Contingency and Sub-Plots

 John Paul II University has free online courses.  ....many of them to do with the creative arts, as that is the focus of the institution.   I listened to a couple of the lectures from The Basics of Storytelling a couple of months ago, but got distracted and didn't finish.    

Screenwriter Chris Riley introduces the Hero-Goal-Obstacle Dynamic as the engine of any story.   The hero is who the story is about -- the "heart" as he says.   The goal is the motivation for the hero -- what he or she wants/needs/is willing to strive for.    The obstacles can be exterior or interior and provide the conflict, the drama, the ups and downs of which the narrative is composed. 

When I was thinking about the story outlines I made it occurred to me that each of the Catholic groups, genres, types or whatever you would call them have a sort of goal or operating value.   Of course, presumably all Catholics have a goal of being united with God through all eternity and of cooperating with Him to bring as many others as possible to this happy state.    But beyond that, it seems they focus to some extent on different things as follows, at least in public discourse:

• #1.  Tradition  -- the timeless liturgy, doctrine, and practices of the past.
• #2.  Continuity -  the past and present must be reconciliable 
• #3.  Magisterium -- conceived generally as what the current pope says or values.
• #4.  Change --  I am not sure if this is the best way to say it -- maybe "becoming" would be better.   AI says "social justice".    Maybe "progress".

These values or goals are not strictly exclusionary -- it's more like a continuum, like one of those personality quizzes, where some people score higher in some things and others in different ones. 

Seeing these values listed out, I see that properly speaking, they are almost all to do with Time as well as Truth.   They are considerations that link contingency with duration, with eternity.   But because we are limited -- contingent -- it's very difficult to see the whole picture.  There's a tendency to grab part of it.  And yes, I do find myself dangerously close to citing the story of the Blind Men and the Elephant.   I will spare you.     Also the one about getting the Big Rocks in place before adding the Pebbles.  

My understanding of what Pope Leo XIV is trying to do is to put these components back together.    Of course he is not the only one, but he is a key figure.  He bears the keys, in fact.   I think this needs to be done. ... this big picture unifying.    It has to be done in a right way, not by mushing a lot of vague Catholic things together.  The Principle of Non-Contradiction is still in effect.    

On the bright side, the Church is not inventing the project from scratch.... there is a whole history of ways and means... nor is the Church reliant on merely human strengths. 

Those values or goals or whatever --- tradition, continuity, the magisterium, change -- are meant to be integrated.   They are not in themselves at odds with each other -- quite the opposite.   The first three are necessary.   I was going to say the last is necessary in a different way -- but then, I wonder if that's actually true.   They are all addressed to our unique human condition, moving through temporal sequence, from potency to actuality, from unknowing to knowing, from infancy to senescence, etc.     

I guess one could say that the fourth term, change, is a material reality (part of the perfecting process of contingent humans, as Newman wrote), continuity is the logical operating principle, tradition (in the Catholic sense) and magisterium are specific provisions for our earthly journeys.    

It also occurs to me that "becoming" or "change" is really the Catholic battleground for all four groups.   The stories are all about what is happening now and what else will happen as a result.   As Christians we know basically how the story will end --  "every knee shall bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord."    "The gates of hell shall not prevail."  

 The angsty part is how we individually are supposed to contribute to the happy ending.   In that way, the four stories are subplots and each of us has his or her own micro-subplot, or some perhaps more major -- like the Popes, for whom we should pray.      

This is inevitably quite messy, this whole story, and the way I wrote about it.  

I think that brings this to a chapter-closing, at least for now, for this blog topic-arc.