Applying your method

Here's an example of one reported interrogation:

   Stress broke a young bomb maker, for instance. Six months into the war, special forces brought a young Afghan to the Kandahar facility, the likely accomplice of a Taliban explosives expert who had been blowing up aid workers. Joe Martin [a pseudonymous American interrogator] got the assignment.
   "Who's your friend the Americans are looking for?" the interrogation began.
   "I don't know."
   "You think this is a joke? What do you think I'll do?"
   "Torture me."
   So now I understand his fear, Martin recollects.
   The interrogation continued: "You'll stand here until you tell me your friend."
   "No, sir, he's not my friend."
   Martin picked up a book and started reading. Several hours later, the young Taliban was losing his balance and was clearly terrified. Moreover, he’s got two "big hillbilly guards staring at him who want to kill him," the interrogator recalls.
   "You think THIS is bad?!" the questioning starts up again.
   "No, sir."
   The prisoner starts to fall; the guards stand him back up. If he falls again, and can't get back up, Martin can do nothing further. "I have no rack," he says matter-of-factly. The interrogator's power is an illusion; if a detainee refuses to obey a stress order, an American interrogator has no recourse.
   Martin risks a final display of his imaginary authority. "I get in his face, ‘What do you think I will do next?’" he barks. In the captive's mind, days have passed, and he has no idea what awaits him. He discloses where he planted bombs on a road and where to find his associate. "The price?" Martin asks. "I made a man stand up. Is this unlawful coercion?"

Moral? Immoral?

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

Torture. Again. Part 3

My third category of torture apologists -- those who hold that Torture is never acceptable, but anything clearly short of torture is -- might more accurately be called torture enablers.

I have in mind those who insist on precise, objective definitions of torture, or who attempt reductio ad absurdam against proposed limitations on treatment of prisoners short of inflicting extreme pain. "What, we can't disrupt their sleep patterns? Confine them in physical discomfort? Anything less than a glass of warm milk and a bedtime story is torture?"

The problem with this line of thought is that it reduces the moral question to a terminological one. But the fundamental question, for Christians at least, is not, "What is torture?" It is, "In treatment of prisoners, what is the good to be sought and the evil to be avoided?" And since torture, however it is defined, is not the only evil to be avoided, focusing on the sorties paradox of defining torture ("One slap per day? Ten slaps per day? Ten thousand slaps per day?") quite simply cannot answer the fundamental question.

The consequences are twofold. On the one hand, insisting on the grayness of the gray area between what all accept and what none accept gives cover for those who think torture is sometimes acceptable and those who deny certain methods of torture are torture (in short, those in the first two categories of torture apologists). After all, if there's debate over whether a certain act is torture, probabilism would allow someone to act as though it weren't torture.

On the other hand, attempting to unambiguously define "torture" ignores the fact that even acts that are unambiguously not torture are evil and to be avoided.

This, I think, is where the greatest challenge for Christians lies. Common decency tells most of us that flogging, mutilation, and electrocution are wrong; those who fall into the first two categories are, so to speak, trivially wrong when they attempt to justify the intrinsically immoral.

But common decency is a part of fallen human nature, and every adult Christian should have learned long ago not to trust his own human nature, unassisted by prayer, in matters of moral judgment.

I am not arguing that a single slap to the face of a prisoner who knows where the nuclear bomb is is categorically immoral; I don't find my own moral judgment all that trustworthy here.

I am arguing, however, that an argument that the slap is moral is required, and that, "Come on, a single slap? When there's a nuclear bomb ticking?" is inadequate.

Keep in mind that Christians aren't merely called to be a tempering influence on our culture. We are called to be disciples of Christ, other Christs. We are called to be, not better than others, but perfect.

I don't pretend to have the answers to all the questions of treatment of prisoners, but I do know that a lot of things that are unthinkable to the world are, not only thinkable, but commandments to the Christian.

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

Torture. Again. Part 2

The second category -- those who hold that torture is never acceptable, but certain methods of torture don't count -- comprises people who, I prefer to think, are simply unable to hear what they are saying. To quote a torture apologist who wrote to Jonah Goldberg, describing his U.S. military survival training:

After enduring the beating I was thrown on the water board, where under questioning the enemy would drown you till the verge of losing consciousness, only to revive you and start all over again. Then a black bag was secured around my head and throat which made it difficult to breathe. I was confined to a three by four foot tiger cage with a coffee can for a toilet. Loud music blared from speakers in the compound and I was repeatedly dragged from my cage for more beatings and interrogation. At night when it was freezing the guards would pour cold water on me. I was deprived of any food for five straight days....

