ongoing personal discernment required to remain part of that community, can coexist I think with a recognition that we are not always our own best doctors in every case, especially when the medicine is bitter or we when we have diminished decision-making capacity due to some condition.
@Joel - Your doctor analogy depends on assuming that God (our Father, who loves each of us) would create a world in which each human being's salvation depended upon the presence and availability of sufficient numbers of expert, honest and competent "spiritual doctors".
To me, this is inconceivable. So for me the analogy fails - for this, as well as other, reasons.
This is an excellent article. Thanks for articulating this point.
It’s interesting to consider the ways people abdicate personal responsibility for discernment outside the church as well.
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