One of the Huge, Humongous Contributions of Christianity to the Enlightenment!

[Sunstone]

Please Note Well: The views expressed in this thread are my own and are not to be uncritically swallowed, but are instead offered here to stimulate conversation. However, it is also undoubtedly true that the gods themselves hold the very same views as I do.
​

"It is a truth universally acknowledged" (as Jane Austin might say) that the wisdom, values, and views of the European Enlightenment were essentially summed up by Immanuel Kant in his 1784 essay, Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?:

Kant answers the question in the first sentence of the essay: "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity." He argues that the immaturity is self-inflicted not from a lack of understanding, but from the lack of courage to use one's reason, intellect, and wisdom without the guidance of another. He exclaims that the motto of enlightenment is "Sapere aude"! – Dare to be wise!​

Kant's "answer" is fine as far as it goes, I think, but in my own opinion Kant neglects to mention -- nay! He almost obscures! -- the essential foundational role in Enlightenment thought of the notion of epistemic equality.

Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Immanuel: You forgot to make explicit what's implicit in your essay: Namely, "epistemic equality"!

I myself staunchly believe the Enlightenment cannot be understood without understanding the role epistemic equality plays it. Epistemic equality is the notion that you, me, and any other equally well-informed human who happens to be thinking rationally (as opposed to, say, thinking like a testosterone-drenched teenager thirty seconds after the first truly passionate, mind-dizzying, knees-parting kiss in her life, the very moment she is shocked to realize that her braces have become firmly and hopelessly interlocked with her partner's braces; trust me, teens seldom think rationally at such a moment!) are all on an equal footing in terms of being able to discern the truth or falsity of a matter.

Put differently, if you and I happen to be about equally well-informed on the subject of ant's elbows, and we happen to both be thinking rationally, then we are epistemic equals when it comes to judging whether or not some statement or the other about ant's elbows happens to be true or not. Our opinions, even if they differ, carry the same epistemic weight so that neither one of us is obliged to defer to the other. We are epistemic peers.

Now contrast that with the notion that one of us is somehow epistemically privileged and thus must always be deferred to whenever there is a disagreement between us.

• Perhaps we live in a culture that says one of us is to be seen as an authority on all matters of truth because he or she belongs to the "right religion, sex, ethnicity, or race" while the other one of us belongs to the "wrong religion, sex, ethnicity, or race".
  
• Or suppose one of us is for some reason seen as "nearer to the gods" than the other and thus must be deferred to.
• Or maybe one of us is a king who politically outranks the other, and thus must be deferred to.
• Or perhaps one of us has "the weight of tradition" on his or her side and thus must be deferred to.

Basically, a foundational, core notion of the Enlightenment was the outright rejection of any such epistemic privilege in favor of epistemic equality.

All of the above now raises the question, "Where did this notion of epistemic equality come from?"

To be sure, the notion of epistemic equality had been floating around long before the Enlightenment. It was, for instance, foundational to the sciences, which had begun their rise in the centuries immediately before the Enlightenment. After all, the logical structure of the sciences all but begins with the notion of epistemic equality in the form of the crucial requirement that all scientific knowledge be capable at least in principle of reliable intersubjective verification. In a sense, then, the essential Enlightenment notion of epistemic equality was an elaboration and expansion on the notion's earlier application to the sciences.

But where, then, did the sciences get the notion from? Huh? Huh? Answer me that!

“Another Christian concept, no less crazy, has passed even more deeply into the tissue of modernity: the concept of the 'equality of souls before God.' This concept furnishes the prototype of all theories of equal rights...” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power.​

.
I am of the insufferably held opinion that the concept of the equality of souls before God is not only -- as our dear and esteemed Friedrich observed -- at the root of "all theories of equal rights", but it is also at the root of the notion of epistemic equality. After all, epistemic equality can easily be viewed as the notion that your epistemic right to judge the truth or falsity of something is the same as my own. Thus, in my admittedly impressive, impeccable, and ingenious view, the notion of epistemic equality comes to us largely (though not exclusively*) through Christianity. Thank you, Jesus Freaks!

But where did the Enlightenment notion of epistemic equality lead? Why is it so important? Well, I'm so glad you asked! In the words of the scholar Rebecca Newberger Goldstein:

The Enlightenment, in short, amounted to an assertion of epistemic democracy. Whatever can be known by one person can, in principle, be known by all, as long as they master the techniques for knowing that are relevant to a field. It’s no accident that the development of modern empirical science was intertwined with the Enlightenment. So was the emergence of modern political democracy: the American Founders were children of the Enlightenment. Another gift, rooted in the emphasis on our common humanity, was the various human-rights movements, including abolitionism and the first stirrings of feminism. Jeremy Bentham wrote an impassioned brief on behalf of homosexual rights. Cesare Beccaria, the jurist and philosopher, wrote a pamphlet presenting a case against harsh punishments that led to the end of state-sanctioned torture and capital punishment throughout Europe, and influenced the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. What the Princeton philosopher Peter Singer has called “the expanding circle” of moral concern was given a mighty outward tug by Enlightenment thinkers. The starkly contrasting normative patterns we find in the world today reflect where the Enlightenment left its footprint and where it didn’t. Some might say that what we need at this moment, assaulted as we are by extremes of irrationalism, is a rededication to the ideas and ideals of the Enlightenment.​

Comments? Observations? Drug-induced rants? Mouth-watering beer pics?



______________________
Footnote: *When I say that "epistemic equality comes to us largely, though not exclusively, through Christianity" I have in mind the contribution of the Stoics, who also held a notion of epistemic equality.

 

[Sunstone]

By the way, the wisdom, values and views of the Enlightenment are by and large under attack today by reactionaries on both the political left and the political right. At least, that's my own unbearable opinion.

All of the following movements and ideologies are inimical to the wisdom, values, and views of the Enlightenment:

• The fundamentalist movements that now infect at least four of the world's major religions.
• The postmodernist assertion of epistemic relativism (the notion that truth is relative to individuals, groups, societies, or cultures, rather than being in any case universal).
• The politically correct doctrine that governments and other agencies ought to restrict or stop speech that merely gives offense (rather than only restrict or stop speech that incites to physical harm).
• Any of the world's many anti-democratic or pro-authoritarian political ideologies or movements.
• @SalixIncendium's appalling fashion sense.

Those are just a small handful of the movements and ideologies that are, in my opinion, essentially reactionary and destructive.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Please Note Well: The views expressed in this thread are my own and are not to be uncritically swallowed, but are instead offered here to stimulate conversation. However, it is also undoubtedly true that the gods themselves hold the very same views as I do.
​

"It is a truth universally acknowledged" (as Jane Austin might say) that the wisdom, values, and views of the European Enlightenment were essentially summed up by Immanuel Kant in his 1784 essay, Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?:

Kant answers the question in the first sentence of the essay: "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity." He argues that the immaturity is self-inflicted not from a lack of understanding, but from the lack of courage to use one's reason, intellect, and wisdom without the guidance of another. He exclaims that the motto of enlightenment is "Sapere aude"! – Dare to be wise!​

Kant's "answer" is fine as far as it goes, I think, but in my own opinion Kant neglects to mention -- nay! He almost obscures! -- the essential foundational role in Enlightenment thought of the notion of epistemic equality.

Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Immanuel: You forgot to make explicit what's implicit in your essay: Namely, "epistemic equality"!

I myself staunchly believe the Enlightenment cannot be understood without understanding the role epistemic equality plays it. Epistemic equality is the notion that you, me, and any other equally well-informed human who happens to be thinking rationally (as opposed to, say, thinking like a testosterone-drenched teenager thirty seconds after the first truly passionate, mind-dizzying, knees-parting kiss in her life, the very moment she is shocked to realize that her braces have become firmly and hopelessly interlocked with her partner's braces; trust me, teens seldom think rationally at such a moment!) are all on an equal footing in terms of being able to discern the truth or falsity of a matter.

Put differently, if you and I happen to be about equally well-informed on the subject of ant's elbows, and we happen to both be thinking rationally, then we are epistemic equals when it comes to judging whether or not some statement or the other about ant's elbows happens to be true or not. Our opinions, even if they differ, carry the same epistemic weight so that neither one of us is obliged to defer to the other. We are epistemic peers.

Now contrast that with the notion that one of us is somehow epistemically privileged and thus must always be deferred to whenever there is a disagreement between us.

• Perhaps we live in a culture that says one of us is to be seen as an authority on all matters of truth because he or she belongs to the "right religion, sex, ethnicity, or race" while the other one of us belongs to the "wrong religion, sex, ethnicity, or race".
  
• Or suppose one of us is for some reason seen as "nearer to the gods" than the other and thus must be deferred to.
• Or maybe one of us is a king who politically outranks the other, and thus must be deferred to.
• Or perhaps one of us has "the weight of tradition" on his or her side and thus must be deferred to.

Basically, a foundational, core notion of the Enlightenment was the outright rejection of any such epistemic privilege in favor of epistemic equality.

All of the above now raises the question, "Where did this notion of epistemic equality come from?"

To be sure, the notion of epistemic equality had been floating around long before the Enlightenment. It was, for instance, foundational to the sciences, which had begun their rise in the centuries immediately before the Enlightenment. After all, the logical structure of the sciences all but begins with the notion of epistemic equality in the form of the crucial requirement that all scientific knowledge be capable at least in principle of reliable intersubjective verification. In a sense, then, the essential Enlightenment notion of epistemic equality was an elaboration and expansion on the notion's earlier application to the sciences.

But where, then, did the sciences get the notion from? Huh? Huh? Answer me that!

“Another Christian concept, no less crazy, has passed even more deeply into the tissue of modernity: the concept of the 'equality of souls before God.' This concept furnishes the prototype of all theories of equal rights...” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power.​

.
I am of the insufferably held opinion that the concept of the equality of souls before God is not only -- as our dear and esteemed Friedrich observed -- at the root of "all theories of equal rights", but it is also at the root of the notion of epistemic equality. After all, epistemic equality can easily be viewed as the notion that your epistemic right to judge the truth or falsity of something is the same as my own. Thus, in my admittedly impressive, impeccable, and ingenious view, the notion of epistemic equality comes to us largely (though not exclusively*) through Christianity. Thank you, Jesus Freaks!

But where did the Enlightenment notion of epistemic equality lead? Why is it so important? Well, I'm so glad you asked! In the words of the scholar Rebecca Newberger Goldstein:

The Enlightenment, in short, amounted to an assertion of epistemic democracy. Whatever can be known by one person can, in principle, be known by all, as long as they master the techniques for knowing that are relevant to a field. It’s no accident that the development of modern empirical science was intertwined with the Enlightenment. So was the emergence of modern political democracy: the American Founders were children of the Enlightenment. Another gift, rooted in the emphasis on our common humanity, was the various human-rights movements, including abolitionism and the first stirrings of feminism. Jeremy Bentham wrote an impassioned brief on behalf of homosexual rights. Cesare Beccaria, the jurist and philosopher, wrote a pamphlet presenting a case against harsh punishments that led to the end of state-sanctioned torture and capital punishment throughout Europe, and influenced the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. What the Princeton philosopher Peter Singer has called “the expanding circle” of moral concern was given a mighty outward tug by Enlightenment thinkers. The starkly contrasting normative patterns we find in the world today reflect where the Enlightenment left its footprint and where it didn’t. Some might say that what we need at this moment, assaulted as we are by extremes of irrationalism, is a rededication to the ideas and ideals of the Enlightenment.​

Comments? Observations? Drug-induced rants? Mouth-watering beer pics?



______________________
Footnote: *When I say that "epistemic equality comes to us largely though not exclusively through Christianity" I have in mind the contribution of the Stoics, who also held a notion of epistemic equality.

While Christianity may have encouraged epistemic equality in some ways, it also privileged some in certain roles, and certain other sources of 'knowing' in ways that discouraged any sort of equality...and in fact, in the early enlightenment--even through today, for many--there was a strict hierarchy in which Educated European Males were the pinnacle and everyone else was much lower down the hill from them. Maybe equal in the eyes of God, but not in the eyes of Man.

 

[BSM1]

"Epistemic equality". Cool term. So you're saying (as I have said many times and plan to have tattooed on my forehead) everyone has to find their own truth?

 

[David T]

Friedrich and Carl nietztche. Fred the atheist, Carl the believer. Both clearly manifested bi polar symtomss manifesting into skitzoaffective. What nut job correct? It depends on one's own nuttiness. Liberals prefer Fred, conservatives prefer Carl. Personally for me, they are both nuts, and thus trees make more sense. nuts just spin in, forget to breath and never grow. Breathing is a remarkable thing that nuts dismiss or completely forget about. John Muir was neurologically similar carl and Friedrich not a bit of nuttiness at all in his writings. Same with rudolph Stiener.

DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for schizoaffective disorder. An uninterrupted period of illness during which there is a major mood episode (major depressive or manic) concurrent with Criterion A of schizophrenia. Note: The major depressive episode must include Criterion A1: Depressed mood.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

This got me thinking of how much we take such notions of "equality" for granted anymore. And it's interesting to understand that it probably took quite a bit of abstract thought for humanity, or a group of humans, to finally come to such ideas in the first place. I feel we are definitely better off for such exercises of thought, and examining it all like this serves as a reminder that we always need this. People thinking I mean - trying to get to the root of ideas like this and making them palatable for we masses. As a species we tend to get stuck and comfortable in our own corners, but there is simply always so much more to be learned. It's always entirely possible that other ideas will become "fundamental" that we haven't even tripped over yet.

 

[Orbit]

In response to your comments about relativism ("postmodernism"), cultural relativism is a useful concept that, like all other concepts, has it limits. I once asked Clifford Geertz (an anthropologist) about cultural relativism vs universal truth and his answer was "you have to understand the limitations of the discipline [of anthropology]. What he meant was that the concept of cultural relativism has its uses but was not to be concerned with the ability to establish universal truth, which was beyond the scope of anthropology. Cultural relativism recognizes that social location partially determines what is "truth" to you.

