People think they are something, they think, they know. This is simply not true. Everything has been revealed to us from eternity. Man has no idea that he is a weapon in hands of evil spirits. “We always have a boss: Either God, or the devil and our passions.”
Man has freedom only as regards his choices: we can think and decide whether we want to do good or not.
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This is why Christ did choose the way of the Cross instead of calling down the twenty legions of angels. He said “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.” Morality enforced by law won’t save souls. God gives time and plenty of hints to all reasonable beings to come to their senses and join the absolute good, absolute love…

I understand the theory behind your ideas (excessive liberty leads to license and vice), I’m just not sure how this plays out in real life.

Aye! — Fr H: “I don’t mean to be insulting here, but unless men are married, they don’t really have a clue. They think they do, but they really don’t. Ask anyone who has been married for a while. They will tell you the same thing.”

As to the first Muslim hospital in Damascus, I was a few years off, it opened in 707.

Again, do you have a reference for this? This hardly seems credible. Most likely the hospital was staffed by Christians.

I have never once suggested that Christianity was not the “soil and water of Western Culture”. It’s just that other things have grown there (the French Revolution, Marxism, etc.) which are also offshoots of Christianity, but are not Christianity. Same with anti-slavery. Not that anti-slavery is a bad idea, just that it owes no more to Christianity than other spinoffs. That is not to say that Christians did not justify their anti-slavery in terms of Christianity. It’s just that they did so without any justification.

When you approach Christianity as a philosophical structure or moral system, your statement makes sense but only superficially. The French Revolution and Marxism are not an “offshoot” of Christianity (“offshoot” is a vague term here), although they are certainly a product of Western/Christian culture, that is, dependent on the deep structure categories provided by Christianity that shaped and directed the development of Western culture. I’m not going to go into a discussion here of how they actually transvalued Christian values, but there is a world of difference between the moral vision informing the French Revolution and Marxism (nascent totalitarianism), and abolition. That should be crystal clear.

Nevertheless, I asked you if the slavery question was only a matter of economic pragmatism. You answered:

Admittedly that sentiment is the product of modern culture. It was most definitely not the teaching of the Church, and for so long that it cannot ever be. I do not defend slavery as contemporary policy. But, of course, I did not suggest the only thing militating against slavery was economics.

In other words, you really didn’t answer the question. I didn’t ask you about your private sentiments or social dynamics. I asked you on what ground, if any, ought slavery to be outlawed? From what I can discern, there is no moral ground. Your only answer seems to be the one I supplied: economic pragmatism.

Moving on,

However, I do believe that morality is a serious enough matter to impose it by law. Again, if you think about it, you would agree. Our laws against murder, rape, etc. are all “moralistic” and “imposed”.

Well, yes, of course. This is a given. But law follows culture, and religion is the ground of culture. If culture shifts, law will shift and the consensus that exists that allows the “imposition” will erode. Authoritarian decrees might impede lawlessness of a season, but it certainly will not stop decline. From another direction, you invest a lot of hope in authorities who themselves depend on factors from which they derive their authority that they cannot control. The only other option is that a nation becomes authoritarian or, God forbid, totalitarian.

That’s where your call for top down authority always breaks down. It can’t change the hearts or minds of men. (That too, in case you are wondering, is why Christ choose the way of the Cross and did not call down twelve legions of angels.)

One more thing:

Although I new about medical facilities in Byzantium, I did not know that they were in the mold of modern hospitals.

Not sure if this was a slip of the tongue, but hospitals in Byzantium were not in the mold of modern hospitals. It’s the other way around.

Eliot,

“Freethinkers” means more than “free thinkers”. The first term refers to those unrestrained by any firm allegiance to an orthodoxy. Or, as Websters defines it: one who forms opinions on the basis of reason, independent of authority; especially one who doubts or denies religious dogma.

“What are the benefits then and why all the hypocrisy and all the lies?”

