Nature and Supernature

It seems to me that there are three elements which might be fit into a view of the world--and particularly into a religious view of the world.  These are the supernatural, the natural, and the unnatural.  Now, a consistent worldview does not require all three.  There are, for example, forms of atheism which are self-consistent, and these by definition reject the supernatural as superstition.  There are plenty of religions (including atheism) which generally reject the unnatural*--so much the better!--and which are consistent for it; indeed, unnatural worldviews often (perhaps even always!) are inconsistent.  And certain philosophies or religions--usually Gnostic ones, from Plato to the docetists to the manichaeans and Cathari, to say nothing of Buddhism--which essentially reject the natural, that is they regard nature as an illusion.

If a world-view is to be correct, it must be both self-consistent and true-to-facts.  To fulfill the latter option, it must either have the proper balance of natural and supernatural elements, or have a means of coherently explaining supernatural phenomena in natural terms (this is the criterion for atheism to be true).  What it cannot do is ignore the evidence for the supernatural, e.g. by claiming that every person who claims to witness a miracle--that is, the encroachment of supernature onto nature--is a liar, charlatan, or credulous fool.  Misleading one or two or even a dozen people can be easy, even by natural means, especially in controlled conditions.  Misleading them in uncontrolled conditions, and misleading thousands (often simultaneously), even millions:  this is a feat which I find too incredible, at least by merely natural means.


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*By unnatural, I mean essentially things which go against the natural law in the extreme.  For example, there is the belief--and it is a wrong one, but there are nonetheless people who hold it--that murder is not always and necessarily wrong.  See Alfred Hitcock's "Rope" for an extreme version of what I mean by this.

PrayerMarket--Pay for Pray? Um, No.

From the comments section of my recent post about the possibility of salvation for non-Christians comes this:

Hey Equus nom Veritas, my name is John. I read a lot of blogs on religion and prayer and I've i feel like I've ended up here once before. I'd love to hear your thoughts about this prayer exchange website PrayerMarket.com I thought it was an interesting idea and would be curious to hear what you (or other Christians) think about it

Well, since he's asking for my opinion about this operation, I'll will gladly give it.  Some of the ideas behind this site seem like genuinely good ideas--albeit, nothing new.  I like the concept of asking other to pray for me, and in turn praying for them, though this is nothing new, since this kind of exchange goes on between me and some of my friend and/or family fairly regularly via email or word-of-mouth.  Having a website in which to organize this kind of exchange doesn't hurt in principle, and indeed could be a bit of a boon, especially to the extent that praying for a complete stranger is a good thing, so long as you know specifically what to pray for. 

Similarly, a hub in which prayers can be written for common use can certainly be a good thing.  After all, the liturgy is (among other things) a collection of prayers shared commonly by the community, and prayer books can be of immense help both for beginners and for people who fit into that style of prayer (that is to say, rote prayers are a perfectly good way of praying if they're prayed sincerely).  Further, the idea of creating a setting--albeit an online one--in which a group of people "gather" together to pray is certainly a good one (so long as it isn't used as an excuse to avoid or replace regular attendance at Mass).

Now, all of these services es already exist in various forms around the internet, so in this sense the site is nothing new.  Indeed, the folks over at Catholic America Today have had semi-regular prayer e-meetings and chats (though I have been unable to attend any), and I think that the folks at Christian.com have similarly offered a service in which prayers may be posted for the community in general.

Now I turn to some darker matters with the Prayer Market.   Whereas these others sites offer their services free-of-charge, PrayerMarket appears to be a for-profit site in that it is more than happy to charge money for the prayers.  The first word which comes to mind upon hearing this is "simony":

"And when Simon saw, that by the imposition of the hands of the apostles, the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, Saying: Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I shall lay my hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost. But Peter said to him: Keep thy money to thyself, to perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Thou hast no part nor lot in this matter. For thy heart is not right in the sight of God. Do penance therefore for this thy wickedness; and pray to God, that perhaps this thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee. For I see thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bonds of iniquity. Then Simon answering, said: Pray you for me to the Lord, that none of these things which you have spoken may come upon me" (Acts 8:18-24).

