The famed atheist Richard Dawkins has often said (as here) that he does not consider it any different to not believe in the Christian God than to not believe in Zeus or Thor or Mithras or any other non-Christian deity. "Everyone's in atheist concerning some gods; we've just got one god further," he says. Now, being the Anglophile I am, I'm always so tempted to treat seriously any words spoken in a refined English accent--I just love the way Dawkins says "Zyoos" for Zeus--but in this case I'm afraid that even his silky Oxonian tones can't salvage Dawkins' rather silly statement.
The problem here is one of equivocation; that is, the same word, "god," is being applied to Zeus and Thor and Mithras and YHWH, but what being a "god" means in each case is radically different.
In the mainstream orthodox Christian tradition, when we speak of "God" (even prescinding from the whole question of Christ and the Trinity and any personal attributes), we mean the very ground of existence, the first cause of all things who is Himself uncaused, the source of all goodness and love, that than which nothing greater can be conceived, eternal, omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent. We are making claims that matter to our entire worldview, that reach down to the deepest metaphysical questions. One can conclude the existence of such a God purely through reason, as in Aquinas' Five Ways, as Socrates did when he said there was only one god, as many a former atheist who has thought about it a bit has done.
When we speak of Zeus or Thor or Mithras or any other "god" of this sort, we are not dealing with anything quite so philosophically serious. None of these are eternal, having existed always. None is the uncaused first cause of all things--each of this has his own birth, and none can be said to have created all. None are all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good: they may know a lot, and be able to do a lot, and do some good things, but they are occasionally ignorant, and often limited, and quite frequently immoral. One could conceive of a universe without the god of the sky or of thunder or of justice, or of this particular god of those things; someone else in the pantheon could take up the role. One would never and could never reason to the existence of Zeus or Thor or Mithras.
These pagan "gods" are high-octane versions of humans, like people with the volume turned up. The Christian God is something fundamentally different. It's comparing apples and oranges... not even apples and oranges. More like apples and wrenches. I don't believe in Zeus or Thor or Mithras because it's unreasonable to, and because they have never revealed themselves, and do not continue to reveal themselves throughout history--I've never heard of anyone in the last 3,000 years being healed of a deadly disease thanks to their supplications to Apollo. But to believe in the Triune God as described above is eminently reasonable, and that reason is supported and confirmed by revelation, by miracles, by personal experience, by faith. These other three poseurs cannot compare. Nice try, Dick Dawkins.
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Thursday, April 10, 2014
God Is Not A Vending Machine
Check out my latest post on Catholic Stand!
http://catholicstand.com/god-vending-machine/
http://catholicstand.com/god-vending-machine/
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Where Was Adam?
I remember once discussing the Fall of Adam and Eve with my boss's wife (because who doesn't talk about such things with their boss's wife?), and she posed a question I'd never thought of that really struck me:
"When the serpent tempted Eve, where was Adam? He should have been there to protect her."
Wow. That's a great question. (Which, as my cousin Joe has pointed out, is a euphemism that means, "I don't know.")
Just where was Adam? Tending the garden? Picking (other) fruit? Milking the cows? Did he know there was anything dangerous in the garden that he might need to be on the lookout for? Would he have left his wife by herself if he'd known there were cunning talking serpents slithering around the place?
What I most appreciated about her question, though, was the assumption that it was Adam's duty to protect his wife from harm. Not that Eve was too weak or dim or otherwise incapable of looking after herself, but simply meaning that Adam had a responsibility to look out for her. St. Paul says that a man should love his wife as Christ loves the Church: he should be willing to give his life for her. Adam should have been willing to take that snake bite rather than let his wife come to harm.
My boss posed a question of his own: why did Adam eat the fruit when Eve gave it to him, when he knew God had told him not to? And my boss had a theory which I found moving: when Adam saw that Eve had eaten the fruit, and knew she was going to be in trouble, he ate it, too, out of solidarity, so that whatever happened, they'd face it together.
I'm not sure if this is the proper answer, but there's something beautiful in it: that Adam was so bound to his wife he would face God's judgment with her. Not that we should necessarily follow others into sin, but there is a sound principle there of wanting to be with the beloved other where they are in their time of trouble.
What would have happened if Eve had eaten the fruit but not Adam? How would that affect the transmission of original sin? St. Paul contrasts Christ's obedience and Adam's disobedience; well, what if Adam hadn't been disobedient, only Eve? Or what if Adam had been the one to eat the fruit but not Eve? How would things have been different if there'd be an "obedience gap" between our first parents? Would only the one have been punished and died? Would God have created a new spouse for the other and started the human race over again, free from the stains of its past members?
I have absolutely no idea what the answers are to these questions. But they're interesting to think about.
"When the serpent tempted Eve, where was Adam? He should have been there to protect her."
Wow. That's a great question. (Which, as my cousin Joe has pointed out, is a euphemism that means, "I don't know.")
Just where was Adam? Tending the garden? Picking (other) fruit? Milking the cows? Did he know there was anything dangerous in the garden that he might need to be on the lookout for? Would he have left his wife by herself if he'd known there were cunning talking serpents slithering around the place?
What I most appreciated about her question, though, was the assumption that it was Adam's duty to protect his wife from harm. Not that Eve was too weak or dim or otherwise incapable of looking after herself, but simply meaning that Adam had a responsibility to look out for her. St. Paul says that a man should love his wife as Christ loves the Church: he should be willing to give his life for her. Adam should have been willing to take that snake bite rather than let his wife come to harm.
My boss posed a question of his own: why did Adam eat the fruit when Eve gave it to him, when he knew God had told him not to? And my boss had a theory which I found moving: when Adam saw that Eve had eaten the fruit, and knew she was going to be in trouble, he ate it, too, out of solidarity, so that whatever happened, they'd face it together.
I'm not sure if this is the proper answer, but there's something beautiful in it: that Adam was so bound to his wife he would face God's judgment with her. Not that we should necessarily follow others into sin, but there is a sound principle there of wanting to be with the beloved other where they are in their time of trouble.
What would have happened if Eve had eaten the fruit but not Adam? How would that affect the transmission of original sin? St. Paul contrasts Christ's obedience and Adam's disobedience; well, what if Adam hadn't been disobedient, only Eve? Or what if Adam had been the one to eat the fruit but not Eve? How would things have been different if there'd be an "obedience gap" between our first parents? Would only the one have been punished and died? Would God have created a new spouse for the other and started the human race over again, free from the stains of its past members?
I have absolutely no idea what the answers are to these questions. But they're interesting to think about.
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Atheists: Here's How to Not Argue
I've listened to a few debates recently between Christians and atheists: Dinesh D'Souza vs. Christopher Hitchens and William Lane Craig vs. Sam Harris. One thing that struck me was the gap between speech and action on the side of the atheists. That is, the atheists said that they desired to settle the important questions of human life based on reason and evidence, but when it came to actually discussing the issues and trying to settle the questions, the atheists were piling up logical fallacies left and right, and often not actually making arguments at all.
Perhaps the worst offense was the continuous use of straw man arguments. A "straw man" argument is an argument in which you present a weak and/or inaccurate version of your opponent's argument, then easily knock it down (as easily as one could knock over a figure made of straw). Examples abound: Hitchens repeatedly claimed that his opponents believed that anyone who does not believe in their version of God is automatically going to Hell (not true, as least from a Catholic viewpoint); or that God will only answer your requests "if you make the right propitiation and sacrifices" (nope). Indeed, most of his characterizations of basic Christian belief were grossly distorted and misunderstood. But it's much easier to knock down a scarecrow than it is to knock down a soldier.
Other popular non-arguments employed by the atheists included:
Argument by Scoff -- Rather than addressing the reasoning employed by your opponent, you mock their position and insult them. Thus, even in the setting of a formal debate, atheists call belief in God "primitive," "barbaric," "childish," "degrading," "insulting," "irrational," "insane," and the like. This is not an argument. This is playground name-calling.
Argument by Declaration -- Your opponent gives a proof or an argument, and you respond, not by analyzing the argument's premises or logic, but by simply declaring, "The argument doesn't work," or by stating categorically, "There is no convincing argument for the existence of God." It's a circular argument: "There is no convincing argument for the existence of God. Why is that? Because there isn't!" How do I know I am right? Because I just said so!
Bait and Switch -- The atheist begins by saying we must look at reason and scientific observation to determine the question of God's existence. Yet what do they so often appeal to? Crimes of believers, the innocent suffering of children, sad puppy dogs or something. Whoa whoa whoa... what happened to reason and evidence? What happened to debating the logical consistency of the idea itself? To argue "There is no God because some people who believe in God did bad things" is a non sequitur: the one does not follow from the other.
Perhaps I should stop looking to these sorts of debates for anything fruitful, interesting, or thought-provoking. Too often they're just a let-down.
Perhaps the worst offense was the continuous use of straw man arguments. A "straw man" argument is an argument in which you present a weak and/or inaccurate version of your opponent's argument, then easily knock it down (as easily as one could knock over a figure made of straw). Examples abound: Hitchens repeatedly claimed that his opponents believed that anyone who does not believe in their version of God is automatically going to Hell (not true, as least from a Catholic viewpoint); or that God will only answer your requests "if you make the right propitiation and sacrifices" (nope). Indeed, most of his characterizations of basic Christian belief were grossly distorted and misunderstood. But it's much easier to knock down a scarecrow than it is to knock down a soldier.
Other popular non-arguments employed by the atheists included:
Argument by Scoff -- Rather than addressing the reasoning employed by your opponent, you mock their position and insult them. Thus, even in the setting of a formal debate, atheists call belief in God "primitive," "barbaric," "childish," "degrading," "insulting," "irrational," "insane," and the like. This is not an argument. This is playground name-calling.
Argument by Declaration -- Your opponent gives a proof or an argument, and you respond, not by analyzing the argument's premises or logic, but by simply declaring, "The argument doesn't work," or by stating categorically, "There is no convincing argument for the existence of God." It's a circular argument: "There is no convincing argument for the existence of God. Why is that? Because there isn't!" How do I know I am right? Because I just said so!
Bait and Switch -- The atheist begins by saying we must look at reason and scientific observation to determine the question of God's existence. Yet what do they so often appeal to? Crimes of believers, the innocent suffering of children, sad puppy dogs or something. Whoa whoa whoa... what happened to reason and evidence? What happened to debating the logical consistency of the idea itself? To argue "There is no God because some people who believe in God did bad things" is a non sequitur: the one does not follow from the other.
Perhaps I should stop looking to these sorts of debates for anything fruitful, interesting, or thought-provoking. Too often they're just a let-down.
Friday, March 21, 2014
Does Science Disprove God? Nope.
I was listening to an episode of Catholic Answers Live that was fielding calls from agnostics and atheists, and I was amazed at how often the same sorts of objections were raised by the callers. So many of them boiled down to this: "Science can't find any proof for God's existence. Therefore we have no reason to believe God exists."
The atheist or agnostic claims that one ought not to believe in God if there is no scientific way to verify His existence. If we were to set this out in a simple syllogism, it would say:
The biggest problem is with the premise "We ought not to posit the existence of anything for which there is no physical evidence." This premise assumes that only physical things, things able to be detected by observation and verified by the scientific method, exist. It claims that our only sure basis of knowledge is empirical science, that we cannot say that we know anything beyond what observation tells us. But this is not true. There are all kinds of things we know to be true that cannot be established by the scientific method.
For one, there are truths of our own interior experience. It is true that right now, I feel fine. It is true that I love my fiancee. It is true that you feel hungry. It is true that you hate the Lakers. All of these things are true, but there is no scientific experiment one can run to verify the truth of these things. They are not subject to empirical observation.
For another, there are moral truths. It is wrong to injure innocent parties. It is wrong to steal. We know these to be true, but we don't know that by observing human behavior and drawing the conclusion that these things are wrong. We don't derive our morals from behavior; we apply our morals to behavior. We don't determine their truth with test tubes and telescopes.
