The Church, Amoris Laetitia and 'paradigm shifts'

Cardinal Parolin: 'Amoris Laetitia' calls for 'change of attitude' toward families (NCR)

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH DOESN’T DO “PARADIGM SHIFTS” (First Things)

No paradigm shifts, Weigel says -- but church history is full of them (NCR)

Cupich says 'Amoris Laetitia' changes how church teaches families, by learning (NCR)

I find this succession of interventions interesting not so much because of what they say about Amoris Laetitia per se, but because of the conversation on change in the Church. Most of us recognise that there has always been change in the Church, some of it quite radical, and welcome the ongoing change which is taking place, but there is always a reactionary minority who push back at change and try to maintain that the Church doesn't change significantly.

Some discussion in Ch XIII of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, excerpt of outline below re different approaches of social v natural science made me think that there's space here to think more deeply about how paradigm shift occurs in church doctrine/application v science? Winters skates close: "When discussion is not permitted, and honest questions avoided, the Church must assert its teachings on the basis of "authority" alone; and if those teachings do not cohere with the people's lived experience, a regime of hypocrisy and indifference arises that does more to undermine "authority" than any honest discussion possibly could." Humanae Vitae is cited as Exhibit A.

"Cupich said he understood that for some people adapting to the teaching of Amoris Laetitia "will take some adjustment. We have to be patient with that..If we're going to be a teaching church, a teaching church has to be patient." Max Planck's observation might be especially applicable: "A new...truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grow up that is familiar with it"? Meanwhile, the new generations increasingly fail to show up in those pews...

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
by Thomas S. Kuhn
Outline and Study Guide prepared by Professor Frank Pajares, Emory University

...Although a generation is sometimes required to effect a paradigm change, scientific communities have again and again been converted to new paradigms.

Max Planck: A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grow up that is familiar with it.

But Kuhn argues that Planck's famous remark overstates the case.
Neither proof nor error is at issue.
The transfer of allegiance from paradigm to paradigm is a conversion experience that cannot be forced.
Proponents of a paradigm devote their lives and careers to the paradigm.
Lifelong resistance is not a violation of scientific standards but an index to the nature of scientific research itself.
The source of the resistance is the assurance that
the older paradigm will ultimately solve all its problems.
nature can be shoved into the box the paradigm provides.
Actually, that same assurance is what makes normal science possible.
Some scientists, particularly the older and more experienced ones, may resist indefinitely, but most can be reached in one way or another.

...More scientists, convinced of the new view's fruitfulness, will adopt the new mode of practicing normal science (until only a few elderly hold-outs will remain).

And we cannot say that they are (were) wrong.
Perhaps the scientist who continues to resist after the whole profession has been converted has ipso facto ceased to be a scientist...

https://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/Kuhn.html

_______________________________________________________________________

Re THE CATHOLIC CHURCH DOESN’T DO “PARADIGM SHIFTS” (First Things), could nemesis Han Kung's application of Kuhn's theory to Christianity be part of the reason conservatives reject idea of paradigm shift?

Hans Küng applies Thomas Kuhn's theory of paradigm change to the entire history of Christian thought and theology. He identifies six historical "macromodels": 1) the apocalyptic paradigm of primitive Christianity, 2) the Hellenistic paradigm of the patristic period, 3) the medieval Roman Catholic paradigm, 4) the Protestant (Reformation) paradigm, 5) the modern Enlightenment paradigm, and 6) the emerging ecumenical paradigm. He also discusses five analogies between natural science and theology in relation to paradigm shifts. Küng addresses paradigm change in his books, Paradigm Change in Theology and Theology for the Third Millennium: An Ecumenical View

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift

Thanks, margd. When I read what you quoted it immediately brought to mind Richard Rohr's meditation for today entitled Mythos and Logos.

>>2 John5918: The theme of "change in the Church" became a major point in the recent discussion between Ross Douthat and Massimo Faggioli on the first five years of Pope Francis' pontificate: http://digital.library.fordham.edu/digital/collection/rc/id/131/rec/1

Change is obviously the $64,000 question in the church.

In this case, however, I was amused to do a quick Google search on Weigel's own works, and see him use exactly that unlawful phrase--calling for a "paradigm shift" toward his hobby-horse idea, "evangelical Catholicism."

https://twitter.com/librarythingtim/status/958768475631071232

Paradigm shift for me, but not for thee!