¡Hola de Mexico!

So I managed to find some Internet access and moderate some of your comments. First things first: Debit cards are wonderful, because you can use ATMs in foreign countries. And you can buy things at places that accept Mastercard (not quite so common in Mexico as in Europe). But still, dang, these things are nice.


I went to a rather lovely Christmas Eve mass down here. I rather enjoy going to church with ordinary people, because it distracts me from the mountains of intellectual offal posing as theology. One point of interest is that they opened the service with a form of confession and absolution nearly identical to the ones familiar to Lutherans, at least as nearly as I can tell. In other words, it was a real absolution and not some goofy "insofar as" qualified junk.


Now some responses to the matter of indulgences:

I think I understand rather well the mindset that leads otherwise intelligent people to believe that the pope really can apply merits from the heavenly treasury to your purgatorial debt upon fulfilling some rather arbitrary condition like visiting a shrine or kissing a talisman. I read enough blogs and theological literature to get a general picture of the psychological profile of the Catholic intellectual. It's the psychological disposition that can and will justify anything and everything for the sake of vindicating an institution with which one is rather enamored. It is quite a folly to imagine that theology is a dispassionate rational puruit. In my experience, theologians of every church and tradition are generally motivated by something that runs much deeper than a simple commitment to intellectual integrity and that which can be certified as true. Quite often, the intellectual language of theology is simply a mask for the blind love of the institution, insatiable desire for academic respectability, desperate need for an identity within a certain traditional telling of history, unbridled self-importance, or disenchanted cynicism. To make a long argument short, Catholic intellectuals defend indulgences because they need to do so in order to validate both the institution and their identities within it. If Vatican II had declared the article in Trent concerning indulgences to be merely outdated pastoral advice rather than infallible dogma, or if Trent had never dogmatized them in the first place, indulgences would be today rotting on the ash-heap of theological history.

But let us continue on to something more substantial. The reason indulgences are so fascinating is because they are the clearest manifestation of the deep divide between the Catholic and Lutheran understanding of sanctification. In the Lutheran tradition, sanctification finds its utmost fulfillment in repentance from sin, love of God and service of the neighbor. In the Catholic tradition, however, the heart of sanctification is visiting enchanted shrines and wearing sacred talismans. Needless to say, some Catholic reader is already writing an angry comment protesting that this is not the case. However, let me point out this simple fact: According to Catholic practice, simply loving one's wife as per the divine command, taking care of one's children, faithfully executing one's vocation, etc does not merit a complete remission of all purgatorial penalties. Plenary indulgences are never granted for such things, but are always (at least these days) granted on the non-negotiable condition (at least for the healthy) of visiting some shrine, kissing some sacred trinket, or something similar. Now a more intelligent Catholic will of course argue that true and pure love for God ultimately manifests itself in visiting shrines and wearing talismans per the pope's directive, and only such love for God manifested in these acts (performed before the expiration date of Feb 11, of course!) can truly sanctify and merit remission of all purgatorial debt, but this simply confirms that the Catholic Church teaches that the highest sanctification is in this sort of activity. After all, the love and faith itself does not merit the remission of debt, or the indulgence would have no expiration date. For Lutherans, however, sanctification finds itself in expressing Christ's love toward the neighbor (i.e. the world), which needs no shrine, no talisman, and no decree from any bishop, and furthermore has no expiration date.

See Y'all Later

I'll be in Mexico for the next two weeks.
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.....well, it's not like I'm going to church with the Pentecostals while I'm down there.