In keeping with the footnote to my last post, simony was a sin which Dante consigned to the 8th Circle of Hell. Or, to go to a different source, Mr Steve Smith (of the Faith of the Fathers blog) has also had this same comment posted into the comments of his blog. After noting that this sounded a bit like an infamous scandal involving the televangelist Robert Tilton, Mr Smith writes his reply:

I looked at this website, and thought a prayer exchange website among Christians an interesting idea. That is, until I saw one of the boxes there entitled "Get Paid to Pray". So, prayer is now "for sale"? I find this unconscionable and I am amazed at the concept of "pay for prayer". My blogs have had prayer requests posted for many people from around the world, and at no time have these blogs asked for payment for prayer, nor would we ask anyone to pray for any reason other than to pray from the heart for someone in need of prayer. Our "payment" is when those whom we have prayed for contacts us, and let's us know that God answered their prayers, their needs. Prayer that was freely offered up through the intercessory prayers of the Blessed Virgin, the saints, the angels, and the prayers of these blogs creators and readers. At no time would I ever promote or condone any prayer for pay website.

I couldn't agree more.As for whether some good comes of these pay-for-pray ideas, I can turn to C.S. Lewis, whose essay On the Efficacy of Prayer has a certain answer about this.  Lewis was at the time trying to answer an object that experiments conducted on prayer showed that it had no effect.  The experiment in question involved two sets of sick patients.  The first set was the "control' set, and was given the standard treatments available at the time, the other the experimental group who, in addition to the same set of medical treatments, was to be prayed for by a large group of volunteers.  Lewis noted that the very premise of this experiment was nonsense, because a prayer said for the second group meant only to test the prayer's ability to invoke a miracle was not necessarily heartfelt, and not sincere.  Or, if it is sincere, then it could not possibly be uttered only for the first group and not for the second.  The experiment could prove nothing, and accomplish nothing save to put the Lord God to the test (see Deuteronomy 6:16, Matthew 4:7, and Luke 4:12).

If prayer lacks sincerity when done for "scientific" purposes (e.g. as an experiment to see if prayers have some effect), then so much more will it lack sincerity if done for pay.  As Mr Mark Shea has remarked time and again at his own blog, under careful laboratory conditions, God will do exactly whatever He feels like.  How much more so when people are attempting to harness the power of prayer for financial gain?

What Happens to Non-Christians When they Die: A Speculative Reflection

This post is meant as an answer to and open question sent my way, asked (rather publicly) by Miss Paige Alyson.  She asks, "What happens to muslim people when they die.... because God says its either him or hell."  To do full justice to this question would require far more than I will post tonight, but it is surely a good question to ask.  What happens to Muslims--who believe in a single God, but not an Incarnate Savior (Jesus Christ is considered a prophet in their religion, unless I am mistaken)--do they enter heaven, hell, or what?  The question can be fairly extended to those of Jewish faith, who believe in Abba--God the Father--but who rejected Christ His Son; or to the virtuous pagans, who believed in many gods (and yet who often knew that their gods were lacking something), or to atheists who believe in no God or gods at all.

To begin, Our Lord tells us that "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me" (John 14:6).  This would certainly seem to indicate that those who do not know Jesus in this life, can't live with Him in heaven in the next.  But is this really what the text means, that to be saved we must have faith in Him?  Well, yes--and again, not necessarily.  The plainest interpretation of the text would be "yes."  And I believe that this is ultimately a definitive "yes," that is, we must have faith in, hope for, and love of the Lord before we can enter into heaven.  But what shape do these virtues take?  Here is where the "not necessarily" paradoxically enters into the picture.

To frame this "not necessarily," I will turn for a moment to something found in Tradition:  that is, Oral Tradition, as opposed to written Tradition (e.g. the Bible). I assume that every Christian has at least passing familiarity with the historical creeds, particularly the Apostle's Creed and the Nicene Creed (and perhaps also the Athanasian Creed).  Let's consider the oldest of these creeds, which Tradition often traces back to the Apostles themselves:  the so-called "Apostle's Creed."  The creed is a basic formulation of the beliefs of historic Christianity--Catholic, Orthodox, and even many (most?) Protestant sects--which includes some specific beliefs about Christ Himself.  "He was crucified, died, and buried.  He descended into hell (that is, to to dead).  On the third day He rose again."  He descended into hell.  This is generally taken to mean not literally the fiery pit into which the fallen angels were cast, but into the place where the spirits of the dead slept.

