I did a quick search on Monism, since it was the EVIL way of viewing the world according to the below post.  Core issue here is deconstruction of orthodoxy by redefining language and reconstruction of a new orthodoxy (or rather a new religion) by substituting language.  This definition looked pretty comprehensive.

What is clear is a sense of starting with orthodoxy and then altering it in a uncoordinated fashion by a number of constituencies to look like a combination of:

• secular humanism - be all that you can be
• hindu-like panthiestic (monism) - just learn to be part of the great oneness, and
• feminist wiccanism - here's a bunch of rituals to help you be / do no harm, then do what you will.

My sense is that these "distortions" are reaching for something new, but are anchored for some reason to an orthodox christian point of departure.  Not anchored to orthodoxy itself, except as a concept to be refuted.

So what is this "new thing" being called Christianity?  I am looking for a clear answer, but so far, it has been blurry.  Maybe that's telling....

Of course, there are whole chunks of stuff where I am not in alignment with orthodoxy - but my differences from orthodoxy do not seem to be related to this crisis...  Further, the path that led to this new crisis fits even less well.  AAAARGHH.

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Monism

(From the Greek monos, "one", "alone", "unique").

Monism is a philosophical term which, in its various meanings, is opposed to Dualism or Pluralism. Wherever pluralistic philosophy distinguishes a multiplicity of things, Monism denies that the manifoldness is real, and holds that the apparently many are phases, or phenomena, of a one. Wherever dualistic philosophy distinguishes between body and soul, matter and spirit, object and subject, matter and force, the system which denies such a distinction, reduces one term of the antithesis to the other, or merges both in a higher unity, is called Monism.

I. IN METAPHYSICS

The ancient Hindu philosophers stated as a fundamental truth that the world of our sense-experience is all illusion (maya), that change, plurality, and causation are not real, that there is but one reality, God. This is metaphysical Monism of the idealistic-spiritual type, tending towards mysticism.

Among the early Greek philosophers, the Eleatics, starting, like the Hindus, with the conviction that sense-knowledge is untrustworthy, and reason alone reliable, reached the conclusion that change, plurality, and origination do not really exist, that Being is one, immutable, and eternal. They did not explicitly identify the one reality with God, and were not, so far as we know, inclined to mysticism. Their Monism, therefore, may be said to be of the purely idealistic type.

These two forms of metaphysical Monism recur frequently in the history of philosophy; for instance, the idealistic-spiritual type in neo-Platonism and in Spinoza's metaphysics, and the purely idealistic type in the rational absolutism of Hegel.

Besides idealistic Monism there is Monism of the materialistic type, which proclaims that there is but one reality, namely, matter, whether matter be an agglomerate of atoms, a primitive, world-forming substance (see IONIAN SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY), or the so-called cosmic nebula out of which the world evolved.

There is another form of metaphysical Monism, represented in these days by Haeckel and his followers, which, though materialistic in its scope and tendency, professes to transcend the point of view of materialistic Monism and unite both matter and mind in a higher something. The weak point of all metaphysical Monism is its inability to explain how, if there is but one reality, and everything else is only apparent there can be any real changes in the world, or real relations among things. This difficulty is met in dualistic systems of philosophy by the doctrine of matter and form, or potency and actuality, which are the ultimate realities in the metaphysical order. Pluralism rejects the solution offered by scholastic dualism and strives, with but little success, to oppose to Monism its own theory of synechism or panpsychism (see PRAGMATISM). The chief objection to materialistic Monism is that it stops short of the point where the real problem of metaphysics begins.

II. IN THEOLOGY

The term Monism is not much used in theology because of the confusion to which its use would lead. Polytheism, the doctrine that there are many gods, has for its opposite Monotheism, the doctrine that there is but one God. If the term Monism is employed in place of Monotheism, it may, of course, mean Theism, which is a monotheistic doctrine, or it may mean Pantheism, which is opposed to theism. In this sense of the term, as a synonym for Pantheism, Monism maintains that there is no real distinction between God and the universe. Either God is indwelling in the universe as a part of it, not distinct from it (pantheistic Immanentism), or the universe does not exist at all as a reality (Acosmism), but only as a manifestation or phenomenon of God. These views are vigorously combated by Theism, not only on considerations of logic and philosophy, but also on considerations of human life and conduct. For the ethical implications of pantheism are as detrimental to it as its shortcomings from the point of view of consistency and reasonableness. Theism does not deny that God is indwelling in the universe; but it does deny that He is comprised in the universe. Theism does not deny that the universe is a manifestation of God; but it does deny that the universe has no reality of its own. Theism is, therefore, dualistic: it holds that God is a reality distinct from the universe and independent of it, and that the universe is a reality distinct from God, though not independent of Him. From another point of view, theism is monistic; it maintains that there is but One Supreme Reality and that all other reality is derived from Him. Monism is not then an adequate equivalent of the term Theism.

III. IN PSYCHOLOGY

The central problem of rational psychology is the question of the relation between soul and body. Scholastic dualism, following Aristotle, maintains, that man is one substance, composed of body and soul, which are respectively matter and form. The soul is the principle of life, energy, and perfection; the body is the principle of decay, potentiality, and imperfection. These two are not complete substances: their union is not accidental, as Plato thought, but substantial. They are, of course, really distinct, and even separable; yet they act on each other and react. The soul, even in its highest functions, needs the co-operation, at least extrinsic, of the body, and the body in all its vital functions is energized by the soul as the radical principle of those functions. They are not so much two in one as two forming one compound. In popular imagination this dualism may be exaggerated; in the mind of the extreme ascetic it sometimes is exaggerated to the point of placing a too sharp contrast between "the flesh" and "the spirit", "the beast" and "the angel", in us.

