The mountains are just mountains

The Christian faith is not very sophisticated.

There's one God, Who made everything. He has one Son, Who became the man Jesus Christ to save us by His death. Jesus set up one Church, which is guided by His one Holy Spirit. Jesus will come again to divide everyone into the living, who will live in with God forever, and the dead, who will live without God forever.

A child of seven can understand this. Not as well, perhaps, as an adult of seventy, but I have a strong suspicion that little of the advantage of the adult over the child is due to sophisticated thinking.

Not that there isn't plenty of sophisticated thinking done by Christians. Some very clever, very elaborate, and even very profitable thinking has gone into Christian theology since the death of the last Apostle. But the Faith is faith in a Person, not in the thinking of even the best thinkers.

Many people who like to do sophisticated thinking, who relate to the world around them particularly through deliberate reasoning, have a hard time relating in a simple way to the Christian faith. The child-like faith Jesus commands is a real challenge for them. They want a mature faith that is qualitatively different from that of the child of seven.

There seem to be two ways of doing this. One is to preserve the simplicity of the Faith while building up the ancillary aspects of Christianity: the theology, the liturgy, the cult and culture.

The other way, which seems to have become common in the last couple of centuries (if it wasn't always common), is to deny that the Faith is really so simple. Jesus is God, Jesus is man: that's a simple belief with some very sophisticated (and, for the most part, provisional) explanations. But some thinkers want to import the sophistication into the belief, which happens to have the effect of destroying the belief. They want to say that Jesus isn't really God, or wasn't particularly God, or didn't actualize the deontology of Divinity until after the Resurrection Event, or whatever.

I say, that's what they want to do; that's the direction their habitual thought patterns lead them. Not all sophisticated thinkers actually do this, but some who do seem to be up front about what they're doing. The Christian Faith, as received from their forefathers, is too simple, too superstitious, too unenlightened, too backward, to be true.

Since God wants none to be lost but all to be saved, it follows that God wants the sophisticated thinkers to be saved, in addition to the plain thinkers and poor thinkers for whom the Faith is made simple. I'm toying with the idea that, to the sophisticated thinker who wants to destroy the Faith in order to save it from being too simple, Christ has given His mother, as a way to cut through all that sophisticated thought. Once past adolescence, all your fancy talk doesn't really cut it with your mother, and there comes a point when you shut up and listen to her, and of course what the Blessed Mother is saying to you is, "Do whatever He tells you."

I know more than one sophisticated thinker who appears to be grounded in the Apostolic Faith in large part, if not entirely, by being grounded in devotion to Mary.

Link | John da Fiesole
|

---

My Met Calendar event reminder

This is the reminder you requested about the event(s) listed below.

Special Exhibition
Fra Angelico
October 26, 2005-January 29, 2006
Robert Lehman Wing

This first major exhibition of Fra Angelico’s work since the quincentenary exhibition of 1955 in Florence -— and the first ever in this country -— will reunite approximately 75 paintings, drawings, and manuscript illuminations covering all periods of the artist’s career, from ca. 1410 to 1455. Included will be several new attributions and paintings never before exhibited publicly, as well as numerous reconstructions of dispersed complexes, some reunited for the first time. An additional 45 works by Angelico's assistants and closest followers will illustrate the spread and continuity of his influence into the second half of the 15th century.

Link | John da Fiesole
|

---

No natural predispositions

Moniales OP draws attention to a fascinating observation by Fr. Thomas Philippe, OP:

In the case of a vocation to the active life, certain natural dispositions can be recognized; but for the contemplative vocation, which is the blossoming of the life of grace and of the theological virtues, there are no natural predispositions. Insofar as a call to the religious state is involved, one may speak of the absence of counterindications; but that is all.

This has obvious implications for how to go about (or perhaps how not to go about) directing people towards the contemplative vocation.

But I'd say it also has some implications for every Christian. If the contemplative vocation is, in fact, the blossoming of the life of grace and of the theological virtues, then it is a vocation each of us is called to -- or better, contemplation is a part of each person's vocation. And we can't use "But I'm not the type" as an excuse, because there is no type.

Link | John da Fiesole
|

---

The devil laughs

Many of the comments on the post below focus (understandably enough) on the one post of Diogenes that Mark Shea linked to. Many people have asked what, particularly, I object to in that post. In one reply, I wrote, "This particular post implies the Cardinal committed an act of apostasy in exchange for a good deal of money."

