I have to admit I was stunned with Cardinal George's take on God's love. Stunned. As one commenter posted, I too wanted to bang my head with my keyboard. How in the world have we gotten to the point where a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church felt compelled to write that God loves some people more than others? Yesterday I wrote that this was a view of God that suspiciously mirrored an immature paternal figure. Although such a view of God is easily justified in the Old Testament, it can't be justified from the teachings of Christ. Yet we see this view of God continually portrayed by the Christian right to justify all kinds of policies which do in fact make it seem that God loves some people more than others. In Evangelical circles this is espoused as the 'prosperity gospel'. It's crap, but it's stench is pervasive in our politics.
A few weeks ago Huffington Post ran an op ed piece by George Lakoff entitled "What Conservatives Really Want". I think it helps explain what Cardinal George was up to with his pernicious take on God. I don't believe anyone's salvation or potential sainthood was on Cardinal George's mind. The following is an excerpt from Lakoff's piece.
"The way to understand the conservative moral system is to consider a strict father family. The father is The Decider, the ultimate moral authority in the family. His authority must not be challenged. His job is to protect the family, to support the family (by winning competitions in the marketplace), and to teach his kids right from wrong by disciplining them physically when they do wrong. The use of force is necessary and required. Only then will children develop the internal discipline to become moral beings. And only with such discipline will they be able to prosper. And what of people who are not prosperous? They don't have discipline, and without discipline they cannot be moral, so they deserve their poverty. The good people are hence the prosperous people. Helping others takes away their discipline, and hence makes them both unable to prosper on their own and function morally. (And this father figure loves some of his children more than others, especially his sons, and especially his first born son. Unfortunately none of this is particularly true for today's fathers who seem to love their daughters as much as their sons and don't give much preference to one's birth order.)
The market itself is seen in this way. The slogan, "Let the market decide" assumes the market itself is The Decider. The market is seen as both natural (since it is assumed that people naturally seek their self-interest) and moral (if everyone seeks their own profit, the profit of all will be maximized by the invisible hand). As the ultimate moral authority, there should be no power higher than the market that might go against market values. Thus the government can spend money to protect the market and promote market values, but should not rule over it either through (1) regulation, (2) taxation, (3) unions and worker rights, (4) environmental protection or food safety laws, and (5) tort cases. Moreover, government should not do public service. The market has service industries for that. Thus, it would be wrong for the government to provide health care, education, public broadcasting, public parks, and so on. The very idea of these things is at odds with the conservative moral system. No one should be paying for anyone else. It is individual responsibility in all arenas. Taxation is thus seen as taking money away from those who have earned it and giving it to people who don't deserve it. Taxation cannot be seen as providing the necessities of life, a civilized society, and as necessary for business to prosper. (This is true even as one drives on tax built roads and laughs at the sucker who was pulled over by the Highway Patrol for driving drunk.)
In conservative family life, the strict father rules. Fathers and husbands should have control over reproduction; hence, parental and spousal notification laws and opposition to abortion. In conservative religion, God is seen as the strict father, the Lord, who rewards and punishes according to individual responsibility in following his Biblical word. (And in that view, men have all the sexual rights and women have all the sexual responsibilities--otherwise known as complementarity.)
Above all, the authority of conservatism itself must be maintained. The country should be ruled by conservative values, and progressive values are seen as evil. Science should not have authority over the market, and so the science of global warming and evolution must be denied. Facts that are inconsistent with the authority of conservatism must be ignored or denied or explained away. To protect and extend conservative values themselves, the devil's own means can be used again conservatism's immoral enemies, whether lies, intimidation, torture, or even death, say, for women's doctors.
Freedom is defined as being your own strict father -- with individual not social responsibility, and without any government authority telling you what you can and cannot do. To defend that freedom as an individual, you will of course need a gun.
This is the America that conservatives really want. Budget deficits are convenient ruses for destroying American democracy and replacing it with conservative rule in all areas of life.
*******************************************
I wonder though if the blinders aren't being taken off some people's eyes about the real agenda of the paternal conservative movement. If this model is being so thoroughly challenged and refuted in the Muslim world, proponents of such a view in the Catholic world have to be getting somewhat scared. They might even go so far as to insist God loves some people more than others as if to prod a reluctant flock into to sticking with a model of God that no longer has much relevance to the culture as a whole.
The conservative movement actually has two strains, neither one of which is truly Christian. I personally prefer the 'small government' libertarian group far more than I do the 'big government of big patriarchy' form.
