medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Please note that my comments included modifiers such as "purely" or "reductionistically". John Mundy explicitly said that the deity's choices are not knowable to us and that we must restrict ourselves to the human. That is a perfectly respectable position, as I pointed out, with a fine heritage from the Enlightenment. But he wrote not that _no one_ can know the deity's reasons. That seemed to me reductionistic.
Dennis Martin
>>> [log in to unmask] 01/21/02 19:47 PM >>>
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I appreciate Mr. Martin's point that we students of the history of religion
would do well to remember more often that for the majority of the world's
population, medieval and modern, religion and faith are not things to be
scrutinized, but to be practiced and accepted. However, if he is correct
in suggesting that Professor Mundy takes inadequate account of the
possibility that the Catholic Church has genuine spiritual motivations (but
how do we define these, I wonder?) in canonization processes, it seems to
me that Mr. Martin is inadequately willing to accept that the Church does
indeed have political motivations, as well. As historians of religion, are
we not obligated to allow readily for both types of motivation? It appears
to me that the history of Christianity offers ample evidence for the
consistent influence, medieval and modern, of both the 'spiritual' and the
'political.'
Chara Armon
>Professor Mundy . . . . seemed to exclude the divine and spiritual from
>the sphere of our knowledge and to suggest that our historical
>investigations can only proceed on the level of the humanly knowable.
>Fine, but that is of course a philosophical-religious statement about the
(im)possibility of revealed religious truth in the Jewish-Christian-Muslim
>sense. It has a fine heritage from the Enlightenment, but it's only one
>among many philosophical positions on this issue.
>
>I would be surprised if by "advantage" [Prof. Mundy] means "agapic love"
>(which is what a believing traditional Catholic would say is the advantage
>to canonizing a saint: as a model of Christ's agapic love to inspire
>others to the same), given the what else he wrote about the unknowability
>of the Divine.
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|