For example, what was "Westward Expansion" to Americans is "Native American genocide" to indigenous people. Who is right? They both are, though looking through the lenses of different cultures. The concept is very important to understanding how cultures, societies, and subcultures interact, and I wouldn't throw it away for anything.

 

[Orbit]

Sunstone said: The politically correct doctrine that governments and other agencies ought to restrict or stop speech that merely gives offense (rather than only restrict or stop speech that incites to physical harm).

You can incite to riot without uttering the words "go riot". For example the rhetoric of the alt right leads to an atmosphere conducive to violence. Blaming minority groups, scapegoating, all of those encourage group members to act out with church burnings, shootings, vandalism, and so on. If speech leads to lynching, it can do so without saying "go lynch someone".

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Epistemic equality is the notion that you, me, and any other equally well-informed human who happens to be thinking rationally ... are all on an equal footing in terms of being able to discern the truth or falsity of a matter.

If we all apply reason properly to the same evidence, shouldn't we all come to the same conclusions? Shouldn't every sufficiently evolved species in the universe come up with the same periodic table of the elements?

How about those not well trained in critical analysis? Are they the epistemic equals of those who are?

Personally, I don't need anybody to agree with me to respect their opinions or how their mind works, but I do require that they decide what is true according to the same rules. Thus you may value freedom over security more than I do, or the other way around, and hold different opinions about how things should be or how they should be changed, as with the American gun issue.

But even thought we might bring different values to the discussion, if you and I both reason well, we can agree that although we don't share the same values and therefore don't come to the same conclusions, if we held the other's values, we could agree with their conclusions.

But if you arrive at your belief set using tea leaves or a Ouija board, how can I consider you an epistemic equal?

EDIT: Incidentally, I consider Christianity's biggest contribution to the Enlightenment was to serve as an ideology to be rejected. Secular humanism is a repudiation of the Christian worldview, one in which faith is extolled over reason, and kings and gods are to be submitted to (and slave masters and husbands).

This notion of equality before God refers to the afterlife and Judgment Day. On earth, thre are superiors and inferiors.

 

[Vouthon]

EDIT: Incidentally, I consider Christianity's biggest contribution to the Enlightenment was to serve as an ideology to be rejected. Secular humanism is a repudiation of the Christian worldview, one in which faith is extolled over reason, and kings and gods are to be submitted to (and slave masters and husbands).

This notion of equality before God refers to the afterlife and Judgment Day. On earth, thre are superiors and inferiors.

But I'm afraid this isn't the case @It Aint Necessarily So as I explained on the other thread (posts #49-50, One of the Whopping Big Contributions of Christianity to Renaissance Humanism!).

I wish people were more aware of the complicated historical reality, rather than the almost cartoonish stereotype of backward, subservient Christians trying to keep tyrant kings in power and coming up against the forces of enlightened secular reason. There's certainly a grain of truth, as with all myths but I do declare it an urban myth nonetheless, one not backed up by scholarship.

How can anyone look at the Puritan Parliamentarian cause during the English Civil War, for instance, and come away from it thinking that Christianity was all about unconditional submission to "kings and gods"? Or the 12th-13th century canonists and decretalists of the church who developed the first subjective understanding of natural law as amounting to a set of inviolable "natural rights" inhering within the individual? Or the proto-social contract theories of conciliarists such as Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa in the 15th century, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine and the Spanish jurist-theologians of the scholastic School of Salamanca in the 16th century?

Firstly, read this article published in The Encyclopedia of Political Thought by Siegfried Van Duffel on "Conciliarism", a movement that was directly indebted to the canon law tradition and was pioneered by Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa and Jean Gerson, and which in turn directly led to the seventeenth-eighteenth century Enlightenment political theories against absolute monarchy and in favour of popular sovereignty:

Conciliarism - The Encyclopedia of Political Thought - Duffel - Wiley Online Library

Abstract

The term “conciliarism” can be used broadly to refer to attempts, from the early Catholic church till today, to limit papal control over the church by means of a general council. In a stricter sense the term is often used to refer to the movement which emerged in response to the “western schism” (1378–1417), which briefly re-emerged after the “schism of Pisa” (1511–13). This movement served as a catalyst of medieval constitutional thought and contributed significantly to the development of the idea of “government by consent.” During the so-called western schism, the Catholic church found itself with two (and later three) rival popes. The situation was resolved only 40 years later (1414–18) at the council of Constance. Since the pope was normally considered the head of the church, the actions of the council needed special justification. The apologists of the council of Constance (among others: Conrad of Gelnhausen, Henry of Langenstein, and Pierre d'Aily) relied heavily on canonist corporation theory, and were also greatly indebted to John of Paris, William of Ockham, and Marsilius of Padua.

The council asserted supremacy for itself...From 1408–18 onward (in the later period apologists were Pierre d'Aily, Jean Gerson, and Franciscus Zabarella), conciliarism becomes more of a theology of the church. The general terms in which the arguments were put forward facilitated their transformation into all-purpose political principles. Several conciliarists proposed theories of mixed government, but at the council of Basel (1431–49) many went further in pronouncing the sovereignty of the whole church, which the church exercised through the council as its representative. Nicholas of Cusa, who delivered the most important contribution to the council of Basel, wrote about the foundation of government in a language resembling that of later social contract theorists: since all are by nature free, and equal in power, the properly ordained power of a ruler can only come from the agreement and consent of the subjects (Nicholas of Cusa 1991: 98). In the early sixteenth century, Jacques Almain and John Mair revived conciliarism, and – in doing so – provided a crucial link in the transmission of medieval constitutional thought. In their thought, the right of the church to depose a pope guilty of a notorious crime is treated as an application of the general rights of political communities – civil and ecclesiastical – to act for their preservation and well-being. These ideas were often echoed and cited by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century opponents of absolute monarchy.

​

(continued.....)

 

[Vouthon]

Here's some notable examples for you to mull over.

Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), vicar-general of the papal states, in his seminal work
De concordantia catholica (The Catholic Concordance) (1434):


The Catholic Concordance | Natural Law, Natural Rights, and American Constitutionalism

"...That all legislation is based on the natural law, and that all coercion must be brought about by the choice and consent of the subjects, since we are equally free by nature, and that jurisdictions that are created have no power from themselves, but only according to the laws and canons. This is a fine argument.

Therefore since all men are free by nature, every government that restrains its subjects from evils and uses the fear of punishment to orient their freedom towards the good, whether it consists of written laws or of a living law in the person of the prince, is constituted only by the agreement and consent of the subjects. For if by nature men are equally powerful and equally free, then the true and well-ordered authority of one who is a fellow and equal in power can only be established by the choice and consent of others, just as laws are established by consent.