The libertarian form is pretty prevalent out here in the West, which can be seen in the almost totally Republican Wyoming State legislature voting down intrusive abortion and gay marriage legislation. Small government means small government. It does not intrude in bedrooms, boardrooms, or doctor/patient relationships. Big patriarchy intrudes everywhere but the boardroom and the specific agenda is to keep the boardroom obscenely profitable and always in control. In the West, big patriarchy is no longer the sole province of men. We seem to have any number of political women willing to anoint themselves as the last best chance for big patriarchy. The presence of women does not make it less 'big patriarchy'.
Lest anyone get the wrong idea, I am not about to imply that the Democratic party is particularly Christian. It used to have the social justice thing down pretty well, but that got seriously diluted under the Clinton form of the party. President Obama appears quite willing to put aspects of 'big patriarchy' in play when it suits his agenda. As time passes it's an agenda which looks suspiciously as corporate in it's core as any Republican agenda. I suspect that's why we see on one day President Obama agreeing to the extension of the Bush tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy and then a few days later he masks this over by deciding not defend the constitutionality of DOMA. Or one day he axes fifty percent of community action programs and then crows about cutting a few billion from the trillion dollar defense budget. Defense cuts which amount to finding a quarter under the seat of your car when you make a hundred thousand a year, while the community action cuts amount to finding your uninsured car stolen.
On the bright side I look at the fallout from the Wisconsin budget fiasco and I'm beginning to get a warm spot in my heart. I am beginning to take hope that the majority of middle class Americans are catching on to the shell game being played in our politics and looking across the artificially created divide between social liberals and social conservatives. The game for both political parties has never really been about abortion or gay marriage rights or any of the other social agendas. The game has always been about the wealthy staying wealthy at the expense of any one but themselves.
If any of this wealth had ever trickled down, like Reagan convincingly maintained it would, it might be a different story, but it hasn't trickled down. It's been a one way torrent up. It's no wonder that religious officials like Cardinal George, a man whose own career has benefited from what little does trickle down, would suddenly be spouting nonsense about who God loves and doesn't love.
"Yesterday I wrote that this was a view of God that suspiciously mirrored an immature paternal figure. Although such a view of God is easily justified in the Old Testament, it can't be justified from the teachings of Christ."
ReplyDeleteThis is the anthropomorphic God of the Old Testament that views God as having human feelings and emotions. There are many reactionary people who view so much of this man made God and his actions in the old testament as actual history. When we analyze the traits that the writers of the old testament gave a God, we see the imperfect imprint of finite man in these books. This imprint continues into the New Testament and is often used to "prove" one thing or another about the "intentions" (again a human trait) of God.
It is the work of an immature mind set that puts so many human feeling and characteristics into God. It is further the work of such a mind set that claims this point of view is the infallible truth given us by God. The specific example that I am thinking of is how this type of thinking is applied to gay and lesbian members of the People of God. This mind set runs deep in those that want to use the Bible as historical truth to prove their own point of view. In the emotional response against gays and lesbians, these writers define them as disordered, yet no accepted Psychological or Psychiatric professional opinions have ever excepted this man made definition from those who seek to prove it through the Bible. It is particularly apparent when the Episcopacy claim that they and no other theologians have the infallible authority to interpret correctly what the Bible tells us when so many professional theologians disagree. This mind set is that of the authoritarian in society. It attempts to cast its moral umbrage over all humanity. These shades of thought are really the minds of tyranny in action, and they become unbearable problems when some in the Episcopacy attempt to understand them as “the defined teachings of the Church taken from the all the ancient texts. What they are saying is that we are not allowed to reevaluate immature methods of men who saw God as having human emotions and human intentions. Many zealots will take their proofs to extremes attempting to control the thinking of others in a either you are with the RCC or you are against it mentality. They proclaim themselves as the real catholics.
JP II and now Benedict have appointed many zealot Bishops, at least in the US, with this mind set. It is a pathological mindset and people who use it have have borderline and or schizoid personality traits that try to control and override the spiritual and creative parts of the church. As Hans Kung wrote the RCC seems destined to cast itself into a cornered and small cultish ghetto. This ghetto is claustrophobic and takes its authority from the fear it casts in the minds that will follow it. These are “the real catholics” that the neo-conservative catholics so want us all to be. While it was the lack of acceptance of the BC pill that drove so many away from the church of the past, most of the well educated and creative catholics of younger generations are leaving in droves because of the control of the church stucture gained by “the real catholic” modern zealots.
I find it interesting that Cardinal George states that God does not love everyone equally, while our Diocese of Little Rock's Bishop Taylor, stated in the latest edition of the Arkansas Catholic, that God does in fact love us all equally. Maybe there's some hope with at least one Bishop.