Nor are the very truths used by science to do its work. Science draws conclusions based on observation; but the rules of reason that science uses to draw those conclusions are not themselves based on observation. The Law of Identity (A equals A, A does not equal B) or the Law of Non-Contradiction (a thing cannot both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect) are two obvious, intuitive truths that structure our thinking and that we use to examine and evaluate our observations. Mathematical truths are not demonstrated by science, either. What experiment do you run to prove that two plus two equals four? It is pre-observational truth, what we call a priori. Truths based on empirical observation, like scientific laws, are called a posteriori. To use the argument above, you must deny all a priori truth; but if you try to do that, you cut your own legs out from under you. Certain a priori truths provide the condition for the possibility of science. The existence of these truths alone prove that not everything that is is demonstrable by science.
Indeed, the claim "It is true that only that which can be discovered by empirical observation (a posteriori) is true or real" is itself not an a posteriori claim, but rather an a priori one. The claim refutes itself!
This is all to say that the this materialist empiricist atheist must concede the fact that there are truths beyond those with which science deals. With that, the atheist must admit the possibility of things existing outside of the sensor range of empirical science. Then maybe, just maybe, there's a God after all.
The atheist or agnostic claims that one ought not to believe in God if there is no scientific way to verify His existence. If we were to set this out in a simple syllogism, it would say:
We ought not to affirm the existence of anything for which there is no physical evidence.What's wrong with this argument? Well, an argument can be faulty either in its structure (form) or its content (matter). The form of the argument is sound: the premises lead to the conclusion, provided the premises are true. But are the premises true? Nope.
God is a thing for which there is no physical evidence.
Therefore, we ought not to posit the existence of God.
The biggest problem is with the premise "We ought not to posit the existence of anything for which there is no physical evidence." This premise assumes that only physical things, things able to be detected by observation and verified by the scientific method, exist. It claims that our only sure basis of knowledge is empirical science, that we cannot say that we know anything beyond what observation tells us. But this is not true. There are all kinds of things we know to be true that cannot be established by the scientific method.
For one, there are truths of our own interior experience. It is true that right now, I feel fine. It is true that I love my fiancee. It is true that you feel hungry. It is true that you hate the Lakers. All of these things are true, but there is no scientific experiment one can run to verify the truth of these things. They are not subject to empirical observation.
For another, there are moral truths. It is wrong to injure innocent parties. It is wrong to steal. We know these to be true, but we don't know that by observing human behavior and drawing the conclusion that these things are wrong. We don't derive our morals from behavior; we apply our morals to behavior. We don't determine their truth with test tubes and telescopes.
Nor are the very truths used by science to do its work. Science draws conclusions based on observation; but the rules of reason that science uses to draw those conclusions are not themselves based on observation. The Law of Identity (A equals A, A does not equal B) or the Law of Non-Contradiction (a thing cannot both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect) are two obvious, intuitive truths that structure our thinking and that we use to examine and evaluate our observations. Mathematical truths are not demonstrated by science, either. What experiment do you run to prove that two plus two equals four? It is pre-observational truth, what we call a priori. Truths based on empirical observation, like scientific laws, are called a posteriori. To use the argument above, you must deny all a priori truth; but if you try to do that, you cut your own legs out from under you. Certain a priori truths provide the condition for the possibility of science. The existence of these truths alone prove that not everything that is is demonstrable by science.
Indeed, the claim "It is true that only that which can be discovered by empirical observation (a posteriori) is true or real" is itself not an a posteriori claim, but rather an a priori one. The claim refutes itself!
This is all to say that the this materialist empiricist atheist must concede the fact that there are truths beyond those with which science deals. With that, the atheist must admit the possibility of things existing outside of the sensor range of empirical science. Then maybe, just maybe, there's a God after all.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
"Oh, I Know Why You Think That": The Genetic Fallacy
There's a sneaky little pseudo-argument that's become all the rage in the age of combox and Facebook debates, though it's really quite old. It's called the genetic fallacy.
The genetic fallacy is the logically erroneous move of trying to dismiss your opponent's arguments by asserting that they are false not because of their own internal logic or because they're factually inaccurate but because their source is in some way untrustworthy, or because some outside force compels them to think in that way. There are plenty of examples we could give.
"Don't vote for that bill, it was written by the [insert opposing political party here]!"
The proposed legislation is being judged not on its own merits but its author. The bill might well cure cancer, make every citizen a billionaire, and ensure that the Yankees never make the playoffs again, but the speaker of this quotation won't consider it, because it's come from "the wrong people."
"Can anything good come from Nazareth?" (John 1:46)
Nathanael, soon to be an apostle of Christ, at first doubted even the possibility of Jesus being a prophet, not because of anything he had heard him say or do, but merely because of the town he came from. "He's from the sticks, what good could he be?" Nathanael was soon to find out how wrong he was.
"You only believe in God because you have daddy issues/you're genetically predisposed/you have a guilt complex. If you didn't have that, you would see God doesn't exist."
Here one individual's belief in God is denigrated by another and reduced to a product of biology or psychology. But notice the leap the speaker makes: because he deems the source of belief in God to be flawed or inadequate, he concludes that God's existence is likewise doubtful. But one does not logically follow from the other. Why one believes in God and whether God exists are two separate questions. I could present the completely nonsensical arguments for proving that Jerry Brown is indeed the governor of California ("Jerry Brown is governor of California because I had pizza for dinner last night"), but my non sequitur reasoning doesn't mean it is not the case that Jerry Brown is governor of California. Likewise, the reduction of religious faith to a neuron or a neurosis has no bearing on the existence of non-existence of God.
Keep an eye out for this faulty argument. It's all too common, and all too easy to fall for.
The genetic fallacy is the logically erroneous move of trying to dismiss your opponent's arguments by asserting that they are false not because of their own internal logic or because they're factually inaccurate but because their source is in some way untrustworthy, or because some outside force compels them to think in that way. There are plenty of examples we could give.
"Don't vote for that bill, it was written by the [insert opposing political party here]!"
The proposed legislation is being judged not on its own merits but its author. The bill might well cure cancer, make every citizen a billionaire, and ensure that the Yankees never make the playoffs again, but the speaker of this quotation won't consider it, because it's come from "the wrong people."
"Can anything good come from Nazareth?" (John 1:46)
Nathanael, soon to be an apostle of Christ, at first doubted even the possibility of Jesus being a prophet, not because of anything he had heard him say or do, but merely because of the town he came from. "He's from the sticks, what good could he be?" Nathanael was soon to find out how wrong he was.
"You only believe in God because you have daddy issues/you're genetically predisposed/you have a guilt complex. If you didn't have that, you would see God doesn't exist."
Here one individual's belief in God is denigrated by another and reduced to a product of biology or psychology. But notice the leap the speaker makes: because he deems the source of belief in God to be flawed or inadequate, he concludes that God's existence is likewise doubtful. But one does not logically follow from the other. Why one believes in God and whether God exists are two separate questions. I could present the completely nonsensical arguments for proving that Jerry Brown is indeed the governor of California ("Jerry Brown is governor of California because I had pizza for dinner last night"), but my non sequitur reasoning doesn't mean it is not the case that Jerry Brown is governor of California. Likewise, the reduction of religious faith to a neuron or a neurosis has no bearing on the existence of non-existence of God.
Keep an eye out for this faulty argument. It's all too common, and all too easy to fall for.
Sunday, January 5, 2014
What's in a Name?
A few days ago we celebrated the Memorial of the Holy Name of Jesus. Doesn't it strike you as a little odd that we have a feast devoted to a name? What's a name but a string of syllables attached to a thing or person? What makes a name special or holy? What's in a name?
A name is a personal marker. It's personal in that it is specific and individualized, and a marker in that it is a sign that identifies. A name points out a particular thing: my name is Nick, your name is Bob, his name is Jack, her name is Sally. It's an intimate part of who we are.
Names not only mark out individuals, but they allow for social relationships; indeed, there's not much need to mark out individuals unless they're among other individuals! Sharing your name is one of the first steps in social contact. When you introduce yourself, you create a bond with someone, that little bit of social glue--"Oh hey, it's what's-his-name." Think of how shocking it is when a stranger knows your name, or when you forget the name of someone you know you're meant to know! To know someone's name is to have a certain level of intimacy with them.
God's name was a mystery until Moses asked it of Him at the burning bush. With Moses, God established a covenant, a deep and binding relationship, with Israel: you will be my people, and I will be your God. And one could see the revelation of God's name to Moses as a real first step in the covenant, almost an introduction, if you will. Who is this God that calls Israel and binds Himself to them? It is YHWH: "I am who am" or "I am that I am" (Exodus 3:14).
(The meaning of this name is interesting to consider. Some take it to be a gentle rebuke to Moses, like "My name is my name--don't ask impertinent questions." St. Thomas Aquinas took it to be a profound philosophical statement: God identifies Himself as the one who's essence it is to exist, the one for whom existence is necessary: "I am the one who IS." Or, as Peter Kreeft quipped, beginning my quoting Shakespeare: "'What's in a name?' Moses asked God that at the burning bush, and God answered, 'I am.'")
Then God revealed Himself fully in the person of Jesus, "the name above all other names" (Philippians 2:9), "no other name under heaven by which men are saved" (Acts 4:12). Jesus, God in the flesh, makes a new covenant between God and man, sealed in his own blood, and marked by his name. Thus "whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son" (John 14:13). Now God has a personal name, a name which marks Him out and identifies who He is, for Yeshua means, "God saves."
When we pray "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," when we make petitions "in Jesus' name," we invoke that covenant relationship which we entered in Baptism. We say to God: "It's me, God. It's your friend. I know your name! You are "the one who saves"! I know who you are, and you know me. Please, for the sake of our relationship, grant X." The name of Jesus is powerful. Put it to good use.
A name is a personal marker. It's personal in that it is specific and individualized, and a marker in that it is a sign that identifies. A name points out a particular thing: my name is Nick, your name is Bob, his name is Jack, her name is Sally. It's an intimate part of who we are.
Names not only mark out individuals, but they allow for social relationships; indeed, there's not much need to mark out individuals unless they're among other individuals! Sharing your name is one of the first steps in social contact. When you introduce yourself, you create a bond with someone, that little bit of social glue--"Oh hey, it's what's-his-name." Think of how shocking it is when a stranger knows your name, or when you forget the name of someone you know you're meant to know! To know someone's name is to have a certain level of intimacy with them.
God's name was a mystery until Moses asked it of Him at the burning bush. With Moses, God established a covenant, a deep and binding relationship, with Israel: you will be my people, and I will be your God. And one could see the revelation of God's name to Moses as a real first step in the covenant, almost an introduction, if you will. Who is this God that calls Israel and binds Himself to them? It is YHWH: "I am who am" or "I am that I am" (Exodus 3:14).
(The meaning of this name is interesting to consider. Some take it to be a gentle rebuke to Moses, like "My name is my name--don't ask impertinent questions." St. Thomas Aquinas took it to be a profound philosophical statement: God identifies Himself as the one who's essence it is to exist, the one for whom existence is necessary: "I am the one who IS." Or, as Peter Kreeft quipped, beginning my quoting Shakespeare: "'What's in a name?' Moses asked God that at the burning bush, and God answered, 'I am.'")
Then God revealed Himself fully in the person of Jesus, "the name above all other names" (Philippians 2:9), "no other name under heaven by which men are saved" (Acts 4:12). Jesus, God in the flesh, makes a new covenant between God and man, sealed in his own blood, and marked by his name. Thus "whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son" (John 14:13). Now God has a personal name, a name which marks Him out and identifies who He is, for Yeshua means, "God saves."
When we pray "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," when we make petitions "in Jesus' name," we invoke that covenant relationship which we entered in Baptism. We say to God: "It's me, God. It's your friend. I know your name! You are "the one who saves"! I know who you are, and you know me. Please, for the sake of our relationship, grant X." The name of Jesus is powerful. Put it to good use.
