While Pope Francis’ popularity grows with the media, disenfranchised Roman Catholics, and groups usually unfriendly toward Catholicism, he arouses concern among Christian traditionalists. Much unease comes from mixed messages utilizing a kind of duplicity different from heretical double-truth teachings of the Latin Middle Ages. This use of alternate truths for different audiences reverses the medieval employment, offering the public not the literal, traditional sense (which the Latin Averroists saw as suited for mass consumption) but symbolic or figurative versions once reserved for the sophisticated and erudite, while insisting that more robustly faithful elites still embrace the stricter teachings of the Church. Moreover, this “reversed” double truth can itself be doubled yet again, if the higher elites privately believe the same, weaker, less robust truths disseminated to the masses, although holding them in a more rationalized, sophisticated form. Modernized double truth is not new, but previously the papacy enforced a singularity for Church teaching. With Pope Francis, however, the doubling of truth appears at the peak of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. This has profound consequences for bioethics, (1) constituting a third version of Catholic moral teaching, following both the Tridentine manualist version, and the rationalist, Vatican II modernist rendition, to form a post-modern approach to moral truth, (2) subverting traditional Catholic bioethicists, while calling into question the Roman Catholic Church as a reliable ally against militant secularism in current bioethics. Ancient Christianity as exemplified in the Orthodox Church offers a better model for bioethics, due to its basis in asceticism, worship, and a noetic approach to truth that is not dependent on the vicissitudes of discursive rationality or a chief primate to arbitrate them.
{"title":"Pope Francis and the Perils of Double Truth","authors":"Bruce V. Foltz, P. Schweitzer","doi":"10.1093/CB/CBU047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/CB/CBU047","url":null,"abstract":"While Pope Francis’ popularity grows with the media, disenfranchised Roman Catholics, and groups usually unfriendly toward Catholicism, he arouses concern among Christian traditionalists. Much unease comes from mixed messages utilizing a kind of duplicity different from heretical double-truth teachings of the Latin Middle Ages. This use of alternate truths for different audiences reverses the medieval employment, offering the public not the literal, traditional sense (which the Latin Averroists saw as suited for mass consumption) but symbolic or figurative versions once reserved for the sophisticated and erudite, while insisting that more robustly faithful elites still embrace the stricter teachings of the Church. Moreover, this “reversed” double truth can itself be doubled yet again, if the higher elites privately believe the same, weaker, less robust truths disseminated to the masses, although holding them in a more rationalized, sophisticated form. Modernized double truth is not new, but previously the papacy enforced a singularity for Church teaching. With Pope Francis, however, the doubling of truth appears at the peak of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. This has profound consequences for bioethics, (1) constituting a third version of Catholic moral teaching, following both the Tridentine manualist version, and the rationalist, Vatican II modernist rendition, to form a post-modern approach to moral truth, (2) subverting traditional Catholic bioethicists, while calling into question the Roman Catholic Church as a reliable ally against militant secularism in current bioethics. Ancient Christianity as exemplified in the Orthodox Church offers a better model for bioethics, due to its basis in asceticism, worship, and a noetic approach to truth that is not dependent on the vicissitudes of discursive rationality or a chief primate to arbitrate them.","PeriodicalId":42894,"journal":{"name":"Christian Bioethics","volume":"21 1","pages":"89-108"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2015-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/CB/CBU047","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60682872","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pope Francis and Abortion","authors":"C. Tollefsen","doi":"10.1093/CB/CBU044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/CB/CBU044","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42894,"journal":{"name":"Christian Bioethics","volume":"21 1","pages":"56-68"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2015-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/CB/CBU044","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60682805","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pope Francis, Weak Theology, and the Subtle Transformation of Roman Catholic Bioethics","authors":"M. Cherry","doi":"10.1093/CB/CBU045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/CB/CBU045","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42894,"journal":{"name":"Christian Bioethics","volume":"21 1","pages":"84-88"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2015-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/CB/CBU045","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60682812","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An Address to Doctors by Pope Francis (15 November 2014): A Doctrinal Mistake and a Lot of Common Sense Presented with Savoir-Faire","authors":"M. Mori","doi":"10.1093/CB/CBV001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/CB/CBV001","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42894,"journal":{"name":"Christian Bioethics","volume":"21 1","pages":"109-129"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2015-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/CB/CBV001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60682978","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rejoice, for