Tag Archives: Joseph Arimatheus

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Doxacon

Fellow orthospherean Joseph of Arimathea sends along word that this coming July, our own Professor Dr. Tom Bertonneau will be a featured speaker at Doxacon, a convention for Christian fans and writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy, sponsored by the Protection of the Holy Mother of God Orthodox Church in Falls Church. Be there and be … spherical?

Joke! I’m sure the discussions at Doxacon will be absolutely fascinating. From Out of the Silent Planet to Count to a Trillion, from Last and First Men to Up Jim River, those trad Christianist geeks will be tripping the light fantastic. In a manner of speaking only, I hasten to add; few things could be more disturbing than the sight of science fiction fans dancing …

I’m putting this in the Civilizational Twilight category, because almost all science fiction and fantasy involves the adventures of a hero in an age that has Fallen from its halcyon days of yore – this Fall being the generator of the Problems the hero must solve. Meaning that science fiction and fantasy are *essentially* traditionalist.

This should hardly suprise us. After all, *reality* is essentially traditionalist, no? That’s why there are regularities in nature, so that there can be science, so that there can be … science fiction.

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The Heterosphere

Blogger Joseph of Arimathea, a frequent commenter here, has noticed a site that catalogs various phenomena in the penumbra of the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church that are, to put it in the kindest possible way, heterodox. Do you think the burlap banners and acoustic guitars are bad over at St. Thomas Aquinas? Do you wince at the priestess down at St. Albans? Do you grind your teeth at the secular liberal pieties suffusing the sermon at St. Georges? Are you reeling in amazement at what the congregation wears to services at Gethsemane Methodist? Appalled at the clumsiness of the trite ad libitum prayers you hear at First Baptist? I hate to say it, folks, but a quick tour through the Museum of Idolatry demonstrates that these insults to orthodoxy, taste and good sense are nothing – nothing at all.

Want to know what happens when you throw out all denominational discipline, all liturgical standards, and all theological orthodoxy? Wait, are you sure you really want to know? I warn you: a visit to the Museum of Idolatry is like a tour of a railway accident.

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What is it Like to Be Created Ex Nihilo?

Why is this post about metaphysics appearing at a website devoted to traditionalism, which is primarily concerned with culture? Because if a people is to make sense of its culture, and feel truly acculturated, and feel that their acculturation fits them well for life in this world – if, i.e., they are to feel, or be, truly sane – they must understand how their culture agrees with the order of being. In respect to that agreement – or, these days, mostly disagreement – and through no particular fault of their own, the people of the West are now quite obtuse. How do I know? I’m obtuse myself.

Perhaps it was ever thus. But, perhaps not. Either way, this culture has only a few years to get its bearings.

So, from time to time I may post about how metaphysical notions that can seem quite incomprehensible at first glance are expressed in our experience – in all our experience. We don’t generally notice these aspects of experience, and in fact picking them out can be quite difficult – at least, I have found it so – because they characterize experience per se. You can’t have an experience at all without expressing these metaphysical notions. But this makes them – like motion or time – very hard to notice, or therefore to think about.

The point of connection to traditionalism is that these basic notions have, it turns out, all been worked through comprehensively by our forefathers. They lie at the core of what it is to be a member of our culture. As it behooves us to understand and honor our patrimony, it behooves us likewise to understand its basic philosophical axioms.     

I don’t mean for a moment to suggest that I do yet understand them. On the contrary; I’ve been thinking about this stuff for a long time, and I still feel mostly confused. But, sometimes a light goes on in my head.

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