Grace and Free Will: A Thomist Double-Standard?

The question of grace and free-will is one of the thorniest in theology. How are we to affirm that every good act of the human will is a grace from God (God being the only possible cause for goodness in something, of course) without either slipping into Pelagianism or Semi-Pelagianism, and yet without turning God into either the author of sin in a Calvinist way? Exploring the history of this debate in the Church and trying to wrap ones head around these questions is daunting to say the least, and has left many a theologian feeling like he was running in circles.

I've discussed this question in a few posts before. Most recently, I think, was when I was explaining the correct sense of Cardinal George's statement that "God loves some more than others." This statement is no doubt true in a very real sense, as God's love is the cause of goodness in things, things are only "good" inasmuch as He wills them to be, and so the very fact that some people have more goodness than others...means by definition He loves them more in one sense. I will quote Aquinas again on this point, which it is essential to believe in order to properly understand the metaphysical relation of God to the concept of goodness:

Since to love a thing is to will it good, in a twofold way anything may be loved more, or less. In one way on the part of the act of the will itself, which is more or less intense. In this way God does not love some things more than others, because He loves all things by an act of the will that is one, simple, and always the same. In another way on the part of the good itself that a person wills for the beloved. In this way we are said to love that one more than another, for whom we will a greater good, though our will is not more intense. In this way we must needs say that God loves some things more than others. For since God's love is the cause of goodness in things, as has been said, no one thing would be better than another, if God did not will greater good for one than for another.

No orthodox person who really understands the issue disputes this. The "debate" is really over why God loves some more than others. Is it pure gratuitous whim on His part? After all, He doesn't have to love anything in any particular way anymore than He has to create any specific thing (which means, after all, to love it in the sense of willing it the good of existence). Or, is there some way in which consideration of human free will can play a more substantial role in determining to whom God gives which or how much grace (yet without positing anything Pelagian like a good act independent of or prior to God's willing it first)? The Church has allowed this question to remain discussed for centuries and never definitively favored any of the tolerated schools.

I've discussed this before in relation to the solution that I have found most appealing for a long time, the one proposed by Fr. William Most. However, discussions I had in the comments section of that post, as well as discussions I had elsewhere with strict Thomists on the issue afterward...gave me some pause and made me wonder whether that solution really actually solves anything, for reasons of an objection I will summarize below.

And so for a while I doubted my preferred solution and was sympathetic to erring on the side of speaking in the language of strict Thomism, at least (even if something felt a little too "Calvinist" in it, and I really thought that it must simply be expressing a sort of chicken-and-the-egg mystery). However, another blog post recently made me realize that there is sort of a double-standard inherent in the objection Thomists were making to the Fr. Most solution to this predestination question.

The strict Thomist opinion (though I'm not entirely convinced it is what Aquinas himself had in mind when he was writing) certainly has a robust and internally consistent theology of grace and free will that avoids any sort of Pelagianism, but to many of us it can seem to make God's decision just a little too arbitrary, can seem like it turns "free will" and "sufficient" grace into just a sort of ontological legal fiction by which God is able to exculpate Himself from active causation from sin through how He defines the terms of secondary causes.

And yet, if He arbitrarily doesn't stop sin some cases, by not granting the grace of non-sinning that we all need to not sin, isn't that sort of a cheat, sort of a passive causation given that He's also the one who designed the system to work in such a way that sin is the "default" if He doesn't actively provide grace?

The answer is actually, technically, no, not in any coherent understanding of causation and intent (in fact, the allowance for NFP hinges in part on this important distinction regarding active causation vs. permissive will, though it's different here given that God set the conditions in the first place too). And yet, often a technicality is all this seems to be when it comes to our gut reactions to it. There is still a sense in which God's non-giving would seem to "lead to" sin inevitably (even if we can't call it an active "cause") given how He made the requirement about needing His giving to not sin, and could give, and yet then didn't. It seems like stacking the deck; the person never even had a fair shot, and "blaming" it on their free will (even though God was the one who made that free will in the first place in such a way that it could do no good without His grace) like sort of a legal loophole for God.

On the other hand, of course, that's just the problem with the non-Thomist schools: how can non-sinning be anything other than a grace? If we are to avoid Pelagianism or Semi-Pelagianism, then a notion of free will that says "some people chose to reject grace, and that's why they didn't get it" is problematic. It's true in a sense, to be sure. But the other people's choice not to resist grace like that...must itself be a grace, and the people who chose to reject grace obviously weren't given that grace of a choice of non-rejection, and why not? So we're back to where we started.

And so, the "best" solution I've seen is something along the lines of Fr. William Most redefining the problem so that sin is not the "default" (which indeed would seem to make God look like a real jerk if He arbitrarily left people in that default, even if that's technically a "passive" non-choice, given that He's the one who set the default in the first place.) Or, rather, defining the "sufficient grace" that is given to everyone to mean that a good choice is made the default (through that grace).

In other words, shifting the burden of active choice (or passive non-choice) from God to man. Non-resistance, rather than sin, now becomes the default requiring no further causation from God (and yet is still attributable only to grace), and so sin can be attributed only to man's making an additional active choice to reject (and no longer relies in any sense on God's non-making of a choice to give grace for some).

Of course, the Thomists would object, that solves nothing as the other people not making such an active choice must itself be a grace (and one that that the people who do actively reject obviously did not get). However, I think that the solution to such an objection would have something to do with the fact that in such a scenario goodness has already been made the "default" by way of the sufficient grace, and so such non-sin would not necessarily require explanation by any additional cause, because it is not an additional active choice (though the sin is).

And this is where I see a certain double-standard here: the objections to this theory I have seen all rely on insisting that a spontaneous evil free choice on the part of the sinners implies that a corresponding additional grace of not doing that has been given to the saints, distinct from the "default" non-resistance of the proposed sufficient grace. However, this notion of causation, inasmuch as it parses continued non-choice as a sort of good choice in-itself requiring an additional cause...seems to go against the very notions of passive non-choice that they use to excuse God not giving grace to everyone in their theory!

In the Thomist scenario, God choosing to give efficacious grace (only) to some is not taken to be an active willing of the (nevertheless then inevitable) sin of the others, anymore than me giving alms to one beggar should be interpreted as me actively or positively willing the poverty of the others. True enough, and it remains true technically even if I could give to the others but simply don't (my giving being gratuitous in the first place).

But. If that passive non-choice on God's part is recognized as a sort of metaphysical zero in such cases (ie, the choice to grace some is not equivalent an active or positive choice not to grace the others, even if that is the practical effect)...then why should a similar non-choice be interpreted as an active act requiring an additional cause/grace when it is human wills in question? Why would not positively choosing to actively work against the "default" be a metaphysical zero with God when it comes to giving grace to prevent sin, but then something requiring additional explanation with humans? Why can non-choice be written off as totally non-causal on God's part, a mere negative, but then construed as something substantial, a positive reality requiring an additional intervention, when it comes to us? It seems like two different metaphysics of causation and choice suddenly.

As such, I'm back to being convinced of Fr. Most's explanation. It is not that God arbitrarily doesn't-give (albeit that would "only" be a non-choice) efficacious grace to some, leaving them (albeit in a "passive" and "negative" sense, not an active causation) to sin by default (which really does seem to me to make talk of "sufficient" grace and "free" will into technicalities). Rather, in His universal salvific will (which thus has a very real sense), He gives sufficient grace to everyone, making good (and not sin) our default. If some people then spontaneously actively resist (as are truly free to do), that is on them, their freedom alone is the inscrutable and irreducible explanation for it (just as God's will is the inscrutable explanation for "Why these?" in the Thomist theory).