So in a truly well-ordered regime there ought to be an election of the ruler himself, by which the ruler is set up as the judge of those who choose him. Well-ordered and correct lordships and honors, then, are established by election, and so also are general judges established over those who elect them..."​

St. Robert Bellarmine (1542 – 1621), a great Doctor and Cardinal of the Church, tells us in chapters 3-6 of his De Laicis:


De Laicis — Saint Robert Bellarmine’s Treatise on Civil Government

"...Secular or Civil authority is instituted by men; it is in the people unless they bestow it on a Prince. This Power is immediately in the Multitude, as in the subject of it; for this Power is in the Divine Law, but the Divine Law hath given this power to no particular man. If the Positive Law be taken away, there is left no Reason amongst the Multitude (who are Equal) one rather than another should bear the Rule over the Rest.

[Political] power resides, as in its subject, immediately in the whole state, for this power is by Divine law, but Divine law gives this power to no particular man, therefore Divine law gives this power to the collected body.

Furthermore, in the absence of positive law, there is no good reason why, in a multitude of equals, one rather than another should dominate. Therefore, power belongs to the collected body. Finally, human society ought to be a perfect State, therefore, it should have the power to preserve itself, hence, to punish disturbers of the peace, etc.

Note, in the third place, that, by the same natural law, this power is delegated by the multitude to one or several, for the State cannot of itself exercise this power, therefore, it is held to delegate it to some individual, or to several, and this authority of rulers considered thus in general is both by natural law and by Divine law.

Individual forms of government in specific instances derive from the law of nations, not from the natural law, for, as is evident, it depends on the consent of the people to decide whether kings, or consuls, or other magistrates are to be established in authority over them; and, if there be legitimate cause, the people can change a kingdom into an aristocracy, or an aristocracy into a democracy, and vice versa...

It follows from what has been said that this power in specific instances comes indeed from God, but through the medium of human wisdom and choice, as do all other things which pertain to the law of nations...."​

Third, the Jesuit Francisco Suarez regarded as the pre-eminent Catholic philosopher after St. Thomas Aquinas:

Francisco Suárez - Wikipedia

Francisco Suárez (5 January 1548 – 25 September 1617) was a Spanish Jesuit priest, philosopher and theologian, one of the leading figures of the School of Salamanca movement, and generally regarded among the greatest scholastics after Thomas Aquinas. His work is considered a turning point in the history of second scholasticism, marking the transition from its Renaissance to its Baroque phases. According to Christopher Shields and Daniel Schwartz, "figures as distinct from one another in place, time, and philosophical orientation as Leibniz, Grotius, Pufendorf, Schopenhauer, and Heidegger, all found reason to cite him as a source of inspiration and influence."[2]...

Suárez denies the patriarchal theory of government and the divine right of kings founded upon it, doctrines popular at that time in England and to some extent on the Continent...When a political society is formed, the authority of the state is not of divine but of human origin; therefore, its nature is chosen by the people involved, and their natural legislative power is given to the ruler.[11] Because they gave this power, they have the right to take it back and to revolt against a ruler, only if the ruler behaves badly towards them, and they must act moderately and justly...If a government is imposed on people, on the other hand, they have the right to defend themselves by revolting against it and even kill the tyrannical ruler.[12]

In 1613, at the instigation of Pope Paul V, Suárez wrote a treatise dedicated to the Christian princes of Europe, entitled Defensio catholicae fidei contra anglicanae sectae errores("Defense of the Universal Catholic Faith Against the Errors of the Anglican Sect").[16] This was directed against the oath of allegiance which James I required from his subjects.

King James (himself a talented scholar) caused it to be burned by the common hangman and forbade its perusal under the 'severest penalties, complaining bitterly to Philip III of Spain for harbouring in his dominions a declared enemy of the throne and majesty of kings.

The views of Suarez upon the human origin of political order, and his defense of tyrannicide emanating from popular dissent were heavily criticized by English philosopher Robert Filmer in his work Patriarcha, Or the Natural Power of Kings. Filmer believed the Calvinists and the Papists like Suarez to be dangerous opponents of divine right monarchy, legitimized by the supremacy of fathers upon their offspring, which Filmer claimed could be traced back to Adam​

Suárez, Francisco | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Francisco Suárez (1548—1617)

Sometimes called the "Eminent Doctor" after Pope Paul V’s designation of him as doctor eximius et pius, Francisco Suárez was the leading theological and philosophical light of Spain’s Golden Age...when he attempted to join the rapidly growing Society of Jesus, he attained international prominence within his lifetime. He taught at the schools in Segovia, Valladolid, Rome, Alcalá, Salamanca, and finally at Coimbra, the last at Philip II’s insistence.

His Defensio fidei, published in 1613, defended a theory of political power that was widely perceived to undermine any monarch's absolute right to rule. He explicitly permitted tyrannicide and argued that even monarchs who come to power legitimately can become tyrants and thereby lose their authority. Such views led to the book being publically burned in London and Paris...

The even-handed presentation of the panoply of scholastic positions also explains why Suárez’s writing served as one of the key conduits through which medieval philosophy influenced early modern philosophy. Descartes, Leibniz, and Wolff, among others, learned scholasticism at least in part from reading Suárez, a scholasticism from which they then borrowed in developing their own philosophical theories...

One could hold the view that what gives some individuals political power over other people is that God bestowed such authority on them directly. Suárez rejects that view. He insists that men are by nature free and subject to no one (DL 3.1.1)...

Europeans had, of course, stumbled into the Americas shortly before Suárez’s time and so one of the questions that exercised his contemporaries concerned the standing of Native Americans, especially in light of Aristotle’s infamous claim that some human beings are natural slaves. Suárez has no use for the suggestion that Native Americans are natural slaves. Men are naturally disposed to be free and being free is one of their perfections; suggesting that all the people in some region or other happen to have been born “monsters,” that is, with defective natures, is incredible.

Suárez does, however, think that some rulers have legitimate authority over men. Where does that authority come from? The short answer is that political communities are needed and so men consent to join together in such communities, and in a political community the power to govern and to look after the common good of the community must be vested in an authority...​

I will quote some selections from Francisco Suarez' works in my next post, lifted from this translation:

Selections from Three Works - Online Library of Liberty

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Regarding the two posts above, the opinions of various clerics expressed there aren't biblical in origin. I don't credit Christianity for things that Christians do unless they do them because of their religion. One of the cardinal achievements of the Enlightenment was the creation of the modern, liberal, democratic state with citizens rather than subjects, and a government that is limited, transparent, its powers divided, and personal rights enumerated and guaranteed. Sure, Christians participated in drafting the American Constitution, but they didn't consult their Bibles in so doing. Had they, they would have read,

• "Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves."- Romans 13:1-2

and

• "Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient" - Titus 3:1

Had the Enlightenment political philosophers and the American founding fathers looked for a basis for freedom of religion in their Bibles, they would have found commandments to worship Jehovah. Had they looked for a basis for freedom of speech there, they would have found commandments forbidding blasphemy.

The history of the European Middle Ages is the Christian legacy. That was biblical in nature - the divine right of kings. The model of the king is based on that of God - absolute authority, the sole source of the law, the king's commandments become law because they are spoken by the king, all rights belong to the king, including the right to drag you off in the middle of the night without charges to be executed without trial because it pleases the king. That's a god on earth.

