Tonight I had the blessed opportunity to venerate the major relic of St. Maria Goretti which is visiting Canada from Italy. There was a Mass with the Cardinal beforehand, and a huge sweltering crowd!
I've written about St. Maria Goretti before in reference to human agency and mauvais foi. There are those uncomfortable with the message sent by sainted martyrs who chose death over submission in cases of (attempted) coercion (whether it be rape, or burning incense to Caesar). But as I said before, I think they serve to prove that, unless someone physically forces your body against all resistance (in which case there is no culpability, obviously)...we always do have a choice.
Someone holding a gun to your head does not let you say "I have no choice." You could choose death. That, in fact, is exactly what the martyrs have done. Now, I'm not saying internal emotional factors can't be true moral duress in some cases, but this very fact (while it may mitigate culpability) is nevertheless itself a spiritual tragedy: true freedom is the ability to choose death under such circumstances, to truly not be subject to any sort of internal compulsion from fear.
St. Maria Goretti, of course, is also a great patron of purity and chastity in the young. Those who would reject the Church's teachings on sexual morality essentially spit upon everything our virgin saints lived for (and everything, indeed, our virgin-martyrs died for). Yet, their sanctity will itself be the condemnation of those wicked ones on the Last Day, when the good will serve as the "standards" by which the evil are judged.
Those who would deride or dismiss the idea of chastity this maiden stood for, or diminish the glory of her martyrdom by thinking it was ultimately unnecessary, or attributing its value to some vague factor foreign to her own specific motive...will be burned forever by that same glory, will suffer forever on account of the beauty of this selfsame chaste body (for, let us never set an eye on Heaven without setting the other on Hell!) Unless, of course, they repent; in which case St. Maria Goretti has always shown herself most willing to forgive.
67 comments:
Someone holding a gun to your head does not let you say "I have no choice." You could choose death.
The Donatists would have heartily agreed, which is why they were so harsh towards the lapsi, who were too cowardly to "choose death". Oh, wait--the Donatists were condemned as heretics....
I don't understand why you bring up the Donatists. He said that we should choose death in opposition to betraying Christ, not that those who have fallen cannot come back to the Church.
Yeah, what the hell are you talking about, Tumarion??
NO ONE disagreed that the lapsi were, in fact, lapsi. In other words, they made the WRONG decision, a mortally sinful decision.
The dispute was over whether they could be reconciled after penance (or in view of the merits of those who WERE martyred, etc etc).
The Donatists argued, (had they had the language of Existentialism) that the lapsi acted in mauvais foi, and that therefore they either should not be re-admitted to the faith, or that such should be done only after a long, rigorous period of penance. In short, they had a kind of binary view of the matter--anyone has the strength to choose, even with a gun (or sword) against one's head, and one who makes the wrong choice has no excuse, even if he or his family or his whole community has to die for the right choice. There was no idea that there might be mitigating factors.
The Donatists viewed the mainstream church as horribly lax in actually forgiving the lapsi, let alone on such easy terms. I'm not saying you're a Donatist, but in posts like this your tone comes perilously close to theirs.
It's like something Cardinal Newman said in one of the essays leading up to his famous Apologia. It was something to the effect that it would be better for the sun, moon, and stars to fall from the sky, the Earth to melt, and all human beings die in the most unutterable agony, physically speaking, than that the least venial sin be committed. Now one could make a theological argument in favor of such a view; but I think the vast majority of people would view it as monstrously inhumane. Of course, in his pastoral direction, Newman was extremely human, so I'm not saying anything about him per se. Just that all of this sounds a bit extreme to me.
For a counter-example, consider Silence, the most prominent novel by the great Catholic Japanese author Shusaku Endo. The protagonist, a Portuguese priest, at one point is given the ultimatum of trampling on an image of Christ or death (something the Shogun actually implemented as policy for Japanese Christians at that time). The priest has a vision of Christ:
Yet the face was different from that on which the priest had gazed so often in Portugal, in Rome, in Goa and in Macau. It was not Christ whose face was filled with majesty and glory; neither was it a face made beautiful by endurance to pain; nor was it a face with strength of a will that has repelled temptation. The face of the man who then lay at his feet [in the fumie] was sunken and utterly exhausted…The sorrow it had gazed up at him [Rodrigues] as the eyes spoke appealingly: 'Trample! Trample! It is to be trampled on by you that I am here.'
From the same article:
Endo, in his book A Life of Jesus, states that Japanese culture identifies with "one who 'suffers with us' and who 'allows for our weakness'", and thus "With this fact always in mind, I tried not so much to depict God in the father-image that tends to characterize Christianity, but rather to depict the kind-hearted maternal aspect of God revealed to us in the personality of Jesus."
I'm not saying that one shouldn't die for one's faith or that caving in or trampling is the correct action; nor am I in any way dissing St. Maria Goretti. I'm just saying that there is a type of binary thought--exemplified by the Donatists, which is why I brought them up--which allows for no weakness, no mitigating circumstances, no human flaws, no mysterious grace that might come even through weakness, etc. There's a reason that the martyrs are venerated as saints--they did things beyond the capability of most of us fallible, sinful humans. Most of us probably, if put to the test, wouldn't take death over lapsing--most of us wouldn't give up all our money to the poor, become a hermit, go to the mission field for the rest of our lives, etc., either. Thank God that God is merciful and forgiving, and that He can deal with our weaknesses.
"The Donatists viewed the mainstream church as horribly lax in actually forgiving the lapsi, let alone on such easy terms. I'm not saying you're a Donatist, but in posts like this your tone comes perilously close to theirs."
No, it doesn't.
The whole point, as your very paragraph here betrays, is that this was a question of FORGIVING the lapsi, of absolving their sin.
NO ONE back then was arguing that it wasn't a sin, or that the potential mitigating factors somehow excused them or rendered them unculpable.
It was a question of how much mercy to show for an act everyone considered culpable and a horrible betrayal, not of saying they were unculpable in the first place.
"It's like something Cardinal Newman said in one of the essays leading up to his famous Apologia. It was something to the effect that it would be better for the sun, moon, and stars to fall from the sky, the Earth to melt, and all human beings die in the most unutterable agony, physically speaking, than that the least venial sin be committed."
Perhaps indeed. If not, then certainly it is true for mortal sin (venial sin is actually of a different nature, and is really called "sin" only by analogy).
"I think the vast majority of people would view it as monstrously inhumane."
And? The way is narrow.
This is why most people are probably going to Hell.
"Of course, in his pastoral direction, Newman was extremely human, so I'm not saying anything about him per se."
Right, well, you have to be a lion in the pulpit and a lamb in the confessional. That's the paradoxical "balance" of Christian pastoring, the balance between Justice and Mercy.
Justice is strict as hell (literally). That's why we need Mercy.
Mercy is trivialized, though, if we don't admit, on principle, that mankind is a missa damnata that DESERVES Hell if judged by our own merits or natural powers.
A religion based around some notion that, even PRIOR to grace or mercy, mankind is basically "nice" and "good people" and essentially deserving of heaven...is just presumptuous tripe.
"For a counter-example, consider Silence, the most prominent novel by the great Catholic Japanese author Shusaku Endo."
Yes, let's cite a novelist as an authority in contradiction to a Beatified cardinal...(rollseyes)
Martyrs died to not betray Christ. Turning betrayal into a mystical instance in itself is just horrible. It MAY be occasion of one recognizing the need for humility, of one recognizing ones own cowardice and weakness and need for mercy. It can never be valorized as good-in-itself on this account, just because good effects can come from it (ie, just because where sin abounded grace did more abound).
"I'm just saying that there is a type of binary thought--exemplified by the Donatists, which is why I brought them up--which allows for no weakness, no mitigating circumstances, no human flaws, no mysterious grace that might come even through weakness, etc."
No one is denying this. But that's just the thing: something is not an exception to the rule if is is PART OF the rule. Something is not Mercy if it is already guaranteed by right in justice. We can't let the fact that there can be an "oikonomea" from the Ideal...actually compromise the Ideal itself, as if the compromise has become the Ideal.
"There's a reason that the martyrs are venerated as saints--they did things beyond the capability of most of us fallible, sinful humans."
No no no no no! They are venerated exactly BECAUSE they did what we all can and should do.
And indeed the early Christian community proves it. MOST people were NOT lapsi in the persecutions. The lapsi were NOT in the majority. And, in fact, after Cyprian's famous solution of this matter...there are almost no reports of lapsi the second time around.
"Thank God that God is merciful and forgiving, and that He can deal with our weaknesses."
Yes, thank God for that!
On this we agree.
But I'll also, then, thank God all the moreso for his unquenchable Wrath.
Turmarion, I think you got the completely wrong idea from Silence. Rodrigues breaks, but he does not acknowledge his weakness -- rather he flees into a Buddhist identity, to try and prove that Christ's path of martyrdom is too hard for most people. He really *does* trample on Christ on the cross. And the utterly pathetic image of Rodgrigues, living on as a traitor to the Christians he had come to minister to, shows that Endo knew what he was doing.
From here, just for reference, Newman's exact quote:
The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse.
Now if he means that literally, and not just as a rhetorical flourish, then I have to strenuously disagree.
Yes, let's cite a novelist as an authority in contradiction to a Beatified cardinal....
I wasn't citing him as an authority as such. Of course, I can imagine the Pharisees saying of Jesus, "This guy tells stories and the people think he has more authority than the Sanhedrin?!" The point being not to compare Endo and Christ, but to point out that narrative sometimes illuminates things that no amount of abstract theologizing can.
Here is an interpretation of Silence that is more or less what I was getting at, contra what rjohnlennon indicates. Not that I'm necessarily applauding Rodrigues, but pointing out the complexity, as Endo saw it.
I'm also not valorizing weakness (and I don't think Endo was, either, as such)--I'm just saying that you're setting up a really harsh system, with which you seem to agree:
Mercy is trivialized, though, if we don't admit, on principle, that mankind is a missa damnata that DESERVES Hell if judged by our own merits or natural powers.
Well, if you want to say that unbaptized infants, young children, the mentally retarded, good people who just didn't know Christ, etc. all deserve to burn in infinite agony in Hell for all eternity, then it's your right to do so. As we've discussed before, I think that's a rather sick theology, but we obviously disagree therein.
In what sense are these people "good" if they didn't know Christ in any sense??? That doesn't even compute.
Now, I'm not saying all those people are going to Hell. Obviously, we would admit that God could save all such people by extraordinary unrevealed means (but then they would in some sense "know Christ.") I hope He does.
But BY RIGHTS they deserve Hell (though, not necessarily the Hell of eternal pain, but rather of natural happiness without the beatific vision). Then again, so do we without the Title given to us by sanctifying grace.
Of course, the strict Thomists (of which I am not slavishly) get into some weird territory here and, I believe, claim that any adult who has reached the age of reason either makes an immediate choice of mortal sin (upon self-reflection) or else is immediately justified, and since we still baptized converts, they assume the latter is extremely rare...
I think this is an odd reversal abstracted from the practice of infant baptism, when really, originally, adult baptism was the norm and standard. Positing, therefore, that adults cannot be in simply original sin, but are assumed either already justified extraordinarily (sort of defeating the purpose of it being "extraordinary") or else necessarily mortal sinners according to an abstract rejection they can't even remember having made at the very moment they attained Reason...seems rather hard to justify theologically to me.
As it almost does seem to contain the notion that God "has to" offer grace to anyone with Reason, even outside the sacrament, and even if most immediately reject it (although for some reason most people DON'T instantly reject it when it's given/offered in baptism...) and even though for some reason He doesn't have to give it to infants extra-sacramentally.
I think maintaining the gratuity of grace through limiting its presumption to baptism for infants AND adults makes much more sense. I don't see why we should treat those with Reason any differently from those without when we're discussing something that isn't even possibly merited by Reason (and which we don't want to say most unbaptized rational people have anyway, lest baptism of adults seem superfluous.)
No, I'm generally with Dante in placing non-sinful adult pagans in limbo, though I know that's a rare position.
Of course, I hope they're all saved extraordinarily through unrevealed means. I don't see why God WOULDN'T offer that. But I certainly don't presume it as if we "deserve" salvation or merit it without grace (grace which, as far as we know, is distributed in the Church's sacraments).
You know, I hate to make back-to-back posts, but it occurred to me that the whole martyr, Endo line of thought was off track. That was my fault. Let me try it again.
First, I have no doubt as to Maria Goretti's sanctity, just for full disclosure.
Now, let's look at counterfactuals. If she had struggled as hard as she did, and her assailant had been able to overcome her and rape her, anyway, instead of killing her, despite her very best efforts, I think we'd all agree that there'd have been no sin on her part. If the duress is 100% and you're physically incapable of overcoming it, there can be no culpability.
If she'd just made some perfunctory, "mouth-says-no-but-eyes-say-yes" attempts at repelling him and then said, "Go ahead--who knows, maybe it'll be fun," I think we'd all agree that she was complicit in sin.
My issue is that you seem to allow of nothing between those two extreme poles.
In the scenario where she is raped against her most strenuous attempts, and then forgives the assailant, then dies of some other cause, would she have been any less holy? Or would she be tainted?
On the other hand if she'd become exhausted and despaired of prevaililng, or if she'd feared death, and slacked to the extent that the assailant prevailed (though all the time never willing the act and despising it), would she have been guilty of the same sin as a willing fornicator? You seem to imply this.
My biggest problem is this. In a life-and-death situation, no one knows the outcome beforehand. Maybe if I fight the intruder in my home I'll overcome him and he'll go to jail--or maybe I'll be killed. Maybe if I run from an assault in the park I'll escape--or maybe I'll get shot in the back. It's never possible to make clear definitions of "should have" in the aftermath.
Continued--sorry about that.
