Sunday, January 28, 2024

Adiaphoron

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".

Assumption of the Virgin Mary (circa 1637) by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna.

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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