the Kingdom of Heaven Is at Hand! A Deconstruction of the Inaugural Message in the Words of Pope Francis","authors":"F. Huneycutt","doi":"10.1093/CB/CBU043","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/CB/CBU043","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42894,"journal":{"name":"Christian Bioethics","volume":"21 1","pages":"73-83"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2015-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/CB/CBU043","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60682797","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On Allen Verhey, In Memoriam","authors":"Ryan R. Nash","doi":"10.1093/CB/CBU026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/CB/CBU026","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42894,"journal":{"name":"Christian Bioethics","volume":"20 1","pages":"390-391"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2014-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/CB/CBU026","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60682674","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Christian Morality in a Post-Christian Medical System","authors":"J. Bishop","doi":"10.1093/CB/CBU024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/CB/CBU024","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42894,"journal":{"name":"Christian Bioethics","volume":"20 1","pages":"319-329"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2014-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/CB/CBU024","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60682634","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article is written by the parent of two babies who died in infancy from an untreatable congenital illness. The author is a Christian and the article focuses on the manner in which parental prayers for a miracle, hospital care, and church affiliation interacted in this context. While the care of church and hospital was a deep boon, nevertheless, the collision and-even more so-the collusion between the reality outlooks, epistemic assumptions, and authority structures of the church and the hospital produced what I will call the wounds of faith and the wounds of medicine. A balm does not remove a scar, nor does it restore a limb that is amputated. But a balm sees a wound for what it is and enables the sufferer to live with that wound. In this analogy, the balm refuses to provide an "answer" that dissolves either the wound of faith or the wound of medicine. An appreciation of paradox-both in the context of faith and the context of medicine-is the only balm that this author has found to be healing. Yet, the paradox is profoundly problematic to both faith and medicine in the modern Western context. This article concludes with an attempt to understand why the very idea of the paradoxical is so hard for us modern Western people to recognize, let alone live with constructively.
{"title":"The Wounds of Faith and Medicine, and the Balm of Paradox","authors":"P. Tyson","doi":"10.1093/CB/CBU028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/CB/CBU028","url":null,"abstract":"This article is written by the parent of two babies who died in infancy from an untreatable congenital illness. The author is a Christian and the article focuses on the manner in which parental prayers for a miracle, hospital care, and church affiliation interacted in this context. While the care of church and hospital was a deep boon, nevertheless, the collision and-even more so-the collusion between the reality outlooks, epistemic assumptions, and authority structures of the church and the hospital produced what I will call the wounds of faith and the wounds of medicine. A balm does not remove a scar, nor does it restore a limb that is amputated. But a balm sees a wound for what it is and enables the sufferer to live with that wound. In this analogy, the balm refuses to provide an \"answer\" that dissolves either the wound of faith or the wound of medicine. An appreciation of paradox-both in the context of faith and the context of medicine-is the only balm that this author has found to be healing. Yet, the paradox is profoundly problematic to both faith and medicine in the modern Western context. This article concludes with an attempt to understand why the very idea of the paradoxical is so hard for us modern Western people to recognize, let alone live with constructively.","PeriodicalId":42894,"journal":{"name":"Christian Bioethics","volume":"20 1","pages":"330-358"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2014-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/CB/CBU028","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60682740","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Need for Dialogical Encounter: An Account of Christian Parents’ Making Decisions on Behalf of Their Severely Handicapped Child","authors":"T. McConnell, R. McConnell","doi":"10.1093/CB/CBU025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/CB/CBU025","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42894,"journal":{"name":"Christian Bioethics","volume":"20 1","pages":"376-389"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2014-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/CB/CBU025","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60682646","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Science in Two Minds: Reflections on the Missional Disunity Within Contemporary Medicine","authors":"P. Burcham","doi":"10.1093/CB/CBU027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/CB/CBU027","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42894,"journal":{"name":"Christian Bioethics","volume":"20 1","pages":"359-375"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2014-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/CB/CBU027","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60682689","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：