The dialog continues

I started to write my response in the usual manner: quote, rebuttal, quote rebuttal, etc. But I noticed that I was asking the questions I had asked before, the questions that inevitably seem to arise when an atheist attempts to formulate a system of ethics: What is Good, if not God? Where does it come from? Granted that there are a number of ethical systems which a man may utilize in striving to live ethically, why is he compelled to live ethically at all? These seem to be the fundamental questions, and I ask them up front to avoid repetition later.

In any event, I'll stick with the usual format, if only to avoid having to rewrite. I'll also try to avoid asking questions which I have already asked, and do my best to answer those posed to me.

Maybe you've already explained this, but what do you think human nature is?

I would say that man is composed of body and soul. He is both a moral agent and a rational one; the ability to distinguish between right and wrong is what separates man from the beasts. Further, I believe human nature is fraught with concupiscence. Thus while man longs for God who is Good, because he is a fallen creature, man sins; like St. Paul, we do what we do not want. (Romans 7:16)

And how do you know that the features you select are part of nature rather than the historical accomplishments of human culture?

Since you can't test for a soul—anymore than you can dust for vomit—you'll have to either accept or reject that one on faith. Still, aside from the notion of man as fallen, I don't think there's anything in my definition with which Aristotle would disagree. As for the fall, it so happens Chesterton said it best. After noting that the doctrine of original sin is “the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved”, he notes:

Some followers of the Reverend R.J.Campbell, in their almost too fastidious spirituality, admit divine sinlessness, which they cannot see even in their dreams. But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street. The strongest saints and the strongest sceptics alike took positive evil as the starting-point of their argument. If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat.

In short, I think my definition, although slovenly constructed, is entirely valid and complete enough for the sake of our little intellectual duel.

Why does it matter?

Because we'll never get anywhere if we can't define our terms. If human nature is always changing, then so too will be the “good” which applies to that nature. This is an entirely permissible explanation, but I think it rather clear that this excludes the possibility of a logically coherent system of ethics.

On the other hand, the values attached to different practices and modes of life have an economy largely autonomous of our biological nature, and this is the realm in which we exercise our freedom and exist as ethical beings. So I prefer to focus on society, and to look for answers to ethical and moral questions in terms of the individual's embeddedness in her historical society.

You posit that we are ethical beings. But you have yet to define the terms “good” and “evil”, which are necessities for any ethical choice. You've spoken repeatedly of values, from which good and evil may arise, but I see nothing in your presentation that would prevent a “historical society” from valuing disparate things. And, indeed, if we study history, we will see that various societies have done precisely this.

For instance, one of the more charming practices of India was the rite of suttee, in which the newly widowed immolated herself on her husband's funeral pyre. Now, Christians have a code of ethics which precludes self-immolation, and, in this case, the evangelization of the island helped lead to a reduction in the practice; it was eventually abolished in 1829 by the colonizing British. But, to go back several centuries, there was nothing in the “historical society” of a poor Indian woman which would discourage her from self-immolation. I see no grounds upon which you could condemn this practice to her.

Ethically, raping people promotes violence that's likely to spill back into your life unexpectedly, it's going to feed into all kinds of destructive cycles, and is massively unlikely to contribute to a fulfilling human life... Rapists suffer from a confused conception of the good life. The satisfactions of nonconsensual sex are hollow and fleeting.

While I would tend to agree with you, my agreement arises out of our shared cultural heritage. The Judeo-Christian culture teaches that rape is a moral wrong, and a grave one. But rape hasn't always been considered wrong in all cultures, as Vox Day points out.

Understand, I am not so much disagreeing with you as I am unmoved my your reasoning. Much of what you say could be readily applied to the promiscuous culture of too many institutions of so-called higher learning. The satisfactions of consensual sex are hollow and fleeting as well. Vanity of vanities and all that.

Much of ethics seems to be little more than applied common sense, but the vicissitudes of human behavior suggest that this simple appeal isn't likely to suffice. We live in an age when millions of unborn children are slaughtered so that women can live what they feel is “the good life”. Naturally, this appalls my Christian sensibilities—and I think it evinces a violation of Kant's second formulation of his categorical imperative—but while one could insist that these women are not actually living the good life if they refrain from abortion, one could make a case--in my view a much stronger one--for precisely the opposite. Thus, while our conceptions of the good life are probably very similar, until we define this term—or at least ground it in an objective system of ethics—most any behavior could be seen as consistent with “the good life”, which is the exact problem that the ethical system should aim to solve.