ReplyDeleteNever, in my 23 years in the Catholic community have I ever heard God loves some more than others. Quite persistently the opposite, actually. "God loves us all- yet some more so" sounds like the beginning of that old Animal Farm dictum "all animals are equal, some are more equal than others". Does God choose certain individuals for certain tasks, give them certain charisms and graces in line with His purposes? Exalt some and not others? Obviously, but I think its erroneous to insert talk about God's love in this.
ReplyDelete"Life is not a dialogue with legal principles" But it is a dialogue with abstract theological principles, good cardinal?
Leaving aside the (ineffably bad) Pater Familarous ideal, (whole lotta psychological junk here)this market worship is just as ineffably bad!
ReplyDeleteThe market does not solve all human problems, it merely functions as a system ascribing monetary value to the consumption of things. It cares not at all about the environment or the destruction of basic life sustaining ecology. The invisible hand too often turns around and strangles those who promote it. Without safeguards and Regulations It is the Id writ large, it is a voracious animal possessing only the instinct to eat, and it eats and eats and eats and is never full. And when there is nothing else left to eat around it, it happily commences to consume itself!
Kallisti
The Cardinal phrased this sloppily, perhaps to be deliberately shocking?
ReplyDeleteBut the principal he is talking about is well attested in the Catholic tradition and, frankly, reality.
Namely: some people get more grace than others, and mysteriously at that. This is simply manifestly obvious in the way of the world.
Grace is simply a supernatural concept of the Good, which thus perfects human free will (whose natural end is the good), and some people obviously have more degrees of freedom in terms of the good they're given in their lives.
We have to believe that God gives everyone sufficient grace to be saved unless they choose not to be moved by it towards their final good.
But it certainly does seem like some people in life find themselves a lot "closer to the center of the magnet" in terms of the strength of those actual graces compared to the attraction of other [apparent] goods which can become [sinful] objects of the will.
Frankly, you're making me angrier and angrier here because your spin on the Cardinal's comments shows an absolute lack of any sort of historical theological perspective. And without that knowledge, you can't even begin to place the Cardinal's comments in context.
ReplyDeleteNow, should he have probably GIVEN the context better rather than assuming people would know it (or being sensationalist?) Maybe. But what he says is utterly sound. For example, this article from the Summa:
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1020.htm#article3
"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 (2), no one thing would be better than another, if God did not will greater good for one than for another."
Since according to providence, everything that happens is in accordance with God's will, the mere fact that God allows some people to wind up better off than others, to merit more or less (or even to be damned) is proof enough of what the Cardinal said.
You seem to be thinking in terms of the "first way" that Aquinas speaks of God loving things, in which all things (and especially persons) are loved equally by an equal act of the Will.
But in the "second way" it is MANIFESTLY obvious, just from the situation in the world, that some people get more Good than others (supernaturally speaking, I mean, not materially; though the latter is also true, material poverty can be spiritual riches).
Now, this may be because of their resistance or rejection of grace, sure. But this doesn't seem to always be the case. Some people seem to be favored with a "royal road" to holiness based on the circumstances they are given that others of us simply don't have.
But who are we, as workers in the vineyard, to complain? He gives what He wants to whom He wants, and we have to trust that it's for the best. I'm not envious that He loves (in the second sense) the Virgin Mary more than me. That would be ridiculous.
Thanks for posting Thomist. I'm not unfamiliar with Aquinas's thinking and grew up in a Catholicism which taught that some people were more 'graced' than others. I don't buy it. Some people have better parents and grow up in healthier situations than others. For instance, we'd have many more Padre Pio's if more of us had grown up in a family with a mother who herself had visual and auditory hallucinations of a very positive nature and then encouraged such things in an equally gifted son.
ReplyDeleteWe've pretty much gotten over God made some people smarter than others so that means God loves smarter people more. You and the Cardinal see God's favoritism in holiness as manifested by supernatural events. I see that as a product of parenting, cultural acceptance, and a genetic predisposition to disassociation and other mental states.
How one uses their free choice in conjunction with the above has everything to do with how 'holy' they become. This is a world which is all about how we choose to use or react to the life and gifts we've been born with and into. In the end it's about choosing to act from love.
To me it's pretty juvenile, with what we know about nature/nurture to have to assign varying degrees of love to God to explain why some people are different from others.
"a Catholicism which taught that some people were more 'graced' than others."
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure we explicitly teach that so much as recognize that it's just manifestly true in the observable world, at least in terms of efficacious grace.