But my point is larger than settling on the best twenty word paraphrase of that one post. And my point is that what Diogenes does at Off the Record is evil.¹

This goes beyond mere isolated faults and failings. What Diogenes posts, habitually and as his stock-in-trade, is poison. And I don't mean "poison" as in "bad stuff," I mean it as in "stuff that can kill the soul and lead to eternal damnation."

It is a poison of hatred, of derision, of ill-will, of pride, of envy. It is a poison that will kill a person's soul dead, and not just the one who concocts the poison, but those who feed off it as it is doled out, those who bathe in it, those who carry it with them wherever they go.

The habit of hate kills the life of charity.

To those insisting on the demonstration of what I wrote could be objectively demonstrated: Read Diogenes. Read Off the Record. The hatred, derision, ill-will, pride, and envy are there, evident to anyone who can see.

Some people react to this poison by squirming, then trying to excuse it: he's a good priest²; he's addressing real abuses; sometimes he's right; he may be wrong other times, but that's not evil; haven't you ever heard of parody and satire?

You can't do evil that good may result.

You can't do evil because the other guys started it.

You can't do evil because the other guys are eviler.

You can't do evil because the other guys do it, too.

You can't do evil.

---

1. To say this is not to pass judgment on the state of Diogenes's soul. It is to make a judgment about the objective gravity of his actions.

2. That he is a priest seems to be the consensus of people who claim to know who he is; I don't know, but it does seem likely.

Link | John da Fiesole
|

---

Deadly cynicism

Mark Shea links to a recent sample of the writing of "Diogenes" at Catholic World News's Off the Record blog.

Since fans of "Diogenes" seem to like plain speaking, let me speak plainly:

What "Diogenes" does at "Off the Record" is evil.

Gravely evil. Mortally sinfully evil. Putting his immortal soul at risk of damnation evil.

By their formal support for "Diogenes," the editors of Catholic World News are formal cooperators in this grave evil. Formal cooperation in grave evil is gravely evil.

Link | John da Fiesole
|

---

Who knew?

Tyson Food, whose -- er, chicken products my family eats a couple times a week, has as a core value, "We strive to be a faith-friendly company." As a part of that, it offers on its website a "Giving Thanks at Mealtime" booklet (in PDF, or you can order a hard copy).

Some of us were raised saying thanks before mealtime and still do it regularly. Some of us have fallen out of the habit as we have gotten older. And some of us were never exposed to saying thanks at home. Whichever is the case with you, this Giving Thanks at Mealtime booklet is designed to help you discover (or rediscover!) the joy and power of saying a word of thanks before mealtime.

It's a pretty wide-ranging collection of graces, from

Benedic, Domine, nos et haec tua dona quae de tua largitate sumus sumpturi. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

to

Rub-a-dub-dub,
Thanks for the grub.
Amen.

I wonder how many other faceless American corporations -- however mildly, and with whatever accompanying business motive -- allow themselves such expressions of faith.

Link | John da Fiesole
|

---

"And you shall call His name 'God'"

Have you ever noticed how sympathetically portrayed Christian characters on television never speak the Holy Name of Jesus?

It's not coincidental:

"It's a show about five people who run a church," said "Pastor Greg" creator and star Greg Robbins. "No matter what you do on Sundays, you'll be able to relate to them."

... Robbins met one television executive who bluntly said, "Take Jesus out of your show, and we'll buy it right now."

Other Hollywood executives expressed concern about "Pastor Greg" openly using the J-word.

"That's what they called it, the J-word - they couldn't even bring themselves to say Jesus," said Robbins, adding, "Satan has a stronghold on Hollywood in a big way."

I suspect saying "the J-word" rather than "Jesus" may have more to do with sham creativity than with demonic influence, but there's nothing like broadcast television to take the "Christ" out of "Christian."

Link via Christdot, via Relapsed Catholic.

Link | John da Fiesole
|

---

Just to be clear

I love the Chronicles of Narnia. I've read them myself, I've read them with my wife, I've read them to my children. We own DVDs of the BBC productions of four of the novels. A drawing of Aslan flying with Lucy and Susan is currently the background image on my computer display.

But: The identification of Aslan and Jesus does not bear much scrutiny, either artistically or theologically.

