A STRAIGHTFORWARD MANNER

Flannery O'Connor tells an amusing anecdote about Henry James:

It's said that when Henry James received a manuscript that he didn't like, he would return it with the comment, "You have chosen a good subject and are treating it in a straightforward manner." This usually pleased the person getting the manuscript back, but it was the worst thing that James could think of to say, for he knew, better than anybody else, that the straightforward manner is seldom equal to the complications of the good subject.

Now, frankly, and with all due respect, it does seem to me that many of the bloggers who have disagreed with or outright dismissed the statements on Iraq from the USCCB and the pope have treated these statements "in a straightforward manner." And, in my humble opinion, I really think many of their explanations are not "equal to the complications" of the deep and long standing tradition of how Catholics are to receive official statements that are a prudential judgment on a current situation by bishops and the pope.

One glaring omission seems to be the sheer fact that the USCCB and pope have made statements about war with Iraq. If you're going to say that these bishops and the pope have overstepped their authority and competence, then you're faced with the fact that their own understanding of their authority and competence did not prevent them from making the statements. That, of course, doesn't necessarily mean they in fact do have the necessary authority and competence, but it ought to make one pause a bit. After all, how else does the Church determine what it does and does not have authority and competence about if not from bishops and the pope? But there's a more jarring problem with many of the explanations I've read.

Ham-fistedly separating prudential judgments from the rest of Church Teaching, or limiting the scope of such judgments to liturgy, governance, and directives to prayer, penance, and fasting, does two things:

1) it whittles the prudential judgments by bishops and the pope down to slivers of opinion that are basically personal and subjective.
2) it empties the very principles that are being applied in the prudential judgment of any real significance and clips them out of their context as principles that are designed to be applied to the world.

There's a kind of chicken or egg dynamic here. Church Teaching doesn't arise in a vacuum. In large part, it's the result of concrete, particular situations rearing up and demanding resolution. Flip through any history of Early Christianity and you'll see nearly every article of faith challenged by particular individuals with particular notions. There is an integral relationship between doctrine and its application that is not a one-way shot in the dark. Specific situations gave rise to doctrine and the further elucidation of that doctrine. Specific wars gave rise to the proposal and clarification of the Church's much bandied about just-war principles. For example, the nuclear arms build up and the potential for unprecedented destruction that existed in 1963 surely motivated the writing of the great and influential encyclical Pacem in Terris. But to admit this is to admit an intimate relationship between Church Teaching and current events.

Why, then, do some insist on denying that the moral authority of the bishops and the pope has weight and significance that ought to at least cause one some trepidation when publicly dissenting from its conclusions? Yes, yes yes, I know know know that these prudential judgments are NOT not not binding and DON'T don't don't require the assent of the faithful. Sheesh! Can we move past this objection? The reason they don't require assent is because they're applications to a particular situation that can't be universally applied or cover every possible circumstance that someone might find him or herself in. But they still pack a proportionate authority that makes such judgments different from your own personal opinion, the opinion of bloggers (yes, really), and the opinion of government officials.

And so, I'll say again what I mentioned before. Dissent from Church Teaching should never leave you feeling warm and toasty. For Catholics, the Church is so central to any application of moral theory, and the very basis of such an application, a well-formed conscience, has its roots so deep within the Church, that any dissent from prudential judgments that the bishops and pope make ought to be a cold comfort at best.


posted by Minute Particulars at 9:44 PM

"DISAGREEMENT IS NOT AN EASY THING TO REACH"(originally from March 2003)

This wonderfully counterintuitive statement from John Courtney Murray has been highlighted again by recent debate; this time it's the debate on exactly how Catholics ought to react to a statement on a current situation by bishops or the pope. I'm amazed at some of the negative responses my recent post, COLD COMFORT, received. I'm not amazed because they're negative responses, of course not; I get lots of those. I'm amazed because I'm still not quite sure what it is we're disagreeing upon. I know it must be hidden somewhere in all the "isms" that are being used to describe my position and others who have approached the issue in a similar manner.

The first impediment to genuine disagreement about this issue has been the terminology. At least in the discussions I've been involved with, there is an interesting resistance to the terms "official statement" and "dissent." Some hold that "official statements" by bishops and the pope are not official statements unless they are doctrinal or statements of principles that aren't applications to particular situations and current events. I don't quite follow this objection. On the one hand, we're not talking about an opinion by the pope overheard at dinner about a soccer match that day. On the other, we're not talking about an infallible teaching or even an ordinary teaching that requires the assent of the faithful. We're talking about statements intended for the public by bishops, the pope, or appropriate Vatican officials, about important current events. Yes these are prudential judgments. Yes they are not binding nor do they require the assent of the faithful. But if these aren't "official," if these don't reflect current judgments about current events by bishops and the pope from their "office" as bishops and pope, then I don't know what "official" means.

