ORLAPUBS P. R250: ONLINE FORUMS/LISTS AND CHRISTIAN PARADIGMS

THOSE WHO SAY, "WHEN WE SAY THE SAME
THINGS, WE ARE NOT SAYING THE SAME
THINGS," vs. THOSE WHO SAY,"WHEN
WE SAY DIFFERENT THINGS WE ARE
SAYING THE SAME THINGS"

A large percentage of self-characterized Orthodox persons who have time to write to no few of the many online forums and lists are relativists--the sort of ecumenist that finds no serious differences (at least with respect to "right belief"--orthodoxía) between the Fathers and other forms of Christian religious expression--Latin or even Protestant.

There is of course another kind of interfaith dialogue. But the violation of logic and intellectual honesty committed by those who prefer sentiment to reason (most humans are capable of reasoning, but many are out of practice or have never been in practice) is self-evident when they assert that conflicting statements are really saying the same thing. These may not be ones you would want on the jury if you were wrongly accused of a crime. Nor would you want a judge who was unable to distinguish what is wished-for from what is reasonable. After all, this peculiarity is the definition or characterization of a mental distorder. There is also applicable to on-going ecumenical efforts of the wrong sort Einstein's dictum that "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."

There are many ways to organize and run an Orthodox list, though many are over- or under-monitored. Some of these defects have to do with what kind of non-Orthodox one permits to write. Inquirers and even opponents of Orthodoxy who are able to argue competently should not be excluded simply because they are not Orthodox. But the following seem to be obvious minimum requirements:

    1. If a writer exhibits humiliating departures from sound reason (and is unable to recognize this in oneself), the writer should (for his/her own sake) be asked not to contribute but to remain a lurker.
    2. Those who substitute attacks on persons for reasoned arguments are too puerile to be allowed to associate with those of adult intelligence.
    3. In view of the title of this page, discussions of a topic should be encouraged
to speak in terms like the following: "Given the Orthodox [or Latin or Reformation or other] premise that X, it can hardly be denied that Y." Those who do not know how to argue across paradigms in this manner fail to see that when writers setting out from the presuppositions of a given paradigm say RHEMA, those setting out from the presuppositions of a different paradigm who say RHEMA usually (if the term is a crucial term) mean something else--LEXIS. If a writer cannot see how senseless it is to argue a given idea from incompatible paradigms, the person in question should be encouraged to depart from the discussion, since his or her words are in the deepest sense irrelevant.

It is usually the case that meaningful discussions are possible ONLY among those in the same cognitive (or other) paradigm. Across paradigm boundaries, one can argue about the usefulness of a para- digm's axioms; but since accepting axioms and definitions are acts of the will and not amenable to falsification for the whoever accepts them, one can only discuss their fit with any reality both parties can agree on, any undesired or desired consequences one might allege, and so on. See also R245.

In addition to the relativizers already mentioned, there are two versions of Eastern Orthodox Christianity--that of the Fathers and that of the Latin captivity during the latter centuries of the second millennium in the Balkans (with Romania) as well as in Russia and its dependencies. The latter party (which includes Latin Uniates as well as many Orthodox) share only part of the Orthodox paradigm--as when the Fall and Salvation are viewed in Western juridical (satisfaction) terms, not in Eastern ontological terms. Their views of the soul's immortality, death, the primacy of the Crucifixion over the Resurrection in soteriology, etc. differs radically from that of the Orthodox Fathers. Many other examples could be cited.