We Are Totally Not Any Different

In a recent conversation with a friend, I commented that the Catholics stopped acting like 15th century Catholics after Vatican II, and so a number of Lutherans have felt obligated to pick up the slack. Not because they teach about indulgences or purgatory, but because they believe that Christianity is fundamentally about belonging to the right organization and being in the right place where certain rituals are performed. Performing the sacrament correctly and doing the liturgy according to the right rubrics are apparently what the New Testament means by "faith" and "repentance." A whole theology has grown up to justify this and make it sound like the teaching of both Scripture and the Confessions. One does not need to look very hard to find articles in journals of Lutheran theology saying things like "Perhaps your congregation looks apathetic and faithless, but don't worry! You're preaching orthodox doctrine and doing the liturgy right, so God has promised that they're all saved." Or perhaps you've read, "Some people say that Christians behave no different than the world around them. Never fear, simul iustus et peccator teaches us that will in fact be the case!" This despite, of course, our Confessions saying precisely the opposite.

Anyone who suggests that perhaps this is not correct will be accused of confusing Law and Gospel, pietism, despising the liturgy and the sacraments, or something similar. It's nice to know that the same thing happens in other communions, too.

Linked Earlier...

But the pope recently issued a plenary indulgence. To summarize, the pope has decided that God should forgive you all your purgatorial debt if you visit certain shrines in the right order and say a certain list of prayers with the right attitude. I hope he at least squared it away with God first. I mean, wouldn't you feel like a chump if you flew out to France, visited all four shrines and said the whole list of prayers, and when you got to the pearly gates at the end of life, God told you that if you'd just thought about Mary when you ate your grilled cheese sandwich, he still would've forgiven you all that purgatorial debt? And I heard that God isn't always easy to boss around, either. Maybe in the negotiations, God was all like, "No, five shrines and you gotta bake your mom a pie," and the pope thought he could get away with telling everyone it's just four shrines and a list of prayers, but God won't have any of that, so when you get to the pearly gates, God's going to be all like, "I told that lamer FIVE shrines. FIVE FREAKING SHRINES. Did he listen? No. I know how he is. He was all, 'Oh, I'll tell everyone four shrines, and God will have to give everyone plenary remission, or else he'll look like an ass when everyone gets to heaven and he's all like, "Sorry, it was five shrines," and tells all those expectant people they have to go to purgatory anyway.' But you know what? I'm not going to play along, because that's how I roll. Big bad pope over there thinks I care about losing face? Well guess what, I DON'T because I'm GOD. Get in line for purgatory; you've got some debt to work off." And is the pope sure that his expiration date is keyed on God's? How lenient is God on the expiration date of an indulgence? I mean, even my landlord will take my rent five days after the end of the month with no penalty, and I live in the ghetto. I'm not kidding; I have to pay half my rent in crack. Even if I'm late, it's just like a $30 fee or something. So if you fulfill an indulgence five days after the pope tells God to stop forgiving people, does God cut you some slack? Or does he just give you five across the eyes and throw you into purgatory? Or does he reduce your sentence by 90%? I'll bet this causes a customer relations nightmare. No doubt tons of Catholics try to get indulgences long after they've already expired. Then they get to heaven, and St Peter's all like, "OK, your current punishment owed is 818,743.81 Purgatory Points." And they're all like, "What? I totally paid my balance in 2008! Since then, I can't have racked up more than 7,000." What's Peter say then? "Ooooh...sorry, my logs show you tried to redeem a Four Shrines of Lourdes Plenary Indulgence in July 09 that had an expiration date of 12/31/08. Look, the good Lord does give you an extra thirty days to redeem yourself after the expiration date set by the pope, but you were way, way out of God's grace period. Ouch, and you're going to kick yourself over this one, too. It looks like the pope issued a Five Rosaries Plenary Indulgence in May '08, but you totally weren't on top of that deal. That one was way less out of your way, too. See, this is why you've absolutely got to keep on top of what the pope's up to! Listen, we'd like to to remit it all, but our hands our tied. If we broke our contractual relationship with the Vatican, listen, it would be a PR nightmare, and plus we'd have to let in every random schmoe who claimed he just didn't know about the indulgence." Man, I feel sorry for that guy, especially when he finds out that 818,743.81 points is roughly equivalent to the suffering induced by Love Story 24 hours a day for 500 years. Or maybe Heaven is more like Sears, where they'll honor all sorts of coupons and magazine ads that they really don't have to. But still, you gotta have limits, or there would be no point of an indulgence even having an expiration date. So what are God's limits?