But for the rest, their non-resistance requires no additional cause or grace or explanation as it is non-act (just as God's non-act of giving to the sinners is not a positive reality; "Why these?" can be answered, but "Why not those?" is asking an explanation for a negative, which is erroneous; my choice is do what I do, it would be absurd to think of it as a positive choice to not do every other conceivable thing possible), and so the original "default" carries them through to a good act; efficacious grace, then, is sufficient grace non-resisted rather than something substantially distinct.

Of course, I may be making a distinction where there is none. Perhaps there is nothing mutually exclusive about what I'm saying and a Thomist position, really. Perhaps answering, "Why did God give grace to these?" with "His will alone," and answering "Why did these choose to sin," and answering, "Their will alone," while at the same time recognizing that asking "Why didn't God give grace to those?" and "Why didn't those choose to sin?" is impossibly asking the causes of negatives...are really just saying the same thing looking at it from two different directions or perspectives. As either way it comes down to this: our good choices can only be attributed to God's sheer grace, our bad acts can only be attributed to our own free choice. It feels rather Eckhartian to me, but perhaps God's freedom and our freedom are in some sense just two sides of the same coin, the limit of each being only each other.

Squeamishness

I once did a post exploring the hypothetical of industrializing production of human breast milk for sale, either for babies themselves (or even for adults!) The post ended up discussing the phenomenon that, even though I can't find anything intrinsically ethically wrong or immoral with the idea (wet-nurses have always existed, people sell their hair for wigs, etc) there is something that "feels wrong" about it. But on the other hand, maybe that's just squeamishness.

I just came across another article that raises related, but also very different, issues for me. This article suggests that soon enough meat (and other sorts of animal products) will be grown from animal stem-cells in laboratories rather than having to actually raise a whole animal and then slaughter it (and waste the unuseable parts, etc). That this will both solve the objections of vegans and vegetarians and animal rights folks (since there was never a whole living animal alive and killed in the first place) and also make meat-eating much more sustainable for mankind, as we won't need to waste all that land and water and grain on feeding the livestock (the proportions of which truly are unjust and unsustainable: the grain that could feed 16 people creates enough meat to feed only 1).

However, there is something a bit icky seeming about this, no? I mean just based on the sheer artificiality of it. And yet, if they made it absolutely indistinguishable, would any of us care? We wouldn't even be able to tell.

On the other hand, to do a reductio ad absurdum thought experiment...what if we used human adult stem-cells to grow human meat (never part of a living person, mind you)? Surely this couldn't be good? And yet, no one would object to swallowing a hang-nail, which is a little piece of your own skin, after all...so how would this be different in nature rather than merely degree? Still, the commodification of something human seems so wrong, even if we didn't eat it, even prior to the natural revulsion/taboo against consuming human flesh. And yet, as I think back to my breast-milk question...wet-nurses have long sold their breast-milk, as it were, and people have often grown out their hair to sell it for wigs, so maybe it's just the thought of living tissue that makes us squeamish? And, no one is objecting to adult-stem-cells used to grow new organs to implant to save lives.

Of course, no one is actually proposing using this process to popularize cannibalism, but rather to deal with animal meat. And squeamishness is relative, I suppose: is the idea of lab-grown "humane" meat really any less disgusting than the fact that, currently, eating meat involves violently excising bloody muscle from the corpse of an enslaved animal? And yet, I still love eating meat...

Personhood?

The so-called "Personhood Amendment" recently failed to pass in Mississippi, though the referendum was quite close.

I support the intent of such amendments. Pro-choice folk (even and even some "moderate" pro-lifers now, whatever that means) are calling such an amendment extreme, granting full legal protection to all fertilized eggs as persons under the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment and such. Of course, if you do believe life begins at conception, then its homicide regardless of the circumstances (rape or, they always add as a scare-tactic, "incest"...even though that's redundant as the incest in question is almost certainly already rape) and even in things like IVF and certain forms of "contraception" which work by preventing implantation of already fertilized ova.

Now, human life clearly begins at conception; there is a unique living organism there of the species Homo Sapiens with separate DNA from either the mother or father, and it's growing into a baby. As such, abortion is at least virtual homicide.

However, the idea that personhood (in the sense of rational ensoulment) begins at conception is a separate question, and one not actually binding on Catholics. I am frankly rather agnostic on the question.

On the one hand, I am inclined to sympathize with Cardinal Ratzinger when he said in Donum Vitae, "the conclusions of science regarding the human embryo provide a valuable indication for discerning by the use of reason a personal presence at the moment of this first appearance of a human life: how could a human individual not be a human person?" Though the document recognizes, "The Magisterium has not expressly committed itself to an affirmation of a philosophical nature, but it constantly reaffirms the moral condemnation of any kind of procured abortion. This teaching has not been changed and is unchangeable."

I am likewise sympathetic to the argument from potential/finality something along the lines of: "Though as miniscule as the dot of a pen, a unicellular human organism is an individual substance with the substrata of rationality there in place, ready to evolve into the complexity of a human brain and related organs. Since every stage of hominization is a needed building block integral to ongoing growth, ensouled personhood [...] begins at the very beginning of a uniquely individual identity with inherent human potential."

However, of course, there are arguments against this too. For one, the mainstream philosophical assumption of the Church for centuries was that ensoulment happened later than physical conception, that it happened at "quickening," or at 40 days for a boy and 80 days for a girl, because the embryo had to first pass through stages with just a "vegetative" soul and then a purely "animal" soul before receiving a rational soul.

And while a distinction between male and female fetuses now seems ridiculously, and while something as cut-and-dry as "40 days" seems absurd, in some ways it does seem counter-intuitive (or like a mere abstract philosophical proposition, however true it may be) to think that a clump of cells has a rational nature, or that a little fish-looking thing has anything more than an animal nature at that point. Before it starts looking like a baby, before it has a brain even, telling people that consciousness-of-nothing is different than not being conscious (as true as that may be) can seem rather metaphysical and detached from anything concrete. It's hard for people to think of something microscopic with no face or even feelings as human when even animals have those things.

I am also given pause by the enormous number of spontaneous abortions that apparently happen within the first few weeks of pregnancy (before it can even be detected). What are we to think of the fate of all these children in a world where the only means of salvation (that God has Publicly Revealed, at least) is baptism? Does it make sense to imagine that most of the human race never really has a human life, never even develops a brain or senses or even knows another human being?

And yet, I come back to, "how could a human individual not be a human person?" I'm not sure Aristotle or Aquinas were right that "progressive ensoulment" makes any sense. Why should rational nature only come after a certain (but still very minimal) stage of brain or bodily development? Isn't it the already rational form of the human substance that makes it tend toward developing that in the first place (whatever material impediments may arise to its fulfillment?)

Still, I will make two points: one, either way it is better to err on the side of caution. Since there are problems with any other "line" we might draw, fertilization is still where we must err. Second, even if ensoulment were concluded to occur at a later point, this is an abstract theological question that does not change the sinfulness of abortion nor the need to protect all human life on the civil level. Human life is sacred, a human individual would be sacred even if it were somehow not an ensouled person. Abortion would remain [virtual] homicide equal in gravity to any murder either way (and this was the constant attitude of the Church even when ensoulment-at-a-later-date was the mainstream assumption).