I understand that a Catholic might wince at the realization that he or she utterly disagrees with an "official statement" from the pope or USCCB. But I don't think limiting the scope of what's "official" is the best technique around this. While it might make it less awkward to, as Mr. Dreher put it, "stand by their president, and not their pope, in this matter," denying that there are official statements on an issue seems to water down the statements of bishops and the pope to mere opinion devoid of wisdom or inspiration from the Holy Spirit. And if we can't call statements on important current events by bishops and the pope "official," then our disagreement will only be about opinions, and underlying our conversation will be the assumption that bishops and the pope don't really have authority or competence to make statements on these matters. It would then follow that we really don't have to take them seriously. This seems the implicit and even explicit position of a number of Catholics.

The other disputed term is the word "dissent." Some insist that "dissent" exclusively implies an unfaithful break from the Church, though obviously the word has a much more general meaning as well. If the only objection to using "dissent" is that it has a strict ecclesial meaning then I'm happy to say "disagree" or some such term. But I used the word deliberately in previous post not to suggest that any dissent is necessarily unfaithful, but to suggest that one is disagreeing with an official statement of the bishops or popes that has a context and implications that "disagree" doesn't quite get at.

I actually wonder if avoiding the word "dissent" is really a very smart tactic. If you don't want to distance yourself from the context of a bishop or pope's prudential judgment, and authentic discussion ought to attempt to preserve the proper context of such judgments, then why not roll up your sleeves and get dirty? Why not claim that as a faithful, good-willed, intelligent Catholic, you are dissenting from an official statement by the USCCB or pope? Using "disagree" or some such term undermines the weight of the official statement and the impact that a contrary opinion might have; and yes, avoiding "dissent" waters the position of the bishops and pope down to mere opinion devoid of wisdom or inspiration from the Holy Spirit (you see the pattern developing).

By now many who have objected to the use of the above terms are probably seeing red, saying

That idjit at Minute Particulars is at it again! He's claiming that the statements from the USCCB or pope are binding on the faithful and anyone who disagrees is a devious, dastardly dissenter!

And this brings us to the next obstacle for our ever getting to the point of really disagreeing: the creative reinterpretation of comments and positions into straw men that can be whisked away swiftly and easily. I have not said many of the things that several blogs have claimed I've said. Most of them have kindly provided a link to my original post, and I'd simply ask the reader to look again at what I and others have actually said. You might be pleasantly surprised.

I could continue listing the other hurdles that seem to keep us from getting to and digging into our respective positions so that intelligent discussion can occur. But you've surely gotten my point and so I'll stop piecing together scaffolding and get directly to what bothers me in all this blog blather.

My concern from the start, when I first raised doubts about the wisdom of Catholics writing an Open Letter that seemed inappropriate, was that there have been motions, some subtle and perhaps unintended, some explicit, vigorous, and deliberate, to vitiate the Church's moral authority in secular matters. I get the impression that Catholics are being encouraged to look for loopholes, to walk within the letter but perhaps not the spirit of Church Teaching, to wiggle and squirm so they can comfortably dismiss the clear statements of concern about current events from the USCCB and the pope. I don't mean genuine, faithful dissent that may be heroic, objectively correct, and noble. I don't mean a humble, reverent shaking of one's head in disapproval. I don't mean the kind of disagreement that leaves one uncomfortable, causes one to look again for what is not seen, and hobbles one a bit by pangs of conscience. I mean the dissent of Catholics who boldly proclaim the bishops are wrong, the Vatican is wrong, the pope is wrong on an issue of utmost moral significance.

I don't understand the loud and booming dismissals of official statements by USCCB and the pope that many have offered for public consumption. I don't quite see how these Catholic pundits can be so confident; from my vantage point they only seem to be offering a simplistic notion of the difference between doctrinal statements and prudential judgments, a shallow reading of the Tradition, and subtle but definite resistance to letting the Lumen Gentium shine without filters or obstruction through the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.

But more importantly I'm troubled by the following fact: most of this resistance is coming from faithful, good-willed, intelligent Catholics. Sure there are some frothing fringe folks, but many of these opinions are coming from those who, judging from what they've said in the past and on many issues, are wiser, smarter, and older than I am. It's as if the cap is stuck on the St. Blog's toothpaste tube and the current crisis is giving it a good, hardy squeeze; the toothpaste is squirting out in places I would have never suspected. And this is disturbing because it makes it clear that the consensus on many issues of earlier times was a little more brittle than I thought.