Psychological Monism tends to obliterate all distinction between body and soul. This it does in one of three ways.

• (A) Monism of the materialistic type reduces the soul to matter or material conditions, and thus, in effect, denies that there is any distinction between soul and body. The Stoics described the soul as a part of the material world-substance; the Epicureans held that it is a compound of material atoms; modern Materialism knows no substantial soul except the nervous system; Cabanis, for instance, proclaims his materialism in the well-known Crude formula: "The brain digests impressions, and organically secretes thought." Psychological materialism, as metaphysical materialism, closes its eyes to those phenomena of the soul which it cannot explain, or even denies that such phenomena exist.
• (B) Monism of the idealistic type takes an entirely opposite course. It reduces the body to mind or mental conditions. Some of the neo-Platonists held that all matter is non-existent, that our body is, therefore, an error on the part of our minds, and that the soul alone is the personality.

  John Scotus Eriugena, influenced by the neo-Platonists, held the body to be a resultant from incorporeal qualities which the soul, by thinking them and synthesizing them, creates into a body for itself. In modern times, Berkeley included the human body in his general denial of the reality of matter, and maintained that there are no substances except the soul and God. The grounds for this belief are epistemological. Psychological Monism runs counter to common sense and experience. Historically, it is a reaction against materialism. To refute materialism it is not necessary to deny that the body is a reality. The unreflecting dualism of common sense and the scientific dualism which the Scholastics built on the facts of experience steer a safe and consistent course between the hasty generalization of the Materialist, who sees nothing but body, and the bold paradox of the Idealist, who recognizes no reality except mind.

• (C) A third kind of psychological Monism goes by the name of psychophysical parallelism. It maintains two principles, the one negative and the other affirmative. First, it denies categorically that there is, or can be, any direct causal influence of the soul on the body or of the body on the soul: our thoughts cannot produce the movements of our muscles, neither can the action of light on the retina produce in us the "thought" of a colour. Secondly, it affirms in some shape or form that both the body and the soul are phases of something else, that this something evolves its activities along two parallel lines, the physical and the psychical, so that the thought, for instance, of moving my hand is synchronous with the motion of my hand, without one in any way influencing the other. This is the doctrine of Occasionalists who, like Malebranche, (q. v.), maintain that the union of the soul and body "consists in a mutual and natural correspondence of the thoughts of the soul with the processes of the brain, and of the emotions of the soul with the movements of the animal spirits" (Rech. de la Vérité, II, v). It is the doctrine of Spinoza, whose metaphysical Monism compelled him to hold that body and soul are merely aspects of the one substance, God, under the attributes extension and thought, but that they unfold their modes of activity in a manner preordained to correspondence (Eth., II, ii, schol.). Leibniz meets the difficulty in his own characteristic way by teaching that all monads are partly material and partly immaterial, and that among all monads and their activities there exists a pre-established harmony (see LEIBNIZ; MONAD). In the so-called Identitätsphilosophic of some German Transcendentalists, such as Schelling, reality is mind in so far as it is active, and matter in so far as it is passive; mind and matter are, therefore, two harmonious, but independent, series of phases of reality. Fechner's view is similar: he holds that the reality pervading the whole universe is at once physical and psychical, that the physical is the "exterior" and the psychical the "interior", or "inner", side of reality, and that the body and soul in man are but one instance of a parellelism which prevails everywhere in nature. Paulsen ("Introd. to Phil.", tr. Thilly, 87 sqq.) holds that "two propositions are contained in the theory of parallelism: (I) Physical processes are never effects of psychical processes; (2) Psychical processes are never effects of physical processes." He adopts Fechner's panpsychism, maintaining that "everything corporeal points to something else, an inner, intelligible element, a being for itself, which is akin to what we experience within ourselves". Both the corporeal and the "inner" are parts of the universal system, which is the body of God, and, though they do not interact, they act in such a way that harmony results.

Herbert Spencer uses the word parallelism in a slightly different sense: the separate impressions of the senses and the stream of inner conscious states must be adjusted by the activity of the mind, if the two series are to be of any use to the developing or evolving animal or man; that is, there must be a parallelism between a certain physical evolution and the correlative psychical evolution" (Principles of Psych., n. 179), while both mind and matter are mere "symbols of some form of Power absolutely and forever unknown to us" (op. cit., n. 63). This idea finds favour among the evolutionists generally, and has one distinct advantage: it obviates the necessity of explaining many phenomena of mind which could not be accounted for by the principles of materialistic evolution. Thus, under the name "double-aspect theory" it is adopted by Clifford, Bain, Lewes, and Huxley. Among empirical psychologists parallelism has been found satisfactory as a "working hypothesis". Experience, it is maintained, tells us nothing of a substantial soul that acts on the body and is acted upon. It does tell us, however, that psychical states are apparently conditioned by bodily states, and that states of body apparently influence states of mind. For the purposes of science, conclude the empiricists, it is enough to maintain as an empirical formula that the two streams of activity are, so to speak, parallel, though never confluent. There is no need to ground the formula on any universal metaphysical theory, such as the pan-psychism of Fechner and Paulsen. lt is enough that, as Wundt points out, the facts of experience establish a correspondence between physical and psychical, while the dissimilarity of the physical and the psychical precludes the possibility of one being the cause of the other. To all these parallelistic explanations of the relations between soul and body the Scholastic dualists take exception. First, the scholastics call attention to the verdict of experience. Up to a certain point, the facts of experience are capable of a parallelistic, as well as of a dualistic, explanation. But when we come to consider the unity of consciousness, which is a fact of experience, we find that the theory of parallelism breaks down, and the only explanation that holds is that of dualists, who maintain the substantiality of the soul. Secondly, if the parallelistic theory be true, what, ask the Scholastic dualists, becomes of the freedom of the will and moral responsibility? If our mental and bodily states are not to be referred to an immediate personal subject, but are considered phases or aspects of a universal substance, a cosmic soul, mind-stuff, or unknown "form of Power", it is not easy to see in what sense the will can be free, and man be held responsible for his mental or bodily acts.