If some Christians of the later Middle Ages and Renaissance began to reject that model and espouse opinions that are characteristic of Enlightenment values, it wasn't due to consulting their Bibles. They didn't get their ideas from Christianity.

That is why I call the Enlightenment and the rise of secular humanist values a reaction to Christianity, not its child. It's a repudiation of the Christian model, which is faith based and authoritarian:

• "Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." - Enlightenment philosopher Diderot

One finds almost no overlap between, say, the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount, and the Affirmations of Humanism. The only values secular humanism shares with Christianity are older than both, and don't come from having faith in the Bible. When I read the Bible, I don't recognize my ideology there, which considers reason a virtue, finds no value in scripture or prayer, and sees man as the measure of what is true and good.

Anyway, thanks for your effort and interest.

 

[Vouthon]

Regarding the two posts above, the opinions of various clerics expressed there aren't biblical in origin. I don't credit Christianity for things that Christians do unless they do them because of their religion...

If some Christians of the later Middle Ages and Renaissance began to reject that model and espouse opinions that are characteristic of Enlightenment values, it wasn't due to consulting their Bibles. They didn't get their ideas from Christianity.

Hello again @It Aint Necessarily So

Thanks for your reply, I appreciate the time you've taken.

First things first, before I answer your interesting points I feel obligated to clarify something important in this post. You seem to be misunderstanding Catholic Christianity.

Consider one of the "clerics" I quoted above: the great scholastic theologian Francisco Suarez. In his 1613 treatise, which he wrote at the behest of Pope Paul V, he argues against the divine right of kings and for popular sovereignty on the following basis and in the process illustrates something important about Catholicism:


Selections from Three Works - Online Library of Liberty

8. From these considerations finally it is concluded that no king or monarch has or has had directly from God or from divine institution a political principality, but by the medium of human will and institution. This is the honored axiom of theology, not for derision, as the king proposed, but in truth, because rightly understood it is most true and especially necessary for understanding the purposes and limits of civil power.

Moreover it is not novel; for much earlier Cardinal Cajetan taught this in Apologia or Tract.2 on the Authority of the Pope p. 2, ch.10; and Castr. Bk.1 on the Penal Law, ch.1; and Driedo, bk.1, on the Liberty of Christ, ch.19; also Vitoria, in Relectio on Civil Power, n.8 and following; and it is taken from the same author, in Relectiones 2 on Ecclesiastical Power, Conclusion 3, and ad 1. Soto, bk.4, on Justice q.2, a.1, in the discourse of conclusion 1, and more broadly in q. 4, art.1; which Luis Molina followed, Tract.2, on Justice, disput.21.

Also St. Thomas insinuates it in Ia IIae, q.9 a.3, and q. 97, a.3, and more clearly in IIa IIae, q.10. And not only from the theologians, but also from the jurists the teaching has been commonly handed down, in bk.3 ff. de Const. Princip., and in bk.2 ff. De Origin. Iuris, and among the moderns by Navarro in ch. ‘Novit.’ De Iudiciis, n.3, especially nos. 41, 85, 94, and no. 112ff. to 121, and no.147; Covarruvias, in Practicis Quaestionibus ch.1, no.6, who also refer to others.

9. Besides this truth can be taken from the holy Fathers, first, because they assert that man was created by God free and free-born, and only received directly from God the power of ruling over the brute beasts and inferior things; but the dominion of men over men was introduced by human will through sin or some adversity. This Ambrose hands down on Colossians 3, at the end; and more broadly Augustine, 19, The City of God, ch.15, and bk. Quaestion. in Gen. q.153, and Gregory bk.21, Moralia, ch.10, elsewhere ch.11, and in Pastorali, p.2, ch.6.

For what they say about the liberty of each man, and the slavery opposed to it, is by the same reasoning true of a mixed or fictitious person of a single community or human city. For, according as it is directly ruled by God with the law of nature, it is free and sui iuris. This liberty does not exclude, but rather includes, the power of ruling itself, and of giving commands to its own members, but it excludes subjection to another man, as far as it is by force of natural law alone, because God has given directly such power to no one among men until through human institution or election it be transferred to someone. Secondly, this is particularly confirmed by the opinion of Augustine, bk.3, Confessions, ch.8, where he says: “It is a general pact of human society to obey its own kings.” For by these words he signifies that the regal principality, and the obedience owed to it, has its basis in a pact of human society, and therefore it is not from the direct institution of God, for a human pact is contracted by human will.

But this power of which we are treating was given by none of these methods to kings by God, speaking according to the ordinary law, because neither through the special will of God was it directly given (for such will of God neither has been revealed nor made known to men), nor also does the natural law alone dictate by itself that this power should be in kings, as has been shown; lastly, the institution, or determination, or transfer of this power was not made directly by God to the kings, as is plain from experience itself...Therefore this institution is human institution, because it has been made by men; therefore by men directly the power was given to kings, whose dignity was created by this institution. But God is said mediately to give this power to the kings, first, because He granted it directly to the people, which transferred it to the kings.​

The second inference [to be drawn from the preceding Chapter] is as follows: civil power, whenever it resides—in the right and ordinary course of law—in the person of one individual, or prince, has flowed from the people as a community; nor could it otherwise be justly held.

The same conclusion is upheld in these laws themselves; by Panormitanus and other canonists (on Decretals, Bk. IV, tit. xvii, chap. xiii); by St. Thomas (I.–II, qu. 90, art. 3 and qu. 97 [, art. 3]); by Cajetan (in the above-cited work, De Potestate Papae, Pt. II, chaps. ii and x [chap. ix]); by Victoria (in his Relectio on this very subject [De Potestate Civili]); and by other authorities to whom reference has been made...
​

Do you notice that he cites numerous earlier church fathers, popes, canonists etc. for this doctrine and claims that it is "the honored axiom of theology"?

It stems from his religion, not his own opinion that's why.

As you know, I am not a Protestant and neither were the churchmen I quoted. As such, you seem to have misunderstood that they were expressing doctrinal truths of their religious tradition, regardless of whether or not it has any basis in the Bible (although I would contest your understanding of the Bible on this too). The most important element for Catholicism is conformity with the natural law written into the individual conscience by God and illuminated by divine revelation.

A doctrine doesn't need to be in the Bible to be part of our Faith, that's absolutely essential to understand about Catholic theology. A number of our dogmas don't rely on the Bible but we regard them to be divinely revealed, nonetheless.

The Catholic Church looks upon Tradition and Scripture, as two different means of transmission of God's revelation, forming a single "deposit of faith". Consequently, while the Sacred Scriptures contain a portion of God’s revelation, another portion of it was passed on orally and eventually recorded in the writings of the Fathers of the Church, and their successors the later Doctors up till today, who further explained and developed it under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the Teaching Authority of the Church (which we call, "the Magisterium").