I'm just sayin', y'know?

And what if the pope decreed a plenary indulgence for believing that Jesus died for your sins and set no expiration date? Would God comply with that one, or would that be pushing him too far?

Question for Art People/Sarah Hempel

Is there really a such thing as "fake art?" The reason I ask is there can be no such thing as a "fake book" or "fake film." Sure, I can falsely attribute a novel I wrote to someone else, and assuming I can pass off the forgery, that will undoubtedly improve its sales, it's still actually a book, and if it's a good, well-written story, it's still good. Same goes for movies. I don't care if Tarantino made Kill Bill; it still sucked.

So is a sculpture falsely attributed to Paul Gauguin still worth looking at? I mean, we consider all those anonymous Roman sculptures and even some of their 19th-C reconstructions worth looking at...

Related Point

I recall reading a description of the origin of Barth's Romerbrief in the foreword to his Lectures on the Scots Confession that said Barth's "novel" method of New Testament interpretation was to read the NT through the lens of the question, "What if God actually exists?"

It often ends up being exactly the right sort of question to ask at times.

Step Aside, God; I'm Doing Theology

Over on Reformed Catholicism, I reposted my question about purgatory and the Mass with a little more explanation. I didn't get much of an answer, but I was able to piece some things together. Needless to say, the Catholics were highly offended by what I managed to put together out of their comments. I think the reason is that there isn't a way to answer "Why can Masses do what Jesus can't?" without saying something that would make someone uncomfortable. Also, if you say what purgatory actually is, which is torture and torment, people get all upset and get their feelings hurt. Purgatory is supposed to suck real bad. How a Catholic could have a problem with me saying so is beyond me.

But that's neither here nor there. What I wanted to specifically mention was the nearly complete lack of "God" followed by an active verb. Everyone was speaking about purgatory and salvation in the passive voice. I was left wondering, "So what does God actually do?" He seems almost like a reagent or catalyst in most of their verbal constructions rather than an active person. No one would say something like, "When we offer a Mass for a deceased soul, God does _________." No one. Masses do this, and purgatory accomplishes that, and we are having this performed on us, and we're doing this. God? What's God doing? What's his role in this? Is he pissed off? Propitiated? Transferring some monk's merit from his heavenly account into my own? I don't know and still don't, because no one was talking about purgatory and the Sacrifice of the Mass in terms of God actually doing anything. The only guy who talked about God doing anything was a self-described "Rad Trad" who said that God infuses virtue into the souls of the punished (but did not say why a Mass gets anyone more grace). I gotta give traditionalists this: They talk about God doing stuff, even though traditionalist Catholic theology makes him sound pretty capricious. But the other guys make it sound thoroughly mechanical.

This isn't supposed to be a post about Catholicism, so now I'll segue into my larger point: How often do you see theology in which God is not frequently portrayed in active terms? I'll bet it happens a lot, because for most theologians, God is a philosophical construct. Philosophical constructs don't do a lot; they largely hang out within systems and motivate deductive consequences. Besides, talking about God doing this or that makes you sound presumptuous. Try taking any passive-voice or mechanistic theological statement and changing it so that God is to subject. It probably sounds absurd. Who are you to say what God does? And that makes talking about God inherently self-limiting. I mean, I'm not going to go around telling people lots of unknowable details about the activities of God. But theologians are in the business of always coming with new stuff to say, so if they have to say what God is doing in unabashedly personal language, they won't have much to say at all.

Is God an obstacle to theology?

Merry Christmas Again

"Don't worry, we'll hire you."

That was fast.