In a minor sense the word monism is sometimes used in psychology to designate the doctrine that there is no real distinction between the soul and its faculties. Psychological dualism holds that soul and body are distinct, though incomplete, substances. But how about the soul itself? Plato's doctrine that it has three parts has had very little following in philosophy. Aristotle distinguished between the substance of the soul and its powers (dynameis), or faculties, and bequeathed to the Schoolmen the problem whether these faculties are really, or only notionally, distinct from the soul itself. Those who favour the real distinction are sometimes called pluralists in psychology, and their opponents, who say that the distinction is nominal or, at most, notional, are sometimes called psychological Monists. The question is decided by inferences from the facts of consciousness. Those who hold real distinction of function argue that this is sufficient ground for a real distinction of faculties.

IV. IN EPISTEMOLOGY

As in psychology, Monism is used in various senses to signify, in a general way, the antithesis of dualism. The Dualist in epistemology agrees with the ordinary observer, who distinguishes both in theory and in practice between "things" and "thoughts". Common sense, or unreflecting consciousness, takes things generally to be what they seem. It acts on the conviction that the internal world of our thoughts corresponds with the external world of reality. The philosophical dualist questions the extent and accuracy of that correspondence; he learns from psychology that many instances of so-called immediate perception have in them a large share of interpretation, and are, in so far, referable to the activity of the mind. Nevertheless, he sees no reason to quarrel with the general verdict of common sense that there is a world of reality outside us, as well as a world of representation within us, and that the latter corresponds in a measure to the former. He distinguishes, therefore, between subject and object, between self and not-self, and holds that the external world exists. The Monist in one way or another eliminates the objective from the field of reality, obliterates the distinction between self and not-self, and denies that the external world is real. Sometimes he takes the ground of idealism, maintaining that thoughts are things, that the only reality is perception, or rather, that a thing is real only in the sense that it is perceived, esse est percipi. He scornfully rejects the view of naïve realism, refers with contempt to the copy-theory (the view that our thoughts represent things) and is rather proud of the fact that he is in conflict with common sense. Sometimes he is a solipsist, holding that self alone exists, that the existence of not-self is an illusion, and that the belief in the existence of other minds than our own is a vulgar error. Sometimes, finally, he is an acosmist: he denies that the external world exists except in so far as it is thought to exist: or he affirms that we create our own external world out of our own thoughts.

However, the classical forum of epistemological Monism at the present time is known as Absolutism. Its fundamental tenet is metaphysical monism of the purely idealistic type. It holds that both subject and object are merely phases of an abstract, unlimited, impersonal consciousness called the Absolute; that neither things nor thoughts have any reality apart from the Absolute. It teaches that the universe is a rational and systematic whole, consisting of an intellectual "ground" and multiform "appearances" of that ground, one appearance being what the Realist calls things, and another what the Realist calls thoughts. This is the doctrine of the Hegelians, from Hegel himself down to his latest representatives, Bradley and McTaggart. All these forms of epistemological Monism — namely, idealism, solipsism, acosmism, and absolutism — have, of course, metaphysical bearings, and sometimes rest on metaphysical foundations. Nevertheless, historically speaking, they are traceable to a psychological assumption which is, and always will be, the dividing line between Dualism and Monism in epistemology. The Dualists, in their analysis of the act of knowing, call attention to the fact that in every process of perception the object is immediately given. It seems like emphasizing the obvious to say so, yet it is precisely on this point that the whole question turns. What I perceive is not a sensation of whiteness but a white object. What I taste is not the sensation of sweetness but a sweet substance. No matter how much the activity of the mind may elaborate, synthesize, or reconstruct the data of sense-perception, the objective reference cannot be the result of any such subjective activity; for it is given originally in consciousness. On the contrary, the Monist starts with the idealistic assumption that what we perceive is the sensation. Whatever objective reference the sensation has in our consciousness is conferred on it by the activity of the mind. The objective is, therefore, reducible to the subjective; things are thoughts; we make our world. In the dualist's analysis there is immediate, presentative contact in consciousness between the subject and the object. In the Monist's account of the matter there is a chasm between subject and object which must be bridged over somehow. The problem of Dualism or Monism in epistemology depends, therefore, for solution on the question whether perception is presentative or representative; and the dualist, who holds the presentative theory, seems to have on his side the verdict of introspective psychology as well as the approval of common sense.

In recent Pragmatist contributions to epistemology there is presented a different view of epistemological Monism from that given in the preceeding paragraphs, and a solution is offered which differs entirely from that of traditional dualism. In William James's works, for instance, Monism is described as that species of Absolutism which "thinks that the all-form or collective-unit form is the only form that is rational", while opposed to it is Pluralism, that is, the doctrine that "the each-form is an eternal form of reality no less than it is the form of temporal appearance" (A Pluralistic Universe, 324 sqq.). The multitude of "each-forms" constitute, not a chaos, but a cosmos, because they are "inextricably interfused" into a system. The unity, however, which exists among the "each-forms" of reality is not an integral unity nor an articulate or organic, much less a logical, unity. It is a unity "of the strung-along type, the type of continuity, contiguity, or concatenation" (op. cit., 325). Into this unfinished universe, into this stream of successive experiences, the subject steps at a certain moment. By a process which belongs, not to logic, but to life, which exceeds logic, he connects up these experiences into a concatenated series. In other words, he strings the single beads on a string, not of thought, but of the practical needs and purposes of life. Thus the subject makes his own world, and, really, we are not any better off than if we accepted the verdict of the intellectualistic Idealist. We have merely put the practical reason in place of the theoretical: so far as the value of knowledge is concerned the antithesis between Monism and Pluralism is more apparent than real, and the latter is as far from the saneness of realistic Dualism as the former. It is true that the Pluralist admits, in a sense, the existence of the external world; but so also does the Absolutist. The trouble is that neither admits it in a sense which would save the distinction between subject and object. For the Pluralist as well as the Monist is entangled in the web of subjective Idealism as soon as he favours the doctrine that perception is representative, not presentative.