If we admit degrees of holiness or even natural goodness (which clearly exist, just look around) then we must admit that God wills greater or lesser supernatural and/or natural good for different people, because nothing happens outside His will.
And love in this sense being merely "willing the good of another"...then we have to admit that, in Aquinas's second sense, God loves some less. In the sense of willing them lesser good than others.
He didn't will me to be the mother of the Saviour, for example, which is a greater good. In this sense, inasmuch as He willed her a greater good, He loved her more. Inasmuch as the "amount" of love can be defined (in this second way) by the degree of the good willed.
I think YOU are the one who is anthropomorphizing God's love according to the modern notion of amount of "love" as intensity of the emotion rather than simply being the willing of good.
But under the more traditional definition, we must then admit that, in one sense, love is more or less according as the good willed is greater or lesser.
Should the Cardinal, being aware of the modern use of the word "love" have phrased things differently (perhaps said something like, "God wills more or less merit and glory for different individuals")? Perhaps. But he's coming from a linguistic context where what he says is totally valid and, frankly, obvious.
"I don't buy it. Some people have better parents and grow up in healthier situations than others."
Yes. And, with a supernatural conception of those goods (ie, assuming they profit unto salvation and merit; which difficult situations can also do, mind you), those are what we'd call "Actual Graces."
And some people obviously have more actual graces than others! You've just admitted it, basically.
"For instance, we'd have many more Padre Pio's if more of us had grown up in a family with a mother who herself had visual and auditory hallucinations of a very positive nature and then encouraged such things in an equally gifted son."
Yes, but most of us didn't, in Providence. Some people got many more such Actual Graces than others.
"We've pretty much gotten over God made some people smarter than others so that means God loves smarter people more."
I don't think we ever thought THAT exactly. Inasmuch as smarts, as natural good, may or may not be profitable unto supernatural good.
We're talking here about spiritual favor, in that sense, not material favor (which may or may not be spiritually favorable).
"You and the Cardinal see God's favoritism in holiness as manifested by supernatural events."
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean by "as manifested by supernatural events"?
The efficacy of grace in the soul is a supernatural event, but an internal and invisible one.
It is supernatural inasmuch as it elevates naturally good choices to the level of supernatural merit (unto eternal life and heavenly glory) that nature could never attain on its own without the intervention of grace.
Inasmuch as some people are holier than others (and they are), that by definition means they have more [efficacious] grace (even if you believe we've all been given the same sufficient grace).
And thus, by definition, God has willed them greater good (for whatever reason; it may involve, in some sense, the question of their own free co-operation).
And thus, in that sense, by definition loves them more. At least according to that definition of "love" and that definition of its "amount."
"I see that as a product of parenting, cultural acceptance, and a genetic predisposition to disassociation and other mental states."
We're not talking about extraordinary supernatural charisms here, though they too may be an actual grace (that God obviously bestows on some and not others).
Mainly, we're talking about the ordinary supernatural intervention of grace that must take place in every meritorious act of the will in order for it to be such.
"This is a world which is all about how we choose to use or react to the life and gifts we've been born with and into. In the end it's about choosing to act from love."
No amount of natural love, however, is good enough for Heaven.
Our natural good choices can only be elevated to the level of supernatural merit by grace, which is, of course, entirely gratuitous.
You're acting as if God willing the salvation of people (and thus the grace to accomplish it) is based on foreseen merit or something like that.
But, besides being Pelagian heresy, that's simply a logical circle. The only way human acts can be meritorious is if God's grace were already present. So if He were conferring that election to grace and glory based on foreseen merits...that's causally circular.
Yes, we are all given sufficient grace for salvation and it's about "how we use it." But "using it" is ALSO a grace, requires a supernatural intervention of God in the faculties of the soul in order to be profitable unto eternal life.
And why some people are given more and so merit more than others...cannot be assigned any cause other than the will of God, because unlike in us (where the good precedes the love we have for it), God's love actually CAUSES the goodness in the thing loved. Thus, in the sense that some things are less good than others, God has loved them less.
"If we admit degrees of holiness or even natural goodness (which clearly exist, just look around) then we must admit that God wills greater or lesser supernatural and/or natural good for different people, because nothing happens outside His will."
ReplyDeleteThis is a very circular argument. Nothing may happen outside God's awareness, that I will grant you, but I do not grant that means God wills everything God is aware of.
Many other spiritual systems have an entirely different takes on the observable discrepancies in our lives, and none of these use God as the excuse.
