The Faith Movement's Symposium is rather high-powered stuff. This morning's session was way over my head - I never did get to grips with Philosophy. At one point I was confused by the speaker, Fr. Hugh MacKenzie, talking about Socrates and hemlock after he had said that he was going to talk about Plato. Of course, everyone else knew that Socrates' final discourse was actually written (or reported - apparently it's open to discussion) by Plato...
Fortunately for me, I asked Canon Luiz Ruscillo for the explanation quietly, over lunch, and he explained it equally quietly, so I didn't make a complete fool of myself.
Yesterday evening, Canon Ruscillo gave a fascinating talk on the place of the Old Testament in the catechesis of the Faith vision. Canon Ruscillo's thesis was that the Faith Vision is pretty thorough when one is trying to argue for the necessity of God and the existence of a spiritual soul, but it had neglected to explain the place of the Old Testament, which he thought was essential. He explained that the use of typology has disappeared from our reading of the Old Testament, and that it ought to be made more use of, as it witnesses to the inner unity of the Scriptures.
The "anthropic principle" seen in the physical universe, which shows how all things are purposed to the evolution of man, is mirrored by a "messianic principle" running throughout the Old Testament, which means that everything we read is purposed to the coming of Christ. The only religious tradition which witnesses to this sort of development is that of Israel, which is why the Old Testament is so vital for Christianity.
I hope that a Faith pamphlet on this topic will be forthcoming.
I should warn you that the "Anthropic Principle", broadly, isn't very well liked among physicists. Charitably, this is because it doesn't actually predict much physics; uncharitably, it's because a great number of physicists object to the idea of the Universe having any purpose, let alone that our presence in it should be instrumental to that purpose.
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