We do this to our own people for training but we can't do it to terrorists? Incredible.

What I find incredible is that some people (including, apparently, some on the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal) think it's acceptable to drown prisoners till the verge of losing consciousness, only to revive them and start all over again.

The reason given is that "we do this to our own people for training." The argument fails, however, on two points.

First, the intention of an act affects the morality of an act; this surely can't be denied by people advocating torture when the intention is to stop some evil from occurring. The intention of waterboarding during survival training is to help the trainee survive should he be captured and tortured. (Plus the obvious benefit to the military of having torture-resistant servicemen.) The intention of waterboarding during interrogation is to coerce the will of the victim. To say both acts are the same is akin to one child saying, "I didn't kick him. I just swung my leg. What, I'm not allowed to swing by leg?" (If we were to accept this reasoning, by the way, we'd have to say that waterboarding captured American pilots isn't torture.)

The argument also fails because it neglects the differences in the trainer-trainee and the interrogator-prisoner relationships. Justice is a matter of proper action according to specific relationships. Is it incredible that I can kiss my wife but can't kiss yours? Is it incredible that we can circumcise our sons but can't circumcise imprisoned terrorists?

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

Torture. Again. Part 1

It's a bit depressing when the topic of torture comes up, as it has this week with the confirmation hearings for Alberto Gonzales. Apologists for torture aren't supposed to have American accents.

I suppose, though, it does demonstrate the reality of Original Sin, at least as Original Sin entails a clouding of the faculty of human reason. If we don't bring God with us into our discussions, whatever the topic, we can be sure He won't be with us in our conclusions.

The errors apologists for torture make can be placed in three categories:

1. Torture is sometimes acceptable.
2. Torture is never acceptable, but certain methods of torture don't count.
3. Torture is never acceptable, but anything clearly short of torture is.

The first category includes those who draw no line between right and wrong treatment of a prisoner. In ethical terms, they deny that acts (or at least acts relating to treatment of prisoners) are intrinsically evil.

The category also includes honest proportionalists like Jonah Goldberg, who advocate torture as a good thing (assuming it's effective) when the stakes are sufficiently high.

There may also be proportionalists who, though they advocate torture, still think it's wrong. To paraphrase my second-favorite quotation from John Henry Newman (who was writing about lying):

To these must be added the unscientific way of dealing with torture,—viz. that on a great or cruel occasion a man cannot help torturing a suspect, and he would not be a man, did he not do it, but still it is very wrong, and he ought not to do it, and he must trust that the sin will be forgiven him, though he goes about to commit it ever so deliberately, and is sure to commit it again under similar circumstances. It is a necessary frailty, and had better not be thought about before it is incurred, and not thought of again, after it is well over. This view cannot for a moment be defended, but, I suppose, it is very common.

In the Church, proportionalism and denial of the existence of intrinsically evil acts are generally associated with theological liberals. In the public conversation on torture, they are associated with political conservatives.

(It should be, but probably isn't, needless to say that not all theological liberals, nor all political conservatives, are proportionalists or deny that intrinsically evil acts exist.)

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

Theological Uncertainty Principle

As a follow-up to the last post, let me propose this hypothesis:

We can make statements about God that are both true and intelligible. The truer a statement, the less intelligible. The more intelligible a statement, the less true.

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

Unspeakable

Steven Riddle indirectly quotes St. John of the Cross:

The whole creation compared with the infinite being of God is nothing. All the beauty of creation compared with His beauty is sheer ugliness; all its delicate loveliness merely repulsive. Compared with the goodness of God the goodness of the entire world is rather evil. All wisdom, all human understanding beside his is pure ignorance... and so it is with sweetness, pleasures, riches, glory, freedom.

Steven points out

that John thinks the created realm is very good indeed. He acknowledges throughout this short passage all the beauty and glory of creation and then moves on to say, nevertheless, these are less than dust compared to the creator of beauty and loveliness.

