The book chronicles exchanges between the author and bloggers on the NCR (National Catholic Reporter) blog site (now discontinued.) Exchanges are over upfront religious/ social issues. While strong and varied views are aired they are respectful-perhaps something of model how to reduce heat and increase light. Traditional religions define faith/ belief doctrinally, dogmatically, and exercise control over belief and behavior. As history shows, faith and politics intertwine and agitate differences hurtful to people and nature. Modern calamities can be redeemed only from within. Our times confront traditions more radically than ever before, namely, to awaken to sustainable perspectives of quantum physical/ psychical evolution. Remembrances from the past advance in genetic codes and are "prospective", open to hope. Leaves are genetic lexicons on the Tree of Life. We need to learn nature's economies of building on patterns of sustainable energy use. Evolution's learning lets us anticipate the future and avoid imprisonment of thought fixation. Evolution is symbiotic intelligence, nature's pattern, God's design. Evolution opens to symbiotic solutions only if culture, religion and politics are open to evolution. Evolution's outcome of processing interdependent life and consciousness doesn't have to be terminally wasteful rather it can uplift, enlighten and expose wrongdoing; and importantly, help end bad habits, choose right thinking and keep hope alive. In regards to thought-processing, latest thinking is a recapitulation (reformulation) of prior thinking. Thought-updating includes reformulations of faith, which is how faith remains vital and religion is redeemed. If one is of a mind to move beyond fixations of faith/ religion, one must admit the inadequacy of belief constrained by fixations and recognize the need for moving on to evolutionary consciousness. The important next step is to take action, not alone, but collaboratively by group study and action-the point of the Evolution Trilogies.
The Global THINKING Community
One Family, One FutureBy Sylvester L. Steffen AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2010 Sylvester L. Steffen
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4520-5060-7 Contents
1. Faith!? Are we losing it?.......................................................32. Why Evolution Matters...........................................................53. THEISTIC EVOLUTION, Catholicism & Bruno's Acentric Universe.....................64. "Teaching the Faith in a Postmodern World"......................................95. "The Medicine of Mercy rather than Severity"....................................116. Truth and the Culture of Distrust...............................................137. Ideology, Worldview, Subjectivity...............................................148. "Axial" Age and "Postaxial" Age: New Search - New Name..........................159. Conscience is the Means/ End....................................................2210. HUMAN PERSONALITY:.............................................................2311. Women and Scholasticism's Unrepented Blunder...................................2412. The Other Face.................................................................2713. How does Scholasticism's Blunder disorder......................................2814. Bernard Lonergan speaks........................................................2915. To Think with the Church.......................................................3116. Energy and Reconciliation......................................................3317. Reflections on Faith and Frustration...........................................3518. How timely.....................................................................3619. The Oneness of Nature..........................................................3720. Einstein's Theory..............................................................3921. The universe is quantum-electric...............................................4022. Natural Polarity, Natural Ambiguity............................................4223. The Cultural Spectrum & Intrinsic Order........................................4324. The Sacrament of Natural Order.................................................4525. Inside the Cultural Spectrum...................................................4626. In the evolving ...............................................................4827. I mean resonance in two senses ................................................4928. TRUE Religion, TRUE Priesthood.................................................5029. ABOUT MY PERSONAL LIFE.........................................................5230. "SUFFERING", What Eucharist Is.................................................5431. "Suffer" means more than pain;.................................................5532. From the perspective of Evolution..............................................5733. We are also taught by omission.................................................5834. Now we get to the nub..........................................................5835. Immediately following Vatican II...............................................6036. The documentation of female/ male..............................................6137. The DIVINE FEMININE & Church Competency........................................6338. Evolution clarifies Original Sin...............................................6539. This is a non-conventional.....................................................6740. In the Book of Genesis.........................................................6941. To be fully human..............................................................7142. Faith, Reason and Dysfunctional Marriage.......................................7243. Virtual Reality and New Age Metaphysics........................................7444. Equal Opportunity Sin..........................................................7545. COGITANDO SIC, method of evolution.............................................7746. From William Madges,...........................................................7847. This strand (45 and 46) is important...........................................7848. The philosophical worry........................................................7849. David C. Korten's..............................................................7950. American Corporate Feudalism...................................................8051. RELIGIOUS PARALYSIS SYNDROME...................................................8352. Odious Stereotyping............................................................8453. What Do You Expect?............................................................8654. Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI..............................................8655. Exclusionism vs. Inclusionism..................................................8856. Tithing Nature, Restoring Faith................................................8957. Living in the person of Jesus..................................................9158. TRUST issues: Faith, Ecology, Natural Law......................................9159. Yes! Natural Law, cosmic law...................................................9260. The HOLY TRINITY Triduum (Retreat Exercise)....................................9461. Evolution and Intelligent Design...............................................9662. Faith - Eucharist..............................................................9763. THEOSIS and the Pursuit of Godlikeness.........................................9864. Earth's Ecozoic Crisis.........................................................10165. Pursuing Truth.................................................................10266. The Fraudulent Prerogation of Male Primacy.....................................10567. Eucharistic Evolution & Resurrection Consciousness.............................10768. A UNIVERSAL SYLLABUS...........................................................1081. Living Truthfully and Openly....................................................1152. Cover-up and Breach of Trust....................................................1153. Original Sin....................................................................1164. The Sacrament of Natural Order..................................................118Afterword..........................................................................121
Chapter One
ESSAYS for REFLECTION and DISCUSSION
The essays that follow are from postings that were made at www. ncrcafe.org(2006-2008) The NCR website is operated by the National Catholic Reporter for the public exchange of ideas; unedited postings and discussions can be found at the NCR website. The reprinting of postings here is done with the permission of the National Catholic Reporter.
