Perennial Principles

Recently I've been pushing the idea that the way forward for Western societies lies in recovering the principles at the heart of the tradition of Christian intellectualism. Only in this way will we be able to see clearly both the problems we face and the solutions we need to work toward. Of course, this calls for education in those principles to internalize them--a reality that has been lost and that is difficult to recover.

Earlier today commenter sawadika, writing on the Professions In A Woke Society post, posed this question:

What you are saying is very true, but if it is a matter of religious philosophy, isn't that ideology and dogma? It just seems so futile--I am looking for a solution in my own life, as it is a very real problem.

This I took to be a clear reference to my discussion and criticism of the notions--expressed in the Daily Signal--of "conservative ideology" and "conservative dogma." For example, I had written:

Many conservatives are unable to actually think or, at least, to express their ideas outside the framework of an essentially subjectivist worldview as enshrined for them in the idea of "natural rights." It goes like this: Everyone is "entitled" to their own opinion. In other words, there's no right and/or wrong, so can't we just get along? Liberals have an answer for that question. It goes like this: We're right and you're wrong; we'll get along once you go along.

Men being men and women being women is neither an 'ideology' nor a 'dogma.' The tradition of Christian intellectualism--'tradition' meaning, handed down through the centuries, is quite capable of addressing such issues in purely intellectual terms on the basis of realist philosophical principles. That was lost with the breakdown of the Christian intellectual tradition under the pressure of Nominalist thought. The classical liberal framework within which so many conservatives live is, on principle, unable to address these issues except as essentially subjective 'dogmas' or ideologies.'

Perhaps this is a good time to explain where I'm coming from, since it's a place that's definitely atypical. My response to sawadika said, in part:

On Neo-Gnostic Ideologies

The great constant in human life, as we live our life stories out in history, is the search to understand the meaning of our lives. The constant temptation is the attempt to assign a meaning to the world of reality rather than discover such meaning as is accessible to our understanding. To discover meaning requires patience and persistent effort--and humility. But life is ultimately short and man tends to be impatient. Throughout history there have been repeated attempts to legislate--as it were, by an act of our will--the meaning of existence: to make the meaning of existence to be what we want it to be rather than humbly submit to such meaning as we may be able to discover.

The urge to follow our will in assigning meaning to existence has become the defining note of modern ideologies, described by Eric Voegelin as neo forms of the ancient gnostic current of thought. The motivation may vary. At times the motivation may be simple despair of achieving certainty in our lives in a disordered world. At other times this urge to will a meaning into existence may be motivated by rage at injustice or, demonically, a will to power. As modern man has rejected traditional Christian faith, he finds himself more and more a prey to ideologies that promise heaven of one sort or another in this life. That promise has become the common currency of American politics, certainly and overtly on the Left, but sometimes more subtly on the Right as well.

Today at the traditionalist Catholic site, One Peter Five, there's a post that discusses this aspect of modern life from a traditionalist Catholic perspective. Unfortunately, the title--Currentism: The Perennial Lie--uses an awkward neologism, but as you'll see the author is speaking of Neognostic ideologies. I'm offering some excerpts below because it may help some to orient themselves in these confusing times in which the Left appears to be riding high in their attempt to propagate the "perennial lie" and to dominate and shape reality to their own desires. As the author maintains, these efforts always lead to tragedy and suffering if not checked, and yet the appeal of the perennial lie to many--as well, also, to those who seek personal power--is undeniable.

Ratzinger and Scientific Method

Having written the previous post in response to the Italian lawyer who attempted to criticize Antonio Livi's critique of Ratzinger's views on faith, I did a few online searches. Those searches confirmed a number of things. One is that the world has become a very small place, indeed, with the advent of the internet. I came across an article in the New York Times by the Professor (now emeritus) whose course on Philosophy of Science I took as an undergrad.

The paper I wrote for that course argued that there is not, in fact, any such thing as "scientific method." Rather, I argued, science is simply a refinement and quantification of "common sense" methods of knowledge common to all humanity, i.e., a careful utilization of the normal methods we all use in coming to know the world around us, extended and refined by the use of instrumentation and mathematics. I received a B for that effort.

Over forty years later, my former professor authored the article I just read: There Is No Scientific Method.

A survey of Ratzinger's writing over the decades since Vatican II leads to the conclusion that his views remain essentially unchanged, to include his naive views on scientific positivism's affect on philosophy, faith, and human knowledge generally. Unfortunately, his views are clearly based on German philosophy from the 18th century that is accepted only by philosophically naive people--such as scientists and theologians. Oh--and Italian lawyers. The truth is that "modern" philosophy doesn't explain "modern" science. Kantian agnosticism is, as Etienne Gilson pointed out, an unjustifiable presupposition. Would that Ratzinger had bothered to actually read and reflect on what the Thomist Gilson had to say, rather than grousing about the scholastic textbooks he (Ratzinger) was required to read in seminary--as Ratzinger has done for the last five decades.

More Ratzinger, Modernism, and Livi - with Legal Input!

On Sandro Magister’s blog this morning there’s a reply to Antonio Livi's critique of Ratzinger, which I covered yesterday. Tellingly, the reply is by a lawyer–not a philosopher. Once again, the blog is in Italian: Joseph Ratzinger teologo. Non “modernista” ma moderno: “Joseph Ratzinger, Theologian: Modern but not ‘Modernist’.” The lawyer/author starts by pronouncing himself “not convinced” by Livi, but then goes on to confirm exactly what Livi said: Ratzinger rejects Thomism, rejects the very notion of praeambula fidei, and adopts instead a “modern”, i.e., Kantian, approach. In essence the lawyer is saying: It's true that Ratzinger is not Thomist and is Kantian--but (the lawyer simply asserts) that's just being "modern," (i.e., it's a good thing), not "Modernist" (which, he presumably agrees, is a bad thing, and is therefore to be denied). In fact, however, it's simple historical fact that Kantian thinking is the very basis of Modernism (cf. the links in yesterday's post, cited above).  It's important to further note, however, that in attempting to make this case the lawyer quite mistakenly identifies modern science with a “methodological atheism.”

Now, it’s quite true that a scientist–insofar as he is a scientist–need not be a metaphysician nor need he explicitly hold any metaphysical principles in order to conduct scientific inqquiries. But by that very same token, there is nothing necessarily atheist about the scientific methodology insofar as it is scientific (as the history of science amply demonstrates). It may be fair to call the scientific method “agnostic”, but even so it is not methodologically or consciously agnostic any more than it is methodologically atheist. Which is to say, a scientist can engage in valid science as a theist, an atheist, or an agnostic simply because such considerations don’t affect his methodology in practice–although the scientific methodology very arguably arose from theistic principles (cf. the work of Stanley Jaki).

What Ratzinger does, and the lawyer is quite explicit about this, is to accept this supposedly methodological atheism of modern science (or, more properly, its “agnosticism”) as controlling for philosophy. IOW, he accepts that "science" in the modern sense of the word is the only truly valid form of human knowledge, and he insists that the man of faith must bow to the scientific method as exclusively valid in all areas of human inquiry. Therefore, in Ratzinger’s view, belief that there is a cause for the existence of all that exists, which we call God, is and can only be an hypothesis. It cannot be a certainty because it is not subject to experimental verification, which Ratzinger implicitly accepts as the only valid form of “modern” knowledge. In this Ratzinger is both very modern and very Modernist, exactly as Livi says. (Parenthetically, it's worth noting that these views are at the bottom of Ratzinger's extreme--and frequently expressed--skepticism regarding the validity of historical critical study of both Scripture as well as history more generally, and it amply explains his preference for subjective, allegorical approaches to Scripture.)