Don't Let the Lights Go Out

Our society is continuously engaged in pseudo-debates about a range of issues, from abortion to gun control to redefining marriage to the proper response to poverty and immigration concerns. I call them "pseudo-debates" because they quite often seem to be missing a constitutive component of a debate: thought. There's an awful lot of emoting, but not a whole lot of thinking. People deem it sufficient to decide a matter merely by the expression of their feelings about it. Rather than defining our terms, stating our principles, making our arguments, and considering objections (in the serenely reasonable style of the medieval Scholastic philosophers), we instead shout and scream and stamp and snivel and point fingers and tear our hair out and rend our garments and call each other hateful and fear-mongers and heartless and brainless and just about every other pejorative we can conjure up (in the typically passionate style of the modern philosophers, who began by defending reason and usually ended by denying its applicability or trustworthiness).

This is not only immoral in its lack of charity, it's unproductive. We don't get anywhere in our discussions with each other, and when one side does get enough momentum going on its side to win the tug-of-war, we meet a host of unintended consequences that may well have been foreseen had we thought our way through things, and in the end everybody falls down. It reminds me of a parable from G.K. Chesterton's book Heretics (1905):

Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, “Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good–” At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval practicality. But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.

Though the medieval method may be too arid for the tastes of some, there is no denying its precision and efficiency. If the goal of debate is to air the various perspectives and thoughts of all and come to a reasoned conclusion on the subject, then we must stop our public debates from turning into shouting matches and lynch mobs and witch-hunts, and return to the cathedral school and the university of the pre-modern period, with its disputatio and quodlibet debates. Let's hurry, before the lights go out!

Bigger on the Inside

If you ask a fan of Doctor Who to describe the Doctor's time machine, the TARDIS, in one sentence, they would very likely use the phrase that most characters in the show use upon first encountering it: "It's bigger on the inside." Externally inspected, it appears to be an ordinary British policeman's box from the 1960s; but, thanks to the technological feats of the people of the planet Gallifrey, inside it is nearly limitless in size, holding guest rooms and wardrobes and libraries and swimming pools and laboratories and, for an engine, an artificial black hole. It's representative of the show's whole charm: things aren't what they appear, they have a deeper secret to be uncovered--a silly little man with a blue box turns out to be a 1,200-year old Time Lord with the most powerful machine in the universe at his disposal. But to discover that, you have to trust him. You have to step through the door to learn that it's bigger on the inside.

I always thought that phrase sounded familiar. Then I remembered I'd heard it before! In two places, actually. One is in C.S. Lewis' book The Last Battle, from the Chronicles of Narnia series. The book's characters come to a walled garden, but once they enter its gates they find it's an endlessly expansive world in itself, "bigger on the inside." From the outside the boundaries of the garden could be clearly seen; but from the inside, the characters discover they can forever go "further up and further in." Lucy notes that once, in our own world, there was a cave that was bigger on the inside, too--meaning the cave in Bethlehem where Christ was born, where a little manger held a tiny babe who was the infinite God. With both the garden and the cave, you have to enter to discover it's bigger on the inside.

The other place I had encountered this phrase was in G.K. Chesterton's book The Catholic Church and Conversion. Chesterton says that the non-believer or non-Catholic will look at the Church and see an admittedly large and old human organization, but nothing more--no different from the nation of China, for example. But if you enter its doors you step into 2,000 years of tradition and belief, and a spiritual history that stretches back to the Garden of Eden; you step into the heavenly liturgy itself through the bridge of the Holy Mass; you come into the very presence of God in the Blessed Sacrament, itself an example of an apparently small thing holding an infinite reality within it. When you approach the Church and its mysteries with the eyes of faith, you are able to perceive it in all its glory and majesty and wonder. Thus, "when the convert has entered the Church, he finds that the Church is much larger inside than it is outside."

A madman with a blue box. A lion with a gated garden. A babe in a cave. A small wafer of bread. Each contains a secret: they're bigger on the inside. But to see it, you have to trust them.

Pope Paul the Prophet

This last week saw the 45th anniversary of the promulgation of Pope Paul VI's encyclical on the regulation of births, Humanae Vitae, known for addressing an issue (contraception) that is most talked about in the Church for how little it is talked about in churches. In an article on National Review's website, George Weigel commented that it was "an encyclical that was not so much rejected (pace the utterly predictable 45th-anniversary commentary) as it was unread, untaught, ill-considered — and thus unappreciated." This is reminiscent of Chesterton's line that "It is not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult, and left untried": just so, it is not that Humanae Vitae was read and found deficient, but rather that its known message was found undesirable, and so the document was left unread.

I won't work through the encyclical's argument here, but I will point to one rather prophetic piece of it as an argument in its favor. Pope Paul made four predictions about the effects that widespread use of artificial birth control would have on society:

1. a general lowering of moral standards; 
2. increased marital infidelity; 
3. the reduction of women to instruments for the fulfillment of male desire; and 
4. public authorities engaging in coercive population planning programs. 

Let's see, how'd he do? 

