Adiaphoron (pronounced add-e-ah-for-on or eh-dee-ah-for-on)
(1)
A matter of indifference.
(2)
In philosophy, a matter held to be morally neutral.
(3)
In Christian theology, something neither forbidden nor commanded by scripture
and thus neither prescribed nor proscribed in church law.
(4)
In Christian theology, the position that adherence to certain religious
doctrines, rituals or ceremonies (even if non-standard) are not matters of
concerned and may be practices or not, according to local preference.
1630s:
From the Latin adjective adiaphoron,
an inflection of adiaphoros (indifferent,
non-essential, morally neither right nor wrong), neuter of Ancient Greek ἀδιάφορος
(adiáphoros) (not different; indifferent),
the construct being from a- (used in
the sense of “not”) + diaphoros (different). The Greek ἀδιάφορον
(not different or differentiable) was thus the negation of διαφορά (diaphora) (difference). The noun adiaphoria (a failure to respond to
stimulation after a series of previously applied stimuli) is unrelated in
meaning, the construct being a- (not) + dia-
(through) + -phor (bearer) + -ia (the suffix used to form abstract nouns).
Adiaphoron is a noun & adjective, adiaphorist & adiaphorism are nouns,
adiaphorous, adiaphoristic & adiaphoric are adjectives; the noun plural is adiaphora.
In
the philosophy of the Ancient Greeks, adiaphorism was an aspect in more than
one school of thought. To the Cynics it
was used in the sense of “indifference” to both unfortunate events and the “stuff”
which, then as now, functioned as the markers of success in society: power,
fame & money. The ancestor of the
anti-materialists of the modern age, Cynicism understandably had more admirers
than adherents. The Stoics were more
deterministic, dividing all the concerns of humanity into (1) good, (2) bad and
(3) indifferent (adiaphora). What they
listed as good & bad was both predictable and (mostly) uncontroversial,
something like a form of utilitarianism but without that creed’s essential
component of distributive justice. The
implication, which retains much appeal to modern libertarians, was that for anything
to be thought a matter of ethical concern, it needed to be defined as “good” or
“bad”, the adiaphora being outside the scope of morality. Acknowledged or not, this is what all but the
most despotic legal and social systems can be reduced to although, being
culturally and historically specific, the results can vary greatly. In Athenian thought, the word also had a technical
meaning wholly removed from morality. To
the Pyrrhonists (the most uncompromising of the philosophical sceptics) who
essentially discarded all forms of imposed values in favor of defining everything
by objective truth alone, the significance of the adiaphora was that these were
things which, as a technical point, could not logically be differentiated.
Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.
In
Christianity, the adiaphora are those matters which, while they might be a
significant or traditional part of worship either universally or sectionally,
are not regarded as essential components of belief but may be practiced where the
preference exists. Within the schismatic
world of Christianity, views differ and what is essential doctrinal orthodoxy
in some denominations can be mere adiaphora in others. Historically, the matter of what is and is
not adiaphoric has been a matter of dispute and was a significant factor in the
sixteenth century Protestant Reformation, a movement much concerned with the appropriateness
of non-biblical ritual, rites, decorations and “…the other detritus of Popery”.
It took some time to work out but what emerged was a political compromise
which defined adiaphora essentially as those traditions “neither commanded nor forbidden in the Word of God”, thus
permitting the ongoing observation of the “bells & whistles” of worship
which had evolved over centuries and despite the entreaties of the iconoclasts, continued to be clung to by congregations. The
lesson of this compromise to accommodate “harmless
regionalisms” was well learned by some later leaders, religious and
secular.
Between
the Christian denominations, the same thing can variously be dogma, heresy or
mere adiaphora and an illustrative example of disagreement lies in the cult of
Mary (Mariology to the theologians). In
the Roman Catholic Church, the cult of Mary is based on dogma worked out over
centuries: (1) that Mary was a pure virgin, before, during and after giving
birth to Christ, (2) that Mary was the “Mother of God”, (3) that Mary, at her
conception was preserved immaculate from Original Sin and (4) that at the
conclusion of her earthly existence, Mary was assumed, body and soul into
heaven (it has never been made explicit whether Mary died on earth although this
does seem long to have been theological orthodoxy, the essential point being the
physical assumption (from the Latin assūmptiō (taking up)) meant her body did
not remain to be corrupted).
In
the intricate interplay of theology and church politics, what really appealed
to nineteenth century popes was linked to Gnosticism, the notion of “the dual realms of darkness and light beyond
the mere veil of appearances, where reside the Godhead, the Virgin Mary, Michael,
and all the angels and the saints, opposed by the powers of the Prince of
Darkness and his fallen angels who wander through the world for the ruin of
souls” as Leo XIII (1810–1903; pope 1878-1903) wrote in a prayer to be recited
at the end of every Mass. In other
words, whatever happens depends on Mary’s intercession with her Christ child “to so curb the power of Satan that war and
discord will be vanquished.” In turn, this depends on Marian revelations
sanctioned as authentic by the pope, whose power is thus parallel to Mary’s. It's something which has been criticized as "opportunistic constructed symbiosis".
Modern popes, if they hold such a view, no longer dwell on
it but it remains church dogma and because it was in the 1950s proclaimed with the only (formal) invocation of papal infallibility since the First Vatican Council (Vatican I; 1869-1870), any change would be something extraordinary. In some other
denominations Mary is more a historical figure than a cult and in the Anglican
Church the doctrine of the Assumption ceased to be part of orthodoxy in the
sixteenth century; while the Protestant Reformation wasn’t a project of
rationalism, it was certainly about simplicity and a rejection of some of the
mysticism upon which whole the clerical class depended for their
authority. Despite that, in Anglicanism,
the Assumption of Mary seems never to have been proscribed and in the twentieth
century it re-appeared in the traditions of the so-called “Anglo-Catholics” who adore the "Romish ways". For most of the Anglican communion however,
it seems to be thought of as adiaphora, one of those details of religious life important
to some but which seems neither to add much or threaten anything.
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