I simply don't know the reason this tendency to be so dismissive of statements from bishops and the pope has arisen in faithful, good-willed, intelligent Catholics. Surely it's complex and my dim words have not been an attempt to explain it. The perceived shaking of the foundations caused by the sexual abuse scandal is a likely contributor. And what some see as the brazen battering of U.S. policies by bishops and the Vatican is likely at play as well. But at some point a line gets crossed and new ground is stood upon that may seem to give one firm footing for a particular situation. But I wonder how well that ground will support the broader issues one inevitably faces once a crisis passes.


posted by Minute Particulars at 9:23 PM

COLD COMFORT (originally from March 2003)

It's interesting that one of the most cited texts from the USCCB on Iraq by those who disagree with the bishops is the following:

People of good will may differ on how traditional norms apply in this situation. The gravity of the threat and whether force would be preemptive are matters of debate, as are the potential consequences of using or failing to use military force.

I wonder if those taking comfort in the fact that a judgment doesn't require assent, in this case a judgment by bishops or the pope about the current Iraqi situation, might be dismissing the opinion in part because it doesn't require assent. I've read suggestions that the opinion of bishops and the pope on Iraq doesn't touch on faith and morals; but surely it's an application of these. I've also sensed that some think a prudential judgment is a kind of personal opinion about a matter that "people of good will may differ on" and thus, because they consider themselves people of good will, they implicitly or explicitly hold that their opinion is necessarily equal to the opinion of the bishops and pope. I'd like to suggest that there might be a bit more to disagreeing with bishops and the pope on prudential issues than the doesn't require assent mantra might suggest. But to do this we need to consider again the nature of a prudential judgment.

Here's a fine description of prudence from Josef Pieper:

The immediate criterion for concrete ethical action is solely the imperative of prudence in the person who has the decision to make. This standard cannot be abstractly construed or even calculated in advance; abstractly here means: outside the particular situation. The imperative of prudence is always and in essence a decision regarding an action to be performed in the "here and now."

The opinion of bishops and the pope on Iraq doesn't require assent because any application of moral principles requires a prudential judgment, a judgment in the "here and now" about a concrete situation, a decision upon which people of deep faith and good will might differ. If you think about it, in theory, there are very few if any applications (not principles or laws or doctrines, but practical applications) of Church Teaching that would necessarily and in every case require assent or agreement of the faithful given every possible permutation of intention, events, and circumstances. If you're thinking "the divinity of Christ" or some such thing you're missing the point; look again at the last few sentences and the parenthetical, I'm talking about "practical applications." How do you apply the doctrinal truth that Christ is divine? In the moral realm, even applying the straightforward and unequivocal prohibition against killing an innocent human being can get difficult when one must determine the particular aspects: intention, innocence, mitigating circumstances, etc. Certainly you can say it's always wrong to kill an innocent human being, but applying that in particular situations is often quite difficult.

A judgment requiring assent would have to be applicable to and anticipate every possible particular situation in advance. The reason judgments requiring assent are so rare is that it's nearly impossible to account for every possible mitigating circumstance when the judgment is applied to concrete, complex, and particular situations. Judgments by bishops and the pope that are prudential don't require assent in the manner that doctrinal declarations do because doctrinal declarations can have universal scope for every possible circumstance -- even if applying the doctrines to the world is difficult; prudential judgments don't have this same scope.

But judgments "not requiring assent" have somehow drifted to being perceived by many as "judgments that have the same weight and authority as my own judgments as long as I'm good willed about it." This, I would suggest, is a distortion. Judgments by bishops or the pope not requiring assent are still informed by the Holy Spirit, the teaching authority of the episcopal office, and the solicitude the Church has for the dignity of every human being.

A judgment of the bishops and pope, even a unanimous one that holds that the current conditions for a just war have not been met could very well be wrong. But if so, it will only be seen as such in hindsight. The purpose of these prudential judgments is to guide all men and women of good will in the "here and now." Dissent from these positions ought to be done with reverence, with humility, and frankly, with a little fear and trembling. I say this NOT because one is somehow not "faithful" if one dissents from the prudential judgments of bishops or the pope. Rather, I say this because one is deciding to go it alone or with others of like mind who have themselves decided to go it alone. This could indeed be noble and even heroic. History may show that those who have strongly disagreed with the present opinion of bishops and popes on Iraq were virtuous, faithful, brave men and women of good will who fought the good fight and were clearly right to dissent.

