Posted by johnboy on September 12, 1999 at 09:18:52:
In Reply to: Re: Global Ethic considerations-cont'd posted by johnboy on September 11, 1999 at 19:41:22:
i think of Paul's affirmation of the monument to the Unknown God, of Rahner's "anonymous Christian" affirmed by Vatican II, of Jeremiah's affirmation of the notion that God's law is written on every heart, and
it strikes me as strange that some Christian deontologists would take the position that a global ethic must be derived only by revelatory processes extrinsic to humanity and must be validated only by external authority
when, in fact, it should be no surprise to them that their God left clues in the recesses of all psyches which existentially orient all people to the transcendental imperatives, hints which move all people to intrinsically respond to that ethic which has been extrinsically gifted only to some ... ... ...
theocentrism may find it positively arrogant when an anthropocentricism, in the process of affirming a global ethic, refuses to make any explicit reference to a Deity
but to deny a humanism's discovery of this ethic, simply because one thinks its proponents are arrogant, is the most amateurish sort of logical fallacy ... ... ...
i think, rather, we should not be surprised at how a gracious God has chosen to make Herself known both immanently and transcendently, impersonally and personally, existentially and theologically, intrinsically and extrinsically, apophatically and kataphatically, never constrained in His Divine Encounters, never invading human reality as something utterly alien ... ... ...
once gifted with a confident assurance in a Divine Revelation, proclamation of such Good News is a natural expression of one's fidelity to such revealed Truth, but once engaged in dialogue with those not similarly gifted, for whatever reason, the demands of charity can be met by an affirmation of the nonbeliever's fidelity to intrinsically "revealed" and internally validated Truth and ...
any lack of mutuality in defining the ultimate source of that Truth, or any lack of explicit reference to same, does not render either party inauthentic or syncretistic; neither would it imply indifference