V. IN COSMOLOGY

The central question is the origin of the universe. The early Ionian philosophers assigned, as the cause or principle (arche is the Aristotelian word) of the universe, a substance which is at once the material out of which the universe is made and the force by which it was made. As Aristotle says, they failed to distinguish between the material cause and the efficient cause. They were, therefore, dynamists and hylozoists. That is, they held matter to be of its nature active, and endowed with life. Without the aid of any extrinsic force, they said, the original substance, by a process of thickening and thinning, or by quenching and kindling, or in some other immanent way, gave rise to the universe as we now see it. This primitive cosmothetic Monism gradually gave way to a dualistic conception of the origin of the world. Tentatively at first, and then more decisively, the later Ionians introduced the notion of a primitive force, distinct from matter, which fashioned the universe out of the primordial substance. Anaxagoras it was, who, by clearly defining this force and describing it as mind (nous), earned the encomium of being the "first of the ancient philosophers who spoke sense". Dualism, thus introduced, withstood the onslaughts of materialistic Atomism and Epicureanism, pantheistic Stoicism and emanationistic neo-Platonism. It was developed by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, who brought to their description of the world-forming process a higher notion of cosmothetic mind than the pre-Socratic philosophers possessed. It was left for the Christian philosophers of Alexandria and their successors, the Scholastics of medieval times, to elaborate the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, and thus bring out more clearly the rôle played by the Divine Power and Will in the formation of the universe. The order, harmony, and purposiveness evident everywhere in nature are cited by the creationists as evidence to show that mind must have presided at the origination of things. Furthermore, the question of dynamism or mechanism hinges on the problem of the nature of matter. This phase of the question has been developed especially in post-Cartesian philosophy, some maintaining that matter is essentially inert and must, therefore, have acquired force and activity from without, while others as stoutly maintain that matter is by nature active and, consequently, may have developed its own force from within. Evolution of the thorough going type takes the latter view. It holds that in the primitive cosmic matter was contained "the power and potency" of all life and movement, in such a way that no external agent was required in order to bring it to actual existence. Here, as in the question of Theism, Christian philosophy is frankly dualistic, although it acknowledges that, since actuality antecedes potency by nature and, as a matter of fact, the world originated in time, while God is eternal, there was, before creation, but One Reality.

VI. IN ETHICS

The word Monism is very little used. In some German works it is employed to designate the doctrine that the moral law is autonomous. Christian ethics is essentially heteronomic: it teaches that all law, even natural law, emanates from God. Kantian ethics and Evolutionistic ethics hold that the moral law is either self-imposed or emanates from the moral sense which is a product of the struggle for existence. In both the Kantian and the Evolutionistic systems there is only one source of the power of moral discrimination and approval. For this reason the word Monism is here used in its generic sense. In English philosophical literature, however, the word has no such signification. In accounting for the origin of evil, a problem which, though it belongs to metaphysics, has important bearings on ethical questions, some philosophers have adopted a Dualistic doctrine and explained that good and evil originate from two distinct principles, the one supremely good, the other completely and absolutely evil. This was the doctrine of the ancient Persians, from whom it was borrowed by Manes, the founder of the Manichean sect. Opposed to this is the Monistic view, that God is indeed the cause of all that is good in the universe, and that evil is not to be assigned to any supreme cause distinct from God. Whatever explanation be given of the existence of evil in the world, it is maintained that a supreme principle of evil is utterly impossible and even inconceivable.

VII. CONTEMPORARY MONISTIC MOVEMENTS AND SCHOOLS

In current philosophical literature, whenever no special qualification is added, Monism generally means the modified materialistic monism of Haeckel. Modern materialistic Monism in Germany begins with Feuerbach, a disciple of Hegel. Feuerbach was followed by Vogt and Moleschott. To these succeeded Haeckel, who combines Darwinian evolution with a materialistic interpretation of Spinoza and Bruno. Haeckel's works, both in the original and in English translations, have had a wide circulation, their popularity being due rather to the superficial manner in which Haeckel disposes of the most serious questions of metaphysics than to any intrinsic excellence of content or method. Haeckel is honorary president of the Monistenbund (Society of Monists), founded at Jena in 1906, for the purpose of propagating the doctrines of Monism. The society is openly anti-Christian, and makes active warfare against the Catholic Church. Its publications, "Der Monist" (a continuation of the "Freie Glocken" — first number, 1906), "Blätter des deutschen Monistenbunds" (first number, July, 1906), and various pamphlets (Flugblätter des Monistenbunds), are intended to be a campaign against Christian education and the union of Church and State.