But this kind of dissent loses its authenticity if it stems from suspicion of the motivations of the pope or bishops, or is rooted in doubt that the Holy Spirit is working through the pope or bishops, or derives from a love for one's nation that surpasses love for the Light of nations, or is grounded in good old fashioned despair about the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ:

Christ, the one Mediator, established and continually sustains here on earth His holy Church, the community of faith, hope and charity, as an entity with visible delineation through which He communicated truth and grace to all. But, the society structured with hierarchical organs and the Mystical Body of Christ, are not to be considered as two realities, nor are the visible assembly and the spiritual community, nor the earthly Church and the Church enriched with heavenly things; rather they form one complex reality which coalesces from a divine and a human element. For this reason, by no weak analogy, it is compared to the mystery of the incarnate Word. As the assumed nature inseparably united to Him, serves the divine Word as a living organ of salvation, so, in a similar way, does the visible social structure of the Church serve the Spirit of Christ, who vivifies it, in the building up of the body.

Finally, it seems to me that faithful dissent needs to be accompanied by an awareness of the fact that formation of conscience is very closely tied to Church Teaching:

In the formation of conscience the Word of God is the light for our path, we must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. We must also examine our conscience before the Lord's Cross. We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others and guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church. (CCC)

Dissent from Church Teaching should never leave you feeling warm and toasty. For Catholics, the Church is so central to any application of moral theory, and the very basis of such an application, a well-formed conscience, has its roots so deep within the Church, that any dissent from prudential judgments that the bishops and pope make ought to be a cold comfort at best.


posted by Minute Particulars at 7:09 PM

posted by Minute Particulars at 8:00 PM

TWO SEPTEMBER DAYS – 100 YEARS APART
Ever since I heard of the death of Stephen Jay Gould I’ve been trying to find a column he wrote about the of events 9/11. I’ve been unable to find a link to the original that appeared, I think, in the Boston Globe. So, here’s the text of it. It seems an appropriate tribute to him and to the tragic events last September during this Memorial Day weekend:

Two September Days - 100 Years Apart
By Stephen Jay Gould, 9/30/2001

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. A time to be born and a time to die: a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.- Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

I HAVE a large collection of antiquarian books in science, some with beautiful bindings and plates; others dating to the earliest days of printing in the late 15th century. But my most precious possession, the pearl beyond all price in my collection, cost 5 cents when a 13-year-old immigrant, named Joseph Arthur Rosenberg, just off the boat from Hungary, bought it on Oct. 25, 1901. This book, ''Studies in English Grammar,'' written by J.M. Greenwood and published in 1892, carries a small stamp identifying the place of purchase: ''Carroll's book store. Old, rare and curious books. Fulton and Pearl Sts. Brooklyn.''

The arrival of Joseph Arthur Rosenberg, my maternal grandfather Papa Joe, began the history of my family in America. He came with his mother, Leni, and two sisters, Reni and Gus, in steerage aboard the SS Kensington, sailing from Antwerp on Aug. 31 with 60 passengers in first class and 1,000 in steerage. The passenger manifest states that Leni arrived with $6.50 to start her new life. Papa Joe added one other bit of information to the date of purchase and his name, inscribed on the title page. He wrote, with maximal brevity in the most eloquent of all possible words: ''I have landed. Sept. 11th 1901.''

I wanted to visit Ellis Island on Sept. 11, 2001, to stand with my mother, his only surviving child, at his site of entry on my family's centennial. My flight from Milan, scheduled to arrive in New York City at midday, landed in Halifax instead - as the great vista of old and new, the Statue of Liberty and adjacent Ellis Island, with the Twin Towers hovering above, became a tomb for more than 6,000 people, sacrificed to human evil on the 100th anniversary of one little lineage's birth in America. A time to be born and, exactly a century later, a time to die.

Papa Joe lived an ordinary life as a garment worker in New York City. He enjoyed periods of security and endured bouts of poverty; he and my grandmother raised four children, all imbued with the ordinary values that ennoble our species and nation: fairness, kindness, the need to persevere and rise by one's own efforts. In the standard pattern, his generation struggled to solvency; my parents graduated from high school, fought a war, and moved into the middle classes; the third cohort achieved a university education, and some of us have enjoyed professional success.

Papa Joe's story illuminates a beacon that will outshine, in the brightness of hope and goodness, the mad act of spectacular destruction that poisoned his centennial. But his story will prevail by its utter conventionality, not by any claim for unusual courage, pain or suffering.

His pathway follows the odyssey of nearly every American family, beginning with nothing as strangers in a strange land, and eventually prospering, often with delayed gratification several generations later, by accumulated hard work, achieved in decency and fairness.

Especially in a technological age, when airplanes can become powerful bombs, rare acts of depravity seem to overwhelm our landscape, both geographical and psychological. But the ordinary human decency of a billion tiny acts of kindness, done by millions of good people, sets a far more powerful counterweight, albeit invisible for lack of comparable ''news value.'' The trickle of one family that began on Sept. 11, 1901, multiplied by so many million similar and ''ordinary'' stories, will overwhelm the evil of a few on Sept. 11, 2001.

