HOLISM = SYNCRETISM?

© 2003 by Orchid Land Publications

[last updated 20030930]

    Syncretism means mixing things--forms of religion, in the following--which responds to a letter whose key satement is excerpted at the beginning.  The writer proposes to combine Orthodox ontological soteriology with Lutheran Anselmian-juridical soteriology in the name of holism.

>I cannot find . . . one who . . . is  willing  . . . to recognize [Lutheranism's] biblical basis and take pains to >describe salvation "holistically," rather than taking pains in the opposite direction . . . 

Dear in Christ NAME:

To get the whole picture, you should note that the Reformers followed Scotus and Ockham (and Augustine; Luther was an Augustinian hermit) in holding that will is superior to reason, whereas Rome (despite 200 years of lawyer popes) continued to hold the intentional view of will--that reason is superior to will. If will dominates reason, then reason does not dominate will--and will not dominated by reason is anything from idolatry to superstition and more. I am not advocating two-valued logic, but till you show how it is possible for will to dominate reason and also be dominated by reason (and not alternatively), you are simply frustrating yourself when trying to communicate with others.

A Reformer was at home in the narrative of eating of the fruit of the forbidden tree and the story of Uzzah. They did nothing "immoral" in a morality based on what is natural (which SINCE the Fall is often the oppposite of what is normal). A command is a command is a command . . .

St. Paul replaced this juridicalism (perhaps he foresaw Augustine and Anselm) and the idea of Salvation by human works with something else--the Resurrection. St. Paul's Romans 4:25 states the relation of the Crucifixion to the Resurrection quite clearly, just as St Paul's Philp. 2:12-13 in Greek (not in your Bible) states the non-conflicting relation between Grace (Energy) and works clearly. But there was no way for the Reformers to grasp what St. Paul was saying become of their will-based ("spiritual-ontology") paradigm. Because of the Western paradigms, the West cannot read St. Paul in the paradigm of the Apostolic Age. Grace and works conflict.

Now Aulen says that Luther at times tended to accept the ontological soteriology of the Fathers. If he couldn't square this with his Anselmian juridical view, you can? Why not give it a shot?

If you can, fine--but there is no point in just asserting it over and over as though repetition might make it doable. You never (to my knowledge) show how to mix oil and water and don't even seem to understand what the cognitive problem is. If Salvation is juridical, then the Resurrection is superfluous to it, as various Western writers have admitted. Until you show how a will-over-reason form of the content of Christianity can be married to ontology--which seems downright contradictory to me when they allow what is moral to be have no relation to what does despite to a nature (ontology)--you are just waving hands at the problem.

Luther's two modernisms led him to emphasize "word" and a devotio moderna spirituality that "spiritualized" the sacraments, allowing their material side to fall into a degree of non-necessity. Perhaps in your "word" outlook, just saying X makes X possible or true; you won't convince a lot of us, though. As for Luther's two modernisms, I quoted as an example of the way Luther married them in his passage from the famous Babyl. Captivity in which he says he can have the mass simply by willing it: plus-will, minus-ontolgy. How do you square that with the ontological natuare of sacraments? As far as I an see, you don't even try to square the contradiction. Why can't you just SHOW ME AND OTHERS HOW YOUR PROPOSAL CAN BE--HOW IT IS FEASIBLE? Why do you disdain this simple job?

Show us, for example, how the Resurrection rather than the Crucifixion is the culmination of Salvation, not just a proof of Jesus's divine power. Show us how Baptism or Absolution (which Luther at one time regarded as a "sacrament"--a juridical term originally, just as is the Calvinists' "ordinance") are soterial. Show how Grace can be ontological and also only will-based. It's a simple request necessary to see if what you advocate makes sense. Till then it will be unintelligible (gobbledygook) to me. I'm even showing you how to come across with content: Just show how will-over-reason ethics and intentional ethics (with reason over will) are compatible; just show how will and ontology (pick the sacraments or whatever) can be married in a Lutheran approach. Not a big request, one that put intelligible content in your advocacy. Of course if you think apples and oranges can be mixed, as in syncretism generally, and if contradictions don't bather you, then our discussions are without point.

I suggest that some homework is needed for statements by you and those of your position to have intelligible content. Once you've shown us how to resolve the foregoing contradictions, then we will have material for an objective cross-paradigm discussion.

In Christ, 

SEE R264    R276    R265    R287