Spengler argues that paganism is not necessarily the belief in many gods as the belief that God or the gods are arbitrary, capricious, and unknowable:
'Just what is paganism? It is the social order that underlies idolatry: the primacy of the animal ties of ancestry, in which the family is a small clan, the clan is a small tribe, and the tribe is a small nation. Pagans worship their own blood and soil at the altar of their nation. The attraction of self-worship is so strong that ancient Israel again and again fell back into pagan practices, while the self-styled "new Israel" of the Church was gutted in its home continent of Europe. America, a new people composed of individuals who abandoned ethnic allegiance, survived as the last home of Christianity in the industrial world.
'The Jewish (and later Christian) alternative to pagan social order is the Covenant: God in his love assigns rights to every human being, and establishes laws for the protection of the weak and helpless. Covenant is a concept alien to Islam, for by definition a God of covenants places a limit on his own power and enters into a partnership with a human society. The all-transcendent Allah does not stoop to make covenants with mere humans; not so YHWH of the Hebrews. No longer can the Roman paterfamilias command the death of his own children in the little empire of his home; the covenant protects every member of society directly. Because the covenant is expressed through laws, and laws require reasoning, the God of covenants must be a God of reason.'
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I hope this posting leads to a thread that allows believers to affirm the basis behind their belief in a knowing, intrusive, proactive God. I find the discoveries of science raise fascinating questions which could ultimately affirm the concept of an intelligent designer. However, simply stating that patterns in micro or macro biology or in cosmology illutrate a Creator of the Bible-type simply is not credible evidence. Too bad we don't have a Church [not referring here to the RC as such] Of Active and Open Inquiry!
Wouldn't Spengler's argument serve equally well against certain forms of Christianity, e.g., Jansenism and Calvinism? Both of those heresies affirm that God's acts are in the end arbitrary, electing some to damnation and some to salvation based on nothing other than divine fiat...
Post a Comment