What, exactly, did He do while He was there?  The Bible doesn't tell us (it really says nothing about where Christ's Spirit went while His body lay in the tomb), and neither do the creeds.  It is not a great stretch, though, for Him to be present to proclaim His own imminent resurrection:  a teaching which could be heard by whoever would listen.  In Catholic Tradition at least, this included the souls of those who departed not knowing Him (most prominently, the Prophets and other faithful members of the Jewish religion, many of whom had long since died), as well as those who had known Him, either briefly or at length, but yet who had died before He had been crucified (let alone before He was raised from the dead).  I am here thinking of such people as Saint Joseph, Saint John the Baptist, and Saint Ann, all of whom certainly had met Jesus and may have had plenty of faith in Him, yet without knowing that He was to be the Savior of mankind through His passion, death, and resurrection.  I believe, along with the Catholic Church and many Protestants, that Christ entered that place where the dead souls slumber to set them free, to bring them into heaven:  at least, the souls of the righteous.  Few of these people knew Jesus or knew of Him, save by rumor or prophecy.

Did they have faith in Him in the sense employed today?  No.  Yet these people were saved nonetheless.  We need look no further than Saint Dismas (the Good thief; see Luke 23:43) to know that some of them were saved, and this without knowing that Christ would rise form the dead.  The prophesies of the Old Testament came slowly, in time, over the course of centuries (just as the books of the New Testament were written over a number of decades in the first century).  The first of these--the so-called Pentateuch--are believed to have been written by Moses.  There are certainly prophesies regarding Christ in those books, but they did not exactly come out and reveal to the early Jews that a Savior would come to free man from sin--let alone who this Savior would be and in what manner He would save His people.  Yet, Jewish tradition holds that Moses himself was assumed bodily into heaven--a tradition which is supported in the New Testament (see Jude 1:9); by which the inference can surely be made that his soul was also taken to heaven, for what good is the body without the soul?  Similarly were Enoch (see Hebrews 11:5) and Elijah (2 kings 2:11) taken from this earth, presumably to heaven.  Neither of these men knew Christ, and unless there is some extra-Biblical, extra-Traditional private revelation to each of them, they did not even know of Christ in this life.

Thus, it seems to me that there is at least some Biblical evidence for salvation without explicitly knowing Christ in this life.  How this salvation works, I cannot say, but it is safe to assume--indeed, it is certain!--that this is done through God's grace.  What these men had, as regards Christ, is a form of what we call "invincible ignorance."  This is to say that in this life they were ignorant of Christ, though through no fault of their own.  They nonetheless had a yearning for truth, that is, a desire for truth.  But if all truth comes from God, or if Christ is "the way, the truth, and the light," then this desire for truth is nothing if not also a desire for Christ.  This is much like the "Baptism of Desire" found in Catholic teaching (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1259).

Before I turn to the question of Muslims, I would like to suggest one more example, perhaps a more contemporary one.  As Christians, we believe that salvation comes through grace, and that this grace is bestowed upon those who have true faith in Christ.  But now ask what this phrase, "true faith in Christ," or even just "faith in Christ" means.  Do we need to explicitly believe in and trust Jesus by name only?  This in addition to living according to that faith: by trying to do good and avoid evil (James 2:14-26, Matthew 19:17, and John 14:15), by engaging in prayer, by developing a personal and/or a communal relationship with Him (start with John 12:45), or by forgiving others (Luke 11:4, "The Lord's Prayer"/"Our Father")?  Do we merely need to cry out "Lord, have mercy!" (cf Matthew 7:21)? And how well must we know Jesus for this faith to have effect, that is, if we believe falsely about Him then is our faith not in Jesus and thus not effective?  By reputation only, or by friendship?  Surely, the stronger our relationship is with Him, the better.

I return, then, to Christ's "I am the way, the truth, and the light."  Is a person who is honestly seeking to follow the truth not therefore also honestly seeking the source of all truth, Who is God?  I answer that he does, and that as such he is seeking the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Thus, even a Muslim (or a pagan, a Jew, and atheist) may seek Christ, albeit unbeknownst to him (see 1 Corinthians 13:12).   However, with this bit of hope for the non-Christians comes also a warning for all Christians:  our faith must be sincere.  We must desire Christ because we really believe that he is "the way, the truth, and the light."  For no one will come into salvation save through Him, and He will not suffer us to follow Him against our own wills, that is, without truly desiring to do so.