You determine for yourself, inasmuch as you determine anything for yourself, who you want to be. We each have our own conception of the good life. The point is that this conception cannot be formed in a vacuum.

This seems reasonable, but it remains unclear as to where my ability to determine my own “good life” leaves off and is curtailed by that of my “historical society”. Thus, we would both agree that, within our “historical society”, becoming a good rapist is a contradiction in terms. But I see nothing in what you have said so far that would prevent the contradiction from disappearing in a society that chose to value nonconsensual intercourse. To me, on the other hand, because God is the source of goodness, rape is always wrong, no matter the values of a particular society.

Where do you think we get our literary standards?

We get our literary standards from our culture, but they're ultimately unsound in determining whether or not a writer has achieved the "good life". If you asked Americans to compile a list of the good writers of today, those who can actually read would come up with names like Stephen King, Dan Brown, J. K. Rowling, Danielle Steele, John Grisham, perhaps Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton. Occasionally, great writers receive deserved adulation from their contemporaries, as Charles Dickens and Shakespeare did in their time, and Umberto Eco does in ours. But many good writers suffer the fate of Melville. Only the Father who “sees in secret” (Matthew 6:4) is capable of rewarding—or punishing—humans according to their actions. Culture sometimes rewards virtue; often it punishes it; oftener the two possess no obvious relationship at all.

To elaborate on this and to show how we begin to achieve an autonomous world of value, I quote from a paper I wrote on Hegel's Phenomenology, of which I sent you a copy a few weeks ago.

For some reason, I never got the paper. If you send it, I'll do my best to read it, though I confess with my background in philosophy as limited as it is, it will probably prove beyond my ability to understand.

Lastly, since my admirable antagonist references phenomenology, I'll share this passage I recalled from George Weigel's Witness to Hope:

It was phenomenology's determination to see things whole and get to the reality of things-as-they-are that attracted Karol Wojtyla [the future Pope John Paul II]. In his habilitation thesis, he asked whether it was possible to create a solid philosophical foundation for the moral life on the basis of [Max] Scheler's phenomenology of ethics, and particularly the ethics of value...

The question Wojtyla posed in his habilitation thesis was whether Scheler (and, by extension, the phenomenological method) could do for contemporary Christian philosophy and theology what Aristotle had done for Thomas Aquinas.

The answer, for the young priest, essentially, was “No.” The moral act is a real act with real consequences, and to Wojtyla's mind Scheler had failed to come to grips with how moral choices actually shape a person. Therefore, in Scheler's system, morality was still suspended somewhere “outside” the human universe. Wojtyla was also critical of Scheler's tendency to emotionalize experience and consciousness, leading to a truncated portrait of the human person...

Phenomenology would drift off into various forms of solipsism, however, unless it were grounded in a general theory of things-as-they-are that was resolutely realistic and that could defend the capacity of human beings to get at the truth of things... If the choice was not between good and evil, but only between personal preferences, then all choices were ultimately indifferent and real choice no longer existed. This, in turn, would empty the drama of human freedom of its essential tension and deprive human beings of their most distinctively human quality. (p.127, 129)

As always, I look forward to your response.

Re: Response to me (part 2)

This will conclude my response to PJ--for now--after which I will allow him to make a rebuttal. I've attempted to keep my response brief. Naturally, I've failed. Should there be something which you believe I did not address sufficiently, do let me know so that I may revisit it.

Ah, but human nature does change and with it, the social world. Our "first," material-biological nature is the product of evolutionary forces, of course; but morality is a relatively new phenomenon, in the vast time-scales of the life sciences, and it can only emerge for beings who develop our kind of social "second" nature.

