Do you mean "metaphysical" according to today's philosophical usage , or according to popular meaning i.e. supernatural varieties including ghosts, miracles, and stuff?Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 01, 2024 12:11 amIt is not going to be the route that helps us to understand Dawson, or many apologists, nor the on-going struggles in our present.Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Mar 31, 2024 11:26 pm Is it really odd that I would try to understand what you believe?
If I do not make absolute claims of belief in this or that nevertheless the larger conversation is still interesting and important.
I am not here proselytizing. Though I do definitely believe that the realm of these considerations and ideas are extremely relevant.
That is why, as an adjunct to Dawson’s assertion about Christianity as the key to human renewal, I am trying to be clear about the core metaphysical tenets of Christianity.
It's obvious that the Christian ontology is that there be minds/souls ,physical bodies, and God.
There are people who aim to modernise Christianity after scientific enlightenment. This modernisation involves a different ontology : a monist ontology instead of a dualist ontology. Creation would remain problematic for many people without their learning idealist monism; absolute idealism involves shifting the responsibility for creation from God or Nature to man. There is no problem accepting a Christ within the ontology of absolute idealism; indeed it's hard to imagine how a culture of belief could arise outwith history, de novo.
The definitive doctrine of Christianity is the Resurrection. For the Resurrection to succeed within a monistic world view the Resurrection must be a psychological event but not a physical event. So, what is it that is resurrected? Not the dead body of Jesus to be sure, but the enduring memory of a life so well lived that we may use it as a template.
It remains to turn this reasonable faith to politics; and the only method that can succeed is liberal education for all persons of all 'faiths' and democracy.
Many if not most main stream churches and mosques do a good job of keeping their congregations to the straight and narrow. Holy books especially The Bible should be retained as an anchor, especially as some people evidently cannot engage with allegories and metaphors, but we all need regularly to review and replenish courage and hope, and more educated individuals would be armed with some of the paraphernalia of hermaneutics.