I think that this response is already rather lengthy, though perhaps it has a few holes in it.  I don't want to try and trace all the other lines of speculation, since this is only my answer to the question asked, informed as best I can with Scripture, with Tradition, and with a bit of reasoning and exegesis.  I think that questions such as this can be fun to speculate upon, but they shouldn't become the focus of our efforts.  I think that it is best to evangelize as we are able, because my suggestions that there is hope for salvation the non-Christian notwithstanding, we are still called to spread the Gospels and make believers of all nations and all peoples (Matthew 28:19-20 and Mark 16:15), which at the very least implies that it is best for men to know Christ in this lifetime, and not meet Him for the first time in the next.
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Two footnotes are needed here.

*1* It is worth noting that there are passages such as Luke 16:16 which would seem to contradict what I have just written:  "He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned."  Perhaps we can take this for a literal statement, meaning "If I tell you about Jesus, and you don't believe me, then you are damned."  Ok, but how long do I give you before I give up?  How many others may try to convince you before the damnation is irrevocable?  I think that there is a second interpretation, which is to say that there is such a thing as final obstinacy (in disbelief), final impenitence (refusal of God's mercy for our sin, refusal to repent), and resistance of truth (e.g. of a truth which we know in our hearts).   Incidentally, in Catholic teaching, these are three forms of "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit" (see Mark 3:29):  the others being jealousy of another's spiritual good, presumption, and despair.  In any case, I think that these are sins which may be persisted in until death; if a person dies while persisting in these states, then he has essentially chosen to "believe not."  Otherwise, he has ultimately chosen to believe.

*2* As an alternative take on the sate of Muslims, Pagans, Jews, atheists, etc in which their are not ultimately permitted into heaven, consider Dante's Inferno.  According to this poet--and to many of the medieval Christian theologians--heaven and hell (and purgatory!) had layers or levels.  In Dante's Inferno, and in Medieval Catholic thought, heaven, hell, and purgatory had 9 circles each, corresponding to different states of damnation or salvation (or, in the case of purgatory, different sins of which to repent).  The deeper the levels in hell, the worse were the person's sins, so that the greatest sinners (for Dante, the traitors Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Satan himself) were in the 9th circle of hell, whereas those who were merely grossly immoral (e.g. those who fall to lust, gluttony, sloth, avarice in gross matters only) were in the higher circles of hell, and suffered relatively light punishments.  Similarly, the saints in heaven were in spheres of heaven according to their merit, so that those who tried to be good but often failed were in the lowest spheres of heaven, but those who truly lived for God were in the higher spheres.

The "virtuous pagans" (presumably including Muslims, Jews, atheists, etc) who had not heard of Christ were unable to be saved, but were sentenced to the first level of hell only.  They were not tormented as were those in the remaining levels of hell, but neither were they in paradise.  They could live on in a state of light sorrow and sadness, knowing what their own desires for paradise would never be fulfilled.  However, they also did not know what joys paradise held--and thus their state of sorrow was far less than that of the remainder of the damned.  It's certainly interesting to think about, though I suspect that as Christians we would be unable to find ourselves in this particular level, since we have heard of Christ and (at least at some point) chosen to follow Him.


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If you enjoyed this post, here are some other related posts:
Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Beatific Vision
Thirty Minute Musings: The Rapture, End Times, and Whatnot
Christ's Return: the Parousian Sense
Christ's Return: the Eschatological Sense
Christ's Return: the Veiled Presence Sense
Of Infants and Salvation (Nicene Guys)
Pascal's Wager and Invincible Ignorance: Irreconcilable? (Nicene Guys)
Homogeneity in Heaven and Hell?

Quote of the Day: Socrates and Saint Paul on Freedom

"First...speaking of the city, would you say that a city under a dictator is free or enslaved? [It is enslaved.] If then, I said, the individual is like the city, the same structure must prevail in him, and his soul must be full of servitude and lack of freedom, and it is the best parts of it which are enslaved, and a small part, the most wicked and mad, which is master...And will you say that such a soul is free or slave?  [Certainly a slave.] So the enslaved and dictator-ruled city is least likely to do what it wants? [Quite so.] And the dictator-ruled soul will also be the least likely to do what it may want--that is, the soul as a whole; it will always be driven by violent frenzy and is full of disorder and remorse...Must a city under dictatorship be rich or poor?  [Poor.]  So then the despotically ruled soul must always be poor and unsatisfied....Further, must not such a city and such an individual be full of fear?  [Quite inevitably.]  Is there, do you think, more lamenting complaining, and grieving to be found than in any other city?  [Definitely not.]  And are such things more common in any other individual than the dictatorial man maddened by desires and lusts? [How can they be?]  It is in view of all this, I think, and other things of the kind, that you judged this to be the most miserable off all cities....and what, looking at all this, do you say about the dictatorial individual?  [He is by far the most miserable of men.]"  Socrates in Book IX of Plato's Republic [text in brackets records the replies of Glaucon to Socrates' statements and questions].