Heresies of Luther

I think it's always interesting to go over once again what Luther was actually excommunicated for. Here's an interesting one:

"Purgatory cannot be proved from Sacred Scripture which is in the canon."

If a pope in the past said something was a heresy and publicly excommunicated someone over it, is it still a heresy?

Merry Christmas

"You're fired."

Bare-Bones Confessions

One thing I like about the Lutheran Confessions is that they are probably the least speculative of all Reformation-born systems of dogma out there. The opposite extreme, of course, is Roman Catholicism, whose dogmas about purgatory, Mary, the saints, justification, indulgences, and so on are pure products of speculative theology. "Speculative theology" refers to those theoretical systems constructed by theologians using various philosophical methods and systems to create information where none is explicitly had. For example, nearly every single piece of Christian literature concerning the state between death and the resurrection ever produced exemplifies this kind of theology, since it's not like the only person in history who was in a place to know firsthand (Jesus) said much about it. Well, I guess Samuel could have said something about it to Saul when the witch of Endor summoned him, but all he did was speak a curse rather than answering whether or not there are kittens in heaven.

So when I'm on a "hate theology" skeptical kick, like I am right now, I can still deal with being a Lutheran. I think the Confessions hold up under the absolute, bare minimum assumption that Jesus really existed, died, and rose, the apostles (including Paul) reliably transmitted what he taught, and that the homolegoumena of the New Testament were actually written or confirmed by the apostles. If you hold that bare minimum, there aren't a whole lot of "How the hell could you possibly know that?" moments in the Confessions. True, they do go a lot more in depth than pretty much any other confessional statement in Christian history, but the vast bulk is just drawn-out explanation of pretty basic stuff.

I like that.

Comments

I accidentally deleted instead of published several comments, including one from Chris Burgwald. Chris, if I were a Catholic, and I thought the language of penitential and purgatorial satisfactions being "punishments inflicted by Him" used by Trent is misleading rather than enlightening and descriptive, right now I would be questioning the wisdom of calling such declarations "infallible" and dogmatically subscribing to them. But that's just what I would do.

I Don't Understand the Logic

According to Catholic theology, Christ's atoning death 2000 years ago eliminates the "guilt" of sin once it is applied to you in baptism, but not the "punishment." The argument tends to be that this would be unjust, so you must work it off yourself. There's all kinds of rhetoric used against the idea that God would remit even all your "temporal punishments" for the sake of Christ's death & resurrection and attempts to portray such a complete forgiveness as actually monstrous. The basic idea seems to be that it's necessitated by the basic justice of God that I make satisfaction for my sins with my works and later purgation after death.

But to me, this line of argumentation seems to be inherently contradictory to the idea of the sacrifice of the Mass. For a refresher, the idea is that by offering the Mass, which is understood to be a re-presentation of Christ's death on the Cross, the priest propitiates God and in some way reduces your purgatorial penalty. Notice the absence of any particular extra propitiatory action by the person suffering in purgatory. The offering of the Mass alone remits his penalty.

So this is what I don't get: If it's unjust and illegal for God to remit not just my guilt, but also my punishment, for the sake of Christ's death in 30 AD because it's an action done by another and not by me, then it appears that it is equally unjust and illegal for him to remit punishment for the sake of the Sacrifice of the Mass, because the Sacrifice of the Mass is held to be the same sacrifice as that of the Cross. Anything the Cross can't do because it must be done by a meritorious work on our part, the Mass can't do, either. If punishment can't be vicariously satisfied, then it can't be vicariously satisfied, period.

Now I will add that the old medieval logic is not self-contradictory. The medievals had an extremely time-enslaved understanding of the atonement and Baptism. Essentially, the Cross only remitted sins committed prior to Baptism. Atoning for sins after baptism requires further atonement to be made, which is made both by the Sacrifice of the Mass and by acts of Penance. The inability of the 30 AD event by itself to remit temporal punishment [imposed by God for the purpose of propitiating his wrath, purifying one's soul and earning one's way out of purgatory] was thus a consequence of the time-bound nature of forgiveness and atonement rather than an inherent objection to vicarious satisfaction of punishment.

