felix hominum

Can one be a moderate Christian?

The path Alyosha chose was a path going in the opposite direction, but he chose it with the same thirst for swift achievement. As soon as he reflected seriously he was convinced of the existence of God and immortality, and at once he instinctively said to himself:  “I want to live for immortality, and I will accept no compromise.”

Brothers Karamazov, chapter 5

I was reading an account of some debate in which one of the parties was described as a "moderate Catholic".  The more I thought about the phrase, the more curious it appeared to me.  Of course we routinely apply the adjective "moderate" to any number of affiliations;  it is a prized possession in some circles, you know - nothing too extreme.  But my curious thought is this.  It seems to me that Catholic (or Anglican or whatever you will) is a subset of Christian.  And to apply the term "moderate" in any sense to anything which is a subset of Christian is a mistake.  Can one be a 'moderate' Christian in any sense that bears the weight of the name itself? Can one be moderate about anything which bears the name of Christ?

In the same way, if he had decided that God and immortality did not exist, he would at once have become an atheist and a socialist.  [ibid]

The Russians are coming: spring blogging Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Over the past little while we've done a series on Dante, and one on Virgil's Aeneid.  To complement the cheery springtime weather which is close upon us, I thought I would start a new series on one of my favourite authors:  Fyodor Dostoyevsky.  We'll start with the Brothers Karamazov:

I shall be told, perhaps, that red cheeks are not incompatible with fanaticismand mysticism; but I fancy that Alyosha was more of a realist than anyone. Oh! no doubt, in the monastery he fully believed in miracles, but, to my thinking, miracles are never a stumbling-block to the realist. It is not miracles that dispose realists to belief. The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve his own senses than admit the fact. Even if he admits it, he admits it as a fact of nature till then unrecognised by him. Faith does not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but the miracle from faith. If the realist once believes, then he is bound by his very realism to admit the miraculous also.

There are some online versions available;  and at this point I'm not certain which text I'll use, but nothing says the tulips are up like a Russian novel...  To begin, however, let me tell you about 3 young men who were seen walking away from a carpet store with large rugs heaved up on their backs:  the brothers carry mats off.