True story: One year, coming home from Thanksgiving, we saw that the house had been broken into. I told my wife to stay in the car and lock the doors (my 2-year-old daughter was in the car) while I took my handgun and went into the house to investigate. We’d been broken into, all right—total disarray. I swept the house, and found, to my relief, that the burglars were long gone. In the state of mind I was in, had I seen anyone, I might well have fired on them, possibly killing them, even if they hadn’t made the first move.
Years later, it came to me that what I should have done was to have driven off to a safe place, called 911, and waited on the police. After all, I could have got killed, as far as I knew, widowing my wife, and an alerted burglar might have come down and attacked my wife and daughter, too. That possibility never entered my mind—I just felt I had to take the risk and see if the area was safe. My frame of mind was chaotic and very much hyped on adrenaline, I must say.
The point is, I still am not sure how to analyze the morality of the course of action I took, given my state of mind at the time. Ever since then I have been a bit more sympathetic towards police who shoot at what seems to someone who wasn’t there as insufficient provocation. Believe me, I’d have shot at any provocation in the state of mind I was in.
The point of this excursus is to say that I think it is rather presumptuous to say that the right course of action in an actual life-and-death scenario is obvious and that someone who doesn’t take it is either ignorant for not seeing it or sinful for not taking it. I, personally, would have gone to confession had I ended up killing someone, though it would be arguably justifiable; but I’m not so sure I’d generalize from my experience.
OK, re the matter at hand. The danger of the Maria Goretti story and the type of interpretation you’re putting on it is the message it seems to send to women who have been the victims of rape or sexual assault. It seems almost to say, “If you’d just struggled a little harder, you might have got away or stopped him. And even if you couldn’t, even if you got killed, well, you’d be literally better off dead than to have shown the least acquiescence.” Do you see? It seems to be a blaming-the-victim narrative leaving no middle ground between fighting to the death and just having a fun roll in the hay. If a woman you loved—a mother, sister, daughter, spouse—experienced such a thing, God forbid, is that the narrative you’d want to impose on them?
This was the basis of my comparison to the Donatists--the idea that nothing less than perfect, in religious and moral affairs, is good enough. Remember, the Donatist schism began over the lapsi--which were a pretty egregious case--but devolved into a refusal of fellowship for any sins, to the point that different Donatist groups were excommunicating each other. As Andrew Greeley said, find the perfect church, and eventually you'll find that you're the only member.
I think maintaining the gratuity of grace through limiting its presumption to baptism for infants AND adults makes much more sense.
Of course one could argue that something that it presumed to be limited only to the baptized is not, in fact, gratuitous. It wasn't for no reason that the Anabaptists argued that this view of the Sacraments verged perilously on a quasi-magical automation of grace that resulted in removing grace from the picture. As Robert Farrar Capon (who is actually a sacramentalist) put it, it turns what should be an action of grace into a transaction.
One could argue that the assumption (not presumption) that God probably (not certainly) saves all makes for a greater gratuity on His part, since He does not have to limited by human actions, even the Sacraments themselves, but can bestow grace on anyone He chooses.
Except how can that assumption be anything but presumption? Yes, God is not limited to the sacraments, but *we* are! Maybe God gives grace out in bundles outside of the sacraments, but we cannot know that, even besides the idea's incompatibility with the early Fathers.
Finally there are the words of Our Savior -- if the Father saves all, even outside the sacrament, then why does the Son say to the Apostles to go and baptize the nations in His name?
Except how can that assumption be anything but presumption?
If I say that God certainly saves all or must save all, then that's presumption. I don't know what He will or won't do, and Scripture does not say he certainly or must save all.
If I say it is my assumption that God probably will save all--note the qualifier is in my statement above--then I'm stating my opinion. How is that presumption?
Now there are some--the crowd at The New Oxford Review, for example--that seem to think that even the opinion that God might save all is unacceptable and heretical. They are, in my view, wrong--even A. Sinner would agree with me there, since he hopes for universal salvation. That well-known radical John Paul II said, in Crossing the Threshold of Hope, that we can't even state unequivocally that Judas Iscariot is in Hell. We just don't know.
Finally there are the words of Our Savior -- if the Father saves all, even outside the sacrament, then why does the Son say to the Apostles to go and baptize the nations in His name?
We could proof-text all day--I'd start by citing John 12:32--but I'd direct you to Dare We Hope that All Men be Saved? and Mysterium Paschale by Hans Urs Von Balthasar for an in-depth discussion of the possibility of universal salvation; or for something quicker and less technical, the website Tentmaker.org (with which I don't agree in all details; but they give a good overview of many of the issues).
"My issue is that you seem to allow of nothing between those two extreme poles."
You say that, and yet within this very post (and the previous one I reference) I CLEARLY state:
"I'm not saying internal emotional factors can't be true moral duress in some cases, but this very fact (while it may mitigate culpability) is nevertheless itself a spiritual tragedy: true freedom is the ability to choose death under such circumstances, to truly not be subject to any sort of internal compulsion from fear."
So I've very clearly admitted here that fear of death etc MAY mitigate culpability for many people.
I've just said that this is not something to be embraced, because motivation by fear-of-death is not the true inner-freedom of the Saints, which is not subject to any fear or inner compulsion like that. Holiness is about obtaining that true freedom which allows us to, as Lech Wales put it, fear nothing but God and nobody but God.
Someone may be excused by acting under extreme terror. But this person can also be said to have a lack in the area of the virtue of Fortitude/Courage.
"On the other hand if she'd become exhausted and despaired of prevaililng, or if she'd feared death, and slacked to the extent that the assailant prevailed (though all the time never willing the act and despising it), would she have been guilty of the same sin as a willing fornicator? You seem to imply this."
I imply that things SHOULD be this way. I don't imply that it is always true.
I admitted fully that there can be mitigating factors including fear. But what I said was that Fear is nevertheless a spiritual enemy to be overcome.
We MAY indeed have "excuses," because of human weakness. But we should NOT embrace that idea of having excuses. A truly authentic individual with full interior freedom...has no excuses, doesn't want any excuses, doesn't make any excuses, finds the idea of making excuses for themselves contemptible.
For St. Maria Goretti, at least, relenting even out of fear of death...would have been, to her, letting Fear have power over her. And so she did not.
"Do you see? It seems to be a blaming-the-victim narrative leaving no middle ground between fighting to the death and just having a fun roll in the hay."
It's not blaming anyone, it's empowering ultimately. It tells people: you are not subject to any human coercion (or, at least, you don't have to be).
No one can make you do anything in the end. This is the message that so LIBERATED early Christians from slavery to fear (or temptation). You do have a choice! You can choose to not cooperate with the system (even if the system, thus, crushes you).
The idea of the "victim" is a strange one anyway. Victim is a sacrificial term, our Victim is Christ.
We should not think of ourselves as Victims to anyone but God. The martyrs were "victims" because they made an oblation to God.
I'm not saying human weakness doesn't mitigate culpability or give excuses. I am saying that we should view the idea of having excuses (in ourselves) as something, like receiving pity, which is dirty and undesirable.
If Fear (or any passion) is still controlling our actions, then this is a sign that we do not have fully integrated agency.
Saying, "I had no choice, he put a gun to my head" may be true in an individual case if such a person really is under moral duress due to the fear.
But, while it may excuse them, while they may avoid the stain of mortal sin...that's still a tragic failure of full human freedom and dignity which SHOULD be able to say, "He put a gun to my head, but no man can make me do anything. I still had a choice, I could choose to die." THAT is simply a much fuller expression of the dignity of human agency and free will.
"One could argue that the assumption (not presumption) that God probably (not certainly) saves all makes for a greater gratuity on His part, since He does not have to limited by human actions, even the Sacraments themselves, but can bestow grace on anyone He chooses."
But that's just it: what I'm describing fully admits that He CAN bestow it on anyone He chooses, it's just a question of who we should imagine He is doing this for.
The "arbitrary" nature of who gets baptism and who misses out...is simply a good IMAGE of the gratuity of grace. "Why this one got it and not that one?" is simply a better image of the mystery of gratuity, if only because it is the image Christ Himself established.
Obviously, we admit that God can (and, we hope, does) save people outside the Sacrament. But in terms of the imaginary we adopt, the symbols God has established are the ones we need to publicly stick to. The sign He has associated with the dispensing Sanctifying Grace...is baptism. That's the only means He has Revealed. He can act outside it, but the image of that "arbitrary" limiting itself is part of a properly formed outlook on the question.
By making it dependent (in the external forum, at least) on the "transaction" that not everyone has a chance to participate in (especially when we're talking about infants), it reveals to us that grace is not something we should think of as presumed or coming to us or dispensed automatically to everyone as if it can be taken for granted...but rather is something that is utterly gratuitous when it comes to how He chooses to dispense it, like the laborers in the vineyard.
I hope that unbaptized infants ARE, in fact, given grace by God outside the Sacrament (in the invisible 'internal forum'). BUT, the IMAGE of the arbitrariness of their (visible, external forum) exclusion...is a very good image (in fact, God's own established image) of the gratuitousness of grace.
Hey Sinner, I think what Turmarion may be getting at is that, like in the case when his adrenaline "took over" his system, there are many situations in which our physiological response renders our mental/rational response powerless. This is simply a condition of being human. I'd say something like a surge of adrenaline may well vindicate a soul's trespass (whatever it may be) entirely - it's damn near, if not completely, impossible to "take control" when your body administers certain chemicals to your brain in certain situations.
So here is where I might disagree with your, "in a perfect world, we always have control". Not on this side of the resurrection, no. Even the saints are subject to their animal nature in certain situations. Now, of course, these "situations" would probably be pretty extreme, so I'm not trying to say that our physiological response to things is some kind of scapegoat we can always blame our sins on. However, all of our brains are wired differently, and in the heat of the moment can do some really weird stuff. I think of some of the involuntary reactions my body has when playing something as benign as video games: my heart will literally race when playing certain games, even when I want to remain calm and focused. I couldn't imagine how I might begin to act on the battlefield.
So, in the end, I'm not sure if there's too much disagreement going on here, but I might throw in with Turmarion in saying that it's not a "spiritual tragedy" when some people are moved to a certain action under "emotional duress" - it's a physical inevitability. We can't be blamed, for example, if our heart stops half way to confession and we fall over dead. It wasn't like we "chose" to have a heart attack, our animal side "chose it for us." Likewise, in a rape situation, our brain might spew out a cocktail of chemicals and hormones that render our rational processes completely null and void for a time. This isn't a "spiritual tragedy" because in this case there was no room for the will to operate. A tragedy requires the possibility of different outcomes: sometimes, there can only be one highlander. I mean outcome.
Thoughts?
"there are many situations in which our physiological response renders our mental/rational response powerless."
Yes, but this is not a good thing.
Obviously, there are cases in history of intense victories of mind over matter.
In fact, that's what virtue is. It's developing the "powers" of our soul in integration with the body such that we DO have as total integration and control as possible (obviously, something like a seizure is beyond any question of agency).
In some ways, virtue is there "for emergencies" in the first place. If we do not build up Fortitude or Temperance or Prudence every single day...how will we have it when we need it, when that Tiger attacks, or we're put in some similar situation calling for a heroic act?
Damian Thompson, I believe, recently had an article refuting "addiction as a disease" where he made the analogy: if someone had a seizure behind the wheel, we wouldn't blame them for killing someone. But if they were an alcoholic driving drunk, we would, even though arguably drunkenness "explains" the reckless driving, and even though alcoholism "explains" the drunkenness.
In truth, this is the very point of the idea of "Vice." A habit may, being a habit, make each individual act OF that habit increasingly less culpable. But, at the same time, being damned is nothing other than becoming a vicious person, so one should not embrace the idea of the excusing nature of the vice in terms of each individual act, because the very fact of having a vice is terrible.
And cowardice and lack of self-control are two vices that one develops through not disciplining the mind and body enough.
"it's damn near, if not completely, impossible to 'take control' when your body administers certain chemicals to your brain in certain situations."
Yet there are people who have stood stone-faced while beasts devoured them.
So it depends really on your temperament, on the condition of your passions...and the whole point of the moral life is to discipline the passions so that you too, someday, will be able to stand stone-faced while being devoured, if necessary.
"my heart will literally race when playing certain games, even when I want to remain calm and focused. I couldn't imagine how I might begin to act on the battlefield."
And yet whole societies have successfully trained all their young men to march into war stoically.
What you're doing here, really, is exactly the sort of excuse-making it is my point to condemn.
You are not simply "like that." You are like that because you have been CONDITIONED to be like that, and could choose to undertake certain ascetic disciplines to condition your passions to NOT be like that. "That's just how I am" is the very essence of mauvais foi!
"We can't be blamed, for example, if our heart stops half way to confession and we fall over dead"
No, but we can't presume this saves us. Because we CAN be blamed for the original mortal sin, and do not merit a restoration to grace simply by "intending to get to confession."
Confession restores us to grace not because of OUR good intentions, but simply absolutely gratuitously because it works ex opere operato.
If we don't get there, we can't presume on our good intentions anymore than we can demand the prize money for a radio contest if we trip on the cat on our way to the phone (even if we would otherwise have been the winner). Because it's the completion of the task that causes the effect, not merely the intention (otherwise there would be no point in demanding a follow-through on that intention; but then it wouldn't really be an intention at all, would it?)
Now, I have good hope that God will, in fact, offer grace to a person so impeded, but He's certainly under no obligation to do so; making it to confession safely or not is as "arbitrary" (and thus demonstrative of the gratuitous nature of grace) as who receives baptism.
I don't know - this is a tough one for me. I'm certainly not trying to invoke the whole, "Well, that's just who I am" argument - for example, I don't think thieves can get off the hook just because they identify themselves as "thieves through and through". That's silly.
