Today is another reader letter day.

Question:

During the holidays, I had the opportunity of visiting my hometown and attending a high school reunion.  Since it was a Christian school, naturally there was a religious service preceding the reunion proper.  One of the organizers -- who did not participate in the service -- approached me afterward to express pleasure that my wife and I participated.

His nonchalance struck me, and I guess he must have noticed, because he immediately continued, “I really like what faith can do in a person's life.  I obviously don't want to talk with you about this, but I definitely no longer believe in religion.”  I asked why he had lost his faith. His answer, which left me mute, is the reason why I'm writing to you.

He said: “I've had a good life, therefore I've had no need for religion. I'm sure if I'm ever in problems I'll be able to find comfort in our faith -- I know it's the right thing to do.”  After that he excused himself and left to take care of something.

I would really like to help this old friend find his way towards what he already knows is “the right thing to do”.  How would you recommend I approach the subject?  And what could I tell him?

Reply:

Your friend makes three puzzling remarks:

1.  That he doesn’t believe in anything.

2.  That he has no need for “religion,” because he has had a good life.

3.  That if is ever in trouble, he will seek “comfort” in the faith.

I can see why you were nonplussed.  You might begin simply by telling him so, and asking whether he would mind if you asked a few questions.  Since he gives mixed signals – though he said “I obviously don't want to talk with you about this,” he initiated a conversation about it – you shouldn’t press him if he declines.  But if he is willing to hear your questions, then his answers will give you openings to go further.

In response to his remark about not believing in anything, you might say, “Maybe you just live day by day, but unless you believed something, you wouldn’t even know how to live day by day.  So what do you really believe?”

Or perhaps, “I guess you mean you don’t know whether or not there is a God, but you are living as though there is no God.  How do you know whether to live as though there is, or as though there isn’t?”

Or even this:  “It’s impossible not to have any beliefs about anything.  Do you mean that although you hold certain beliefs, you have no hope about anything?”

In response to his remark about not needing “religion” because he has had a good life, you might ask, “What do you mean by a good life?  Do you mean the life that God considers good?  Do you mean you have no sin?”

Or perhaps, “You say the faith is right, but the faith claims that since God is our ultimate good, without Him we have nothing.  Why are you willing to settle for anything less?”

Or even this:  “When you say you have had a good life, do you mean you have good things?  Don’t they leave something to be desired?  Haven’t you ever thought, ‘There must be something more’?”

In response to his remark that he will seek “comfort” in the faith if he ever falls into troubles, you might ask, “Do you mean that the only reason to pursue God is to have psychological comfort when things become empty?  In that case, isn’t your real god psychological comfort?”

Or perhaps, “Suppose you did fall into trouble.  Since you say you don’t believe in anything, how could you find comfort in God?”

Or even this:  “If you do think following God is the ‘right thing to do,’ why wait until you get in trouble?  Why not do it now?”

Don’t let your friend put you on the defensive.  In a kind way, put him on it.  I don’t mean that you should badger him, which would only make him run, or that you should load him up with theological arguments, which would only make him argue.  But do ask gently pointed questions.  He needs to be put on the spot; after all, he is the one who insists that he can build his house on sand.

The discussion may end inconclusively, because it will not take him long to realize that he has no good answers.  That’s all right.  If he wants to end the conversation, let him end it.  You only need to put a burr under his saddle -- to disturb his complacency.

Everyone has a conscience.

But most psychologists think that people with “antisocial personality disorder” don’t.

For example, Robert D. Hare says they are “completely lacking in conscience and feelings for others,” so that they “selfishly take what they want and do as they please,” violating norms “without the slightest sense of guilt or regret”; their hallmark is “a stunning lack of conscience.”  David T. Lykken holds that they have “failed to develop conscience and empathic feelings.”  The fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders lists one of the diagnostic criteria for the disorder as “lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.”  The fifth edition says more simply, “lack of remorse after hurting or mistreating another.”

The difficulty with such statements is that they treat conscience, guilt, a “sense” of guilt, regret, remorse, and the lack of normal moral feelings as the same thing.  The classical natural law tradition distinguishes them.  Conscience is not about what we feel, but about what we know. Remorse and regret are not about what we know, but about how we feel about what we know. Guilt is the condition of having done wrong; awareness of guilt is the knowledge of being in this state; and the sense of guilt is a feeling resulting from such knowledge.

