- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
The author's honesty about the role of agency and its apparent conflict with reductionism and materialism is refreshing. His proposed new conception of God as conveyed in the article shares some similarities with the work of Catholic theologian Pierre de Chardin, whose work has influenced Catholic theology from Vatican II through to today. I would recommend it highly, along with works by de Lubac and others discussing it.
However, I would point out a missing step in the author's conception of God. Recognition of the universal creative force as God is one thing, but to take the next step of forming a global ethic based on the recognition of that fact requires something more. In particular, an ethic requires a shared understanding of right and wrong. This must go beyond the "food, poison" understanding, because what is "food" for an individual may be "posion" for society and vice versa. Moreover, what is "food" to the individual subjectively may be "poison" to it objectively; that is, "poison" may taste like "food" and only kill after many repeated ingestions over time.
So to create a universal understanding of right and wrong--a global ethic--would seem to require a method of deriving it beyond other than by the judgment of each individual. To go beyond the lowest common denominator (i.e., no murder) and to have any effect, would not this global ethic have to be decided upon and promulgated by some sort of body? And as disputes undoubtedly would develop about the understanding and practice of the global ethic, would not a final arbiter of such disputes be necessary to prevent unending splintering of the ethic and sectarianism among its adherents?
Of course, the ethic would not be forced upon anyone, but rather, each person could choose whether to accept it based on his or her free will, I would assume. I would also assume this freedom to accept or not accept this ethic would not affect the truth thereof, at least as far as its adherents were concerned.
Hmmm... sounds like this new global ethic might be in need of a Magisterium and a Pope. Come to think of it, it sounds like it only needs a founding prophet to develop into Catholicism...