And I concede to your point that we have the ability to take certain steps against our physiological responses - we can discipline ourselves, certainly.
But, the vast majority of people on this planet don't have access to such disciplinary programs (such as the soldiers who march into battle stoic-like), and so are we to consider those who handle themselves on the battlefield just, only because they *happened* to get the right training?
I guess this brings up the question of God's sovereignty and pre-destination: Those who die in a state of mortal sin died because God chose not to give them as much grace (or opportunity) as someone else?
Or say the woman who is about to get raped - if she hasn't had the proper "training" to respond to situations like that, how are we to blame her?
Concerning the whole "dying before confession" scenario (and this is tangential to the discussion at hand), the Balitmore Catechism reads:
403. How can a person in mortal sin regain the state of grace before receiving the sacrament of Penance?
A person in mortal sin can regain the state of grace before receiving the sacrament of Penance by making an act of perfect contrition with the sincere purpose of going to confession.
Now, the, "Sincere purpose of going to confession" is the part I was talking about. I'm not sure what counts for a "perfect act of contrition" though. How are we to tell?
"But, the vast majority of people on this planet don't have access to such disciplinary programs (such as the soldiers who march into battle stoic-like), and so are we to consider those who handle themselves on the battlefield just, only because they *happened* to get the right training?"
Actual graces are mysteriously and unequally distributed!
It's just silly to deny that these men have more fortitude, in itself, than other people. Fortitude as the product of discipline.
And fortitude, in itself, is a virtue (all other things being equal; obviously a soldier must also take into account the JUSTICE of what they're doing, etc).
"Those who die in a state of mortal sin died because God chose not to give them as much grace (or opportunity) as someone else?"
Well, we don't know really.
God gives everyone sufficient grace to be saved.
I'd like to think that God arranges for the separation of the soul with the body only when (in all foreseeable possible future "timelines") the person's choices ultimately mean that there is not any timeline left in which a choice resulting in a different final destiny is possible (even though a single choice can determine this).
I tend to think that the boundaries of time in which the "test" humans are put through takes place...are not arbitrary. But rather our choice at death becomes irrevocable not simply because we "ran out of time," but because the moment we die is the moment our lives (in God's foresight of potentials) were closed to all possible future change as regards final destiny even if we WERE to live indefinitely longer. The point at which (like the angels' choice) "no further information" was going to change our mind one way or another.
Basically, I assume that if a person dies and goes to Hell...no further allotment of time would have EVER changed this; if God had let these people live any longer, they only would have sunk deeper into Hell.
On the other hand, the same might be said for Heaven: God allows saved souls to die when A) there is no further timeline in which they choose Hell [and then, after that, B) at the moment of maximum merit following that point.]
But that's just my speculation.
He must be minimizing evil while maximizing good. But His calculus in that regard, what counts as "maximum good" in the universe...is above my pay-grade to say!
"Or say the woman who is about to get raped - if she hasn't had the proper 'training' to respond to situations like that, how are we to blame her?"
I'm not saying we "blame" positively. But, at the same time, can this woman really be called as virtuous as someone with the courage of Maria Goretti?? Obviously not.
That doesn't mean she's going to Hell. But she is certainly not as heroic an example of virtue as Maria Goretti. And so she cannot be called perfectly holy or virtuous, as obviously her courage could be greater still (as examples like Maria Goretti shows).
Let's remember that ultimately Catholic moral standards are not so much about positive evil or malice...as they are about LACKING this or that virtue.
And that only makes sense: evil is not a substance in itself. It is only the privation of good. "Hell" therefore isn't about being "positively bad" as if such a thing even exists, but rather about simply not being good ENOUGH.
"the Balitmore Catechism reads:"
Yes, it would likely probably also tell you about "baptism of desire" and "baptism of blood" and "invincible ignorance."
In truth, though, these are all theological speculation about Unrevealed means. Same thing with "Perfect Contrition."
I have good hope that they are true, especially because there is such a long tradition and approbation of authority behind them.
But, ultimately, they are objects of hope, not presumption.
A. Sinner, I owe you an apology. You're not a Donatist; you're a Jansenist.
Perhaps. I think it would be rather hard to label me though.
I would note, however, that not all Jansenists were condemned, but I certainly don't hold any of the "Five Propositions."
As for the 101 condemned statements in Unigenitus, I can say quite assuredly (giving the list a quick glance again) that I even hold the opposite of many of them, as many of them (if you read through it) imply a standard that would say good acts done out of Fear of Hell rather than pure Love of God...are unworthy. I obviously don't believe THAT; I obviously believe fear of Hell is a perfectly good and fine motive (it's you who tends more Jansenist in THAT regard, it would seem).
Though, I'd add, Unigenitus is problematic to read out of context; how are we supposed to understand condemning "The reading of Sacred Scripture is for all"??
The term "Jansenist" gets thrown around a lot by people who want a more "lax" Catholicism. But Jansenism-as-heresy refers to specific heretical propositions (the "Five" mainly)...not merely to some vague idea of a more rigorist "attitude," as if an attitude could ever be condemned as heretical.
I think it would be rather hard to label me though.
That's for sure!
The term "Jansenist" gets thrown around a lot by people who want a more "lax" Catholicism.
That's the rub, isn't it? To the rigorist, the other side seems to be "lax"; to those on the other side, the rigorist seems to be setting inhumane, well-nigh impossible standards. That's a pretty fair summation of the whole controversy between the Janenists and the Jesuits--the former accused the latter of laxity and corruption, and the latter accused the former of excessive harshness. Neither was completely wrong nor completely right.
It was in terms of rigor that I used the term "Jansenist", btw--I certainly wasn't referring to the Five Propositions, etc. And I am sympathetic to the statement that fear of Hell is an unworthy motive. I'm not saying it doesn't get the job done; but it's definitely inferior, and even in the good old days of a widespread sinners-in-the-hands-of-an-angry-God attitude in the pulpits, I notice that sin still existed. Even Hell won't effect change in the behavior of a lot of people.
Your Molinism is interesting, but the spin you put on it is almost Calvinist--if God knows that in any possible future course of action a person will or won't repent, and arranges his death thus, it seems (since God knew all possible futures at the time He created him) not a whole lot different from double predestination. I'm not much of a Molinist, anyway. It used to appeal to the sci-fi, alternate universe buff in me, but having thought about it a lot, I think it has major issues.
"Or say the woman who is about to get raped - if she hasn't had the proper 'training' to respond to situations like that, how are we to blame her?"
I'm not saying we "blame" positively. But, at the same time, can this woman really be called as virtuous as someone with the courage of Maria Goretti?? Obviously not.
Would you say that to the face of a woman who had been raped? I think a lot of people would view this attitude as monstrously inhumane.
Once more, you seem to be saying that anyone could build up the virtue to overcome anything that might get thrown at one, even to the point of death; and that it's one's own fault if one doesn't do so. Then you seem to contradict yourself by saying, "Actual graces are mysteriously and unequally distributed!"
He must be minimizing evil while maximizing good.
Not necessarily. St. Thomas said that this is not necessarily the "best of all possible worlds". Contra Leibnitz, centuries later, St. Thomas said that God creates freely and is not in any way obligated to create the best possible world. From a discussion of this issue here, my emphasis:
In Aquinas' view things other than God are willed to be in order to participate in, the divine goodness. Arguing further, Aquinas say that God must always act in the best possible way since his act is indistinguishable with his essence and with his infinite goodness. However we cannot deduce from the foregoing that God's creature ought to be the best possible and that God is bound because of his goodness to produce the best possible world. Since God's power, Aquinas says is infinite there can always be a better world than the one he produces. Furthermore, Aquinas says is that God could make something better than any given thing.
Which would imply that God does not necessarily "minimize evil while maximizing good", at least not absolutely. He might make this world as good as it can be, but it could have been better.
Finally, as to the idea of Hell coming at the point of an inexorable and irrevocable choice, that has never made sense to me. Everything I've ever read just asserts t his--"the choice of the angels who fell was irrevocable", "after death we cannot change our choice", etc. No reason why this is so is ever given. Origen and many of the early Fathers of the East thought otherwise. In short, they would have said that some may go to Hell, even for a long time, but that Hell is not permanent. To say that Origen was a heretic (which is itself a vexed question) isn't an answer. If one wants to say, "Well, that's just the teaching of the Church," that's fine, but it's an argument from authority, not a logical explanation.
I think it comes down, once more, to one's view of God. You've said outright that you're fine with God as a moral monster; but other's mileage may vary. I don't think God is a warm, fuzzy, cuddly creampuff in the sky, but I don't see Him as quite as much of a sadistic bastard, either. À chacun à son goût, I guess.
"That's the rub, isn't it? To the rigorist, the other side seems to be 'lax'; to those on the other side, the rigorist seems to be setting inhumane, well-nigh impossible standards."
The "standard" is Christ Himself.
"Impossible"?? Well, Trent did say, "If any one declare that a man once justified cannot sin again, or that he can avoid for the rest of his life every sin, even venial, let him be anathema", Catholic Encyclopedia adds, "but according to the common opinion we can avoid all such as are fully deliberate."
So, in some sense the standard is basically impossible. So what? That doesn't mean it shouldn't be the standard.
What constitutes the good or ideal of human excellence does not change based on how attainable or not it happens to be.
"I am sympathetic to the statement that fear of Hell is an unworthy motive."
Then YOU are the Jansenist, my friend.
For demanding love of God from people as their motive is to impose on them a MORE rigorous standard.
In truth, fear of Hell is often just a better motivator for most people as opposed to the "positive" attraction of God or Heaven.
Because there is always the hypothetical of Non-Existence, compared to which suffering will always be more bad than happiness can ever be good.
By which I mean: if simple annihilation were a possibility, I might well choose it, and so would many others I think, if it meant neither heaven NOR hell.
I think I'd be willing to forgo the offer of infinite happiness if it meant eliminating the risk of infinite suffering.
Because conscious suffering is awful, whereas simple unconsciousness is just neutral. You can't "miss" the fact that you're not experiencing happiness...because there is no you to miss it!
Therefore, without a Hell goading us from the "other end"...the "positive" attraction of heaven is not necessarily comparably strong as hell is negatively repulsive.
And I think that's just how human experience is built: happiness can never be as attractive as suffering is repulsive.
"even in the good old days of a widespread sinners-in-the-hands-of-an-angry-God attitude in the pulpits, I notice that sin still existed."
Which just goes to show you how evil and sociopathic human beings naturally are.
No one doubts that, for medievals, Hell was mentally and emotionally as REAL as the bird on the window sill for them.
And yet, they still sinned grievously. That indicates how bad mankind is. It's one thing to sin when you don't believe in Hell, or doubt it, or haven't internalized it as a psychological reality. But to act so brazenly in spite of massive socially indoctrinated guilt and threat of punishment?!? It is truly remarkable how self-destructively transgressive human beings can be.
And at that point, OF COURSE they should burn.
"Would you say that to the face of a woman who had been raped? I think a lot of people would view this attitude as monstrously inhumane."
Well, let's remember that Aric defined this woman as one who had refused to resist out of FEAR specifically.
Now, how could someone simultaneously claim to have heroic courage AND paralyzing agency-revoking fear???
That just doesn't make any sense. If you had perfect courage (Twin Peaks, anyone?)...fear could never be determinative of your course of action.
"Once more, you seem to be saying that anyone could build up the virtue to overcome anything that might get thrown at one, even to the point of death; and that it's one's own fault if one doesn't do so. Then you seem to contradict yourself by saying, 'Actual graces are mysteriously and unequally distributed!'"
This is not a contradiction. When people do good, it is attributable entirely to God's grace. When people don't, it is attributable entirely to free will.
That's how the interaction of grace and free will works.
But, you'll say, then why didn't God give those people the same grace?? I can only answer: they rejected it. And, you'll say, why didn't the other people reject it. I can only answer: because they had grace.
It is mysterious like that, and I doubt we'll ever really untangle the seeming the causal circle here, because they are really just two sides of the same reality.
It does basically just boil down to the fact that God loves some more than others:
http://renegadetrad.blogspot.ca/2011/03/god-loves-some-more-than-others.html
http://renegadetrad.blogspot.ca/2011/11/grace-and-free-will-thomist-double.html
"St. Thomas said that God creates freely and is not in any way obligated to create the best possible world."
By whose standard, though? The very fact that it's the world God freely chose to create makes it the best in ONE sense, in a meta-sense, even if by all "objective" measures it were terrible (because what objective measure is there really besides God's will??)
"He might make this world as good as it can be, but it could have been better."
Right. Well "making it as good as it can be" is still a form of "maximizing."
If I say I've maximized the speed of my car by going 200 mph or whatever, I don't mean 200 mph is the speed of light, the highest possible speed period. I mean it is the highest possible speed for my car.
I never said "absolute maximum" (as if there even could be such a thing given that, in God, Goodness is infinite). I just said "maximize."
Now it feels like you're just picking trivial fights wherever you can.
"No reason why this is so is ever given."
For the angels it is, actually. The theological consensus (now, although it was not always so, even until rather recently) seems to be that the angel's choice is irrevocable by nature on account of the supremacy of angelic knowledge.
In other words, because angels saw "all the information at once" (each according to his own natural capacity) and so no further information could result in them changing their mind, at least not naturally speaking (who knows what God has up His sleeve, of course). There was no further information that could change their mind.
And to me this makes perfect sense and is based on a robust understanding of what are the implications of angels being pure spirit (whereas earlier theories that imagined angels could repent, etc...seem to be based on very anthropomorphic notion of what an angel even is!)
I've simply tried to analogize this angelic rational onto why death marks a similar point of no return for humans.
