On the eternal death of heaven, theologies of vagueness, Karen Elizabeth Park, the late The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, and how the choirs of angels contradict a former comedian
I directly quote almost half of the words in your article (excepting your quotations) and I don’t think that I left out any important context. If I am misrepresenting your ideas, I would like to know that, but you need to tell me which ideas. For example, do you believe that we will have individual conscious experiences after death?
I read Miss Karen's original article to make sure I understood her correctly after seeing her comment here. If I may, perhaps what she is driving at is that she feels you may not have addressed the core claim of her essay. Her essay is not inordinately long, and actually relatively little of it actually pertains to what Colbert or the Catholic mystics think about heaven in particular. At no point does she either quote or even informally reference a mystic speaking on the topic of heaven specifically. My charitable read is that she feels her core claim is that American/Western Christianity is too individualistic, exemplified in their vision of heaven as a mere continuation of the earthly life and the earthly person, but in perpetuity, rather than a sort of real union between the person and God; and that Western Christianity could learn a lot from its own ancient tradition to get a less individualistic and more 'Eastern' mystic perspective.
I don't know that I actually disagree in substance with much of what she says in her piece, except for the lead itself, which was that 'Catholic mystics would have understood Stephen Colbert's answer about death', which is what you spent the bulk of your piece refuting. Perhaps she feels that you argued with a different essay than her own because, in truth, very little of her piece was actually about heaven specifically and rather about the abandonment of self more broadly, but the issue is that the claim she originally made and chose for the title of her essay *was* particular, and was particularly wrong, as you thoroughly demonstrate. As you point out, to conflate a general sense of 'emptying of self' with an eschatological claim about the dispersion of the self after death is not reasonable, and she is not reading Colbert in the plain sense that he presents his position. All of this was addressed in your piece, so I struggle to see how she feels you responded to a different essay, but I would be more than interested to hear her speak for herself.
That could definitely be what she means. I'm a little lost otherwise. That said, I re-read her article, trying my best to read any other thesis besides "Stephen Colbert’s statement is justified by the Catholic mystics, who believed that the autonomous self does not continue after death." That's the thesis I was responding to, and it is often mentioned in her original article. These are the clearest examples, which I think are fairly clear:
“American Christians imagine death as a state in which the autonomous self survives intact forever. But this idea of the eternal persistence of the glorified self is not the only way that salvation or the afterlife has been understood in the Christian tradition. In fact, again and again, the mystics speak not about preserving the ego but surrendering it to God or, as Colbert put it, “some greater being.” Christianity has not always been preoccupied with securing personal selfhood for all eternity but often with losing it inside divine love.”
“But the mystics … imagined that the final destiny of the soul may not be the intact continuance of the self, but its opposite—the hollowing out or “dispersion” of the self into something greater.”
You're arguing with a different essay than the one I wrote. Beyond that I have nothing further to add.
I directly quote almost half of the words in your article (excepting your quotations) and I don’t think that I left out any important context. If I am misrepresenting your ideas, I would like to know that, but you need to tell me which ideas. For example, do you believe that we will have individual conscious experiences after death?
I read Miss Karen's original article to make sure I understood her correctly after seeing her comment here. If I may, perhaps what she is driving at is that she feels you may not have addressed the core claim of her essay. Her essay is not inordinately long, and actually relatively little of it actually pertains to what Colbert or the Catholic mystics think about heaven in particular. At no point does she either quote or even informally reference a mystic speaking on the topic of heaven specifically. My charitable read is that she feels her core claim is that American/Western Christianity is too individualistic, exemplified in their vision of heaven as a mere continuation of the earthly life and the earthly person, but in perpetuity, rather than a sort of real union between the person and God; and that Western Christianity could learn a lot from its own ancient tradition to get a less individualistic and more 'Eastern' mystic perspective.
I don't know that I actually disagree in substance with much of what she says in her piece, except for the lead itself, which was that 'Catholic mystics would have understood Stephen Colbert's answer about death', which is what you spent the bulk of your piece refuting. Perhaps she feels that you argued with a different essay than her own because, in truth, very little of her piece was actually about heaven specifically and rather about the abandonment of self more broadly, but the issue is that the claim she originally made and chose for the title of her essay *was* particular, and was particularly wrong, as you thoroughly demonstrate. As you point out, to conflate a general sense of 'emptying of self' with an eschatological claim about the dispersion of the self after death is not reasonable, and she is not reading Colbert in the plain sense that he presents his position. All of this was addressed in your piece, so I struggle to see how she feels you responded to a different essay, but I would be more than interested to hear her speak for herself.
That could definitely be what she means. I'm a little lost otherwise. That said, I re-read her article, trying my best to read any other thesis besides "Stephen Colbert’s statement is justified by the Catholic mystics, who believed that the autonomous self does not continue after death." That's the thesis I was responding to, and it is often mentioned in her original article. These are the clearest examples, which I think are fairly clear:
“American Christians imagine death as a state in which the autonomous self survives intact forever. But this idea of the eternal persistence of the glorified self is not the only way that salvation or the afterlife has been understood in the Christian tradition. In fact, again and again, the mystics speak not about preserving the ego but surrendering it to God or, as Colbert put it, “some greater being.” Christianity has not always been preoccupied with securing personal selfhood for all eternity but often with losing it inside divine love.”
“But the mystics … imagined that the final destiny of the soul may not be the intact continuance of the self, but its opposite—the hollowing out or “dispersion” of the self into something greater.”
She'll never respond to this (because she can't), but great work!
Here’s hoping she will though! I’ve found comment dialogues to be surprisingly fruitful and understanding, against all expectations.
Your analysis makes sense. Colbert doesn’t.
He’s figured out that smugness overrules sense. It’s a schoolyard bullying tactic that works just as well in political commentary.
I think his parents own/owned half of Maryland
In that case I’m just jealous. I’d have no issue with his theology if his mom gave me a house.
Even if it has to be in Maryland?
Willing to change views for a nice place in Annapolis myself..
Hey, I can always sell it and buy a place in Wisconsin
And have money left for 3 in the ozarks
I misspoke. I meant “buy Wisconsin”