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Is a little knowledge a dangerous thing?
Topic Started: Thursday, 16. April 2009, 20:45 (529 Views)
Rose of York
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OsullivanB
Saturday, 18. April 2009, 13:56
I can't really post an answer to this question because my experience does not verify the essential judgment that we are now a church of certainty based on knowledge and study.
Where there is no Catholic school and no resident priest there is no shortage of Catholics who have little knowledge of their faith, in particular, of specifically Catholic teachings, or disciplines (eg fasting and abstinence rules). We who had access to good solid religious education are indeed fortunate.

Diocesan workshops and seminars are only available to people who have the time, inclination and freedom, and can afford the travel costs.
Keep the Faith!

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Powerofone

This is also true of the secular sphere. Take the franchise for example: how many voters are fully informed about a candidate's credentials and policies before casting a vote? Yet the vote is cast, counted and the candidate elected. He then goes on to frame legislation. Who now would wish to disqualify the voter because of his little knowledge? Alleged feeble mindedness disallowed women until the early 20th century and Louisiana negroes until the late 20th century. Even if such feeble mindedness could be proven, how now would withdraw the franchise from them?
So yes, ill informed speculation can be dangerous, but lay questioning is surely better to despotism. Is there a happy mean that I've not heard about?
Edited by Powerofone, Saturday, 18. April 2009, 19:45.
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PJD


“We have gone from a church of faith to a church of certainty based on knowledge and study.”

Whilst thinking about Penfold’s four questions, I could not but initially question that statement. It seems to me to be too narrow. I mean in the sense that it is a question rather of access (technology) and numbers (clergy primarily/clergy & laity). In other words - faith, certainty, knowledge, study – has always occurred during the history of the Church- but ‘what we have gone from’ is not from the principle but from its restriction within history.

It is of great importance, as Penfold said, that if you read any text with a view of assimilating knowledge in that area, that you read it thoroughly. Many are prone to taking extracts out of context and if this is in order to follow a certain agenda then it is certainly not virtuous methinks.

One could say that today there is much exploring faith and less living faith. But that might be a judgement too far I think. Were those in the previous Centuries really living faith that much more? I wonder?

To refer to his four questions. The first thing I would ask is are we speaking of formal religious knowledge (academic) or informal religious knowledge (spiritual)? The first is fairly easy to answer because it can be so readily referred to various institutional authorities/bodies of education. The second is much more difficult because ultimately it is referenced to charisma e.g. ‘good example’.

The happy mean that powerofone seeks might lie in the combination of both i.e. academic alongside the spiritual (especially the wisdom expressed by the Saints and Doctors of the Church).

PJD
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Rose of York
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PJD
Saturday, 18. April 2009, 21:08
The happy mean that powerofone seeks might lie in the combination of both i.e. academic alongside the spiritual (especially the wisdom expressed by the Saints and Doctors of the Church).


Is the average parishioner likely to read the works of Saints and Doctors of the Church? I have not read the works of Aquinas, and never really felt the need to, but I have gained much from reading lives of the Saints..
Keep the Faith!

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Ned

PJD
Saturday, 18. April 2009, 21:08
Were those in the previous Centuries really living faith that much more? I wonder?
Were those in the previous Centuries really living faith that much more? Yes, I'm sure that they were. I remember how it was when I was a boy. There was no television, and a lot of people didn't have radios - or electricity.

Some of the Sunday Masses had lengthy sermons, and there were evening services with sermons several times a week.

Sermons were very popular, and in the absence of distractions people would discuss a sermon throughout the week. And the cheap little CTS pamphlets were also very popular.
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Reading the replies in this thread and mulling over the questions I have about what would it have been like if Adam and Eve had not eaten of the tree of Knowledge, and the question, 'Is a little knowledge a Dangerous thing?' I have also been trying to find a fresh approach to a sermon on today’s Gospel about Doubting Thomas.
Quote:
 
“ You believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
Jn20:29
Many thanks you have been a great help. Faith is an acceptance on trust of things we have not seen and yet believe. Thomas should have known Jesus well enough to trust him. We know Jesus through the testaments given about him in the Scriptures we have not seen him but the evidence of God is in this world for those who have eyes of Faith for many have eyes but do not see, ears that do not hear.
At the heart of my sermon will be nothing new but thanks to you I have a few new ideas for how we justify our faith in a world that demands empirical proof.
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What good would all the knowledge available to us be if we have not got the faith.

Not a wooly answer at all Joe in fact I hope you don't mind but I may just use this line in my sermon, thanks.
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OsullivanB

I came across this today and thought it might fit into this thread.
St Anselm
 
I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand. (Non quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam.)

"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
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PJD

St Anselm
I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand.


Thanks OsB.

Any more? (smile)

PJD
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Deleted User
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Well, it depends whether we're discussing knowledge of, or knowledge about. A little of the former is "dangerous" only to our illusions; a little of the second is often ruinous to our salvation.

