See also Just Like Me

Stay calm; this is merely a reflection on one of the differences between Catholic and Protestant culture, not an attempt to cast aspersions.

Protestants tend to shop around before deciding where to worship.  They keep moving until they find a place to worship that they like.  Although Catholics shop around more than they used to, they are still more likely than Protestants to worship in their neighborhood parishes, and to put up with what they don’t like there.  This difference produces both an interesting result, and an interesting illusion.

The interesting result is that Protestants are much more likely to worship with people who are similar to themselves.  For example, in the typical Protestant congregation either most people are theologically liberal, or most are theologically conservative.  In Catholic parishes, there is a much greater mix; everyone is under the same roof.  Of course, certain similarities may result just from the demographics of the neighborhood in which the parish is located -- perhaps most people in the parish speak Spanish or have Czech last names -- but the kinds of affinities that result from shopping around are less likely to be found.

The interesting illusion is that the Protestant movement contains much less spiritual variety than it really does.  Forgetting how they shopped around before settling on a congregation, Protestants tend to think that Protestantism in general is just like their own congregation, which in turn is “just like me.”   So theological liberals overestimate the liberalism of the Protestant movement, and theological conservatives overestimate its conservatism – which makes both liberals and conservatives more satisfied with the state of the Protestant movement than they might otherwise be.  It also causes them to be a little shocked when they visit a Catholic parish.

Whatever illusions Catholics may have, to make imagine that everyone is “just like me” is much more difficult.  The ones who adhere to the Magisterium and who reject it, the ones who understand the Church’s teachings and who don’t, the ones who are serious about their faith and who aren’t -- they are all there together.  This, I gather, is the situation which confronted the Apostles in the first century.  And it is the situation which confronts the Catholic pastor today.

It’s messy, but it has always been messy, and Catholics don’t expect it to be neat.

For breaking the natural law, there are natural penalties.  Those who live by knives die by them. Those who betray their friends lose them.  Those who abandon their children never know the sweetness of their kiss.  Those who travel from bed to bed lose the capacity for trust.  Those who torture their consciences are tortured by them in return.  Those who refuse the one in whose image they are made live as strangers to themselves.

This principle of natural consequences is woven into the fabric of our nature.  Not all our defiance can unravel a single stitch.  Some penalties show up within the lifetime of the individual; others may tarry until several generations have persisted in the same wrongdoing.  But the penalties are cumulative, and eventually they can no longer be ignored.

A good example of such further penalties can be found in the consequences of breaking the precept of chastity.  One immediate consequence is injury to the procreative good: one might get pregnant but have nobody to help raise the child.  Another is injury to the unitive good: one misses the chance for that total self-giving which can develop only in a secure and exclusive relationship of true self-giving.  And there are long-term consequences too, among them poverty, because single women must provide for their children by themselves; adolescent violence, because male children grow up without a father’s influence; venereal disease, because formerly rare infections spread rapidly through sexual contact; child abuse, because live-in boyfriends tend to resent their girlfriends’ babies and girlfriends may resent babies that their boyfriends did not father; and abortion, because children are increasingly regarded as a burden rather than a joy.

But the most terrible consequence of doing what we know to be wrong -- the most dreadful penalty of suppressing our moral knowledge -- is that our lies metastasize.  The universe is so tightly constructed that in order to cover up one lie, we must usually tell another, and this applies with just as much force to the lies we tell ourselves as to the lies we tell to other people.  One could imagine a universe so loosely jointed that lies did not require the support of more lies, but the one we live in is not like that. In this one, deception begets deception, and self-deception begets more self-deception; the greater the lie, the greater its metastatic tendency.  This tendency is strongest precisely in the case of the greatest self-deception, pretending not to know that God is real, because there are so many things one must not think of in order not to think of the reality of God.  But it also kicks in when we pretend not to know the foundational principles of natural law.

The downward spiral explains the remark of G. K. Chesterton:  ‘Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil.  That road goes down and down.’  Pursued by the Five Furies of conscience, a man becomes both more wicked and more stupid: more wicked because his behavior becomes worse, more stupid because he tells himself more lies.

Then is the design of conscience defective?  Shouldn’t it drive us up, not down?   Not necessarily.  As Dante found, for some of us the road up goes down for a long time first.  The system of conscience has not broken; it has merely advanced to the next phase.  This is fully compatible with its mission.  After all, the greater purpose of conscience is not to inform us of moral truth, but to motivate us to live by it.  For most of us at some times, for some of us at most times, guilty knowledge is not exhortation enough.  Drastic measures become necessary.  Driving life out of kilter is, so to speak, the exhortation of last resort.  The offender becomes stupider and wickeder—but then he had intended to become stupider and wickeder; that is what obstinacy and denial are all about.  His only hope is to become even stupider and wickeder than he had planned.

