Reason in Limbo

One reason I love Chesterton is that Americans are forever lagging behind their British cousin. The reaction against Christendom which reached a heyday in his time is coming to a head in ours. And his words in defense of the Church are just as forceful today as they were when he wrote them. For the enemies of the Faith do not learn from the mistakes of their compatriots of yesteryear; they suffer instead from the same ailment. They do not know that which they attack.

In The Everlasting Man, Chesterton writes:

[T]he next best thing to being really inside Christendom is to be really outside it. And a particular point of it is that the popular critics of Christianity are not really outside it. They are on a debatable ground, in every sense of the term. They are doubtful in their very doubts. Their criticism has taken on a curious tone; as of a random and illiterate heckling....But these people have got into an intermediate state, have fallen into an intervening valley from which they can see neither the heights beyond them nor the heights behind. They cannot get out of the penumbra of Christian controversy. They cannot be Christians and they can not leave off being Anti-Christians. Their whole atmosphere is the atmosphere of a reaction: sulks, perversity, petty criticism. They still live in the shadow of the faith and have lost the light of the faith.

Thus we head over to Pandagon where Amanda has gotten things all wrong once again. This is a much older post, but I have never been unfairly slandered as being up with the times. This time, the topic is limbo.

[T]here’s a pragmatic reason that the Vatican might be a little hesistant (sic) to come right out and say that there’s no limbo (definition here, for those who don’t know much about Catholicism) is because the concept is wielded by everyday Catholics to explain where the souls of unborn babies go, which is just an extra way to guilt trip women who have abortions.

This is ludicrous. The objection to abortion is that it is murder. It would still be immoral to abort one's child even if one were certain that the little babe would enter into a life of heavenly bliss. That we are uncertain of the eventual end of the child may add to our discretion, but their is sufficient moral impetus to prevent abortions irrespective of our place in the after-life.

But it’s sort of a balancing act, as far as I can tell, because as most people understand it, unbaptized children go to limbo but when Jesus returns, they all get to go to heaven.

I take it Amanda didn't get too far into the Divine Comedy before giving up. Nor did she bother to read any of Aquinas's philosophy; for Thomism is the basis of much Dantean thought. Virgil, the noble pagan, inhabits limbo; but he is not allowed to enter into heaven, and neither are his fellow residents. The Church, of course, does not know what happens to those children who die unbaptized. The Comedy is brilliant poetry, based on sound Church doctrine, though occasionally it rests on the comparatively weaker foundation of human speculation, albeit that of one of the most brilliant minds to ever live.

The Church's teaching (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1261) on Limbo is as follows:

As regards children who have died without baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God, who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children, which caused him to say, 'Let the children come to me, do not hinder them' [Mark 10:14, cf. 1 Tim. 2:4], allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without baptism. All the more urgent is the Church's call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy baptism.

Anyway, back to Amanda.

So it’s a way to guilt trip women who have abortions without casting god as such an uncruel (sic) monster as to throw souls into hell that never even had a shot at sinning. So that’s limbo: it sucks enough to make women feel guilty about abortion, but it doesn’t suck so much as to run people off.

Amanda just can't seem to see through any but her foggy feminist glasses. It is completely beyond the pale that limbo doesn't really have anything to do with abortion. The teaching originated with Aquinas who attempted to correct the speculation of Augustine who believed that since Scripture made clear that baptism was necessary for Heaven, we had no choice but to accept that unbaptized children went to hell. Aquinas is more of an agnostic on this one, postulating that we just don't know, but we can hope that God's mercy triumphs in these cases, in ways known only to him.

While it is true that infants did not have a shot at sinning--the Church holds seven to be the age of reason; before that, sinning is impossible, though this is a ballpark figure, and some younger than seven may be culpable of sin--they are guilty. Amanda seems to have forgotten that doctrine of Original Sin. No doubt she would chalk up the fact that "all have sinned" and "the wages of sin is death" as an authoritarian God taking out his misogyny on Eve for daring to assert her right to choose to eat the apple.

And, as I mentioned before, the reason women should feel guilty of abortion, and the reason many of them do, is that they realize that they have blood on their hands. Drip drip.

I suspect Pope Ratz will give into the urge eventually to come out and say there’s no limbo and unbaptized babies go straight to hell. He can’t help it; he’s just a dictator like that.

Is there any body on earth less dictatorial than the Church? I mean this in all sincerity. The Modern Church is incredibly soft, a kinder gentler Church for a barbaric age. Just how is the Pope acting like a dictator? He weighs in on an ancient theological dispute, and offer moral guidance for his flock, but no where does he force anyone to do anything.

This is a very important point. One of the marks of the Church is her liberality. True, certain opinions cannot be held in good faith, but this is true of any organization. A Democrat cannot oppose gay marriage and believe that abortion is immoral without calling his integrity into question. I disagree, of course, with the marks of Democrats, but I do not fault them for adhering to some sort of creed. The logical full extension of liberality renders the reason for it irrelevant.

The Church believes that God gave man free will. She will tell him how best to use this will, but she will seldom compel him to do so. After all, just 4% of American Catholics adhere to the Church's teaching on birth control; divorce rates are far above what should be acceptable to Roman Catholics. The list goes on and on.

I highly doubt that Amanda cares enough to look closely at the Church; nor does she care to walk away from it. For if she did, she would assuredly realize that it is a dreadfully peculiar thing, unique among the world. And that is the point where the haunting specter of conversion begins.