I consider this passage to be the high point of The Republic so far, though I've only read the book once (and so have not by any stretch mastered the book).  This is a great description of the effects of sin and concupiscence on the soul.  The will becomes ordered to sin, and this order masters the soul, despite the soul's better inclinations.  In his Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul wrote something similar to this:

"For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, seduced me, and by it killed me. Wherefore the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was that then which is good, made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it may appear sin, by that which is good, wrought death in me; that sin, by the commandment, might become sinful above measure. For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I work, I understand not. For I do not that good which I will; but the evil which I hate, that I do.If then I do that which I will not, I consent to the law, that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that there dwelleth not in me, that is to say, in my flesh, that which is good. For to will, is present with me; but to accomplish that which is good, I find not. For the good which I will, I do not; but the evil which I will not, that I do. Now if I do that which I will not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me" (Romans 7:11-20).

Sin takes root in the soul, and then it becomes a battle for the soul to seek good instead of sin. The soul is not, in other words, free, but is under the rule of sin (Romans 5:21).  Pope John Paul the Great said that "Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do as we ought."  He opposed freedom to sin, rather than to morality or grace, recognizing that without order there is no liberty.  Socrates notes that the dictatorship springs from a tired democracy, or from anarchy; where all rule--or where none rule--eventually a single man will seize power and claim the right to rule.  Similarly, liberty is found in truth, not opposed to it (see John 8:32)-that is, when truth is recognized and allowed to rule, liberty can flourish, but where it is rejected in favor of popular rule or none at all, freedom ultimately flounders.  The Holy Father recognized, with St Paul, with Saint John--and even with the pagan philosophers Plato and Socrates--that a man who acts according to his passions is not really free, but is a slave to his passions.  A man who bows before the whips of temptation is a slave to sin.

Indeed, such a man is truly a slave, because he is not only not free to avoid that sin, but is also less able to do that good which he wills.  Slowly, he ceases to recognize this contrary good as "good" at all.  In The Republic, Socrates likens this to the comparison between "pleasure" and "lack of pain or suffering."  When a man is enslaved to a particular sin, when he becomes addicted to it, he must first quell the demands of the sin, yielding to temptation before he can seek his pleasure.  Satisfying the temptation may not bring any real pleasure, but it brings a momentary relief from the scourging of temptation.  Before the man can enjoy pleasure, he must be free of pain (or suffering), which here includes free of the perceived need to satisfy his concupiscence.

Soon he begins to yearn for a lack of pain, of discomfort, or suffering.  He mistakes this lack for pleasure, though it is not pleasure but is rather only the lack of pain.  This is something which can be easily observed by a person who is not suffering from discomfort:  such a person may or may not be in a state of pleasure.  He is, however, free to seek his pleasure, unhindered by the discomfort.  Over 2000 years after Plato made these observations, G.K. Chesterton would remark that this talk of pain and pleasure was like talk of health:  healthy people do not pay attention to their health, but rather set about trying to fulfill their desires; it is only sick people who pine for health.  Similarly, a person who knowingly labors under the burden of sin must first desire to be free of that burden before he can live a happy life.

I would be remiss if I stopped my reflection here.  Those who have read The Republic know that Socrates actually denies Glaucon's conclusion, that the dictator is the most miserable of men.  Rather, he makes the distinction between the "private" dictator and the "public" one.  The former is the man thus far described, whose reason and will are ultimately subservient to his passions, to his sins.  The latter, however, is not only enslaved himself, but then seeks to place others under his dominion.  His misery is so great that it extends itself to consume others, so that they, too, must live in fear of his passions.  He ultimately forces or convinces--by coercion, law, or charisma--others to join him in his state, recruiting others to be enslaved by what were formerly his private sins, ruling not only himself but others with his passions.  Our Lord warns us that "Whosoever shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me; it were better for him that a millstone were hanged around his neck, and he were cast into the sea" (Mark 9:41, with parallel texts in both Matthew 18:6 and Luke 17:2).  Most miserable of men are these "public dictators" indeed.

Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love: A Short Review

I just finished reading Saint Augustine's Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love, but I don't have the time to write a lengthy review.  However, the book deserves at the least a short review:  which is fitting, since it is a very short book (indeed, a "handbook").  The book is not as well-known as St Augustine's City of God or his Confessions, but it nevertheless serves as a good introduction to his theology.  At ~140 pages, it is a sort of "compendium" Catechism of his thought, and it focuses especially on questions concerning faith (hope and love are only the last few pages, practically an appendix).  His exposition is a loose following of the Apostles' Creed (though he certainly discusses points of theology contained in the Nicene Creed).

In writing this handbook, the saint was not afraid to leave some questions unanswered for the sake of brevity and clarity (an interesting paradox!).  Thus, as regards the question of abortion, the saint refuses here to say when he believes that a child becomes ensoulled (he discusses this in another of his works), because the question is a distraction form the horror of abortion:

"At what time [does] the infant begin to live in the womb...[is it or isn't it] in a latent form before it manifests itself in the motions of the living being? To deny that the young who are cut out limb by limb from the womb...have never been alive, seems too audacious.  Now, from the time that a man begins to live, from that time it is possible for him to die."
(Sections LXXXV and LXXXVI of the Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love)

This is not to say that he avoided all such questions in his handbook.  Indeed, he delves into the discussion of free will and predestination, though the resolution of that question doesn't have necessarily have much bearing on how a person ought to live.  In his discussion of free will vs predestination seems to have set up a sort of false dichotomy, one which is most eagerly embraced by certain Protestants of a Calvinistic mindset.  Are we predestined to salvation or damnation, or does man's will play some role in it?  Saint Augustine answers this dichotomy by suggesting that man's will cannot thwart God's grace, or else man's will would be greater than God's grace.  This is the track taken by a few of my Calvinist friends during the occasional discussion concerning predestination.  It is, however, a false dichotomy, which is even hinted at by the saint himself:  for we did not give ourselves free will, but rather received it from God.  Thus, this ability to accept or reject grace is itself a grace which we could not refuse, which suggests not so much a dichotomy between grace and will as a paradox.  Thus, it is fair to suggest that we are both fated and free, both in this life and in the next.

The book itself is easy to read and quite well-organized.  It is broken up into short sections, which can be read in series or separately, which makes the book easier to read in short amounts of time rather than requiring a long period to wade through long chapters, as do many other books.  This makes his Enchiridion a true handbook, in that answers can be rapidly found by skimming the section headings--all of which are quite descriptive--which makes the book friendly for the busy reader who can spare only a few minutes to read during the day.

Morality, Holiness, and Virtue: What About Sanctity?

To continue a set of earlier reflection about morality, virtue, and holiness (not to mention immorality, vice, and sin), I ask where sanctity fits in.  Often, sanctity is used as a synonym for holiness, and to some extent it is.  But is is also something different from holiness, if holiness is rightly ordered virtue.  It is tempting to merely say that sanctity is the presence of holiness in a person, but this does not quite do justice to either sanctity or holiness.  The two are distinct, and yet when one is present, the other must be as well.  Sanctity is not holiness, but is rather the state of being sanctified.

Lest this sound like a circular argument (or a self-referencing definition), to be sanctified is to be made into a dwelling place of the sacred.  That is to say, sanctity is the state of being in which the Holy Spirit, Who is God, dwells within a person (see 1 Corinthians 6:19).  This means that a person is also in a state of grace, without which he cannot be holy, and cannot rightly order all of the virtues (which include the theological virtues).  Sanctity is something which we receive entirely as a gift from God:  we cannot achieve it ourselves, but can only accept (or refuse) it when it has been offered to us.  It has certainly been offered to us, though perhaps in varying degrees; but we have all been given the ability--that is, the freedom, the will--to accept or reject it, to cooperate with it or to resist it.

Quote of the Day: Saint Augustine on Abortion

"At what time [does] the infant begin to live in the womb...[is it or isn't it] in a latent form before it manifests itself in the motions of the living being? To deny that the young who are cut out limb by limb from the womb...have never been alive, seems too audacious.  Now, from the time that a man begins to live, from that time it is possible for him to die."  Saint Augustine, in Sections LXXXV and LXXXVI of the Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love.