This is all very much in line with St. Catherine of Siena's famous formula, "I am He Who Is and you are she who is not." But I think there are two things worth mentioning.

First, this isn't mere hyperbole. "The finest star is a ball of mud compared to the sparkle of your eyes." A star isn't in any sense a ball of mud. But there is a sense in which the goodness of the world is evil -- viz., in comparison with the goodness of God.

But that's not the same sense of "evil" we usually think of, and in fact if we wanted to describe this sense of "evil" we'd quickly run out of things to say. (At least I would.) That's because it's a concept directly related to God, and when we're in contact with God our language fails. There's an intuition, perhaps, an inexpressible impression of what natural goodness is compared to divine goodness, of how absurd it is to use the same term to refer to such utterly different qualities (even, for that matter, how absurd it is to call divine goodness a "quality").

This leads to my second point: That it's easier to notice our language failing us when we use contrasting terms than when we use corresponding terms. When we hear, "God is good; creation is evil," we know that creation isn't really evil, the way sin is evil. But when we hear, "Creation is a lesser good than God," we don't necessarily think that God isn't really good, the way creation is good.

We say things like, "God is more powerful than the mightiest king," but do we realize that God's power and a king's power are utterly different? It's not that a certain king has 3.2 Caesars (a Caesar being a unit of power), while God rates a hundred million Caesars, or even infinite Caesars. God's power is not infinite through an accumulation of finite powers; it's not the upper limit of all possible power. It's probably better to say His power is "un-finite," there are no borders or boundaries or limits. (Okay, it's probably not better to say "un-finite," at least more than once.)

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

A Eucharistic life

What would a Eucharistic life look like? (And what it looks like is important, if it is to serve as a witness to Christ.)

I think it would have to include devotion to the Eucharist, both in the celebration of the Mass and in private worship. Sunday Mass as somehow the summit of the week, with daily Mass and prayer before the Blessed Sacrament to the extent possible. (This is, of course, for Catholics. How Christians with no Eucharist can have a Eucharistic liturgical and prayer life is an interesting question, but not for me to answer.)

But leaving it at this, as primarily a matter of external acts of religion, is to make the Mass a part of your life. To make your life a part of the Mass, I think you need to broaden the notion of "Eucharistic" (without, I suppose I should add, watering down the notion of "the Eucharist").

The Catechism says the Sacrament is called

Eucharist, because it is an action of thanksgiving to God. The Greek words eucharistein and eulogein recall the Jewish blessings that proclaim - especially during a meal - God's works: creation, redemption, and sanctification.

We could say, then, that a Eucharistic life is a life of thanksgiving, of blessing God, of humble gratitude for everything and everyone; a life free of complaint, of claims of privilege, of accepting what other people give us as no more than our due.

That would be a life others would find attractive, don't you think?

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

For the bishops of the United States, let us pray

Today is the Feast of St. John Neumann, immigrant bishop of immigrants. Last year, Kevin Miller posted the second reading from the Office of Readings for this feast. Here, if I'm following my West Coast breviary aright, is the first reading, from Titus:

For a bishop as God's steward must be blameless, not arrogant, not irritable, not a drunkard, not aggressive, not greedy for sordid gain, but hospitable, a lover of goodness, temperate, just, holy, and self-controlled, holding fast to the true message as taught so that he will be able both to exhort with sound doctrine and to refute opponents. For there are also many rebels, idle talkers and deceivers, especially the Jewish Christians. It is imperative to silence them, as they are upsetting whole families by teaching for sordid gain what they should not...

As for yourself, you must say what is consistent with sound doctrine, namely, that older men should be temperate, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, love, and endurance. Similarly, older women should be reverent in their behavior, not slanderers, not addicted to drink, teaching what is good, so that they may train younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, chaste, good homemakers, under the control of their husbands, so that the word of God may not be discredited. Urge the younger men, similarly, to control themselves, showing yourself as a model of good deeds in every respect, with integrity in your teaching, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be criticized, so that the opponent will be put to shame without anything bad to say about us.

I have to say I prefer the first paragraph, which tells us how a bishop should behave, to the second paragraph, which tells us how everyone should behave. (Including us younger men.)