I have stood at Ground Zero and contemplated the sublimity of the twisted wreckage of the largest human structure ever brought down in a catastrophic moment. And I recall the words that we all resented when we had to memorize Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in 5th grade, but that seem so eloquent in their renewed relevance today. ''We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.'' Our nation has not witnessed such a day of death since Gettysburg, and a few other battles of the Civil War, nearly 150 years ago.

The third chapter of Ecclesiastes, quoted to open this piece, begins with contrasts of birth followed by death. But the next pair of statements then reverses the order to sound a theme of tough optimism. Verse three follows destruction with reconstruction: ''A time to kill and a time to heal: a time to break down and a time to build up.''

Verse four then extends the sequence from grim determination to eventual joy: ''A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn and a time to dance.''

My native city of New York, and the whole world, suffered grievously on Sept. 11, 2001. But Papa Joe's message of Sept. 11, 1901, properly generalized across billions of people, will triumph through the agency of ordinary human decency. We have landed.

Lady Liberty still lifts her lamp beside the golden door. And that door leads to the greatest, and largely successful, experiment in democracy ever attempted in human history, upheld by basic goodness across the broadest diversity of ethnicities, economies, geographies, languages, customs and employments that the world has ever known as a single nation.

We fought our bloodiest war to keep our motto, e pluribus unum (one from many), as a vibrant reality. We will win now because ordinary humanity holds a triumphant edge of millions of good people over each evil psychopath. But we will only prevail if we mobilize this latent goodness into permanent vigilance and action. Verse seven epitomizes our necessary course of action at my Papa Joe's centennial: ''A time to rend, and at a time to sew: a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.''

Stephen Jay Gould, a professor of zoology at Harvard University, is author of ''Questioning the Millennium.''

BACK TO MINUTE PARTICULARS



posted by Minute Particulars at 2:30 PM

GETTIN’ UP AND SLIP SLIDIN’ AWAY AGAIN
Okay, I’ve had a few email exchanges about the “SLIP SLIDIN’ AWAY” post below and so I obviously haven’t eschewed obfuscation. Let me take another swing: My point was that if you acknowledge a slippery slope argument, you have to have, as Lindsey puts it, a "continuum" for it to apply. When someone denies that a blastocyst is a person as someone like Charles Krauthammer does in his arguments against research cloning, and then invokes a slippery slope argument, as Krauthammer does, they have denied the continuum required for a slippery slope argument to take effect. Here I think Lindsey is correct. No continuum = no slippery slope argument. But I was suggesting that Lindsey, in denying the continuum when he says "It seems totally obvious to me that a zygote is not the moral equal of a living, breathing person . . .", is still going to have a problem because "no continuum" implies that the blastocyst has to become a person at some point.

Anyone who denies a continuum between blastocyst and baby must somehow be making a claim the he or she knows what a person is and when a person exists. But a claim to such knowledge opens a Pandora's Box of concerns: if I claim to know what a person is and when a person exists, what's to stop me from denying personhood to a two-week old, two-month old, two-year old, etc. human being? Isn’t one of the strongest arguments (from reason, not faith) against abortion, research cloning, and other related issues the argument that goes something like this?:

A human person is a mystery. We might know the tip of the iceberg about what kind of thing a person is, e.g. “The classic definition is that given by Boethius in De persona et duabus naturis, c. ii: Naturæ rationalis individua substantia (an individual substance of a rational nature)”, but we’ll never plumb the depths of the mystery of what a person is and when a person exists in that which has the potential to be a person. Therefore, if one cannot know for certain through reason what a person is and when a person exists, one cannot act as if such knowledge is certain. Destroying a blastocyst requires a certitude that none of us can muster.

This is why I said a different and deeper kind of slippery slope is possible when we deny a continuum from blastocyst to baby. When someone claims to comprehend the mystery of personhood at a depth to know what a person is and when a person exists, he or she is then poised to start making distinctions about what is and is not a person, especially near the beginning and end of the spectrum of human life.

So, my point somewhere was that Lindsey doesn't seem to realize that his criticism of slippery slope argumentation centered around things that are a matter of degree (e.g. day and night, legal age, speed limits) rather than on the judgment of existence or non-existence of human life or a human person. And thus, while his criticism of slippery slope argumentation as used by Krauthammer seems correct, it misses the deeper consequences of denying a continuum in the first place.

Phew! Thanks to all who exchanged emails on this.
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posted by Minute Particulars at 4:45 PM

SLIP SLIDIN’ AWAY
Brink Lindsey has a thoughtful post (link via Eve Tushnet) on slippery slope argumentation. Here’s how he says they arise

Slippery-slope arguments arise when: (a) there is a continuum of cases; (b) one pole of the continuum is unobjectionable, but the other pole is objectionable; and (c) there is apprehension that acquiescence in an unobjectionable case will somehow degrade the ability to distinguish between unobjectionable and objectionable cases. The argument is deployed to oppose an unobjectionable case on the ground that it will lead to objectionable cases.