If all goes well he may finally be so wretched that he comes “to himself”—or to God.  Apparently, for the chance to soften a heart, the Designer is even willing that it become more rocklike still.  In this life, what has been called ‘the left hand of God’ may be, in reality, the left hand of His mercy.

This is a staggering reflection for those who think of God as a tooth fairy.  Less drastic means of turning a soul around can certainly be imagined.  Probably, though, no less drastic means of turning a soul around are compatible with free will, which seems to be one of His design criteria.  We may find the price too high, because in order to escape the Furies a man may inflict terrible damage on other people.  What this suggests is that the Designer thinks scarcely any price too high to save a soul.  Even souls may be risked to save a soul.  Yet other souls may be risked to save those.

Adapted from What We Can’t Not Know: A Guide

Mondays are usually for letters from students.  Some are philosophical or theological; others, like this one, more practical.

Question:

Since coming to my Christian college, I've become much more serious about actually living my life for Jesus and to reflect Jesus.  My problem is that my college friends don't seem to be doing that.  I know we all sin, but it seems like they are missing the point of knowing Christ.  Salvation shouldn't be a "license to sin"!

These friends are spiritual leaders on campus -- chapel planning committee members, for example -- but they use foul language when angry, say horrible things about people they don't like, watch filthy television shows, and don't practice purity in their relationships.

What I am asking is how to handle myself around them.  I'm trying to be an example, but they pass it off by saying that I've been "sheltered.”  I'm afraid that if I talk to them about what I think, they'll think I'm saying I am a better Christian than they are, and that, of course, isn't true.  Am I being too judgmental? 

Reply:

Are you too judgmental?  Interesting question.  Let me challenge the way you frame it.  Asking whether you are too judgmental implies that there is such a thing as a right amount of judgment -- neither too much nor too little, but just right.  I would put it differently.  There isn't a right amount of judgment, but there is a right kind of judgment.  So a better question for you is:  Are you I practicing the right kind or the wrong kind?

Actually there are several wrong kinds.  One wrong kind takes the attitude, "You're a sinner, but I'm not.”  We all have sinful tendencies.  I don't agree with you that everyone is equally afflicted by sinful tendencies, but it's certainly a bad idea to dwell on where we stand in the rankings.  Another wrong kind of judgment takes the attitude, "You're beyond repentance and you're going to hell.”  Our gaze can't penetrate deeply enough into the heart to know things like that.  I suppose many pious people would have said that Mary Magdalene was beyond repentance and going to hell, but her change of life was profound.

Scripture roundly condemns the wrong kinds of judgment.  On the other hand, there are several right kinds too.  We ought to be able to discern that certain lines of thinking are erroneous, and we ought to be able to discern that certain lines of conduct are sinful.  Otherwise, how could we direct our lives along the right path?  Similarly, we ought to be see the danger when people we know fall into these sins or these errors -- danger not only for them, but even, sometimes, for us or for others.

If you're practicing only the right kinds of judgment, and if you're practicing it not with self-righteousness but with a genuine desire for your friends' own good, and if you're not being catty, gossipy, or priggish, then you're not being judgmental in the bad sense.

Now let me suggest some other questions for you to think about.  Here's one:  Have you chosen good companions?  Frankly, the ones you have sound pretty tedious.

Another important question:  Have you been acting "holier than thou"?  I'm not saying that you are -- I'm only saying that you should make sure you're not.  For example, if your friends are be annoyed with you simply because you don't use filthy language, it's not your fault.  But if they're annoyed with you because you make snide remarks about the fact that they do, it is your fault.  Be sure you stay on the right side of the line.

Last.  I don't know exactly what you mean when you say that your friends don't practice purity in their relationships.  Do you mean that they've been sleeping with each other?  And do you know this for sure?  If you know it, then probably everyone on campus knows about it.  Considering that your friends are considered Christian leaders, their acts are not only grave sin but grave scandal -- not just in the modern sense of the term, "something that causes a fuss,” but in the ancient sense, "something that causes others to stumble.”  What this means is that you have something else to do besides being a good example.  It's dealing with their bad example.

For that reason, even if no other, I do think you should speak with your friends.  Explain to them "Look, this isn't only bad, it's harming others.”  Don't do it in public, don't talk with all of them at once, and don't get drawn into argument; speak with each one briefly, calmly, privately, as friend to friend, in love.  If they don't listen, take another friend with you and try again.  If they still don't listen, ask the minister of your college chapel for a confidential appointment, and explain the situation to him.  Leave it in his hands.  Then -- except for your prayer time -- put it out of your mind.