"Your Molinism is interesting"
I'm not a Molinist (you can find my thoughts on the grace and free will and predestination question if you search the blog, though).
My speculation here has nothing to do with predestination or election or reprobation.
It might be called Molinist "in form" I guess, inasmuch as it invokes a type of scientia media...but my speculation here was not about who gets saved and who doesn't, but merely about how/why God times the moment of death.
Nothing more nothing less. It doesn't attempt to address why grace is distributed the way it is, nor what the relationship between God's agency and human agency is in the making of the free choices in question (ie, why person makes good or bad choices, or why at a certain point no further change would occur). Merely with when He pulls the plug on us.
"not a whole lot different from double predestination."
The Church believes in double predestination. Just not double UNCONDITIONAL predestination.
No Catholic teacher denies that God knows from the start who will be saved and who will be damned, and confirms this by His eternal decree.
The only question is, basically, whether/how this is conditional on foreseen free choices or not (and what exactly is the causal order of grace, free will, and that foreknowledge).
Among Catholics this is the Thomist/Molinist divide. Among Protestants it is the Calvinist/Arminian divide.
Personally, however, as I discuss on this blog, I am partial to the "Third Way" ideas of Fr. William Most on this point. Basically, that election is unconditional but that reprobation is conditional (and that this is not a logical or metaphysical contradiction).
"I don't see Him as quite as much of a sadistic bastard, either."
There's nothing sadistic about any of this. He is under no obligation to give anyone or anything even the good of EXISTENCE (and, indeed, there are infinitely many things, infinitely many people, whom He DIDN'T even grant the good of existence.)
But if He's under no obligation to give anything or anyone even existence, He's certainly under no obligation to give anyone any good BEYOND mere existence.
As for a charge of "Sadism" then, I can only think of the old joke: "The masochist said 'hurt me,' and the sadist said...'No.'"
Perhaps this says a lot about our relationship to God. If (according to you) MY God is "sadistic"...then the correct stance to take is to become masochists for Him, no?
Because then, of course, by the logic of the paradox laid out by that "joke"...God will have to actually DENY us suffering, and the most sadistic thing in the world to do, will be to grant us Heaven, yes?
This is perhaps part of why embracing the cross and willingly descending into hell...actually is what leads to resurrection and heaven.
Back here you had this to say:
The first is what I might call the "philosophizing" of Theology which occurs in Scholasticism. This is something to which the Orthodox very much object (though they have a tendency to "mysticize" their theology which can be problematic too).
In my early days as a Catholic I was very much into Scholasticism, but over the last couple of decades I've come pretty much to the Orthodox position. Yes, it can be problematic--any human system can--but I think it's far preferable.
One thing about Christianity--and here I put on my Chestertonian hat--is that it's full of paradoxes. God is One but also Three; Jesus is fully human and fully Divine; God is omniscient and yet we really have free will; and so on. I think that at its best theology is a useful heuristic or metaphorically, a playing around with things we can never really understand in order to help us better know how to live the lives we should in light of our faith. Once it gets past a certain level of abstraction I think it has "jumped the shark", if you will, and is no longer useful.
I think the Western system is very weak in this respect--far too abstract--but its worse fault is that it is far to obsessed with logical deduction and following things out to their conclusions. One can be exquisitely logical and perfectly consistent and yet arrive at an abomination. For example, Calvin's idea of double unconditional predestination follows with perfect logic from his basic assumptions and his reading of the Bible. It paints a horrendous picture of a God who creates people to be damned "just because", but it can't be said to be illogical.
At this point I bring in Chesterton again: "The problem with the madman is not that he's logical, but that he's only logical." Which is in a nutshell the issue with an awful lot of Western theology. Much of it is, quite frankly, mad.
This is the strength of being comfortable with mystery and not feeling the need to over-analyze. It would be as easy for our minds to grasp how God is a Unity and a Trinity as it would for the child, in the famous story about Augustine, to empty the sea. At some point, we just say, "Hang the method, the theology, the argumentation--it just is thus."
So, yes, I understand Calvin's arguments perfectly; but the God so portrayed is not one I believe in, nor one that I think Scripture and the Fathers teach; so no matter how elegantly logical he is, I have to say, "so much the worse for Calvin".
Likewise, I understand the argument from St. Thomas--and bishop Chaput--that "God loves some more than others". Perfectly logical, brilliantly so, I must say. But then I think of the God who loved us so much, even when we were sinners, that He willingly died for us (Romans 5:7-8). I think of Christ, who said that he would draw all things to himself (John 12:32). I think of this beautiful quote of St. Isaac the Syrian:
What is a merciful heart? It is a heart on fire for the whole of creation, for humanity, for the birds, for the animals, for demons, and for all that exists. By the recollection of them the eyes of a merciful person pour forth tears in abundance. By the strong and vehement mercy that grips such a person’s heart, and by such great compassion, the heart is humbled and one cannot bear to hear or to see any injury or slight sorrow in any in creation. For this reason, such a person offers up tearful prayer continually even for irrational beasts, for the enemies of the truth, and for those who harm her or him, that they be protected and receive mercy. And in like manner such a person prays for the family of reptiles because of the great compassion that burns without measure in a heart that is in the likeness of God. (my emphasis)
I consider all this, and I look at Thomas, and I have to say, "Well, so much the worse for him. It's pretty, but it's all as straw." Which he himself ultimately said. If you want to say that's woolly-minded abuse of mysticism, that's your prerogative; but I think there are some Fathers, especially in the East, that would have tended to see it that way.
In brief, on some of the other issues: To say fear of Hell is an unworthy (and sometimes counterproductive) motivation is not to say it's never of use, as I pointed out. To that extent, and to the extent that I'm sympathetic to (not completely agreeing with) their proposition that some commandments are impossible for even the righteous to carry out, I proudly claim the title of "Jansenist"; but on the other issues, and on the extreme rigorism, I'm totally Arminian--or Jesuitical, if you prefer.
The theological consensus...seems to be that the angel's choice is irrevocable by nature on account of the supremacy of angelic knowledge. In other words, because angels saw "all the information at once" (each according to his own natural capacity) and so no further information could result in them changing their mind, at least not naturally speaking (who knows what God has up His sleeve, of course). There was no further information that could change their mind.
I don't think I agree. The angels didn't see all the information--only God sees that. That's probably not what you meant, in fairness. Still, it seems to me that if "free will" means anything, it means you can make a choice either way even if you have all the information. Even for a spiritual intellect--or at least for a finite one--"to know" and "to will" are necessarily different things. If they weren't--if what you willed necessarily followed from what you know--it's hard to see how the will would be free.
[E]mbracing the cross and willingly descending into hell...actually is what leads to resurrection and heaven.
If you ever read Von Balthasar, this is pretty much what he says. However, in his expression, God in Christ "embraces the cross and willingly descends into hell" exactly out of His infinite love and His unwillingness to leave anyone. As Von Balthasar puts it, God descends into the deepest loneliness, the deepest alienation, the deepest pits into which mankind put themselves, and stays there as long as He needs to.
Far from an image of a God who whimsically and inscrutably distributes grace and allows some to damn themselves and others to get to Heaven, and mankind as a massa damnata, the image is of a God who will pay any price, go anywhere, do anything, for whom there "ain't no mountain high enough, ain't no valley deep enough, ain't no river wide enough" to get to everyone, because in His eyes even the worst person in the deepest depths of Hell is infinitely precious and worthy of God's "giving His all". I find that far more appealing.
"I consider all this, and I look at Thomas, and I have to say, 'Well, so much the worse for him. It's pretty, but it's all as straw.' Which he himself ultimately said."
Bah, the Orthodox march this story out all the time too.
In truth, I'm not even sure what you're objecting to here. You seem to basically be saying you are emotionally uncomfortable with the formulation "God loves some more than others."
But as I say in my posts on the question, and as Aquinas himself says, whether "God loves some more than others" is true or not depends simply on how you define love.
And under one definition, rejecting this statement is equivalent to affirming that all things and people are equally good and that no distinction in degree of goodness can be made between anyone or anything in the universe. Which is clearly just stupid. (Or it involves a rejection of God's role as the metaphysical ground and source of all goodness, which is likewise absurd and clearly heretical).
The Isaac the Syrian quote doesn't try to deny this. There's no doubt that God, by definition, loves everything that exists. There's nothing in there saying He loves all things equally, for not all things are of an equal measure of goodness.
"but on the other issues, and on the extreme rigorism, I'm totally Arminian--or Jesuitical, if you prefer."
So then you ARE a Molinist? I don't understand. The Jesuit position on grace/free-will and predestination...was Molinism. But you've said you're not.
Or you're saying that on that question you're an Arminian, which makes you a manifest heretic? But then, that wouldn't be surprising given your positions on other issues.
"Still, it seems to me that if 'free will' means anything, it means you can make a choice either way even if you have all the information."
Yes, where does that theory deny this?
All it says is that once the angels made their choice in view of "all the information" (ie, all the information relevant to such a decision)...they are never going to suddenly "change" this choice because they are outside time, and so there is no "event," no knew information, that could be the occasion for making a new choice that they didn't already have in view when they made it.
We only make choices when there is a choice to make. We never make the same choice twice, we only make new choices when there is a new "juncture" to consider. But the angels are outside of time, so there could only be one "juncture," rather than a discursive series of them spread out over a lifetime.
"the image is of a God who will pay any price, go anywhere, do anything"
I have absolutely no doubts about God's goodness in this regard. I am rather of fan of Von Balthasar (at least in the same way John Paul II and Benedict can be called his fans).
What I say is entirely attributable to the evil choices of man (that's just axiomatic metaphysically). God can't force anyone to come out of sin. Just looking at my own heart, and then around me at people I know, and then around me at the world...I have absolutely no doubt about the human possibility of the radical rejection of God.
Again, everything you say SOUNDS great, looks great "on paper"...but has absolutely no connection to the state of the world as it actually IS.
You're describing, it seems to me, "How God should be" according to you...but then I look around and actually see the world, and my own heart, and think, "Oh. Right. Things are like THAT."
No, the universe is absolutely bleak, and we just have to accept that.
This is what's always so ironic to me about those who appeal to "experience" rather than "logic" in religion (as you seem to be here, even if you deny it). They always seem to assume everyone's experience will point to something benign or meaningful.
Mine does not. As I've said, it's only logic or reason that have or can saved me. My EXPERIENCE is one of deep and total nihilism. Experientially speaking, the universe and life are meaningless and empty and the only justifiable emotion anyone should feel is rage.
Layered on top of that, by sheer force of reason and will (which can only mean, then, by grace alone), is Faith like a cold piece of steel. Faith in a God I FEEL nothing but fear and rage towards for daring to force me to exist in the first place, but choose nevertheless to love abstractly out of submission because there's no point in opposing Him.
Real authenticity is pursuing a script even while knowing and admitting and fully embracing the fact that a script is "all" it is. Is smiling because we choose to, while also fully understanding that the smile is a signifier whose significance "happiness" is not some "reality" underlying the signifier, but is nothing other than enacting the script itself. I'm happy if I choose to act and think a certain way, but I'm not so naive as to think there is some actual "state" beneath the script.
Of course, you might say my experience is simply "wrong." But how can an experience be "wrong"? Then what's the point of validating "experience" as a category??
You speak highly of universalism, but then your God doesn't even speak to the sociopath, whereas mine does. And what's the point of a God who can't even save the sociopath (except through the meaningless hypothetical of making him conform to a bourgeosie outlook or mindset or "experience" that is utterly foreign to his selfhood and mode of experience, that would require a bad faith on his part of pretending that happiness or meaning are anything other than a script)?
"Bah" if you like at the Orthodox--I "bah" at Scholasticism.
I have no idea how I said or even implied that my God doesn't "speak to the sociopath" , or how you deduce that from what I said.
My EXPERIENCE is one of deep and total nihilism. Experientially speaking, the universe and life are meaningless and empty and the only justifiable emotion anyone should feel is rage.
Layered on top of that, by sheer force of reason and will (which can only mean, then, by grace alone), is Faith like a cold piece of steel. Faith in a God I FEEL nothing but fear and rage towards for daring to force me to exist in the first place, but choose nevertheless to love abstractly out of submission because there's no point in opposing Him.
Sinner, I hope you take this in the spirit in which it's meant--that really, truly sounds to me a desperately sick outlook. It sounds almost like borderline clinical depression. I don't know you in person, so take what I say with a grain or a barrel of salt, but I'd say at the very least there's a lot of grist for intensive spiritual direction and/or counseling there.
St. Ignatius Loyola said that if one is heading in the right spiritual direction that though there might be sorrow and tumult, there'd still be, over the long haul, an underlying peace. To put it another way, if it's all desolation with only a forced facade of consolation, something's wrong.
The whole "happiness and meaning are only a script with nothing real below the signifier" thing not only also sounds morbid but doesn't seem to me what Christianity--let alone any philosophical system I can subscribe to--can be described as. It really sounds very much Existentialist and almost Lacanian and deconstructionist.
I would agree that the world as we perceive it, as it gives every indication of being, is a horrible, bleak, nihilistic mess. I'm not pushing Pollyanna-ism here. Your response to that seems to be to embrace the nihilism and to " love" the God you simultaneously despise (though what such "love" even means is beyond me) more or less out of quasi-masochistic resignation. How that is any kind of healthy spirituality is also beyond me.
I say that the Christian narrative is that the reality we see, experience, and live every day is not ultimately the "real" reality (back to our differing views on idealism), not the last say. The God of Love will make it all right, wipe away all tears, heal all wounds. There are real happiness, meaning, and love behind it all, and they are not just a script or a construct.