Agreed that a “continuum of cases” is required. Disagreed that “one pole of the continuum is unobjectionable, but the other pole is objectionable” and that “there is apprehension that acquiescence in an unobjectionable case will somehow degrade the ability to distinguish between unobjectionable and objectionable cases.”

What I disagree with is the notion that an “unobjectionable” case can lead to an “objectionable” one on a continuum. You can’t have a “continuum” of contraries. Something either is or it is not, there’s no “kinda is” or “kinda is not” when you speak of the existence of something in the truest sense. Lindsey’s examples here indicate he’s not discussing contraries like “a person exists” or “a person does not exist”:

The mere fact that exact dividing lines are sometimes hard to draw is no argument for retreating to an extreme position. We are perfectly capable of drawing distinctions even in those circumstances. It's impossible to say that any particular moment is the dividing line between day and night, but we can still tell the two apart. Likewise, in the legal setting we draw sensible if arbitrary lines all the time. When does a child turn into an adult? Who knows, but we've hit upon 18. And, sure, there are good arguments for moving the threshold up a year or down a year, but there's no basis for saying that newborns should be able to vote and sign contracts, or that people shouldn't reach their legal maturity until both their parents die. Likewise, we can battle back and forth about whether the speed limit should be 55 m.p.h. or 65 m.p.h., but we don't hear too many calls for 10 or 200.

Rather, he’s discussing those things that are a matter of degree. There is not a substantial difference between driving 10 m.p.h. and 200 m.p.h., only a matter of degree. What would be a substantial difference is someone hit by a car a 10 m.p.h. versus 200 m.p.h.: one would like result in minor injury, the other death. Hence the sensible law against driving at 200 m.p.h. His examples miss the point that the blastocyst-baby debate is one of contraries, of substantial and complete differences: either “a person exists” or “a person does not exist” in a blastocyst.

If it’s unobjectionable to destroy a blastocyst but objectionable to destroy “a baby a day before he’s born” then there must have been a substantial and complete transformation of the blastocyst at some point. That of course is Brink’s argument. The problem then is that there’s no continuum and so no slippery slope. That too is his point. But here’s the problem then: how does a blastocyst that “is not” a person become a baby who “is”? That’s the crux of any prenatal ethics issues.

Slippery slope argumentation is interesting but rarely persuasive. And there’s a good reason for this. Slippery slope arguments can’t address contraries. An act like destroying a blastocyst is either objectionable or it is not. If it is not objectionable at some point in time but then is at another, then something has changed. Either the act has changed or the object of the act has changed. Let’s look at the act. In the case of destroying a blastocyst or a baby, the act seems to be the same: rendering what was alive dead. So maybe it’s the object. How do a blastocyst and baby differ? Or more specifically, is there a continuum or not? If you say that a blastocyst is not a person but a baby is, then you vitiate the continuum and slippery slope rhetoric falls flat. If you say that a blastocyst is a person, then the continuum is intact and slippery slope arguments have some rhetorical force.

Lindsey, of course, denies the continuum and thus the effectiveness of slippery slope concerns. That’s fine. But what if you can’t quite be sure the continuum doesn’t exist? Or more precisely, what if the argument for or against a continuum is in fact where the slippery slope danger looms? Because denying a continuum between blastocyst and baby requires that a substantial and complete transformation occurs at some point, when does that change occur? That’s the slippery slope, though it’s a slippery slope of knowledge rather than argumentation. For anyone to suggest a point, maybe after twinning can’t occur or maybe when there’s a certain complexity in the nervous system or maybe . . . for anyone to suggest a point when there is a person present is to claim that he or she has discovered the key to what a person is.

The slippery slope is that as we claim mastery of “what a person is,” as we claim to “know precisely (and it’d better be precise when the act is complete destruction) when a person is present,” we start slipping into thinking we have mastered the mystery of the human person. What’s the continuum to this slippery slope? Well, if I can say “I know what a person is (implied by saying a blastocyst is not one, right?),” if I can say “I know when a person exists (implied by the willingness to destroy a blastocyst, right?),” then I’ll inevitably slip into thinking I know when a certain inability of function reduces a person to sub-person or when an action by a person causes them to no longer be a person or why one person has certain rights and another doesn’t and so on. In this sense slippery slope concerns are indeed rooted in “analytical or empirical” reasons or, as Eve Tushnet puts it, “philosophical or historical” reasons that indicate the sliding danger.
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posted by Minute Particulars at 1:31 PM

A SOCIETY OF FREE SOULS
The new blog, Disputations, has a nice though inevitably brief discussion on reprobation, i.e. the state of being reprobate . . er . . . the state of being predestined to damnation. I think Disputations is right in saying that most of the misunderstanding around this issue is due to “a failure to understand the timelessness of God.” I think it also involves the mystery of human freedom and its resistance to our ever comprehending it totally. And it occurred to me that I ought to post one of the nicest explanations on human freedom I’ve come across.

