tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post8210540341244448574..comments2024-03-29T15:13:42.610+00:00Comments on Bruce Charlton's Notions: What is it to live without sin? What is active evil?Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-75819335829189372442011-12-12T15:34:18.117+00:002011-12-12T15:34:18.117+00:00@GFC - thanks (I know you mean 'pithy')
...@GFC - thanks (I know you mean 'pithy') <br /><br />When I pray for the dead (which as a catholic - Anglo - I do a lot), I often have it in mind that these prayers are retroactive, and operate at (or just after) the 'moment' of death to 'help' the soul to make the correct decision when offered the choice of dwellings for the disembodied soul.<br /><br />(Eastern Orthodoxy teaches - as I understand it - that this post-mortem choice of the disembodied soul is the first judgment, which will be superseded by the final judgment when the soul is resurrected with a perfected body.)Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-31537766300085494272011-12-12T15:10:24.740+00:002011-12-12T15:10:24.740+00:00Dr. Charlton,
Excellent post - thank you for that...Dr. Charlton,<br /><br />Excellent post - thank you for that, a pity summation of the novelty of our current situation. There has always been wickedness; but never before the 20th century have we seen systematic, purposeful wickedness like this (though a foretaste of it in the French Revolution, surely).<br /><br />Gyan - by all means we must pray for the dead but post-mortem conversions are a very perilous strategy to ensure one's salvation.GFCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-76059432520873375162011-12-12T08:50:57.897+00:002011-12-12T08:50:57.897+00:00Bruce writes:
... for moderns virtue is measured...Bruce writes:<br /><br /> ... for moderns virtue is measured in terms of behavior - that is in terms of objective, observable behaviour and how it corresponds to the laws of morality.<br /><br />So, in other words, PC is the modern version, not just of Sophistry, but of Pharisaical Sophistry. It's wickedness squared!Kristornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-61880069625244067182011-12-12T08:44:09.426+00:002011-12-12T08:44:09.426+00:00Utlilitariansim simpliciter can work, on the suppo...Utlilitariansim simpliciter can work, on the supposition that man is not Fallen, so that his utility function is not perverted. The utilitarianism of Mills, then, presupposes Rousseauvianism. <br /><br />But Rousseau was wrong. Man is fallen. Utilitarianism can still work, but only for saints, who have been redeemed, and have not relapsed into sin. I.e., it can't work very often. <br /><br />Utilitarianism practised by unredeemed or unrepentant or lapsed sinners is chock full of perverted good intentions, and is leading straight to Hell.<br /><br />May God save us from our good intentions. I sometimes think that when we pray, "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," what we are really praying is, "lead us not into [our own] good intentions." After all, we begin the prayer by willing that the Lord's will be done - not ours. <br /><br />All this is as true for plebeians as it is for elites and bureaucrats. There is no social order, howsoever virtuous and traditional and orthodox and suffused with high and noble spirituality, that is not wholly, utterly beset by this predicament. <br /><br />How I wish my own utility function was not so whacked!Kristornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-70918867985200388572011-12-12T08:01:56.341+00:002011-12-12T08:01:56.341+00:00@Gyan - maybe, we don't really know - from the...@Gyan - maybe, we don't really know - from the Orthodox Saints it seems that a decision must be made shortly after death, but what Time means after death is hard to imagine. <br /><br />On the other hand, clearly this human life on earth has a purpose, a meaning; and some things must happen here, or in relation to what we do here - incarnate and in mortal form, that have major and presumably permanent consequences.Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-24637461430884791612011-12-12T06:57:13.229+00:002011-12-12T06:57:13.229+00:00It is not even
necessarily late after death.
For ...It is not even <br />necessarily late after death.<br />For example, the medieval story of Emperor Trajan 's resurrection and baptism (as recounted by Dante),Gyanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09941686166886986037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-22487396453244130872011-12-12T05:45:25.335+00:002011-12-12T05:45:25.335+00:00@Kristor - that is the best encapsulation of the e...@Kristor - that is the best encapsulation of the error of utilitarianism that has registered on my consciousness!<br /><br />It also points at why ultilitarianism, in practice, is actually the legal-bureaucratic-propagandistic implementation of the 'right things' as defined according to an elite.<br /><br />In other words the elite discover what the elite desire, define this as wholesome, and try to construct a society which gratifies such desires optimally.Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-34814914912160437002011-12-12T02:09:32.693+00:002011-12-12T02:09:32.693+00:00The modern moral calculus is utilitarian. That'...The modern moral calculus is utilitarian. That's why they are focused on reducing misery and increasing pleasure. <br /><br />But utilitarianism is no good at all as a moral guide unless your heart is set on the achievement of the right things. If your desires are wicked, perverted, spoiled, then so is your utility function. <br /><br />And it is not possible in practice to set your heart on just the right things unless you first love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Do that, with zero thought for anything else, and you may possibly find yourself aiming for the highest, best good. Then, and only then, can your utilitarian calculus or practical wisdom operate on good, true inputs, so that you may then behave well (i.e., truly well, rather than politely; it is likely that the truly moral person will outrage his fellows with his rebukes; even the mere presence of a righteous man is a rebuke to the wicked).<br /><br />But this is nothing new. It's all in the Nicomachean Ethics.<br /><br />It just occurred to me that there is a very old term for utilitarians who don't subject their desires to the Good: Sophists.Kristornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-23954269970321199102011-12-11T18:48:59.272+00:002011-12-11T18:48:59.272+00:00Easy on there, Corky :)
Be thou not even as hard ...Easy on there, Corky :) <br />Be thou not even as hard upon thyself as thou artest. <br />Be not ashamed of thyself, also. For thou art human, even in the eyes of God... <br /><br />The only requirement is complete honesty. <br />All other virtue stems from this root. <br />If virtue is your thing. <br />Lacking honesty - true witness - sin follows as naturally as death follows life. <br />You heard it from a crow :) <br /><br />Great article, Bruce.The Crowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04323413604073160469noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-24013384719958802662011-12-11T10:28:53.487+00:002011-12-11T10:28:53.487+00:00In a remark that I've always treasured, Rabbi ...In a remark that I've always treasured, Rabbi Heschel once said (and I'm sorry I can't find the exact quote right now) that it isn't so much that God is hidden from us as it is that we are hiding from God.<br /><br />I agree, this turning away and hiding from God is the essence of sin, just as you say in your post.<br /><br />Whether the moderns are more sinful than any previous generation, however, is something I still need to ponder. <br /><br />That sin surrounds me and often -- I am ashamed to say -- enters into my own heart, is beyond question.CorkyAgainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16118775131210676777noreply@blogger.com