The second Council of Constantinople (553) rebuked those who do not follow the “traditions of the Fathers.” Those traditions according to this authoritative ecumenical council “hold the faith which our Lord Jesus Christ, true God, entrusted to the holy apostles, and which, after them, the holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church entrusted to their people.”

Some teachings and practices of the Catholic Church coming down from the primitive Church are, therefore, recorded only in sources other than the Bible.

One example of this is the late first century text Didache, the full title of which is “The Lord’s Instruction to the Gentiles through the Twelve Apostles.” That document, which dates from around the time of the Gospel of John, tells us of the celebration of the Eucharist on Sunday rather than on the Sabbath, of the forgiveness of sin through confession and the Early Church ethical teaching against acts like abortion that were not directly condemned in scripture:

The Lord's Teaching to the Gentiles by the Twelve Apostles:

1 There are two ways, one of life and one of death; and between the two ways there is a great difference.

2 Now, this is the way of life:…

The second commandment of the Teaching: "Do not murder; do not commit adultery"; do not corrupt boys; do not fornicate; "do not steal"; do not murder a child by abortion or kill a newborn infant.

​

This text is cited to this day in the Catholic Catechism as the church's first authority for the doctrine against abortion rather than the Bible i.e.


Catechism of the Catholic Church - The fifth commandment

2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable:

You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.75 (Didache 2,2:ÆCh 248,148; cf. Ep. Bárnabae 19,5G 2 777; Ad D 5,6G 2,1173; Tertullian, Apol.¹9L 1,319-320.)

​

This is not a biblical doctrine but it is most certainly an ancient Catholic one. As you can see above, the sources relied upon for this "unchangeable" divinely revealed teaching are the Didache (80-90 AD), then the Epistle of Barnabas (100-131 AD) and then the Church Father Tertullian (155 – c. 240 AD). All non-canonical, extra-biblical orthodox texts.

(continued.....)

 

[Vouthon]

Another example is the doctrine that no one can be coerced to believe in Christianity against their will. This is not explicitly stated in the Bible (although its implicitly there) but it has always been taught as a revealed truth in the Church's Sacred Tradition i.e.


Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III: Tertullian: Part I: Chapter XXIV. | St-Takla.org

"...Let one man worship God, another Jupiter; let one lift suppliant hands to the heavens, another to the altar of Fides; let one — if you choose to take this view of it — count in prayer the clouds, and another the ceiling panels; let one consecrate his own life to his God, and another that of a goat. For see that you do not give a further ground for the charge of irreligion, by taking away religious liberty, and forbidding free choice of deity, so that I may no longer worship according to my inclination, but am compelled to worship against it. Not even a human being would care to have unwilling homage rendered him..."

- Tertullian (155 – c. 240 AD), Early Church Father in Chapter XXIV.


CHURCH FATHERS: To Scapula (Tertullian)
​

"...It is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions: one man's religion neither harms nor helps another man. It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion — to which free-will and not force should lead us..."

- Tertullian (155 – c. 240 AD), Early Church Father in Ad Scapula, Ch. II
​

Internet History Sourcebooks

The Responses of Pope St. Nicholas I to the Questions of the Bulgars A.D. 866 (Letter 99)​

Chapter XLI.

Concerning those who refuse to receive the good of Christianity and sacrifice and bend their knees to idols, we can write nothing else to you than that you move them towards the right faith by warnings, exhortations, and reason rather than by force, proving that what they know in vain, is wrong: [cf. Jer. 1:16] namely that, although they are people with capable intellects, they nevertheless adore works of their own hands and senseless elements, or rather they bow their necks and sacrifice to demons. For as the apostle teaches: We know that an idol is nothing, but whatever the nations sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons.[I Cor. 8:4; 10:20]...Yet, violence should by no means be inflicted upon them to make them believe. For everything which is not voluntary, cannot be good. Indeed, God commands that willing service be performed only by the willing. But if you ask about what should be judged concerning persons of this sort, concerning those who are outside our religion, I shall judge nothing, but I shall save them for the judgment of God, Who is going to judge all flesh

Chapter CII.

We have taught above that violence should not be inflicted upon the pagan in order to make him become a Christian.


"...Indeed, he is not considered to possess the true faith of Christianity who is not recognized to have come to Christian baptism, not spontaneously, but unwillingly..."

- Pope Alexander III (1159-1181), Decree on the Jews


"...We decree that no Christian shall use violence to compel the Jews to accept baptism. But if a Jew, of his own accord, because of a change in his faith, shall have taken refuge with Christians, after his wish has been made known, he may be made a Christian without any opposition. For anyone who has not of his own will sought Christian baptism cannot have the true Christian faith. No Christian shall do the Jews any personal injury..."

- Pope Innocent III Letter (1199 CE), From: Oliver J. Thatcher, and Edgar Holmes McNeal, eds., A Source Book for Medieval History, (New York: Scribners, 1905), 212-213.


"...10. It is one of the major tenets of Catholic doctrine that man's response to God in faith must be free: no one therefore is to be forced to embrace the Christian faith against his own will.(8) This doctrine was constantly proclaimed by the Fathers of the Church.(7) The act of faith is of its very nature a free act....12. In faithfulness therefore to the truth of the Gospel,the Church is following the way of Christ and the apostles when she recognizes and gives support to the principle of religious freedom as befitting the dignity of man and as being in accord with divine revelation. Throughout the ages the Church has kept safe and handed on the doctrine received from the Master and from the apostles. In the life of the People of God, as it has made its pilgrim way through the vicissitudes of human history, there has at times appeared a way of acting that was hardly in accord with the spirit of the Gospel or even opposed to it. Nevertheless, the doctrine of the Church that no one is to be coerced into faith has always stood firm..."

- Dignitatis Humanae (Declaration on Religious Freedom), Second Vatican Council, 1965
​

When Catholics cite magisterial texts, popes, ecumenical council declarations, canons, theologians and doctors of the church from the past, we view them as testifying to our sacred tradition which is of equal status to the Bible for us as a source of divinely revealed truth. That's how our Faith operates.

As the Catechism explains:


Catechism of the Catholic Church - The Transmission of Divine Revelation

77 "In order that the full and living Gospel might always be preserved in the Church the apostles left bishops as their successors. They gave them their own position of teaching authority."35 Indeed, "the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved in a continuous line of succession until the end of time."36

78 This living transmission, accomplished in the Holy Spirit, is called Tradition, since it is distinct from Sacred Scripture, though closely connected to it. Through Tradition, "the Church, in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes."37 "The sayings of the holy Fathers are a witness to the life-giving presence of this Tradition, showing how its riches are poured out in the practice and life of the Church, in her belief and her prayer."38

95 "It is clear therefore that, in the supremely wise arrangement of God, Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others.
​

As one theologian has explained, the “handing on” of this Sacred Tradition from one generation of Catholics to another through the Bishops also: "connotes movement, a movement that implies development, development that suggests an ever deepening and richer unfolding of truths latent in the apostolic deposit of a living faith".

As a Catholic, I recognise the efficacy of a "living, breathing" tradition that can "make progress" with time and adapt to the needs of different eras, over a 'dead letter' that brooks no flexibility.

Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman's point regarding the continuum of the 'basic idea' should be borne in mind:

"It was said, then, that a true development retains the essential idea of the subject from which it has proceeded" (241)

With "oral tradition," the 'basic idea' always holds but the understanding develops.

Tradition is organic, it grows from the same and eternal source which is it's seed. If I may quote St.Vincent of Lérins who wrote concerning doctrinal development in the fifth century,: “Therefore, let there be growth and abundant progress in understanding, knowledge, and wisdom, in each and all, in individuals and in the whole Church, at all times and in the progress of ages, but only with the proper limits".

The Church explained this doctrine of "development of doctrine" in the Second Vatican Council's Dei Verbum as follows:


Dei verbum

This tradition which comes from the Apostles develops in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. (5) For there is a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down. This happens through the contemplation and study made by believers, who treasure these things in their hearts (see Luke, 2:19, 51) through a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which they experience, and through the preaching of those who have received through Episcopal succession the sure gift of truth. For as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her.

The words of the holy fathers witness to the presence of this living tradition, whose wealth is poured into the practice and life of the believing and praying Church. Through the same tradition the Church's full canon of the sacred books is known, and the sacred writings themselves are more profoundly understood and unceasingly made active in her​

Catholicism is not a sola scriptura (Bible alone) faith. The Bible is part of the Sacred Tradition passed down from the Apostles, the New Testament is therefore not the entirety of divinely revealed truth - only the portion that was written down in the canonical books with the rest arising from the Tradition and Magisterium of the Church.

Your above post presumes a Protestant interpretation that is utterly alien to my thinking.

For me, referencing an authoritative Saint and Doctor of the Church who is himself relying upon established canonical legal precepts, is Christianity every bit as much as a Protestant might feel citing his/her scriptural verses.

Please remember, I'm not an Evangelical Protestant. I don't really care if something is or isn't in the Bible, if I can be blunt about the fact. I care more about what the established tradition of the Church had to say at the time on a given matter, with the Bible being but one of its two primary transmissions.

When I reference extrabiblical documents, therefore, please don't assume that these are mere "opinions" of certain individuals. They aren't.

 

[Vouthon]

@It Aint Necessarily So in furtherance of my above posts, I don't even agree with your interpretation of the New Testament, which is highly selective and rests upon uncontextualized interpretations of a few disconnected verses. (But I'll get to that in my next post).

I concede - given its limited size and scope as a library of time-bound written works - that the New Testament is much less comprehensive than the totality of teachings one finds in the Sacred Tradition of the Church, and which I have alluded to in some depth above. But what we do have in the written word doesn't lead me to the conclusion that it, in your words,

[This] was [the] biblical [view] in nature - the divine right of kings. The model of the king is based on that of God - absolute authority, the sole source of the law, the king's commandments become law because they are spoken by the king, all rights belong to the king, including the right to drag you off in the middle of the night without charges to be executed without trial because it pleases the king. That's a god on earth.
​

I do not know where you are getting this from in the New Testament and your presentation of medieval political theory is bordering on an extreme caricature of a period that lasted for around a thousand years, through a whole variety of distinct cultural epochs ranging from the Romanesque (c. 900–1200) to the Gothic, and included its own "renaissances", such as the Carolingian and the 12th century:


Renaissance of the 12th century - Wikipedia

The Renaissance of the 12th century was a period of many changes at the outset of the high Middle Ages. It included social, political and economic transformations, and an intellectual revitalization of Western Europe with strong philosophical and scientific roots. These changes paved the way for later achievements such as the literary and artistic movement of the Italian Renaissance in the 15th century and the scientific developments of the 17th century.[1]
​

I'm glad there are no medievalists on this thread, because those scholars would go crazy on you for all the historically unfounded stereotypes of medieval people that you are proliferating!

Before I rebut the other spurious characterizations of the medieval world presented above, your idea that feudal societies believed in execution without trial completely ignores the fact that the right to a fair and free trial by jury had already been established by the barons as a basic right in the Magna Carta (1215).

Again, this development owes its provenance to church doctrine.

See this website of the British Library pertaining to this:


Magna Carta and jury trial

Geoffrey Robertson QC charts the history of jury trials and their relationship to Magna Carta. From medieval justice to the trial of Charles I, and the trials of John Lilburne to the Human Rights Act, discover the evolution of one of the most venerated features of Anglo-American law.

Trial by jury is the most venerated and venerable institution of Anglo-American law. Although it dates from 1215, it did not come about as a result of Magna Carta, but rather as the consequence of an order by Pope Innocent III (1161–1216). However, Magna Carta’s iconic reference to ‘the lawful judgment of his peers’ as a precondition for loss of liberty has helped in later centuries to entrench the right to jury trial in our pantheon of liberties.

Criminal trials at the time took the form of ‘ordeals’ by fire or by water; supervised by the local priest. God was the judge, and he would ensure that the innocent survived — thus, suspects dunked in ponds were declared guilty if they drowned.

In November 1215, Pope Innocent III, perhaps concerned that wrongful convictions were destroying faith in divine providence, forbade clerical participation, and so ‘trial by ordeal’ lost its point. It was replaced by a method of fact-finding used in land disputes and by coroners — the summoning of local men likely to know the circumstances of the crime. In due course, ‘twelve good men and true’ emerged to deliver acceptable verdicts
​

By the 12th -13th centuries medieval canon lawyers had begun to develop due process (ordo iudiciarius) based upon rational means and the idea of natural rights, one of them being the fundamental right of the litigant to a fair and free trial rather than through a trial by "ordeal", which Pope Innocent III declared illegal in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council (the same year as the Magna Carta enshrined trial by jury). The professors in the canon law schools, which were then proliferating across Europe, had long looked down upon the judicial ordeal as "crude and unsophisticated".

So, again, the right of every person to a fair and free trial before his or her peers was a feudal-canon law tradition already developed during the High Middle Ages, many centuries before the Enlightenment.

And you seem to overlook the entire history of papal-emperor confrontations culminating in the Concordat of Worms (1122)

It was not in the medieval papacy's interests to endow kings with "absolute authority" since they would obviously represent a threat to papal power and the freedom of the Church as an independent institution that had been won, with great effort, as a result of the Gregorian Revolution which had triggered the Investiture Controversy (1056-1122).

Therefore, the reality is in fact the opposite: the papacy and the church did everything it could to limit and curtail the power of secular princes, while in turn the kings struck back by doing everything they could to curtail papal power and centralize their fledgling proto-states.

From out of this tussle, the West emerged as a unique society with a balanced division between church and state unparalleled elsewhere in the world.

I will continue this later.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Let me clarify: Your position is that secular humanism is an outgrowth of Christianity, correct? Or perhaps you would limit the origins to Catholicism alone. You're disagreeing with my position that secular humanism is a rejection of Christianity and other faith based systems of belief with supernatural elements, and takes little or nothing from Christianity.

Is that correct?