But even beyond the realm of immorality, in the realm of ethics and rights, it will be noted that the civil law's protection of human individuals, human lives, is not dependent on some theological notion of ensoulment. Even officially atheist communist countries punished murder and recognized a general imperative of the State to protect people from violence. The State's imperative to stop homicides is not dependent on some notion of human beings having a soul; even officially atheist States that do not believe in souls recognize such a natural imperative to protect life.

An appeal against abortion dependent on the existence of a soul is not necessarily the best argument to use with people who don't believe in souls for anyone in the first place, and though we probably have bigger fish to fry with such people, it is still not impossible to tell them that abortion should be illegal for the same reason killing they themselves should be illegal (unless they are so disgustingly nihilistic or materialistically utilitarian that they don't even have an absolute opposition to that).

Western Rite

Nice to see. Someday maybe in the real Church...

That they did Lauds beforehand is a nice touch. Nevertheless, there are still a few things I'd be inclined to modify. Besides the fact that I'd like a Solemn Mass of course (maybe they just didn't have the ministers), I still generally have this aversion to "singing over" things in liturgy (especially with non-liturgical hymns or instrumental motets), and would rather have things like the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar, the Offertory, and the Last Gospel read aloud (even if they did start as "private devotional" prayers of the priest). I've said before that I'd be inclined to have actual Entrance, Gospel, and Offertory processions with the appropriate antiphons instead.

And it is odd to me that they'd sing the Kyrie in Greek and the Ite Missa Est in Latin, but then keep the Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, (and, I assume, though the video skips from the elevation of the host to the people's communion, the Agnus Dei) in English. I'd think these Ordinary chants (along with the Pater Noster, the Ordinary dialogue parts, and certainly the silent Canon itself) could be kept in Latin as a nod to tradition, even if I think we should put the Propers and those "priest's devotional" parts in the vernacular. I think that would be the best balance.

Baptists, Alcohol, and Catholic Barbecues

I was thinking again about the post I did recently on the difficult question of attendance at invalid or unnatural weddings or unions (outside the Church; ones done disobediently under a co-opted banner of alleged Catholicism, ala Rent-A-Priest, are an even pricklier question).

This is not at all just a theoretical question, but one of (increasingly) practical import in our modern world. People in my generation, at least, especially if we run in circles which are intellectual and diverse (as all the best people do!)...are likely to receive an invitation to a gay union/"marriage" at some point in our lives, just like many of you probably attended at least a couple bar mitvahs in your day (though I never did...) And certainly my parent's generation began very quickly being faced with lapsed Catholics marrying outside the Church, or with non-Catholic friends remarrying after divorce, etc.

My basic conclusion in that post was that there is a difference between tolerance and approval that would seem to allow attendance (with mental reservation) at such ceremonies. That, just as it isn't the Church's job to try to institutionalize Gospel values on the rest of society, on non-believers, in the political sphere, it also isn't our job in our personal lives to "impose" our framework on outsiders in this sort of practical way ("punishing" them by not attending their wedding for example). We can and should share our beliefs in a charitable manner, of course, but there is a way to do that while still respecting theirs.

It is a bizarre putting of the cart before the horse to hold them to our moral standards if they haven't even embraced our moral system (yet), or to think that it is "scandal" to attend an invalid wedding for people who don't even share our paradigm of morality in the first place (and thus, I would think, can't possibly be scandalized relative to it internally). As I said in my first post, if I attend a Unitarian Gay Marriage and am more concerned with the fact that it's gay rather than the fact that it's Unitarian...I really need to reconsider my motives and priorities; that's focusing on a tree while hypocritically ignoring the forest. It seems to me utterly absurd to expect two Protestants in a divorce-and-remarriage situation to approach the Catholic Church for an annulment; they're not Catholic, why would they do that? It would make no sense, so why should it be the hypothetical criterion for whether we should attend their wedding or not?

At the same time, I meant to emphasize, this doesn't mean reducing our moral doctrines to "mere" disciplines (like not eating meat on Fridays or something like that) as if they are not universal or objective or absolute. A temptation of a few friends of mine, I've noticed recently, has been to shy away from fully embracing Catholic morality theoretically, while still following it practically as something like a personal devotion. Trying to couch it as "merely" a "personal calling" or "personal commitment" for themselves, or as something only applying to practicing Catholics (like the Sunday Mass obligation, etc), but stopping short of saying that it (theoretically) applies to everyone as part of the natural law. In order to not offend friends or whatever.

However, this is well-intentioned but misguided, as there is a happy medium! It is not acceptable to view Catholic moral teaching merely as a personal calling or as a sort of ecclesial discipline or tradition; if you don't admit something is a sin (or view the sin as only that of falling short of a personal calling or commitment), you can't repent of it as needed. If you're willing to admit a category of action is truly sinful, however, then that means it is sinful for everyone objectively, not merely "wrong for me personally."

But. We can hold something is objectively immoral according our beliefs without imposing it on others who do not hold our framework. And while such a "live and let live" attitude does not work when it is a question of ethics, of someone's rights being violated (say, the right to life), when there is a victim who needs us to defend them...when it is "only" a question of morality, of "merely" personal virtue, it is very possible to respect someone's different beliefs (or behaviors according to those beliefs) while still believing that they are objectively wrong.

If we had to make a scene and avoid people over all their sins or heresies, evangelization would become impossible, as no one would be able to be friends with anyone outside their own cult. Rather, it is possible to respect people's beliefs while believing they are wrong, and it is even possible (and probably even spiritually healthy!) to take an attitude of "What they do is none of my business as long as they don't force me to participate. My concern is my soul and my relationship with God, and I know what what my conscience says not to do. Their conscience and their relationship with God is between Him and them, I'm not going to even going to speculate on it or try to place it in my framework. All I can do is be a good example of Christian cheer and share my beliefs charitably, in a non-pushy fashion, when appropriate." (This is similar to the question of hope vs. presumption when it comes to the non-water-baptized, I think.)

As for how all this affects attending weddings, I thought of an analogy (which puts us on the "other end" of things) that I think helps elucidate why it can be okay and what attitude we should take:

A Catholic man invites his strict Baptist neighbor to a barbecue. Being a Catholic BBQ, of course, there will be plenty of alcohol, yet the Baptist is a strict teetotaler (and not merely as a "personal life-choice" as it once was for me, but truly because he believes drinking is a damnable sin).

Yet, surely, the Baptist can attend and simply not drink himself. Surely that's enough. There is no need for him to "protest" the drinking of us Catholics, whose own system doesn't forbid it. And surely we'd feel that if he insisted on "punishing" our drinking (rather than merely not drinking himself) by skipping the barbecue altogether, he'd be being unreasonable, that would seem a sort of haughty attempt to impose his beliefs on us (not positively through actively trying to stop us, but negatively through refusing even passive toleration by his presence.)

And yet, surely, people who believe drinking is wrong attend parties where drinking is present (even "the main event") all the time, and simply choose to personally abstain according to their own conscience, yet without being a jerk about it. We understand the strict Baptist's non-drinking is because he thinks it is objectively immoral. I suppose we also realize, if we think about it, that he must think we're doing a terrible thing. And yet if he attends and is friendly nevertheless, we're not going to mind or try to force him to engage in what goes against his conscience (and I'm sure, in turn, he recognizes that in the subjective forum it doesn't go against ours, even if he thinks it is objectively wrong and that our conscience is malformed in this regard). It is possible to respect each other's beliefs like this while still holding them firmly.

