What if the consequences are an eternity in Hell?
January 13, 2016 § 99 Comments
I pointed out a while back that to associate yourself with the neoreaction is – according to the neoreaction itself – to deny God. The neoreaction itself insists that neoreaction shall be explicitly anti-explicitly-Christian. Christ simply must not be permitted to matter; indeed the very name of Christ is associated with the enemy.
But that’s OK, because under alt-right ethics what matters isn’t whether you are doing good or evil. Any action can be justified as long as it has desirable consequences. Presumably this includes denying God. If you aren’t a moral consequentialist you are just a contemptible normie:
This distinction and concept needs to be understood in the alt right, because most of us are consequentialists (whether we understand the distinction or not) while most normies probably believe in deontological principles.
There are of course many examples that can be used to prove the correctness of consequentialism over deontological ethics. For instance, is it wrong to murder (most would admit that this is a worse action than discriminating based on race)? Most people will say yes. Yet most people would agree that murdering baby Hitler in the crib would be a moral action because it would save many more lives. If you can get them to admit to this (or any number of hypothetical scenarios where actions that they consider morally wrong lead to such undeniably desirable consequences to the point that they have to admit that the action in that specific circumstance must be moral) then they have given up the principle. Then explain to them that it is consequences that determine the moral value of an action and not some inherency to the action. Hopefully the scales will fall from their eyes and they will adopt consequentialism. Then you can start having a conversation without having the other guy dismissing your arguments in favor of certain actions due to the actions being counter to his deontological moral principles.
Zippy Catholic 
Normie? a new word.
He is very parochial. Is it really true that most normies would commend murdering baby Hitler?
But he may have a point. Many pro-lifers commend Hiroshima bombing with explicit consequentialism. I have gotten a great deal of abuse on this point. I could never understand how it was known for a certainity that the invasion of Japanese mainland would cost so many million lives.
1) The Japanese mainland could have been blockaded-no invasion necessary
2) Demand for unconditional surrender could have been dropped.
Doubtless there would have been many more normie solutions.
Mactoul:
As have I.
I made a similar point here. It used to be an annual thing at Mark Shea’s, where consequentialist ‘conservatives’ would line up to try to justify the atomic bombings of Japan.
The notion that someone who does evil fully understands all of the consequences of his actions in the first place, and has an exhaustive grasp of all alternatives, involves tremendous hubris.
But even if we grant the point for the sake of argument it doesn’t matter. Nothing can justify the kind of mass murder of innocents represented by actions like the firebombings and atomic bombings of WWII.
Mactoul:
Many pro-lifers commend Hiroshima bombing with explicit consequentialism. I have gotten a great deal of abuse on this point. I could never understand how it was known for a certainity that the invasion of Japanese mainland would cost so many million lives.
It wouldn’t do to ruin the ‘Ascension to Empirehood’ part of the myth with such moral ambiguity.
Intergralists like yourself, Zippy, have ensured that the faith continues to lose against Modernism. It’s time for something different.
The dissident right, which is an amorphous mass, is really comprised of three main pillars. The original two were the Yarvin strain, which are really nothing more than better Positivists, and the Christian pro-Game crowd. It would be to this strain that I belong. 2015 saw the wide spread entryism into the dissedent right by the Neo Nazi analogues who saw a growing force to latch their discredited ideology to.
The current situation very much resembles the conservative political scene in France in the early 20th C. The Positivists, integralists and the Neo-Nazi’s united to form Action Francaise. You know the history.
The third group gave us Peguy, Claudel, Blondel, De lubac, and were formative of the Characters of JP11, Ratzinger, Francis.
Christianity is dying. MOAR “shut up and keep rowing” aint gonna work.
slumlord:
Does your comment have something to do with the subject of the post?
You diss neoreaction way too glibly.
slumlord:
If the Christians claiming to be part of the movement would criticize its failures rather than embracing them I wouldn’t have to. But they don’t, either because they agree with the alt right where it is in the wrong or because engaging in that sort of criticism would make them an outsider.
To the extent there is developing unity in the alt-right, the principle of that unity appears to be precisely in its embrace of post cartesian materialism, blasphemy, and naive moral consequentialism. If that is where you’ve pinned your hopes for the future, well, good luck with that.
Most people might say “most people might say” is a valid moral argument. Most people would be wrong.
“Any action can be justified as long as it has desirable consequences. Presumably this includes denying God.”
I guess this is a stupid comment but they have this attitude simply because they’re not believers. If you’re a non-believer, then the only value religion can have is expediency.
Bruce:
Non-Christians do not have a monopoly on consequentialism.
“The Positivists, integralists and the Neo-Nazi’s united to form Action Francaise. You know the history.”
Sure, who doesn’t? I took at class on this at State.
