OPINION
THE TALL ORDER
PHILIPPINE ASIAN NEWS TODAY June 16 - 30, 2018
The problem with PDU30’s god
By Mon Datol
I was also perplexed like most
of my friends here in Toronto and
in other parts of the world of social
media on the latest tirades against
God by our president Digong,
whom in 2016 said God gave him
the presidency. I supported DU30
in his campaign for the presidency
like several colleagues in Manila led
by Manny Pinol, Al Mendoza among
the many believers of total changes
in governmental administration. In
2016, I saw Mayor Digong as..
when you are intent at making
sport of a myth because you have
mistaken it for a historical report,
then things go terribly wrong and
you too become vulnerable to the
charge of mixing up literary forms!
“But there too lies the
challenge to the Church, for how
competently and usefully have
our priests and catechists handled
the story of Adam and Eve? Is it
not in fact the case that in many whoever said that God created a
perfect world? In fact, a “perfect
creature” is a contradiction in terms,
and the notion of omniperfection
is likewise troublesome, because
the simultaneous and concurrent
realization of all perfection results
in the perfections canceling
themselves
out!
Human
experience bears this out: the more
compassionate a person is, the
stronger is the degree of empathy,
a catechism class, the saga of
the God-Adam-Eve trio is told no
differently from the way teachers
regale their pupils of accounts of
Lapu-lapu’s heroism in the face of
Magellan’s effrontery?
“Yes, Digong is to blame for
having missed the nuances of
literary form, but the Church must
also take the blame that Filipinos,
including graduates of Catholic
schools, have missed the point,
and still ask what kind of a fruit it
was that got the couple into trouble,
and whether the serpent had legs
or not before it was condemned by
God for all eternity to crawl on its
belly.
“Then, there is the notion of
“perfection.” Why would God create
a perfect world, Digong asks, and
then put a serpent in it that would
beguile his favored creatures? But the less capable she is of that
distanced and detached position
required of a neutral observer. The
first is a value in human relations,
the second, in scientific pursuits.
“The trouble with protology—
reflection
on
the
absolute
beginning—and
eschatology—
reflection on the absolute end—is
that both lie on “the other side” of
human experience. This is why the
books of Genesis and Revelation
present us with riotous imagery,
the unbridled constructs of human
imagination, but all with the richness
and pregnancy of metaphor.
The God-sent messiah to the
Filipino people.
*****
PrezRody said he believes
in God and he is a Catholic but
always stress his God is different
from the gods of the Catholic
Church, whom the 73-year-old
president calls stupid in his latest
rants. Dati sa mga pari at opisyales
ng Simbahang Katolika lang
galit si PrezRody. Now, Diyos na
ng Catholic Faith inuupakan ni
Digong! Huwaw! Anyare? Dami
tuloy nagtanong sakin while writing
this piece yesterday, asking…
Sino ba Diyos ni PrezRody?
*****
I read yesterday a comment by
a certain Fr. Ranhillo Aquino and
I believe he’s got wisdom on his
writings that I will share with you.
Masarap basahin. Here it is;
“NOT really God was the
object of Digong’s polemic, but the
Catholic teaching—or what he takes
to be Catholic teaching—on God,
particularly on the Story of Eden.
And that is just where the trouble
is. He took a potshot at Catholics,
particularly Catholic leadership in
the Philippines, but his jabs landed
smack in the region that even
scholars of religion avoid.
“Here are just some of the
issues. Distinguish between myth
and history. Both are useful, and
the categories of “true” and “false:
Are applicable to both, following
different criteria and standards. For
the truth of a myth involves what
Ricoeur calls “metaphorical truth,”
and the fecundity of suggestion,
allusion and analogy. Obviously,
“But why pick on the Christian
faith?
Every religion has its own
myths and sagas and metaphors
and visions. And while dilettantes
may find it entertaining to compare
WWW.PHILIPPINEASIANNEWSTODAY.COM
the absurdity of the stories the
various religions tell, the more
thoughtful will pay close attention
to the depths of human experience
as well as to the flashes of Divine
revelation that they conceal.
“Not God, but the God we teach
about—and that is an important
point, because it compels us to
revisit our conceptuality of God as
well as of the concept of creation.
And it is not only Digong we must
have in mind. When our youngsters
go for university studies and read
Stephen Hawking’s works and
how physicists advocate the idea
of “spontaneous creation” and the
superfluity of any other causal factor,
or study the evolution of species
and how many animal, even human
kinds, led to dead-ends, apparently
trails of failed experiments, then
the question becomes very urgent
indeed: “What does it mean that an
all intelligent, all good God created
the world”—and to presume that
we have a ready to answer to this, or
that repeating wellworn formularies
will do can be disastrous to the
future of the faith.”
“We have been complacent
about the need to study with
assiduousness and to teach with
competence—partly because, in
the past, the words of a priest were
as good as the words of the Lord.
Not anymore. A degree of cynicism
is good for our faith. It takes us
through a desert of criticism to
enable it to emerge purified of
naiveté.
“It will not help Digong to
continue shaming Catholics for
what they bel