Strat has now died, and it is touching to see the tributes people have left on his FB page, links to blogs and online articles etc. It is gratifying to see how much he was loved and somehow I find it easier to read extracts from his work now. I have never read any of his books apart from The Power of the Ring which I enjoyed a good deal and found very enlightening.
It is quite interesting to see how a lot of his ideas were similar to mine - but arrived in from very different directions. I don't think he would have "agreed" with my ideas, because he was truly Catholic in his devotion to the idea of the Real Presence in the communion bread and wine, whereas I take an "empiricist" view that it's not entirely "necessary". However, his view is that the world is suffused with God - is divine and (I think) that this is the result of the Incarnation so the Real Presence is natural.
As I may have quoted before, the great line of Wittgenstein - If there were a verb meaning "to believe falsely" it would not have any significant first person indicative - comes in useful here. Of course, we believe what we believe to be true - but while I can believe that Christianity is the "best" of the world religions - despite the errors committed by its adherents and in its name, I could not specify that one sect or another was the ultimate version, whereas Strat was very confident that Roman Catholicism was the nec plus ultra form of Christianity - as do most Catholics inevitably - if it weren't why would they stay?.But why not go back to the origins - to the Orthodox? I admit I know very little about the thelogical differences between the Orthodox and Catholic churches - I know about the original filioque disagreement which caused the split - but no doubt they have grown even further apart in the last thousand years or so. I don't fancy their creationist views, and I suspect that they are a lot less theologically sophisticated than the Catholic Church - so perhaps it was a sense that Catholic theology was continuing to search appealled more to Strat.
I continue to believe that we can only understand God in a limited way - and therefore all our forms of worship and religious adherence are pretty inadequate - and dictated by cultural norms. Maybe the Catholic church was simply where God wanted Strat to be. It is a satisfying berth for a lot of people - if only it wasn't so pleased with itself and so lacking in self-criticism (until recently).
The reason I am writing this blog (apart from insomnia and the joy of listening to Schubert at 3.00am) is that I wanted to say how much one takes one's friends and relations for granted and discovering how much he meant to so many people has been odd. The whole "legacy" issue here is writ even larger than usual. I am not surprised his immediate family want to be private and alone. There will be many people who barely knew him wanting a piece of him (maybe literally! Relic hunters!). People want gurus - to follow those who have already found "the Truth" - I do not think we can be satisfied our hearts are restless till we rest in Thee - is true. We find God - but we quite often lose Him again... we are a mess, and for many people it has just become easier to call off the search and retire into agnosticism or even, resenting the time we've spent searching, develop aggressive atheism.
It is quite interesting to see how a lot of his ideas were similar to mine - but arrived in from very different directions. I don't think he would have "agreed" with my ideas, because he was truly Catholic in his devotion to the idea of the Real Presence in the communion bread and wine, whereas I take an "empiricist" view that it's not entirely "necessary". However, his view is that the world is suffused with God - is divine and (I think) that this is the result of the Incarnation so the Real Presence is natural.
As I may have quoted before, the great line of Wittgenstein - If there were a verb meaning "to believe falsely" it would not have any significant first person indicative - comes in useful here. Of course, we believe what we believe to be true - but while I can believe that Christianity is the "best" of the world religions - despite the errors committed by its adherents and in its name, I could not specify that one sect or another was the ultimate version, whereas Strat was very confident that Roman Catholicism was the nec plus ultra form of Christianity - as do most Catholics inevitably - if it weren't why would they stay?.But why not go back to the origins - to the Orthodox? I admit I know very little about the thelogical differences between the Orthodox and Catholic churches - I know about the original filioque disagreement which caused the split - but no doubt they have grown even further apart in the last thousand years or so. I don't fancy their creationist views, and I suspect that they are a lot less theologically sophisticated than the Catholic Church - so perhaps it was a sense that Catholic theology was continuing to search appealled more to Strat.
I continue to believe that we can only understand God in a limited way - and therefore all our forms of worship and religious adherence are pretty inadequate - and dictated by cultural norms. Maybe the Catholic church was simply where God wanted Strat to be. It is a satisfying berth for a lot of people - if only it wasn't so pleased with itself and so lacking in self-criticism (until recently).
The reason I am writing this blog (apart from insomnia and the joy of listening to Schubert at 3.00am) is that I wanted to say how much one takes one's friends and relations for granted and discovering how much he meant to so many people has been odd. The whole "legacy" issue here is writ even larger than usual. I am not surprised his immediate family want to be private and alone. There will be many people who barely knew him wanting a piece of him (maybe literally! Relic hunters!). People want gurus - to follow those who have already found "the Truth" - I do not think we can be satisfied our hearts are restless till we rest in Thee - is true. We find God - but we quite often lose Him again... we are a mess, and for many people it has just become easier to call off the search and retire into agnosticism or even, resenting the time we've spent searching, develop aggressive atheism.
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