Monday, December 9, 2013
Preserved from All Stain: How's that?
Though December 8 is usually the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, this year, because the date falls on a Sunday of Advent, the feast is transferred to today, December 9. I'm sure you heard this at Mass yesterday, but it serves as a handy opening to this post, so indulge me, will ya? I just wanted to mention one aspect of this wonderful dogma you may not have thought of before.
First, though, the annual reminder: the "immaculate conception" refers to MARY being conceived without original sin. It does not refer to Jesus' virginal conception. I understand that some of our Protestant brethren regularly use "immaculate conception" to refer to the miraculous circumstances of Jesus' coming into the world--I guess they just liked the term and wanted to keep using it since they disbelieved in its original content.
Here's the problem with that, though: macula means "stain," or "dishonor," so an "immaculate conception" would mean "a conception without stain or dishonor." This makes perfect sense if we're referring to the stain of original sin. But if we're referring to the Virgin Birth of Jesus? What stain or dishonor has been avoided by that "immaculate conception"? It implies that the sexual act, which normally is that which produces a child but which was miraculously dispensed with in this case, is the "stained" or "dishonorable" thing. This puts the conjugal act in quite a negative light, doesn't it? Now that marvelous act in which a man and woman come together to cooperate with God in creating a new life suddenly is portrayed as a dirty and wicked performance of a duty necessary for propagating the species, but nothing more. This is hardly a fitting way to describe one of God's great gifts to humanity.
OK, so perhaps there were two aspects of this dogma I wanted to consider today. Here's the other. The Blessed Virgin Mary, by a singular grace of God, was kept free from the stain and the effects of original sin from the first moment of her existence. The Church believes, further, that she was preserved from all personal sin during her life. But hold on: if Mary never had any sin, and Jesus saves us from our sins, does that mean that Jesus is not Mary's savior? Does that mean Mary didn't need a savior? Does that mean "Christ died for all humanity... except Mary"?
No! Mary was indeed saved by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, but in a unique way. An analogy would help here. Let's say there's a large pit in your path. There are at least two ways someone could be saved from the pit: 1) after someone's fallen into the pit, they are pulled out of it; or 2) someone is prevented from falling into the pit in the first place. Everybody falls into the pit of sin and needs to be pulled out by the cross of Christ. In Mary's case, though, the cross of Christ (that is, the grace of God merited by Christ's sacrifice) bars her way and prevents her from ever falling into the pit. Mary is saved by prevention, not by rescue.
Now, you might say, "How could Jesus have saved Mary before he was born?" Well, keep in mind that Jesus is identical to the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God, so He existed before His Incarnation. "Yeah, fine," you might reply, "but he hadn't died on the cross yet. How could the grace of the cross be applied to Mary before it had happened?" Time is no object to God. God does not exist in time. He does not experience time in a linear sequence as we do. All moments are present to God, so it is no more trouble for Him to apply the merits of Christ's sacrifice to Mary or Abraham or Moses or anyone else who lived before Christ than it is for Him to apply it to those who live after Christ. And He doesn't even need a ship sling-shotting at warp speed around a star or a TARDIS to do it.
Fun fact: some theologians in the Church's history have believed that St. Joseph, St. John the Baptist, and the prophet Jeremiah were all sanctified in the womb, having the stain of original sin removed after their conceptions but before their births. With the latter two, certain Scripture passages suggest this: for Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, before you were born, I consecrated you" (Jeremiah 1:5); with St. John the Baptist, Luke 1:41 says that John leaped in Elizabeth's womb and Elizabeth was "filled with the Holy Spirit." And with St. Joseph, it seemed fitting to some theologians that he who was to be the guardian of the Virgin and the protector of the Christ Child should be strengthened for this task (and perhaps also prepared for the life of perpetual virginity he was to lead with his holy wife). Neat, eh?
First, though, the annual reminder: the "immaculate conception" refers to MARY being conceived without original sin. It does not refer to Jesus' virginal conception. I understand that some of our Protestant brethren regularly use "immaculate conception" to refer to the miraculous circumstances of Jesus' coming into the world--I guess they just liked the term and wanted to keep using it since they disbelieved in its original content.
Here's the problem with that, though: macula means "stain," or "dishonor," so an "immaculate conception" would mean "a conception without stain or dishonor." This makes perfect sense if we're referring to the stain of original sin. But if we're referring to the Virgin Birth of Jesus? What stain or dishonor has been avoided by that "immaculate conception"? It implies that the sexual act, which normally is that which produces a child but which was miraculously dispensed with in this case, is the "stained" or "dishonorable" thing. This puts the conjugal act in quite a negative light, doesn't it? Now that marvelous act in which a man and woman come together to cooperate with God in creating a new life suddenly is portrayed as a dirty and wicked performance of a duty necessary for propagating the species, but nothing more. This is hardly a fitting way to describe one of God's great gifts to humanity.
OK, so perhaps there were two aspects of this dogma I wanted to consider today. Here's the other. The Blessed Virgin Mary, by a singular grace of God, was kept free from the stain and the effects of original sin from the first moment of her existence. The Church believes, further, that she was preserved from all personal sin during her life. But hold on: if Mary never had any sin, and Jesus saves us from our sins, does that mean that Jesus is not Mary's savior? Does that mean Mary didn't need a savior? Does that mean "Christ died for all humanity... except Mary"?
No! Mary was indeed saved by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, but in a unique way. An analogy would help here. Let's say there's a large pit in your path. There are at least two ways someone could be saved from the pit: 1) after someone's fallen into the pit, they are pulled out of it; or 2) someone is prevented from falling into the pit in the first place. Everybody falls into the pit of sin and needs to be pulled out by the cross of Christ. In Mary's case, though, the cross of Christ (that is, the grace of God merited by Christ's sacrifice) bars her way and prevents her from ever falling into the pit. Mary is saved by prevention, not by rescue.
Now, you might say, "How could Jesus have saved Mary before he was born?" Well, keep in mind that Jesus is identical to the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God, so He existed before His Incarnation. "Yeah, fine," you might reply, "but he hadn't died on the cross yet. How could the grace of the cross be applied to Mary before it had happened?" Time is no object to God. God does not exist in time. He does not experience time in a linear sequence as we do. All moments are present to God, so it is no more trouble for Him to apply the merits of Christ's sacrifice to Mary or Abraham or Moses or anyone else who lived before Christ than it is for Him to apply it to those who live after Christ. And He doesn't even need a ship sling-shotting at warp speed around a star or a TARDIS to do it.
Fun fact: some theologians in the Church's history have believed that St. Joseph, St. John the Baptist, and the prophet Jeremiah were all sanctified in the womb, having the stain of original sin removed after their conceptions but before their births. With the latter two, certain Scripture passages suggest this: for Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, before you were born, I consecrated you" (Jeremiah 1:5); with St. John the Baptist, Luke 1:41 says that John leaped in Elizabeth's womb and Elizabeth was "filled with the Holy Spirit." And with St. Joseph, it seemed fitting to some theologians that he who was to be the guardian of the Virgin and the protector of the Christ Child should be strengthened for this task (and perhaps also prepared for the life of perpetual virginity he was to lead with his holy wife). Neat, eh?
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Purgatory and Limbo
A reader writes in (Yay! First time for that!) asking:*
"Bertha said something such as the souls in purgatory are awaiting judgment. I told her that any soul in purgatory is on its way to Heaven. Hildy asked, "What about Limbo?" ...Can you make your next theology topic Limbo/purgatory?"
* -- I have changed the names of the parties involved to protect their identities, and to allow me to use some amusing names in their place.
So, a few questions are involved here:
1) Are the souls in purgatory awaiting judgment?
2) What's the deal with Limbo?
Let's do this!
As to the first question: are the souls in purgatory awaiting judgment?
Answer: negative. A soul in Purgatory has already been judged and is, as the reader correctly said, "on its way to Heaven." What's the deal with purgatory, then? If they aren't waiting to be judged, what are they doing there? The key to understanding Purgatory is right in its name: Purg-atory, as in purgation, purging.
Every human being ends his life either in the state of friendship with God or not in friendship with God. For those who are in friendship with God, for those who fundamentally desire God and whose actions in their lives have reflected that and oriented them toward God, they will get what they want: spending eternity in the blessed presence of the Holy Trinity, beholding their glory (the Beatific Vision).
BUT we must remember that Scripture of heaven says "nothing impure will enter" (Revelation 21:27). Now, though we may die in the friendship of God, we may still have on our souls venial sins or attachment to sin that make us impure. So, before we can enter heaven, this impurity needs to be purged from our souls, via the prayers of the living and the merits of Christ and the saints. (This is why it's so important to pray for the dead! We help them get to heaven!) This state of purgation we call Purgatory.
Think of Purgatory as the "wash room" or "mud room" in your home, where you clean off whatever dirt or grime you picked up outside before coming in to the house.
As to the second question: what's the deal with Limbo?
Answer: Limbo was a solution posed by theologians to a problem they perceived. Follow me: Baptism removes original sin and puts us into friendship with God through Christ. Those who still have original sin on their souls are not in the friendship of God cannot enter Heaven, and are thus bound for Hell. But, the question arose, what about babies who die before they can be baptized? They still have original sin on their souls, but they never had the chance to get it removed, nor did they grow old enough to develop the capacity to choose or reject God by their actions. Does it seem right that these babies suffer Hell for all eternity?
That didn't sit right with people. Such a fate for babies with no personal fault seemed unthinkable with an all-merciful God involved. So, they proposed a solution: a state in which the unbaptized babies would not enjoy the Beatific Vision in Heaven, but neither would they suffer the pains of Hell. (They might suffer the pain of the loss of Heaven, but this would be minor.) This state came to be referred to as Limbo, and for many centuries was taught in the Church as a likelihood.
In recent years, though, the Church has deemed the theory unnecessary. As Catechism paragraph 1261 states:
Some may hear such an idea and think, "Post-Vatican II claptrap!" I would give two responses to that: 1) I've seen this phrase used at least as far back as Peter Lombard, the 12th-century bishop of Paris and theologian whose Book of Sentences was THE textbook in the medieval Church; and I think it's older, but I can't find an earlier reference. The point is, it's an old and well-received idea. 2) Even the venerable Ludwig Ott in his Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, written in the 1950s (before Vatican II) calls Limbo a theological assumption (p. 114), and theological assumptions are subject to revision.
So, neither Purgatory nor Limbo are places where souls are awaiting judgment; indeed, the Church does not even really teach Limbo as a theory anymore.
Hope that helps! Do ask follow-ups!
"Bertha said something such as the souls in purgatory are awaiting judgment. I told her that any soul in purgatory is on its way to Heaven. Hildy asked, "What about Limbo?" ...Can you make your next theology topic Limbo/purgatory?"
* -- I have changed the names of the parties involved to protect their identities, and to allow me to use some amusing names in their place.
So, a few questions are involved here:
1) Are the souls in purgatory awaiting judgment?
2) What's the deal with Limbo?
Let's do this!
As to the first question: are the souls in purgatory awaiting judgment?
Answer: negative. A soul in Purgatory has already been judged and is, as the reader correctly said, "on its way to Heaven." What's the deal with purgatory, then? If they aren't waiting to be judged, what are they doing there? The key to understanding Purgatory is right in its name: Purg-atory, as in purgation, purging.
Every human being ends his life either in the state of friendship with God or not in friendship with God. For those who are in friendship with God, for those who fundamentally desire God and whose actions in their lives have reflected that and oriented them toward God, they will get what they want: spending eternity in the blessed presence of the Holy Trinity, beholding their glory (the Beatific Vision).
BUT we must remember that Scripture of heaven says "nothing impure will enter" (Revelation 21:27). Now, though we may die in the friendship of God, we may still have on our souls venial sins or attachment to sin that make us impure. So, before we can enter heaven, this impurity needs to be purged from our souls, via the prayers of the living and the merits of Christ and the saints. (This is why it's so important to pray for the dead! We help them get to heaven!) This state of purgation we call Purgatory.