Despite writing such passages as the above excerpt from the Enchiridion, Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas have been used before as "go-to" theologians for those in the Church who want to pretend that abortion is not condemned by the Church as murder.  During the last election cycle--2008, that is--both Congressman Nacy Pelosi and Vice President Joe Biden were found to cite Saints Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, respectively.  For her part, in answer to the question "When does life begin," Mrs Pelosi stated that "Augustine said three months."  It would be more accurate to say that Augustine believed 40 days for boys and 90 for girls, though even with our modern technology we can't determine whether the baby in question is a boy or a girl until something like 16 weeks (~110 days) into the pregnancy:  even using Augustine's estimate for the age of ensoulment would require that all abortions occur within 6 weeks of pregnancy to be certain that the baby doesn't have a soul; though aside from abortions from "day after" contraceptive pills, there aren't a whole lot performed before that 6 week deadline.

Of course, this particular "reading" of Saint Augustine is rather poor, given that he believed that "ensoulment" was also the moment during which life begins.  But elsewhere in that very same Enchiridion, the saint goes on to say that the soul (anima) is that which "animates" a body (section XCI):  the soul gives the body life, and is present from the moment the body begins to live.  As for the 40/90 day thing, a baby can be felt to kick sometime between 16-22 weeks (though, interestingly enough, an ultrasound can see macroscopic movements between 7-8 weeks); but modern embryology tells us that life is already present much sooner.  Cells divide and move about and specialize, the baby grows, and features begin to form.  That is to say, a more just reading of the saint would show that he believes that "ensoulment" occurs from the moment a new entity is formed:  which moment is conception.



On the other hand, as Mr Mark Shea and a host of others have noted, the argument form the pro-life side doesn't really hinge on the question of ensoulment per se.  Rather, this is a bit of "pro-choice mystical rubbish."  Yet, when it comes to Catholics attempting to argue within their ow Church on the matter, even the mysticism doesn't ultimately favor the pro-choice side of the argument.  It is, indeed, a simple fact that the Church teaches (and has always taught) that abortion is murder, and as such that it is a grave sin.

TMM: Modern and Medieval Life

I don't think I can think of a period of history more sneered at and looked down upon in modern times than the Medieval one.  Even the name we give that period--affixed during the so-called enlightenment, I've been told--is a bit of a slighting:  the "Middle Ages" are so-called because we want to see them as a middle period between the greatness of Greece and Rome and the greatness of the Modern age (beginning with the Renaissance at the earliest).  Often the period is portrayed as one in which the advance of learning was halted, particularly in the sciences and in the development of technology:  those enamored of science as the source of all knowledge mock the Medieval as ignorant because they didn't know Modern physics (even in the Newtonian Mechanics sense of "modern," never mind Quantum Mechanics and Relativity Theory).

I can state from experience that most people today still don't understand "Modern" physics, though these are sometimes the same types of people who sneer at the Medieval for their own ignorance.  The Medieval is at a decided disadvantage in that "modern physics" had not yet been developed--well, not entirely.  After all, it was Pierre Duhem--a fairly "modern" physicist of some eminence in France--who discovered that the very groundwork of Newton's force laws (which are much of the basis of modern physics) was laid in the High Middle Ages by the theologian John Buridan, who is the first person known to have formulated Newton's First Law.  As for technological advances, these progressed quite nicely, and included everything from the use of water-wheels to crop rotation.  Their were also advances in art, architecture, and music, much of which can easily be found to be better than their respective modern-day counterparts, if not in utility then at least in aesthetics.  The differences of culture can be attributed, at least in part, to differences in philosophy.

To be fair, there were plenty of problems in the dark ages:  the plagues (especially the Black Death), the invasions by barbarians, the general squalor of some areas.  Are we that much better off 1000 years later?  Yes and no.  We have all the advantages of 1000 years of scientific, technological, and economic developments, and (at least in the West) our standard of living is much greater than that of any Medieval king.  I suspect that, barring a nuclear holocaust or other widespread tribulation, our descendants 1000 years from now will enjoy a similar increase in standard of living.

