The call for Christian Rationalism

Although Christian Mysticism and Rationalism have been almost consistently opposed since the days of the earliest Churches in Antioch and Alexandria, I am frequently tempted to imagine that increasing our focus on reason and rationalism could help increase the unity of among Christians, as well as strengthen many of our denominations and sects.
Mysticism and Revelation can be absolutely compelling to all who have experienced them, of course, but many
Christian groups seem to walk away from people of good will who are unable to feel they have experienced some of the dogma of mystic Revelation.
I believe Christian Churches must seek communion with reasonable and rational people of good will and reduce the fragmentation of mysticism.

>1 eschator83:

Without wishing to start an off topic conversation, I would repeat what I have said elsewhere that I do not accept that mysticism and rationalism are opposed to each other. That's just setting up yet another dualism.

Obviously I am unable to follow very closely all the groups I've joined--especially now that it's camping season in the US. But I am grateful for each of your comments, and intend to respond to them.
In this case, however, it's hard to deal with your comment "I do not accept."
I'm thinking that mystics have attacked rationalists persistently throughout history, including some Papal documents. Try searching "against Christian Rationalism."
I think Fides et Ratio attempted to support at least moderately both sides, but the words of Carl Rahner bother me enormously: the Christian of the future will be a mystic, or will not exist.
Sorry, I'm writing at camp without most of my notes.
Could you comment further in some support of rationalism-perhaps along the lines that God created most of us with some potential to accumulate intelligence and reason, and He wants us to use it to seek to understand and follow His Word and His Will.
I think most efforts of Apologetics attempt to describe Christian Faith (and mysteries) through reason. I think it's probable that conversion can seldom be attained without both rationalism and the elements of mysticism in both liturgy and catechism.

>3 eschator83: I think it's probable that conversion can seldom be attained without both rationalism and the elements of mysticism

Precisely.

I am very sorry I missed your comment, and am grateful for it as well as in full agreement. I hope to persuade at least a few of those who seem to oppose rationalism that it is an important and useful proces, not an intractable opponent.

eschator83,

Delighted to meet the person who started this thread, because I couldn't agree more. Rationalism is part of being a man, using man as the word for human person. I don't see how anyone could function without it, and certainly, any person who has considered questions of religion must use it as a tool. Just as I don't think evolution is at odds with religion, I don't think reasoning is. Surely, given that it is the faculty which truly separates us from the rest of animal life, so too it is a particular glory of humankind. As Hamlet has it,

What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals.

If man is the quintessence of the earthly creation, then reason is his chief admirable attribute.

Hi, thanks for comments. I must admit that both secular and religious writers sometimes let pseudo rationalism take them "over the top."
For that reason I strongly resist the claim that rationalism is the only source of truth, but believe it is an essential component.
Isn't it tragic how little rationalism we hear and see on TV today.

Again, I have to agree, although I doubt we agree on every particular, since I am agnostic. Pseudo-rationalism is, of course, a particular debasement of Man. I believe we should go to rationalism first to understand things, but I would never insist it is the only tool we have.

And surely it is tragic, and distasteful.

I am very sorry to learn of your agnosticism, but I certainly understand how difficult it is to maintain deep faith. I encourage you to focus on the grace of Hope, and of course Love. Faith will often follow.

I was taught, when young, to think of Faith as a "gift", and I had religion as a child, by virtue of it being a part of my family. It was when I realized that "Christian" virtues, predominantly charity, were strangely lacking in many people of faith, and that our established authorities seemed more interested in maintaining power than in enabling goodness, and were willing to use force to do this I was disenchanted.

At first I was "spiritual", rather than a member of an established religion, but I have had no trouble maintaining both Hope and Love without belief. My parents took me to a Jesuit to talk to. After some while he told them that they should leave me alone, and that I would come back, since he found me well-intentioned and still questioning, and that I had no trouble with the core elements. I went into a helping profession to make it easier to spread goodness all my life, including at work. To enable, and personally to be involved in, helping seemed principally important to me.