 

[Vouthon]

Let me clarify: Your position is that secular humanism is an outgrowth of Christianity, correct? Or perhaps you would limit the origins to Catholicism alone. You're disagreeing with my position that secular humanism is a rejection of Christianity and other faith based systems of belief with supernatural elements, and takes little or nothing from Christianity.

Is that correct?

Hi again @It Aint Necessarily So

Many thanks for your post!

My position is that the later enlightenment liberalism, beginning with John Locke in the late 17th century and culminating in the French Revolution, is directly indebted to the medieval canon law innovation of the primacy of the individual conscience, a rejection of forced conversion, subjective natural rights (which didn't exist in classical philosophy) and government arising from the consent of the governed rather than "divine right" - a crucial precursor, therefore, of modern liberal theory (i.e. individual rights, the rule of law, equality and representative government).

These same canonists of the 12th century were in turn inspired by the early church fathers (such as Tertullian), popes, saints etc.

I think it would be best to use the explanation put forward by Larry Siedentop, Emeritus Fellow of Keble College, Oxford and former Faculty Lecturer in Political Thought at the University of Oxford, who is a world renowned expert on the history of liberalism.

He published this article in the UK Financial Times business newspaper:

Subscribe to read

Remember the religious roots of liberal thought
Selective memory of our past lies behind our current crisis of identity, writes Larry Siedentop

The paterfamilias was originally both the family’s magistrate and high priest, with his wife, daughters and younger sons having a radically inferior status.

Inequality remained the hallmark of the ancient patriarchal family. “Society” was understood as an association of families rather than of individuals.

It was the Christian movement that began to challenge this understanding. Pauline belief in the equality of souls in the eyes of God – the discovery of human freedom and its potential – created a point of view that would transform the meaning of “society”.

This began to undercut traditional inequalities of status. It was nothing short of a moral revolution, and it laid the foundation for the social revolution that followed. The individual gradually displaced the family, tribe or caste as the basis of social organisation.

This was a centuries-long process. By the 12th and 13th centuries the Papacy sponsored the creation of a legal system for the Church, founded on the assumption of moral equality. Canon lawyers assumed that the basic organising unit of the legal system was the individual (or “soul”).

Working from that assumption, canonists transformed the ancient doctrine of natural law (“everything in its place”) into a theory of natural rights – the forerunner of modern liberal rights theory.

By the 15th century these intellectual developments contributed to a reform movement (“Conciliarism”) calling for something like representative government in the Church.

Working from that assumption, canonists transformed the ancient doctrine of natural law (“everything in its place”) into a theory of natural rights – the forerunner of modern liberal rights theory.

By the 15th century these intellectual developments contributed to a reform movement (“Conciliarism”) calling for something like representative government in the Church.

The failure of that reform movement lay behind the outbreak of the Reformation, which led to religious wars and growing pressure across Europe for the separation of Church and state. By the 18th century such pressure had become a virulent anticlericalism, which reshaped the writing of western history and with it our understanding of ourselves.

It is this selective memory of our past that lies behind our failure to see that it was moral intuitions generated by Christianity that were turned against the coercive claims of the Church – intuitions founded on belief in free will, which led to the conclusion that enforced belief is a contradiction in terms.

So it is no accident that the west generated a rights-based culture of principles rather than of rules. It is our enormous strength, reflected in the liberation of women and a refusal to accept that apostasy is a crime. We should acknowledge the religious sources of liberal secularism.

The writer is an emeritus fellow of Keble College, Oxford, and author of ‘Inventing the Individual’​

Essentially secular humanism rejected the so-called "irrational", supernatural elements of this Christian (or Catholic and Calvinist, if you want to be really specific) worldview but retained the ethical and legal elements. Professor Siedentop expressed it best when he stated above that, "it was moral intuitions generated by Christianity that were turned against the coercive claims of the Church – intuitions founded on belief in free will, which led to the conclusion that enforced belief is a contradiction in terms."

To give you an example, read this:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id...NAhWsCMAKHaKAB3IQ6AEIJTAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

"...It is in a letter of Innocent III, written in 1201...A woman called Guleilma had left her husband, alleging consanguinity, recently discovered. To outsider with partial knowledge of the facts, the true motive of the wife must seem doubtful. Was hr desertion really due to her discovery of an impediment? Or vice versa?...This was the question that came to Pope Innocent III...

None the less, Innocent's wisdom insisted, she must obey her conscience...

Innocent III's letter would be duly preserved in Gregory IX's Decretals where it would calmly declare to every student of the subject, without ant special warning of the time-bomb it actually contained, the ultimate supremacy of conscience. Hostiensis himself, the most zealous apostle of the pope's fullness of power, expressly acknowledged that the authority of conscience was in the last resort even greater..."​

Here are Pope Innocent III's (1198-1216) actual words in the letter to that woman:

"...No one ought to act against his own conscience and he should follow his conscience rather than the judgement of the church when he is certain...one ought to suffer any evil rather than sin against conscience..."​

Some commentary on this:


https://books.google.co.uk/books?id...7NAhXiB8AKHYvQBBQQ6AEIJzAC#v=onepage&q&f=true

"...The basic idea of the supreme authority of conscience had already been endorsed, in stronger terms [than ever before], by Pope Innocent III (1198-1216)...Here one sees the beginnings of the idea that conscience can trump even the objective law.

Noah Feldman observes that the idea of freedom of conscience is already being suggested here: 'If it was sinful to act against conscience, there might be reason to avoid requiring anyone to act against conscience'..."​

So here you have a medieval Pope telling a woman that her individual conscience on this matter (consanguinity i.e. if her husband was too closely related to be a valid spouse) is ultimately supreme at the last recourse even over the authority of the Pope or Church. The medieval Church didn't take the logic of this moral doctrine to its inevitable conclusions but later thinkers did.

The Church was sitting on a minefield just waiting to burst, oblivious that it had kindled a fire that would eventually blow up in its own face, because the logic of its own teachings led to...well, it's history now right?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

OK, thanks for all of that. Perhaps you are correct. I didn't find those concepts in the Bible, and my personal Christian adventure was with Protestantism.

I guess that I make the distinction between accepting scripture authoritatively by faith, and reasoning. I see Christianity as the former, and identify progress made in deciding what is good and what is true by applying reason to evidence and empathy as something different - something different and better.

 

[William Milverton]

.
.
Your question is 16 paragraphs long.
You are a fan of Nietzsche. You believe all humans are equal. You invite comments.
That's it.


There is no equality in any other species
Everyone who has had any contact knows that the spiritual and Heaven realms are all in hierarchy
All mass in The Creation is in a hierarchy of one form or another
The "equality of souls before God" was a phrase invented by Nietzsche. It is not biblical


Just looking around you, you will see no equality among humans
In fact every single human is living at a different level of existence
The key Eastern religions are focused on enabling you to move up to higher levels of existence,
and that concept is a strong undercurrent in most Western religions


There is no equality of souls
There is no equality among humans or any other species in The Creation
All it takes is eyes that see, and basic common sense
.
.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

So much TL;DR in this thread.