Think of Purgatory as the "wash room" or "mud room" in your home, where you clean off whatever dirt or grime you picked up outside before coming in to the house.
As to the second question: what's the deal with Limbo?
Answer: Limbo was a solution posed by theologians to a problem they perceived. Follow me: Baptism removes original sin and puts us into friendship with God through Christ. Those who still have original sin on their souls are not in the friendship of God cannot enter Heaven, and are thus bound for Hell. But, the question arose, what about babies who die before they can be baptized? They still have original sin on their souls, but they never had the chance to get it removed, nor did they grow old enough to develop the capacity to choose or reject God by their actions. Does it seem right that these babies suffer Hell for all eternity?
That didn't sit right with people. Such a fate for babies with no personal fault seemed unthinkable with an all-merciful God involved. So, they proposed a solution: a state in which the unbaptized babies would not enjoy the Beatific Vision in Heaven, but neither would they suffer the pains of Hell. (They might suffer the pain of the loss of Heaven, but this would be minor.) This state came to be referred to as Limbo, and for many centuries was taught in the Church as a likelihood.
In recent years, though, the Church has deemed the theory unnecessary. As Catechism paragraph 1261 states:
As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children which caused him to say: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them," allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church's call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.This is to say, "We can't say for certain what happens, but we can trust in the mercy of God." But if God has revealed that Baptism is necessary for salvation, how can this be? Catechism paragraph 1257 gives a quotation that gives us the principle by which we may have this hope: "God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments." That is: God has bound us to receive the sacraments, but He, being their Author, is free and able to act outside of them if He chooses. This allows for the possibility of salvation of those who lived before Christ; or those who lived after but never had the opportunity to be baptized, like an inhabitant of 9th-century Papua New Guinea who never heard the Gospel message; or those who perhaps have only ever been given a distorted view of Christ and His Church and reject that distortion and thus are not truly rejecting God or refusing baptism. We deem it fitting of God, our merciful Father, to extend his grace in such a way in the case of unbaptized babies.
Some may hear such an idea and think, "Post-Vatican II claptrap!" I would give two responses to that: 1) I've seen this phrase used at least as far back as Peter Lombard, the 12th-century bishop of Paris and theologian whose Book of Sentences was THE textbook in the medieval Church; and I think it's older, but I can't find an earlier reference. The point is, it's an old and well-received idea. 2) Even the venerable Ludwig Ott in his Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, written in the 1950s (before Vatican II) calls Limbo a theological assumption (p. 114), and theological assumptions are subject to revision.
So, neither Purgatory nor Limbo are places where souls are awaiting judgment; indeed, the Church does not even really teach Limbo as a theory anymore.
Hope that helps! Do ask follow-ups!
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Smashing Icons and Why God Has a Beard
In the first few centuries of Christianity, very few religious works of art were produced by Christians. There were several reasons for this:
1) When you're an illegal, underground movement, you don't generally commission sculptors or painters to depict your sacred stories or beliefs, lest that artist turn to the nearest centurion and shout, "Yo, another one for the lions over here!"
2) There was a bit of a hangover from Judaism with its strong prohibitions against making images of God or gods, making Christians wary to portray God.
3) Likewise, since they lived in a pagan world, and the pagans loved their statues and mosaics of the gods, Christians tended to associate such artwork with paganism, and wanted to distance themselves from it.
After the legalization of Christianity in the 4th century, great public churches were built and artwork began to increase: we see mosaics and paintings of the Trinity, of the saints, of scenes from Scripture. But in the 8th and 9th centuries a movement arose called iconoclasm (literally, "image smashing" - this what I meant by "smashing icons": not "Oh, excellent, well done, smashing icons, old chap!" but rather breaking icons into tiny bits). The iconoclasts had various motivations. Some said that any images of Christ, the Trinity, or the saints amounted to idolatry, the worship of images, strictly prohibited by the Scriptures. To make icons, they said, was to violate the First Commandment.
St. John Damascene made several arguments against this. First, very simply, because God had become man in Jesus Christ, God could be depicted, rendering the Old Testament prohibition against making images of God null. Second, the veneration of icons was an ancient tradition which had borne abundant spiritual fruit. And third, he stressed that the veneration shown to an icon is not directed to the image itself, but rather to the one whom the image depicts; when I venerate an icon of Christ, the image is serving as an occasion and a point of focus for my veneration of Christ himself. I'm not worshiping the image, but the one imaged. Thus St. John defended iconodulia (veneration of icons).
One group made a theological argument against making images of God, attacking Damascene's first point: they claimed that, because Jesus is a divine person, because he is God, and because God cannot be described or depicted, therefore we cannot depict Jesus. They acknowledged that Christ indeed had a human nature as well as a divine nature, but asserted that his human nature was one that could not be drawn (the ten-dollar word for this position is agraptodocetism, agrapto- meaning "cannot be drawn," -docetism meaning "seeming," as in "only seeming to have a fully human nature, with all a human's attributes"). Some even went so far as to say that Christ had all colors of hair, all possible heights, all possible noses, etc.!
Theologians like St. Theodore the Studite defended the full humanity of Christ, including its ability to be depicted, against these heretics. There is nothing essential to being human that Christ lacked, they argued, and that includes the ability to be described. The Incarnation means Christ became truly human, which includes having a particular hair color, height, etc. St. Theo argued, "You would have it that Christ became incarnate not into the world, but only into your minds, only as an idea." But because Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis ("The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us" - John 1:14), Christ can be drawn, and icons are legitimate.
Further, because Christ said, "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9), it was argued that it was not inappropriate to portray God the Father in some way. (This was more prevalent in the Western Church; the Eastern Church still tends to be wary of imaging the Father.) Two modes of depiction seem to have become dominant.
The more common one was taken from the Book of Daniel, in which Daniel has a vision of God:
A less common mode, but one popular for a time, was to take John 14:9 very literally and show the Father as looking like Christ. If you've ever seen a religious painting with what appear to be two Christs and wondered, "What the Samuel F. Hill is that about?" that's what's going on. It's not Jesus' brother Jerry (Robin Williams's joke), or a high-class ad for Doublemint gum; nope, it's an artistic way of illustrating the idea conveyed in this passage of Scripture.
There ya go: a little history, theology, and art history all in one!
1) When you're an illegal, underground movement, you don't generally commission sculptors or painters to depict your sacred stories or beliefs, lest that artist turn to the nearest centurion and shout, "Yo, another one for the lions over here!"
2) There was a bit of a hangover from Judaism with its strong prohibitions against making images of God or gods, making Christians wary to portray God.
3) Likewise, since they lived in a pagan world, and the pagans loved their statues and mosaics of the gods, Christians tended to associate such artwork with paganism, and wanted to distance themselves from it.
After the legalization of Christianity in the 4th century, great public churches were built and artwork began to increase: we see mosaics and paintings of the Trinity, of the saints, of scenes from Scripture. But in the 8th and 9th centuries a movement arose called iconoclasm (literally, "image smashing" - this what I meant by "smashing icons": not "Oh, excellent, well done, smashing icons, old chap!" but rather breaking icons into tiny bits). The iconoclasts had various motivations. Some said that any images of Christ, the Trinity, or the saints amounted to idolatry, the worship of images, strictly prohibited by the Scriptures. To make icons, they said, was to violate the First Commandment.
St. John Damascene made several arguments against this. First, very simply, because God had become man in Jesus Christ, God could be depicted, rendering the Old Testament prohibition against making images of God null. Second, the veneration of icons was an ancient tradition which had borne abundant spiritual fruit. And third, he stressed that the veneration shown to an icon is not directed to the image itself, but rather to the one whom the image depicts; when I venerate an icon of Christ, the image is serving as an occasion and a point of focus for my veneration of Christ himself. I'm not worshiping the image, but the one imaged. Thus St. John defended iconodulia (veneration of icons).
One group made a theological argument against making images of God, attacking Damascene's first point: they claimed that, because Jesus is a divine person, because he is God, and because God cannot be described or depicted, therefore we cannot depict Jesus. They acknowledged that Christ indeed had a human nature as well as a divine nature, but asserted that his human nature was one that could not be drawn (the ten-dollar word for this position is agraptodocetism, agrapto- meaning "cannot be drawn," -docetism meaning "seeming," as in "only seeming to have a fully human nature, with all a human's attributes"). Some even went so far as to say that Christ had all colors of hair, all possible heights, all possible noses, etc.!
Theologians like St. Theodore the Studite defended the full humanity of Christ, including its ability to be depicted, against these heretics. There is nothing essential to being human that Christ lacked, they argued, and that includes the ability to be described. The Incarnation means Christ became truly human, which includes having a particular hair color, height, etc. St. Theo argued, "You would have it that Christ became incarnate not into the world, but only into your minds, only as an idea." But because Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis ("The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us" - John 1:14), Christ can be drawn, and icons are legitimate.
Further, because Christ said, "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9), it was argued that it was not inappropriate to portray God the Father in some way. (This was more prevalent in the Western Church; the Eastern Church still tends to be wary of imaging the Father.) Two modes of depiction seem to have become dominant.
The more common one was taken from the Book of Daniel, in which Daniel has a vision of God:
I beheld till thrones were placed, and the ancient of days sat: his garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like clean wool: his throne like flames of fire: the wheels of it like a burning fire. (Daniel 7:9)This "Ancient of Days" is where we get the image of God the Father as an elderly man. And it just looks so much better to have a big flowing beard on an old man, so artists tended to add that on.
A less common mode, but one popular for a time, was to take John 14:9 very literally and show the Father as looking like Christ. If you've ever seen a religious painting with what appear to be two Christs and wondered, "What the Samuel F. Hill is that about?" that's what's going on. It's not Jesus' brother Jerry (Robin Williams's joke), or a high-class ad for Doublemint gum; nope, it's an artistic way of illustrating the idea conveyed in this passage of Scripture.
There ya go: a little history, theology, and art history all in one!
Friday, September 6, 2013
Laws and Rules
The Catholic faith is often criticized for being legalistic, too bogged down with rules, too focused on the no-no, too concerned with its canons and commandments, etc. I hear this from both non-Catholics and Catholics themselves. "It seems like all the Church does is say 'no': no sex outside of marriage, no meat on Fridays during Lent, blah blah blah. Come on, guys, live a little!"
This attitude is reaching for a good thing, but it misidentifies its goal. Every single human being wants to be happy; but many human beings today think that the only way they can be happy is to be free from any constraint to indulge any whim or exercise any desire that flits across their mind. Many people today seem to think that happiness lies in the possession of absolute freedom... except they don't understand what freedom is. They confuse it with something else.
This attitude is reaching for a good thing, but it misidentifies its goal. Every single human being wants to be happy; but many human beings today think that the only way they can be happy is to be free from any constraint to indulge any whim or exercise any desire that flits across their mind. Many people today seem to think that happiness lies in the possession of absolute freedom... except they don't understand what freedom is. They confuse it with something else.
We need to make the important distinction between freedom and license. As Fulton Sheen once put it, license is the ability to do whatever you want; true freedom is the ability to do whatever you ought. Often when you hear people today talk about wanting freedom, what they really are after is license: they want to do whatever they want, whenever they want, with no one attempting to stop them or judge them. Freedom is more than this capability for wish fulfillment, though. Freedom is the capability for fulfilling not your wishes, but your nature.
"Fulfilling your nature" and "doing whatever you ought" refer to the same thing: acting in accord with the way in which God has made human beings to act. God has made human beings in His own image, so that human nature conforms to God's nature and mirrors it. This way of conceiving of what is "natural" to us helps us to distinguish what is part of true human nature from what is a result of our fallen, sinful state--it may feel "natural" for me to want to rear-end the guy who cuts me off in traffic, but that does not mean this action or inclination is in accord with the way God made us and intends us to act.
