Human Subjectivity and the absolute Interpretive Authority of the Catholic Church

The following was originally the first segment in a much longer piece of writing, which I decided to post as its own entry. It is long, meandering, and not to be taken as a serious argument for any given position. More than anything, it is merely a representation of my thoughts at present. That said, I hope it does not offend, and that it stimulates your thoughts in some way.

In the months since I have earned my Bachelor's Degree, I have a lot of free time. Some of it is spent in not very productive ways, some of it is spent working, and some of it is spent in reflection on what I have come to believe. There is no question in my mind that my perspective has broadened in recent years, due in no small part to the academic rigors of my education at Calvin College. But broadened perspectives and answered questions tend to lead to new investigations, wherein old axioms are questioned and new beliefs can come into play. The struggle to navigate between already acquired truth and these new beliefs as diplomatically as possible can be an anxious one.

One such new belief of mine that came about by way of reflection is the conviction that the Roman Catholic Church is a paradoxical blend of indispensable insights and disturbing errors. On the one hand, the Church displays profound understanding on the contemporary issue of the supposedly mortal conflict between science and faith, that is, they understand that there is no conflict between the two, as they are more intimately related than many today may feel comfortable admitting. The Catholic Church has shown no timidity in addressing advances in science in an affirmative and constructive manner. The theory of evolution, the Vatican has said, is not a threat to the unchanged relevance of holy scripture. In short, the Catholic tradition, which is a very rich and nuanced tradition indeed, is one of the most credible and reasonable voices in the debate of science and faith.

On the other hand, however, the Catholic tradition strikes me as exceedingly dogmatic in more social/cultural contexts. The hot button topics of female ordination and homosexual exclusion immediately come to mind. Moreover, the common Catholic perspective I've experienced is that the sole authoritative interpretation of scripture is a Catholic one. True church authority is to be found exclusively in the Roman Catholic view of things. This is, after all, the church founded on a rock by Christ himself, and it is the Holy Spirit that guides it.

But as I live my life and think on what truth God has revealed to me through my own experiences, I find that the Gospel is a message intended for the ears of all people, not just a few. I find that God reveals himself to the subject, wholly of his own initiative and in his own good time. It seems that humanity does not ascend to meet God, but that God descends to address each and every person to whom his call beckons. God's word is revealed as objective reality, which the individual appropriates as subjective truth that gives rise to a life of faith defined by deep reflection and robust action. Simply put, the process by which God reveals himself to his creation is as subjective as it is objective.

And why should anyone neglect human subjectivity in favor of objectivity? After all, we each cannot avoid the uniqueness of our respective existences; when God reveals himself, we cannot avoid perceiving what is revealed from our own perspectives. There is no view from nowhere. As Heidegger would put it, we are each thrown into the world, each in possession of a unique facticity which we cannot help having. This is the situation on the scale of the individual. But what happens when a group of people, to whom God has revealed himself, comes together? We band together as subjects, each answering God's call as best as possible, within communities that we call churches or denominations. Within the activities and liturgies of these communities, the subjective truth implanted in the individual by God blossoms outward into something objective. What was inwardly real now gains external reality. The implication is that each community will be unique in its personality and outlook while remaining fixed upon the common element, which is God's word. These communities are diverse, because the people that constitute them are diverse, and that is how God made us.

With these thoughts in mind, I discover that my issue with the Catholic Church is that it places too much importance on its own interpretation of scripture. God's word is an objective reality to which all must comply, the church says. Well and good. But the additional claim is that there is only one interpretation of scripture that is valid, meaning that the subject's interpretation of God's word must fit within the Church's interpretation, or else risk falling into error. The uniqueness of one's facticity has no bearing on your reception of God's word, because there is only one way to receive God's word in truth. It does not matter that people are diverse and that this is how God made us; the only valid human authority on the interpretation of scripture is the Roman Catholic Church, and the only valid perspective is the Church's perspective.

The church's authority is an objective reality, and this is how the eyes of the Catholic subject are meant to interpret scripture. The objective shines into the subject, never the other way around. The conclusion is that under Catholic authority, human perspectival diversity is not accounted for. This, I find, is a terrible state of affairs, because it closes the subject off to what Christ may say them in favor of what the Church may say. Christ alone is divine. It ought not to be that the Church shapes the perspectives of individuals. It ought to be that individuals come together, in prayer, humility and honest reflection, to shape the perspective of whatever orthodox church they constitute. The Gospel is meant for human subjects to interpret, not for a single abstract entity we call the Catholic Church.

If I seem to have left anything out, don't worry. More to come.

Idiot, signing out, etc etc.

Old Notes from Continental Philosophy class

I was going through some old notes from my Continental Philosophy class (which was almost exclusively Heidegger studies). Found this towards the end, in the retrospective section. Some of it was edited to make a concise point, some of it was my own addition. But I think I am being true to what my professor intended me to understand.

"What does a Christian metaphysical ontic look like? Well, the following is just one version, one positive possibility on the horizon of the Continental tradition, one which is a radical picture of Christian facticity. It asks, what is at the root of the Christian faith? The answer is the Gospel, good news, hope. It's about unconditional love, which is treating a person as the person that you cannot yet see: this requires believing in what you cannot yet see, which is difficult because we cannot see finished products as finite beings. It all comes out of the future toward the past, and it requires that we believe, to some extent, in what is yet invisible to us, so that we can be better stewards of the visible. In short, a Christian metaphysical ontic is a call to vigilantly conform to the life of Christ, despite our finitude and inability to see beyond what is given to us in being.

Why is this call to conform "Good News?" Because it is intentional authenticity. Jesus is a dismantler of unjust systems. His life shows that deconstruction is a positive movement, one that works toward transformation. The Great Commission is about showing others how to live, and it requires intimacy (washing of feet, the shared purse, etc).

Furthermore, his life shows that nothing in your present can outstrip who you are becoming. For when you are full, there is the illusion that you are complete, but you need to be empty to see what truly fulfills you. Could it be that you must lose your life in order to gain it, just as he said? The wealthy and the Pharisees were not hated by Christ: his rejection of their "fullness" was a gift, an opportunity to see what truly fulfills them as finite beings. It's hard to see transcendence when you are full, when you believe that you have walked the road to completion. Christ's life isn't about the position of being full, of thinking that you have reached the end of a journey; it is about the path of always living towards what has been promised but cannot yet be grasped. It's a path to be eternally walked. And the best part is that God himself has joined us on this path, an eternal companion on an eternal road of being."