Thomast,
ReplyDeleteYou do not understand the growth and development of the human person nor of social structures in the way I do. Parents, and surroundings contribute much more to what you seem to think grace is than you wish to imagine. I think the sign of true grace is how any individual uses his or her God given talents and passes on to society a better world.
Peace,
"Nothing may happen outside God's awareness, that I will grant you, but I do not grant that means God wills everything God is aware of."
ReplyDeleteNo, it does. What you say here is simply not Catholic.
God's will is required for anything to exist. As first cause and final end, nothing can happen outside the purview of His at least permissive will.
Human free will brings evil into the world that cannot be attributed to God positively, and yet human free will itself falls under the sovereignty of providence and, as such, God has used it for the furtherance of His plan as a contingent (as opposed to necessary) secondary cause that allows for greater good.
"Parents, and surroundings contribute much more to what you seem to think grace is than you wish to imagine."
In the Catholic understanding, parents and surroundings ARE graces, or can be when elevated to a supernatural end.
Thomist, so let me get this straight. God wills people to a fiery eternal damnation, because obviously, nothing happens without the will of God, no one is finally free from that will and everything is already planned (or rather Predestined) by it.
ReplyDeleteAre *you* a Catholic or a Calvinist?
Kallisti
All branches of Christianity have some explanation of predestination. The Catholic explanation is neither Calvinism nor Arminianism, and there are actually several distinct Catholic schools tolerated. But all would have to admit, in the final consideration, that some are reprobate at least on account of foreseen sins:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newadvent.org/summa/1023.htm
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12378a.htm
This is simply a logical consequence of our beliefs about the nature of God's omnipotence, omniscience, and the absolutely supernatural nature of heaven. And in fact, it is defined De Fide dogma (from Ott's list):
# God, by His Eternal Resolve of Will, has predetermined certain men to eternal blessedness. (De fide.)
# God, by an Eternal Resolve of His Will, predestines certain men, on account of their foreseen sins, to eternal rejection. (De fide.)
Now, we are not Calvinists exactly because we believe reprobation is conditional on foreseen sins.
But then, God could give ANYONE a grace so efficacious that the will would overwhelmingly choose it as the greater good. And yet, if some are damned, not everyone does get such a grace.
As for why, there are different theories. Perhaps everyone is saved. Perhaps God bases the distribution of efficacious grace on how one handles sufficient grace. We don't really know. What we do know is that (even if, say, we hope all are saved) some seem to merit more or less than others.
Whether on account of foreseen choices or not, these people have less grace, there are degrees of glory in heaven, and the higher the glory, the greater, in that one sense, God's love for them.
Have mercy on us all.
ReplyDelete1. Infinity minus one = Infinity, Right?
But infinity then does not exist in any known number system that follows the usual rules of arithmetic. (Subtract infinity from both sides and the answer is -1=0 ) Thomist, you present an argument that makes no sense in any normal theology that posits a God of infinite love.
2. When did Adam Smith, his reference to "an invisible hand", and his trickle down economic theory become part of the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church? Although there is some support for the argument that Smith was referring to God as the owner of the invisible hand and that markets then are the mechanism of God through Natural Law, not all economists agree. Let alone theologians.
3. Smith argues that an individual's selfishness does more good for the public interest unintentionally than any attempt to perform good works.
4. Cardinal George is a dilettante in matters of economics. How else to take his statements? He doesn't seem much of a theologian or catechist either. What did Jesus say about helping others?
Try Luke (10:27-37)
27
He said in reply, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself."
28
He replied to him, "You have answered correctly; do this and you will live."
29
But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
30
Jesus replied, "A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead.
31
12 A priest happened to be going down that road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.
32
Likewise a Levite came to the place, and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.
33
But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him was moved with compassion at the sight.
34
He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them. Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn and cared for him.
35
The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction, 'Take care of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back.'
36
Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers' victim?"
37
He answered, "The one who treated him with mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."
38
13 As they continued their journey he entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him.
p2p
"Thomist, you present an argument that makes no sense in any normal theology that posits a God of infinite love."
ReplyDeleteIn what sense is God's love infinite, though? Not for any creature. If so, creatures would BE God, because infinite love, in this sense, would mean willing them infinite good, which is something finite creatures are simply incapable of receiving by nature.
Even the created humanity of Christ cannot be said to be loved infinitely by God, though it is said to be loved more than all the created universe combined on account of the hypostatic union being of almost immeasurable value.
Not least inasmuch as the whole of theology is not infallible,(merely the codified human understanding of the divine from any particular sect in any given time) the bible not infallible, and the church most especially not infallible, I reject this immature, incomplete, and inhumane understanding of God.