If someone could explain Catholic thinking on this one clearly and calmly, I'd appreciate it. Why do additional Masses need to be offered to get you out of purgatory? Why couldn't Christ's one atoning death make satisfaction for everyone's purgatorial punishment?

2 For 1! While Supplies Last!

Rome's having a fire sale. Get it while the gettin's good.

Art Sucks

I drove by an art gallery on my way to school this morning. In the window, I saw a "sculpture" that was a board with a square hole in one end, through which the "artist" had pushed a bunch of long branches with their bark whittled off. The board and branches were each touching the ground, so that the whole thing made a giant triangle.

This is in stark contrast to the traveling Louvre exhibit I saw in Indianapolis consisting of artistic treasures of ancient Rome. The mastery the Roman sculptors had over the human form was breathtaking. In a particular statue of Tiberius, you could even see the outlines of the veins and bones in his hand--not exaggerated, nothing out of place, and completely lifelike.

I realize that art buffs will tell me all about how I don't appreciate Sticks Through Board because I'm ignorant and don't understand how art is a projection of the artist's soul (anyone whose soul is full of sticks and boards is too boring for me to be interested in), but you have to admit this: Thousands of years from now, when people are digging up the relics of modern Western civilization, they'll find our "art" and say, "What the hell was wrong with these people?" In fact, I'll be they won't even realize that half this stuff is even supposed to be art. "Hm, some ancient sticks and a board. I wonder what these were for?"

Robert Capon

If you're a Lutheran, you might find Robert Farrar Capon's writings likeable. In fact, nearly everything he says might resonate with you...until you realize he's a universalist. My question is: What's the tipping point? Why aren't Lutherans universalists like Capon? When certain Lutherans talk about everyone in the world being already forgiven, and that the worst thing you can do when caught in the midst of sin is doubt that you're going to be raised in glory with the righteous, I do wonder why they're not universalists.

If I Were In Charge

Here's what I'd ask potential call candidates. These questions are not currently getting asked:

1. Explain what goes into preparing your sermons.

This is pretty simple. If he doesn't even mention the Greek text, he would be immediately disqualified. Ideally he would say something about what's going in the congregation, too, but first and foremost, I would be looking for an answer that says "I take the text seriously." If he says that he always makes sure to relate the text to Baptism, the Eucharist, and Absolution, he'd be automatically disqualified. I've heard one too many [certain seminary professor] sermons, and if I hear another, I may just have to murder the person next to me in the pew just to let off some steam.

2. What do you think of Walther's distinction between "gospel admonition" and "Law?"

I don't like the new antinomianism making its rounds in Lutheranism. I think it's poison. Also, this answer would show how well the guy actually knows Walther's book, which I think is a must.

The History of Philosophy Just Repeats

The reason I enjoyed Intelligent Design writings for a time was their focus on science as a philosophy and giving a philosophical critique of it. Scientists hate this, of course. As the infallible arbiters of Holy Tradition, they are beyond critique. But, since they claim to present knowledge about reality, they really are making claims about epistemology and metaphysics, which are philosophical claims. What's even more interesting is that if you ask any scientist, "Why is science objective?", he will inevitably mention something about "peer-reviewed journals." But that carries an implicit historical conundrum: Peer-reviewed journals are a fairly modern invention, only coming to dominance in the latter part of the 20th century. Were Galileo and Newton scientists?

Right, so back on the subject. In my opinion, scientists' imagined immunity from philosophical critique opens them up to philosophical absurdities which have been dismissed for quite some time. For example, perhaps you've heard of Zeno's paradox. Zeno reasoned that to move some distance, you must first move half that distance. But to move half the distance, you must first move half of the half, and so on into infinity. Therefore, a single movement requires first moving infinitely many times, which is impossible, therefore all movement is an illusion. In other words, logical deduction proves that everything you experience is an illusion. A deduction that results in such a conclusion must immediately be dismissed as erroneous, because the deduction itself is part of human experience. If everything is an illusion, then hearing a logical argument is an illusion, too, and that's not somewhere the proponents of such arguments want you to go.