And: In particular, the "Deeper Magic From Before the Beginning of Time" bit is very bad art, and worse theology.

Notwithstanding: The fact that many people love Aslan and don't merely overlook the bad art, but actually insist it is good art, because (I suggest) they regard Aslan as Jesus, know what Jesus did for us, and supply what is wanting in Lewis's story from their own hearts.

However: I do grant that the "not a tame lion" line is excellent.

Link | John da Fiesole
|

---

Deep spoilers from before the end of the book

A lot of Christians were concerned with whether the Christian allegory in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe would survive the translation to film. Time ran an article titled, "How to Tell if The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a Christian Film." (Link via open book.) The author wrote that if this sentence by Aslan, along with three others by the White Witch, made it into the released movie, that would "constitute a kind of evangelical sniff test":

The Witch knew the Deep Magic. But if she could have looked a little further back... she would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.

Barb Nicolosi, who attended a preview of the movie, assures us, "All the lines the Christians are worrying about are in there."

So let me say that I think the "willing victim who had committed no treachery" line is the weakest bit in the entire book.

Yes, yes, it's the key to the story as Christian allegory, and without it Aslan wouldn't be a Christ figure so much as one of those magical lions that pop right back up after being killed. But it's a glass key, and if you aren't careful it will break right in your hand.

To take just two points: First, this "Deeper Magic From Before the Beginning of Time" makes the "Deep Magic" according to which the White Witch may kill any traitor an arbitrary and passing thing. Tough luck for the traitor right before Edmund, who gets it on the Stone Table; good luck for the traitor right after Edmund, who not only doesn't have the White Witch on his tail, but who doesn't even have to feel bad about anyone dying for him.

Second, the Deeper Magic seems to work for anyone. It's not who Aslan is that breaks the Stone Table. In a sense it's not even what he does, but what he knows. At any time, some mother Vixen might have offered to die in place of her son, and hey presto, the White Witch would have been out of business. And in any case, her power was already breaking before she agreed to kill Aslan. Aslan basically tricked her into making a deal that would ensure her own destruction.

So yeah, that the innocent dying for the guilty can be an act of great power is a Christian notion. But as it's found in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, it's a pretty feeble version (also shown by the fact that it can be excised altogether by changing one single sentence), and Christians might be better off not pressing it too hard.

All this assumes C. S. Lewis meant the story to be allegorical. Other books in the Chronicles of Narnia, however, show that Aslan is not merely a Christ figure, he is supposed to be the Second Person of the Trinity Himself. That's a step, not mandated if we limit ourselves to this one book, that turns the Deeper Magic from a weak allegory to a cover-your-eyes awful theology.

Link | John da Fiesole
|

---

The Curse of the Theatrical Length Motion Picture

Kathy Hutchins is a little more down on the Wallace and Gromit movie than I am, but I too was disappointed. I could have done without the scattering of vulgar jokes, but the whole thing simply wasn't nearly as clever as the W&G shorts.

Kathy writes:

...you do realize if you're seeing a Wallace and Gromit film for the plot, you're a sad human being.

But it may be precisely the problem of plot that keeps this movie from living up to the shorts. And by "problem of plot," I mean they had to have one that would last an hour and a half. They wound up with one whose conventions outweigh its quirks.

Which is not to say it's not an entertaining movie; it has a 95% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes, suggesting it's a nice palate cleanser for the critics. It's just not top quality Wallace and Gromit.

Link | John da Fiesole
|

---

Zeal for the Lord's house

St. Thomas is something of a champion of human reason, which makes his answer to the following objection all the more interesting:

...according to Dionysius, "The soul's evil is to be without reason." Now anger is always without reason: for the Philosopher says that "anger does not listen perfectly to reason"; and Gregory says that "when anger sunders the tranquil surface of the soul, it mangles and rends it by its riot"; and Cassian says: "From whatever cause it arises, the angry passion boils over and blinds the eye of the mind." Therefore it is always evil to be angry.

You can see the strength this argument might have against someone who believes the image of God is in man only through his reason.

Here is St. Thomas's reply, with my glosses:

Anger may stand in a twofold relation to reason. First, antecedently; in this way it withdraws reason from its rectitude, and has therefore the character of evil.

