Gnosticism as background of Kardinal Kasper - and the liturgical reform
Erroneous Trio: Mentality of Change - Evolutionism - Gnosticism
Stark points to a recent interview of the new General of the Jesuits, Arturo Soza. He suggested to reinterpret the words of Jesus according to a changing language, context and culture. Stark summarized this position as the following mentality: "Things always change. We don't know what our Lord really said. It all depends on several changing contexts."
The ideological layer behind the described mentality is for Stark evolutionism: History is - in nature and in society - seen as an uprising development , that makes things - always and automatically - better and better.
Stark sees underneath the mentality of change and the ideology of evolution another deeper layer: the metaphysics of Gnosticism: "It says in its core, that not only the world is developing, but that the Absolute in itself develops by flowing into its own creation."
Three views of the world: Heathendom, Christendom or Gnosticism
In Gnosticism the Divine cause of everything develops itself by the evolution of nature and culture: "The gnostic metaphysics has been constructed at the same time, when the Catholic Church started to lay down her theological foundation by means of Greek philosophy - in the second century."
Gnosticism is according to Stark the "very alternative" to Christianity: "Each and every heretical movement in the Church history from the ancient times through the middle ages until today has always been based on this gnostic metaphysics."
Gnosticism rising since the 15th century - preparing the liturgical reform
Stark explains that gnostic thoughts have poisoned the European culture especially since the 15th century. The popes of the 19th century fought liberalism (and modernism which is "liberalism within the church"): "The Church came under pressure and some intellectuals thought that the way to deal with the problem might be to adopt Catholic thought and Catholic teaching to some 'new' metaphysic ideas that where invented in the beginning of the 19th century."
These ideas were - according to Stark - connected with German idealism, especially the protestant philosophers Schelling (+1854) and Hegel (+1831). Some theologians tried to base Catholic teaching on the metaphysical ground of German idealism and built the so called "Thübinger Schule". Stark points out that Kardinal Walter Kasper is a proud member of this "Thübinger Schule".
Stark further concludes, that the evolutionary thought - based in Gnosticism and its end - provided the context in which the liturgy was changed and reinterpreted.
A false concept of identity
Later in the panel discussion Stark talks about the alternative between Heraclitus (+ 460 BC) and Parmenides (early fifth century BC) as "the big struggle in Greek philosophy": "They both got it wrong." Stark sees in Heraclitus ("everything flows") already Hegel in core and in Parmenides the pantheistic Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza (+ 1677).
Heraclitus and also Parmenides denied that there is something outside the cosmos and identified the Divine in different ways with the cosmos. That's why Starks describes them both as heathens. He explains that Plato (+348 BC), who thought the Divine transcendent, got it right: "He invented a possibility to think change within stability or stability within change."
False Tradition: Not handing on the faith, but the structure of a Church
Many modern theologians used - according to Stark - the false concept of identity and tradition influenced by Heraclitus. In his philosophy nothing has an identity but the structures in which the flux continue.
This influence led - without being aware of it - to a concept of tradition and identity which Stark describes as gnostic and which he identifies in Walter Kasper. In Kasper nothing in tradition is stable but tradition itself. Development does not hand on substance but it only demands to be connected with something earlier. "Within the developement everything can change. There is nothing identical."