Shorter Gary Pettersen: “Once you grant consequentialism’s premises, it is clear that consequentialism is superior to deontology.”
Zippy,
You say,
“If the Christians claiming to be part of the movement would criticize its failures rather than embracing them I wouldn’t have to.”
Amen and hallelujah!!!
As someone who enjoys reading certain neo-reactionary blogs, this tendency drives me totally bonkers. For example, Nick B. Steves, who runs a blog that links to all sorts of interesting neo-reactionaries continues to link to and praise people like “Jim” who are…not to put too fine a point on it, anti-Christian and sort of crazy. But he seems impervious to any criticism of “Jim” or any other anti-Christian neo-reactionaries.
As for Moldbug, I still hold a soft spot in my heart for him, despite his many errors (he turned me on to too many good old books!) — and his analysis of Progressivism/liberalism was close — it can be intelligently thought of as a Christian heresy:
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2016/01/liberalism-and-islam.html
Mactoul: The Japanese home islands were, in fact, blockaded. The US submarine fleet had done such a thorough job on the Japanese merchant marine that there weren’t any good targets left by the end of the war. US Subs were reduced to sinking junks and barges (using the deck gun).
Ah, yes. Over the last 2,000+ years how many men have justified their rejection of reality by the claim that “Christianity is dying!”?
Which French Republic are we on, now?
I would submit that NeoReaction is in many respects the natural outcome of what so many Christian denominations practice today. For instance, with the Pope and many protestant leaders effectively saying “yes, there is a serious terrorism risk, yes your women might get raped, yes these people might pose serious risks to a weakened West, but WWJD?!” to the very real issues facing the West now, Christianity is on the precipice of a disaster of its own making.
At W4 I brought up the rise of groups calling themselves the Soldiers of Odin in some of the Scandinavian countries and how they are doing what Christians should be doing to protect their homelands. None of it is particularly harsh, mainly patroling and putting an implied threat that lawlessness by the immigrants will not be tolerated. It’s the sort of “vigilantism” that most Christians for the prior 1800 odd centuries would bind baffling that it is a) necessary, b) done by pagans, not good Christian men and c) controversial in the church.
Angela Merkel claims to be a believer and one who was sustained by her faith in East Germany. She has said that it is what informs her policies that are now fueling the neoreaction like gasoline on a fire.
Certainly, many Christians headed to neoreaction will find themselves rejecting God. I suspect that a large percentage of their opponents will also be headed in that direction. It is culturally easier to reject neoreaction for all of the wrong reasons than it is the right ones. Take for instance, the Swedish family that invited an unknown Muslim foreigner into their home out of Swedish political correctness, only to find him slitting their 7 year old daughter’s throat. That falls well within 1 Timothy 5:8, both as a family and a society:
“Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”
Many Christians will reject neoreaction because of their perverse understanding of the ordering of moral obligations with respect to different levels of neighborliness. That too, can lead one, to serious moral failings.
Mike T:
Your points are not generally unreasonable, but this is all very basic. Negative moral precepts (“thou shalt not”) bind always and absolutely; positive precepts always involve prudential prioritization (though not necessarily of consequences or of only consequences).
That modern Christians are as corrupted by modern ideas as their non-Christian neighbors is neither here nor there. What folks should be trying to do – if only for their own sake, let alone for the sake of the common good – is remove the modern from the Christian. What the greater portion of the alt-right is actually doing is trying to remove the Christian from the modern.
What folks should be trying to do – if only for their own sake, let alone for the sake of the common good – is remove the modern from the Christian. What the greater portion of the alt-right is actually doing is trying to remove the Christian from the modern.
We actually have a good idea of where each of these paths will lead. Christianity without modernism gave us the Christendom that at least some Nrx’ers want to revive. Modernity without Christianity gave us the Holodomor and Killing Fields. It shouldn’t be a hard choice.
CJ:
It shouldn’t be, but it is, because making the right choice would mean professing Christianity and actually meaning it. What they are looking for is some way of getting the benefits of Christendom without actually bending the knee to Christ and historic Christianity. That is why all the focus on formalism, on ‘products versus process’, etc. They want to recover the kind of world built by devout Christians without actually becoming devout Christians.
And their actually-Christian allies want the “benefits” of having secular allies so badly that they are willing to go along with all of the blasphemy, consequentialism, etc just so they don’t have to feel so alone, or so they can feel like they have some sort of chance of being on a “winning” team: basically because of a lack of faith.
That modern Christians are as corrupted by modern ideas as their non-Christian neighbors is neither here nor there.