ReplyDeleteYou can't have your paramount human free will cake and eat your predestined eternal punishment too.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/omniscience/#ForHumFreAct
Also, what p2p said. And with this, alas, I finally know I am *bored*
Kallisti
"You can't have your paramount human free will cake and eat your predestined eternal punishment too."
ReplyDeleteYou can inasmuch as human free will is, itself, subject to God as the first cause and especially if reprobation is held to be conditional only on foreseen sin in some way.
Free will remains truly free under the influence of efficacious grace, in fact the more grace it has, the more degrees of freedom it has.
Stop trying to square this circle, if free will is subject to God's whims then it is not truly free, it is an illusion projected by this "omniscient" being. (Who don't forget, is also supposed to be omnibenevolent to boot).
ReplyDeleteAnd just how does one quantify the abstract principle, "grace"? Is there some metaphysical sliding scale whereby it can be measured? Don't say it all boils down to how one is stationed in life. Did god love king Herod more than the leper begging on the street because Herod lived in imperial luxury and the leper in destitute illness?
Kallisti
@ Thomist,
ReplyDeleteDidn't you get my oblique reference to angels dancing on the head of a pin? (infinity?) If you read Colleen's piece she's not really writing about metaphysics and ontology.
There are about 7 billion currently alive. One billion live in abject poverty, in danger of dying of hunger and disease every day. Another billion are slightly better off but live on incomes of just more than $1.00 per day. The next billion and a half live on less than $2.00 per day. That's half the world's population, a lot of brothers and sisters.
Read it and weep. Cardinal George is a Republican capitalist before he's a Catholic, or follower of Jesus. That's what is so outrageous. He's the priest who hurries by the poor beaten man left half dead in the ditch.
And all you want to do is score debating points. When I read your words I think of you as the Levite, crossing over to the other side of the road to avoid the man in the ditch and calling out "It is the will of God that you are less loved".
Well done Aquinas, or does your screen name refer to another Thomas?.
Give the dying man a hand, a drink, something to eat, bind his wounds. Don't leave it up to the invisible hand of the market.
I'm a follower of Jesus, not Adam Smith or Milton Friedman.
Our neighbors need our help.
p2p
"Read it and weep. Cardinal George is a Republican capitalist before he's a Catholic, or follower of Jesus. That's what is so outrageous."
ReplyDeleteWhat are you talking about? Cardinal George's article was about John Paul II and the nature of beatification!
It is Colleen who took it and spun it as being all about conservative American economics based on her distaste for the notion of the (nevertheless obvious) unequal distribution of grace.
That's where SHE ran with it, but it's really not what the Cardinal was talking about at all. He was talking about the nature of holiness and sanctification and the role of grace in that, in the context of JPII's beatification.
"Stop trying to square this circle, if free will is subject to God's whims then it is not truly free"
Incorrect. Read up on the controversies (Thomism vs Molinism, etc) surrounding the relationship of grace and free will in predestination and God's foreknowledge, and you'll see this is actually a much more complicated theological question than the simplistic Pelagian libertarianism (in the theological, not political, sense) you're espousing makes it out to be.
"And just how does one quantify the abstract principle, 'grace'?"
I don't think we do try to "quantify" it in that sense. Nevertheless, I think everyone would admit of qualitative degrees of holiness in people, and the Faith certainly holds that there are degrees of glory in heaven.
As Pope Benedict himself said in Spe Salvi, "Evildoers, in the end, do not sit at table at the eternal banquet beside their victims without distinction, as though nothing had happened."
"Don't say it all boils down to how one is stationed in life. Did god love king Herod more than the leper begging on the street because Herod lived in imperial luxury and the leper in destitute illness?"
Not at all. I don't know where you're getting this idea that somehow amount of grace is to be identified with material prosperity in this theology.
That's the straw man Colleen set up in her rant, but it was nowhere implied in the Cardinal's article, nor is it implied anywhere in the traditional Catholic theology of grace and predestination he was referencing.
In fact, God seems to love the POOR more, generally speaking, in terms of the grace and merit they ultimately are given.
Wow this is quite a discussion and I do appreciate Thomist coming back to keep it going.
ReplyDeleteI have a few thoughts. Aquinas himself had a profound mystical experience at the end of his life which so radicalized his understanding of life and God that he called his previous work 'so much straw'. I take him at his word because it fits my own experience.
I also believe if Aquinas were alive today, his theology would be far more nuanced if only because our knowledge bank is light years from what was available at his own time. In no way shape or form could he write such a tight opus like Summa because he would no longer be able to contain or have access to virtually the totality of the world's knowledge base.