Since 1968, have we seen a general lowering of moral standards? Do we see an increase in sexually explicit material in films and TV? An increasingly "oh well" attitude toward profanity? An increase in kids cheating in school and feeling bad, that not they've done wrong, but that they've been caught? Check. (You might ask, "What does contraception have to do with profanity and cheating in school?" There are lots of dots to connect between the two, but let's just note for the moment that the pope was right about the result.)

Since 1968, have we seen increased rates in adultery, including an increase in women cheating on men? Check.

Since 1968, have we seen women increasingly made into sex objects? An enormous rise in consumption of pornography? An increased sexualization of women in the media, at increasingly younger ages? (Two years ago MTV cancelled a show detailing the sex lives of teenagers because many complained it amounted to child pornography.) Check.

Since 1968, have we seen Western governments pushing birth control in other countries and even making monetary aid dependent on implementing these "family planning" programs? Have we seen the US government forcing employers to pay for contraceptives, even when it violates their consciences? Check.

In any scientific experiment, you consider your hypothesis proved if the results of your experiment are as you predicted them. So, if Pope Paul was right about the negative consequences that an increased use of artificial birth control would have on society, is it at least within the realm of possibility that he (and the Church's steadfast two millenia tradition) might have been right on the nature of artificial birth control itself? Just maybe?

Religious but Not Spiritual

Many of us know someone who claims to be "spiritual but not religious." This sort of person can come in a variety of forms. There are the people who acknowledge some sort of vague "higher power"; the people who think there's a little truth in all the world's religious traditions (though, as Chesterton pointed out, they tend to have a little bias and essentially say things like, "Christianity and Buddhism have a lot in common, especially Buddhism"); the people who think it more valuable to commune with the Divine by appreciating the wonder of nature on a Sunday morning bike ride than by sitting in a church with bad 1970s decor and design, listening to bad 1980s church-pop music, hearing a sermon that's nothing more than an inspired reading of Dr. Seuss' "Oh, the Places You Will Go!" (I actually have some slight bit of sympathy for these people); the people who think that churches need to stop blabbing on about all this "sin" business and just focus on, like, the love, man; the people who think that religions are simply man-made institutions constructed and designed to let a privileged few control the lives of the masses.

Broadly, then, we can say that these are people who are willing to admit there's more to reality than what physics can tell us, but going too far beyond that just leads to oppression and one person imposing their opinions on others. Yeah, we know these people. But they're not the focus of my thought today. Rather, I want to talk about their opposite counterparts: the people who are religious but not spiritual.

Now, this may seem an odd category, because I doubt you've ever encountered someone who described themselves as "religious but not spiritual," but they exist. And it's just as much of a problem.

What do I mean by this term? The "religious but not spiritual" person is one who adheres to religious observances but whose inner spiritual life is lacking. It's the person who goes to Mass on Sunday but doesn't talk to God any other day of the week (or perhaps even on Sunday). It's the person who gets all worked up about the liturgy being conducted according to the rubrics, but cares nothing for what the liturgical actions signify or effect. It's the person who says the Rosary but doesn't pray the Rosary. It's the person who likes to receive ashes on their forehead at the beginning of Lent but makes no attempt at penance during those 40 days. They give the external appearance of religiosity but lack the internal spiritual fervor that should animate it.

This applies not only to what we feel, but also to what we think, for our faith includes a worldview, a set of propositions about the nature of reality--a Catholic spirituality is one with substance and content. The "religious but not spiritual" person, then, is also the person who says they are Catholic and marks the seasons of their life by participating in the Church's rites (e.g. has their wedding in the church, has their children baptized, have Catholic funerals for themselves and their loved ones) but disbelieves in or dissents from Church teaching, so that they are Catholic in name only. They marry while accepting divorce or same-sex marriage; they baptize while disbelieving in sin; they hold a funeral without any thought to praying for the dead or hoping in the Resurrection. They give the external appearance of religiosity but lack the internal conviction that should animate it.

My purpose here is not to attack or demonize or denigrate these people, merely to point out their existence--most of all because they may not even realize they themselves fall into this category.

In both of the cases described above, where there is a disparity between spirituality and religiosity, we can see the problem: one seems to lack shape, the other lacking substance. It's like two people trying to drink a cup of water, but one person saying, "I'll just take the cup, thanks," and the other saying, "Just give me the water, I don't need the cup." Neither is going to quench their thirst.

It's not good for us to do one thing and think another. It creates a disconnect. When our thoughts and actions are not integrated, we lack integrity. A house divided against itself cannot stand: sooner or later, it falls apart. It does us little good to go through the motions. I'd invite all of my readers to examine themselves, their actions, their thoughts, their dispositions, their motivations, to see if they sync up. Don't panic if you find a disparity, either momentary or habitual. Pray to God for a more ardent faith, for a faithful heart, for a receptive intellect. Pray to God for wholeness.

Loving Your Everyday Enemies

I'd like to compare two situations in life.