The group of writers in America who, under the editorship of Dr. Paul Carus, have been identified with the "Monist" (Chicago, monthly, first number, Jan., 1891) are not, apparently, actuated by the same animosity against Christianity. Nevertheless, they hold Haeckel's fundamental tenet that Monism as a system of philosophy transcends Christianity as a form of belief, and is the only rational synthesis of science and religion. "Religious progress no less than scientific progress", writes Carus, "is a process of growth as well as a cleansing from mythology. . . . Religion is the basis of ethics. . . . The ideal of religion is the same as that of science, it is a liberation of the mythological elements and its aim is to rest upon a concise but exhaustive statement of facts" (Monism, Its Scope and Import, 8, 9). This "concise but exhaustive statement of facts" is positive Monism, the doctrine, namely, that the whole of reality constitutes one inseparable and indivisible entirety. Monism is not the doctrine that one substance alone, whether it be mind or matter, exists: such a theory, says Dr. Carus, is best designated as Henism. True Monism "bears in mind that our words are abstracts representing parts or features of the One and All, and not separate existences" (op. cit., 7). This Monism is Positivistic, because its aim is "the systematisation of knowledge, that is, of a description of facts" (ibid.). "Radical free thought" is the motto of this school of Monism; at the same time, it disclaims all sympathy with destructive Atheism, Agnosticism, Materialism, and Negativism in general. Nevertheless, the untrained student of philosophy will be likely to be more profoundly influenced by the Monistic criticism of Christianity than by the constructive effort to put something in place of the errors referred to.

All Monism may be described as resulting from the tendency of the human mind to discover unitary concepts under which to subsume the manifold of experience. So long as we are content to take and preserve the world of our experience as we find it, with all its manifoldness, variety, and fragmentation, we are in the condition of primitive man, and little better than brute animals. As soon as we begin to reflect on the data of the senses, we are led by an instinct of our rational nature to reduce manifold effects to the unity of a causal concept. This we first do in the scientific plane. Afterwards, carrying the process to a higher plane, we try to unify these under philosophical categories, such as substance and accident, matter and force, body and mind, subject and object. The history of philosophy, however, shows with unmistakable clearness that there is a limit to this unifying process in philosophy. If Hegel were right, and the formula, "The rational alone is real", were true, then we should expect to be able to compass all reality with the mental powers which we possess. But, Christian philosophy holds, the real extends beyond the domain of the (finite) rational. Reality eludes our attempt to compress it within the categories which we frame for it. Consequently, Dualism is often the final answer in philosophy; and Monism, which is not content with the partial synthesis of Dualism, but aims at an ideal completeness, often results in failure. Dualism leaves room for faith, and hands over to faith many of the problems which philosophy cannot solve. Monism leaves no room for faith. The only mysticism that is compatible with it is rationalistic, and very different from that "vision" in which, for the Christian mystic, all the limitations, imperfections, and other shortcomings of our feeble efforts are removed by the light of faith.

See works referred to under METAPHYSICS; also, VEITCH, Dualism and Monism (London, 1895): WARD, Naturalism and Agnosticism (2 vols., London, 1899); ROYCE, The World and the Individual (New York, 1901); BAKEWELL, Pluralism and Monism in Philos. Rev., VII (1898), 355 sqq.; BOWEN, Dualism, Materialism or Idealism in Princeton Rev., I (1878), 423 sqq.; GURNEY, Monism in Mind, VI (1881), 153 sqq.; Articles in Monist (1891-); ADICKES, Kant contra Haeckel (Berlin, 1901); GUTBERLET, Der mechanische Monismus (Paderborn, 1893); ENGERT, Der naturalistiche Monismus Haeckels (Berlin, 1907); DREWS, Der Monismus (Leipzig, 1908); Articles by KLINIKE in Jahrbuch für Phil. u. Spek. Theol. (1905, 1906); MALTESE, Monismo e nichilismo (2 vols., Vittoria, 1887); ABATE, Il monismo nelle diverse forme (Catania, 1893); HAECKEL, Der Monismus als Band zwischen Religion und Wissenschaft, tr, GILCHRIST (London, 1894); IDEM, Die Welträthsel, tr. McCABE (London, 1900). On Carus's School of Monism, besides The Monist (1891-) and The Open Court (pub. fortnightly, first number, Feb. 17, 1887), cf. CARUS, Primer of Philosophy (Chicago. 1896); IDEM, Fundamental Problems (Chicago, 1894); IDEM, Monism, Its Scope and Import (Chicago. 1891).

WILLIAM TURNER
Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter
Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume X
Copyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton Company
Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. Knight
Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

comment [] 212 11:51:39 PM G!.

Yes I did watch the game!  Great game, unless you work for Eli Lilly.

Finally got my ReplayTV 4320 back from the shop (Replay repair service).  The hard drive had crapped out.  So, after a looong time on the phone, I was able to return it and pay a mere $200 to fix it.  Note that this is the cost of new machines!  But what can I say, it is a mission critical piece of equipment in our home.

The one month of TV hell that we had to live through without it was almost unbearable.  Ads!  Oh my God!  They are horrible!  They are Attention Deficit Disorder inducing!  Further, they are often entirely inappropriate for my young children - even if shown during an entirely appropriate TV show.

Did start watching a lot more of the new reality tv stuff - Mission Organization, American Chopper, Queer Eye, Monster House, Date Patrol...  Never really saw much of these before.  But I guess that was because there was ALWAYS SOMETHING GOOD TO WATCH on Replay!

As to the game, I had to drive my daughter to a friends house just around 3 pm.  So I was missing the kickoff etc.  But I got home, and let my wife continue her nap for a half hour, popped a pot of popcorn (yes the old fashioned way with oil in a pot).  Then we turned on the Game!

It was amazing on a couple fronts - first the game was great.  Snowing and real grass!  Great plays, lots of interceptions and fumbles!  All around fun to watch.  And, on Replay, it was EVEN BETTER!

We could do our own instant replay.  We could pause when the phone rang - or when making dinner.  It automatically skipped the ads (A feature that we will turn off during the Superbowl, but here it was just fine).  And, by the time the game was over, we had caught up to the realtime showing of the event!

Triumph for the Patriots and Triumph for ReplayTV.

comment [] 211 6:42:21 AM G!.