Let's take the above example of extramarital sex. Why is it forbidden? Because it is not in accord with our nature. But the urge is so strong, the compulsion so great, how can it not be natural? Because, due to our sinfulness, our sexual desire has gone out of balance, out of our control. So what makes sex within marriage so "good" or "natural"? Sexual union creates an unparalleled closeness between a man and a woman and has as its object the procreation of children. These both require a permanent bond. On the practical level, because sharing this greatest intimacy with too many spreads one thin, and because the stable relationship of the parents is the ideal environment for a child to be raised. But even apart from that, the elements of fecundity and permanence and all-embracing love are the elements of the relationship between God and His People, between Christ and the Church, for it is within the Church that we are birthed into new life by being baptized into Christ's death and resurrection (being "born again of water and the Spirit"). And that great mystery is foreshadowed in the human relationship of marriage and the procreation of children. In short, sex has its proper place within marriage because only in this way does it model the divine reality.
This covers the moral law that makes up part of the Church's "rules." What about all those disciplines like fasting before receiving Communion, and not eating meat on Fridays during Lent (heck, the whole Lenten season in general), and all those other sorts of things?
Think of the Church as a family. In every family, in every househould, there are "house rules" which parents set down for their house's good order and to aid in their children's good upbringing. Chores are assigned to teach them responsibility and to keep the house tidy. "No dessert unless you eat your vegetables" to teach them which foods are more important. Things like this. Well, the Church is our mater et magistra, our mother and teacher. The bishops in union with the Holy Father, by virtue of their apostolic office, have been given the great task by God to shepherd their flocks to heaven, to teach the children entrusted to them about God and His plan for us. As part of this, the Church makes certain rules for our benefit and welfare.
So the Church prescribes periods of fasting to help us realize how we ought to hunger for God. The Church designates a period of penitence before celebrating the great mystery of Easter to help us cultivate sorrow for our sins and an awareness of our need for God's forgiveness. The Church tells us to abstain from meats during the penitential season because the ancients thought that "flesh-meats" aroused the passions and made us less in control of ourselves. (Fun fact: modern science has discovered that those meats contain high levels of zinc, and that zinc increases one's libido. So the ancients were right! And guess what seems kind of like meat but doesn't contain large amounts of zinc? Fish. And you thought the Church was just being random.)
And by following these practices of discipline, we're better able to control our passions, instead of letting them control us; we're able to keep them in their proper balance. And when we can do that, we're better able to live our lives according to the nature God gave us. These disciplines and commandments, these laws and rules, work together to help us lead holier, happier lives. Only then can we be fulfilled, when we're filled with God.
"Fulfilling your nature" and "doing whatever you ought" refer to the same thing: acting in accord with the way in which God has made human beings to act. God has made human beings in His own image, so that human nature conforms to God's nature and mirrors it. This way of conceiving of what is "natural" to us helps us to distinguish what is part of true human nature from what is a result of our fallen, sinful state--it may feel "natural" for me to want to rear-end the guy who cuts me off in traffic, but that does not mean this action or inclination is in accord with the way God made us and intends us to act.
Let's take the above example of extramarital sex. Why is it forbidden? Because it is not in accord with our nature. But the urge is so strong, the compulsion so great, how can it not be natural? Because, due to our sinfulness, our sexual desire has gone out of balance, out of our control. So what makes sex within marriage so "good" or "natural"? Sexual union creates an unparalleled closeness between a man and a woman and has as its object the procreation of children. These both require a permanent bond. On the practical level, because sharing this greatest intimacy with too many spreads one thin, and because the stable relationship of the parents is the ideal environment for a child to be raised. But even apart from that, the elements of fecundity and permanence and all-embracing love are the elements of the relationship between God and His People, between Christ and the Church, for it is within the Church that we are birthed into new life by being baptized into Christ's death and resurrection (being "born again of water and the Spirit"). And that great mystery is foreshadowed in the human relationship of marriage and the procreation of children. In short, sex has its proper place within marriage because only in this way does it model the divine reality.
This covers the moral law that makes up part of the Church's "rules." What about all those disciplines like fasting before receiving Communion, and not eating meat on Fridays during Lent (heck, the whole Lenten season in general), and all those other sorts of things?
Think of the Church as a family. In every family, in every househould, there are "house rules" which parents set down for their house's good order and to aid in their children's good upbringing. Chores are assigned to teach them responsibility and to keep the house tidy. "No dessert unless you eat your vegetables" to teach them which foods are more important. Things like this. Well, the Church is our mater et magistra, our mother and teacher. The bishops in union with the Holy Father, by virtue of their apostolic office, have been given the great task by God to shepherd their flocks to heaven, to teach the children entrusted to them about God and His plan for us. As part of this, the Church makes certain rules for our benefit and welfare.
So the Church prescribes periods of fasting to help us realize how we ought to hunger for God. The Church designates a period of penitence before celebrating the great mystery of Easter to help us cultivate sorrow for our sins and an awareness of our need for God's forgiveness. The Church tells us to abstain from meats during the penitential season because the ancients thought that "flesh-meats" aroused the passions and made us less in control of ourselves. (Fun fact: modern science has discovered that those meats contain high levels of zinc, and that zinc increases one's libido. So the ancients were right! And guess what seems kind of like meat but doesn't contain large amounts of zinc? Fish. And you thought the Church was just being random.)
And by following these practices of discipline, we're better able to control our passions, instead of letting them control us; we're able to keep them in their proper balance. And when we can do that, we're better able to live our lives according to the nature God gave us. These disciplines and commandments, these laws and rules, work together to help us lead holier, happier lives. Only then can we be fulfilled, when we're filled with God.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
The Only Reason to Be a Catholic
Dear readers, I ask you: what is the point of being a Catholic?
Is it to carry on the traditions of your family, attending the same church that Mom & Dad went to, getting married in the same church Mom & Dad got married in, getting your kids baptized in the same church you were baptized in, so that you can be buried in the same cemetery Granny & Gramps are buried in?
Is it a tribal designation, like the old joke: A man got lost in Belfast and wasn't sure if he was on the Catholic or Protestant side of town. Some rough-looking youths came up to him and asked, "Are you a Protestant or a Catholic?" Knowing the wrong answer could get him killed, he answered, "Actually, I'm an atheist." The youths looked puzzled and asked, "Yes, but are you a Protestant atheist or a Catholic atheist?"
Is it to have a sense of belonging and community? Perhaps that which you belong to is less important to you than that you belong, and it might as well be the local country club as the local parish? Or maybe you're simply trying to get the parishioner discount at the parochial school? Maybe using the Knights of Columbus for a little business networking?
These are insufficient reasons. The only reason to be a Catholic, the whole point to it, is that the Catholic faith reveals to us the purpose of life and helps us to fulfill it. I turn now to the first few entries in the venerable Baltimore Catechism.
1. Who made us?
God made us.
2. Who is God?
God is the Supreme Being, infinitely perfect, who made all things and keeps them in existence.
3. Why did God make us?
God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in heaven.
4. What must we do to gain the happiness of heaven?
To gain the happiness of heaven we must know, love, and serve God in this world.
5. From whom do we learn to know, love, and serve God?
We learn to know, love, and serve God from Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who teaches us through the Catholic Church.
Every single human being who has ever lived has wondered, "What am I doing here?" asking both their origin and their purpose. Origin and purpose are fundamentally bound to one another: everything that is made is made for some reason, for some end, and is given that end or purpose or reason by its maker. Every person knows they have a purpose: they are enlivened when they have one and depressed when they have none. Modern folk tend to think that human beings should determine or create their own ultimate purpose for themselves, but this would only make sense if we were our own creators, which we are not. We did not bring ourselves into existence, so we cannot set our own ultimate reason for existing. That reason is inscribed in our very form, hardwired into us, part of the factory settings, so to speak, unalterable and irrevocable.
Our purpose can only be made known to us by knowing the mind of the one who made us--that is, God. But who is this God who made us? He is the source of all existence, the creator of everything that is, having all perfections. And He made us out of pure generosity, absolute gratuity; He had no need to create us or anything--nothing could compel Him. Simply out of His goodness and His desire to share of Himself, God made us, destined for eternal happiness with Him. All we need do is follow His design for us, His design within us; for since He made us for Himself, our happiness will be in knowing and loving and serving Him. And yet we failed and continue to fail to heed this call, mysteriously rejecting that which will bring us fulfillment. So God comes to our aid, and helps us to know Him and love Him by revealing Himself to us, preeminently in the greatest event in history, in which God Himself condescended to become one of us in the person of Jesus Christ, teaching, dying, and rising, defeating death that we might live. In Christ our sins are forgiven and our unity with God is restored. In Christ we share in the very life of God Himself! And Christ continues his presence and his work on earth through his Body, the Church, built upon the rock of St. Peter, founded on the twelve stones of the Apostles, spread through the preaching of the Gospel message of salvation through Christ, nourished by those visible signs of his invisible grace, the sacraments.
This is the only reason to be a Catholic: to fulfill our destiny by knowing, loving, and serving God, taught by Christ and his Church. Family tradition and identity and belonging will follow from that, but those are ancillary concerns, attendant benefits of the grace of communion with the Triune God.
If this is not your reason for belonging to the Church, for attending Mass, I say: repent and be converted! Make Christ the center of your life! I say this as much to myself as anyone. We all need ever-deeper conversion to Christ, ever-strengthened unity with him, ever-greater love for him. Come and find your fulfillment! Come and find your purpose! Come and find your joy!
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
A Tale of Two Churches
There are two parishes in my area that I've attended several times. I think they serve as illustrations of two visions of the Church current in America. And they show which one is winning out.
One parish has a church building that looks like a civic center on the outside and someone's living room from 1978 on the inside. It's earth tone color scheme and pews oriented in a semi-circle around a sanctuary that resembles a middle school theater stage don't exactly shout "sacred space set apart for the worship of God." The other parish looks like it was plucked right out of 17th century France. I don't know enough about architectural styles to tell you exactly what it is, but outside and in it has a very classic look. The stained glass windows fill the place with color when the light shines through. The high altar, adorned with gold candlesticks and an ornate tabernacle, shout "glory and majesty" to the eye.
One parish selects music almost exclusively published in the 1980s: sappy, un-sing-able Broadway-style tunes that make you feel like you're in the middle of one of the romantic numbers from West Side Story. The Alleluia may or may not have been lifted from one of those children's singalong albums, and comes complete with hand gestures that look like geriatric calisthenics. The other parish sings traditional hymns ("traditional" meaning not simply "old" but "in a traditional hymn style") that are beautiful, simple, and singable (and, surprise surprise, people then actually sing along!), and often includes some plainchant and polyphony (as Vatican II said the liturgy should, and as the current General Instruction of the Roman Missal assumes every Mass is doing); I'd bet the heavenly angelic choir sounds something like this, or at least closer to this than the other one.
One parish treats the Sign of Peace as "smooch time" (as I heard one priest at another parish call it), running across the aisles to compliment each other on their blouses, waving and winking to each other as if they were greeting each other at a soiree, and completely disregarding the Agnus Dei chant when it begins. The other parish appears to view this part of the Mass as a time to "share with one another a sign of Christ's peace," to invoke the Lord's blessing of peace upon each other, not to ask how yesterday's fishing trip went.
One seems to view the Mass as a weekly social gathering of the book club, while the other seems to view it as a holy time for worship and joining in communion with God.
One parish has a half-filled church on a good day, mainly populated by people my grandparents' age, because that vision of the Church is falling to the "chronological solution," i.e. its ideas are not being accepted by the next generations and thus is dying off. The other parish is packed every Mass with young families, many with at least a half dozen children.
Neither parish is perfectly ideal, and neither parish is completely flawed. But one seems to be more conformed in many important ways to what the Church envisions a parish's liturgy to be than the other. And that one is thriving.