It is actually quite relevant if your goal is to prevent further slide toward oblivion. Neoreaction quite reasonably, thought falsely, blames Christianity for the mess we are in, and Christians in so many cases provide reasonable evidence to support that claim. When the secular left is covering up mass sex assault and the Pope is saying that only a heartless man would turn away the ethnic groups responsible for said mass assaults, what does that suggest to many people? That there is a natural affinity between Christianity and left wing thought leading to this crisis of civilization.
Or put simply, the more Christians revel in modernity, the weaker their saltiness becomes to the world. The more Christianity is put into service of modernity, the more people will reject Christianity as the crisis develops. After all, why would you embrace a religion whose high priest seems to be telling you to embrace the rape of your own people in the name of charity?
And in comes neoreaction, with no love, mercy or charity. Ready to fire up the gas chambers and eradicate the people raping women in huge numbers at train stations, taking over cities, etc. We are not paving the road to Hell, but we are putting together the paving materials for others.
If the alt-right as currently constituted has their way, what we will end up with in the long run will look more like the Aztecs than the Plantagenets.
So, Zippy, let us take away modernity from my mind. Where do I begin? Devout catholic here, so no problem with becoming a devout christian.
Mike T:
No it isn’t. Try to stay on topic. The subject isn’t the Pope’s liberalism or whatever. You are always blame-shifting and peppering these threads with excuses for the embrace of falsehood.
Avenedizo:
One place to begin – as a devout Catholic – is to recognize that moral consequentialism has been unequivocally condemned by the Magisterium of the Church as a heresy. Read the encyclical Veritatis Splendour.
The “atheist / pagan / Christian” threads on the alt-right, I’ve noticed, are always the hottest, and the Christians aren’t keeping quiet, not in the comments.
Site owners, on the other hand, are a crazy-quilt, because the alt-right itself is a crazy-quilt.
Neo-reaction doesn’t discuss in public, they’re settled on The Puritan Hypothesis and waiting out the collapse.
If the alt-right as currently constituted has their way, what we will end up with in the long run will look more like the Aztecs than the Plantagenets.
It never fails that when this is pointed out, we are reminded that it is the “fault” of the modernist Christians that the alt-right was pushed to this point, as if there’s nothing else that needs to be said. “Not your fault guys. Guess you’ll start loading the cattle cars now?”
Because confronting them with *real* Christianity (that still prohibits mass extermination) would just alienate them. And we can’t have that.
Mike T,
You wrote,
“It is actually quite relevant if your goal is to prevent further slide toward oblivion.”
This is incorrect. The slide toward oblivion is caused by Modernism, Liberalism, etc. Pointing at the Pope and saying “I disagree with him, therefore…” doesn’t change that.
Much of the shocked responses to Pope Benedict by “Conservatives” was based on the fact that they could not recognize legitimately Conservative ideas when His Holiness uttered them.
Much of the antipathy seen to Pope Francis is because when His Holiness rejects Liberalism a large number of people who call themselves Conservative are also rejected because they are actually Liberal in outlook and action.
Based upon my readings and interaction the majority of NRx people oppose the Church because the Church is actually Conservative.
You continued,
“Neoreaction quite reasonably, thought falsely, blames Christianity for the mess we are in, and Christians in so many cases provide reasonable evidence to support that claim.”
I never find false blame reasonable.
King Richard,
It’s quite like a nerdy high school school kid putting down his friends in order to impress the popular kids; it doesn’t work and the nerd ends up more alienated than before.
I never find false blame reasonable.
I say it is reasonable for them to blame us because so many Christians are thoroughly liberal and about as enthusiastic for the things killing their own societies as the liberals who formally embrace the whole philosophical structure without exception. It is a classic case of blaming the ism for the failings of the ist, though with the added problem of so many of the ists behaving that way that it is indeed plausible to the outsider that maybe that really is how the ism really tends to work out in reality.
It’s the opposite of what many people do with Islam where they blame the ist, rather than the ism for jihad and other evils.
Somehow, Christianity doesn’t keep people from becoming liberal. It doesn’t even stop them from sinning, I’ve found. It’s appalling, isn’t it?
I believe the biggest complaint is the universalist equalitarianism of Christianity.
Peter Blood:
Shocking, to be sure. It follows that Christianity is the root of all sin.
I think a lot of it comes down to a desire to not work. I don’t even mean manual labor or anything like that, I think it’s as simple as the alt-right doesn’t believe that work is anything other than something suckers do to benefit elites (which they’ll definitely end up being any day now).
This includes real moral work of wrestling with ethical complexities far beyond a Kill Baby Hitler level.
It’s common all over the modern world, the belief that you don’t have to work because that’s for others to do so that you’ll benefit come the Trumptopia/Final Revolution/Singaporean city-state paradise/etc.
That’s why in the alt-right they focus almost entirely on verbal trickery, and even there are kind of slacky-lazy. Even pagans of yore weren’t like this, because they knew much better despite the paganism.