The Church's Crisis of Identity

by Stephen M. Smith

The Church faces a crisis of identity possibly unmatched since the second century. An alternative worldview contends with classical orthodoxy for the mind and heart of our Church. This alternative worldview is the source of most of the causes and proposals that threaten to divide the Episcopal Church.

The Church's crisis of identity is rooted in a contest between "dualistic" theism and religious monism. The two worldviews are engaged on many fronts or issues, among them the questions of the authority of Scripture and the uniqueness of Christ, sexual morality, and the nature of language for God.

Worldviews

A worldview is a vision that defines reality, identity, morality, and destiny. In other words, it deals with the ultimate issues: it asks who or what God is, who we are, what are we to do, and where are we going.

In the terms of this four-fold outline of worldviews, classical theism affirms a transcendent Creator who created the world "from nothing" and Jesus as the incarnate Son of God who died for sinners and rose again (reality), a valued but fallen humanity (identity), a transcendent, transcultural moral structure (morality), and a hope of Heaven and danger of Hell (destiny).

Religious monism affirms an eternal unity of creator with creation and Jesus as at most the best perfectly full-illed human (reality), a humanity not fallen but ignorant and unfulfilled (identity), a relativistic, situational ethic (morality), and a hope of self-actualization (destiny).

Central to any worldview is the act of naming. Names express worldviews and worldviews determine names. Naming shapes an event, phenomena, or practice by determining its meaning and value.

Is homosexuality, for example, an "alternative" along the "spectrum" of sexual expressions? Is cohabitation a "natural" response to "new social realities"? Is abortion a "private" act of women exercising their "reproductive freedom"? Are those who see abortion as the killing of human life pro-life or anti-choice or anti-abortion? Is the Fatherhood of God a patriarchal, sexist projection or the gift of divine self-naming? Naming shapes our perception of reality. Much is thus at stake.

There is a profound, albeit mysterious, connection between language and worldview. In the present conflict in the Church, the right or authority or power to name God is crucial. Different worldviews generate different names. These determine whether the God of the Bible is believed to be good or bad, desirable or undesirable, relevant or irrelevant.

The monist worldview will eventually require a renaming of God to bring the names used in prayer, worship, and theology into line with the God of monism. Four books - Bishop J. A. T. Robinson's Honest to God, Bishop John Spong's Honest Prayer and Living in Sin?, and Professor Sallie McFague's Models of God - are widely influential presentations of the monist perspective and demonstrate the magnitude of the clash of worldviews.

Honest to God

Though the monist movement is an ancient one, let us begin with its entry into the consciousness of average churchpeople. In 1963, Bishop J. A. T. Robinson published Honest To God, perhaps the most widely read work of theology in our century. Three years after publication, it had sold nearly one million copies. The book is quite attractive because the bishop sought to reach the modern skeptic. He was honest enough to ask the "big question": is the orthodox worldview a necessary component of Christianity?

He pulled no punches, He claimed that the orthodox "way of thinking is the greatest obstacle to an intelligent faith" and that something "should [be] put in its place." He claimed that belief in a transcendent God is "a projection, an idol" which was no longer persuasive or even believable. In its place, Robinson constructed a religious worldview recognizably Christian yet without a transcendent God.

From Rudolph Bultmann he got his hermeneutical strategy: to see behind the Bible's "prescientiric mythology" (e.g., the resurrection of Jesus in space and time) to existential truths of self-understanding. From Paul Tillich he got his alternative worldview. God, called the "ground of being," is no longer to be conceived of as transcendent, as "wholly other" from the creation, but monistically as "the 'ecstatic' character of this world." Thus God is "encountered in his fullness only between man and man. . . . God, the unconditional, is to be found only in, with and under the conditional relations of this life."

In the terms of our outline of worldviews, God is "the ground of being" and Jesus is a "man for others" and a "window into Being" (reality), but he cannot be God the Son except in the sense that we all are sons of God (identity). Certainly there is a morality, indeed a "new morality" that we can all intuit, but we have been "delivered" from transcendent, transcultural norms (morality). Heaven and Hell are merely metaphors for knowledge or ignorance of our union with Being (destiny).

Some naturalist and skeptical philosophers understood Robinson's "paradigm shift" more clearly then he did. Alasdair Maclntyre claimed that Bishop Robinson was an atheist with a thin (and desperate) coating of religious verbiage. Logical Positivist A. J. Ayer observed that Robinson "is coming round to a position a number of us have held for some time."

Yet when Archbishop Michael Ramsey noted that Robinson "appears to reject the concept of a personal God as expressed in the Bible and the Creed," Robinson responded by saying, "I reject emphatically any suggestion that what I have written is contrary to the Catholic Faith"! (It is difficult to be sure if he understood the radical nature of his own project.)

Honest to God gave the Church a persuasive, popular case for religious monism legitimated by a scholarly bishop. Let us go back to the question of naming. If Robinson is correct, then the Trinitarian names are products of an ancient, now unbelievable projection and God must be renamed, even though he himself remained comfortable with the Biblical language. If he is correct, we cannot believe that God has named Himself. We must name God. Theology is still projection, but now it has become self-conscious projection.

It is the theologians' task to do the naming. No longer will they simply clarify the faith given in Bible and Creeds and apply it to the challenges of the age. Now they have the truly significant task of naming God, of constructing visions of reality that can aid us in our social projects or our quests for "wholeness." The only price monism asks is that one set aside the "archaic" concept of a transcendent God who names and reveals Himself.

Even better, no longer need we obey a transcendent morality and meaning. To stay in the Church, all we need do is to find some connection with the "historical Jesus," if only as the first example of the truly selfactualized person we may all one day become.

Honest Prayer

Taken together, Bishops John Robinson and John Spong form an historical parable of religious monism working itself out in the life of the Church. Bishop Spong began to implement the monist vision which Bishop Robinson had introduced.