1. Faith!? Are we losing it?
Submitted by Sylvester L. Steffen on October 11, 2006 - 3:29pm. - Diocesan Life
What is faith anyway? Because faith is intuitionally natural and transmitted from generation to generation, we recognize it when we see it. But do we recognize that it is missing when we don't see it?
For example, as parents we better pay closer attention to the feedback we get from our children because it tells us about ourselves, about our faithlessness. Are we missing the message? Oh sure, I know that religions, preoccupied at their preferred polarities, give a bad name to religion and faith by association; and that it isn't a lot better with middle religion. But if we are honest with ourselves we should be asking "how much is religion about faith anyway?" Don't get me wrong, I believe religion and church are very important, but they are no better than we are because we are church. And we are misguided in our religious pretenses.
The waste of our wealth and children to the violence of choice is criminal; and I speak to all the offspring of Abraham! Violence in any of its forms is not about faith! It's about despair (among other things). And what causes despair? Alienation!? Poverty!? Fear!?
Faith is wisdom, collective intelligence, naturally evolved. Faith is a treasure of great and incalculable worth. Cosmic processing, going back to the big bang, is responsible for faith's formation and its collected value. All life preceding has contributed to the faith we now have. We should be aware of and sensitive to nature's unrelenting investment in us, in faith potential encoded in our DNA. Surely we have enough decency and good sense not to trash something so irreplaceable, so valuable and long in the making!?
Cultural bad habits of exploiting natural resources and wasting ecology (repositories of wisdom/ faith) are now challenged with demands of payback. The greater cost of payback is going to fall on our children. And they know it and they are getting madder, and madder about it. Should we expect them to thank us for it? I don't think so. What kind of faith lesson are we giving them? Is the unprecedented anger in children today any wonder? NO. It's what we might expect.
To answer the title question "are we losing faith", my answer is "yes", and at an accelerating pace.
Keeping Faith Alive
Cosmic Call & Universal Rationale: As a parent I'm sufficiently chagrined, ashamed and guilt-ridden by our collective infidelity as to feel compelled to do something about it. Over a long period of time I have struggled to frame a rationale of universal conscience, sufficiently informed so as to expose to ourselves the life and treasure we are wasting; and to attempt to reverse habits, personal and social, that waste nature and faith at the same time. Loss of nature/ ecology is direct loss of faith! We trash ourselves when we trash them! The call of nature to us to change is "Call to Church"; it's a personal mandate to (re)discover and recover fidelity to nature, to life, self and God. Even with the diversity of global cultures and the uniqueness of bioregions, all humankind, all religions, as global community, are obliged morally and practically to the universal Covenant of common Faith. As community, as Church, we are called to journey together in trust. This is faith's universal Call to religion, to civility. All religions should be able to agree on the need for universal response and collaboration.
2. Why Evolution Matters People of faith need to know
Submitted by Sylvester L. Steffen on April 26, 2008 - 4:05pm.
People of faith need to know why evolution matters. Childhood lessons of faith are solid grounds upon which peace of mind and sense of self are reassured in understandings that endure. The life and teachings of Jesus Christ are the solid ground of received faith for the Christian.
Adult experiences of life impose on childhood understandings and reveal that faith's grounding is ever called into question by ever changing circumstances, and so are peace of mind and sense of self.
Preparation for adulthood supposes awareness of learned faith certainties, but also anticipation of adulthood uncertainties and how one can cope with uncertainties and still preserve the certain ground of faith.
In brief, the answer to the question "why does evolution matter to faith" is that faith and reason together are life's coping means, for, faith (emotional intelligence) and reason (rational intelligence) together find workable solutions to life's recurring uncertainties.
