Mark & Amy
Amy is having a fascinating discussion on personal experience versus the ideal.
Mark Shea (to another commenter, not Amy): You are speaking as though the burden of proof is on the Tradition and not on the innovator. My question is why should the Church and ordinary human society be compelled to pretend that gay unions constitute marriage simply because some gays feel really really really strongly? The common sense positions of the Tradition: that it's not according to nature, that it has no place in the Tradition of the apostles carry a lot of weight. Why should I accept these tortured pro-gay marriage arguments, based largely on really really really strong feelings.
Amy (in a post): In past eras, there was no question for most that if your experience did not mesh with Church teaching, too bad. You were wrong and the Church was right, and it was up to you to bring yourself in line.
Of course, over the past couple of centuries, our sense of truth has shifted. And individual's experience is just as important, or even more important than pronouncements from authority, a sensibility exacerbated by our greater awareness of the historical context of authoritative teaching. We know about development of doctrine, we know about battles over doctrinal statements. We may believe that the Holy Spirit is at work in all of this, protecting the Church from error, but we also know Church teachings, as articulated over the centuries, is not unassociated from the cultures in which it is articulated.
So in the present day, it is well nigh impossible for many to simply discount their personal experiences. I am not saying that there is hopeless dissonance - if that were true, then there would be no truth. But given the context in which we are presently working these things out, we have to take into account the value people place on their personal experience as a means to discern truth.
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