I have to say that I do admire your unflinching tenacity and consistency in holding fast to a spirituality and worldview that must really, enormously suck. Your theology doesn't seem to give you much joy, but you keep at it, anyway. I can respect that. I can't say that I agree with with such an outlook--in fact I find it deeply repugnant--and I don't even see how it's compatible with Christisnity as I understand it. Still, I can respect your adherence to it.
All I can say is we each do our best according to our own lights and trust that it will turn out well. Only God knows--and He's not telling.
"Sinner, I hope you take this in the spirit in which it's meant--that really, truly sounds to me a desperately sick outlook."
But see: you have to dismiss people's experiences here. Your worldview demands labelling certain experiences or paradigms as simply "sick."
Mine, at least, does not do that. If I dismiss your views, it is not as sick, but as WILLFULLY self-serving. In other words, I at least give you agency for your wrong and evil CHOICE of incorrect belief. So there is at least still a basic concession of human dignity there.
You, on the other hand, can only pathologize me. It's a pity, really.
"I don't know you in person, so take what I say with a grain or a barrel of salt, but I'd say at the very least there's a lot of grist for intensive spiritual direction and/or counseling there."
Why? For what? My BEHAVIOR is not particularly dysfunctional. Neither are my thoughts.
What, would you have them indoctrinate me back into the delusion, the straight-jacket of totalizing "internal structure" that so many personalities are apparently based on?? No, I have put the vast nothingness of God in place of such structure, and don't regret it.
If I imitate a human being perfectly, if I act and speak (usually, outside these sorts of meta-discussions) just like a human selfhood, who are you to question that I am just based on your own (I would say desperate) reification of your own "self"??
"St. Ignatius Loyola said that if one is heading in the right spiritual direction that though there might be sorrow and tumult, there'd still be, over the long haul, an underlying peace."
Ah, now here we can agree. PEACE is what we all should be striving for, and what I work to catch glimpses of.
Peace is not happiness, though. Peace is a negative, a lack, an emptiness, a stillness.
But the only way to get peace is to SURRENDER. That's my whole point. My instinct is to fight the Old Tyrant. But if I ever want peace, I just have to lay down my weapons and "take it" from Him.
"To put it another way, if it's all desolation with only a forced facade of consolation, something's wrong."
Desolate, I think is a good word. But desolation isn't bad. It's what's at the heart of reality. Even God Himself is self-abnegation, really. Consolation is not a "forced facade" anymore than anything else, because meaning has never been created except by the force of will in the first place. It's ALWAYS a construction. But why must recognizing it as a "construction" be bad??
"doesn't seem to me what Christianity--let alone any philosophical system I can subscribe to--can be described as."
Nada, nada, nada, nada, nada, nada, y aun en el Monte nada.
"It really sounds very much Existentialist and almost Lacanian and deconstructionist."
I've admitted before my Existentialist leanings. I'm also quite sympathetic to post-modernism and deconstruction.
"I would agree that the world as we perceive it, as it gives every indication of being, is a horrible, bleak, nihilistic mess. I'm not pushing Pollyanna-ism here."
I think you have entirely misunderstood me.
I am not saying that suffering makes the world bleak and nihilistic, I am saying that "happiness" does.
It's not the child starving to death, in the end, who makes me feel rage or fear or bleakness or emptiness or meaninglessness. No no, I understand THAT, I "get" that.
Rather, it's the people laughing in a sports bar, for example.
"though what such 'love' even means is beyond me"
It means accepting the script He demands. Thinking and speaking and acting as that script demands.
That doesn't mean I'd claim to be holy or anything like that. But it does mean that, if the flesh is weak and I do slip-up somehow...then I go to confession, etc, as the script prescribes for such occasions.
In some ways, the Truth is just a lie enacted convincingly enough.
"Love" is not a feeling. Love is a behavioral script. If I care for a person, express affection verbally and physically, and die for them...who are you to speak of the presence or lack of a "feeling" behind those behaviors? Perhaps a certain pattern of THOUGHT should accompany it (although, while thought is internal/invisible, it can still really be called a behavior).
If I die for you, would you dare say I didn't love you, even if what I "felt" was rage, hatred, or (more the point) total indifference??
I am very suspicious of positive emotions towards anyone. How can an action be selfless if you receive a positive emotional reward for doing good for them. I think it's much better and more moral for a sense of deep revulsion and contempt to accompany all our good works.
But here you simply disagree. You think we should be working to save people because we "want" to see them in heaven. To me that makes no sense. We should be working to get people to heaven exactly BECAUSE we "want" to see them all burn in hell (indeed, there are some existentialist points I could extrapolate here about how "hell is other people").
"There are real happiness, meaning, and love behind it all, and they are not just a script or a construct."
I'm not sure why you are contrasting "real" with "just a script or construct." That's what reality is: the construction of consciousness.
Define reality for me in a way that doesn't make reference to subjectivity, at least implicitly in its unspoken premises. I don't think it's possible.
No, we can only dissolve...
"I have to say that I do admire your unflinching tenacity and consistency in holding fast to a spirituality and worldview that must really, enormously suck."
No, it's good. I have to say it's good. There's no other way to define "good" otherwise.
Man, this dialectic is intense. It's intense because, I think, it really brings out the "two poles" of Christian thought throughout all of history. I'm probably essentializing, but you can see clearly that there is a tendency to think of God in terms of "relationship" or "reason" throughout history.
Speaking of Chesterton, he writes these two hagiographies of St Thomas and St Francis in which he says, as diametrically opposed as their "methodologies" were, they were really out to do the same thing. The seemingly "sterile scholasticism" that seemed so restrictive was really the same liberating movement that St. Francis had started, and St. Francis's "loose and free" movement was really just as rigid and systematic as Thomas's scholarship. I'm butchering his brilliant rhetoric (so go check both hagiographies out, and thank me later) but the point is that, as different as they were, they both stood for Truth. They were both saints.
That being said, I don't think that this particular argument represents "two sides of the same coin" as it were. First of all, Turmarion, I think Aquinas (if he actually did say such a thing) didn't mean that the Summa was straw in the sense that it was worthless. I think it simply meant that, when face to face with God himself, the human language is such an inadequate and gross toll for describing His mystery. But this does not preclude the importance of logical rigor and the use of reason in every possible circumstance.
On the other hand, Sinner, when you say, "The universe is absolutely bleak, and we just have to accept that" - I'm afraid to disagree with you (because I know that disagreement does nothing but strengthen conviction) because I think you're dead wrong here - unless I'm misunderstanding you. If what you mean is a kind of rhetorical flourish instead of an ontological proclamation, then I'm on the wrong track. But I'm quite sure that the Orthodox position is quite the opposite: In the beginning, God created - the "bleakness" of the universe was radically changed - in fact, what was once nothingness had been filled up.
So, despite your "nihilistic feelings" the ontological reality of the universe, it is one of mystery, not one of nothingness. Now that I think of it, I suppose fury is a common emotional response to mystery as well as despair, but for quite different reasons I suspect. Mystery often leads to despair, precisely because we cannot rationally rise to its level. A thoroughly rational person is tempted to feel despair at the edge of reason, but this is exactly when our faith is called into play.
This means that faith is not a cold piece of steel, but rather quite the opposite. Faith is rush of warm blood throughout the body, it's the adrenaline-ridden movement that thrusts us over the edge - it can be absolutely terrifying, and in that sense it is very hot. It is exhilarating, maddening, but - and here is the key - at the root of it is a hope, not despair.
Sinner, you get at something very important - maybe the most important of all - when you say that the "script is all there is." I think framing this in terms of a script is actually quite ironic in the sense that a script can be played out well, terribly, or disregarded entirely. The problem with scripts is that there are "actors" who have to play the part. This is a tragedy, perhaps... or perhaps it's some kind of Divine Comedy.
Now that's not your point, I know. Your point is that the Script is really the Divine Word, the Divine Logos, and the Script is Reason itself - there is nothing we can do to "escape" or "push against" such a script, because, that would be logically impossible. Script is the foundation of our reason, and without Script there is no... anything at all. But here's where I (think) I would diverge from your "nihilistic begrudging submission" to God. I've already illustrated this above, but I think that one can submit to God out of exhaustion (the realization that one cannot "overpower" God, no matter how much hope a man like Nietzche may give to those who try) or submit to God in severe and intense hope - hope that the foundation of reality is something infinitely wonderful as well as something infinitely terrible (Otto's "mysterium tremendum" if you like).
Of course, we cannot know, (can we ever know) what "God is like" because He is infinite. But our choice to put our faith in Him is something like a point of departure, and a very important one at that. By what path will we journey to the savior?
If you've managed to read this far Sinner, I'll have you know that my path is virtually identical to yours (philosophically anyway). I started to road to Catholicism (I've yet to be confirmed) after 2 years of being fully emerged in the stingiest Reformed circles I knew - very Reformed and very Calvinist. I wanted Truth, and I didn't care how bleak and awful it was. I knew my place in the universe, and I knew that to assert my power or preference over God's was ludicrous.
The problem that arose, of course, was that I wasn't sure how one was to really find God's preference over mine. How could I hear Him? Where did authority come from? You can fill in the details, but I found myself on this road to Rome because it was, from my vantage point, the most rational position to take.
I still struggle with a lot of things about the Catholic Church, but I can't help shaking the conviction (intellectually and often "spiritually", whatever that means) that it is truth so - I'm stuck on this journey with you guys.
But I want to emphasize in this post that, in addition to the necessity of reason, there is an aspect of relationship that must be accounted for - this "relationship" aspect is the one that frustrates me the most (as you've pointed out, it's entirely subjective), but I find it impossible to get around. We've even been blessed with a shadow of this mystic union; male and female, husband and bride - Church and Christ. It is in this sense that I suspect that when our reason reaches its limit, we throw ourselves onto Christ as a lover throws herself onto her bridegroom.
Alllllright, I'm done.
Lots of good things to think about, Aric.
Though, I'm pretty sure Hope is founded on Faith, and not the other way around. (I'd also question whether or not hope itself might, in some sense, be said to be founded on despair).
In the end, I don't think my experience of the divine is all that uncommon, and I'm rather surprised Tumarion finds it so repulsive.
What noble soul in history hasn't longed to destroy God? Isn't the sublimation of this impossible impulse the source of all our great works as a race? Even Christ said, "Why have you foresaken me," and "Let this cup pass." But, then, He went forward anyway, out of pure submission.
I mean, why were the "Golden Compass" books so popular? Because, in the end, God is dissolved into so much dust. And, of course, there is John Lennon's beautiful song, "Imagine there's no Heaven. It's easy if you try. No Hell below us, above us only sky." The whole world rejoices at this anthem!
It would be wonderful to face the prospect only of annihilation at death, and to be able to join "all the people, living for today"...
But. There is a God. There is a Heaven. There is a Hell. And there's no getting around it. So we'd all better just shut up, sit down, burn that book, silence that song, and stop thinking of that much-desired Revolution that cannot come because our would-be-foe is Omnipotent and not afraid to squash people like bugs in earthquakes and tsunamis (or, more to the point, in their own conscience).
Mankind's rejoicing at these sentiments deserves nothing but Hell.
"there is an aspect of relationship that must be accounted for"
Certainly. But, for me, the best analogy for this relationship is that of a subjugated people to the conquering king.
As I see it, the Self is a god that either is or was in competition with God. But, God takes no prisoners. He has utterly conquered the land of Canaan, caused the walls to collapse, put our cities under the ban, slain everyone, and dashed the little ones against the rocks. "I" am (or must be) defeated, just like the Emperor-god of Japan was dethroned and de-divinized by two atomic bombs desolating the land.
But how am "I" supposed to feel happy about this defeat I can only surrender to?? Tumarion calls me the masochist, but to me it seems the masochism is in the Selves that feel anything good in their own humiliating defeat and execution at the hands of their rival God.
No, if I rejoice in God's victory, it can't be "I" rejoicing, because I am the one the victory is over or against. It can only be God in me, "occupying" me, as it were, that can rejoice IN me.
Hence why I'd say "my" happiness is a script; it can't really be said to originate from the Self, but rather is a performance imposed from outside the Self by Him whose boot is stomping on the face of that Self forever, once and for all. (And yet, that Self surely squirms beneath it!)
In truth, as Selves, we're all going to Hell. One way or another, every Self in the universe other than God will (in some sense) be cast into Hell. Of course, that's only a problem if I am CONSCIOUS of it. But how do we avoid being conscious of the Hell to which we are all, as selves, doomed?
Only by surrendering that consciousness to God. Let Him take it as His consciousness. "I" am going to Hell. But, if my body and my consciousness are surrendered to God...then they obviously won't be. And consciousness is what really matters, no?
So we have two options. We can either give our consciousness to God, have it belong to Him rather than to the Self. Or the Self can cling to its consciousness and so be cast consciously into Hell. Because He'll win either way. He WILL send the Self to Hell. The question is just whether He'll do it WITH its consciousness, or without it (for He will not force the two apart if we don't choose to let Him. He'd prefer occupation, but destroying the city if it refuses is not beyond Him).
I wasn't being accusatory or dismissive when I said your worlview was "sick". If anything, I spoke out of concern.
Your worldview demands labelling certain experiences or paradigms as simply "sick."
Unless you deny the existence of mental illness, some paradigms are sick.
I at least give you agency for your wrong and evil CHOICE of incorrect belief. So there is at least still a basic concession of human dignity there.
You seem to imply that even a "madman" is not pathological, but that ultimately everything boils down to "wrong and evil choices", and that, perhaps, the result of that is what we call madness. I don't think that's what the Church teaches, and I don't think most priests or theologians would agree.
I'm quite familiar with St. John of the Cross, but I'm not sure he's putting forth a psychology or system like you seem to be doing here. As to straight jackets of internal structure, you are projecting things on what I said. Look, I tend to think in Buddhist terms. Arguably there is no self to begin with (anatman); and as I've said before, I pretty much agree with the Heart Sutra--the ultimate reality is śūnyatā, "emptiness". Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.