My husband was an abused child, and in his Missouri Synod Lutheran church was never nurtured the way I was in my youth. He is very anti-religion, and was raised in a bigoted family who strove for worldly accomplishment and a seamless appearance. He has both Anxiety and Depression, and spends a great deal of time soothing himself. Still, he is very lovely to people when he encounters them, and is admirable in most ways. I cannot but forgive his self-centeredness, although it has meant a harder life for me. Ah, well, we are not promised ease, and he is a mostly happy man. Our four children are both happy and accomplished, due to their natural gifts, and our support. My husband has usually been a good parent, although I decry some of his behavior and some of the ideas he has exposed to the children. None of the six of us is a believer, but all our kids are kind and helpful, cheerful and hard-working. I am very proud of them, and very proud of my husband, who is a good man with some weakness. We all have the weakness, but not all of us is good, so for this I admire him. We have been married for 47 years.

I retired last year, from the helping profession which satisfied me through my working life. I have a chronic pain condition which tests me, and we have never been well-to-do. But I sent to college three of our four children, who all have degrees. The youngest has a severe anxiety problem, like his father, but has not overcome it even to the extent that my husband did, who was pressured and punished to do well, even to the extent of an ulcer in his childhood. My daughters-in-law are wonderful. One of the older children has schizophrenia, and was also a severe test for me in her childhood. I insist, though, that it was worse for her. She is remarkably successful and usually generous. She sometimes causes problems for the rest of us, of course, but always it is worse for her.

My husband's rejection of God is really understandable, given how he was raised. If he were not a rational Humanist, I doubt I could tolerate him. I have to put myself there, too. Humanism suffices as my faith, because it, too, enjoins upon us caritas as a high purpose. I find Man a sufficient creature to admire, and I don't feel a need to worship, except to appreciate this lovely natural world with creatures who have many gifts, and need our help. Perhaps you didn't want all this explanation, but I don't need you to worry about me. I am fine, and I am not an atheist, as my husband is. I keep that studious doubt, because I am subject to arrogance, something I have to work to control.

Please forgive my use of your time without asking if it is welcome. I wish you well, and I must thank you for this thread.

I am also retired and often find myself evaluating my sometimes weak sense of specific priorities, even though my general priorities are usually clear and consistent: family, Church, education, friends, neighbors... It seems there are almost always some specific concerns about Church that bother me, but at the same time I sense the Divine Trinity calling me, frequently and persistently, and I have had many close friendships among Church people for years.
Although I profess Christian rationalism, I confess a frequent mystical sense of Spirit, conscience, Soul, call it what you will. When I struggle with moral and spiritual decisions, I almost always find myself called strongly by the question What would Jesus do? Years ago a friend gave me a hat marked WWJD, and I've worn it a lot, literally and spiritually.
I love to read, and almost always have both a biography of a Saint and a life of Jesus on my desk (I do jump back and forth a lot).
I appreciate and enjoy your comments and encourage you to read some biographies of people you admire. I'd love to hear about your recent reading.

>10 sallypursell:

Thanks, Sally, for sharing all of that.

Humanism suffices as my faith, because it, too, enjoins upon us caritas as a high purpose

Indeed. I often think there should be no difference between the behaviour and outlook of a Christian and a humanist; indeed a Christian is a humanist except that they also acknowledge a relationship with their God. Anybody who truly strives to love their neighbour as themself is on the same path, whatever they choose to call it. I probably haven't phrased that very well.

Gentlemen,

For most of my life I have been bothered by nuisance in the form of "ghosts"? I don't know what to call them, because they vary so greatly. It was worse in my childhood and young adulthood. When I had children myself I told them firmly to go away, and mostly they have cooperated. However, the child that I was pregnant with at the time was born with schizophrenia, and some ardent Christian friends have said that the devil was wooing me, and that maybe it is thusly that she became a battleground. I believe it was genetics, rather, and even I doubt my stories, because ghosts/naughty spirits seen so unlikely. I would say that I don't believe in them, except that I then don't what to call those experiences. I can't believe they were hallucinations, because even some hard-headed friends of mine were witnesses to some. Most of the florid experiences happened when I was alone, it is true, but even one of them was witnessed.