And speaking of BBQ, I'm reminded of an episode of The Simpsons regarding the dilemma that vegetarians or vegans face in this regard living in a meat-eating world that I think sums up my own feelings on the matter, especially the conflict Lisa gets in with Homer over the question, and the conversation between Lisa and Apu (and Paul and Linda McCartney) near the end. Actually, in this case the attitude goes beyond even what I'm recommending, as Apu clearly sees this as a matter not only of personal morals, but of ethics (ie, the animals' rights are being violated from his perspective) yet he realizes he can't do much to stop it except influencing people subtly rather than than driving them away:



Lisa: When will all those fools learn that you can be perfectly healthy simply eating vegetables, fruits, grains and cheese??
Apu: Oh, cheese!
Lisa: You don't eat cheese, Apu?
Apu: No! I don't eat any food that comes from an animal!
Lisa: Ohh, then you must think I'm a monster...
Apu: Yes indeed I do think that. But, I learned long ago Lisa to tolerate others rather than forcing my beliefs on them. You know you can influence people without badgering them always. It's like Paul's song, "Live and Let Live."
Paul: Actually, it was "Live and Let Die"...

Reminder: Social Credit!

I was at Occupy Toronto today and thought it might be a good venue for someone to "evangelize" a bit for Social Credit there. Of course, in Canada there really was a Social Credit party once, it moved farther and farther away from ever actually implementing social credit monetary policy (while nevertheless remaining associated with anti-semitism), and though it even maintained a majority government in Alberta for decades apparently, finally sort of fizzled out. This historical "baggage" might have to be addressed (or avoided by not using the word "Social Credit") so as to not be seen as pushing something "discredited" (sort of a pun I guess).

I encourage everyone to brush up on the theory of social credit by reading my post that I linked to above, or the 10 simple lessons at the website of the Pilgrims of St. Michael who promote the ideas of social credit as the best concrete comprehensive fulfillment of Catholic Social Teaching (only the first 6 lessons are really important for understanding the system itself). Certainly the recent call by the Vatican (lambasted by the evil neocons) for a World Central Bank resonates with me through social credit, as the only way to really get rid of inequality in the world is for the distribution of new credit (to represent new production) in the form of the social dividend...to be global. Implementing social credit domestically in one country could be a start, but without all mankind being equally entitled to the same dividend, problems will remain.

Given that my last post on this was so long, I'm using this one to basically try to narrow down my "talking points" on Social Credit. I think they'd come down to: money is just a symbol, what is physically possible in this age of abundance should be made financially possible, A cannot purchase A+B, creating money as debt is the modern incarnation of usury, the purpose of the production system is to maximize the efficiency of production while any connection to distribution is accidental, therefore the idea of income being bootstrapped to employment is outmoded, and we all have a right to credit as co-heirs of mankind's advancement and the natural resources God sends us which in one sense belong to no one individually.

First, the most important thing to remember is what money is: a signifier only. It is unnatural for the means of exchange to become essentially a commodity in itself (even if sometimes the sale is couched under more abstract concepts like "risk" or "time"). This is a thread I am noticing in terms of the nature of sin, especially in the modern world, and Catholicism's approach to morality: the concept of the signifier emptied of substance, of the fetishized signifier. Certainly, in unchastity, the masturbatory/contraceptive sexual pleasure has this dynamic, and so too it seems to be operative in the moral problems with how people treat money.

Money is not wealth; wealth is goods and services, money only has any meaning or value inasmuch as it signifies these, is only ultimately desirable because of these (though that certainly doesn't mean that you can only desire money with the explicit intent of buying a specific good in mind; that's not necessary anymore than every marital act explicitly intending a conception...in either case the important thing is that the will is ordered towards the transcendent good, even if only in potentia, rather than making the money or pleasure the end-in-itself).

This reflection on the nature of money raises two issues which should be touched upon in turn: the question of goods and services, and the question of where money comes from. In other words, we need to consider production and then distribution as the two important facets in economic life.

When it comes to production, it must be emphasized that we live in an age of abundance. Though there is some naysaying regarding a looming scarcity of energy (oil specifically), or of arable land for food production, or of certain species of timber or fish threatened by over-logging or over-fishing, the truth is that our production capacity is higher than ever, and has not suddenly decreased for any reason. This only stands to reason: capital generally increases. The population has been increasing, so there is no shortage of labor. Factories and machines, once built, don't just go away. Technological progress is cumulative, and so every year we are more and more advanced, and more and more efficient at producing.

The recent crisis was entirely "financial." There was no sudden crisis of production capacity. Labor did not suddenly die off in some plague. Machines and factories did not burn to the ground. Food was not destroyed in horrible locust attacks. Pollution (while a real problem) did not suddenly make all sorts of farmland unusable. We did not suddenly run out of metal or stone or wood or plastic. Nor was there suddenly a tipping point where a bunch of people were born all at once and suddenly we outstripped our production capacity. If anything, abundance is the problem; a lot less than 100% of the population is now able to produce everything needed (and even, within reason, wanted) by the entire population. This shouldn't be a problem, in fact it is absurd to view this as anything less than a triumph of human ingenuity, and yet because of how we have bootstrapped distribution to participation in production (the problem of "unemployment") it is a problem.

When machines replace workers...this shouldn't be seen as problematic! It should be seen as liberating. If a machine is more efficient at doing the job of a worker, can produce more, that's great! There is no reason to limit production for reasons of distribution or finance. Production capacity should work at maximum at all times, and the financial/distribution system should be tailored to this situation. The current problem is, as I mentioned above, that distribution has been bootstrapped to employment, to participation in production. So, suddenly, if a machine replaces a worker, he sees it as a bad thing; he no longer has a job, and the money that would formerly have gone to his wages now goes to the owner of the machine (some fat-cat capitalist, who owns the capital.)

Of course, the final extreme outcome we can imagine of this situation proves it's absurdity: finally, "the 1%" eventually replace all labor with machines, and then just keep the produce of those machines for themselves, and leave the rest of us as "surplus population." Perhaps we imagine the government taxing "the 1%" at exorbitant rates in order to re-distribute goods to the rest of us (making us dependent on the State in a servile fashion). Or perhaps we really know some massive revolution would happen to distribute capital to everyone in the fashion of land re-distribution schemes in Latin America and such.

However, there should never be a need to re-distribute wealth; it should be distributed correctly in the first place! Any distribution system that is dependent on constant "correction" or "adjustment" in the form of "re-distribution"...obviously has serious problems. It clearly needs to be changed to distribute correctly the first time around, rather than needing to re-distrubute through some sort of coercive force (be it of the State through taxation, or a less orderly revolution).

In reality, we are faced with a "problem" that shouldn't be a problem at all: technology is making it so that (even though our population has reached 7 billion and will continue growing to at least several billion more before peaking) we simply do not need "full employment" to produce everything. Technology is meant to free man from labor, and it's doing just that...and this is seen as a problem. Because we have tied distribution to participation in production, to "employment," or else to owning the capital, the means of production, and thus taking in the income when the goods are sold. But this is clearly becoming outmoded.

This brings us around to the second issue I said that the reflection on the nature of money raises, which is how money is created. Under our current system, money is created as debt. Banks are authorized to lend money into existence (they do not lend from deposits as people imagine, even if certain reserve requirements may create a vague link between how much new money a bank can loan into existence and how much they have on deposit.) Money in our current system is created privately, money is just credit after all.

This, however, is the source of the inequality. The truth is, even if we redistributed all the capital in some great revolution tomorrow, I would bet that within a generation or two, the inequality would be right back at the levels it's at. There is a natural inequality among human beings in terms of their financial cleverness (moral/ethical or not) and you can be sure that redistributed capital would not stay redistributed evenly for long.