Father Stephen, again:

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Many of the arguments (unending) and debates (interminable) are not about what we know, but about what we think.

Thinking is not bad, nor is it wrong, but thinking is not the same thing as theology. It is, of course, possible to think about theology, but this is not to be confused with theology itself.

Knowing God is not in itself an intellectual activity for God is not an idea, nor a thought. God may be known because He is person. Indeed, He is only made known to us as person (we do not know His essence). We cannot know God objectively - that is He is not the object of our knowledge. He is known as we know a person. This is always a free gift, given to us in love. Thus knowledge of God is always a revelation, always a matter of grace, never a matter of achievement or attainment.
What Matters - Still True


Ultimately, the only "knowledge" worth aspiring to is of a God Who remains infinitely beyond all rational categories. The alternative is the endless construction of idols in our own image, disguised as the God of Revelation.

Rejoice, who break the webs of the philosphers!
Rejoice, who fill the nets of the fishermen!
Rejoice, thou Bride Unwedded!

- the Akathist Hymn
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PJD




"Well, it depends whether we're discussing knowledge of, or knowledge about. A little of the former is "dangerous" only to our illusions; a little of the second is often ruinous to our salvation."


I am not attempting to provoke any argument here O'Ratty; but do you think there might be some validity that those who protest too much in this area sometimes fall into the category of protesting too much; and often or rarely as you may wish yet far worse, do so whilst making their own deliberations a matter of 'exception' [when as St. Teresa put it so succinctly in relation to 'honour' offended against - that they make so much noise as to astonish me].

PJD
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I suspect that what those most dismissive of "theology" have in their sights is, in fact, the weird concatenation of law, metaphysics and ideology that too many of us have peddled as the genuine article. To paraphrase something I read recently (Tell us about this God you don't believe in; we don't believe in that one either!) - "Show me this 'theology' you despise; we've got no time for that 'theology' either!" To that extent, the "peddlers" have the greater guilt!

True theologia (of the Prophets, the Apostles and the Saints) only ever arises from the experience of a living encounter with the One Who reveals Himself to the "pure in heart".
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Bob Crowley

O'Ratty
Monday, 4. May 2009, 13:08
I suspect that what those most dismissive of "theology" have in their sights in fact, is rather that weird concatenation of law, metaphysics and ideology that too many of us have peddled as the genuine article. To paraphrase something I read recently - "Show me this 'theology' you despise; we've got no time for that 'theology' either!" (Tell us about this God you don't believe in; we don't believe in that one either!) To that extent, we, the "peddlers" have the greater guilt!

True theologia (of the Prophets, the Apostles and the Saints) only ever arises from the experience of a living encounter with the One Who reveals Himself to the "pure in heart".
It seems to me that personal characteristics would influence our perception of "too much" or "too little" teaching or personal interpretation of theology, church doctines and our understanding of Christianity in general.

An intellectual person will speculate about different theologies no matter how profound their faith, for the simple reason they're intellectual. A person of limited intellect may have much less inclination to dispute church teaching, partly because they're not even interested in or capable iof doing so. I've started reading about St. Bernadette Soubirous, who seems to have become a saint because of her trusting simplicity, and her suffering through poverty and chronic ill health. At the same time academic achievement was not exactly her forte. I"m only up to chapter two, though so I may be pre-judging the case.

There are moves afoot I believe to have Cardinal John Newman canonised, but I may be wrong about that. But his approach to the Catholic Faith and St. Bernadette's were chalk and cheese.

In the end God's given us a brain to think with. This invariably means we will question the tenets of the Church, as individuals who inevitably reflect he influences of our times, and in accordance with our abilities.
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PJD


Thank you for that reply O'Ratty.

"True theologia (of the Prophets, the Apostles and the Saints) only ever arises from the experience of a living encounter with the One Who reveals Himself to the "pure in heart". "

I assume you are touching on the mystical here.

In any case I agree.

PJD
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Bob

Let's make no mistake about this: if Cardinal Newman is a saint it will be for exactly the same reason as Bernadette Soubirous; because intelligence and scholarship have absolutely no bearing on holiness.

My avatar, St Silouan, was a semi-literate Russian peasant; and yet his great disciple Father Sophrony (a consummate Russian intellectual) has described the theology of St Silouan as the most profound of modern times, particularly apt to the modern condition. Yes, that's miraculous - but it's a miracle of grace, not of intellect, and the "means of grace" (to borrow Catholic terminology) are identical for all: repentance, metanoia, prayer, purification, self-emptying, ascetical struggle, the sacraments and services of the Church. Hence the spirituality of St Silouan and Elder Sophrony is absolutely identical; the latter merely provides the "footnotes" to the former.

(Metropolitan +Kallistos is fond of quoting Newman's observation that theology consists of "saying and unsaying, to positive effect" - which approximates very neatly to the "apophatic" way of Orthodox theology.)
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Powerofone

Deep waters here Jeeves.
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