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We must remain mindful of an important distinction re: so-called common views, does one mean a view commonly held by academics & theologians or that held by the majority of persons no matter their education. That will be in play, below. Another critical distinction is that between the Catholic hierarchy or magisterial teaching office (a/k/a Rome) versus mainstream theologians versus even what the faithful (sensus fidelium) actually believe and practice.

Perhaps the most critical distinction in play, however, is that between more progressive and more traditional believers. At the extreme, progressives have a tendency, it seems, to treat what might really be essential or core as accidental or peripheral. For their part, ultra-traditionalists have a tendency to treat what might really be accidental or peripheral as essential or core.

A question that begs, then, is what could one possibly mean by the qualifier REALLY core or peripheral. While it is true that, in addition to Scripture & Tradition, Faith & Reason, Mysticism & Experience, Catholics have another leg to our stool called the Magisterium or hierarchical teaching office, in THEORY the Magisterium is NOT structured as a TOP-DOWN reality, although IN PRACTICE, that dynamic does seem to be in effect, at least in part, because their’s is a “temporal” power of the purse and of juridical authority that very much controls the destiny of many people’s lives vis a vis their expression of and experience of church. Being less abstract: 1) women cannot be ordained 2) some priests must remain celibate 3) some politicians get visibly interdicted at the communion rail 4) some ex-priests cannot teach in a parochial school because they weren’t laicized via a formal dispensation 5) some divorced and remarried teachers, similarly, are turned away from church employment because they did not obtain a marriage annulment.

In theory though, the Magisterium is only supposed to articulate the faith and morals that it has faithfully, diligently and dutifully observed via an active listening process, whereby it has discerned, BOTTOM-UP, what has already been received through the aid of the Holy Spirit by the Faithful, the sensus fidelium. In other words, the universal church asks: What is the sense of the faithful? And the Magisterium, speaking on our behalf, should respond with what the church, broadly conceived, has properly gathered and practiced via scripture, tradition, reason and experience. Let’s just say that many of us recognize that, just like with scriptural exegesis and interpreting God’s Word, this process of interpreting the sensus fidelium and articulating its beliefs is a tad more problematical than many, including those both in the hierarchy and the laity, seem able to imagine.

What do I think is going on?

Catholic progressives, both Roman and Anglican, are more closely related hermeneutically to each other than they are to their coreligionists in their respective denominations. Same thing with our traditionalist brothers and sisters. Increasingly, I have found that progressive Roman and Anglican catholics have a GREAT deal in common with much of liberal Protestantism and the emerging church conversation(s). This is to say that we are in large agreement regarding essentials vs accidentals, core vs peripheral beliefs. I am in much more agreement with the Anglican approach to moral doctrine, church disciplines and church polity than I am with my own Roman tradition, but these are not essentials in my view, while our creeds, our sacraments, our liturgical traditions and incarnational outlooks are. Otherwise, out of personal integrity, I’d have to offer myself up in the recent prisoner swap (yes, that’s a euphemism for a recent impolitic event).

What makes one distinctly catholic?

It is not atonement theory. Most Franciscans, following Scotus, don’t buy into the notion that the incarnation was a divine initiative in response to some earthly felix culpa.

It’s not Greek metaphysics. Even the hierarchy is clear in that science and philosophy are autonomous from faith. While theological discourse will employ inculturated language in articulating beliefs, it is no more tied to this or that metaphysical concept than it is tied to a particular language. It simply translates the essentials of the faith into this or that idiom. I am heavily invested in the American pragmatist tradition (Peirce, less so James, much less so Dewey) and the best parts of our Transcendentalist tradition (Josiah Royce) and don’t do substance metaphysics or Thomism, so my (meta)metaphysical constructs are going to be nondual vis a vis a triadic semiotic. Rome doesn’t publish catechisms in this idiom, only a group of folks who belong to the John Courtney Murray Society at Berkeley find it engaging (best I can tell, anyway; I’m not an academic and I do not get around much).

I could go on dismissing what is not essential and trying to overcome stereotypes, which we have earned, but …

Essentially, the catholic outlook on created reality is radically incarnational, rejects moral depravity, sees all of creation as intrinsically good even if flawed, sees created realities mediating the God-encounter & is thus sacramental. Catholicism embraces faith and reason (fides et ratio) but rejects any conflation of science, philosophy and faith, viewing these approaches to reality as methodologically autonomous, hence rejecting fideism and scientism. Essential dogma is contained in the creeds with other stuff up for grabs, although controversy surrounds the only two so-called infallible pronouncements ever articulated, the Assumption and Immaculate Conception, which is more vs less problematical depending on how one conceives so-called “original” sin. There is the matter of the Petrine Ministry, but that, too, could be more narrowly or broadly conceived (e.g. creeping infallibilism).

Finally, coming full circle back to the aim of this thread, there is the question of whether or not there can even be such a thing as a Christian Philosophy or a Theological Anthropology or a Religious Epistemology. And my answer, and I’m pretty sure the orthodox Catholic answer, is no. Anthropology is science. Epistemology is philosophy. Metaphysics belong to various philosophical schools.

