tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post1442337622779148236..comments2023-08-21T03:51:17.425-06:00Comments on Enlightened Catholicism: Reason As The Source Of Natural Lawcolkochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-30736717356831239532010-01-15T12:57:19.065-07:002010-01-15T12:57:19.065-07:00Gosh, if reason were enough, there would be no nee...Gosh, if reason were enough, there would be no need for therapy! You could call me up, give me the scoop, listen to "clear reasoning" - and that would enough! But it's not! <br /><br />How naive some people can be....TheraPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17684120043427738135noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-67194310947769512052010-01-13T11:25:41.806-07:002010-01-13T11:25:41.806-07:00I think there's a danger in criticising George...I think there's a danger in criticising George's reliance on "reason." One risks creating the appearance of conceding that he is, in fact, being reasonable. <br /><br />His problem is not simply that he exaggerates the importance of reason -- which is pretty important, when it's limits and scope are understood. His problem is that he thinks he's being reasonable when in fact he's not.<br /><br />This idea that morality can be determined solely on the basis of reason, without consideration of largely non-rational <i>values,</i> is not itself reasonable.<br /><br />Furthermore, his insistence that sexual acts must be "procreative-type" sex acts (his term) according to the "natural law" runs into the difficulty that the vast majority of sex acts (even those considered morally licit by the Vatican) do not result in "procreation." There is no causal relationship between insemination and conception, as his hero Aristotle failed to notice, and as the Catholic tradition has generally failed to notice along with him.<br /><br />The "natural law" argument against contraception was ably dismantled by Jesuit Fr. Bernard Lonergan (as summarised <a href="http://farfromrome.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-vatican-is-wrong-about.html" rel="nofollow">here</a> on my own blog), and I would argue that the same argument can be applied to any position claiming to be of "natural law" that depends on the mistaken (and unreasonable) notion that each and every sex act has a "procreative sense."PrickliestPearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07606660660913560540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-82242891796274734602010-01-13T09:47:39.741-07:002010-01-13T09:47:39.741-07:00Mark, I really do think our understanding of sexua...Mark, I really do think our understanding of sexual ethics has evolved. That doesn't necessarily mean that the hormonal influences have innately changed. What it does mean is that there is a construct accepted by the neo cortex that can serve to structure the expression of the hormones.<br /><br />The problem is that most of our moral reasoning is based on male sexuality and structuring the correct expression of orgasm. In men orgasm and ejaculation go hand in hand and so the procreative aspects of male sexuality are directly tied to the orgasmic pleasure. <br /><br />This is not true for women. Pregnancy can have, and frequently does have, nothing to do with sexual pleasure or orgasm. Pregnancy is not some nine month mystical orgasm. It's a biological process and too frequently not a welcome process.<br /><br />We have evolved to the point where society does not condone indescriminate pursuit of male orgasm by exploitative methods. At the same time we evolved an understanding of women's sexuality which recognized the capacity for women to enjoy sex irrespective of pregnancy. So while society accepted putting brakes on indescriminate male sexuality as a moral good, western society was taking the brakes off of female sexuality and giving women the choice to experience sexual pleasure without pregnancy.<br /><br />A crash was bound to occur and it seems to me that gays and to some extent women are paying the price.<br /><br />What we need is a mutual path and not a reassertment of the exclusively male reasoned path.colkochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-58670015312761446172010-01-13T08:02:43.853-07:002010-01-13T08:02:43.853-07:00Colleen, this is an excellent analysis of George&#...Colleen, this is an excellent analysis of George's idea of reason. I hope to see this piece appear in other places--it deserves a wide hearing, in my view.William D. Lindseyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07246026074693891965noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-62737885835337398432010-01-13T06:49:26.701-07:002010-01-13T06:49:26.701-07:00"the human race has evolved especially in ter..."the human race has evolved especially in terms of our own self-understanding of sexual ethics"<br /><br />Has it "evolved?" Whether one talks about predatory priests, craven bishops - or world-famous golfers (to say nothing of politicians of both parties in America) - a short, sharp, shock of reason, momentarily de-coupled from the impulses of the hind-brain would have been very helpful.<br /><br />The biggest problem with the so-called "perfectibility of man" is thinking I'm the finished product of that process. <br /><br />And, to the 1st Anonymous, if I wasn't human at conception I can't be human now, can I?Mark Andrewsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-377146749448203192010-01-12T17:47:23.699-07:002010-01-12T17:47:23.699-07:00I agree with anonymous. Even reasoning cannot be s...I agree with anonymous. Even reasoning cannot be static.<br /><br />George seems to have an audience with some frozen, yes static, American bishops.<br /><br />George really is on shaky ground. He seems to admit it when he says: “Still,if there was one critique of his work that worried him, it was the charge that he puts too much faith in the power of reason, overlooking what Christians describe as original sin and what secular pessimists call history.”wild hairhttp://www.wildhair95.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-22575826846068776632010-01-12T15:11:42.061-07:002010-01-12T15:11:42.061-07:00George is definitely in the running for Frank Coco...George is definitely in the running for Frank Cocozzelli's "Coughie" award, and the institutional church continues its march backward in time....khughes1963https://www.blogger.com/profile/16118365554189078448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-16940056151650266722010-01-12T13:24:38.495-07:002010-01-12T13:24:38.495-07:00This is all very disturbing. The Manhattan Declar...This is all very disturbing. The Manhattan Declaration and its authorship by George illustrate the retrograde movement of the Church is now total and complete.<br />George sounds about as unsophisticated as Peter Kreeft, spouting boiled over Thomistic bromides that were published in booklets for the masses in the early 20th century. <br /><br />If reason has "the whip hand on emotion", what does this say about people who are more emotionally expressive - let's be perhaps a bit non-PC and say, what about women? It seems to me that George's ideas (and much of the history of philosophy) consider women weaker because they don't appear to be whipping their emotions into shape. It all feels like so much desperate hyper-rationality in the face of challenges to real growth.<br /><br />George et al. have blinders on. They do not want to acknowledge that for some time now, philosophy has ceased to be the handmaiden of theology; experience now plays that role, and has for a while.Captain Picardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07675995256310168056noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-89313969579391783942010-01-12T13:04:23.914-07:002010-01-12T13:04:23.914-07:00Another link to an excellent synposis of the vario...Another link to an excellent synposis of the various distinctions and levels that reasoning has in natural law using abortion as the example: http://www.catholica.com.au/peregrinus/045_pere_230507.phpAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8383701632927065467.post-70780822545144909882010-01-12T11:48:45.852-07:002010-01-12T11:48:45.852-07:00I was disturbed by one other aspect of his positio...I was disturbed by one other aspect of his position - his definition of "natural law" as obviously arrived at by reasoning. Example - he cites abortion as against natural law and posits that any rational being would arrive at this point. <br />What concerns me is that natural law is discovered by reasoning but also by history, experience, experiments, trial and error, it evolves - it is not static. If natural law was static, then we would still have slavery; the earth would still be the center of the universe. His arguments do not stand up to the test of time - the human race has evolved especially in terms of our own self-understanding of sexual ethics - when does a human being exist? at conception? the science (reasoning) of genetics would not agree with this for multiple reasons. His de-emphasis on social evils is also concerning - 25,000 children per day die because of poverty, disease, war, etc. Is this not also reasoning? and yet, there appears to be no place in his natural law for these facts.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com