Communism tries to solve this problem by nationalizing the capital. The State owns everything, the collective owns everything. Everyone owns the means of production, and so everyone gets a share of the production. Sounds good on paper. But of course, we've seen how such a State monopoly on capital actually works in communism: a lack of competition and actual investment by people in their work (for lack of incentive) leads to a massive inefficient bureaucracy and generally low quality.

In reality, ownership of the means of production is not where the problem lies. That inequality would even itself out naturally soon enough. The real problem lies in the ownership of the means of production of the means of distribution. In other words, the power of money-creation. Private bankers authorized to loan money into existence as credit in a way private individuals can't.

And then, of course, they charge interest on this money. This is the usury the Church was vocal for so long in condemning (and still does, though certain voices have bullied the hierarchy into retreating into a sort of embarrassed silence on this question.) It is one thing to invest in a venture and to share in the risk, to get your share of the profit when it succeeds and to take the loss when you fail. It is quite another to expect repayment beyond the initial loan regardless of whether the venture succeeds or not, to share in none of the risk and yet maintain a title to more than you put in. Now, there can be legitimate reasons even for this, there is after all "opportunity cost"; if you choose to loan to me, you lose the ability to invest in anyone else during that time (a situation much less true in the Middle Ages, hence why basically any lending was usury back then). A fair market rate of interest could be determined from this principle, based on how much investments on average are returning, and taking an interest-rate on non-investment loans equal to this. However, this assumes lending from money you already have.

In the current system, this is not what banks do. They are not lending from money that exists, they are creating credit. They are thus expecting interest to be paid on something that wouldn't even exist unless the loan had been taken in the first place. There is literally no real risk in default for the bank (as what was not paid out was created out of thin air in the first place), and no opportunity cost (as they couldn't have used the money until it was created in the form of the debt anyway). To expect repayment beyond the principal, then, is to set up a sort of rat race (as this video describes). Since banks only create the principal in our money supply, where does the interest come from? Either people default, or the banks continually get back the money they create. Either way, its a confidence scheme that involves bankers potentially getting an ever greater proportion of the money.

This might not be a problem if this was truly equally distributed to those holding savings accounts as interest (and if everyone in the country had a savings account). In reality, however, the interest given in savings accounts is only a token amount compared to what the financial sector as a whole amasses through its scheme. Most of the profit is actually put into the abstract "casino" of financial markets, whose operations are too complicated for common folk to even begin to understand and which stack numbers on illusions on paper on dreams. The result is "the 1%" getting more and more money through their ability to create money (and the fact that they've hidden it through an elaborate system of credit that confuses most people).

Social Credit's solution, then, is simple. Some now are saying that the problem is that the Federal Reserve system has a monopoly on the credit (in the US) and that if the "money market" were a free market, everything would work out. Social Credit, however, proposes that the creation of credit should, in fact, be nationalized. "What is physically possible should be made financially possible" is a motto. Social Credit's basic proposal is to have a national credit office essentially just keep the money supply balanced proportionately to total real wealth. And since real wealth is always increasing, the money supply should keep increasing (at a proportionate rate that thus avoids any inflation or deflation). This new money, to represent the new production, would then be distributed equally to all members of the populace as a social dividend and a general rebate on all goods. Everything else would remain the same. The competition of the free market would remain in place. Workers would still get wages, producers would still get paid for the goods they sold, etc.

The money supply always must increase to represent the new wealth. Companies only make goods with profit in mind. But the prices will always be higher than purchasing power! Just consider: if a company pays $90 dollars (in wagers, or in buying capital or raw materials, all of which eventually winds up as someone's income) to produce a product, but then the equilibrium price for that product is $100 dollars...where does the extra ten dollars come from in the economy?? If the economy as a whole spends $9 million to produce $12 million worth of goods (and the goal is always to turn a smaller investment into a bigger profit through the addition of human effort)...there will only be $9 million of purchasing power out there, but $12 million in prices. Currently, this "gap" is made up by credit. The new money is loaned into existence on credit cards or mortgages, etc. This is not "living beyond our means," the very fact that the goods exist prove that they are, in fact, "within our means." The problem is that the loans are expected to be repaid, and repaid at interest at that.

Social Credit proposes that the government should simply create the new money to fill the purchasing power gap, to represent the new wealth, debt-free...and then distribute it to the citizens. It's so simple.

Some nowadays are calling for a return to the gold standard, but that's silly. There is no need to tie money to any one commodity. It should represent the available wealth as a whole. Gold may or may not be a good indicator of how much economic growth has taken place. It's much more direct to just base the increase in money supply on total GDP, and this could be just as transparent and inflation-resistant (as it is not hard to independently calculate GDP with reasonable accuracy to prevent the government from simply "printing money" in a manner that leads to inflation; in fact, obviously, the comedic tragedy of hyper-inflation only results because of debt).

This is the basic message of social credit: increase the money supply debt-free in proportion to the increase in wealth each year. Close the purchasing power gap by simply creating this money without interest, and distribute it equally to the population, or else spend some of it on the public works/services rather than taxing. As we have a right to this credit as the "co-heirs" to the enormous capital which is our technological advancement as a race thus far, as well as the Time, and sunlight, and natural resources that God sends each year and which are the property of no individual.

Workers would still get wages (though hopefully labor would be needed less and less, wages gradually being replaced more and more by the dividend as machines took over). The owners of capital would still get the profit on the products they produced and sold (though hopefully this system and banning usury would make it so that capital became more and more evenly distributed). And so the free market and competition would all remain in place, and some would have more than others based on their natural talents or ingenuity or effort applied, but everyone would be guaranteed a living.

No Easy Answers: Attendance at Invalid or Immoral Weddings

In our increasingly confusing and pluralistic modern world, one question that seems to come up time and time again in the Catholic blogosphere is the question of wedding attendance.

Certainly there is no question about a presumably valid Catholic wedding in a Catholic church. Nor would any sane authority object to passively witnessing valid marriages (Sacramental or merely natural) outside the Church, be it the wedding of two baptized non-Catholics, a Catholic to a non-Catholic (baptized or not) with canonical dispensation, the wedding of a Christian to a non-Christian, or the wedding of two non-baptized Jews, Muslims, pagans, atheists, etc.

As long as one maintained mental reservation and remained a "passive" observer and did not take any sort of communion or actively assent to any heretical or blasphemous rites or prayers, natural marriages (or even the Sacramental marriages of Protestants) are certainly good in-themselves to some degree and a Catholic need not worry about attending. Simply examining the complex history of Christian marriage and intermarriage with the pagans would be enough to demonstrate this.

However, the question gets admittedly trickier when it's a question of presumptively invalid marriages. What if I'm invited to the wedding of a Catholic outside the Church without dispensation? Does it matter if they've formally apostatized or not? What if I know the Catholic has been married before without annulment? What if it's the non-Catholic one who was previously married? What if the previous marriage in question was only a natural marriage? What if it's two Protestants (who have no concept of annulment) but I know one has been married before (and thus, by the Church's standards, the marriage is invalid)? What if it's all simply non-baptized parties and natural marriages involved? What if it's a homosexual "marriage" ceremony?

These are admittedly hard questions, and most even conservative Catholic sources (such as the Catholic Answers posts I linked above) will tell you there is no one-size-fits-all answer. (Though it is worth being reminded that since the change to canon law in 2009, it no longer matters in terms of validity if a Catholic has formally defected; the new canonical principle is essentially "Once a Catholic, always a Catholic" in terms of being bound by canonical form or dispensation requirements.)