Here, St. Thomas grants the truth of the objection -- and remember, in his treatment anger is a vice opposed to temperance, so it's not like this article denies anger can be evil, or even that it usually is -- by making a distinction in anger's relation to reason. A person can get angry before reasoning the circs. through, which is wrong ("has the character of evil").

Secondly, consequently, inasmuch as the movement of the sensitive appetite is directed against vice and in accordance with reason, this anger is good, and is called "zealous anger."

A person can also get angry after or as a consequence of thinking things through, and if this anger is directed at correcting vice, and accords with reason, it's good.

In other words, St. Thomas is saying that it is possible to be angry in accord with reason, in which case the argument that "anger is always without reason" loses its strength.

So, is it possible to be angry in accord with reason?

Wherefore Gregory says: "We must beware lest, when we use anger as an instrument of virtue, it overrule the mind, and go before it as its mistress, instead of following in reason's train, ever ready, as its handmaid, to obey." This latter anger, although it hinder somewhat the judgment of reason in the execution of the act, does not destroy the rectitude of reason. Hence Gregory says that "zealous anger troubles the eye of reason, whereas sinful anger blinds it."

First, note that he quotes the same St. Gregory the Great who was quoted in the objection saying that anger rends and mangles the soul. So the distinction between sinful anger and zealous anger goes back well before St. Thomas.

What St. Thomas has in mind is the case where someone observes some injustice or vice, determines that it can be corrected, settles on a means to correct it, then becomes angry -- anger being a "movement of the sensitive appetite" associated with arduous desires. Anger is, so to speak, what fuels the flesh to help the spirit attain its end of avenging vice.

It's true, St. Thomas admits, that even this zealous anger "troubles the eye of reason. What he denies is that it is contrary or opposed to reason. The reasoning is, in a sense, already done; the anger is directed at carrying out reason's plan.

Nor is it incompatible with virtue that the deliberation of reason be interrupted in the execution of what reason has deliberated: since art also would be hindered in its act, if it were to deliberate about what has to be done, while having to act.

I find this a fascinating comparison. For St. Thomas, art is right reasoning about a thing to be made. Art is a type of reason, yet when it acts it doesn't reason. It's the whole process that is governed by reason -- hence human, hence virtuous -- not each individual component of the process. In fact, to insist that each individual component of the process be interrupted by the deliberation of reason is to hinder the overall process, if not to wreck it altogether. There are times when reasoning is unreasonable.

If this is true of art, then it can in principle be true of other things. Of anger, for instance. To determine whether it's true of art, I suspect we're better off asking artists rather than relying purely on philosophy. Similarly, we may be better off asking the virtuous whether they can be angry without sinning than trying to resolve that question with a purely speculative argument.

Link | John da Fiesole
|

---

Speaking of hobgoblins

I am, on the whole, insufferable, which is one reason many people who meet me socially get the impression that I am quiet and reserved. I know from experience that, once I start talking, no good will come of it.

I am, though, a rank piker compared to Emerson:

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — "Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood." — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Let us pass the content by without a word, out of charity toward a man who can do no further harm. I think it's the confluence of an aphoristic writing style and the theme of the "great soul" that really grates.

I knew a college professor who, when he reached a key point in his lecture (i.e., something that would be on the test), would say, "No need to write this down. Just memorize as I go along." There's something of a "memorize this" attitude in aphoristic writing, by which I mean something like a series of general and categorical statements: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.... With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do... Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again.... To be great is to be misunderstood."

Such writing gives the reader no foothold or purchase, no place to brace himself against the onslaught of the writer's ideas, or to rest while he weighs the previous general and categorical statement. It's forceful writing, yes, but who wants to be forced into accepting something merely because he reads it? And of course, once the reader steps out of the direction of the force -- as, in this example, by saying, "Well of course 'foolish consistency' is bad, but that's because it's foolish, not because it's consistent." -- the whole rest of the piece slides on by without effect, like a train passing a car that stopped in time at a crossing.

This "memorize this" impression is only exacerbated by the fact that Emerson is writing categorically about greatness of soul. It's hard to do that without implying that one is oneself a Great Soul, or at least greater than the majority of one's readers are likely to be, and that one's greatness is proved by the fact that one lives according to one's aphorisms. If he stuck to the alleged foibles of little statesmen, well, who but little statesmen would begrudge him his bit of grandstanding on that theme?

