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