One parish has a church building that looks like a civic center on the outside and someone's living room from 1978 on the inside. It's earth tone color scheme and pews oriented in a semi-circle around a sanctuary that resembles a middle school theater stage don't exactly shout "sacred space set apart for the worship of God." The other parish looks like it was plucked right out of 17th century France. I don't know enough about architectural styles to tell you exactly what it is, but outside and in it has a very classic look. The stained glass windows fill the place with color when the light shines through. The high altar, adorned with gold candlesticks and an ornate tabernacle, shout "glory and majesty" to the eye.
One parish selects music almost exclusively published in the 1980s: sappy, un-sing-able Broadway-style tunes that make you feel like you're in the middle of one of the romantic numbers from West Side Story. The Alleluia may or may not have been lifted from one of those children's singalong albums, and comes complete with hand gestures that look like geriatric calisthenics. The other parish sings traditional hymns ("traditional" meaning not simply "old" but "in a traditional hymn style") that are beautiful, simple, and singable (and, surprise surprise, people then actually sing along!), and often includes some plainchant and polyphony (as Vatican II said the liturgy should, and as the current General Instruction of the Roman Missal assumes every Mass is doing); I'd bet the heavenly angelic choir sounds something like this, or at least closer to this than the other one.
One parish treats the Sign of Peace as "smooch time" (as I heard one priest at another parish call it), running across the aisles to compliment each other on their blouses, waving and winking to each other as if they were greeting each other at a soiree, and completely disregarding the Agnus Dei chant when it begins. The other parish appears to view this part of the Mass as a time to "share with one another a sign of Christ's peace," to invoke the Lord's blessing of peace upon each other, not to ask how yesterday's fishing trip went.
One seems to view the Mass as a weekly social gathering of the book club, while the other seems to view it as a holy time for worship and joining in communion with God.
One parish has a half-filled church on a good day, mainly populated by people my grandparents' age, because that vision of the Church is falling to the "chronological solution," i.e. its ideas are not being accepted by the next generations and thus is dying off. The other parish is packed every Mass with young families, many with at least a half dozen children.
Neither parish is perfectly ideal, and neither parish is completely flawed. But one seems to be more conformed in many important ways to what the Church envisions a parish's liturgy to be than the other. And that one is thriving.
Friday, July 26, 2013
Who Could Hate a Baby?
The birth of George Alexander Louis Windsor, son of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, heir to the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, has been the cause of much joy and celebration on that ancient isle, and much comment and fascination here in its former colonies. With all the news coverage it has received here in the States, you'd think it was our own future king who'd been born.
There has also been a counter-reaction, though, by some who have no interest in a royal baby and can't see why others would have any. Some seem to be Robespierre reincarnated, using the opportunity to denounce monarchy, even in its current largely de-fanged form. Some seem to be conjuring the spirit of Thomas Jefferson, excoriating their fellow Americans for taking any interest in the happenings of their former colonial masters.
I have no problem with someone being disinterested in this event. I do have a problem when it turns to hatred. It's one thing to say, "Man, who cares about a royal wedding or royal birth? It's got nothing to do with us!" It's another thing to say, "Who cares about the stupid royal baby? The little brat's going to live a spoiled life of privilege off of the backs of normal folks."
Whoa! Hold on! You just made it personal. What did this baby ever do to you? This is a baby we're talking about here. Far from oppressing or denying anyone their rights, this little guy has barely done more than eat, sleep, and spit up in his short life.
How can you look at a baby and be filled with hate? "Oh, it's not the baby I hate; it's all the attention he's getting," you might respond. Then why did you call the baby stupid and a brat? Why spew forth this venom in the baby's direction? Make sure that the guns of your criticism aren't aimed at innocent parties.
Every single human being born into the world is a gift from God. Yes, some babies garner more public attention than others, which is bound to happen, just as you care more about the death of your favorite athlete or actor than the death of the uncle of the guy you lives three houses away from you whose name you can't quite remember but you still wave to him when you're both getting the mail at the same time. This baby boy is a blessing to his family, and to the nation for whom he will be a symbol. If you don't care for the fanfare he gets, then criticize the fanfare; don't hate on the baby.
There has also been a counter-reaction, though, by some who have no interest in a royal baby and can't see why others would have any. Some seem to be Robespierre reincarnated, using the opportunity to denounce monarchy, even in its current largely de-fanged form. Some seem to be conjuring the spirit of Thomas Jefferson, excoriating their fellow Americans for taking any interest in the happenings of their former colonial masters.
I have no problem with someone being disinterested in this event. I do have a problem when it turns to hatred. It's one thing to say, "Man, who cares about a royal wedding or royal birth? It's got nothing to do with us!" It's another thing to say, "Who cares about the stupid royal baby? The little brat's going to live a spoiled life of privilege off of the backs of normal folks."
Whoa! Hold on! You just made it personal. What did this baby ever do to you? This is a baby we're talking about here. Far from oppressing or denying anyone their rights, this little guy has barely done more than eat, sleep, and spit up in his short life.
How can you look at a baby and be filled with hate? "Oh, it's not the baby I hate; it's all the attention he's getting," you might respond. Then why did you call the baby stupid and a brat? Why spew forth this venom in the baby's direction? Make sure that the guns of your criticism aren't aimed at innocent parties.
Every single human being born into the world is a gift from God. Yes, some babies garner more public attention than others, which is bound to happen, just as you care more about the death of your favorite athlete or actor than the death of the uncle of the guy you lives three houses away from you whose name you can't quite remember but you still wave to him when you're both getting the mail at the same time. This baby boy is a blessing to his family, and to the nation for whom he will be a symbol. If you don't care for the fanfare he gets, then criticize the fanfare; don't hate on the baby.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Praying for the Rich
A few days ago was the feast of St. Henry, a German noble who lived at the turn of the first millenium and who was elected Holy Roman Emperor. He lived a life of personal piety and encouraged holiness and moral virtue within his realm during his life, which is why the Church has recognized him as a saint.
Some of my favorite saints are those who were royalty or nobility: St. Margaret of Scotland, St. Louis of France, St. Wenceslaus, etc. I appreciate their lives because they had an extra degree of difficulty in taking the straight and narrow way. We usually envy the rich and powerful because we think they've got it easy, but we're only thinking in terms of material comforts or leisure. But when it comes to the most important matters, the state of one's soul and one's eternal destiny, all that money and power can be a hindrance.
For any of us, what keeps us from attaining eternal glory is our doing what we want instead of what God wants, or rather, refusing to make what God wants into what we want. And it's a lot easier to do whatever we want when we have the means to do whatever we want. How easy it is to take revenge on my enemies when I'm the sovereign and nobody can arrest me for it. How simple it is to take my neighbor's wife for my own pleasures when my soldiers can kill my neighbor if he objects. As I exercise my power, I begin to think that there is no power above me. "In their insolence the wicked boast, 'God does not care. There is no God.'" (Psalm 10:4) That's why Jesus said that camels get through eyes of needles before rich men enter heaven. (Matthew 19:24)
We should each thank God every day that we are not subject to the same temptations as those who are in such places of privilege. And perhaps worst of all, they must not only battle the desire to exercise their passions when it would be oh-so-easy to do, but they then face the terrible despair of realizing that all the power and pleasure in the world can't fill the God-shaped hole in their hearts. Do you ever wonder why rich countries have higher suicide rates than poor ones?
How many of those who wield power today would we consider candidates for canonization? Power of any sort: political, economic, media.... how many of the well-to-do and influential would we peg as the sort to have a halo 'round their head in pictures? These people need our prayers, not only for their own sake, but because they sit at the fountainhead of the world's affairs and affect all of our lives. We cannot have a just world without just leaders.
I've known many people in the Church who have taken their passion for and love of the poor and turned that against the rich (or even at times the middle class), casting them as irredeemable demons and losing sight of their humanity. But rich people have souls, too. Souls in need of saving.
Some of my favorite saints are those who were royalty or nobility: St. Margaret of Scotland, St. Louis of France, St. Wenceslaus, etc. I appreciate their lives because they had an extra degree of difficulty in taking the straight and narrow way. We usually envy the rich and powerful because we think they've got it easy, but we're only thinking in terms of material comforts or leisure. But when it comes to the most important matters, the state of one's soul and one's eternal destiny, all that money and power can be a hindrance.
For any of us, what keeps us from attaining eternal glory is our doing what we want instead of what God wants, or rather, refusing to make what God wants into what we want. And it's a lot easier to do whatever we want when we have the means to do whatever we want. How easy it is to take revenge on my enemies when I'm the sovereign and nobody can arrest me for it. How simple it is to take my neighbor's wife for my own pleasures when my soldiers can kill my neighbor if he objects. As I exercise my power, I begin to think that there is no power above me. "In their insolence the wicked boast, 'God does not care. There is no God.'" (Psalm 10:4) That's why Jesus said that camels get through eyes of needles before rich men enter heaven. (Matthew 19:24)
We should each thank God every day that we are not subject to the same temptations as those who are in such places of privilege. And perhaps worst of all, they must not only battle the desire to exercise their passions when it would be oh-so-easy to do, but they then face the terrible despair of realizing that all the power and pleasure in the world can't fill the God-shaped hole in their hearts. Do you ever wonder why rich countries have higher suicide rates than poor ones?
How many of those who wield power today would we consider candidates for canonization? Power of any sort: political, economic, media.... how many of the well-to-do and influential would we peg as the sort to have a halo 'round their head in pictures? These people need our prayers, not only for their own sake, but because they sit at the fountainhead of the world's affairs and affect all of our lives. We cannot have a just world without just leaders.
I've known many people in the Church who have taken their passion for and love of the poor and turned that against the rich (or even at times the middle class), casting them as irredeemable demons and losing sight of their humanity. But rich people have souls, too. Souls in need of saving.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
The Origins of the Creed
In the first few centuries after
the birth, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, the hot topics of
conversation within the Church often centered on these questions: who is Jesus?
What is Jesus? How do we make sense of all of the things he said and did? He
healed the sick, fed multitudes from a few loaves and fish, even raised the
dead, even rose from the dead himself. He was clearly a prophet, perhaps the
greatest of prophets, the Messiah who was to come and restore Israel. But he
also said certain things, like “I and my Father are one,” and “He who has seen
me has seen the Father.” Was… was he claiming to be equal to God somehow, or to
be God Himself? How could Jesus be God if there is only one God? Could God
become a human being and still be God? And even if Jesus were God, how would we
reconcile that with him saying things like, “Why do you call me good? No one is
good but God alone,” or with the Gospels saying that Jesus grew in wisdom (does
God need to learn anything)? Is Jesus a man? Is he God? Both? Neither?
Something else? How do we express his identity?
Many people tried many solutions
to the problem, but most of them tended to fall on one side or the other of the
“God or man” equation. Docetists said
that Jesus was really God, but only appeared to be human (“Docetist” from the
Greek dokein meaning “to appear, to seem”);
he didn’t really suffer or die, but sort of went through the motions, his human
form being a mere suit of clothes or mirage. Adoptionists said that Jesus was really a human being, but was
granted special favor by God and elevated or “adopted” at the moment of his
baptism in the River Jordan (“This is my beloved son in whom I am well
pleased”). Different Gnostic groups
took some things they read in Neo-Platonic writers and constructed a whole
mythos in which human souls were trapped in bodies by an evil creator god (the
Demiurge), and Jesus was a spirit who had come to free them by giving them the
knowledge that they were imprisoned (“Gnostic” from Greek gnosis meaning “knowledge”).
None of these seemed right. The
general sense, gathered from Sacred Scripture, the apostolic tradition of the
Church, and the teaching of the bishops around the world, was that Jesus had to
be somehow both God and man. But how could that be? Many more made attempts.
Some said that God was really one, but appeared in different forms at different
times: sometimes as Father, sometimes as Son, sometimes as Spirit. Various
ideas had this basic concept, and became known as monarchianism ( Greek mono
+ arche = “one
beginning/origin/power”), or modalism
(as in, “God appears in different modes: Father mode, Son mode, Spirit mode”),
or patripassianism (Latin “pater” +
“passio” = “The Father suffering,” meaning that though it appeared a different
person, the Son, was suffering, the Son is just a mode of the Father, so it was
really the Father who suffered on the cross). There were others, all falling to
the same problem of not respecting both the unity of God and the distinction
between the Father and the Son.