C.S. Lewis, in his profound work The Problem of Pain, says the following about human freedom:

The inexorable “laws of Nature” which operate in defiance of human suffering or desert, which are not turned aside by prayer, seem at first sight to furnish a strong argument against the goodness and power of God. I am going to submit that not even Omnipotence could create a society of free souls without at the same time creating a relatively independent and “inexorable” Nature.

What he is suggesting is that a free creature must exist in an environment in which it can assert itself against the Will of God and human beings. Because we are incarnate, physical beings, there must be what Lewis calls a “neutral” environment:

If a “world” or material system had only a single inhabitant it might conform at every moment to his wishes – “trees for his sake would crowd into a shade.” But if you were introduced into a world which thus varied at my every whim, you would be quite unable to act in it and would thus lose the exercise of your free will. Nor is it clear that you could make your presence known to me – all the matter by which you attempted to make signs to me being already in my control and therefore no capable of being manipulated by you.

While many areas of this kind of argument need to be reinforced, unpacked or shored up, the gist seems clear. In order for us to be truly free creatures interacting with one another and in relationship to God, there had to be an environment (Nature) which did not conform to our every desire. Still, couldn’t God nullify the harmful effects of such an environment or even prevent a turning away from Him? Lewis says this:

We can, perhaps, conceive of a world in which God corrected the results of . . .[an] abuse of free will by His creatures at every moment: so that a wooden beam might become soft as grass when it was used as a weapon . . . . But such a world would be one in which wrong action were impossible, and in which, therefore, freedom of the will would be void.

Evil is the result of free creatures in a good creation turning from the source of Goodness, and therefore depriving some part of Creation of the Goodwill of God. And so, to take Lewis’s example further, when a person murders someone with a wooden beam, the victim is deprived of the goodness of life, the murderer is deprived of the goodness of doing God’s Will, and the beam is deprived of the goodness intended it by the one who fashioned it (to support something in construction rather than kill someone). This doesn’t make evil any less of a mystery, but I think the notion of the “inexorable ‘laws of Nature’” Lewis offers sheds some light on how evil can occur in a Creation that is Good and how “a society of free souls” can exist in that Creation.

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posted by Minute Particulars at 3:57 PM

FAITH REQUIRES A 'KNOWER'
Eric Olsen of Tres Producers was gracious enough to respond to an email of mine where I wondered if he was claiming that a truth of reason and a truth of faith can contradict each other. All this was spawned from this article. I won’t rehash our positions here, since if you're so inclined you can see my initial response to the article here, his response to the article here, and his response to my email here. Let me just briefly touch on the manner in which I’ve used the terms “belief” and “faith.”

This gets tricky and it’s hard to keep it brief; but it’s an important point and it’s a common misunderstanding of the Catholic tradition on faith. I’m using the words “belief” and “faith” in this way: thinking is to reason as believing is to faith. When I say I “believe” something, I don’t mean to suggest an opinion or a hunch based on probability. I know folks use the word that way but that’s not how I’m using it and it’s not how it’s used in the Catholic tradition (and that’s why the notion of “the probability of the Resurrection” in the above article is silly). Rather, as I said in the links above, one way to describe “belief” is that it’s a “participation in the knowledge of a knower.” The “knower” is important. “Belief” as I’m using it here requires that there be a “knower.” As Newman puts it, “faith, then, must necessarily be resolvable at last into sight and reason; unless, indeed, we agree with enthusiasts.” Again, you can think that’s not what “belief” means, but that’s how I’m using it here (and I think that is a nice way to put it with regard to the Tradition). Now obviously if I can know what the “knower” in the definition above knows, then I would not have to “believe,” not have to “participate in the knowledge of that knower.” I’d know it myself through sight and reason. Belief would not be required. Faith would not be in the picture. But if the knower knows something that I don’t have access to, and I would like to share in that knowledge, then I’m going to have to do something to “participate in the knowledge of the knower.” And this can only happen when the knower reveals his or her knowledge to me.