The "how" of coping is by intentionally engaging faith and reason in perpetual dialog, for in their dialog human intelligence (rational and emotional) evolves even as they resolve life's challenges.
The evolution of intelligence is a process of faith and reason reconciling uncertainty and certainty. "Reconciling" is a process of "harmonizing", that is, of finding consistency in uncertainty before uncertainty overwhelms.
How does the process of reconciliation work? It works by the intentional attention of good faith (trustworthiness) to the sensible understandings of informed reason. Intentional dialog is a three-step process: "communication" is the trustful exchange of understandings; "consciousness" is secured trust in certainty and open-mindness to sensible understandings; and "conscience" is the will to change from beliefs and behavior-patterns that are less good than new ones that better serve wellbeing.
No faith system is self-attained in possessing "absolute" truth. The faith system that engages with reason and expands its bases of certainty is a system that evolves by engaging with uncertainties and dealing openly and trustfully with eventual and inevitable uncertainty.
This I believe is precisely the intent and purpose of the Second Vatican Council, namely, to urge the People of God, individually and collectively, in an ever new and renewing "analysis and synthesis" of every aspect of life, but especially of faith life. Evolution does matter to faith life. We eschew evolution at our own peril, and except we perpetually reconcile certainty and uncertainty we stunt our own growth in wisdom and grace and we stymie our sense of self and our capacity for harmonious living. The merciful mind, not the severe, judgmental mind, administers the medicine of health and healing.
3. THEISTIC EVOLUTION, Catholicism & Bruno's Acentric Universe
Submitted by Sylvester L. Steffen on August 14, 2008 - 5:38am. - Spirituality & Culture
Dominion theology, premised in Earth-centric cosmology, is irreconcilable with process theology that arises organically from evolving cosmic consciousness. Roman Catholic fixation in its own centrism (infallibilism) obscures the organic understanding of Divine/ Human Covenant and compromises fidelity to Covenant.
If Catholicism means to be universal in its truth-sense, and if truth is expressed organically (physically/ psychically) in ongoing evolution, then evolution and Catholicism, necessarily and morally, converge in intentional consciousness. If human intention would avoid imperiling itself it needs to seek out authentic truth revelation in evolution. Truth-sense endures in the unity and continuity of cosmic evolution (what symbiosis does); disdain toward cosmic evolution is disdain toward truth's unity and continuity, the frustration of truth-sense.
One of the more remarkable findings of space science is that the expansion of the universe continues at an accelerating pace. What this suggests is the ongoing de-centering of the cosmos and increase of cosmic acentricity.
The original gravity of maximum centeredness that preceded the bigbang continues to be diffused at an accelerating rate, and ever more distributed and shared in expanding quantum-electric relationships. The distribution and expansion of gravity energy are what cosmic evolution is about, what the personalizing and complexifying of self-reflective consciousness are about. "Dominion Theology" obsesses in pre-bigbang centrism while "Liberation Theology" celebrates personal liberation and self-reflective autonomy.
The liberation and distribution of gravity, i.e., the process of expanding consciousness, is at the heart of "intelligent design" which valuates human autonomy and personal worth. Cosmic personalizing is an apex accomplishment of cosmic evolution. Faith and reason together work to sustain and advance the personalizing process, which secures purpose and meaning by focusing intention on the centering means of self-sustainability. If focused intention on centering collapses, then the process of decentering accelerates and puts human personalizing in peril; the outcome of unmoderated decentering (entropy) is greater chaos. At the other extreme, the outcome of unmitigated centering, "centrism," is the frustration of personal autonomy and the suppression of personal conscience.
The cosmic process of CONSCIOUSNESS RECONCILING TRUTH-SENSE is what "Theistic Evolution" is about; what conscionable living within of the God/ Human/ Nature Covenant is about. Church should seek out truth/ covenant understandings with enthusiasm for truth-sense is the primacy "business" of religion; nevertheless, Church remains dismissively minded toward theistic evolution. Before the Catholic Church can realistically embrace theistic evolution, it must first deal with its entrenched misdirection and with its overt sins of the past, e.g., against Bruno [http://ncrcafe. org/node/2021], Galileo and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whose evolving insights show the way of reconciling Christian Theology and faith practice with quantum science. [See: 65. Pursuing Truth]
Whether or not institutional Catholicism is capable of making the quantum leap of accepting the evolutionary insights of theistic evolution remains an open question - but that a growing segment of Catholics have made the leap isn't controvertible. Based on very recent remarks of Pope Benedict XVI it seems quite clear that he has not made the shift. [http://www.ncrcafe.org/node/2039, Transcript of Benedict XVI's Q&A with priests in northern Italy, Posted on Aug 8, 2008 11:45am CST, "When, in our time, we discuss the rationality of the faith, we should discuss precisely the fact that reason does not end where experimental discoveries leave off, it does not end in positivism. The theory of evolution sees the truth, but it sees only half of it. It does not see that behind evolution there's the Spirit of creation. We are struggling for the expansion of reason, and thus for a form of reason that is open to the beautiful, not leaving it aside as something totally different or irrational."