A joke I saw: no wonder Hitler turned out the way he did. He spent his whole life dodging time-traveling Jews out to kill him.
Peter Blood: LOL!
The Practical Conservative:
Laziness, perhaps, but it is almost like people these days actually believe that they understand a subject when they have just stumbled upon the vocabulary words for the first time and obviously haven’t spent more than a moment engaged with the topic. Maybe it is a weird effect of 24/7 access to Google and the like. “Oh yeah, that’s me: a consequentialist, LOL! Now I’ve just gotta tell my bros that that’s what we should call ourselves, hit them with the baby Hitler assasination and ka-boom, down with deontology FTW!” The sheer superficiality of it is kind of breathtaking in its own way.
Practical Conservative,
I hope you do not mind a personal anecdote.
As head of arguably the smallest nation in the world I routinely have people approach me and ask to be made a knight, or a baron, or a duke.
I have two nobles; an earl and a baron. If people persist I have them speak with the earl. He tells them, honestly, that if he had simply comprehended the level of personal responsibility involved in being a noble (never mind the volume of work!) he would have probably declined elevation.
To a man they are stunned to learn that being an elite involves hard work and profound responsibility for the welfare of others.
Zippy,
I refer to such as “Google geniuses”; they spend 10 minutes glossing a wikipedia entry, a few more minutes finding 1-3 blogs that seem to reinforce their new-found vocabulary, and now they are profound thinkers.
The neoreaction doesn’t say what you say it does.
Even Heartiste doesn’t say that about Christ or Christianity and I believe he’s seen as the resident devil among some of the crowd here.
Axismundi,
You are aware of the hyperlinks in the original post, correct?
A joke I saw: no wonder Hitler turned out the way he did. He spent his whole life dodging time-traveling Jews out to kill him.
Oh yeah, that’s me: a consequentialist, LOL! Now I’ve just gotta tell my bros that that’s what we should call ourselves, hit them with the baby Hitler assasination and ka-boom, down with deontology FTW!”
Can’t resist…pop-culture…link…(warning: language, mullets, and David Hasselhoff singing.): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS5P_LAqiVg
King Richard:
I suppose one possible interpretation, to be fair to Axismundi’s counter-assertion, is that I’m not accurately understanding the things I am reading because the people saying them just don’t really have the faintest idea what they are talking about and don’t mean their claims to be taken seriously.
Bonald made a similar point recently about Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and, perhaps more controversially among Orthospherians, Girard. Examples could be multiplied, naturally.
Basically if we take their claims seriously they are interesting but manifestly wrong. If we take their claims in a more equivocal sense as just ‘sometimes’ claims – as in ‘sometimes, consideration of consequences determines the morality of acts’ – they are obviously true but entirely uninteresting.
Peter blood. That is the best movie idea I have heard in a long time.
indeed the very name of Christ is associated with the enemy
Could you expand on this? (How is it associated? What is the “enemy”?) Particularly regarding how there are many who hide behind a facade of Christianity (a la Positive Christianity, though perhaps in the opposite direction). I’m thinking also of “Churchianity” which is bereft of (much of) Christian doctrine (which I believe you’ve criticized on numerous occasions – e.g. CAF with its promotion of all kinds of liberalism).
TRS is not exactly nrx (it’s more morally questionable and way funnier). In any case a number of guys in the comments section were telling that author he was full of it. All that isn’t to say that Zippy isn’t right about consequentialist currents in nrx and the alt-right generally. I would like to see more people move into the Zippy/Bonald/Orthosphere style of reaction. It’s still fun and counter cultural but better at helping one avoid hell.
Perhaps I mistaken, but it occurred to me recently that consequentialism cannot on its own grounds defend that evil means are permissible. The problem as I see it is that evil means or actions by definition produce evil consequences. A man who acts toward an evil end becomes vicious in virtue of the evil means and this is always an evil consequence. It further only seems a matter of time before the consequentialist, as becoming increasingly vicious, sees not simply evil means as permissible, but also evil ends. Consequentialist seem only to limit the scope of what consequences they consider.
Well, I’m not an official spokesman for neoreaction, but I’m in it, and I can say that, diffuse as this conglomeration is, my section of it (loosely, traditional Catholics) not only does not deny God, we positively cry out for Him, for ourselves and for others. We emphasize how Christianity, in part, became perverted into progressivism and other malodorous systems, with the obvious contrary corollaries.
Not everybody who is neoreactive is Christian, but then not all who cry out Lord! Lord! are either.
Semioticanimal:
Agreed — that is part of the point of the post title.