The basic advice is: is what you are doing scandalous? Does it constitute encouragement of sin? Most conservative sources seem to take the position that one is safest to err on the side of not attending, but then also say the Church does not forbid "observing" (with mental reservation) a presumptively invalid marriage, and that it's really a case-by-case thing.

However, there are some double-standards evident in the sort of advice you'd probably usually get. For one, if it involves a Catholic, one is likely to get a more negative reaction from Catholics. Attending the invalid marriage of two people who have never been Catholic (but, say, one has been previously married and divorced) is unlikely to raise as many objections from conservative Catholics. I suppose the logic goes that the Catholic framework (of no divorce and remarriage without annulment) is foreign to these people anyway, that they thus won't consider your attendance or not in light of such a framework, and thus that it is in some ways beyond our concern to be imposing an understanding of marriage internal to our religion onto this external situation. "We'll cross that bridge if either of them converts to Catholicism" seems to be the attitude, and I suppose this is my instinct too.

It's not that I don't believe our moral code is universal or our Truth absolute, the behavior of non-Catholics can certainly be judged for the most part by the same standards (except for the Precepts of the Church, it's not like we have a Mosaic Law for us insiders and a much looser Noahide code for the "gentiles.") But, at the same time, if they aren't even Catholic (or, in our world, even any sort of informed or practicing Christian at all really)...then I feel like we have bigger fish to fry. Objecting to their (objectively) adulterous or fornicatory union seems a misplaced priority if that marriage is taking place in a schismatic or heretical or pagan or utterly godless secular millieu! And yet, we've said that attendance at such services (for, say, valid marriages; or even just out of "anthropological" interest) is not forbidden and does not in itself (if done as a "passive" observer with mental reservation) constitute affirmation of schism, heresy, idolatry, or atheism. If such attendance does not constitute affirmation of the religion or ideology in question, why should it anymore constitute an affirmation of the by-Catholic-standards validity of the marriage?

And, generally, Catholic sources will tell you it doesn't, necessarily. However, as I began saying above, conservatives seem to sing a different tune in two cases: A) if it involves a Catholic (however lapsed), or B) if it's a homosexual union. Then suddenly people get a lot more wary.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I suppose the logic is that if a Catholic is involved, then the Church's standards for marriage do suddenly become a lot more relevant. No longer can the mental fence be drawn distinguishing between "outsiders" with a different framework from ours (which we can't "impose" on them) and ourselves. If there is a Catholic, suddenly that sort of pluralistic hairsplitting raises more cognitive dissonance for the conservatives.

Though some would argue that even the ability to "suspend our belief" when dealing with non-Catholics, and to expect only a sort of minimal decency based on the "common" morality of secularism, is already a concession to the World and a sign that religion has become essentially "privatized," removed from the public sphere...I would somewhat disagree. A distinction was always made, even at the height of the Middle Ages, between the Jews and Muslims and pagans who had never been Catholic on the one hand, and heretics on the other. Say what you will about how we treated heretics, the non-baptized were always pretty much (at least in terms of official policy) supposed to be left to their own devices when it came to things like regulating marriages. I don't think the Church tried to stop Jews from remarrying after divorce in the Middle Ages, for example.

And given that nowadays we no longer treat Protestants as anything more than "material" (as opposed to formal) heretics, no longer hold them to the standards of Catholics...I really see no reason why lapsed Catholics should be treated any differently either. Most of them are not particularly "informed" heretics. They fall away because they never really internalized Catholicism in the first place but got caught up in something else (usually secular culture, or possibly some sort of evangelical Protestantism). To treat lapsed Catholics differently from how we treat Protestants on this matter seems absurd. Unless we know the person knows what they are doing is wrong and is defiantly pursuing it anyway, I'd think we can give lapsed Catholics remarrying invalidly just as much "benefit of the doubt" in terms of ignorance, and in terms of assuming our passive attendance won't be understood in the framework of scandal (by people who obviously aren't thinking in that framework in the first place.)

I think that Catholic Answers takes such a hard-line on homosexual unions (after being sort of accommodating for objectively adulterous heterosexual ones) is likewise a double-standard. The outlook here seems to be essentially culture-wars political. Like their absolute stance against voting for any pro-abortion politicians (without even taking into account the possibility of voting for one in a situation where that position of theirs will not effect the status quo, and where you cast your vote even while disapproving of that position of theirs), this refusal to accommodate a modern reality or to touch it with a ten-foot-pole seems like a "politically" inspired absolutism. And certainly it seems like a homophobic double-standard along the lines of those cases where homosexual couples weren't allowed to have their children baptized or sent to Catholic school (even though plenty of divorced and remarried people, even Catholics, are).

The message seems to be: well, divorce and remarriage is an issue already "lost." That's already no longer part of the "common" secular morality, so we don't have to impose it on people outside the Catholic context or framework. But the question of homosexuality (like abortion) is potentially (the conservatives think, naively) still "on the table," still something with a fighting chance at remaining part of the public "lowest common denominator" morality, and thus we should still try to impose that standard on everyone else so as to not lose the "culture war" on that question.

I find this approach problematic to say the least. While I don't think we should ever stop publicly fighting against abortion (because that involves real defenseless voiceless human lives being taken, the fundamental right to life being violated) or ever take an attitude of "abortion is tolerable...for non-Catholics who don't share our assumptions or framework," I think it's pretty clear that on the question of homosexuality we've lost the culture war, or at least I don't particularly care to fight it in that sphere. At this point, expecting us to pretend like that's a standard assumed by everyone, or like our attendance at such a ceremony will be interpreted according to that framework (as scandal) in a way that it for some reason won't for divorced and remarried Protestants...seems like a stretch.

Yes there is a Natural Law that should be common to all people, it does not just apply to Catholics, but at the same time we seem to live in an age where the two alternatives are Revealed Religion and Atheism (as opposed to Revealed Religion and Natural Theology.) Somehow, ironically, it seems like more and more the natural law and natural theology can only be known in the light of revealed religion, and so try to impose certain moral principles on non-Catholics piece-meal without having them adopt the whole system...seems bound to fail and inconsistent. If they don't have the Faith, and yet we're not worried fraternizing with them (or even attending their ceremonies) constitutes some sort of scandalous participation in unfaith...why should we suddenly, and contradictorily, worry just that very thing about their sexual immorality?

In all these cases really, I don't think we have too much to worry about when it comes to attending weddings usually, for two reasons. For one, because as discussed above, in a pluralistic society our attendance won't even be considered by most people according to the framework of scandal, our paradigm in that sense is external to their lives (they may even be ignorant of it), and if they aren't even (practicing) Catholics, then there is that bigger fish to fry already. Worrying about a prior divorce, or even about sodomy, at a non-Catholic ceremony, rather than worrying about the fact that it's non-Catholic, seems to be picking specks and leaving logs. If I attend a Unitarian Gay Marriage and my biggest concern is that it's a gay marriage rather than that it's Unitarian...I have my priorities misplaced (and yet, Catholics can clearly attend Unitarian services sometimes).

Even fraternal correction of fellow Catholics is not usually obligatory, and imposing our own moral assumptions (even if we do believe they are universal) on non-Catholics (or lapsed Catholics who are the equivalent), or acting like our mere presence at something they (not coming from our framework) already assume is unobjectionable constitutes scandal...strikes me as naive. We must remember the result of the debate in the early Church about keeping kosher with the Jews vs. when eating with the Gentiles.