Considering these distinctions, it should be entirely possible for a person to have a conscience yet have no remorse.  The very fact that people with antisocial personality disorder make excuses for their bad behavior shows that they know that right and wrong are different things.  A being who didn’t understand the difference wouldn’t even grasp the concept of an excuse.

Lykken almost gets my point:  “It is an interesting and important fact that most of the diverse criminal types suggested here do tend to justify their conduct in one way or another, at least to themselves.  One 15-year old, now residing in a local juvenile facility, took a bus to a suburban neighborhood, hoping to locate a party he had heard about.  Unsuccessful, he found that the next bus home would entail an hour’s wait.  Having brought his pistol along, he lurked near some cars parked by a store and, when a woman came out with her infant and opened her car door, the boy demanded her keys at gunpoint and drove off.  Explaining his offense to the corrections officers, he expressed exasperation: ‘How else was I s’posed to get home, man?’”

Why was the boy exasperated?  Because he thought he was in the right.  Strange as it may seem, he was morally indignant.

Sources:  Robert D. Hare, Without Conscience (1993);

David T. Lykken, The Antisocial Personalities (1995);

DSM-IV-TR (2000); DSM-5 (2013).

“Women ... have the talent, capacity, and right ‘to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation.’  Their ability to realize their full potential ... is intimately connected to ‘their ability to control their reproductive lives.’  Thus, legal challenges to undue restrictions on abortion procedures ... center on a woman's autonomy to determine her life's course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature.”  (Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S. 124 (2007), Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dissenting.)

Translation:  Men can’t suffer unwanted pregnancies.  Women can.  Therefore, in order to be equal to men, women must be able to become un-pregnant.

If that argument is logical, why isn’t this one?  Women have the ability to become pregnant.  Men don’t.  Therefore, in order to be equal to women, men must be able to become pregnant.

But satire is wasted these days; to get the point, one has to have a sense of the normal.  Some people already think pregnancy would be a good idea for men, just as some people think pregnancy is an episodic disease affecting women.

A recent panel of the daily comic strip The Lockhorns depicts the wife saying to the husband, with a knowing smile, “Of course I understand you, Leroy – what would you like to know?”

Both men and women tend to assume that women understand men better than men understand either women or themselves.

Plainly this is not true in all cases; the misjudgments of young men about young women, and young women about young men, are probably equally awry, though they go wrong for different reasons.  And there are things about each sex which must be explained by the other – supposing, of course, that the other has figured them out.

On the other hand, women tend to catch on earlier that there is something about the other sex in need of explanation.  This is no accident, for there is an inwardness to women which is alien to the male temperament.  Typically, men take longer than women do even to realize that they have an interior life; even when they are self-obsessed, they tend to live in a certain sense outside themselves.  Still less do they grasp the interior life of women.

This difference between our male and female souls is mirrored in the very configurations of our bodies.  His has no hidden place.  Hers does.  As Alice von Hildebrand has remarked, it is even set off with a curtain.

The woman powerfully symbolizes for us the mystery of the soul herself.  It is no accident that although in English the term is he can be used for either a man or a women, the language has traditionally called the soul a she, not a he or an it.

The natural restorative faculties are double-edged swords.  Although their natural tendency is to fight illness and infection, they can also bring about new harm.  Excessive fever and inflammation may cause organ damage and death.

I have been speaking of the restorative faculties of the body, but the soul also has restorative faculties, and these too can cut both ways.  For example, a boy deprived of his father will seek other opportunities for male bonding, which is healthy and good; but he may have an excessive craving for the approval of other males, which may do him further harm.

Insofar as it is purely natural, even the longing for God has this double-edged quality.  There are plenty of evil religions.  In a phrase of unforgettable poignancy, C.S. Lewis once described pagan mythology as “gleams of celestial strength and beauty falling on a jungle of filth and imbecility.”  Our nature can be fully and perfectly healed only by that which is greater than our nature.

The Lewis quotation is from Perelandra, Chapter 16