Of course, it isn't just that one is a Great Soul, as tiresome as that is, but that one's very greatness inevitably causes suffering. Poor dear! The one source of consolation in this, apart from one's own greatness, is that Jesus knows just how one feels.

Yikes.

Link | John da Fiesole
|

---

An on-line feast

Today is the Feast of Blogging an Excerpt of "Lepanto." Traditionally on this day, Catholic bloggers do something poorly that is worth doing. One popular custom is to wear a cape to a pub, where a meal and a pint are shared with others after a ceremonial rattling of sabres that have been blessed by a priest descended from a Holy Roman Emperor.

Link | John da Fiesole
|

---

Hobgoblins rare and common

I frequently come across the saying, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." As a debate-stopper, it's right up there with Whitman's wheeze from "Full of Myself"¹:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Each is, for the most part, simply a somewhat literate way of saying, "So what if my arguments are invalid?"

Not that I deny there is such a thing as "foolish consistency." Insisting on the same prudential actions in different situations with obvious and relevant distinctions could be described that way.

It seems to me, though, that, on the list of all the faults we humans are heir to, "consistency" of any kind wouldn't rank very high. On the contrary, I'd say foolish inconsistency is far more common.

This thought came to me after reading a comment elsewhere that I took strong exception to. I ran through a list of the direct logical corollaries of that statement, picked out a particularly bad one, and began to compose a reply along the lines of, "Oh, really? If you think that, then you must think this."

I stopped myself before sending it. When people say such things to me, they're often wrong, because "this" in no way follows from "that." Before I fired off my unanswerable answer, I wanted to make sure that the this I had picked really did follow as the night the day from the that the other fellow had asserted.

That's when it occurred to me: It doesn't matter whether the this followed from the that. I was dealing with a human being, and human beings are perfectly capable of holding, in fact quite likely to hold, contradictory positions. The fact that P implies Q by no means means the fact I hold P implies I hold Q. "If you think that, then you must think this" ain't so.

One consequence is that devastating replies aren't always so devastating. "If you're right, then there's nothing wrong with pitchforking babies!" may be logically true, but it can be countered by a foolishly inconsistent, "Please, I'm not saying it's okay to pitchfork babies."

And if devastating replies aren't always so devastating, then perhaps they become cheap. "If you think that, then you must think this" is used, not to advance the debate, but to stoke up your side. It doesn't matter whether that really does imply this; no one's mind is going to be changed anyway. What matters is that "this" is Really Bad. And we wind up dulled to the presence of such arguments, meaning that when we run into one where "that" really does imply "this," "this" is Really Bad, and we happen to hold "that," we dismiss it without a thought about what it might mean for us to hold "that."

---

1. Seriously, the thing is almost 16,000 words. That's not a song, that's an opera, and almost twice as long as Verdi's longest.

Link | John da Fiesole
|

---

The Sour Grapes Blues

Speaking of music,

Let me now sing of my friend,
my friend's song concerning his vineyard.

Does anyone doubt that his friend's song follows a blues progression?

I built me a vineyard, I didn't mind the cost or toil.
In building that vineyard, I didn't stint at cost or toil.
I planted the best vines after tilling over all that rich soil.

When harvest time came, all the grapes I found were sour and small.
Yes, at harvest I found all those grapes were too sour and small.
It was like I hadn't done a thing for those vines at all.

What I want to know is what it was that I left undone.
Can anybody tell me just what it was I left undone?
I even made sure they got the right amount of rain and sun.

With a vineyard like this, I'll tell you just what I'm going to do.
You can probabaly guess what this vineyard's driving me to do.
I'm going to pull down the wall, let the briars and the cattle through.

According to the great Delta bluesman Son House, "Blues is between male and female that's in love, and one deceives the other." And brother, if that's not the story of God and man, I don't know what is.

Link | John da Fiesole
|

---

"I have often traveled to Media"

I love the Book of Tobit. Demons, monstrous fish, love at first sight, bird poop as a major plot device, a hometown setting: it's got it all.

It especially has Raphael, "one of the seven angels who enter and serve before the Glory of the Lord." Included in his service was the task of reading the prayers of both Tobit (blinded and mocked) and Sarah (widowed and mocked).

So Raphael was sent to heal them both: to remove the cataracts from Tobit's eyes, so that he might again see God's sunlight; and to marry Raguel's daughter Sarah to Tobit's son Tobiah, and then drive the wicked demon Asmodeus from her.