This strikes me as peculiar, and seems to add more questions than it provides answers. Supposing I accept your premise—which I cannot—several questions arise. I've given you more than enough to chew on without compelling you to answer all of them, but they are worthy of consideration. Is human nature equal in all its members, or are some humans “more equal than others?” Does one's moral code depend on one's place in the ever-evolving human nature? Is human nature moving towards something, away from something, or are these fluctuations essentially trivial in the grand scheme of things? I sense much Wells in you.

If you could provide a list of differing human natures and an ethic which would apply differently to two of them I would greatly appreciate it.

Rather, selfhood can only be cashed out in terms of irreducibly social commitments and identifications.

This seems to suggest that man draws his worth from those men around him. But if those men are similarly without value, whence does this value arise? If you sum zero infinitely, it is still zero. Unless man has worth—in my view because God bestows him with it—mankind is effectively worthless.

The "glass" is a mirror, the idea being that, reflecting on God, we are reflecting on ourselves without realizing that that is what we are doing.

Only if God's revelation isn't really what we claim. I think it mighty unfair to our ancestors to insist, looking down upon them from several centuries of perhaps not entirely worthless experience, that they were merely reflecting on ourselves—and projecting onto God? To revisit Moses, theoretically he could have been reflecting on himself, though one wonders why on earth he would insist that he should go confront Pharaoh over his Jewish problem. In addition, as Vox Day points out, “I Am Who Am” may be a silly thing for a bush to say, but it's also a silly story for a nomad existing several centuries before Christ to invent.

To be utilitarian, a theory must advance a single, comprehensive, conception of the good -- in terms of utility -- and then it must stipulate that the moral worth of an action is determined by the extent to which it maximizes that good. I, on the contrary, believe that there are a plurality of real goods and that we have to give priority to ourselves and the people close to us (although I won't directly defend the latter part of this claim, unless you're especially interested).

While I greatly enjoyed Atlas Shrugged, I'm no objectivist, so I won't fault you for believing we have some duty to those close to us. Still, while your plurality of goods makes a certain amount of sense—natural law theorists similarly posit a number of goods: knowledge, procreation, life, and sociability, if memory serves—it begs a question. I'm afraid it is one I have asked before: whence do these goods arise? It leaves you with something of a Euthyphro dilemma on your hands. The natural law theory points to God as the source of all good. Your goods point to... either satisfaction—which would be utilitarian—or... what?

The satisfactions of helping someone solve a difficult problem, of listening to a symphony, and of enjoying a glass of fine wine, for instance, are qualitatively distinct in such a way as to preclude quantitative comparisons.

Well, you could help someone with the problem of what on earth is to be done with his fine wine while listening to a symphony, but I agree. The problem is when we consider such acts which are not morally permissible ones. For instance, in choosing whether to violate a virgin, murder an old woman, or rob a bank, are we similarly left with the problem of quantifying our satisfaction. But if we add, to the list of options, “or read a Walker Percy novel”, of course you should pick Percy, but not because he is an excellent writer, but because this is your only permissible moral choice. Even if one derives no satisfaction from reading the novel--especially if one doesn't know how to read English very well--this is still the morally correct choice.

Now, obviously no one would ever be confronted with these bizarre choices, save perhaps in a novel, but the point is that the satisfaction which is implicitly posited as the determining factor in considering what one should do. No matter how much satisfaction our hypothetical character may derive from ravishing a virgin, moral standards prevent him from acting on what is essentially a utilitarian principle. Our virgin thanks him.

This isn't to say that all decisions are equally good or that it doesn't matter what one does with one's life, only that the relevant standards must be supplied by the individual's conception of "the good life," her sense of who she is and who she wants to become.

I don't wish to be more of a jerk than I've already been, but if we return to our virgin, if I wish to go about, being the best rapist I can be, what standards would you posit to compel me to do otherwise?

Notice, now, that working toward the good life requires a minimal kind of self-consciousness: it is not just a matter of activating pleasure-centers in the brain, but of achieving describable goals -- however these may shift about in the course of a life. It is, in other words, a matter of *self*-actualization.

You are pronouncing judgment against merely activating pleasure-centers in the brain. Well and good, but on what grounds? Michel Onfray, from the little I know of him, would vociferously disagree; he would assert that you are preventing him from attaining self-actualization. In addition, if self-actualization is the good at which man's life is aimed—yes I know, you say there are a number of goods, but unless I am mistaken, I see here a contradiction—then you are stating that man is the rule by which all things are to be measured. This makes sense from a God-less perspective, but it rather deflates any chance of promulgating a coherent and lucid system of ethics.