However in the Buddhist understanding--and I think St. John and many of the hesychasts are very close to it--the idea isn't that you accept the desolation and submit abjectly and "take it". It's that you are liberated from the tyranny of limitation and impermanence and are no longer bound to the misery and suffering of the world. Or, if you prefer, you are liberated to achieve union with God.
As to your leanings, I dislike Existentialism, post-modernism, and deconstruction, though I think there are valid insights and things we can learn from them. Emotionally, I find them repugnant, though, so there's probably a big reason we seem to have difficulty communicating.
I am not saying that suffering makes the world bleak and nihilistic, I am saying that "happiness" does. It's not the child starving to death, in the end, who makes me feel rage or fear or bleakness or emptiness or meaninglessness. Rather, it's the people laughing in a sports bar, for example.
In some ways, the Truth is just a lie enacted convincingly enough.
I am very suspicious of positive emotions towards anyone. How can an action be selfless if you receive a positive emotional reward for doing good for them. I think it's much better and more moral for a sense of deep revulsion and contempt to accompany all our good works.
We should be working to get people to heaven exactly BECAUSE we "want" to see them all burn in hell
But, for me, the best analogy for this relationship [between humans and God] is that of a subjugated people to the conquering king.
In truth, as Selves, we're all going to Hell. One way or another, every Self in the universe other than God will (in some sense) be cast into Hell. Of course, that's only a problem if I am CONSCIOUS of it. But how do we avoid being conscious of the Hell to which we are all, as selves, doomed?
[God would] prefer occupation, but destroying the city if it refuses is not beyond Him).
These (some with my emphasis) are from your posts on this thread. These are examples of things you say that I just don't "get". You might as well be saying "2 + 2 = fuscia". It is totally unintelligible to me, and horrendously, hideously, awfully repellent, repugnant, and awful. I mean no disrespect in saying that I do, indeed, find such a worldview masochistic and pathological. I'm not interested in arguing the ins and outs of that--you obviously disagree, and that's fine. I don't think the majority of theologians or spiritual directors would see this as a healthy state or an accurate description of w what we believe to be God's relationship to us, but majority vote doesn't determine things, and I'm sure you'd disagree there, too. Which is fine.
I'm going to leave it at this. We agree to disagree. "Man proposes, God disposes"--we'll find out in the end eventually. I say this not to be accusatory or negative, just to state facts: reading you describe your spirituality like this depresses me and almost makes me feel ill. If it works for you, great. I don't think it would for most people, though, and I don't think it's an accurate description of how God is or of what He wants of us. However, I'm not much interested in arguing that, either. I hope it works for you, I hope God is not as you say, and as I said, we'll all find out in the end. Pax et bonum.
"These are examples of things you say that I just don't 'get'. You might as well be saying '2 + 2 = fuscia'. It is totally unintelligible to me, and horrendously, hideously, awfully repellent, repugnant, and awful."
Saying "I just don't get it" is bad faith pure and simple.
"Getting" something is nothing other than choosing to adopt a specific narrative, a specific script of how to speak about these things, and then enacting that script convincingly. And I'm pretty sure, if you wanted, you could now adopt this script just by imitating me.
So you are making a conscious, self-indulgent, and evil CHOICE not to adopt this paradigm, it seems because it is emotionally repellant or painful to you. And of course. Such a script demands the internal dissolution of "you," a cleaving of the idol of the Self from the consciousness (which, I suppose, could be called our "true self"...although that's not entirely accurate either) and casting the former into Hell and surrendering the latter to God.
So be it. I won't argue it anymore either. That's your choice, and no one can force you.
Heck, if your God is the universalist you say He is...then some day He'll do this for you. Someday He'll extract this surrender from you by any means necessary. So, yes, neither of us should be too worried about it.
I could also adopt the script of an atheist, a Buddhist, a Gaudiya Vaishnava, or a rock worshipper. I could adopt a script in which 2 + 2 = 71.2. If faith is just acting a script, I'm not interested.
There's not really a "me" or "you" to begin with, so nothing to be dissolved, therefore no problem. Form is no more than emptiness, emptiness is no more than form.
With this, I call it quits.
Sinner, why such a flat ontology? Why posit that God eradicates all selves other than his own? Why not instead posit that all selves are an extension of Hisself, and that he allows autonomy to each of these selves so that there may be relationship among all selves in the universe?
I think of the Trinity here, of course. In this paradigm, those who enter into right relationship with Him become a part of that divine relationship.
I guess the bigger question would be, why would God create difference in the first place if ultimately he just plans to dissolve anything and everything back into his self again?
I mean, do we even have autonomy in the first place? I think it's perfectly obvious and orthodox that we do; we were made in His image, we bear his marks - but we are not denied selfhood. The "script" is not that our selves would be "cast into hell" or "annihilated", but rather that our selves would enter into right and harmonious relationship with God's Self. This seems to me what has been always been the Orthodox perspective.
Well, Aric, as I said in one of my recent comments: "which, I suppose, could be called our 'true self'..."
There are different ways to define "the Self" here.
Check out this article from an Eastern Christian source, actually:
http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/the-true-self-and-the-story-of-me/
There is one type of Self, certainly, that may not be our true self, but which is the one most of us identify with. This self is and always will be God's enemy, it hates God, it sets itself up as a false god in place of God, and God will ruthlessly destroy it one way or another.
It will be cast into "Hell"...the question is whether this self will be cast into Hell WITH our true self (our body and soul) or without.
Perhaps I imagine our true self is like a transparent window or empty vessel that always lets something else fill it. At first, for all of us, this "something" that fills it is the "I" or Ego.
Or, better yet, it's like an empty driver's seat. At first this false construct of the ego, the "Self" drives. However, the Self invariably drives the car right off the cliff into the ocean of fire. Only if that Self is thrown out the window and God takes the wheel will the car avoid falling into the ocean WITH ego.
However, this ego is clever, and in many people...it tries to compromise for the sake of not being totally dethroned. So, for example, people will convince themselves or speak as if they (ie, their Self) can love God, or sees meaning in the universe, or is basically good, etc etc.
These are all lies though (hence my accusation of bad faith). The Self does not love God, though it will pretend and fool itself in order to act as if a sort of "compromise" has been reached, as if God and it can "share power" or something like that (which is nonsense).
The Self is in the end entirely nihilistic and selfish and damnable, and if we ever see things HONESTLY from our (ie, our Self's) own real perspective in this regard, we would see both how evil we are but (being ourselves, or thinking we are, at least) also how terrifying the prospect of submission to God (which mean's this Self's complete subjugation and eternal crushing) is.
But, few people do. Most continue in bad faith accepting the lies they tell themselves in order to preserve the Self, rather than submitting to the dethroning and decapitation by God which is necessary to be saved. God must take the Self's place in our soul. "To save yourself you must lose yourself." This is what our whole religion is about, the replacing of the Old Man with the New Man who is none other than Christ Himself.
Ok, I get all of that, and I think it's very important. But listen, what I'm saying is that the Ego (the very same one that drives itself into a lake of fire) doesn't necessarily have to "die" but rather can be transformed. Maybe this means the same thing when Jesus says, "you must lose your life" or "pick up your cross":
The ego isn't killed, but it's in full submission to God's will. So, I never leave the drivers seat, but I also don't make one turn that isn't the Father's will. It's as if I've totally submitted to a GPS that is giving me directions, even if by looking at the road ahead I think the GPS is totally stupid, and I could take some awesome shortcut that would "get me there" faster.
Of course, what happens in day to day life is that every now and then we do ignore the GPS and decide to make our own route. But, alas, this is sin, and this is what we repent of. God then has to bring us through such pains to bring us back on the correct path that he had chosen in the first place.
Do you see, then, how the ego isn't annihilated but rather conformed to will of the Father? And yeah, practically this means that the ego is "dead" - it is "dead" in the sense that it isn't exercising its power outside of the bounds of God's jurisdiction. But it does this out of a (albeit often very painful) choice. However, it has the capacity to wield such power, and that is important because, otherwise, the idea that we have free will is eradicated.
I know I'm just re-hashing some basic philosophical stuff here, but this is weird for me because I was under the impression that the idea of the ego having no power whatsoever (what you call the "death" of the ego) in the process of salvation was a heretical one. This was part (although a small one) of my transition from Calvinism to Catholicism - I'm almost certain that the notion Total Depravity is a twisting of Augustine's teaching of Original Sin.
Forgive me if I've muddled up your thought (or worse, if my thought is muddling) here.
"The ego isn't killed, but it's in full submission to God's will. So, I never leave the drivers seat, but I also don't make one turn that isn't the Father's will."
I think we're just using different analogies. In mine, the true self IS the "Driver's seat", and it's a question of who is doing the driving (Self-as-Sin or God)...whereas in yours, the true self is the driver who is either doing what the sinful-GPS or the God-GPS is telling it.
What I think your analogy underemphasizes is how IDENTIFIED we naturally are with sin. It's not our true self, but it's certainly "the guy in control of the wheel", practically, for much of most peoples' lives.
You can imagine the true self as the seat, or as a little driver absolutely beholden to this "evil backseat driver"...but I think the latter image represents a sort of deferral of agency, because it allows you to identify with the poor cowed "little driver" who is basically a good guy, merely under the control of some essentially external...rather than realizing that the "I" who is the subject of Sin...is you! Or, at least, the "you" whom you you usually think of as you (even though it is not our true self).
"Do you see, then, how the ego isn't annihilated but rather conformed to will of the Father?"
Again, depends what you are identifying with "ego." If you are identifying the consciousness/"true self" with ego...then, yes, he is conformed to God by "casting off" sin.
But I am suspicious of that analogy because it makes sin sound like some compartmentalized EXTERNAL agent or force that has merely taken us over (as if we are merely possessed by a demon that needs to be exorcised) rather than recognizing that Sin (while not the TRUE self)...is the "I" that we're used to thinking and speaking about. Is the Self-narrative that we construct and attribute agency to since childhood. It's not that there's "me" and then this demon that needs to be cast out of "me." Rather "I" is the demon that needs to be cast out and the true-self (which is a window to God) which needs to become the "I" which is in control of this body.
"I'm almost certain that the notion Total Depravity is a twisting of Augustine's teaching of Original Sin."
I'm not claiming total depravity. If we were TOTALLY depraved...we wouldn't even have a "true self" (transparent to God and grace) which even COULD be exorcised of the Self/Ego (the "I" we usually speak of, even though it is not the rightful "driver" but merely a sort of mind-virus that has taken over our body, that we have become like a zombie to.)
Right - we are in fundamental agreement. I do disagree, however, with your reading of the "driver" analogy as one that lends itself to a reading of "external agency" - that's not what I was getting at. We are in a car all by ourselves, the only agent in the car is me. I have a choice to listen to the "God GPS" or "trust my instincts" - and in this case my "instincts" aren't some "external force", but simply the manifestation of my will. So I need to tell myself not to follow my own instincts, but rather to follow the Father's will. In fact, the "empty seat" analogy sounds more like we are simply empty vessels waiting to be filled up by some external agent, and that we have no agency of our own. We're just a "seat", or like the hardware of a computer, simply waiting to be filled with programs.
But, alas, I've always been terrible at drawing analogies, so I'll give this one to you.
A few of the things you said in this discussion stand out as awkward, however; things like "the Truth is just a lie enacted convincingly enough" sounds like Foucault's idea that there is no Truth, just power that is manipulated and exchanged.
Also your skepticism of positive emotions is also problematic. After our Will has been conformed to the Father, the positive emotions we feel towers Him (or any other Self) is actually wonderful gift; it is a blessing.
This is why the painting of God as an "Old Tyrant" sounds weird, and is probably what turns Turmarion off; sure, he's a Tyrant to the Self that wants to do my own things, but He is a loving Husband (I know that's weird as we are males, but you get what I'm saying) to the Self that sees Him in truth - not our own egoistic delusions.
I guess what I'm saying is that at first blush the conversation between you two looked like you saw God as some all-powerful, unloving, cold distant unknowable power, and that you chose to submit yourself to this alien, disgusting, overwhelming thing.
In a sense, this is surely what the ego feels when it is confronted with another God - (the ego itself deems itself God, after all) but we are not creatures who are entirely given to this idolatrous self. Remember, we are made with "markings" of God all over us, and if we open our eyes to see them the embrace of God's Lordship over us can be something quite sublime. Perhaps a good way to put it would be "bitter-sweet" - there is a pain that our idolatrous ego undergoes, but there is also an ecstasy that our true nature expresses… and this is precisely the journey of sanctification.
Right - we are in fundamental agreement. I do disagree, however, with your reading of the "driver" analogy as one that lends itself to a reading of "external agency" - that's not what I was getting at. We are in a car all by ourselves, the only agent in the car is me. I have a choice to listen to the "God GPS" or "trust my instincts" - and in this case my "instincts" aren't some "external force", but simply the manifestation of my will. So I need to tell myself not to follow my own instincts, but rather to follow the Father's will. In fact, the "empty seat" analogy sounds more like we are simply empty vessels waiting to be filled up by some external agent, and that we have no agency of our own. We're just a "seat", or like the hardware of a computer, simply waiting to be filled with programs.
But, alas, I've always been terrible at drawing analogies, so I'll give this one to you.
A few of the things you said in this discussion stand out as awkward, however; things like "the Truth is just a lie enacted convincingly enough" sounds like Foucault's idea that there is no Truth, just power that is manipulated and exchanged.
Also your skepticism of positive emotions is also problematic. After our Will has been conformed to the Father, the positive emotions we feel towers Him (or any other Self) is actually wonderful gift; it is a blessing.