Be at peace.  It's okay.  That wouldn't be priggish, catty, gossipy, or "holier than thou.”  It would be loving and responsible.

One might have thought ancient pagan religion was over and done with, and I’ve written about the profound ways in which the new paganism differs from the old.  Yet one cannot help but be struck by the fact that despite these great differences, the ancient pagan motifs keep coming back in new guises.  In a previous post I called attention to the resurfacing of the old demigod motif – for the lowbrow, in superhero fiction, for the highbrow, in the transhumanist movement.  Here’s another re-emergent motif:  Gnosticism.

The ancient Gnostic heresy conceived the world we know not as the wise creation of a God who knows His creation intimately, but as the ignorant creation of a demiurge, who was itself an emanation of a deity who has no knowledge of us at all.  The material realm in which we dwell is not what it appears to be, but an illusion, a reflection of a reflection of a reflection, shot through with error.  Only a few know the Secret.

That was long ago.  But in one form or another, the mystique of the Secret has overshadowed many eras, and its finds favor again in our own.

Take political philosophy.  According to the Straussian movement, all the great thinkers are supposed to have veiled their true meaning in deceptive words, lest the vulgar be disturbed.  This movement splits into several wings, one of which, influenced by Nietzsche, has it that the deepest truth is that we are cut off from deepest truth.  It would seem to follow that the philosophical life is not the life of seeking truth, but the life of going through the motions thereof.

Or take biology.  According to a view popularized by zoologist Richard Dawkins, “We are survival machines, robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.”  Philosopher Michael Ruse and entomologist E.O. Wilson argue that for this reason, much of what we think about reality, especially ethics and the belief in God, is “an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to co-operate.”  They do not seem to notice that if their view of how our minds work is true, then it is hard to see why it shouldn’t also apply to belief in logic, causality, and genetic determinism.

At the other end of the cultural ladder, the mystique of the Secret is one of the most pervasive tropes in speculative fiction.  It comes in many flavors, but they all have that Orphic tang.  One of them has it that the whole universe is a simulation running on a big computer.  But the universe in which the computer exists is itself a simulation, running on yet another computer.  And so on through universe after universe, simulation after simulation, virtual machine after virtual machine, and the original machine doesn’t even know about us.  So the great question for the characters who find out the Secret is whether to go on living in a flawed virtuality, or try to hack into the source code.  Which is a little like supposing that the notes in a musical composition could rewrite the score.

Some read this sort of thing with all of the seriousness of religion.  Others read it for amusement -- but we should not underestimate the power of our amusements to shape how we view the world.

A colleague of mine worries about the cacophony of voices in the modern world.  Instead of complaining that we have no answers, he complains that we have too many – there are too many religions, too many philosophies, too many sacred texts.  We are in a new and unprecedented intellectual condition, he tells me -- a Pluralism.

Understand that he is not a relativist; it would be impossible to rate too highly the persistence with which my friend seeks absolute values in this Babel.  My disagreement begins with his description of the Babel as new.  After all, the Tower of Babel is a very ancient tale, and just as many voices, sects, and doctrines quarreled in premodern times as today.  Nor were the thinkers of those times deaf to all the racket.  Augustine contended with Gnostics, Platonists, Jews, Stoics, and Epicureans, among others.  Maimonides wrote a Guide for the Perplexed.  Thomas Aquinas cast his Summa Theologiae in the form of disputed questions.  What I am suggesting is that Babel is not a modern revolution, but the enduring condition of the fallen human race.

Even so there is something new in the manner in which my friend and other moderns respond to Babel.  It is not surprising that some thinkers deny absolute values; in one form or another, relativists, sophists, and skeptics have been with us from the beginning.  Nor is it strange that others affirm them; in most eras the relativists, sophists, and skeptics have been in the minority.  The novelty lies the way in which moderns affirm absolutes, when they do affirm absolutes.

Let me contrast their way, which my friend and many scholars call Pluralist, with the older way, which I will call Classical.All those who practice the Classical way of affirming absolute values have two things in common.  If you will pardon the coinages, they are all apologetical, and they are all noetic.

By calling them apologetical, after the Greek word for a speech in defense, I mean that each stakes a claim and defends it.  Each makes some one voice in the Babel his own, then takes on his competitors by arguing the issues on their merits.  The Epicurean tells you why he thinks pleasure the sovereign good; the Christian tells you why he thinks Jesus the risen son of God; the Gnostic tells you why he thinks evil coeval with good.