If your bishop doesn't live up to the ideal expressed here, then pray for him. And not just that he may enjoy his unexpected retirement, but that he live up to his ideal at least as well as you live up to yours.

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

A dangerous thing

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

So wrote Alexander Pope in "An Essay on Criticism."

In popular use, though, the quotation has become, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Google returns 23,800 hits on the changed version, and only 9,400 on the original.

The substitution of "knowledge" for "learning" is innocent enough, I suppose, but the two words can refer to distinct concepts that should not be confused.

For example, I might know that a certain cake batter has to be beaten until smooth, but I won't actually learn what "beaten until smooth" really means until I've done it, or at least seen it done. The difference between knowing a ton weighs 2,000 pounds and learning how much a ton weighs lies in carrying forty sacks of gravel round back to the ditch.

What I have in mind is the difference between knowledge acquired through intelligible concepts and knowledge acquired through experience. I have found that experiential knowledge, what I've learned, affects me more than conceptual knowledge, what I've been told.

My hypothesis is that the fact that experiential knowledge is in a sense richer and more affective than conceptual knowledge is part of the reason suffering can have value for us.

No greater love has a man, I happen to know, than that he lay down his life for his friends. But I have only learned this to the extent that I have experienced it. It can be a shared experience; I can learn of this greatest love from someone who has, or is, laying down his life for his friends. But the most profound knowledge will come from direct experience.

So, in this sense, to know Christ is insufficient. We are to learn from Him, which we can only do by spending time in close communion with Him, and then we are to pick up our crosses and follow Him. It's in enduring our own crosses that we learn the greatness of Christ's love for us.

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

Bad language

I made the mistake of reading half a dozen books by Thomas Merton before it occurred to me to ask whether he died an apostate syncretist or whether the very mention of his name smacks of heresy.

The matter of Merton's legacy is in the news again, for reasons described at Against the Grain.

I don't have anything to add about Merton, but something written of him by two of his friends, which was quoted in that post, struck me as remarkable:

He was a real person, not a saint....

I suppose we all understand what they meant by that: "a plastic saint[,] a contemporary Little Flower, a sweet, sinless individual who has a direct line to God."

But though it's a common enough observation, let me point out again that we must resist the urge to distinguish between "real persons" and saints. Saints are real persons (well, most of them are), and real persons are saints (at least, some of them are). The real persons who are saints living among us are not, generally speaking, sinless, nor are they necessarily sweet.

The reason we must resist thinking of saints as static and impeccable is that we must resist thinking of ourselves as called to anything less than sanctity, and we know we will never in this life be static and impeccable.

St. Paul was famously prodigal in his use of the term "saints." If it's too much for us nowadays to speak of ourselves as saints, we might at least manage to see the implications, the responsibilities, and the expectations, of calling ourselves "Christians."

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

A new resolution

A suggestion from a homily on Epiphany: Don't resolve, in 2005, to make the Mass more a part of your life. Resolve to make your life more a part of the Mass.

That's a clever turn of phrase, I think, but does it actually mean anything?

Well, consider how the Catechism begins its discussion of the Sacrament of the Eucharist: "The inexhaustible richness of this sacrament is expressed in the different names we give it." are:

• "Eucharist" (i.e., "thanksgiving" or "gratitude").
• "The Lord's Supper."
• "The Breaking of Bread."
• "The memorial of the Lord's Passion."
• "The Holy Sacrifice."
• "The Holy and Divine Liturgy."
• "Holy Communion."
• "Holy Mass."

To make your life a part of the Mass means, then, to live with these aspects of the Eucharist manifested in your life, always present to you and always alight (like the Star of Bethlehem) before others.

In the end, I think, this is really all the Church has to give the world. Not ethical arguments, not a moral system, but Christ Himself, offered to the Father for our salvation. If you don't know the Eucharist, you don't know the Church. A Catholic who doesn't give witness to the Eucharist doesn't give witness to Christ.

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

Keep warm this winter

And if you were to add half a cup of bourbon or port just before serving, I would not stop you.

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

Per se cruelty

In the Dialogue, St. Catherine offers an interesting perspective on the sinner:

... he has befouled his mind and body with such impurity and misery, and has been so cruel to himself and his neighbor. He has used cruelty to himself, depriving himself of grace, trampling under the feet of his affection the fruit of the Blood which he had received in Holy Baptism....