Well, you see a very similar sentiment echoed in this little article on memes:
"Free will and the sense of self are illusions."

"Free will" is referring to general decision-making, not religious conversion, just before you throw a Book of Concord at me. But the "sense of self" comprises literally the entire human experience. Your sense of self includes your experiencing, knowing, thinking, reasoning, feeling, and so on. If the sense of self is an illusion, everything is an illusion. To make a long story short, Richard Dawkins' theory of memes uses pure reason to prove that everything you experience is an illusion, although not quite the way Zeno meant it. And that's absurd. If the sense of self is illusory, so is that of Dawkins. But if Richard Dawkins' identity as a personal, rational agent is illusory, then his own thought processes are nothing more than the impersonal, deterministic evolution of memes...which includes his theory of memes. Not only is his theory just a predetermined meme, but so is any proof or critique of it! So he may think he has demonstrated his theory to be valid, but demonstration and proof require the presence of personal agents, and as personal agents are illusions, so are demonstration, proof, and critique. That means his theory rests on illusions, as does all of science. Somehow, I don't think atheists want us saying science is an illusion.

But then, my little rational critique here is just the product of memes. It doesn't demonstrate anything, and your personal estimation of it is just an illusion. ;-)

The Call

Well, the guy rejected our call. That means we have to go through the whole laborious process again. LCMS polity is INSANE. I'm no fan of the "historic episcopate," as it does not appear to me to have done a bang-up job of protecting orthodoxy in those churches where the necessity of having been touched by the right guy is especially exaggerated. Allowing absent rulers to force pastors on parishes is basically begging for abuse.

I don't see why we can't have a sane polity, one where getting a new pastor doesn't involve secret committee meetings, not doing basic common-sense things (such as having the guy guest preach, or asking him if he'd consider a call to your church) in the name of "allowing the Holy Spirit to guide the process," and allowing a handful of women to determine who the congregation will vote on...which vote takes place after a rather uninformative 15-minute presentation of the candidates. The only "theological" question asked of the candidates is "Do you agree with the doctrine and policies of the LCMS?"

If you want to see Lutherans turn into Pentecostals, go to a church in the middle of a call process. You would think from reading the Confessions that using prudence and common sense in making decisions was quite in harmony with Lutheran theology. But no, not in the "divine call." When issuing the "divine call," which is a magic letter sealed by the Holy Ghost himself, the more common sense and decision-making skill you use, the more you're frustrating the will of the Spirit and not allowing God to work. We'd probably be better off by praying over a clergy roster until everyone's eyes zero in on the same name, without any other information whatsoever. Let's just replace using our brains with divination entirely and throw off whatever vestiges of sensibility that yet remain.

It's just retarded. As I get older, I fully intend to stay as far removed from the call process as I possibly can in whatever congregation I'm in. I'm coming to think that the less I'm involved in Lutheranism, the better. I'll show up at the sacrament-factory on Sunday, and that's it. Besides, that's all that True Lutheran Theology says the Christian life is about. Show up in church. Go through the liturgical motions as the pastor repeats Law/Gospel incantations and cranks out sacraments. Rinse and repeat.

Rinse and repeat.

Strange Attractor.

This is for a simple quadratic map. The closeup is of the hole up on the top. You can see how these things have a lot of fine structure. Left-click to see it more clearly.

Fine, fine. I get it. I took down the post and censored the comment.

Expect me to be equally severe should you choose to complain about some other group of people in my comments. That actually includes complaining about people who are fed up with another group of people, since the group of fed-up people are themselves a group.