Furthermore, it is up for social negotiation whether my deeds fall under the act-description I invoke and whether I live up to the identity I claim for myself.

Again, I may be making mistakes here, but I'm unclear as to how society may dictate to me whether or not I am progressing towards self-actualization. If society has a claim to my behavior, fine, I suppose, but this can very certainly threaten my ability to become the self that I desire to be.

For example, there is no intelligible sense in which someone might "really" be a good professor in spite of his inability to capture the attention and imagination of his students and colleagues.

Sure there is. Perhaps his students are all dunderheads, or that they don't give a whit for the subject matter, or they're distracted by text messages from their friends. There are any number of, if not professors, writers who “succeed” despite an inability to write well. Those who pen harlequin romance novels are well-received by their audience, and I suppose we could bequeath upon them the title of Producer of Much Emotional Porn and Other Sundry Nonsense, or some such twaddle, but I don't think you or I would take the verdict of their audience without a grain of salt.

To be clear, what is important is not that there always be another person physically there affirming your success to you, but only that the standards by which you assess yourself are essentially social standards.

And again, I reject this. Moby Dick was very poorly received when it was written. If memory serves, some French interest revived the piece, and placed it in the pantheon of great American literature. Now, on the one hand, the social standards which Melville could have used to determine his worth as a writer failed him. On the other, one could argue that the verdict of posterity was essentially a social one, which is true; but then one would be forced to conclude that Melville was a good writer only because people rediscovered his book, and not because he was, in fact, a good writer.

Without shared social practices, standards, and ideals, human life would be reduced to a pathological hedonism. We have an obligation, therefore, to maintain the most fundamental of these networks -- the conditions of lawfulness itself -- by respecting the dignity of the self-conscious agents in which these networks subsist.

This strikes me as a particularly poor argument. Anarchy is undesirable, therefore, we must have law. You peer into the abyss, and because you don't like what you see, you embrace an ethical code which is neither clear not compelling. I don't think poorly of you because of this decision, but an emotional aversion to hedonism isn't the best base upon which to rest a system of ethics.

I eagerly await your response, and thank you again for continuing in this quest for truth.

Re: Response to me

Thanks again for your response. You offered some good information; but truthfully, I'm having a bit of trouble understanding parts of it. I'll do my best to respond. I don't wish you to dumb down your information by any means, but it might bear mentioning that my knowledge of philosophy is quite limited, and—almost—all of it has been required autodidactically. Thus, while I have heard of Hegel, and know a bit about his dialectic—I think—that is about the extent of my Hegelian knowledge

All people regardless of their religious beliefs have good reasons to love their family, friends, and neighbors; to improve their local communities; and to take an active interest in long-term national and global politics.

Agreed. But this isn't morality. This is only cold utilitarianism—cleverly disguised I'll warrant. Nothing here can't be found amongst the animals. Well, except in regards politics, but I consider that rather a point in favor of the lesser species.

What is your basis for morality, and why is it binding?

Under what conditions are you willing to describe an action as moral? I'm wondering, here, if you might be operating with an artificially restrictive notion of morality.

I'll quote the Catechism (1749): Freedom makes man a moral subject... Human acts, that is, acts that are freely chosen in consequence of a judgment of conscience, can be morally evaluated. They are either evil or good.

Now, according to Catholic theology, God is the Good at which all men's acts should be aimed. All other goods are derived therefrom. Now, all rational agents can act in ways both good and evil, but only God who is Goodness can determine the goodness of an act. An atheist morality would be, at best, a grasping at the Goodness only God can offer fully. Moreover, in a distinctly Christian climate, the atheist is seldom—if ever—building on his own system of morality; inevitably he borrows from the Christian framework. For instance, while most would agree that slavery is wrong, it is difficult to say why this is so, especially since no one seemed to notice until well after Christ had been born, and that those who finally did condemn slavery did so while working out of a Christian moral framework.