Many of these teachers began
trying to make use of philosophical terms to help explain themselves, terms
like substance, nature, and person. Several challenges stood in the way of
this, though. One, the eastern part of the empire was largely Greek-speaking,
while the west was Latin-speaking; add to this that the Greek theologians were
using more terms than their Latin counterparts, and problems abound. The Latins
heard ousia and physis and hypostasis and
prosopon and tried to cram them into persona, natura, and substantia. It
also didn’t help that the Greeks couldn’t decide what their terms meant—they
had a bad habit of using these words without defining them. One person uses physis to mean
“nature/essence/what-it-is,” while another uses it to mean “center of
subjectivity/who-it-is.” Confusion abounded.
Then, a priest from Rome named
Arius began teaching in the Egyptian city of Alexandria that the Son was
distinct from the Father, but that he was a creature, the greatest of all
creatures and nearly a god himself, but that “there was a time when the Son was
not”: he was not eternal; he was not God. But, being that he died for our sins
and was glorified by God, he was still worthy of our veneration.
This idea became very popular,
especially among certain influential Roman nobles, and the Germanic barbarians
living on the borders of the empire. Much of the Church in the Eastern part of
the empire took to this new teaching; as St. Jerome wrote, “The world awoke and
groaned to find itself Arian.” The western part of the empire still largely
held to the traditional view laid out by Tertullian a century before: that
Jesus was one person, but a person with two natures, one human and one divine.
Things got bad. Factions sprang
up. People were persecuted. Bishops were forced into exile away from their
cities.
In 325 AD, the emperor
Constantine summoned all the bishops of the world to the resort town of Nicaea
and asked them to settle the issue. More than 300 bishops from all over the
empire attended, including two legates representing the Pope. This was the
first ecumenical (“world-wide”) council in the Church’s history. The bishops
discussed, and debated, even fought: St. Nicholas (yes, THAT St. Nicholas) was
so furious with Arius that he punched him in the face! The bishops overwhelmingly
agreed that Arius was dead wrong. They came up with a summary definition of the
Church’s faith in Christ, adding to it at another council held 50 years later
in Constantinople. Today we know this definition as the Nicene(-Constantinopolitan)
Creed. You say it in Mass every Sunday.
(Tangential epilogue: People
sometimes wonder, if the Creed is supposed to be the most basic and fundamental
expression of the Christian faith, why is there no mention of the Eucharist,
expressing the Church’s belief that it is truly the Body and Blood of Christ?
The answer is simple: nobody disputed this point at the time. Creeds and
council declarations address the points being controverted at the present time.
The Eucharist as the Real Presence of Christ? That was obvious. The nature of
Christ himself? That’s the hard stuff.)
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Divine Logic
Catholics are very familiar with addressing the Blessed Virgin Mary as "Mother of God," just as we do in the Haily Mary: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners." This is an ancient title for Mary, which was officially approved and sanctioned by the Church at the third Ecumenical Council, at Ephesus, in 431 AD. Some people objected to it then because they had a distorted view of the nature of Christ, but this should be an easy one, right? It's simple logic:
Indeed it is absurd, 'cause your logic is flawed.
There are two problems here. One is a formal problem, which may be a little complex to get into here (i.e. I'm not sure I understand it well enough to explain it), but suffice it to say that the way that syllogism is set up renders it invalid. I think it can be demonstrated with another example:
The other problem is called the fallacy of four terms. This is when a logical proposition uses one word in two different ways, so that the word does not mean the same thing every time it is used. Here is a handy example (borrowed from the Wikipedia page on the subject of this fallacy):
Just as the word "nothing" is being used in to mean two different things in this example, so "God" is being used to mean two different things in the Evangelical example.
The three Persons of the Trinity are each fully God, so that it can properly be said of each, "The Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God." We say that "God" can be predicated of each person of the Trinity, and everything that can be predicated of God-ness can be predicated of each of them, e.g. omnipotence, omnipresence, eternity, etc. Think of it like this: Nick is human. Jim is human. That means both possess human nature. Everything that can be said of human nature can be said of Nick and Jim: they are rational, they can see humor, etc. Just so, saying "The Father is God" and "The Son is God" means both possess the divine nature, and everything that can be said of the divine nature can be said of each of them: they are all-loving, all-just, all-merciful, etc.
BUT the process does not work in reverse: just because Nick and Jim share human nature, and just because the Father and the Son share divine nature, does not mean that everything that can be predicated of one can be predicated of the other. Though Nick and Jim share human nature, that does not mean that Nick is Jim. And though the Father and Son share divine nature, that does not mean the Father is the Son. The Father's fatherhood is unique to Him, and the Son's place as Son is unique to Him. Likewise, since it is only the Son that became incarnate in the Virgin's womb, only the Son can be said to have been born of her, and thus Mary is said to be Mother of God only as it relates to the Son.
No one should make the mistake of thinking that calling Mary "Mother of God" makes her the Mother of the entire Trinity, and no one should think that this title makes Mary superior or even equal to God. The title simply acknowledges that the one to whom Mary gave birth is truly the God, and that the God to whom Mary gave birth did truly become human. The only way you can deny the title Mother of God to Mary is to either deny that Jesus is truly human or that Jesus is truly God. And I don't think any who call themselves Christian would want to do that.
Jesus is God.But did you know that some Evangelical Christians object to this title today? They say it gives Mary too much honor to be called the Mother of God--to that I would respond, "If the shoe fits, wear it." I also heard one Evangelical in a debate try to show that calling Mary the Mother of God is absurd by making this counter-argument:
Mary is the mother of Jesus.
Therefore, Mary is the mother of God.
"But this is absurd! No Christian believes Mary is the mother of the Trinity! See, Catholic, your logic is flawed!"God is Trinity.
Mary is the mother of God.
Therefore, Mary is the mother of the Trinity.
Indeed it is absurd, 'cause your logic is flawed.
There are two problems here. One is a formal problem, which may be a little complex to get into here (i.e. I'm not sure I understand it well enough to explain it), but suffice it to say that the way that syllogism is set up renders it invalid. I think it can be demonstrated with another example:
God is Trinity.Well, that didn't work, did it? So the first issue is the form of the argument.
The Father is God.
Therefore, the Father is Trinity.
The other problem is called the fallacy of four terms. This is when a logical proposition uses one word in two different ways, so that the word does not mean the same thing every time it is used. Here is a handy example (borrowed from the Wikipedia page on the subject of this fallacy):
- Major premise: Nothing is better than eternal happiness.
- Minor premise: A ham sandwich is better than nothing.
- Conclusion: A ham sandwich is better than eternal happiness.
The word "nothing" in the example above has two meanings, as presented: "nothing is better" means the thing being named has the highest value possible; "better than nothing" only means that the thing being described has some value. Therefore, "nothing" acts as two different words in this example, thus creating the fallacy of four terms.
Just as the word "nothing" is being used in to mean two different things in this example, so "God" is being used to mean two different things in the Evangelical example.
The three Persons of the Trinity are each fully God, so that it can properly be said of each, "The Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God." We say that "God" can be predicated of each person of the Trinity, and everything that can be predicated of God-ness can be predicated of each of them, e.g. omnipotence, omnipresence, eternity, etc. Think of it like this: Nick is human. Jim is human. That means both possess human nature. Everything that can be said of human nature can be said of Nick and Jim: they are rational, they can see humor, etc. Just so, saying "The Father is God" and "The Son is God" means both possess the divine nature, and everything that can be said of the divine nature can be said of each of them: they are all-loving, all-just, all-merciful, etc.
BUT the process does not work in reverse: just because Nick and Jim share human nature, and just because the Father and the Son share divine nature, does not mean that everything that can be predicated of one can be predicated of the other. Though Nick and Jim share human nature, that does not mean that Nick is Jim. And though the Father and Son share divine nature, that does not mean the Father is the Son. The Father's fatherhood is unique to Him, and the Son's place as Son is unique to Him. Likewise, since it is only the Son that became incarnate in the Virgin's womb, only the Son can be said to have been born of her, and thus Mary is said to be Mother of God only as it relates to the Son.
No one should make the mistake of thinking that calling Mary "Mother of God" makes her the Mother of the entire Trinity, and no one should think that this title makes Mary superior or even equal to God. The title simply acknowledges that the one to whom Mary gave birth is truly the God, and that the God to whom Mary gave birth did truly become human. The only way you can deny the title Mother of God to Mary is to either deny that Jesus is truly human or that Jesus is truly God. And I don't think any who call themselves Christian would want to do that.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Salvation History in Three Minutes or Less
For those who have trouble keeping straight in their head whether Moses was before or after Jesus, I offer this brief account of salvation history:
In the beginning (and we mean "beginning" in the broadest sense, the sort of beginning that could span billions of years), God created everything, from angels to galaxies to cockroaches, and as creation's crowning achievement, he made human beings, endowed with intellects so they could know God and wills so they could love God and bodies so they could serve God in the material world. Humanity was to live in union with God. But these very first human beings disobeyed God and did the one thing He asked them not to do: they ate the fruit of the forbidden tree, and bit off more than they could chew. Their bond with God was broken by their own actions. So God banished them from paradise, and thus began the long, sad story of human death and misery. But even then God planned, in the fullness of time, to restore humanity to unity with Him.
Part of God's plan was to form humanity by establishing a special relationship with certain human beings, making covenants with them. He made a covenant with Noah that He would never again flood the entire earth and would no longer make war on humanity. He made a covenant with Abraham that He would bring forth from Abraham a holy people, a people set apart as God's own. He made a covenant with Moses to let Israel flourish in the land He would give them if they obeyed his commandments and laws. He made a covenant with David that David's descendants would rule Israel as a shepherd tends his sheep and always enjoy God's favor. And after the time of David, through the fall of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, through the captivity of the people in Babylon, through their return to their land, the prophets, from Amos to Isaiah to Jeremiah to Malachi, continually proclaimed God's promises of His covenant, assuring the people that they would one day be fulfilled.
Let's put the contents of these covenants together: God promises to have peace with humanity; God promises to make a holy people; God promises that the people will flourish if they obey Him; God promises that the Son of David will lead this people. God fulfilled all of these covenants perfectly when He Himself came to fulfill them. God took flesh and became man in the person of Jesus Christ, and through his life, death, and resurrection, brought peace between God and humanity, made a holy people of those who believe in him (his Church), gave them the sacraments to give them spiritual nourishment and new life, and became the Good Shepherd who leads his flock.
After Christ's ascension, the apostles spread the Good News of this new and everlasting covenant between God and all humanity, as Christ had sent them to do, traveling to all corners of the known world and building up the Church. (Tradition has various apostles going everywhere from India to Spain to Ethiopia.) The apostles then appointed those who would succeed them in guiding the Church in holiness and teaching the true faith, and those ones in turn appointed successors, so that, two thousand years later, via a sort of apostolic chain of custody, we still profess with the faith of the apostles, and are taught, governed, and sanctified through the work of the apostolic ministry (bishops, priests, deacons).
God keeps His promises.
In the beginning (and we mean "beginning" in the broadest sense, the sort of beginning that could span billions of years), God created everything, from angels to galaxies to cockroaches, and as creation's crowning achievement, he made human beings, endowed with intellects so they could know God and wills so they could love God and bodies so they could serve God in the material world. Humanity was to live in union with God. But these very first human beings disobeyed God and did the one thing He asked them not to do: they ate the fruit of the forbidden tree, and bit off more than they could chew. Their bond with God was broken by their own actions. So God banished them from paradise, and thus began the long, sad story of human death and misery. But even then God planned, in the fullness of time, to restore humanity to unity with Him.