JPII:
Regarding Orthosphere and Bonald, I was disappointed by the championing there of the Nazi philosopher Carl Schmitt–him of the enemy-friend distinction as the essence of politics. It was clear to me that such a philosophy negated all the Western thought since Aristotle. But the neo-reactionary Christians at Orthosphere would persist in extracting “good points” out of Schmitt, meanwhile giving respectablity to his evil thoughts.
Indeed, whatever is defensible in Schmitt, has already been said by many others, so there is really no need to call upon Schmitt for any reason whatsoever.
Zippy may be too hard on the neo-reactionaries. Consider pre-modern European monachies–was their actual behavior a model of Christian principles or a model of consequentialism a la Machiavelli.
I mean, in the political sphere, strict adhrence to lofty principles must be extreme rare. How many European wars met the Just War criteria?
And these were the wars explicitly blessed by the religious establishment of various countries.
@MikeT
It is actually quite relevant if your goal is to prevent further slide toward oblivion. Neoreaction quite reasonably, thought falsely, blames Christianity for the mess we are in
Firstly, quite a few NRx are pro-Christian, though you’ll find very few that are pro-Protestant. Secondly, the anti-Christian rhetoric has really increased in the past year with the influx of the “racially aware progressives” as exemplified by Richard Spencer and his ilk. I wish their ilk purged. This has been the most regrettable development of 2015.
Thirdly, the question needs to be asked as to why has Christianity dropped the ball? No matter how you cut it, in terms of winning hearts and minds, Christianity has been an abject failure and Modernism is running circles around it. Men like Zippy add to the problem by refusing to countenance the question, as to admit it would be proof that there is something wrong. Thus the situation remains in status quo. “Shut up and row” is their standard response to all challenges of the faith.
Christianity, as it currently stands, has failed to mount a successful response to modernity and this failure of response is perhaps Christianity’s greatest failure. The question is why, and CNRx–at least from where I stand–wants these questions answered.
For years, the Standard Operating Procedure was to blame extrinsicfactors to explain the decline, perhaps it’s time for a more inward look.
“Christianity has been an abject failure…”
Don’t you mean “Christians”?
The “problem” Christians have historically had is compromising with the world. And the “solution” isn’t to continue doing that but this time with neoreaction.
Thirdly, the question needs to be asked as to why has Christianity dropped the ball? No matter how you cut it, in terms of winning hearts and minds, Christianity has been an abject failure and Modernism is running circles around it.
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”
To those who expected and wanted a worldly Kingdom, one of might and power, a kingdom that would crush the powers (Rome) and establish Israel above all others, one that would be clearly and obviously ‘successful’, our Lord told a parable:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed…the smallest of all seeds…
Shortly afterwards the King of kings went to the cross.
@William.
Don’t you mean “Christians”?
No it I don’t. I perhaps should have been more clear. There is Christianity and there is Roman Catholic “Churchianity”–to borrow a phrase from Dalrock.
The faith, is something that needs to be apprehended by human intellects, and the intellectual understanding of it, as it currently stands, has been inadequate with regard to dealing with the issues of modernism. The current conception of the faith is what I call Catholic Churchianity. Churchiantiy, an incomplete expression of the faith, is beloved by traditionalists, who are of the defacto opinion that no further development of doctrine is possible. Thus, due to this integrist intransigence,it has been unable to further develop the faith to counter the effects of modernism. Hence the Church strategy in the face of modernism has been to double down and not invent any new ways of tackling it.
GJ
The tasks for Christians is to make a return on the “investment of faith” that God has put in us. Telling me that a few are going to be saved in no way abrogates my responsibility to squeeze as many through the door.
Speaking of modernism, has anyone heard of, or read anything by, Nicolás Gómez Dávila? He seems like a rather interesting guy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicol%C3%A1s_G%C3%B3mez_D%C3%A1vila
http://don-colacho.blogspot.com/
Click to access davila-Gilleland.pdf
Churchiantiy, an incomplete expression of the faith, is beloved by traditionalists, who are of the defacto opinion that no further development of doctrine is possible.
This is very likely false. I’m a traditionalist and would never hold to that opinion. On the other hand, I have no idea what you mean by Churchianity.
…due to this integrist intransigence,it has been unable to further develop the faith to counter the effects of modernism.
I am keenly interested to know what particular development of doctrine might counter a particular effect of modernism. Sincerely. And very specific examples would be especially helpful.
Mactaoul,
You asked,
“Consider pre-modern European monachies–was their actual behavior a model of Christian principles or a model of consequentialism a la Machiavelli.”
They were largely models of Christian behavior. Exceptions existed, but so did a fair number of monarchs who were beatified.
slumlord:
The tasks for Christians is to make a return on the “investment of faith” that God has put in us. Telling me that a few are going to be saved in no way abrogates my responsibility to squeeze as many through the door.
That only few walk the narrow path demonstrates the folly of rejecting ‘traditional Christianity’ because of its unpopularity, or for embracing compromised versions because they are popular.