Notice, again, that if I could know what the other person knows myself, through sight and reason, then I wouldn’t require that person’s “revelation” to me of what they know. In fact, the dynamic of faith only makes sense when there are certain truths which are hidden from us in such a way that we could never know them apart from “participating in the knowledge of a knower” for whom such truths are not hidden. The trivial but useful example I like is that of someone’s name or birthday. If you met a complete stranger who had no identification and there was no one around who knew him, you could never no his name unless he told you. Your own birthday is something you would never have known without someone initially revealing it to you. These are shallow examples, but the dynamic is the same with both profane and sacred truths. There are some truths that remain hidden unless revealed. This is especially evident when we speak of things which are hidden between persons. Our knowledge of the interior life of other people is solely contingent upon their decision to reveal themselves to us.

So, how does this touch on religious faith? The key is the “knower” in the phrase “participate in the knowledge of a knower.” Regarding the Catholic Faith, the first “knower” was the Word Incarnate: Jesus had to know who the Father is, else his revelation of Him to the apostles would not be possible. The apostles had to know who Jesus Christ was, in order to believe what He revealed of the Father. And the community of believers nearly two millennia later must know that the succession of witnesses from the apostles on down has an integrity to it. We as believers are participating in the knowledge the Son revealed of the Father to those He “dwelt among” by knowing the testimony of the apostles and the believing communities (hence Councils, etc.) that has persisted through history.

If this makes any sense to you, then, even if you think it’s nonsense, you can see that belief and faith in this context has nothing to do with probability and everything to do with recognizing a person and the manner in which we can participate in his or her knowledge. In this sense, the adage that “theology” is “faith seeking understanding” makes a lot of sense. In this sense too, believing is not a shot in the dark, a wager, or a bet, but a very reasonable thing to do.

posted by Minute Particulars at 11:03 AM

FAITH AND HORSE RACES
Mark Twain wrote, “’Twere not best that we all think alike, it’s difference of opinion that makes for horse races.” I was reminded of this quote when I read this article in Sunday’s NY Times. It’s a report on an attempt to assess “the probability of the Resurrection” and it’s a sad commentary on a common misunderstanding of faith:

In plain English, this means that, by Mr. Swinburne's calculations, the probability of the Resurrection comes out to be a whopping 97 percent.

While his highly technical lectures may not net Christianity many fresh converts, Mr. Swinburne's efforts to bring inductive logic to bear on questions of faith have earned him a considerable reputation in the small but vibrant world of Christian academic philosophy. Thanks to the efforts of Mr. Swinburne and a handful of other nimble scholarly minds - including Alvin Plantinga at the University of Notre Dame and Nicholas Wolterstorff at Yale - religious belief no longer languishes in a state of
philosophical disrepute.

Is it just me or is there a lack of plain ol’ horse sense causing this misconception about the mechanics of faith? I’ve touched on this before, so I’ll just make a brief pass here.

Reducing the event of the Resurrection to probability is akin to reducing it to a wager or bet. But anyone who does this either:

a) simply doesn’t understand the nature of a historical event
b) equivocates when using the word “Resurrection”
c) conflates reason and faith
d) commits all of the above

One “believes” in the Resurrection because the event is not simply historical, like Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon, but because it is a historical event upon which Creation hinges. Such an event is impervious to reason because:

1) we can’t be there ourselves to witness it
2) we can’t gather evidence about it empirically (e.g. an attempt to find the bones of the historical figure Jesus Christ)

On the contrary, we “believe” because this is the only mechanism by which we can have knowledge of the event. And by “believe” I simply mean “a participation in the knowledge of a knower,” to use Josef Pieper’s phrase. With the Resurrection, the first “knowers” are those who knew Christ and testified to his words, actions, and eventual resurrection from the dead. If we could “know” as these followers of Christ “knew,” we wouldn’t need to “believe” because we would have the more certain knowledge of seeing and hearing the Word Made Flesh in the flesh (albeit without the Grace of the Holy Spirit as promised at Pentecost). Hence, Aquinas famous remark that “Other things being equal, seeing is more certain than hearing.”

To believe in the Resurrection is an eminently reasonable thing to do, not because it is reason exercising its powers to investigate the event, but because it is reason understanding the dynamics of such an event and concluding that we can only come to know it by believing the testimony of another and “participating in the knowledge of a knower.” In fact, as Pieper again points out,

the credibility of the witness whom we believe cannot also be the subject of belief; this is where real knowledge is required . . . if everything is said to be belief, then belief has been eliminated.

What this all boils down to is not a wager or bet, but knowledge of the credibility of witnesses and assent to the content of their testimony.

Thus, Aquinas writes

Now, whoever believes, assents to someone's words; so that, in every form of belief, the person to whose words assent is given seems to hold the chief place and to be the end as it were; while the things by holding which one assents to that person hold a secondary place. Consequently he that holds the Christian faith aright assents, by his will, to Christ, in those things which truly belong to His doctrine.

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posted by Minute Particulars at 12:19 PM