Three points:

First, sin is essentially cruel. Each and every sinful act is an act of cruelty. There is no such thing as a harmless little sin.

Second, the sinner is primarily cruel to himself. Sin is always an offense against oneself, and therefore can never be an act of self-love, properly speaking. True self-love is the desire of the true good for oneself. Sin is, though, often (always?) an act of selfish love (or self-love-ish, improperly speaking). Selfishness and self-love are incompatible.

Third, for St. Catherine failing to act for the good of your neighbor is as bad as acting against his good. In an earlier passage, she writes:

To whom
does [the sinner do] evil? First of all to himself, and then to his neighbor.... [His neighbor] he injures in not paying him the debt, which he owes him, of love, with which he ought to help him by means of prayer and holy desire offered to Me for him... he (a man not loving God) does not do this, because he has no love towards his neighbor; and, by not doing it, he does him, as you see, a special injury.

Every moment that goes by when you are not offering to God prayer and holy desire for the salvation and care of your neighbor is a moment that goes by when you are not gaining the graces such an offering would gain you.

How much unthought cruelty we visit upon those we tell ourselves we love -- including ourselves!

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

A Christmas jumble

Here's a simple puzzle for your holiday pleasure. Rearrange the letters, spaces, and punctuation within each column to reveal the answer.

BE  C I S IAE A   DD    O  AF    

EF DEMNOTENCH DEEGKENTHNSE OR AA

IHEEETONTHRCLEOFFIOMOTIOSOFSS CIN

TTFISXSSWTSETF-RVRON,WNTTOUU,.HSS

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

Advent Rosary

There's something that seems a bit... disjointed about praying the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary in the week before Christmas. You get to that third mystery, and it's like unwrapping a present a few days early.

It occurs to me that a set of Anticipatory Mysteries might be substituted for the Joyful ones between December 17 and 24. Maybe something like:

1. The annunciation of John's conception to Zachariah.
2. The Annunciation.
3. The Visitation.
4. The annunciation of Jesus' conception to Joseph.
5. The birth of John the Baptist.

Or, if you want a broader perspective on Advent:

1. The protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15.
2. The covenant with Abraham.
3. The canticle of Hannah.
4. The founding of the line of David.
5. The messianic prophecies of Isaiah.

Something like that.

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

A Christmastide cooking tip



Add booze. If that doesn't help the taste, you can always set it on fire. If there's one thing people think is fancier than cooking with booze, it's setting food on fire on purpose.

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

A crooked man plays the straight man

Ahaz son of Jotham was, as you know, the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather of Jesus. He may be best known from this passage in the Lectionary:

The LORD spoke to Ahaz:
Ask for a sign from the LORD, your God;
let it be deep as the nether world, or high as the sky!
But Ahaz answered,
"I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!"
Then Isaiah said:
Listen, O house of David!
Is it not enough for you to weary men,
must you also weary my God?
Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign:
the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and shall name him Emmanuel.

At first, and knowing what Jesus has to say about asking for signs and tempting the LORD, Ahaz's answer seems pretty sound.

But there's something in Isaiah's reply that suggests the LORD wasn't happy with Ahaz's prudence. God didn't ask Ahaz to ask for a sign; He commanded him. Like the servant who buried his talent, Ahaz came down with an ill-timed case of fear of the LORD.

The more you learn about Ahaz, the clearer it becomes that his wasn't a pious fear. He was an opportunist and a coward; a bit of a sniveller, too, perhaps, who rushed to worship the gods of whichever neighboring kingdom was stomping on his head at any given moment.

Face to face with a true prophet, he wasn't concerned with offending the Lord so much as with not getting it in the neck. Isaiah wasn't fooled, though, and went on to make a glorious double prophecy, of both the near term delivery of Judah from its enemies and the long term delivery of all men from their bondage of sin. Sure, the same prophecy might have been made if Ahaz had asked for dew to appear underneath a woolen fleece, but as it is this is a clear example of good being brought out of evil.

And, though I speak for none but myself, I don't think the habit of self-interested piety died out entirely with Ahaz.