And the “but we’re getting more numbers” consequentialist excuse for rejecting undesirable parts of Christianity although very popular in many guises (eg. seeker friendly megachurches, liberal theology) cuts zero ice with me.
Chesterton is evergreen: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried”.
slumlord,
(I am a Protestant, though with some affinity for Catholicism)
I seem to recall one of the bigger names in this part of the interwebs making a comment that he doesn’t have a “personal relationship with Jesus” and didn’t know anyone who does. That is the fruit of Churchianity right there.
William Luse.
On the other hand, I have no idea what you mean by Churchianity
Go google up Integrism. It might help.
GJ
That only few walk the narrow path demonstrates the folly of rejecting ‘traditional Christianity’ because of its unpopularity, or for embracing compromised versions because they are popular.
Very few are Pharisees. In Jesus times that pharisees were considered super holy. We know how God judged them.
Remember the parable of the sower. You spread the seed and it will either take root or it won’t. It isn’t our job to create some GMO version of the gospel that (we think) will grow better in stony or thorny ground. In fact, we are explicitly warned not to (Gal. 1:8).
The demand that doctrine develop to drive in numbers is just the mirror image of progressives saying that the church will thrive if only we approve of sodomy.
Slumlord,
You wrote,
“The faith, is something that needs to be apprehended by human intellects, and the intellectual understanding of it, as it currently stands, has been inadequate with regard to dealing with the issues of modernism.”
I would be fascinated to hear of your insights into Lamentabili Sane, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Praestantia Scripturae, Humanae Generis, <i.Veritatis Splendor, Caritas Veritate, and Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. Then we could move onto the impact of the excommunication of Loisy and Tyrell, the impact of St. Pope Pius X’s Oath against Modernity, and, of course, the Syllabus of Errors.
Then we can shift to the explosive growth of various Catholic fraternities, orders, and convents that share an anti-Modernist stance, the concomitant growth of parishes associated with those groups.
Finally we could move on to contemporary Catholic philosophers and theologians like Br. Andre-marie, the growth of explicitly anti-Modernist religious organizations from 1 to 15 in just 25 years just among the Tridentine Latin Mass movement, and the ongoing growth of the Church in general.
You continued,
” Churchiantiy, an incomplete expression of the faith, is beloved by traditionalists, who are of the defacto opinion that no further development of doctrine is possible. Thus, due to this integrist intransigence,it has been unable to further develop the faith to counter the effects of modernism. ”
Ah. My earlier suggestion may need to be withdrawn – you appear wholly ignorant of the ongoing development of doctrine in opposition to Modernism. I suggest that you read all of those as well as Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae.
As a theologian one of the two most common events I face are:
A) A person firmly convinced the Church actively teachies something it doesn’t, and
B) A person firmly convinced the Church has nothing to say about something it has firm teachings on.
You are edging up on B; the Church has been very active in condemning Modernism for well over a century and has very effective refutations of it. There are more than 1.1 billion people in the Church and they live all over; be very careful you do not mistake your local, personal, anecdotal experience for “the Church”. Especially do not mistake what modern Western Media tells you “the Church” is!
Slumlord,
You keep using the word ‘Integrism’, which means no more than “Catholics who reject Modernism”, as if it means things it does not. A fair amount of theology and political action has been done my “Integrists” over the years including, yes, the encouragement of the development of new anti-Modernist doctrine.
“Integrism” is usefully nonspecific, as is “Zippy is too hard on neoreactionaries”, as if I had made no specific citations and posted no links.
If you want specifics, as a Catholic doctor who has been prescribing birth control to his patients for decades, slumlord argues that Humanae Vitae was wrong (here and here), and that Church doctrine ought to develop such that chemically contracepted sexual acts between spouses are declared morally licit. That’s what a “positive view of sex” requires: chemically poisoning the sex organs to impair their function, not to mention men embracing a faggy obsession with currying sexual favor from women through Game. He also argues the standard progressive line that usury doctrine was basically a mistake and shows that moral doctrine can develop in the direction he wants it to on sex.
But Christianity’s entryist detractors can’t really win on specifics. So it is much more rhetorically useful to sling around generic accusations: integrism, Zippy doesn’t get it, Zippy is mean, traditional Catholicism is a marketplace loser compared to other products on the shelf at Walmart, etc.
You keep using the word ‘Integrism’, which means no more than “Catholics who reject Modernism”
Uhm No, Pharasiacism is probably a better translation.
Here’s what the Boss had to see about it.