On this, you have a point. Perhaps I should explain a little more precisely what I had in mind: There were many advancements in the West that coincided with the Enlightenment. Scientific and medical knowledge and the treatment of individuals in more benevolent fashion by legal systems are a few of the things I had in mind. Whether this was simply the evolution of human knowledge and empathy as our technical prowess grew or directly emanating from the doubt and rejection of orthodoxies, I can’t say for sure. However, what I do know is that the anthropocentric worldview that emerged from the Enlightenment is not Chrisitan and has had many tragic unchristian results.

We are not able to distinguish our own thoughts from the thoughts that come from outside of us.

…. thoughts are on all sides. If revealed, they would turn out into a tremendous net. And everyone has a radio station in his inner being. Man is a much more precise apparatus than a radio station, or a TV set, it’s just that its function is disturbed. What a precise being a man is! How divine! But we do not know how to appreciate that. We do not know how to join the source of life and feel the joy of life. But we always let enemy impute to us… Lord revealed to St. Anthony the radius of thoughts surrounding us. When he saw them, he sighed: “O, Lord, who can pass through this?” And a voice he heard: “Only humble and gentle ones”. They touch only such. They comprise merely of peace and silence. Divine radiuses, a sign of an absolute divine power. They do not join anything negative. (Elder Tadej of Serbia)

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This is why I prefer to read what has been revealed to the Holy Fathers.
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You say that “I won’t dispute that this decay of Christendom had some benefits. But taking a look at its end result makes me think that we have paid too high a price.” What are the benefits then and why all the hypocrisy and all the lies? Armed conflicts and invasions are still happening; world hunger continues and epidemics are still erupting in many corners of the world; people (born and unborn) are being killed.

The perfect holy man, who gave away his life and showed that he can also create it, raising people from the dead and making the blind see (Luke VII, 22), is only Jesus.
Why is it that medicine does not recognise Him? Even more, it doesn’t even mention Him!” (Fr. Arsenie Boca)

Fr. Johannes,

I stand corrected on one point: Although I new about medical facilities in Byzantium, I did not know that they were in the mold of modern hospitals. What I’d read was obviously regarding Western hospitals.

As to the first Muslim hospital in Damascus, I was a few years off, it opened in 707.

As to the rest,

“But the Enlightenment philosophes were more dependent on Christianity than you realize.”

I never suggested that they were not dependent on Christianity. I suggested that they went beyond and afoul of Christianity.

“Christianity is the soil and water of Western Culture. But if you perceive this statement only in polemical terms, if you fail to comprehend the foundational presuppositions that shape and direct culture (even the anti-culture that characterizes modernity), then Christianity is reduced to what you promote most: a moralistic system that needs to be imposed from the top down.”

I have never once suggested that Christianity was not the “soil and water of Western Culture”. It’s just that other things have grown there (the French Revolution, Marxism, etc.) which are also offshoots of Christianity, but are not Christianity. Same with anti-slavery. Not that anti-slavery is a bad idea, just that it owes no more to Christianity than other spinoffs. That is not to say that Christians did not justify their anti-slavery in terms of Christianity. It’s just that they did so without any justification.

I also have never reduced Christianity to a moral (nor moralistic) system. You’re chasing phantoms of your own creation. However, I do believe that morality is a serious enough matter to impose it by law. Again, if you think about it, you would agree. Our laws against murder, rape, etc. are all “moralistic” and “imposed”. But we’ve had the discussion ad nauseum. I see that it really hasn’t done you much good.

“If that’s the case, then why did Christ choose the way of the Cross? Why not call down the twenty legions of angels instead?”

Well, actually Christ will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. I’ll answer your question if you explain why God appeared to Constatine (with his legions), or used empire as a vehicle for the spread of Christianity. Also please answer why He has cursed every democratic country with anti-Christian moral degeneration, not in the sinfulness of the people, but in twisting the standards of what is right and wrong?

There’s no answer to any of that.

“So the slavery question is merely one of economic pragmatism?”