This is why the painting of God as an "Old Tyrant" sounds weird, and is probably what turns Turmarion off; sure, he's a Tyrant to the Self that wants to do my own things, but He is a loving Husband (I know that's weird as we are males, but you get what I'm saying) to the Self that sees Him in truth - not our own egoistic delusions.
I guess what I'm saying is that at first blush the conversation between you two looked like you saw God as some all-powerful, unloving, cold distant unknowable power, and that you chose to submit yourself to this alien, disgusting, overwhelming thing.
In a sense, this is surely what the ego feels when it is confronted with another God - (the ego itself deems itself God, after all) but we are not creatures who are entirely given to this idolatrous self. Remember, we are made with "markings" of God all over us, and if we open our eyes to see them the embrace of God's Lordship over us can be something quite sublime. Perhaps a good way to put it would be "bitter-sweet" - there is a pain that our idolatrous ego undergoes, but there is also an ecstasy that our true nature expresses… and this is precisely the journey of sanctification.
"We are in a car all by ourselves, the only agent in the car is me. I have a choice to listen to the 'od GPS' or 'trust my instincts' - and in this case my 'instincts' aren't some 'external force', but simply the manifestation of my will."
But then this IS positing more than one Agent, don't you see?
Because there is the "you" doing the "listening" and then the "instincts" which manifest "your" will.
And while both may exist inside your head, the "instinct-you" is being described separate from and external to the "listening-you" who actually gets to make the final choice.
But if it's truly "your" will, how could "you" ever NOT listen to it? How could your will choose against itself? How could you will what you don't will??
This is what I'm getting at.
No, obviously there has to be some sort of division within people for this sort of language to be true.
"So I need to tell myself not to follow my own instincts, but rather to follow the Father's will."
Again, there's two subjects here. There's the you-telling, but then there's also the you-being-told. There's a "you" who wills one thing, and then there's the you willing the Father's will.
"We're just a 'seat,' or like the hardware of a computer, simply waiting to be filled with programs."
The hardware one is a promising analogy actually. We (our true selves) are hardware who are made to run God, but instead are running Self.
In the former case we do have agency, because it is God who makes us free exactly because we are made for Him. In the latter we don't, because this virus has taken over the wiring.
"'the Truth is just a lie enacted convincingly enough' sounds like Foucault's idea that there is no Truth, just power that is manipulated and exchanged."
I see how this could be confusing; I was speaking here from the "Self's" perspective.
This is what I meant about the Self trying to fool itself into thinking it is the true self by making a "compromise" with God.
The Self is like "The Mask" from that movie. And it doesn't want to be exposed as the phony, the fraud. So it does not act fully evil, but rather tries to fake goodness to some degree to maintain the illusion that it really is the self. But the "good acts" preformed by this Self are all empty because they are directed purely at maintaining itself on the throne through a sort of appeasement and delusion.
"After our Will has been conformed to the Father, the positive emotions we feel towards Him (or any other Self) is actually wonderful gift; it is a blessing."
Oh, yes, AFTER our Will has been conformed to the Father. But I wouldn't dare claim I've reached that point.
"sure, he's a Tyrant to the Self that wants to do my own things,"
Yes. He is. And honesty about that is the first step to the Self's dethroning.
See, before that, these Selves that control us...the pretend like they love God. Again, to maintain the illusion, to stay in power.
Admitting that, in reality, we resent God ("we" in the sense of our [ultimately false] Selves) is the first sign that He's overthrowing us.
Which is the only way we are ever saved and restored to our true selves: we see what's going on, we admit it, we accept it, we feel nothing but meaningless and rage (again "we" in the sense of that evil Self)...and finally God drives "us" to despair and nihilism when faced with His sheer unyielding and uncompromising power...and "we" kill ourselves. "We" jump straight into Hell.
And once "we" are finally gone, once He has finally driven "us" to (metaphysical) suicide...then God can finally shine through our true selves, and the true-we are truly free.
"to the Self that sees Him in truth - not our own egoistic delusions."
I am very wary of some of this though.
Because, unless either you or I is a bona fide Saint in a state of mystical union...it's still our Selves talking and acting here (not "God acting in me" as Paul put it).
As such, this analysis of the process (and even my own admission of wariness here, etc etc ad infinitum)...is all just part of this Self's process of maintaining the illusion, of trying to compromise with God, of trying to pretend that we are basically trying to do what is good.
But this act will eventually become exhausting for "me," and "I" know it. "I" will eventually self destruct, and my "Self" hates God for that, absolutely hates Him for it. But, of course, He's doing it to free our "true self" (which the other Self, this Self, generally hates also even though it tries to pretend like its an ally or, rather, its true expression).
"I guess what I'm saying is that at first blush the conversation between you two looked like you saw God as some all-powerful, unloving, cold distant unknowable power, and that you chose to submit yourself to this alien, disgusting, overwhelming thing."
To the "Self" that's what He is. And as a Self I have submitted myself to Him. But it's only buy time, really, isn't it? Eventually this submission (motivated purely by Self-preservation) will not be enough for Him, and He'll decapitate "me" (so that that "true self" can be freed and He can reign with it).
"In a sense, this is surely what the ego feels when it is confronted with another God - (the ego itself deems itself God, after all) but we are not creatures who are entirely given to this idolatrous self."
Oh, without grace we basically are. "I" am certainly in control without grace. That's why "I" hate it so much, because it is slowly driving "me" towards despair and self-destruction (while not even allowing me to destroy it or the true self WITH "me").
He is inexaustable. He'll just keep pursuing and pursuing and then he won't even destroy "you"...He makes you destroy your-Self.
"there is a pain that our idolatrous ego undergoes, but there is also an ecstasy that our true nature expresses…"
Yes, and the ego HATES the ecstasy of that true self in its submission. At least, if it reaches the stage of honesty it admits this (as I've said, many people are still under the illusion that the "I" in charge is their true self, and is basically good and happy, which is exactly what that "I" wants, is exactly the act he wants to maintain).
This is what I ("I") mean about understanding suffering but hating laughter that Tumarion claimed not to even be able to understand.
But I think you understand it better: it is the rage the god which is "me" feels when confronted with the real God, that the Self feels when confronted with the true self.
This is utterly terrifying to me, (I mean, I actually feel quite a bit of anxiety over this) because if what you say is true then there is no way to know if one is saved. From this perspective everything I do is just this "play" that my ego-self puts on to make it seem like I'm "seeking after God" when in reality, I'm doing nothing of the sort. "God" has been turned into an idol, he's nothing more than an object that my ego uses to keep me inebriated within my own selfish delusions.
As you mentioned, even all of your discourse about the Self might just be this Self-generated discussion to keep you from actually submitting to God. So the big question is, how do we actually submit to God? It seems to me that in this paradigm the Self will never relinquish its control; even when you think you are getting "exhausted", in reality the Self is just making it seem like you're exhausted, but it's nothing more that a script to keep you from true submission. Oh, sure, you'll think that you have finally given into God, you might even feel a sense of "freedom" or "release" but - alas - the ego-Self has been working in the background the whole time.
Do you see how utterly terrifying this is? Absolutely no peace! And what's worse, the ego-Self has allowed us knowledge of its vicious project, as if to taunt us!
Putting all that aside for a moment, I'm not sure if this "dual ego" thing is so crazy after all. This is essentially what Paul was describing when he says, "I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out." He (the God-submitting self) is at war with his sinful nature (the God despising self). Back to the computer analogy, at this point you have two programs competing against each other...
In this sense whatever "we" are is capable of hosting different "selves" - we are essentially hosts capable of executing scripts. Maybe what I'm trying to communicate is that at birth we have both the God-submitting and God-hating script "installed" within us - not just the God hating one.
Still, it's terrifying to think that the God-hating script is essentially non-detectable because it has the power to imitate and look exactly like the other. It's like cancer in this sense, and your body doesn't even recognize it until your dead. So, from whence comes salvation from such a fate, and how are we aware of it?
"'God' has been turned into an idol, he's nothing more than an object that my ego uses to keep me inebriated within my own selfish delusions."
Look around you. On the internet, etc. In blog comboxes especially, lol. Isn't it apparent that this is how so many people are using "God"??
Now, ask yourself, is it really likely that you yourself are exempt from this same principle?
Was Christ's warnings constantly to the Pharisees really just something applying to some first century Jewish sect?? Of course not, it was meant for all of us whitened sepulchres.
"As you mentioned, even all of your discourse about the Self might just be this Self-generated discussion to keep you from actually submitting to God."
Not just "might," but rather almost certainly is.
"So the big question is, how do we actually submit to God?"
Ah, but that's just the thing. "We" never do. Can't you see the self-worship inherent in this very concept, as if there is something YOU can "do" to be saved??
And, of course, that's what the Church has always taught: there is nothing WE can "do" to be saved. God saves us, through grace.
"It seems to me that in this paradigm the Self will never relinquish its control"
It won't. Never of its own accord. Of course not. But one day God's constant effort may drive it to self-destruction.
This is the paradox of the Gospel that true strength is found in weakness. For, of course, it is the weaker wills, the WEAKER selves...that will collapse and so give way to God FIRST, and thus be holier.
Those of us with lots of will power, on the other hand...we go on opposing Him.
"even when you think you are getting 'exhausted,' in reality the Self is just making it seem like you're exhausted, but it's nothing more that a script to keep you from true submission. Oh, sure, you'll think that you have finally given into God, you might even feel a sense of 'freedom' or 'release' but - alas - the ego-Self has been working in the background the whole time."
Right, exactly. Basically, you'll only know when you stop worrying about knowing. Because worrying about knowing...is clearly still my Self being concerned about itself, trying to preserve itself.
But when God sweeps in and utterly destroys me...well, in some ways "you" won't ever know. Because "you'll" be gone, annihilated, a memory cast into Hell. Then God will shine through your true self, and that true self has absolutely no doubts.
But yes, as long as "you" are still asking "How can 'I' know?? Have 'I' submitted yet??"...you can be sure you haven't. Because you can be sure you WON'T ever submit really. Either you'll go to Hell, or God will come in one day and destroy "you" (ie, infused contemplation) and leave the true self in place, transparent and docile to Him and no longer thinking of itself, but only of God and His love.
I suppose you'll "know" when there is no more reference to "I" in your narrative about God. But then, of course, you also won't know, in a sense, because knowing requires saying "I know"...and you (your true self) will not think such things about God or salvation about that point. It will be utterly unconcerned with "I" and totally concerned with Him.
"Do you see how utterly terrifying this is? Absolutely no peace! And what's worse, the ego-Self has allowed us knowledge of its vicious project, as if to taunt us!"
Yup. See, already this Self is in Hell. No peace. Taunting us (which can only mean, then, taunting itself). Absolutely a contradictory mess of meaning. The only way "we"/it can get any peace is for God to deliver his (pun intended) "coup de grace", put a bullet through "our" metaphysical brain (or, really, what He does is drives us to do it ourselves.)
"This is essentially what Paul was describing when he says, 'I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.' He (the God-submitting self) is at war with his sinful nature (the God despising self). Back to the computer analogy, at this point you have two programs competing against each other..."
Right. But the thing I think we come to learn is that the second program isn't really another self (the true self is more like, as you say, the hard-ware)...it's God Himself. We (ie, our true selves; the "hardware") are meant to "run" the program God. But this imitating program "Self" is currently running...
"In this sense whatever "we" are is capable of hosting different "selves" - we are essentially hosts capable of executing scripts. Maybe what I'm trying to communicate is that at birth we have both the God-submitting and God-hating script 'installed' within us - not just the God hating one."
Not at birth, no. At baptism, perhaps, the God-script comes in. But grace is not another self. Grace works behind the scenes to, as it were, "trick" the Self into doing things, objectively good things (like going to mass, going to confession, staying in a state of grace like that)...that are aimed at eventually driving the Self (the bad one) to suicide from the sheer cognitive dissonance of trying to keep up this charade of being good.
"Still, it's terrifying to think that the God-hating script is essentially non-detectable because it has the power to imitate and look exactly like the other."
No. It really looks NOTHING like the other (at least internally). It just imitates what IT THINKS the other looks like.
But the different is utterly apparent in how much the God-hating script is still so much a script about "I" and what "I" do.
Whereas, under grace...we just do. There is no self-attribution to it, no self-narrative giving us the agency, no talk of "me" or "I" except in the external sense.
I'm not advocating Quietism, though. Quietism would suggest that we shouldn't do anything, that all these things I'm saying suggest we should remain totally passive. But that would actually be the most dangerous thing of all, no? Because that would still be the Self trying to ACT "saved" (what it thinks "saved" looks like) by its own powers.
In a certain sense, the truth is that, like predestination, these considerations, logically speaking, shouldn't actually change how we act at all (if we let them, that's just self-fulfilling prophecy, as it were). There whole point is that there is nothing "we" can "do." Grace will do it. If anything, thinking about this stuff just makes the Self more entrenched. It's already happening, though, no? You're feeling that anxiety...
Well, I find this all very fascinating, but your position seems to raise quite some philosophic problems.
First of all, it seems to me that you certainly are advocating Total Depravity here. When you say, "Don't you see, there is nothing WE can do to be saved" you are simply saying that humans are totally depraved and can make no "decision" (because such a decision is a doing) about whether or not they wish to allow one "program" to run over another. There is no "free will" - there is only the humming of our hard drives as the God-script either prevails over the ego-Script or not. So, it seems to me you're operating in rather bad-faith yourself if you profess to ascribe to a Catholic soteriology.
Secondly, this brings up some funky metaphysical problems like, once the 'self' has been destroyed, does it exist in Hell, apart from us? Like a weird shadow self that never pulled a body into hell with it? I mean, what are these egos, anyway? They're not agents, are they? Where do they come from? Who created them?
