Matthew 7.1

At the very least I should remember that if I'm bitchy about others, they may well be bitchy about me.  And even if they don't know what I say, God does. 

To change the tack and give conviction atheists something to go on, anyone read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials?  He's quite wrong about God, of course, but he includes some very important critical questions regarding how the religious mentality can work. 

As an imaginative writer, he makes J K Rowling and C S Lewis look like Enid Blyton.   

I did, some years ago, though I cannot much remember what religious content there was in it. Hmm.  Might check on-line to refresh my memory.

Indeed, I understand that this is important.  But there is also surely some point at which one should hold people personally responsible for their expressions (once one thinks one has a reasonable understanding of their language).

(To clarify about before: I was not inviting you before to cast moral judgement on anybody; I just wished to know if you know more about the dynamics of the various movements within modern Catholicism (this being a relatively objective, if slightly specialist, matter)).

I am not the best person to ask.  I reckon I am a Catholic, but I am a member of the C of E.  My love affair with the RC liturgy started in the glory days of Vatican 2, and I still think I could never be an RC because by and large the performance of their liturgy is so unbelievably sloppy.  (On the other hand it is wonderfully unself-conscious, which we Anglicans rarely manage.) 

Pope John Paull 2, like Princess Diana, is someone I can never understand how people get so excited about.  I am sure that the head of the Roman Church ought to be an Italian, just as the head of the Tory party ought to be an old Etonian.  Anyone else takes it all far too seriously.

I suspect that a lot of popular RC religion is of an embarrassingly Old Moores Almanac variety (to be Hibernophobic, I'd say Lucky Lepraucan) but the wonderful thing about the catholic approach (in contrast to the protestant "justification by faith alone") that the subjective opinion of the members is not all that matters.  The baptized are the body of Christ, and Christ is  present in the eucharist whatever anyone may think.


If it isn't like that it will be Madelaine Basset sentimentality, which is all too common among liberal protestants.

From your comments on P Pullman's masterpiece (and earlier to Joyce's Portrait), I suspect that you are just impervious to religion, just I am impervious to  woman as objects of sexual desire.  Although I think Pullman has got God utterly wrong (he in  fact follows a classic Christian heresy) he makes some extremely telling criticisms of the Christian position.

Gosh this is all intense, isn't it?  Sweet dreams.

Milton was an Arian.  Pullman takes his view of God from Milton.  Arius was the first famous heretic and the great Council of Nicea was summoned to respond to the issues he raised.  (That's a very diplomatic way of putting it.)

Arius held that although Jesus had existed with God before he was born as a human being, he was inferior to God the Father.  After all, fathers always exist before sons.  "There was a time when he was not". 

The orthodox position is that the Son is equal to the Father.  As the standard English translation of the creed puts it he is "eternally begotten."  There is never a time when the Son was not.

Pullman's name for God is the Authority, which is no doubt how God has often been regarded.  But if the Son is equal to the Father, then that's not the whole picture.

Classic Greek theology is a highly sophisticated business, and I cannot say I can follow the Byzantine (in every sense of the word) reasoning.  But I can see the idea that God is not just an authority, but God with us, Emmanuel.

That's all far too technical at this time of day, but you did ask. 

Where I think Pullman is highly perceptive is the concept of dust.

PPS Frothy.  I'd prefer to say eccentric.  I have yet to be part of a congregation that didn't have some endearingly dotty members.

George, I could never be offended by you! 

No it wasn't certain at all, and after Nicea there were strong reactions against the (ultimately) orthodox position.  St Athanasius spent a large part of his life in exile or hiding because of his strong support of the Nicene view.

Since the Council of Nicea was organized by that dodgiest of Christian supporters, the Emperor Constantine, I reckon it is another example God making himself known out of very muddled human circumstances.  (I know "himself" for God is gender specific language.  Sorry, I can't think of the inclusive phrase at the moment.)

More for you to chat about with Jeffrey John after Evensong.

PS I think you meant to say "derive from Judaism" rather than "derive from Christianity".

Thank you, George.  Luther is a bit of a grey area in my awareness of religions.  Sorry to have doubted you.  I should have known.

I would also strongly recommend the Pullman trilogy. I agree with IRF that the third volume is a slight disappointment in comparison with the first two but I wouldn't go as far as to say he lost the plot. I think the final scene in the Botanical Gardens in Oxford, for example, is very touching and effective and as good as anything in the earlier books. I'm very fond of the mulefa too and want one for Christmas if anyone would like to note that hint.

I put the problem down to everyone telling Philip Pullman that he was a genius after the first two volumes: history suggests that it invariably has a disastrous effect on Volume 3 when people do that.