It is quite clear that the present advance of theistic evolution does accept "that behind evolution there's the Spirit of creation." Will the two Catholic churches (Vatican II and Tridentine) persist in their schism, or will they (can they) reconcile on terms of accommodations available in understanding theistic evolution?
Roman Catholicism and Christian churches in general have a problem with evolution because they have persisted historically in their antagonism toward science and Enlightenment rationalism, even as Enlightenment rationalism has persisted in its atheistic antagonism against cultures of fideistic religions. It is my sense that "Second" Enlightenment consciousness has opened avenues of dialog that can reconcile faith consciousness with reason/ science.
The most recognized protagonist for theistic evolution is the French Jesuit Paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who has advanced a scientific sense that is consistent with Bruno and Albert Einstein; contemporary illuminaries, such as Thomas Berry and James N. Studer advance theistic evolution even further. Even though Chardin's theology and cosmology had a powerful influence on the thinking and conclusions of Vatican II, Chardin does not yet enjoy the Church's public endorsement.
What is immediately relevant to the global predicament of Church's ecosocial disconnect is that Teilhard de Chardin opens up a rationality that is a framework on which the impasse between theistic evolution (Christian) and atheistic evolution (Enlightenment) can be clarified; significant strands of Catholic theistic evolution have now been developed beyond the worldview and struggling theology of Chardin.
I began seriously my journey of science/faith reconciliation in February 1957. [See QUANTUM RELIGION, Appendix A, "Religion: a Rational Consideration", pp 255-266, 2003, www.authorhouse.com]. The body of thinking that I have put together since 1957 is herein being organized into a syllabus of faith/ evolution study, offered online. A "2008 Update" of www.secondenlightenment.org begins now and continues in process.
I invite all to participate in the effort of Church to facilitate greater ecosocial relevance in this time of universal crisis.
4. "Teaching the Faith in a Postmodern World" Submitted by Sylvester L. Steffen on May 9, 2008 - 2:33am. - Spirituality & Culture
Together, Eucharist (altruistic self-donation) and evolution are the internal and external dynamics of the cosmic, transformational Soul/ Body. Faith and reason together authenticate the intentional roles humans play and qualify the successes of altruism and evolution.
Faith and reason are the underpinnings of religious belief and social governance; religion and civility authenticate each other even as faith and reason authenticate each other. We cannot live life fully except we engage reason intentionally and in the lived expression of collective wisdom (public faith expression).
It needs to be made clear that faith understanding in evolutionary consciousness, the consciousness of Postmodernity, is larger and less ideological than faith understandings of Modernity and Premodernity.
In Modernity and Premodernity, faith like religion is understood in highly ideological terms, that is, as qualified by the authoritarian fideism of patriarchal politics and dominion theology. In Postmodernity, faith is understood as the ground-state of consciousness resourced ever more profoundly in the disciplines of intelligence and universal discourse.
While faith is the certitude upon which knowledge is secured, it is not fixated in one context of cultural experience or in the experience of a single specific time reference. Faith, like knowledge and experience, evolves to accommodate the changing realities of time/ place/ energy/ matter, that is, all the dimensions of quantum relativity.
New knowledge feeds reason even as reason feeds faith. As science expands knowledge, so the insights of reason expand faith. It is clear that neither faith nor reason is closed in its conscious expression; both remain open to the changing dynamics of personal/ social experience. This is a problem for cultures whose faith premises are fixated in closed absolutes, that is, in authoritarian religion and patriarchal politics.
Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, SJ, of Milan, Italy, well states the problem: "... we are not all living in the same historical age. Some are still living in the time of the Council of Trent, others of the First Vatican Council. Certain people have digested the Second Vatican Council well or poorly; others are well advanced into the third millennium. We are not contemporaries, and this has always been a great burden for the church and requires plenty of patience and discernment." ("Teaching the Faith in a Postmodern World", AMERICA, May 12, 2008)
Eucharistic and evolutionary consciousness is stymied by religious/ political dominion fixated in authoritarian belief. Changing experiences, changing consciousness and changing faith happen in individual lives, and only gradually, come to be accommodated in religious/ political culture - what maturity and intelligence are about.
(Continues...)
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