Now, what you'd want, or at least what I'd want, is for Raphael to appear before Tobit and say, "The LORD has heard your prayer, your eyes are healed," then turn to Tobiah and say, "I will transport you instantly to Media, where you will marry Sarah once I drive the demon away."

But that, of course, isn't God's way. Even when He is as unsubtle as sending an archangel in the form of a man to answer a prayer, He does it such that the cooperation of the person whose prayers are being answered is required. This way, the person's free will is preserved, and consequently the very process of having his prayer answered is a source of virtue and an opportunity to grow in holiness.

When you think about it, if Tobit, who in his own words "walked all the days of my life on the paths of truth and righteousness," suddenly found an angel of the LORD appearing before him to heal him, he may well backslide from righteousness into childish presumption. "It is better for me to die than to live, because I have this crick in my neck, and I am overwhelmed with grief... I said, I have this crick in my neck... So where's the angel already?"

There's a lesson in that, I suppose, although those of us who are currently childishly presumptuous might be willing to put off learning it until tomorrow.

Link | John da Fiesole
|

---

Well, of course there is

Why wouldn't there be?

In fact, there's not only a papalucini.com, there's also a papalucini.org and a papalucini.it. This last is currently unavailable, possibly due to a traffic spike on this, the 27th anniversary of the death of Servant of God Pope John Paul I.

Reading through some of the anecdotes of his life, it's easy to see why people loved him. I like the one in which all the ladies of the rest home he (as Bishop of Vittorio Veneto) was visiting get up and leave him to go watch a television program. He tells himself:

"Oh, poor me! I speak about God, I make high speeches. I must come down, get into the interests and the ways of the people to speak to them. High clouds do not send the rain. I must catechize without a mitre, as don Forest told the Cardinal of Turin, who had gone to meet his boys with his episcopal mitre on his head, which hit against the beam of the house ceiling."

Link | John da Fiesole
|

---

Vengeance is mine, too

Although St. Thomas agrees with St. Gregory's identification of anger as a capital vice (a.k.a., one of the Seven Deadly Sins), he also says that it is sometimes lawful to be angry.

The apparent contradiction is easily enough resolved -- anger is a broad term meaning "the desire for revenge," and "revenge may be desired both well and ill." But this, of course, just swaps "anger" for "revenge," and we're left with the question of whether revenge really can be desired both well and ill.

As St. Thomas points out in an objection:

Now it would seem unlawful to desire vengeance, since this should be left to God, according to Dt. 32:35, "Revenge is Mine." Therefore it would seem that to be angry is always an evil.

As often happens, St. Thomas grants much of the objection:

It is unlawful to desire vengeance considered as evil to the man who is to be punished, but it is praiseworthy to desire vengeance as a corrective of vice and for the good of justice... and when revenge is taken in accordance with the order of judgment, it is God's work, since he who has power to punish "is God's minister," as stated in Rm. 13:4.

There's a lot going on in this reply, and it needs to be read in the context of the whole article, so that for example you see in the main body of the article he has already said that all anger is evil when "one is angry, more or less than right reason demands." But here let me point out just a few things.

First, St. Thomas says "it is praiseworthy to desire vengeance as a corrective of vice and for the good of justice." It is to each person's conscience that he must look to decide how often his anger is directed toward correction of vice and the good of justice. Even when anger is directed toward these goods, one must determine whether the actions taken under its spur are at all likely to effect correction and justice. The passion of anger is often inflamed for reasons not in accordance with the order of judgment, and often not in circumstances in which the order of judgment can be served by the one who is angry.

Which leads to the second point, that my desire for vengeance is not necessarily a desire that I, personally, do the punishing. I can be justly angered by something I read in a newspaper without entertaining the thought of traveling to wherever the injustice occurred and knocking together the heads of the guilty.

What I don't see that I can do, though, is nurse the desire for vengeance without ever acting on it in some way that might contribute to the restoration of justice.

Finally, I think there's a real risk with humans that what begins as a corrective of vice becomes an unreasoned, habitual response. It is never in accordance with the order of justice to treat another person as an object; with anger, the danger is of treating another person as something that, when it acts in some way, we correct by kicking it, so to speak. Vengeance can never be indiscriminate; if it becomes habitual, it becomes vicious.

Link | John da Fiesole
|

---