Thirdly, the issue of prayer is complicated in this paradigm. Why should I pray now? In fact, I probably should not speak to God at all - not out of a sense of "self-righteous" pietism, but simply because I know that all of my words and thoughts are fundamentally corrupt; there is no good in them. The best I can do is to just keep on truckin' and hope that God's script overpowers my ego. As it is now in my life, I want to fall before Christ and beg for mercy and grace; but in your paradigm such a begging renders quite the opposite effect - it simply reinforces my ego-narrative about the God object. I think that totally sucks.
Fourthly, you say, "Can't you see the self-worship inherent in this very concept, as if there is something YOU can "do" to be saved??"
I'm not asking how I can "save myself". I'm asking how I can "submit myself" to God. Submission and salvation are not the same thing, (though one may lead to the other). I'm asking a much simpler question than how I am to keep my soul from burning in hell, I'm simply asking how it is possible to actually bow before the feet of Jesus. In your paradigm, a "bow" is meaningless because we are not bowing to the Risen Christ, but rather an objectified ego-projection of him. Maybe the better question would be, "Where is this Christ, so I may bow to him?" I'm perfectly OK with admitting I do not know where Jesus is located, but I'm not OK with admitting that God would be so cruel as to withhold a North Star so that we - us agents, could take the trek to find Him.
Fifthly, you raise idea that "unless you and I are saints… it is our selves acting". OK, but we know that saints can also sin (proving their egos are still active), and, moreover, many saints speak in the exact same language as the ego-Self; that is, they refer to themselves in relation to God all the time. So how do we recognize a Saint, anyway? They look just like our ego's! What if all the saints in history are really the worst devils of all because they acted the most holy when, in fact, they were still bound by their egos?
Sixthly, A major problem here is that you seem to posit that when God destroys the ego-self, it is a final moment of victory (for a person like a saint) and then it is the God script that runs exclusively henceforth. But consider: Christ asks us to pick up our cross daily, meaning that the destruction of the self is not something that is done in totality; the ego-Script must constantly be submitted to the God-script in a daily "dying to the self". But how is this possible? How can the self die more than once? How is it that the Self seems to "raise from the dead" over and over again, even after it has been riddled with a daily barrage of metaphysical bullets?
[continued...]
[continued...]
Perhaps, as it seems to me, the Self cannot really die until our bodies die with it. The physical body is the host of all of the ego-Scripts' processes, and I don't think it's possible to destroy the ego until the body is destroyed. This is why the resurrection is a triumph for those who have been saved. Our new bodies are capable of completely rejecting the ego-Script, while the damned bodies are completely incapable of accepting the God-script.
But we still haven't answered the question, then, of what the "self" is. The hardware analogy is promising, except that it leads to an acceptance of total depravity (hardware, after all, is not an "agent" - it is simply a construct that can produce agency, and an agency that is from "outside" at that. It's not like we created the software, after all.)
Now, you say that due to God's continual pursuit "Eventually the ego-Script is exhausted" and submits naturally… but here there is no agency involved. First of all, why is there no agency involved? Couldn't we refuse submission to him, and choose instead that we die rather than submit to such an Unholy Creature? If what you're saying is that such a death is precisely what saves us, then you are a universalist. After all, in the end we all die, and doesn't this just leave the God-script to take over our Ego's? Now if you say that God chooses to "take over" some selves rather than others at the moment of death, then we run into a major problem: Individuals have no way of submitting to Christ because, really, the individual doesn't even exist. There is no "individual" to even do a "bowing". Choice has nothing to do with anything - we should simply live our lives and hope (or maybe just not care) whether or not God chooses to replace our ego-Self or not.
Even if it was the case that we eventually give into God out of "sheer exhaustion", I would also add that even when our ego's are exhausted, they can quite easily become rejuvenated by something as modest as, say, a night's sleep (here I want to again stress the connection of the ego and the body). This is why we must daily "pick up our cross".
So this brings me to the question I was getting at before when I asked, "How do we actively submit to God?" Why would Christ ask us to die to ourselves if in reality it is God simply throwing us up on the cross all along? Christ himself proclaims that we humans have agency, and we choose whether or not we pick that cross up. So we're still left with the question, "What does it mean to pick up the cross?" And who is picking it up in the first place?
I feel like these questions can't be answered in this paradigm. Although, I'm going to give a read to that link you posted earlier to try and conceptualize this better. Also, I apologize if this is muddling. I feel a bit disoriented.
Alright - last thought (in a row) here, I promise. In a positive answer instead of just a critique, I think that picking up one's cross means quite simply that, even when we don't "feel" like obeying God, we do it anyway because God has given us the grace to know that such a course of action is "native to our hardware" as it were; we know that obedience to God is natural - and to fight against it is to pervert the natural order of things. I think God's grace is essentially the ability to appreciate the natural order of the universe, and I don't mean that in some kind of artsy-fartsy aesthetic way. I mean that God gives us the ability to love that which is natural and hate that which is unnatural - that is God's grace, and it must be a gift.
Incidentally, this is why we want to reject God; we say things like, "Look, 90% of our achievement as humans is due to the fact that we fight against the natural order of things. Technology, science… even things like art are by no means "natural", whatever that means. Creativity itself stems from the rebellion against God!"
In a lot of ways, I buy into that argument now and again. I can understand why Lucifer did what he did. He yearned to create something for and of himself. He wanted to be original. My ego can't blame him, because that's precisely what my ego wants as well.
So here's what I think it comes down to. When God creates our "operating systems" he created them in a very unique way. We, unlike any other bodily creature, have the capacity to run higher-level scripts; scripts that deal with the realm of ethics, virtue, love, and, above all, meaning. We are meaning makers. The only set-back to this is that meaning-makers have a tendency to make all kinds of meanings, especially lies. We like lies because they seem fresh and exhilarating. We like lies because we think that we have created something new (in reality we have only synthesized what God has already created, making something perverse, but certainly nothing "new"). So, despite the question of agency here, to "pick up the cross" is essentially to, as Paul says, live by the Spirit instead of the Flesh. Once the Spirit has entered us (however that happens) there is a competition between our two natures. So, there are two "natures" in one agent… Is this making sense?
"First of all, it seems to me that you certainly are advocating Total Depravity here."
Not at all. The true self is basically good inasmuch as it hasn't lost the intrinsic ability to run the "God" program. It's this other Sin/Self program that is totally depraved. But, although that's "me" talking...it is not really me.
"humans are totally depraved and can make no 'decision' (because such a decision is a doing) about whether or not they wish to allow one 'program' to run over another."
On the contrary, if the Self program runs, it is entirely attributable to our free will, and we will be held culpable (to the point that if the Self stays in charge, we will be cast into Hell with it.)
This has always been the Catholic teaching: good acts are attributable to grace, but sin entirely to our own free will.
"There is no 'free will' - there is only the humming of our hard drives as the God-script either prevails over the ego-Script or not."
I'm not sure what you think "free will" means. If the ego-script prevails, God cannot be blamed for this. It will be attributable entirely to our free will which, without grace, will be cast into Hell with the evil "program" forever.
We DO have free will exactly because either program is able to run on us. It's the Self-program which really has no free will, because it can only do what it is programed to do. But our "hardware" is free exactly because it is not intrinsically bound to any one program, just like there is "free space" on a disk.
"Secondly, this brings up some funky metaphysical problems like, once the 'self' has been destroyed, does it exist in Hell, apart from us?"
Depends what you mean by Hell. If you mean being separated from God forever, sure. The Meaning of the Self-script is godless, and so in a certain sense is "in Hell" once it is destroyed.
But, as I said before, it doesn't have consciousness (which belongs properly to our true selves)...so it's not like there is actually another PERSON out there in literal Hell.
What happens to a program when it stops running? Does it cease to exist? Well, not exactly, because a program is an ACTION or EVENT happening, not a "thing". So saying it ceases to exist would be like saying walking ceases to exist when people aren't actually walking.
Rather, it is "thrown into Hell" in the same sense that the Book of Revelations speaks of Sin and Death being thrown into the lake of fire. It's not that there's an actual person called Sin or Death. But these "programs", these concepts, these constructs...will be separated from God and from anything/anyone united to God...forever.
"They're not agents, are they?"
In themselves, no. That's just it. They're running on the hard-ware which is our true self, remember. So the consciousness and free will they "use"...is our own. They don't have it on their own (hence the analogy to a [biological] virus). The agency for the bad things the Self does...is entirely the agency of the Person in question.
This is what we need to recognize really. Like I said, it's not some demon (ie, a separate personal reality) with its OWN agency just sort of hijacking us. No, the agency "we"/it uses is OUR agency.
"Where do they come from? Who created them?"
We did. Or, rather, it may not be best to think of them as a positive reality equivalent to the God script. Evil is not a substance, after all, merely the absence of Good.
Rather, the Self-script is sort of like the "default" empty-set that exists when the God-script hasn't filled it up. Ultimately, it's really a lack, a shadow, an emptiness, a void.
"Thirdly, the issue of prayer is complicated in this paradigm. Why should I pray now?"
As I said, I am not advocating quietism.
If "you" choose not to pray because of this, "because I know all my actions are fundamentally corrupt"...that choice is STILL just the Self trying to "play the part", trying to fool itself by acting how it THINKS a good person "should" or "would" act.
But, you see the very problem there: it is still the Self doing something, there is still a notion of attributing goodness or salvation to its/our own choice or power. It's still a mask trying to play the part of righteousness.
Once again, asking "What can I do? How can I escape this?" is simply the WRONG question, totally the wrong idea, exactly because it's still all about "I."
A more proper question (though, it's still problematic that WE are asking it) might be "What can GOD do? How will GOD save me?" But, we don't really need to answer that, do we? It's up to Him, and not really OUR place to worry.
"The best I can do is to just keep on truckin' and hope that God's script overpowers my ego."
Again "best I can do"???
Trust me, I totally sympathize with what you're saying, as I'm in the same boat...but a concern with what "we" "can" "do" good...is totally the wrong focus and perspective (and me saying this, I know, is just the Self play-acting the good-guy still too...)
It's about what GOD can and will do.
"As it is now in my life, I want to fall before Christ and beg for mercy and grace; but in your paradigm such a begging renders quite the opposite effect - it simply reinforces my ego-narrative about the God object. I think that totally sucks."
Doesn't it though? But think about it. The idea of "begging" implies that somehow it was our begging that accomplished the obtaining of grace. But it wasn't, because in truth eve the begging itself would have to be a grace. But grace gives the ultimate causation and agency to God ("shining through" our free will)...so any narrative of the begging that has any notion of it being an act of our agency...is still tainted, no? Our begging can't obtain grace. Christ gives it, and gives it freely, as He wills. And if He gives it for begging, the begging itself must ALREADY be attributed as a grace too.
"I'm not asking how I can 'save myself.' I'm asking how I can 'submit myself' to God."
I really don't think, in traditional Catholic soteriology, "you" can. Because an act of submission must ALREADY be a grace. We cannot merit the first grace. Rather, GOD is the one who submits ourselves to Him.
"I'm simply asking how it is possible to actually bow before the feet of Jesus."
It is possible by God causing us to.
HE initiates.
I think John Donne understood something of this when he wrote his famous poem:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173362
"In your paradigm, a 'bow' is meaningless because we are not bowing to the Risen Christ, but rather an objectified ego-projection of him."
If we are the ones doing the bowing, yes. The bow is only good if it is already God "bowing us" or bowing "in" us, as it were.
"I'm not OK with admitting that God would be so cruel as to withhold a North Star so that we - us agents, could take the trek to find Him."
No no no. That's just the problem. We can't trek to God. God comes to us.
"we know that saints can also sin (proving their egos are still active), and, moreover, many saints speak in the exact same language as the ego-Self; that is, they refer to themselves in relation to God all the time."
Depends what you mean. I'm not saying it's wrong to say, "I went down to the grocery store." This is what I meant by an "external" reference, and it's just common sense. I don't have to say, "God-in-me took my body down to the grocery store."
But when it comes to internal attribution, I'm pretty sure the writings of the Saints (when they're trying to be precise about this) always always give the agency to God for all their good works.
"So how do we recognize a Saint, anyway? They look just like our ego's! What if all the saints in history are really the worst devils of all because they acted the most holy when, in fact, they were still bound by their egos?"
There's this story:
http://www.danielmitsui.com/hieronymus/index.blog/1531473/funeral-of-raymond-diocres/
This is generally why the Church requires miracles for Saints, no?
Of course, you will also "Know them by their fruits" usually. The Self is actually quite terrible at imitating what true holiness looks like (the only people it fools are others like it.)
"A major problem here is that you seem to posit that when God destroys the ego-self, it is a final moment of victory (for a person like a saint) and then it is the God script that runs exclusively henceforth."
Well, the idealized description of the progression obviously is more like a template that applies to every day, every year, our whole lives.
Like I said, the Self is more like a void, so it's always potentially "there" inasmuch as all it takes to be there is the ABSENCE of God or grace.
Filling a cup vanquishes the emptiness. But isn't the emptiness always sort of potential in the very shape of the vessel?
I agree with our host and not with Tumarion about apostasy under pressure. However, I disagree with out host in his treating of apostasy under pressure and submission to rape as equivalent. Isn't "someone physically forces your body against all resistance" what rape is? I always assumed St. Maria's killer could have overpowered her in that way if he had wanted to, but he became exasperated by her fierce (but ultimately futile if he had not changed plans) resistance and decided to kill her instead.
I don't know about the case of St. Maria Goretti herself, but the main hypothetical this discussion started around was: if someone put a gun to your head.
Clearly, that isn't quite the same as physically forcing the against all possible resistance body.
I was ignoring the discussion and focusing on the original post.
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