ORIGINAL RESEARCH

 

A critical assessment of Anton Szandor LaVey's Philosophy of Indulgence as a dogma based assault on Scripture

 

 

Simon Muwowo; Johan Buitendag

Department of Dogmatics and Christian Ethics, University of Pretoria, South Africa

Correspondence

 

 

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ABSTRACT

The aim of this article has been to critically assess and unmask Anton Szandor LaVey's Philosophy of Indulgence reflected in The Satanic Bible (1969) as a dogma based assault on Scripture. The main task of this article has been to expose some contemporary ethical and dogmatic utterances used to express disagreements which LaVey alludes to in The Satanic Bible against Scripture. The debate in which these disagreements are expressed is their interminable character of the concept of what defines human morality. The philosophy under review has been assessed according to its effects on humanity. Does it create a just world and a set of values in the same way Scripture does or does it create unity of purpose or divergent views that put the world and the church on crossroads? The conclusion of this work posits a challenge towards evaluating the theology of nature, which now appears to be the main theological framework of the 21st century debate.

Keywords: philosophy; indulgence; moral agency; theology of nature

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Full text available only in PDF format.

 

 

References

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Correspondence:
Johan Buitendag
Department of Dogmatics and Christian Ethics, Faculty of Theology
University of Pretoria
Pretoria 0002
South Africa
Email: johan.buitendag@up.ac.za

Received: 25 Aug. 2010
Accepted: 17 Nov. 2010
Published: 08 Dec. 2010

 

 

Note: This article is based on a thesis that was presented as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MA (Dogmatics) in 2009 at the University of Pretoria, completed by the first author under the supervision of Prof. Dr Johan Buitendag.