You have a true gift for libel which you have exercised on many occasions. In comment 8 below I made clear to Rob that since I prefer to be free and most people do, it seems to me better if there is no slavery. The power that a master has over a slave can be easily abused. Though there is nothing unchristiian about having such power, it is more prudent in my opinion if that particular power did not exist. Admittedly that sentiment is the product of modern culture. It was most definitely not the teaching of the Church, and for so long that it cannot ever be. I do not defend slavery as contemporary policy. But, of course, I did not suggest the only thing militating against slavery was economics.

What I actually wrote, rather than what you might have wanted me to write, was:

“No doubt it is preferable to have no slavery, especially given modern economies.”

You might want to look in a dictionary to distinguish the concepts of “especially” vs. “only”.

But real hospitals did not appear until – – you guessed it – – the Enlightenment.

Nope. You really need to study your history more Scott (that’s why I suggest books you should read). Hospitals (of the kind that developed into what we have today) had their genesis in Byzantium. In fact, St. Basil is credited with bringing them into being (along with orphanages). (Where did the 7th century Muslim claim come from? That hardly seems credible.)

Read: Byzantine Hospitals. Fr. Morelli also covers some history in his article: The Ethos of Orthodox Christian Healing, see the section “A Short History of Healing in the Church.”

Further, the Enlightenment is not the monolithic bogey-man you portray it to be. Yes, the hostility towards Christianity is indisputable. Yes, currents were unleashed still operative today. But other currents countered it. For example, historians ask why the virus unleashed by the French Revolution never jumped the English Channel. Some argue that the answer is the Great Awakening in England. It saved England from the French bloodbath. (This is also when and where abolition began.)

But the Enlightenment philosophes were more dependent on Christianity than you realize. The question about Christ and culture runs deeper than polemics, a point that better thinkers than you understand/understood (Pope Benedict, Pat. Kyrill, Met. Hilarion, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Paul Johnson, Winston Churchill, Robert Nisbet, Roger Kimball, Roger Scruton, Fr. George Florovsky, Robert P. George to name a few off the top of my head). That’s why I recommend Carl Becker’s “The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers.” It’s not that Becker agrees with me. It’s that I agree with Becker. He’s a far better teacher and thinker than I am — or you.

Christianity is the soil and water of Western Culture. But if you perceive this statement only in polemical terms, if you fail to comprehend the foundational presuppositions that shape and direct culture (even the anti-culture that characterizes modernity), then Christianity is reduced to what you promote most: a moralistic system that needs to be imposed from the top down.

If that’s the case, then why did Christ choose the way of the Cross? Why not call down the twenty legions of angels instead?

One more thing:

No doubt it is preferable to have no slavery, especially given modern economies. No doubt most everyone would rather be free than a slave. But there is nothing in Christianity opposed to the institution.

So the slavery question is merely one of economic pragmatism?

Actually, Rob, arranged marriages were much more stable (and probably more harmonious) than modern ones. Some of the older Greek ladies in our church (the ones from the old country) had these type marriages. They had the opportunity to refuse of course, but the whole thing was arranged. Generally they’re widows who never divorced their husband. The reason is that each of the spouses knew their respective roles.

I don’t seriously expect that anyone will have a substatial positive effect on Western marriage unless Christendom is revived (Christendom being that Christian morality is the law of the land). Given that none of the churches, including the Orthodox Church, have any remote intention of pursuing that, about all we can expect is more of the same – – even among Christians. Divorce rates in the churches don’t vary much from among secularists.

It’s actually entertaining that we compare the moral climate in our culture (divorce, abortion, feminism, cohabitation, illegitimacy, etc.) with the way things used to be and lament that these things are with us and seek to combat them through “education” and “conservative” politics within a decadent culture. The reason that all of these things were actually rare was that the society as a whole attached a strong stigma and legal sanctions against such behavior. Unless you reinstate that climate, you don’t really have a chance at making serious progress. Since very few want to, you get the culture that the people want.

Ugly, huh?

The thing is that apparently married men (and women) don’t have a clue either, else there would not be such a high rate of divorce. You could get at least two different answers from somebody who has been married for a while. Both of them might say, “You have no idea what it’s like.” One would mean it in a positive way, the other in a sharply negative way.

