At 12:25 PM 10/7/99 -0400, Michael F. Hynes wrote:
>Tom, it may be true that Augustine's position ultimately served
>institutional interests, but the issue here is the motivations of
>individuals who made up the "institutionalized church." Now that it served
>these interests (and for the sake of argument I'll concede the point) may be
>clear from 20-20 hindsight but was by no means obvious to those who adopted
>the Augustinian position, unless, of course, they happened to possess a
>crystal ball. What they were in a position to do was to evaluate the
>relative merits of Augustine's argument and these were considerable. I know
>of no one who adopted rather cynically Augustine's reasoning because it
>served some institutional interest. Perhaps you can offer evidence (besides
>hindsight) that this was not the case.
What I'm speculating is that the cultural production of meaning ("the
relative merits of Augustine's argument") in this instance better served an
institution that had become more "interested" in its perpetuation than in
the imminent return of the messiah who would render it redundant.
Tom
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