The modern age understands religion as well as it does any large scale social phenomena; poorly and with many (mis)apprehensions which (mis)guide our conclusions as soon as one begins using the word to organize his thought. Sloppy language leads to sloppy thinking, as a word in the implicit logical calculus may inadvertently trade off of distinct and competing uses of the word. The word ‘religion’ in this sense has been the cause of much confusion and wasted time, but then inasmuch as the meaning of a word is a theory of its use, it takes time for incomplete theories to be falsified and fall out of use. What is religion? A grand meta-narrative, a belief in the supernatural, deep metaphysical commitment? It’s a little of each of these, with the concomitant effects on society as it structures the possible relations of its individual adherents.

As the modern age understands Christianity, it is constituted by three principal branches: Catholicism, Protestantism, and Orthodoxy. Superficially, this appears apt given there are, indeed, three main divisions noted internally. However, upon deeper reflection and given the kinds of division noted internally, this division makes little sense. Catholicism and Orthodoxy understand each other to be schismatically separate, while in turn both of these and Protestantism understand each other to be doctrinally separate. Only crudely could these forms of separation be thought equivalent and equal. What is actually equivalent between these three bodies? We can certainly note that they share in common certain words, but their usage, or meaning, is completely opposed. Catholics and Orthodox do not mean by ‘Christ’ what Protestants do. To suppose the usage entails identity with some greater thing called “Christianity,” except in the sense of historical accident, is to confuse the sign with the sense. Outside of historical accident, it makes little sense to ever refer to Christianity as though it were some thing defined by a doctrinal essence.

To wit, the idea of Christianity as used by the Anglicized West is little better than propaganda. It imbues Protestantism with the historical gravity of Catholicism, and makes many suppose Catholicism but just another form of Protestantism. Neither of these could be more mistaken. Protestantism is a derivative of Catholicism; were there no Catholicism, then historically speaking Protestantism could never be. The original formulations of doctrine, especially those concerning the extent and purpose of the Bible, were purely the result of doctrinal development which gains its authority not from the Bible itself, but the Apostolic Succession of the Catholic Church. Protestantism, having no such embodied authority, is left to the individualistic project of one’s interpretation of the Bible as informed by their cultural background. In terms of memetic propagation, the doctrines of the Catholic Church and the doctrines of Protestant bodies are not subject to an equivalent decay. In the former, one witnesses the continual refinement of doctrines. There is not an evolution, in which later doctrines replace earlier ones, but rather later formulations are but more specific articulations of earlier articulations. The Apostles Creed prefigures and is more perfectly articulated in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, without the later creed supplanting or disavowing the earlier. The doctrines of the Protestant bodies are, contrariwise, not intended as clearer articulations of earlier formulas, nor could they be, but are novel and original conceptions of Christian (speaking merely as an historical term of art) understanding. Luther disavows the Church, and in turn is disavowed by Calvin, who is in turn disavowed by Rousseau, and so on and so forth up to the present day. This continual rejection of what has come before, this eternal and insatiable protest against the past, appears to be the only essential element of Protestantism. After all, there is no authoritative body to tell us what constitutes the boundaries of Protestant doctrine, save that it isn’t Catholic.

In examining the historical ebbs and flows of Protestantism, then, we cannot suggest that the development of doctrines is what takes place, but an evolution as doctrines are passed forward on the basis of their cultural fitness and little else. This suggests that between cultures one finds not merely cultural aspects of Protestantism, but essential elements which puts the Huguenots at an essential remove from the Anglicans, who are in turn at an essential remove from those who find themselves culturally removed not only by geography by history. Ergo, the cladistic critique of Moldbug.

The cladistic critique is a fundamental instance of critical memetics. It postulates a spiritual descent from the Protestant Formation (I won’t call it a reformation, as that presupposes it was a reform, rather than the formation of something entirely original and distinct) down through to the present exemplars of those received philosophical traditions which instantiate the Protestant sphere. If Dawkins may be rightly considered a Protestant (a “Christian atheist” as Moldbug calls him), would this not count as a reductio of his forebears, all the way back to Luther?

The cladistic critique impugns nothing whatsoever of Catholicism which, operating under a different memetic standard, has little to fear from doctrinal evolution occurring within. Hierarchy imposes stricter standards through which memes may be passed on; one reflects on the Medieval Church’s penchant for limiting theological instruction, instead preferring moral and spiritual guidance from the pulpit while leaving the former to her trained theologians under the watchful eye of the bishop or abbot. This makes sense given the suggestion that memetic propagation is not equivalent between classes. A clerical class will be less interested in signaling holiness through their speculations and more interested with the speculation itself, helping to hone its meaning to a fine point, while in the lower and plebeian classes what would otherwise be a topic of speculation becomes an arena for vetting fashionable opinion. This is at least part of why Catholicism and Protestantism cannot be treated as equal forms or even equal religions. Their only substantial relation is a historical contingency, with all of Protestantism being a derivative form of the signs of Catholicism without a respect of their original sense. If one doubts this, consider the willingness of Protestants to disregard and disrespect the True Presence.

On the whole, one should expect a reverence for Catholicism from these quarters. Even those who find themselves unable to believe yet defer to the Catholic Church for her proven ability to form and maintain civilization in the West. In the long run, Protestantism will prove itself an anomaly, an aberration of Christianity and Western thought.