Bishop Spong published Honest Prayer in 1973, expressing many of the same ideas as Honest to God. According to him, God is greater than but not separate from the world and Heaven is God's earthly presence. God "does not live in some other worldly place called heaven," He is "the Ground of Being. . . . the Depth of Life." He "is not a superperson . . . but he is the Power of Love. He is the Meaning of Life." What is prayer? "The life of prayer is for me the responsibility to open myself in love to the transcendent in everyone I meet."

Clear enough? This is a consistent monist redefinition of prayer. Prayer is a "quality" relationship with another, not a relationship with a transcendent, personal CreatorRedeemer God. The bishop's final comments on the Lord's Prayer are a remarkable exercise in monist redefinition. To hallow God's name is to become "our deepest and truest selves." To affirm God's glory is to be "fully alive." The Lord's Prayer becomes almost a soliloquy for selfactualization.

Recently the Bishop took a brief sabbatical at Harvard engaging "the challenge of science." fie returned with this new creed: "I believe that the word 'God' points to that which is ultimately real. I believe that humanity itself represents the emerging of consciousness within this many billion year old universe. I believe that this emerging consciousness will someday be seen as nothing less than that which we now call spirit and divinity."

Earlier I noted that a monist within the Church had simply to tie his view to Jesus to justify the claim to be Christian. The bishop's next line is, "I believe that Jesus, whom I call Lord, is that unique life where humanity and divinity flow together." Since he also believes that "divinity" flows through all of us, Jesus can be no more than our guru, the exemplar of God-consciousness or divinity for western Christians (other people may have other exemplars).

Here again a monist vision renames God, as the "ultimately real," and humanity, as the divine incarnation of evolutionary consciousness.

Living in Sin?

Bishop Spong's recent book Living in Sin? shows what monism looks like as applied to sexual ethics. Because God does not speak an eternal, transcendent word to us, he argues that we cannot reverse the "tide of history" and so must have the "courage" to stabilize the new situation by affirming what people are going to do with or without the Church's blessing. Any sexual behavior is allowable if it is "mutual" and leads us to a more authentic existence. The Church is thus encouraged to bless people who live together in trial liaisons, homosexual unions, and the elderly who live together rather than marry and lose part of their Social Security payments.

But this is only the beginning. The bishop wishes not only to revise sexual morality to meet changed circumstances, but drastically revise "the authority of Scripture and the role of both Scripture and the church." He attempts to show why the Scriptures are a thin reed to rely upon for guidance in these areas. First, the Scriptures are awash with contradictions, but the second and real problem is that the Bible is a patriarchal projection created by males to serve their interests and help them dominate women and indeed all of creation. The Bishop even contends that "every page" of the Bible is permeated with an "antifemale bias."

"Human beings always form their understanding of God out of their own values, needs, and self-understanding. We do make God in our own image. We deify whatever we perceive to be the source of security and awe." Here again is Bishop Robinson's assertion that classical Christian theism is a projection, but now, when understood in the light of radical feminism, the projection is declared not just irrelevant but evil.

But the bishop has good news. We are leaving the dark night of sexism and patriarchy and entering a new age with a new consciousness: a return to monism, mutuality, and the affirmation that all is good. Indeed the very function of the bishop's Christ is to "make that goodness [of creation] real and apparent. That is what salvation is all about."

In the Bible, this self-contradictory, sexist projection, written by ill informed and biased males, there is nevertheless (!) a Word behind the twisted word: All is good. All is united to the "ground of all being." Jesus connects us with our "original goodness," giving us "courage" to be all we are created to be. Now we can follow the Bishop, who is "willing to live fully, freely, and openly, scaling the barriers that inhibit life."

In Bishop Robinson we saw the proposal of a new, monist worldview without a clear understanding of the changes it would require. In Bishop Spong we see the application of the monistic worldview to prayer, the creed, and sexual morality, which clearly lead to the renaming of God.

Models of God

In Honest to God we saw the classic theistic worldview abolished and replaced with a monistic worldview. Calling God Father is still acceptable if one knows what all that sort of language "really means" as we move beyond such primitive anthropomorphic projections.

In Living in Sin? the theistic projection with its language is no longer seen as benign or irrelevant -- it now represents the male will to power. But Bishop Spong did not make the next move and call the Church to rename God, although he tells us that part of a bishop's job description is "defining God." lie made no explicit linguistic proposals. But if God has not named Himself, we must do the naming. Naming is merely the linguistic component of the theological task of constructing alternative worldviews and models.

This is what leading feminist theologian Sallie McFague, a Professor of Theology at Vanderbilt University, argues for in her recent prize-winning book Models of God. She argues for a worldview which she describes as "monist," in which "the world does not exist outside or apart from God." She affirms "the basic oneness of all reality, including the unity of God and the world." The cosmos is God's "body."

Since the old model of God and its supporting worldview is "monarchical" and hierarchical, she argues that it is the cause of oppression. To encourage that way of thinking is "pernicious." Classical theism is "idolatrous" and "opposed to life."

Thus she would not only overthrow classical theism ir, favor of nionism (as did Bishops Robinson and Spong) but advance beyond it to a new, monistic language. To move people to act, personal metaphors are needed; Bishops Robinson and Spong's impersonal language for God as "the ground of being" will not do. McFague proposes we call God ,'mother, lover and friend," a more appropriate "metaphor" for a divinity monastically identified with the cosmos.

Other theological ideas and doctrines must also be reconceptualized. Jesus is now "a paradigm of God's way with the world." He was "radically egalitarian," a religious monist " opposed to hierarchies and dualisms." The cosmos is "God's body" which is "bodied forth from God, it is expressive of God's very being," in principle eternally begotten of God, God of God, of one being with the Mother. McFague logically concludes that the best "metaphor" for God is Mother.