On the other hand, we still contend with many of the same problems as the Medievals did, with some unique new ones thrown in for good measure.  There is the possibility of nuclear war, though at present none of the parties posses such weapons seems overly inclined to begin such a thing.  We may have discovered a cure for the plague, but HIV is quite prevalent, and STIs are borderline rampant even in the "developed" world.  We still see a struggle between the Western powers and Islam, though the form of the struggle has changed a bit.  And it seems to me at least that few people take comfort knowing that Hitler was the ruler of one of the "civilized" world powers, and not the modern equivalent of the Huns, the Goths, or the Vikings.  The struggle against communism has nearly ended, and their body count exceeds 100 million of their own citizens. As for the question of squalor, it's certainly present in our shining cityscapes (look no further than Detroit to pick one city from the wealthiest country in the world), which is all the more shameful in that our resources are great enough to overcome such things.

This is not to say that I am pining for the Medieval period, any more than I wish I could live 1000 years in the future.  Every age has its greatness and its beauty; so too does every age have its decadence, its decay, and its sorrows.  But no age can claim to have built itself up while ignoring wholesale the contributions of the past.  Without the "Middle Ages" there could be no "Modern Age."

-----
If you enjoyed this post, here are some related ones:

The Myth of the Golden Era
Science and the Death of Wonder (Thirty Minute Musings)
The Idiocy of Modern Man
A Sort-of Review of Chesterton's Heretics (Book Review)
Chesterton on Dogma
Chesterton on Dogma (again!)
Chesterton on Ceremony and Science
_____ 

CAT: Contra Mundum

Every crisis has its hero
Deadly debates and controversies without end
Factions arise in the community once united,
Tempers flare and broil in this feverish climate,
Brother fights brother and son turns against father,
The community loses a leader and candidates are mentioned:
Only one will be chosen and called.

Every crisis has its hero,
But what does it matter when shepherds quarrel,
And ravenous wolves invade their flocks?

When called he came forth reluctantly to his post
Humble though obedient, and with outstanding courage--
Yet the conflict grows ever greater, the danger more imminent--
Now riots are in the streets and altars are defiled,
For one side has its ideology to uphold and spread,
The other can only embrace and proclaim its creed.

Every crisis has its hero,
The shepherd tried to protect his sheep,
But thieves have become his rival claimants

An attempt is made to bring peace via diplomacy,
Though neither side is willing to budge--
Some are beholden to their own philosophies,
The rest cannot be made to compromise the truth--
No accord can be reached between these two parties,
One side tries reason, but the other meets it with treason.

Every crisis has its hero,
Though the shepherd is now an outcast,
And his exile leaves his sheep in danger

In council the parties may have reached agreement,
But treachery and subterfuge are found in abundance,
The creed once signed is now subverted instead,
One man wanders in solitude in his lonely desert exile,
Another returns from his hermitage to give a warning:
But few take heed, and the traitors are free to work.

Every crisis has its hero,
The sheep call for their shepherd's guiding hand,
While his enemies call for his head.

Another attempt is made to reconcile in council,
"Why don't you compromise on your beloved creed,
And the ideologues will then meet you in the middle--
Won't this bring a blessed peace to our community?"
The tempter proposes this simple solution to both sides,
But neither the hero nor his antagonists can accept.

Every crisis has its hero,
Exile is at long last lifted from him: a trick!
For the wolves' machinations force exile upon him again

In response to this compromise the hero spoke:
"No ideology can be diluted nor can a creed be amended,
For truth is not a matter of votes and compromise,
And beauty is not always in the beholder's eyes--
Two substances are never merely similar,
If both can truly be said to be one and the same."

Every crisis has its hero,
His suffering is inevitable, a foregone conclusion,
Though it is with pain that redemption is won.

To the hero's side rally the common men to defend the creed,
But the generals prefer their ideological elitism;
While the creed binds men of good will together,
An ideology rather binds them hard to their sins,
Sometime truth is not found by human wisdom alone,
For flesh and blood are prone to discern in error.

Every crisis has its hero,
In his exiles he did more than merely wander,
And At his return he cast out the wolves

No ideology can last unchanging forever,
Though its taint may linger for many centuries;
Only a creed can survive the test of time,
For a creed alone is rooted deeply in history,
Safe from the fires of revolution and the poison of dissent:
If it's truth will only be defended by a few faithful men.

Every crisis has its hero,
A man who in humility, obedience, and faith
Is willing to stand against the world's wrath.
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Originally posted on the Catholic America Today blogs.