Part of God's plan was to form humanity by establishing a special relationship with certain human beings, making covenants with them. He made a covenant with Noah that He would never again flood the entire earth and would no longer make war on humanity. He made a covenant with Abraham that He would bring forth from Abraham a holy people, a people set apart as God's own. He made a covenant with Moses to let Israel flourish in the land He would give them if they obeyed his commandments and laws. He made a covenant with David that David's descendants would rule Israel as a shepherd tends his sheep and always enjoy God's favor. And after the time of David, through the fall of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, through the captivity of the people in Babylon, through their return to their land, the prophets, from Amos to Isaiah to Jeremiah to Malachi, continually proclaimed God's promises of His covenant, assuring the people that they would one day be fulfilled.
Let's put the contents of these covenants together: God promises to have peace with humanity; God promises to make a holy people; God promises that the people will flourish if they obey Him; God promises that the Son of David will lead this people. God fulfilled all of these covenants perfectly when He Himself came to fulfill them. God took flesh and became man in the person of Jesus Christ, and through his life, death, and resurrection, brought peace between God and humanity, made a holy people of those who believe in him (his Church), gave them the sacraments to give them spiritual nourishment and new life, and became the Good Shepherd who leads his flock.
After Christ's ascension, the apostles spread the Good News of this new and everlasting covenant between God and all humanity, as Christ had sent them to do, traveling to all corners of the known world and building up the Church. (Tradition has various apostles going everywhere from India to Spain to Ethiopia.) The apostles then appointed those who would succeed them in guiding the Church in holiness and teaching the true faith, and those ones in turn appointed successors, so that, two thousand years later, via a sort of apostolic chain of custody, we still profess with the faith of the apostles, and are taught, governed, and sanctified through the work of the apostolic ministry (bishops, priests, deacons).
God keeps His promises.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Approaching the Trinity: Avoiding the Extremes
This Sunday is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. This great feast fittingly takes place very year after Pentecost, the holy day commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church--after the ascension of Christ, sent by the Father, comes the sending of the Spirit, and thus we see the Triune God, one God in three Persons, made manifest to us. It's an appropriate moment to stop and consider for a moment the most mysterious of the mysteries of our faith.
I titled this post "Approaching the Trinity" because it is downright foolishness to think one can comprehend the Trinity. To understand God in His inmost being, in which unity is three-ness and three-ness is oneness? You can't get your arms around it; the best you can do is walk up to it. It's very hard to say what the Trinity is, but a bit easier to say what it isn't. In this post I'll show you some of the boundaries of thought on the Trinity (this is why the other half of the post's title is "Avoiding the Extremes"): you can know then that, if you find yourself thinking in this way, you've gone too far and are no longer thinking of God as He is.
Now, if you're approaching a mystery in which you are trying to see in what way something can be both one and three, there are two obvious ways you can err: overemphasizing the oneness, or overemphasizing the three-ness. The first of these errors often becomes a sort of modalism, while the second tends to become tritheism.
Modalism is the idea that God really, truly in His being is one, but he only appears to us in different persons; that is, God appears to us in different modes. Under this framework, the Israelites would have encountered God in "Father mode," and then God would have incarnated in "Son mode," then been present to the Church in "Spirit mode." It seems nice and tidy, and avoids that messiness of trying to explain how one God can be three different Persons, and was the sort of thought that many an early heretic fell into (and not a few modern theologians, I'd wager). BUT this way of thinking doesn't fit our data from Scripture. When Christ speaks of the Father and the Spirit, he speaks as though they are different from him; yes, he says, "The Father and I are one," but he also says, "My Father and I will come and dwell with him," and "I will send you a Paraclete." Sometimes his language denotes unity, sometimes differentiation. What's the solution? Either there is, in some way, both unity and differentiation, or we would be forced to conclude that Christ is a liar, putting on some show to make us think there are three Persons involved when really there's just one. And since all parties would agree that Christ is God, and God does not lie, the last solution does not work. So modalism can't be true.
Tritheism is the idea that God really, truly is three different beings, is three gods, but that they are all one in willing the same thing, or something like that. I think that many people today tend to conceive of God in this way, that there are these three beings each of whom we call God, but we call them one God because they just seem to get along so well. Not only that, I think most people tend to become subordinationists, too, placing the Persons of the Trinity into different degrees or ranks, one being somehow higher than the other: when they think of God, they think of the Father as being really God, and then, oh yeah, the Son, he's pretty god-ish, too, and I guess the Spirit, we can't leave him out. Unfortunately, as with modalism, you could find scriptural support for such a position, as many early heretics did, simply by pointing to all those places where the Persons are spoken of as distinct: how can Christ pray to his Father if they are one being? Well, we could stray off into complex discussions of the Trinity sharing one act of existence, or the thornier questions of what exactly we mean by "God exists" if God isn't a thing among other things in the universe, but rather the ground and source of all that exists, and other such deep metaphysical topics that I'm not sure I understand myself, so instead I'll go with something a bit simpler. Anything that is to be called "God" must be infinite. There cannot be more than one infinite, because in order to be two, there would have to be something that was not the other thing, and thus neither one would really be infinite. So, if God is infinite, God must be one; hence, we cannot understand the Trinity to be three gods.
I would hope that this could be of help in your spiritual life. If you're thinking of the Triune God either as an actor with three masks, or three guys who are just super-chummy, then you're not really thinking of God at all. To help hammer these points home, take a look at the creed attributed to St. Athanasius of Alexandria, one of the great Fathers of the Church, who defended the divinity of Christ and the integrity of the Trinity against heretics of his day. Let this be a small start in coming to know God better as He is.
I titled this post "Approaching the Trinity" because it is downright foolishness to think one can comprehend the Trinity. To understand God in His inmost being, in which unity is three-ness and three-ness is oneness? You can't get your arms around it; the best you can do is walk up to it. It's very hard to say what the Trinity is, but a bit easier to say what it isn't. In this post I'll show you some of the boundaries of thought on the Trinity (this is why the other half of the post's title is "Avoiding the Extremes"): you can know then that, if you find yourself thinking in this way, you've gone too far and are no longer thinking of God as He is.
Now, if you're approaching a mystery in which you are trying to see in what way something can be both one and three, there are two obvious ways you can err: overemphasizing the oneness, or overemphasizing the three-ness. The first of these errors often becomes a sort of modalism, while the second tends to become tritheism.
Modalism is the idea that God really, truly in His being is one, but he only appears to us in different persons; that is, God appears to us in different modes. Under this framework, the Israelites would have encountered God in "Father mode," and then God would have incarnated in "Son mode," then been present to the Church in "Spirit mode." It seems nice and tidy, and avoids that messiness of trying to explain how one God can be three different Persons, and was the sort of thought that many an early heretic fell into (and not a few modern theologians, I'd wager). BUT this way of thinking doesn't fit our data from Scripture. When Christ speaks of the Father and the Spirit, he speaks as though they are different from him; yes, he says, "The Father and I are one," but he also says, "My Father and I will come and dwell with him," and "I will send you a Paraclete." Sometimes his language denotes unity, sometimes differentiation. What's the solution? Either there is, in some way, both unity and differentiation, or we would be forced to conclude that Christ is a liar, putting on some show to make us think there are three Persons involved when really there's just one. And since all parties would agree that Christ is God, and God does not lie, the last solution does not work. So modalism can't be true.
Tritheism is the idea that God really, truly is three different beings, is three gods, but that they are all one in willing the same thing, or something like that. I think that many people today tend to conceive of God in this way, that there are these three beings each of whom we call God, but we call them one God because they just seem to get along so well. Not only that, I think most people tend to become subordinationists, too, placing the Persons of the Trinity into different degrees or ranks, one being somehow higher than the other: when they think of God, they think of the Father as being really God, and then, oh yeah, the Son, he's pretty god-ish, too, and I guess the Spirit, we can't leave him out. Unfortunately, as with modalism, you could find scriptural support for such a position, as many early heretics did, simply by pointing to all those places where the Persons are spoken of as distinct: how can Christ pray to his Father if they are one being? Well, we could stray off into complex discussions of the Trinity sharing one act of existence, or the thornier questions of what exactly we mean by "God exists" if God isn't a thing among other things in the universe, but rather the ground and source of all that exists, and other such deep metaphysical topics that I'm not sure I understand myself, so instead I'll go with something a bit simpler. Anything that is to be called "God" must be infinite. There cannot be more than one infinite, because in order to be two, there would have to be something that was not the other thing, and thus neither one would really be infinite. So, if God is infinite, God must be one; hence, we cannot understand the Trinity to be three gods.
I would hope that this could be of help in your spiritual life. If you're thinking of the Triune God either as an actor with three masks, or three guys who are just super-chummy, then you're not really thinking of God at all. To help hammer these points home, take a look at the creed attributed to St. Athanasius of Alexandria, one of the great Fathers of the Church, who defended the divinity of Christ and the integrity of the Trinity against heretics of his day. Let this be a small start in coming to know God better as He is.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Points of Interest
An assortment of things I've run across that you may find of interest....
- I'm sure you can remember cartoons, TV shows, or movies that featured a character in a moral dilemma being advised by an angel on one shoulder and tempted by a devil on the other. Did you ever wonder where this idea came from? Actually, this is a very old idea in Christianity. An excerpt from The Life of Moses by St. Gregory of Nyssa (335-394 AD), one of the greatest Fathers of the Church:
"There is a doctrine (which derives its trustworthiness from the tradition of the fathers) which says that after our nature fell into sin God did not disregard our fall and withhold his providence. No, on the one hand, he appointed an angel with an incorporeal nature to help in the life of each person, and, on the other hand, he also appointed the corruptor who, by an evil and malificent demon, afflicts the life of man and contrives against our nature." (Book II, paragraph 45)
This is consonant with the notion that God allows us to be tempted in order that we might grow stronger in virtue by cooperating with His grace, turning toward God and away from sin. I'm not sure we'd go so far as to say that God appoints a demon to afflict us. But still... I bet you thought some animator made this up. Nope.
- There's an old story that our roads are the width they are today because they were patterned after train rails, which were patterned after carriages, which were patterned after Roman chariots -- so that the width of roads has not changed in 2,000 years! I'm not sure this is true, but there is at least one feature of our society that we do owe directly to the Romans: law. For example, the five basic categories we have today of circumstances which invalidate a contract are the same as they were in ancient Roman law! The survival of this principle is thanks to the medieval canon lawyers, particularly Gratian, who retrieved, collected, integrated and codified the wide assortment of civil and Church law which had survived into the second millennium. The Napoleonic Code was largely based on these surviving bits of Roman law, and its influence spread as France marched across Europe in the early 1800s. This code was then carried into the New World as the nations of Europe colonized the Americas and Africa. That same legal framework undergirds our Constitution. So, you can thank Gratian and St. Raymond of Penyafort for the Bill of Rights.
- When you hear an atheist or agnostic argue against the existence of God, what do they most often say? It's usually some variation on one of these two points:
1) If God is perfectly good, why is there evil?
2) We can explain the natural world apart from God; we don't need a "God of the gaps," because there are no gaps.
I can't think of any argument I've heard from an atheist that doesn't boil down to one of these two points. So guess what St. Thomas listed as the two objections to the question of whether God exists in his Summa Theologica? From ST I, Question 2, Article 3:
Objection 1. It seems that God does not exist; because if one of two contraries be infinite, the other would be altogether destroyed. But the word "God" means that He is infinite goodness. If, therefore, God existed, there would be no evil discoverable; but there is evil in the world. Therefore God does not exist.Objection 2. Further, it is superfluous to suppose that what can be accounted for by a few principles has been produced by many. But it seems that everything we see in the world can be accounted for by other principles, supposing God did not exist. For all natural things can be reduced to one principle which is nature; and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle which is human reason, or will. Therefore there is no need to suppose God's existence.
Go here to read his replies to the objections.
The point is: folks, we've been over this before. If you're going to deny that God exists, at least come up with something original. Next time you hear an atheist or agnostic make one of these arguments, point them toward Thomas' argument. Perhaps they'll be surprised that someone who lived 800 years ago had already thought of their clever questions and answered them.
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