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

Leo sub specie aeternitas

In the comments on the post below, the question of interpreting Isaiah 11:6-8 has been raised. After several exchanges with me, Neil writes:

The Pontifical Biblical Commission has written, "... one must reject as unauthentic every interpretation alien to the meaning expressed by the human authors in their written text. To admit the possibility of such alien meanings would be equivalent to cutting off the biblical message from its root, which is the word of God in its historical communication; it would also mean opening the door to interpretations of a wildly subjective nature." I think this compels us to accept Isaiah 11 as a "description of life after the Second Coming."

But, the Pontifical Biblical Commission also writes, "Exegesis is truly faithful to proper intention of biblical texts when it goes not only to the heart of their formulation to find the reality of faith there expressed but also seeks to link this reality to the experience of faith in our present world." We have to be faithful to both the literal sense of the text and "the experience of faith in our present world."

Thus, we should avoid being dogmatic about the details of the description, extraneous to the "reality of faith there", but remain accountable to an underlying meaning expressed by Isaiah himself. So, concerning Isaiah 11, perhaps the description of the Euphrates is not a photographic anticipation, but we must retain the Exodus as our symbol of final salvation in a way that gives Jerusalem an eschatological significance. Likewise, we must imagine the Kingdom of God to include a cosmic reconciliation. There is no escape, I think, from the ecological ramifications.

Regarding our bodies and animal bodies, here is a quote from the Pope's Dominum et Vivificantem:

"The Incarnation of God the Son signifies the taking up into unity with God not only of human nature, but in this human nature, in a sense, of everything that is 'flesh': the whole of humanity, the entire visible and material world. The Incarnation, then, also has a cosmic significance, a cosmic dimension. The 'first-born of all creation,' becoming incarnate in the individual humanity of Christ, unites himself in some way with the entire reality of man, which is also 'flesh' - and in this reality with all 'flesh,' with the whole of creation."

My question is, then, whether we can suggest with consistency that our "flesh" has eschatological significance without suggesting that other "flesh" somehow shares in this. If we do, I fear that we risk suggesting that our "flesh" is strangely undefined by its nature and history.

You can read the whole thread for more context. I'll try to post my response later.

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

Prelapsarian lions

"Creation," St. Paul teaches us, "was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God."

Which means what?

Everyone knows that creation is subject to corruption; things fall apart, die, cease to exist. Our Christian hope, however, is for a time when creation will be freed from corruption; that which exists will not fade or wear away, much less die.

That fact by itself is worth repeating, considering the apparent popularity of the belief that, after the Second Coming, we will all "go to heaven" and sort of float around.

Looking backward in time, though, the idea that creation was made subject to futility raises the question of whether creation was not subject to futility before the Fall. The question sometimes takes the form, "Did lions eat sheep before Adam's first sin?"

The correct answer is, "Whenever they could."

The only reason to even consider the other possibility is because a handful of Scriptural verses, including those quoted above, can be interpreted that way. But such an interpretation neither required by the texts nor particularly tenable in its own right.

If vegetarianism were a part of unfallen lion nature, then plants -- which are as much a part of creation as lambs -- would have still been eaten, which means that part of creation, at least, would have been corruptible. We might also wonder at the current physiology of lions; are those teeth a consequence of Adam's sin, or did God plan ahead in His designs?

Then, too, fossils and other ancient evidence demonstrate for all but young Earthers that corruption has been a feature of this world a lot longer than man.

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

There's no such thing as a bad dog

Camassia's blogging like a fish on fire this week. I recommend reading everything you have time to read, and don't miss the comments.

Here I'll just comment on one part of one post on how a theology of nature can be combined with a doctrine of original sin:

I think one popular way of resolving the problem of natural evil is to say it isn't really evil; the word properly applies only when a free choice is made, and thus necessitates the human will...
But this seems to be mostly making a semantic distinction that is not terribly meaningful. For one thing, when we talk about the problem of evil we're generally talking about the problem of suffering, and natural evil creates plenty of suffering by itself. I don't think it hurts a parent less to lose a child to a bear than to lose it to a drunk driver.
Secondly, as I implied, the whole distinction between what is human and what is nature gets blurred in a Darwinian context... Is what we call "moral evil" really just a non-resistance to natural evil? Why does it suddenly become evil when it's within us?