Situation #1: Drivers here in the Bay Area (pardon the impending pun) drive me crazy. They treat the highway like a stunt course. They dodge between cars like a pickpocket weaving through a crowd to evade the police. And, the one that really chafes my backside, they rarely signal when changing lanes. Those who know me to be a mild-mannered fellow may be surprised at my reactions: I swear at them; I question their intelligence and their parentage, and compare them to the less reputable parts of the human body; I have a strong desire to run them off the road and put them out of my misery. Some of you may be reading this nodding your heads and recalling similar feelings in yourselves. 

Situation #2: When Osama bin Laden was killed, part of me was glad that SOB had finally been taken out, but another part of me knew I ought not rejoice in another person's death. As a Christian I am compelled by the Lord's command to love my enemies, and difficult as it may be to will the good for someone who would have gladly killed me given the chance, I know I must do the right thing and pray that God have mercy on his soul.

Question: Where is all my noble benevolence in situation #1? Why do I not pray for my enemies as they're endangering my life on the road?

It seems much easier to be forgiving and compassionate (or at the very least to think you're being those things) toward an enemy who is far away, nearly mythic in stature, and already dead, than toward one who is nearby, ordinary, and still living. It seems much easier to conjure up an attitude of holiness in a grand situation than in the ordinary and everyday. But the ordinary and everyday situations are the ones we face most often. Our habits are formed by how we react to situations; those repeated reactions form the shape of our character. It's like a path or a trail developing by repeated usage, like ruts in the road caused by the wheels going over the same spots. If we react in ways that are of God, that are responses to His grace, we will form a heavenly character; if we do the opposite, we will form a hellish character. In a real way, our eternal destiny will be determined by how we react to the mundane happenings in life. So what good does it do me to say "I forgive you" of Saddam Hussein or Joseph Goebbels yet revile the lady in the grocery store who brings 17 items to the "15 items or fewer" line?

G.K. Chesterton put it well once, as he tended to put all things well: "The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people" (Illustrated London News - July 16, 1910). If I want my life to be such that it is Christ who lives in me (Galatians 2:20), I need to have a loving disposition when someone repeatedly sniffles instead of blowing his nose; when people say "ekkspecially" instead of "especially"; and yes, even when people change lanes without signalling. Even though that really, really bugs me.

Four Ways of Speaking

Philosophy and theology deal with thick, heavy, dense subjects. It’s hard enough half the time to understand the question being asked, let alone the answer you get: “What is being? What is nature? What is the nature of being? What is essence of nature? What is the essence of God’s nature? Is existence itself God’s nature?” I’m guessing some of you went cross-eyed and passed out briefly mid-way through that series of questions. Hope you didn’t hit your head on anything. Point is: this stuff is hard.

Some people have a talent for engaging these topics in an easy and sensible way… and some do not. In reading different thinkers over the years, I’ve developed a theory:

There are four ways of communicating:

1. Speaking simply on simple matters. This is what most of our speech is like most of the time. Simple declarative statements: “She pushed me,” “God is good,” “That’s my coat,” or “Daniel Tosh isn’t funny.” No brain-busting concepts or unintelligible jargon.

2. Speaking complexly on simple matters. Here, though, we move to a level where we’re still not dealing with brain-busting concepts, but people for some reason feel the need to gussy it up; it’s the linguistic equivalent of wearing a tuxedo to a tailgate party. You’d find this exemplified by college sophomores:

Student: “Professor, can you elucidate for those of us currently present what precisely was the major precipitating factor for the conflict in question?”
Professor: “Do you mean, ‘How did the war start?’”

A more amusing example is found in this video, where Stephen Fry plays a bombastic barber.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J691coIfFvs

3. Speaking complexly on complex matters. Now we reach the level I was initially talking about. We’re dealing with brain-busting concepts, and for many it takes a boatload of special terms, words borrowed from other languages, and circumlocutions (i.e. “my father’s parents’ other son” instead of “my uncle”) to try to get the point across. For example:

“For the very early ancient Israelites, their Weltanschauung entailed a monolatric cosmology in which other deities were recognized while only one was honored with cultic worship.”

Now, there are simpler ways to say this (“The Israelites at first believed in a world where many gods existed, but they worshipped only one”), but they wouldn’t quite capture the content in the same way. It’s no crime to write or speak this way; most of us don’t have the ability to go beyond it. But some do….

4. Speaking simply on complex matters. This level is reserved for those true geniuses who are able to speak about difficult topics in a way that’s easy to understand without leaving out anything essential. Here are some of my favorite examples:
“Our hearts were made for you, O Lord, and they are restless until they rest in thee.” St. Augustine captures the essence of human desire and God as the fulfillment of that desire in one simple and beautiful sentence.

“We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.” C.S. Lewis here deftly points to a truth our politicians would do well to consider.

(I can’t leave out this example from Lewis, since it’s apropos to our subject: “Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.”)

"When a man ceases to believe in God, he doesn't believe in nothing. He believes in anything." There are about 10 billion G.K. Chesterton quotes I could have chosen… so, yeah, I think we need a few more:

“To say that everybody is responsible means that nobody is responsible.”

“To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.”

"Why be something to everybody when you can be everything to somebody?" (on motherhood)

Anyway, you get the point, I hope. Be thankful when you come across those gifted people who are able to be so clear. They sure can make life easier.