But secondly, I would like to add, because attendance at a "wedding" doesn't necessarily involve approbation of the sex. We know divorced and remarried couples can live "as brother and sister" (especially if, say, small children are involved) and we should view any such ceremony among non-Catholics as in large part about celebrating a relationship, a partnership, and not focus on the fact that it is (probably) a sexual one. There may be much to celebrate in these relationships and commitments even if they contain a tragic moral flaw when it comes to their sexual expression. Whether it's a correct outlook or not (and we do have to be wary of reducing the essence of matrimony to romance as opposed to mating) most people nowadays would tell you their wedding was about a social expression of the love, not a legitimization of the sex.

Having said all this, I must admit I still remain a gut sort of uncomfortableness about attending invalid or objectively immoral marriages (and, indeed, I have a hesitancy about attending non-Catholic worship of any sort in general, or any expression of opposed ideology). And I don't think this uncomfortable feeling is bad. I have consistently said above that "mental reservation" is necessary in any such attendance. That, while we may out of a sort of secular courtesy attend these services for friends and family who already do not share our framework, we must nevertheless not let this undermine our own framework, must not let such recognition that not everyone shares our framework "normalize" such things for us personally, must not let ourselves buy into the "lowest common denominator" of the secular morality, must at least in our sphere (however semi-private it may now be) maintain our own moral standards and recognize them as (objectively) absolute. As such, I think we should feel uncomfortable at such events, and should remind ourselves and any fellow practicing Catholics who know about it that our own theoretical disapproval (ie, internal to our own framework) does remain intact, even if we do suck it up for the sake of not alienating people (if only so that we can remain witnesses in their lives down the line).

Intellectual Pride

I've written a few times this year on the supernatural virtue of Faith. This Spring I largely just quoted from and highlighted the Catholic Encyclopedia article on the topic, and I think this is worth a re-read for anyone. Then in late Summer I wrote a post referencing back to that about how Faith is not ultimately about intellectual satisfaction, which is at best preparatory.

My concern in both cases is a trend I've seen even among some orthodox (or erstwhile orthodox) friends and online acquaintances...to see Faith as primarily about intellectual conviction. As I described it in my post, there a sense (even among the modern conservative "apologists") that Faith is nothing more than being overwhelming rationally convinced and intellectually satisfied by the arguments for it. However this is not true, as Catholic Encyclopedia says, " We must insist upon this because in the minds of many faith is regarded as a more or less necessary consequence of a careful study of the motives of credibility, a view which the Vatican Council condemns expressly." The "motives of credibility" (in other words, the rational "arguments" for the Faith) at best can provide a sort of natural "knowledge of revealed truth which precedes Faith [and] can only beget human faith; it is not even the cause of Divine Faith."

As much as the natural "motives of credibility" can lead us to the "door" of Faith, in itself (to quote the Catholic Encyclopedia article again) "the Church has twice condemned the view that faith ultimately rests on an accumulation of probabilities." In reality, "it is evident that this 'light of faith' is a supernatural gift and is not the necessary outcome of assent to the motives of credibility. No amount of study will win it, no intellectual conviction as to the credibility of revealed religion nor even of the claims of the Church to be our infallible guide in matters of faith, will produce this light in a man's mind. It is the free gift of God."

In reality, of course, the nature of the Mysteries assented to in Faith make it impossible that the intellect should truly grasp or understand them, because they are beyond it. Instead, "the disposition of a believer is that of one who accepts another's word for some statement, because it seems fitting or useful to do so. In the same way we believe Divine revelation because the reward of eternal life is promised us for so doing. It is the will which is moved by the prospect of this reward to assent to what is said, even though the intellect is not moved by something which it understands." Faith is always a choice made to assent to truths beyond its grasp, yet which are presented to it by that supernaturally infused Light, by the Holy Spirit, for the sake of the prospect of the heavenly reward which the Will can also only be moved by grace towards.

No amount of rational "truth-seeking" or consideration of the extrinsic arguments can ever bring us to the supernatural virtue of Faith; "Authorities are to be found on both sides, the intrinsic evidence is not convincing, but something is to be gained by assenting to one view rather than the other, and this appeals to the will, which therefore determines the intellect to assent to the view which promises the most. Similarly, in Divine faith the credentials of the authority which tells us that God has made certain revelations are strong, but they are always extrinsic to the proposition, 'God has revealed this or that,' and consequently they cannot compel our assent; they merely show us that this statement is credible. When, then, we ask whether we are to give in our free assent to any particular statement or not, we feel that in the first place we cannot do so unless there be strong extrinsic evidence in its favour, for to believe a thing merely because we wished to do so would be absurd. Secondly, the proposition itself does not compel our assent, since it is not intrinsically evident, but there remains the fact that only on condition of our assent to it shall we have what the human soul naturally yearns for, viz., the possession of God, Who is, as both reason and authority declare, our ultimate end."

Assenting to the truths of the Catholic religion because they convince us rationally...is not Faith. Faith is assent given for the sake of heavenly reward (and, I would argue, one is fooling oneself if you think any amount of rational argumentation can ever produce the certainty of Faith in the intellect). "It is here that the heroism of faith comes in; our reason will lead us to the door of faith but there it leaves us; and God asks of us that earnest wish to believe for the sake of the reward — 'I am thy reward exceeding great' — which will allow us to repress the misgivings of the intellect and say, 'I believe, Lord, help Thou my unbelief.'"

Only such an act of Faith, given by grace, constitutes the supernatural virtue. One chooses to believe or not, and only God can move the Will supernaturally like that, given that both the Truth in question to be assented to is above the intellect's natural capacity, and that the motive for the Will's choice to assent nevertheless is also above its natural capacity (ie, Heaven). "Not feeling convinced" by the arguments is irrelevant. One could still make an act of Faith in such a situation assuming God was offering it.

As Cardinal Newman said, "Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt." Doubt itself is incompatible with true Faith, and a grave sin, as the Catholic Encyclopedia's article on Doubt says: "It will be evident from what has been said that doubt cannot coexist either with faith or knowledge in regard to any given subject; faith and doubt are mutually exclusive, and knowledge which is limited by a doubt, becomes, in regard to the subject or part of a subject to which the doubt applies, no longer knowledge but opinion."

A "difficulty," meaning that my fallible fallen human intellect perceives some apparent logical contradiction in various propositions of the Faith, or doesn't find the motives of credibility to provide even a natural knowledge, is not incompatible with Faith however. I could still assent to the Truths on divine authority for the sake of heavenly reward due to the infused virtue...even while such a difficulty nagged at my intellect. The proper attitude is, in fact, not to suspend assent until such difficulty is resolved, but rather to assent in spite of such difficulty and then to strive to understand, to trust in Faith that the difficulty can be resolved and then to seek its resolution. And to trust that even if our own weak intellect cannot resolve it (though I've never found that to be the case if I think and pray on something enough) or is not satisfied by certain arguments, that this is a problem with us, not with the Truth of Faith in question.

However, this has thus-far all been a sort of review. The "new" point I want to make regards the loss of Faith. It should be clear from what has been said above that mere natural rational argumentation or intellectual dryness or non-satisfaction in the motives of credibility or internal consistency of the system...are not enough to make us lose Faith, which is 100% certain in spite of such things, and a supernaturally infused virtue that moves the Will to assent even though it does not understand (and it never fully can).