“On the other hand, we are witnesses today of a new “integralism” that may seem to support what is strictly Catholic but in reality corrupts it to the core. It produces a passion of suspicions, the animosity of which is far from the spirit of the Gospel. There is an obsession with the letter that regards the liturgy of the Church as invalid and thus puts itself outside the Church……. Under the Pretext of Catholicism, the very principal of Catholicism is denied, and, to a large extent, custom is substituted for truth.”
Ratzinger. Principals of Catholic Theology.
I wonder what Ratzinger would say about slumlord’s use of his work to promote slumlord’s sexual agenda.
At the very least there are more than a few specific dots to connect between “There is an obsession with the letter that regards the liturgy of the Church as invalid and thus puts itself outside the Church” — on its face a condemnation of schism based on rejection of the post vatican II mass — and the conclusion that poisoning the ovaries to have infertile sex is a positive good.
I mean, as a despicable integrist myself I’ve only been to the TLM two or three times in my life. The church where I regularly assist at Mass occasionally features guitars (the horror!).
But as I said, modernist critics of the Church can’t win on specifics: that is, they cannot gain rhetorical ground unless their polemics remain out of touch with concrete reality.
When the Pharisees tried to ask how many husbands the woman had in heaven, they were trying to use reason to discern spiritual truths beyond their ability to know (granted, it was asked in wickedness). We have many signs of God’s intentions in the workings of nature, but man cannot know the fullness of God’s intentions and disposition simply because man cannot know the mind of God.
that is, they cannot gain rhetorical ground unless their polemics remain out of touch with concrete reality.
When the Pharisees tried to accuse Jesus of violating the Sabbath, they felt they were acting according to the concrete reality they could see. In fact, as revealed it seemed air tight. Their mistake was assuming that they had a complete knowledge of God’s will concerning the Sabbath. Just because God has revealed His will to a degree, does not mean He has revealed the fullness of His will at any given time.
Mike T:
It is all very postmodern to insist that because complete apprehension of everything in the mind of God is impossible, your favorite sins must be morally licit.
Slumlord,
A little context might help you, since you seem to have cribbed this from a website.
Card. Ratzinger was decrying those who tried to point to developments of doctrine and liturgy as an excuse to be sedevacantists. He was no more speaking of Traditionalists in general than he was speaking of proponents of the Tridentine Mass in general.
but man cannot know the fullness of God’s intentions and disposition simply because man cannot know the mind of God
**The natural law as we understand it is, at best, seeing the will of God through a glass darkly. It may be possible some day for man to truly know God’s will in every aspect of a man’s life, in total fullness, but it is manifestly apparent that that day is not here.
Mike T:
And again, that is either interesting and false or uninteresting and true.
If you conclude ‘therefore [insert my favorite sin] is morally licit’, it is interesting but false. If you don’t, it is obviously true but not particularly interesting — ‘not interesting’ in the sense that it has no implications for the current discussion.
It is all very postmodern to insist that because complete apprehension of everything in the mind of God is impossible, your favorite sins must be morally licit.
For all of your philosophical inclinations, you gain no humility from reading how the Pharisees learned some hard truths about the will of God via the Sabbath issue. Every authority told them that there were no exceptions. In general, there were no exceptions. God had not chosen to reveal any exceptions.
And then God chose to reveal exceptions and rebuke them.
There are two ways we can look at that issue. Either God changed His mind or man listened too much to his own reason in the face of revelation and assumed he knew the full expression of God’s will on the issue.
Mike T – Man, are you gonna have egg on your face when you find out the guys teaching mutual submission were right all along.
CJ:
Funny how “humility” and “mercy” always mean submission to the humility-and-mercy tyrants, conceding that their favorite sins aren’t even really sins at all.
I’ll just make an omelette and move on if that’s the case.
Mike T:
For all of your philosophical inclinations, you gain no humility from reading how the Pharisees learned some hard truths about the will of God via the Sabbath issue. Every authority told them that there were no exceptions. In general, there were no exceptions. God had not chosen to reveal any exceptions.
…
There are two ways we can look at that issue. Either God changed His mind or man listened too much to his own reason in the face of revelation and assumed he knew the full expression of God’s will on the issue.
There’s a third way: God commanded ‘Do not work on the Sabbath’, and in true positivist fashion, the Pharisees decided to define and delimit ‘work’, creating their own human, rigid, burdensome and ‘exceptionless’ system.
Mike T,
I gently suggest that you are missing context.
Once when Christ was rebuked concerning the Sabbath it was for his followers gleaning grain on the Sabbath. By that time period the Pharisees and the Sadducees were in disagreement about ancient gleaning laws; the Sadducees were very liberal and followed the biblical injunctions while the Pharisees argued for a much stricter interpretation of those same passages. Christ was pointing out that in addition to being overly strict they had neglected the moral obligations of pikuach nefesh which the bible showed extended to the gathering of grain or bread for the very hungry/poor.