I don't see how it could have been a wooing. Who would have wanted to sign on to more of that? All the same, I remember the feeling one day of a question of sorts about joining in, a rather intrusive question, and I firmly felt a sense of adamant refusal, no question at all. I sighed, then, and readied myself for more of the same, but it rather waned. It was about that time I fell in love with my husband. I was young, only 19, and I intentionally put off marriage for more than a year, thinking I was too young to make this huge decision. I never questioned it, though, and I enjoyed my small family wedding, at age 21. As I said, we have been married for 47 years. I have only the most rare and questionable spirit experience nowadays.

What do you suppose that all could have been? and what could have have stopped it? Was it "True Love"? I sort of fell in love at the first sight of him.

A poem of mine:

Dis-located Glamour, did you follow a ley-line to me?
I am a witch but you enspelled me
When I opened the door, and you smiled,

Breath and sight were lost.
Did you bring Ray Davis’ tank in your hands?
Breath lost, sight crazed.

Uncountable, they pierced you,
Falling through you, flooding through you,
Slicing the light to my eyes like my mother’s cut glass,
They stitched you to me,
Unheeding, untouching.

Did I meet first and then fall, or fall and then meet?
I don’t believe in Love at first sight, but I’m giddy.

>11 eschator83: There is nothing uplifting about my reading. I read for escapism and distraction from pain. I read since that has been my chief recreation all my life. I dislike TV, and I taught myself to read when I was two. I was so avid to read that I could not wait until someone offered to teach me. It was a laborious process, I remember, but I was reading well by age three. I read very seriously when I was younger, but this constant aggravation of pain has meant that recently I read genre fiction--mysteries, romances, nonfiction about history and science, and lots of science fiction. I have not read much Christian literature, except some C. S. Lewis. Could you make some suggestions on where to start? I have read a little of St Thomas Aquinas, but I found his anguish over his masturbation a little over the top. Masturbation is normal, and almost ubiquitous, and I don't believe it a serious sin. If there is a God, he surely included it in his design as a way for people to learn about sex before coupling when older. Oh, I have read the Bible through about ten times.

I am sincere that I will read some things you recommend. Here is my Club Read thread
https://www.librarything.com/topic/315013

>12 John5918: Thank you for your comments. I have had a spiritual life almost always. I find inspirational women especially who either have great learning, or are able to lose themselves in spiritual devotion. I would like to learn more, but I don't really know where to start. I knew Christianity well, at one point. I have been drawn to Hinduism, because I believe the "gods" are all aspects of god that various people are variously able to venerate or worship as intercessors. I also liked Zoroastrianism. Islam seems fine to me, and the violent jihadists are misunderstanding it. Some "heresies" also made some sense to me, although I have not studied them well. I am rather bathed in "Christian" lack of the love and sympathy that I think should belong there. Our culture seems to only support that "Trumpist" Christianity. Or the "prosperity gospel", surely a heresy. How can people follow this awful faith? How can religious people support Trump? I was pleased to see that he was denounced by the ministers of his own church and sect, and admonished from the pulpit.

>14 sallypursell: Sally: Almost at the beginning of this thread I explained and apologized that we lose track of most of the secular world during our summer stays at camp, but I again express my deep regret about not seeing your comments until now.
You have an incredible ability to stick a lot of big shockers in a very small place, and I have enjoyed my very quick scan of your Club Read thread. I can't recall ever having previously seen Club Read, so I'm working now both on a reply to you and struggling to decide what the logic maybe for Club Read and do I want to post there?
I too am a dedicated and chronic serial-box reader (ie everything I get before my nose).
Covid may have eliminated my habit of reading whatever magazine or pamphlet I find in a waiting room, but I think I will probably never take my Kindle, nor laptop, nor read on my cell phone (which still seems a dreadful invasion of my privacy). Now I always bring a book to a waiting room.
But what to read? And why? I recommend CS Lewis to you because I like his bio, his British understatement, his subdued humor, and much more. I should have looked to see if you have his Mere Christianity, but I wanted to mention it just because it is one of his most known and highly regarded. In my view religions in almost every form are absolutely essential to the extent that they encourage not just morality, but I think hope may be even more important to fulfillment and joy in human existence.
I also encourage you to consider Lewis' Surprised by Joy, essays in The Weight of Glory,
The Problem of Pain, and for a bit of fiction one of his Narnia series and The Pilgrim's Regress (It's a complicated but brilliant play on Pilgrim's Progress- coming to Christianity). Best regards. Hope to talk again soon.