Syncretistic Catholicism

another minority report

Syncretistic Catholicism where any Anglican, Episcopal, Roman & Orthodox

consensus informs core beliefs & divergences are received as valid theological
opinions

It’s not heaven vs hell that needs to be at stake vis

a vis the problem of evil but abundance vs
superabundance

This is a follow to Do you believe in heavenly freedom & impeccability? and a

discussion of Simon Gaine’s book _Will There Be Free Will in Heaven?
Freedom, Impeccability and Beatitude_ (2003), wherein he expounded on
Servais Pinckaers’s “freedom for excellence.”

Below are key excerpts:

Gaine refers to the essential need for development & growth in our freedom
for excellence. I want to agree with him but further nuance that idea.

Ordinarily, such growth will be slow & paced as we cooperate via assent. What
I want to allow for are graces of justification, impeccability, inancaritability
and such. I want to allow for distinctions analogous to acquired versus
infused mystical contemplation.

Extraordinarily, then, such growth can be rather instantaneous and even via a
mere absence of refusal or during a volitional quiescence. I want to allow for
such as transitory beatific knowledge, divine efficient causation, infused
inclinations, restorative apokatastenai, beatific purgation, Chopin’s perfect
pitch & Vincent’s genius? None of these need be conceived as the least bit
repugnant to authentic human freedom & autonomy.

Of course, no sinfulness was ever positively willed by God, but its possibility,
as inheres in our peccability, was merely permitted for the sake of a greater
good, which could be, for example, a divine relationship that enjoys a
suberabundant intimacy?

However, that needn’t mean that a providentially gifted impeccability would

interfere with an abundant divine relationship?
So, the process of growth in freedom for excellence & virtuosity could be
ordered toward soul-crafting ends or ‘how‘ one will manifest Christ?

It needn’t be conceived as essential to the end of ‘whether‘ one shall freely

manifest Christ?

There are no beatific contingencies, neither character nor indwelling based.

While ‘that‘ one shall freely manifest Christ is essential to each imago Dei, it’s
‘how‘ one shall manifest Christ, i.e. growing in likeness, that is part & parcel of
one’s growth in autonomy & superabundant intimacy. (Think Bernardian loves,
Ignation degrees, im/perfect contrition, etc)

As far as soul-crafting goes, one could continue to self-determine among

various eternal well beings & thereby continue to grow eternally via epectasy?

Even in eternal epectasy, that would only need to involve that type & degree of
epistemic distancing that would be indispensable to anyone’s experience &
enjoyment of novelty. One would appropriate such novelty, epectatically, as
one chooses among eternal well beings? This would involve our eternal
reductions of divine potencies (relative perfections) by our ever-more
autonomous formal acts?

So, I’m suggesting that, to the extent that there’s an essential growth aspect
to our autonomy, to our soul-crafting, that growth can be realized in
abundance, even in our impeccable state, eternally, through epectasy?

Human peccability & the “permission to sin” coupled with an indispensable

theotic growth process, whether in a sub-eschatological Eden or post-
lapsarian economy, would be ordered toward the realization of a
suberabundantly intimate divine relationship?

What I’m trying to get away from are absolutist conceptions of freedom &
determination as well as dire eschatological dichotomies. In other words, it’s
not heaven vs hell that needs to be at stake vis a vis the problem of evil but
abundance vs superabundance. I’ve no problem with such eschatological
differentials (cf Litany of Humility).

That others may grow holier than I, provided I become as holy as I should,
Lord, grant me the grace to desire it.

Addendum:

Boltzman entropy, where is thy victory? Darwin entropy, where is thy sting?

Anthropologically, we could maintain that we’re ‘essentially‘ peccable.

Any reference to our impeccability, temporal or eschatological, need not thus

refer essentially. Instead, it could refer practically, contextually &, indeed, trans-
form-atively per our secondary nature.

If so, even beatifically, we might still could properly say that, while we ‘could‘
sin, essentially & metaphysically, nobody ‘would‘ sin, existentially &
contextually, i.e. in a virtue-ally practical way. (See what I did there? virtually
speaking?)

Similarly speaking, while only an informational (Shannon) entropy need have

been divinely intended vis a vis any essential epistemic distancing (sub-
eschatological Eden), the possibilities of thermodynamic (Boltzman) &
biological (Darwin) entropies were, for all practical purposes, unavoidable and
so divinely permitted toward the end of a greater good, which could be, for
example, a superabundant divine intimacy.

This is all to recognize that an abundant divine relationship is never an

ultimate contingency. A superabundant divine intimacy is an extremely highly
likely probability.
Further, it’s to recognize that such biological entropies as death needn’t ever
be considered in any way indispensable – neither protologically nor
eschatologically – to our ongoing processes of growth in freedom for
excellence & virtuosity, as could be eternally ordered toward our soul-crafting
ends, which would be epectatically realizable in terms of ‘how‘ each one will
uniquely manifest Christ.

Neither sin, nor its consequences, especially death, need ever have been
intended as means or instruments. They need only have ever been permitted
for the sake of higher goods.

Boltzman entropy, where is thy victory?

Darwin entropy, where is thy sting?

Questions that may beg: Might either peccability or death (biological entropy)
be intended as part of our theotic growth processes?

As implied, above, peccability could well be intended & dynamically essential,

along with an informational entropy.

For its part, as implied above, death would be merely permitted & in no
measure essential to theotic & epectatic dynamics.

I base these intuitions on those anthropological realities that seem to remain

indispensable dynamics, both temporally as well as eschatologically. While
death has no such dual role, peccability could (impeccability being – not
essential, but – existentially contextual & practical). This requires, then, our
above parsing of 3 entropies, or, at least, some type of entropic analogues.

John Sobert Sylvest May 22, 2023 Uncategorized

Leave a Reply
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment *

Name *

Email *

Website

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I
comment.

Post Comment

Notify me of new comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

Syncretistic Catholicism Blog at WordPress.com.