The second instance was much less clear to the Pharisees, as they remarked. Christ pointed out that Sabbath laws from the bible made very clear exceptions for the welfare of animals in addition to the concept of pikuach nefesh. Indeed, the question was ludicrous on its face since Sabbath laws have always included exceptions for caring for the health of others.
In neither case is Christ change any teachings on the Sabbath, he simply pointed out an error in scrupulosity and an obvious mistake.
slumlord laments that ‘the reaction’ is being taken over by Christ haters. But this was entirely predictable, and in fact predicted by our own Peter Blood.
Compromise with modernity always really means submission to modernity: reducing Christ to a product on the store shelf in case the superman wants to buy himself a personal Jesus.
(Not to mention my my own predictions).
Zippy, I bet you haven’t noticed that the hottest threads are the ones with infighting among the disaffected right.
(I realize it’s not really “infighting” here…)
Peter Blood:
That is as it should be, because the only thing we know about someone upon encountering him outside the padded walls is that he is a sociopath (like us).
The principle of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ a.k.a. ‘no enemies to the right’ is blinding people to this.
It also guarantees that the argument with other such sociopaths will at least be more interesting. Arguing with run-of-the-mill liberals sucks the life out of you, it’s so boring.
Vitalism is very tempting, I confess.
Peter Blood:
That’s true enough. I imagine plenty of folks are in it (alt-right) mainly for the entertainment value or vitalism of it — which goes back to Bonald’s point. If we take what is said seriously it is interesting – entertaining, I suppose – but obviously wrong, maybe humorous but also clearly wrong like Jerry Seinfeld’s reduction of loyalty to a football team to rooting for clothing. If we take what is said less seriously it is true but uninteresting.
So the reaction becomes modernity in a clown suit. Until the clowns begin to take themselves seriously and start the killing.
[…] says “Better a godless Japan than a Jesus-luvin Baltimore,” or when Gary Petterson says “…most of us [on the ‘alternative right’] are consequentialists […]
King Richard.
A little context might help you, since you seem to have cribbed this from a website.
If you knew a bit about Ratzinger’s theological development, you wouldn’t have said that. Ratzinger was one of the Nouvelle Theologians at V2. Blondel’s spirit lives in him.
[…] The writer was a consequentialist who advocated understanding deontological principles. I am not a consequentialist, as I made clear in the debates on Christian genocide I hold to divine command theory, a specific […]
[…] The writer was a consequentialist who advocated understanding deontological principles. I am not a consequentialist, as I made clear in the debates on Christian genocide I hold to divine […]
I want to thank slumlord for his specific example of what specific doctrinal development would counteract some specific effect of modernism. It was a big help.
William, you looked up the link didn’t you?
Here’s one for you. Further development of the theology of the body in an attempt to combat the Cartesian duality that permeates Western thought.
Still vague. Specific example, please?
Shorter slumlord: “I’m too sexy for traditional Catholicism”.
Slumlord,
And if you were aware of HH Benedict’s work as part of Communio you would see that this is part of his argument towards continuity and rejection of division and sedevacantism (as well as a rejection of “the spirit of Vatican II”)
Actually reading the entire book being quoted would help a great deal, as well.
[…] so human authority does not disappear: it merely becomes sociopathic, ‘justified’ by consequentialism and other lies, as we attempt to replace human authority with neutral mechanical procedures. The […]
Maxim 29: The enemy of my enemy is my enemy’s enemy. No more. No less.
Integralism
If, as usual in our own country (America) , the name of integralism is applied to this specifically anti-modernistic teaching, then integralism is nothing more that a statement of Catholic truth, implied in a denial of errors which are incompatible with the divine message of the Catholic Church.
Monsignor Joseph Fenton, page 64, The Second Vatican Council (an unwritten story) Roberto de Mattei.
As a Bishop noted during that pastoral council (it does not bind me, thee, or anyone not living in a tree) the revolutionaries kept the words pf doctrine but emptied them of their meaning in a way that, to Ol’Mick, is reminiscent of the observation made by the old conservative, Garet Garrett, that America underwent a revolution within a form.
That is what we Catholics have suffered through – a revolution within the form of Catholicism which, to many in extra and ad extra, is not observable because they have not the first idea of why Jesus established His Catholic Church:
Salvation
Sanctification
name the last time you heard any Pope or Prelate or Priest preached these two goals publicly (you can’t; outside of the Caves of Covadonga represented by the Traditional orders)
No, what we endure, and have endured during this execrable ecclesiastical epoch, is preaching virtually indistinguishable from the mundane principles of anthropocentric masonry.
The vast vast vast vast majority of epicene Bishops are timorous when not merely ignorant of the faith and ecumenism is the universal solvent of Tradition.
[…] non-strawman version goes like […]