In McFague's proposal, we see the logical outworking in language of the monist vision, a radical proposal beyond what Bishops Robinson and Spong were willing or able to propose.

Monism come of age

The worldviews clashing in the Church differ radically. Monism is quite simply a total rejection of classical theism.

To use our outline of worldviews, in monism, God is most properly named Mother, in whose body and being we share and who does not, cannot speak a word to us from outside ourselves. If lie enters into the matter at all, Jesus is merely the first or best example of someone in tune with the cosmos and the Mother (reality).

My identity is as an incarnation of the God-cosmos connection at the level of consciousness. Morality is relative in that it is essentially selfderived as that which enhances the fulfillment of the self or cosmos. Our destiny is that we will be "remembered" by "the ground of being" or perhaps live on in some undefined form in process to fuller selfactualization,

The monist has to see the Bible's exclusive references to a personal Triune God as either pre-scientific and mythological or an oppressive, patriarchal projection. Biblical faith is thus either naive or evil.

The ultimate tragedy of the monist challenge to classical orthodoxy is that the entire enterprise is selfdefeating. How can intelligent men and women really take Christianity seriously when its fundamental reality is a vague, undefined, impersonal "force" or "ground" that is being "named" by a skeptical elite in such a way as to advance their social and moral projects?

Intelligent skeptics will look at all monist revisionism much the way A. J. Ayer did decades ago and rightly observe, "You are finally coming around. Just be a bit more honest and admit you're an atheist like me.

The worldview clash

In two areas in the life of the Church the worldview clash is especially evident. Sexual ethics is the most public. From a monist perspective, sex is not only good but part of the quest for self-fulfillment, provided the relations are "mutual" and not exploitative. As then-Roman Catholic monist Matthew Fox declares, "love beds are altars" since sex is "an encounter with the living God."

The other area in which the clash of worldviews is evident is worship and liturgy. Language expresses worldview. Change the worldview and the language must follow. Change the language and a new worldview can enter into the life of the Church.

In the Book of Common Prayer the "dualistic" worldview of classical Christian theism is expressed consistently and coherently. It celebrates a living God who "created everything that is, [by whose] will they were created and have their being." The Nicene Creed, which must be said at every Sunday service, celebrates "the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen."

To the monist in the Episcopal Church -- and there are many "soft" monists for every "hard" monist like Bishop Spong -- this liturgy is a serious hindrance, and must be replaced. In 1987, the Episcopal Standing Liturgical Commission published Liturgical Texts for Evaluation. In its Eucharist for "The Nurturing God" we were clearly on the way to a monist liturgy. Trinitarian language was dropped wherever possible and male pronouns for God and hierarchical terms like Lord were rigorously excluded.

One option for replacing the traditional opening acclamation to the Eucharist, "Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" was "Blessed be the One, Holy, and Living God." In creation, God's Spirit "issued forth and brooded over the deep, bringing to birth heaven and earth."

Perhaps we cannot claim that in these texts we have an explicit monism, but the sharp reduction of traditional Trinitarian language and terms like the "birth" of the cosmos from the Spirit of God are congenial only with that worldview. These texts certainly seem to be an attempt to create a monistic liturgy and ultimately to enshrine the monist worldview as the worship of the Church, where it will have the deepest effect.

Two Profound Results

For the Church this battle of worldviews has two profound results. The first is that no Church infected by monism can be a real community. Community is built upon a shared language and a shared mission, which are generated by a shared worldview. If different worldviews are allowed equal status, in the name of inclusiveness or pluralism or provisionality, such shared meanings and mission cannot arise. This is the cause of great pain for those of us who constantly experience it.

Without community, a Church can only be a collection of different interest or advocacy groups with much deep misunderstanding and conflict. It cannot be a communion. Since worldviews are "imperialistic," in that they claim to be true (even when they claim we can know no truth), the Church will be a place of contention, pain, and confusion.

The second result is that with the monistic alternative widely established in the denominational leadership and in the clergy through seminary indoctrination, and in the worship of at least some parishes, we will see more battles of the two worldviews. There will be movements to write a new creed, since the Nicene Creed defends and reflects the theistic Trinitarian worldview. We will see new hermencutical proposals to get at the monistic "Word behind the words" and indeed proposals to change or expand the canon of Scripture.

There will be proposals for uniting not only with other Churches, but with other religions, since their faiths are so similar. There will be attempts to show that monism is the true basis for all enlightened ecological action. Finally, since monism is really a form of nature religion, some may attempt to make Christianity a nature religion.

A Crisis of Identity

The crisis of identity reflected in the issues now dividing the Church is rooted in the clash of two irreconcilable worldviews.

Either God has named Himself and given us a true vision of reality that answers life's ultimate questions and sets us on a path to real virtue and eternal life or we really don't know what to make of the ground of being and must name he/she/it as best we can. To understand the struggle in sexual morality and liturgical language for God is to understand this worldview clash.

The issue is finally who or Who is at the center of our world. If we are, then the divine must be named in impersonal or in feminine terms, and we must continually rename he/she/it as we "scale barriers" in our quest to "be all that we can be."

If God is, the Triune transcendent Creator Redeemer has named Himself once for all and given us a great Story to enter, a morality to live out in real faithfulness, and a real hope to press towards. We are back on Mt. Carmel with Elijah.

Dr. Smith is Professor of Theology and Ethics at Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry. This article is reprinted from the "Joys of Orthodoxy" issue of Trinity's quarterly magazine Mission & Ministry. It is a shortened version of an essay that appeared in Speaking the Christian God: The Triune God and the Challenge of Feminism, (Eerdmans).

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Tuesday, November 04, 2003

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