As to my straw man, I did intentionally introduce Lakoff into the discussion. Economics is the driving energy in determining much of our experience in our lifetimes. This notion of some of us being more graced (loved) than others has been frequently used to both justify wealth and condemn others. p2p hits the real point of my article and that is the use of theology as a metaconstruct to justify the exploitation of others for what is essentially a predatory economic system. It is unfortunately far too easy for mere humans to make determinations about who God loves more on the basis of tangible checking accounts rather than intangible unquantifiable notions like 'grace'.
Your statement at the end of your last comment is paramount to justifying extreme poverty by equating such a state as evidence of God's love. Jesus freely rejected the riches of the world to maintain solidarity with the poor. It was a choice on His part, not a justification for poverty.
Jesus said it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. The Eye of the Needle was a small gate in the wall of Jerusalem. For a camel to pass through that particular gate meant it had to be stripped of it's cargo. Rich people can easily get into heaven if they are willing to strip themselves of their excess cargo, and leave it for others.
Poor people do not get that they are 'blessed' with copious amounts of God's love unless they under go a real spiritual conversion and make a choice to see their situation in such a light. Only then does it become understood as a potential gift. Everything is eventually about choice and how we experience the results of those choices. For me God is found in the tangle of our choices, in the paths we walk. God is sort of a destination we find with an ever evolving map and the fuel is love.
I think that Grace is a free gift from God to all. As finite humans it is impossible for us to quantify. This gift is ours but we must learn to express it by using and perfecting our own God Given Talents. Just as a figure skater was given a lot of talent, but it took years of word to refine and use. Some choose to perfect these talents in an attempt to live more graceful as God has given each of us the talent to do. However, there are some that are raised in families that have not attempted to perfect themselves at all, some in families that have not been allowed the resources by other humans to perfect it. I think God loves each of us the same, but he will judge all of us on how we both perfect our own talents and help others to do so.
ReplyDelete"Aquinas himself had a profound mystical experience at the end of his life which so radicalized his understanding of life and God that he called his previous work 'so much straw'. I take him at his word because it fits my own experience."
ReplyDeleteOften quoted by people who want to downplay Aquinas's theology or status as the pre-eminent Doctor of the Church.
However, one must remember that no one in the Church understood the quote that way for 500 years, basically.
St. Thomas's biographers who included that quote certainly did not take it as meaning that he was wrong, merely that mystical union OF COURSE surpasses any of our analogical understanding of God. That doesn't mean our analogical understanding is wrong.
But if his contemporary biographers had thought the quote was about discarding his works, they would not have included it, or else would have denounced his theology. They did neither.
"I also believe if Aquinas were alive today, his theology would be far more nuanced if only because our knowledge bank is light years from what was available at his own time."
Rarely does the Summa deal with questions of the natural sciences. Admittedly, where it does rely on medieval material sciences are the weakest parts.
However, for the most part it deals with "pure philosophy"/theology that remains unaffected by the natural sciences because their subject is simply different.
"Your statement at the end of your last comment is paramount to justifying extreme poverty by equating such a state as evidence of God's love."
ReplyDeleteHardly "justifying" because it's not as if we can MAKE God love us or somebody else by causing poverty (nor is poverty a guarantee of holiness).
The idea is that as long as there is poverty in the world, God may in general love more the ones He chooses to "fill those spots." Because people are being born into them, and He's obviously putting SOME souls into those bodies.
It certainly doesn't imply we should be okay with the spots existing in the first place, though, anymore than the fact that He clearly chose which soul would be born as King (a spiritually dangerous spot to be placed, it seems to me) means that the monarchy, as an institution, is sacred or should not be changed.
But to bring in economics seems silly, anyway. The Cardinal wasn't talking about that. He was talking about holiness and "little and big Saints," not about rich and poor.
His point about equality is thus well taken. It's obvious even from your own comments here where these sorts of notions of radical egalitarianism lead.
They start off seeking political and economic equality, which is good enough in itself, and which is something I'd support, at least all other things being equal (and the Cardinal too, it would seem, given his statement about how people should be equal before the abstract principles of the law).
But then it seems like so often its proponents can't help but turn that political/economic ideal into some sort of METAPHYSICAL proposition about human equality that is simply unrealistic based on a world where people are, in a variety of ways, manifestly unequal, and which leads to a lot of PC absurdity that has often been rightly parodied.
"The Eye of the Needle was a small gate in the wall of Jerusalem."
A nice rationalization, one of those ideological-charged anecdotes that get thrown around, but utterly unfounded:
http://www.biblicalhebrew.com/nt/camelneedle.htm
"Everything is eventually about choice and how we experience the results of those choices."