I’m sure it’s nice being married for over 20 years. The trick is to get there. The duty (or better “commitment”) is indeed necessary for most couples and that is the thing that is lacking in today’s society because the churches have abdicated their responsibilities to explain what marriage is, why infatuation is not love but a fleeting feeling and why boredom or falling out of love is not a reason to divorce.

“Culture has been Christianized, but that does mean that all institutions and social habits conform to the deeper reaches of the Gospel and the moral vision that it offers.”

If the saints of the Church, not the government or common people, took over a thousand years to realize this, then it most certainly does mean that slavery “conforms to the deeper reaches of the Gospel and the moral vision that it offers.” It’s absurd to suggest that Christianity is intrinsically opposed to slavery when you have the Apostles in the Didache endorsing it.

“There is such a thing as moral progress in culture, and in Western/Christian culture the well from which the deeper sensibilities drew is indisputably Christian. That’s why slavery, even though compatible with Christian culture for many years was finally understood as incompatible.”

It was not nor is it incompatible with Christian culture. It may be incompatible with the idealism of post-Enlightenment, post-industrial culture. But that has nothing to do with Christianity.

“There was a time when people thought it was moral to let 10 year old children work 16 hours a day. Where do you think the moral sensibility that practices like that were unjust came from?”

Human empathy (which, despite the highly partisan authors you like, was not a Christian invention). In ages past, children worked on farms with their parents as soon as they could do so responsibly. There was no Christian obection to that. You’re talking about a problem of industrialism.

“That Christian moral values drove abolition is indisputable.”

Just because you state a thing is “indisputable” does not make it either more or less likely to be so. These are values that the writers of the Old and New Testaments, the Fathers, the Apostles themselves were unaware of or did not feel militated against slavery. I’m sure you know better, of course. Anti-slavery is not a Christian value, per se. It can’t ever be. It was not Christian moral values that drove abolition. It was the sentiments of certain Christians that had nothing of substance to do with Christianity. Most of them were Protestants. It is not possible – – not possible – – to make a serious argument against slavery from the Bible. They were doing nothing more than reading their own sentiments, at odds with countless generations of Christians before them, into the religion when it just wasn’t there.

“That slavery was seen as compatible with culture before that has no real bearing on the intrinsic immorality of the institution itself.”

Utterly wrong. If Christians, saints, Apostles did not see it as being intrinsically immoral, then it isn’t. No doubt it is preferable to have no slavery, especially given modern economies. No doubt most everyone would rather be free than a slave. But there is nothing in Christianity opposed to the institution. You find yourself in the position of accusing men much holier than you of serious sins because they showed no inkling of sharing your sentiments and speculations on this subject. I’m sure you can rationalize that away. And I’m sure that’s all it would be, a rationalization.

“Read David Bentley Hart’s “Atheist Delusions” to understand how powerful this moral sensibility really is. Then read Carl Becker’s “Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers” to understand how even the foundational categories of thinking the scorners employed depended on the Christianity they ostensibly rejected.”

Fr. Johannes, please quit suggesting I read this or that book whose authors you happen to be in agreement. If you can’t make your own case, you don’t have one. If they’re stating substantially the same thing as you are, my reply to them would be the same. I am not easily persuaded by Christian cheerleading of things that are absurd on their face.

For example, you will find medical care facilities going back to the ancient Egyptians and and to ancient India. Pre-Christian Romans also had such facilities. This type of activity increased somewhat under early Christianity in Byzantium and Western Europe.

Muslims started building hospitals during the 7th century. That they were originally staffed by Christians only means that Christians at the time had knowledge of medicine that the more primitive Islamic community lacked. Hospitals spread in the Islamic world and they even developed mental health treatment facilities.