St. Thomas regards evil as the privation of good, the lack of a good that ought to exist. The "that ought to exist" part is important, since everything lacks all kinds of goods: rocks lack sight, for example, and trees lack mobility. For men, death (the privation of life) is evil, but earthboundedness (the absence of flight) is not.

I don't think this perspective allows for the popular "natural vs. moral" distinction Camassia writes of. The evil of the death of a child is not of one type or another depending on whether it was caused by a free choice. Different circumstances might contribute different evils -- the lack of charity implicit in drunk driving, for example -- but these are all in addition to the evil of death.

I think for St. Thomas "moral evil" resides within the sinner; the good that is lacking ought to exist in the sinner's soul, I suppose in his will in particular.

This way of thinking doesn't seem to me to blur the distinction between "human" and "nature." A dog biting me can be analyzed in the same way as a man biting me. If the dog made the right decision for a dog, then there is no moral evil in the dog; if the dog made the wrong decision for a dog, then the dog has committed moral evil. The same can be said for the man making the right or wrong decision for a man.

Now, St. Thomas (if I may speak for him) would say that dogs by nature cannot make wrong decisions, that they are incapable of moral evil, and I would agree with him. I think his association of the distinction between human and animal with rationality needs patching up (if I understand him correctly, he straightforwardly accepts that animals are irrational), but I think it can be done without turning animals into moral agents. (And, for that matter, without denying "that what it means to be human is to possess some unique capacity that distinguishes humankind from that which is non-human," as Stanley Hauerwas and John Berkman do.)

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

It's not simony...

...to give money to the Church in expectation of food, is it? Though you might be charged with receiving good stollens.

The ingredient list includes "the ubiquitous SECRET INGREDIENT!" If it really is ubiquitous, it would have to be something like nitrogen, or maybe quartz. Though in a convent of Dominican nuns, ice cream might count as ubiquitous.

It could also be love, which is both ubiquitous and often used in cooking. At least, I'm told my wife's pancakes are light and fluffy (rather than charred and leaden, like mine) because they're made with love (mine are made with cursing, though I haven't tried to make them since we got rid of the electric stove that only had "on" and "off" settings).

Of course, God Himself is ubiquitous, so it's possible the Trinity is the secret ingredient. Although I can't see that onion, celery, and green bell pepper would work in a stollen.

Update: Yum.

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

Snow job

How did the snowman get to his girlfriend's house for their date?

On a bicicle.

What did he give her when he picked her up?

A dozen frozes.

Where did they go on their date?

To see The Blizzard of Oz.

How did they get there?

They hailed a cab.

What did they get for dessert afterwards?

Hot frost buns.

Did they like their dessert?

Yes, they scarfed it right down.

What was their favorite part?

The icing.

What did the snowman give his girlfriend when he took her home?

A one carrot ring.

Where did he get the money for it?

From his slush fund.

How did he know she liked it?

It melted her heart.

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---

The charge

Yesterday's Gospel reading is one of those benchmark passages in Catholic theology. The Fathers, generally speaking, saw John's question to Jesus as for the benefit of his disciples, that they may come to believe in Jesus after John's death. A lot of contemporary theologians seem to think John himself was unsure of Jesus, even though the same Gospel records him as saying to Jesus, "I need to be baptized by You, and yet You are coming to me?"

Be that as it may, why was John imprisoned to begin with? According to Mark,

Herod was the one who had John arrested and bound in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, whom he had married. John had said to Herod, "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife."

And yet,

Herod feared John, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man, and kept him in custody. When he heard him speak he was very much perplexed, yet he liked to listen to him.

Not many of us would marry a woman named Herodias, perhaps, but otherwise Herod sounds like he would fit right in today: He liked to listen to the words of a righteous and holy man, although he found them perplexing.

What sort of words did John speak? Old Testament prophet-type words:

You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance....

Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

I am baptizing you with water, for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I... His winnowing fan is in his hand. He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

Why would anyone like to listen to words like these? Maybe because they're kind of exciting and challenging and bold.

Ah, but as soon as the challenge gets too personal, the message too bold -- "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife" -- the challenge is rejected and the messenger imprisoned.

Who isn't willing to listen to generalities about improvement? Who is willing to listen to specifics?

Link | 0 comments | Tweet

---