Again, this is too simplistic an understanding of Free Will for Catholic theology. Because any meritorious choice on our part is, itself, a grace. As such, the question of why some people receive the grace of [supernaturally] good choices and some don't...is more tricky.
The Will is a faculty moved by the Good (or apparent good). Creatures only have goodness inasmuch as God has willed it. The question of grace and free will is thus much more complicated.
It MAY be possible to say that God only denies grace based on foreseen naturally evil acts. But even then, Providence controls the circumstances, the situations of choice we are placed in, so the actual theology of all this is much more, yes, nuanced, and still very much debated in the Church.
"As finite humans it is impossible for us to quantify."
Absolutely speaking, yes. Comparatively, though, no, some people are holier than others.
The Virgin Mary ranks above St. Francis who ranks above my grandfather in the heavenly hierarchy. "Everyone's cup is overflowing, but some have bigger cups."
Actually I was thinking more along the lines of human consciousness, neurophysiology, physics, and cosmology. Each of those fields is having a real effect on the philosophies and theologies in the orient, India and in Indigenous spiritualities. If nothing else, they are providing a common frame of reference and that alone is a modifier. I still maintain Aquinas would have some different thoughts if he had been born in this era.
ReplyDeleteI doubt even Aquinas himself would say that theology remains unaffected by advances in the natural sciences. He was far too self honest and penetrating an academic for any such statement.
THomist said, "However, for the most part it deals with "pure philosophy"/theology that remains unaffected by the natural sciences because their subject is simply different."
ReplyDeleteI see this very differently since good science is always based first on pure thought-- the hypophisis. The subject matter of natureal science often intersect theology as well as philosophy. For instance in the raging debate today. When does life begin? I think the subject of science, philosopy and theology is the study of truth. Notice I say truth and not THE TRUTH. We as finite beings can only look for more truth as it takes an infinite mind to know the truth. dennis
Thomist I found one of your comments in the SPAM file. Usually this happens when longer comments contain links or addresses to other sites.
ReplyDelete"Because any meritorious choice on our part is, itself, a grace. As such, the question of why some people receive the grace of [supernaturally] good choices and some don't...is more tricky."
"The Will is a faculty moved by the Good (or apparent good). Creatures only have goodness inasmuch as God has willed it. The question of grace and free will is thus much more complicated."
These statements are really interesting. I think I need your definition of Will because the way I read this is mankind's will is utterly dependent on the will of God. We only make good choices if God so wills we make good choices. What then is the point of humanity and free choice? Let God run his own show without our interference.
I think what you might be trying to say is that as humans gain further insight and a better connection with God they are predisposed to make better choices. I could go with that notion, but again, so much of that is dependent on so many things which have nothing to do with God and everything to do with circumstances in which we are born and raised.
"I think I need your definition of Will because the way I read this is mankind's will is utterly dependent on the will of God. We only make good choices if God so wills we make good choices. What then is the point of humanity and free choice?"
ReplyDeleteMankind's will IS utterly dependent on the will of God in some sense, His permissive will, at least. That doesn't mean it isn't free. But it does mean, for example, that the existence of the freedom of the will is only dependent on God actualizing its existence (as is true for ANY creation) and also that of all possible histories, God actualizes one, which includes all the circumstances in which free choices are made.
And in terms of grace, that's utterly gratuitous. We don't need grace to make a naturally good choice, but no naturally good choice is deserving of heaven, which is a completely supernatural destiny. For a choice to be supernaturally meritorious, we need grace, which simply no natural choice can merit or deserve.
Here's another technical matter about this blog, after four days all comments go to moderation. I get to those late at night while I'm at work. Hence this is posting at 3:00 am Eastern Time.
ReplyDeleteWe're getting closer to some real definitions now and that is a good thing. I agree God actualizes creation and in that since is involved in our choices. Where we might disagree is on just what we mean by actualizing reality. The reality I experience is not the one you do, but more than that, the shared reality which we experience is only one such reality God has actualized. In my experience God has actualized a reality in which the creator of that reality is our free will in conjunction with our belief system. Belief system in the sense I'm using it is far more encompassing than just religious or faith belief.
I could make a case that what you call grace and the supernatural world is also what I call the effects of dimethyltryptophan on the brain which leads to the reception of sensory input from simultaneously existing alternate realities, but that would take an entire blog post or two and I'm a little too tired for that tonight.
thanks for staying with the discussion, it's made me think a lot and clarify some other thoughts in my own head and that's always a good thing.