And by calling them noetic, after the Greek word for knowledge or understanding, I mean that their arguments appeal to shared knowledge rather than shared ignorance.  Aristotle begins every ethical discussion with what almost all men in almost all times and places have believed.  St. Paul, who quotes poets to pagans, says that God has not left Himself without a witness even among the nations; He has written His law on the heart.  Thomas Aquinas holds that there are certain moral principles we can't not know -- principles that do not have to be proven because they are what everything is proven from.  C.S. Lewis dares his readers to "Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud for double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him.  You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five."  Even Wittgenstein nods in the noetic direction when he calls philosophy an "assembling of reminders" rather than a discovering of things that have never been noticed before.

Notice that because a Classical affirmer is noetic, he does not take the Babel around him quite at face value.  He will say that if I seem completely ignorant of a basic moral precept, the reason is less likely to be that I really don’t know it, than that I don’t want to know it and am holding my guilty knowledge down.  Moreover, the Classical affirmer will regard an age like our own, in which even the most basic moral precepts are widely and increasingly denied, as exceptional even for this broken world.  Before too long, any culture in deep moral denial must either come to its senses or collapse, for the consequences of denying first principles are cumulative and inescapable.

By contrast with the Classical way of affirming absolute values, the Pluralist way is anoetic and anapologetical.  Pluralists are anoetic because they do take the Babel around them at face value.  Their arguments appeal to shared ignorance rather than shared knowledge.  So far as we know, they say, every religion and every philosophy is equally in the dark and equally in the light.  Although Pluralists may well agree that our age is exceptional rather than typical, they see this not as an omen of corruption but as a portent of an impending forward leap -- a sign that our old philosophies have exhausted themselves and we need to try something new.

As to this something new – that is where being anapologetical comes in.  The Pluralist denies the need to make one voice in the Babel his own; he refuses to stake out a position, then argue its claims on their merits.  By adopting a posture of neutrality among competing goals and aspirations, of equal concern and respect for them all (that becomes one of his absolutes), he tries to escape the futility of interminable apologetics and carve out a new moral sphere in which people of every point of view can get along:  Sodomists with Socialists, pickpockets with Platonists, hedonists with Hasidim.

Notice how this works.The Pluralist does not object to Christianity, say, as a mistaken point of view; disputing its claims would be too crude.  Rather he objects to it as a point of view -- just one more of the pullulating things, down there among the Platonists and pickpockets.  Pluralism floats chastely above them, out-topping knowledge by the sheer force of nescience.  "Others abide thy question; I am free."

But in fact Pluralism does not float above them.  It only seems to.  Is there a way to have equal concern and respect for the views of both the rapist and the woman he wants to rape?  Of course not.  Either he gets his way, or she gets hers.

Admitting this, my friend tries to defend the ideal of equal respect as merely a starting rather than an ending point.  For example he says that the rapist may be thwarted because he has already broken the symmetry:  She respects his plans, but he does not respect hers.  But this isn’t true.  It is a part of her plan that men in the neighborhood comply with her ideas of proper male behavior no less than it is a part of his plan that women in it comply with his ideas of proper female behavior.  The true reason we call his plan wicked and not hers is that we already know that rape is wrong; in other words we know that her aspiration for men and women to act like gentlefolk is good, whereas his aspiration for them to act like animals is bad.  Neutrality is not our starting any more than our ending-point.  The Pluralist only lets in by the back door what he has thrown out the front.

Fooling ourselves about our starting points might not be so bad if we always wound up where we ought to be, but that is not what happens in Pluralism either.  My colleague thinks reasonable people of all persuasions will agree that since we do not know whether the fetus is a human being, we should let each woman decide for herself whether to have an abortion or not.

There is the argument from ignorance again.  But even if it were true that we do not know what babies are -- a point I do not concede -- why should we say that because the baby might not be human we may kill him?  Why not say that because he might be, we should protect him?  We do not say that because I might not hit anyone, I may swing my hatchet blindly in a crowded room; we say that because I might hit someone, I shouldn't.  Besides, it is a little thin to claim certainty that humans have surpassing value, yet ignorance about whether our own young are human -- to flaunt our wisdom about thewhat of being human, yet deny having any about the who.

What we see then is that decision is never neutral, and Pluralism functions merely as a license to be arbitrary.  While claiming to reconcile competing views without deciding which is true, it covertly supposes the truth of one of them but spares itself the trouble of demonstration.

If I may be allowed to conclude with an understatement, the Classical way of affirming absolute values has more going for it than the Pluralists concede.  Certainly it has more integrity.  Maybe we should not take the surrounding Babel at face value; maybe we should go back to apologetics.  If we are serious, we might even consider believing something.