But real hospitals did not appear until – – you guessed it – – the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was fundamentally a movement away from Christianity. The religion of “Christians” in the leading countries of the Enlightenment was increasingly speculative, dubious of many Christian truth claims, and essentially an emerging humanism. If you delve somewhat deeper into the writings of Adams or Jefferson you will get a clearer picture of the fact that their Christianity was at best cultural and they were much more inclined to be freethinkers, regardless of what church they belonged to. That was what was in the air. It was in that environment that what we think of a modern advances took place.

But that is due to a wearing off of Chrisitianity. If it were due to anything intrinsically in the religion, it would have developed much sooner and out of piety. It did not. That is actually indisputable. What you are ascribing to Christianity is really a product of a “losing of religion”. I won’t dispute that this decay of Christendom had some benefits. But taking a look at its end result makes me think that we have paid too high a price.

What you posit is a Christianity that never knows what actions are sinful or not. It is remeniscent of the “evolving standards of decency” pontificated by the liberals on our Supreme Court. It has no substance but willfulness.

After 25 years you really get to know the other person. It is great having people in your life; it is great having several people in your life for you whole life, spouse and children looking forward, parents and siblings looking back. The older I get I see it really is about family, and I wish I would have understood that better when I was younger.

But marriage is about family too. Primarily its about having someone there. “It is not good for man to be alone…” is one of the first assertions about human relationships in scripture.

As for the rest of your comments, I have seen time and time again that for the believer, the Lord seems to have His hand in this somehow. If you are ready, often the right person comes into your life somehow. People told me that when I was single and I didn’t really believe it — until it happened. Now I tell everybody what others used to tell me. I don’t think it happens though until it is time. For me it happened when it was time. In fact (don’t try this home), my wife and I got engaged three weeks after we met. That was 20 something years ago.

Don’t try to figure out marriage. I don’t mean to be insulting here, but unless men are married, they don’t really have a clue. They think they do, but they really don’t. Ask anyone who has been married for a while. They will tell you the same thing.

The “the deeper sense of the value of a human person” in Christianity was seen to be quite consistent with the institution of slavery for a very long time. That should indicate to reasonable people that developments to the contrary had an outside source, or at least one not intrinsic to Chrstianity.

Christianity is not an ideology Scott, not a fixed system. Culture has been Christianized, but that does mean that all institutions and social habits conform to the deeper reaches of the Gospel and the moral vision that it offers. It doesn’t and slavery is one example. There is such a thing as moral progress in culture, and in Western/Christian culture the well from which the deeper sensibilities drew is indisputably Christian. That’s why slavery, even though compatible with Christian culture for many years was finally understood as incompatible. It also is the reason why we see developments in care for the sick, orphanages, child labor laws, all the things that make civilization more civil. There was a time when people thought it was moral to let 10 year old children work 16 hours a day. Where do you think the moral sensibility that practices like that were unjust came from?

I think it is the notion of progress you are objecting to. That Christian moral values drove abolition is indisputable. That abolition was a movement that had its genesis in Christian circles is indisputable as well. That slavery was seen as compatible with culture before that has no real bearing on the intrinsic immorality of the institution itself.

Read David Bentley Hart’s “Atheist Delusions” to understand how powerful this moral sensibility really is. Then read Carl Becker’s “Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers” to understand how even the foundational categories of thinking the scorners employed depended on the Christianity they ostensibly rejected.

Christianity is not a power-bloc, an ideology, or political system.

After the Ceaucescu goverment fell in Romania, the story goes, a monk came running overjoyed to his abbot shouting, “There’s been a revolution!” The abbot calmly replied, “Calm down, we have been ruled by sinful men and we will be ruled by sinful men. There has only ever been one revolution in human history, and that was an empty tomb.”

True, but that “one revolution” is also what enables us to see Ceauscescu as the monster that he was and finally overthrow him. Rendering death dead as Christ did, tells us a whole lot about the value of life and the obligation we have to nurture and defend it. It’s a relative good Scott, but relative good that has the final good as its referent has value. So sure, the monk is right, but it speaks to man freed from Ceaucescu’s prison only in a general way. That man already knows man is sinful. He’s seen the depravity first hand. And, despite the monk’s admonition, living free is still better than life in prison. Relative judgments matter.