Do people articulate anthropologies, epistemologies, metaphysics and philosophies that would be incompatible with faith? Of course, but that’s because they are doing bad anthropology, bad epistemology, bad metaphysics and bad philosophy, in ways that don’t employ philosophical rigor and can’t withstand philosophical scrutiny. Do believers articulate scientific and philosophical perspectives derived from their religious stances? Sure, but that’s because they’re doing bad science and bad philosophy. In other words, category errors are not uncommon.

From the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, yesterday, 19 November 2009:

Therefore the major question that remains is whether in the light of that depth of agreement the issues that still divide us have the same weight – issues about authority in the Church, about primacy (especially the unique position of the pope), and the relations between the local churches and the universal church in making decisions (about matters like the ordination of women, for instance).  Are they theological questions in the same sense as the bigger issues on which there is already clear agreement?  And if they are, how exactly is it that they make a difference to our basic understanding of salvation and communion?  But if they are not, why do they still stand in the way of fullervisible unity?  Can there, for example, be a model of unity as a communion of churches which have different attitudes to how the papal primacy is expressed?

The central question is whether and how we can properly tell the difference between ’second order’ and ‘first order’ issues. When so very much agreement has been firmly established in first-order matters about the identity and mission of the Church, is it really justifiable to treat other issues as equally vital for its health and integrity?”

This discussion continues below >>>

Regarding reductionistic approaches, in general, we can also ask what specific aspects of reality one aspires to describe. 1) One might employ a reductionistic interpretation to such concepts as mind or soul, restricting one’s description to philosophy of mind concerns. 2) One might employ a reductionistic interpretation to other, but not all, aspects of created reality, beyond the mind. 3) One might employ a reductionistic interpretation to all of created reality. 4) Finally, one might employ a reductionistic interpretation to Reality writ large (primal and local).

Different attempts to describe the nature of the soul in the various philosophy of mind approaches don’t pose any problems for Christianity, in my view. The so-called interaction problem is a pseudo-problem (assuming that one’s concepts have been properly disambiguated, suitably predicated and sufficiently nuanced).

Eliminative materialism pertains to a philosophy of mind approach and need not suggest, necessarily, the progressively broader materialist stances. Different in/compatability issues will emerge for different Christians whenever materialism gets invoked to explain more and more of reality, “eliminating” nonmaterial categories. One could ask, beyond the nature of the soul: What’s essential to Christianity from progressively broader materialist/physicalist perspectives vis a vis, for example, putative supernatural created realities (angels and demons, miracles and so on)? Those questions might be beyond the scope of our present consideration, though not unrelated.

When one “does” metaphysics, one chooses a “root metaphor” for one’s ontology (description of reality) such as substance, process, experience, field, matrix or even consciousness. In so choosing, one is adding a category to the “givens” of reality, such as its primitives (e.g. space, time, mass, energy), forces (e.g. strong, weak, electromagnetic & gravity) and axioms (e.g. laws of thermodynamics, relativity, quantum mechanics). The speculative grammar of metaphysics has historically used a “modal” ontology that employs the modes possible, actual and necessary. This third category, necessary, has been replaced by the “probable.”

I’m all for metaphysics and feel that a thousand metaphysical blossoms should bloom. At the same time, it is a highly speculative enterprise and it is not easy to cash out the practical value of most metaphysical concepts in our daily lives. I’m not saying that folks cannot and do not inhabit elaborate tautologies articulated in all types of metaphysical concepts but I am saying that many find it very difficult to jump outside these systems [JOTS] in order to enjoy alternative takes on reality. They not only have problems with JOTS; they also have problems recognizing that these systems are inescapably probabilistic, as metaphors will eventually collapse and are not otherwise “necessary” truths.

The practical upshot of what I am describing is that, when we reason from how things are (our descriptive ontology) to how things should be (our normative de-ontology), we must be mindful of the very highly speculative nature of our ontology and recognize that, derivatively, our deontology might best be considered very highly tentative. Because we live in an increasingly pluralistic society, we need to understand that, to the extent that our metaphysical concepts and categories are not understood, recognized or accepted by others, they will have little or no normative impetus, which is to suggest that they won’t likely find their ways into a given society’s codes and laws because they have no meaning in that society’s social, economic, cultural, political or, even, religious discourse. Such concepts must first be translated and then negotiated.

This is not just an issue for interideological and interreligious discourse. It is an issue within Christendom, itself, between and even within denominations. In my view, the essence of Christianity is a LOT less propositional (though it certainly has propositional elements) and much more practical in nature, theologically speaking. Metaphysically speaking, it is WAY less propositional, addressing only the most essential God-concepts and their proper predication. Beyond that, the metaphysical nature of created reality is wholly up for grabs and any theological discourse regarding God’s relationship to created reality, in general, and human nature, in particular, does not require robustly descriptive metaphysical conceptions, only our vague phenomenological understandings and participatory imaginations (which means “hometown” knowledge: we know HOW to get from home to school even if we cannot easily put it into words or engage in conceptual map-making about our experience of our reality).