Rather, as Catholic Encyclopedia again explains very well, "From what has been said touching the absolutely supernatural character of the gift of faith, it is easy to understand what is meant by the loss of faith. God's gift is simply withdrawn. And this withdrawal must needs be punitive, 'Non enim deseret opus suum, si ab opere suo non deseratur' (St. Augustine, Enarration on Psalm 145 — 'He will not desert His own work, if He be not deserted by His own work'). And when the light of faith is withdrawn, there inevitably follows a darkening of the mind regarding even the very motives of credibility which before seemed so convincing. This may perhaps explain why those who have had the misfortune to apostatize from the faith are often the most virulent in their attacks upon the grounds of faith."

Faith is not "lost" because we hear some new argument that makes us no longer intellectually satisfied or rationally convinced. Assent can be willed in spite of that, Faith is 100% certain in spite of that. The only way Faith once had can be "lost" is if God takes it away. And obviously, He sometimes does, as people do lose Faith.

Why would God take it away? As Catholic Encyclopedia said, as a punishment (of the "medicinal" variety we'd hope, of course) for sin. But what I'd argue here is that it's usually not just any sin. Even though mortal sin destroys supernatural Hope and Charity in the soul, the infused intellectual habit of Faith can clearly remain even if it is a "dead" Faith because of how the Will (without grace) can no longer choose to continue building that habit in the intellect (given that such a choice requires an orientation towards God that the sinful Will no longer has). Still, it is a real sort of Faith; a mortal sinner can still believe, obviously, why else would he seek confession if he didn't?

And yet we are told Faith is withdrawn as punishment for sin. Surely it is not arbitrary. Although many sins, surely, can dispose us towards this, the argument I would make is that it is intellectual pride specifically which finally makes God withdraw Faith. This pride can be primed by many sins (including especially greed and unchastity) but I would tend to think that Faith is withdrawn by God ultimately as chastisement for placing its origin in our own intellect. For choosing to see our belief not as an utterly gratuitous free gift infused by God beyond our natural capacities, but as the result of us having built a "tower of Babel" to heaven with (ultimately flimsy) intellectual arguments or rational apologia by which we think we have attained the Truth by our own natural powers and place our faith in that mere fallible intellectual sense of satisfaction in those arguments.

This scares me, however, because I see so many even orthodox Catholics who clearly have tendencies to view Faith this way. In fact, it is how I think I was inclined to view it in my days as a hot-headed young re-vert, "Oh, look at me, I'm smarter and so I've logicked my way into discovering this gnosis which makes sense of the world and which answers all the question. You other people have clearly faulty frameworks, and I can out-argue you about it in a debate."

This is why I am wary of "apologetics" as a tool of evangelization. While there is, of course, a place for the preparatory motives of credibility, Faith is ultimately a gift that even a child exposed to no complicated philosophical arguments or "apologetics" can have. Apologetics seem primarily useful for resolving difficulties (not doubts, difficulties) in someone who already believes by Faith. If we see it as the cause of our Faith, however, we do not really have Faith at all, and the devil will likely come along then with even better arguments and convince us away, or with more enticing natural motives to draw our Will's assent away. As the old saying goes, "For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't, no proof is enough."

Two Different Arguments

I have been vaguely planning to do a post on the homophobia (different, mind you, from holding to the Church's orthodox teachings regarding chastity, as I do) so blatantly evident sometimes in conservative Catholic circles, and on the incoherence or lack of precise definition and distinction I find in recent rhetoric about "homosexuality" (beyond even just the question of homosexual sex acts) from the Vatican and conservative sources, and on practical questions of this nature both pastoral and political.

However, my orthodoxy must come prior to my "liberalism" and so today I'd just like to share some thoughts I have had based on some recent discussions with heterodox apologists against traditional notions of chastity. Specifically, on the pattern I've noticed in how these arguments about homosexuality (or, in similar ways, divorce-and-remarriage or contraception for married couples) always seem to progress, and how what starts as one argument for them always seems to end up switching to a different argument, one with a much higher burden of proof.

Specifically, I've almost always found that arguments for [sexually active] homosexual relationships being allowed...always ultimately transform (upon probing) into an argument that sexual relationships are (practically) obligatory (not merely "allowed," but obligatory or "necessary") for everyone (or almost everyone). This is related to what I've said before about how "conscience obliges rather than permits."

This is the direction the logic takes when pushed a little (as much as a nominal shout-out for those "actually" "called" to celibacy may be included as an afterthought). Usually St. Paul's "better to marry than burn" is trotted out at some point, and also Christ's line about "he who can accept this, let him accept it" regarding the voluntary nature of [some] celibacy-for-the-kingdom (always forgetting conveniently that He also made it clear that some are born eunuchs or made so by men).

The arguments start out with, "There is no good reason this shouldn't be allowed," but when pressed (for example, by actually good arguments for the Church's morality) usually becomes "But...I need this. People need this. Condemning it isn't just condemning fulfillment of some optional desire, it's condemning a fundamental necessity, an essential moral obligation even. Trying to stop us is in fact to make people act against good-conscience. And this existential/experiential practical 'argument' trumps any mere theoretical argument!"

I simply find that ridiculous. "Needing" anything in that manner strikes me as spiritually dangerous by nature, and while I could perhaps see at least "feasible" (though I ultimately disagree) an argument that homosexual sex acts are "allowed"...the idea (which in my discussions with people has always revealed itself as intrinsic to the internal logic of that argument) that homosexual sex acts are positively necessary or essential or obligatory for some people (ie, most homosexuals) is something I just find absurd.

At the very least, the burden of proof for such a claim of positive necessity or obligation is exponentially higher than for the merely negative claim of non-condemnation/allowance. There is a sort of clever bait-and-switch in this tactic in which they attempt to use all the rhetorical strength of a "necessity" plea, and yet try to sneak it into the debate under the much lower burden-of-proof standard of a merely "allowed" argument.

This subtle (or not so subtle) switch from an argument that there's "nothing wrong" with homosexual sex acts, to an argument that they're positively necessary or essential to people's well-being or even moral health (and thus morally obligatory) is, however, inherent to the whole liberal/heterodox gay agenda on the question. In order to justify their "struggle," to cloak it under the banner of "civil rights" or "human rights," etc...it can't just be about fighting for some optional pleasure they happen to want. It has to be (in order to make themselves not look entirely selfish and absurd) made into an argument that they're fighting for something essential to human happiness or even spiritual flourishing (as mere maximal hedonistic satisfaction can hardly be called a "right").

Usually this is done through linguistically befuddling "love" for "sex" and making the argument about the necessity of "relationship" (without even considering that loving relationships or even a partnership of some sort might be possibly chastely. This takes advantage of the nearly universal modern sentimentalist error, common to contraceptive heterosexuals too, which regards sex as essentially an "expressive" act, "expressing" affection or bonding or some crap like that; something I fear "Theology of the Body" has bought-into too much itself, albeit it then focuses on "correct" expression/significance.)

I have to look at that line of thought however and think that, in the process of trying to convince society to let them indulge themselves, they've wound up convincing themselves that something is necessary or essential to their lives which is not. And that is not what I call true freedom in any sense of the word. To crib from the existentialists, I'd call it bad faith/mauvaise foi.

Anyway, be on the look-out for this line of argument in your own conversations, and if it pops up please do feel free to use my concepts here to deconstruct the ultimately flimsy rhetorical deceptiveness of that facade. Any argument that takes the form that something must be allowed because it is necessary...is backwards. Proof that something is allowed would come before proof that it is a necessity, because the former (should be) much easier to demonstrate given that allowance has a much lower burden of proof compared to positive obligation. If someone is relying on a claim of necessity to bolster a claim of allowance (especially if it's a vague psycho-emotional or "existential" sort of "necessity") then they are likely intellectually bamboozling you.