Further, from Veritas Splendor (no: 32): As is immediately evident, the crisis of truth is not unconnected with this development. Once the idea of a universal truth about the good, knowable by human reason, is lost, inevitably the notion of conscience also changes. Conscience is no longer considered in its primordial reality as an act of a person's intelligence, the function of which is to apply the universal knowledge of the good in a specific situation and thus to express a judgment about the right conduct to be chosen here and now. Instead, there is a tendency to grant to the individual conscience the prerogative of independently determining the criteria of good and evil and then acting accordingly. Such an outlook is quite congenial to an individualist ethic, wherein each individual is faced with his own truth, different from the truth of others. Taken to its extreme consequences, this individualism leads to a denial of the very idea of human nature.

Their success (for which I take your word) is admirable, but hardly miraculous.

I think such appalling consistency has to be considered an aberration. Recent Popes might realize that consistency is now one of the strong points of Catholicism, but this was hardly clear during the tumultuous stages of the early Church.


History is dearer to me than philosophy, so I would beg your patience as I cite an example. The victory of Athanasius, for instance, seems logical and natural only in retrospect. At the time, nothing could have been more unexpected. The Arians themselves were fully convinced that Pope Liberius would sign the Second Formulary of Sirmium, making the Arian victory complete. Yet despite the fact that he had signed the loosely worded First Formulary, the Pope stood strong. As historian Warren Carroll puts it, "At the final step, at the eleventh hour, the Arians were balked. As was to happen again to their like on several similar occasions later in the history of the Papacy, they simply could not understand how and why and by Whom they had been frustrated. For a full year they held Liberius at Sirmium, doubtless confident that any day the final break would come. It never did." (The Building of Christendom, p.33) Keep in mind that this was during the fourth century, well before the doctrine of papal infallibility had been formally promulgated.

All I can say -- and this isn't very much -- is that Catholicism emerged out of a felt need of a people, gained popularity as an means for affirming some kind of otherwise unexpressed dimension human freedom, and gradually built up its present institutional existence.

There's nothing wrong with this interpretation, but it's worth pointing out that all sects—or cults—emerge for this reason. They then fade because they have failed to meet the need for which they came into existence. Only a sect which satisfies a need—or successfully forbids apostasy—remains.

I hope, though, that you'll agree that there are many possible explanations for the rise of Christianity/Catholicism... Institutional success, in short, is meager evidence for the truth of a theology.

There are a plethora of possibilities. That which strikes me as most reasonable is to believe what the written accounts had to say on the matter.

If you believe that people will generally cling to whatever faith ancestry has handed them—witness the remarkably stagnancy in beliefs in Egypt, at least from what we can gather, and excepting the enigmatic Akhenaton—then explaining why the Romans forsake their pantheon of gods to worship Jesus Christ proves difficult. If, on the other hand, you believe people are generally fickle, always rebelling against their ancestors, then explaining why Catholicism has endured becomes equally problematic. Moreover, it endures, not as a relic, but as a great force. Our last remaining tie to the Empire of Rome is the Catholic Church. But it is not a mere dead thread, a relic, shortly to be discarded in a trash bin. No. It is very much alive.

Our mutual friend Pepin has also provided me with this, courtesy of the 19th century protestant historian Thomas Babington Macaulay. Pardon the length.

"There is not, and there never was on this earth, a work of human policy so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church. The history of that Church joins together the two great ages of human civilisation. No other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series, from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth; and far beyond the time of Pepin the august dynasty extends, till it is lost in the twilight of fable. The republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But the republic of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy; and the republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. The Papacy remains, not in decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and youthful vigour. The Catholic Church is still sending forth to the farthest ends of the world missionaries as zealous as those who landed in Kent with Augustin, and still confronting hostile kings with the same spirit with which she confronted Attila. The number of her children is greater than in any former age. Her acquisitions in the New World have more than compensated for what she has lost in the Old. Her spiritual ascendency extends over the vast countries which lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as that which now inhabits Europe. The members of her communion are certainly not fewer than a hundred and fifty millions; and it will be difficult to show that all other Christian sects united amount to a hundred and twenty millions. Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her long dominion is approaching. She saw the commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished at Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's."

Good to see you enjoy Joyce!

Joyce is wonderful. I'm trying to summon the courage to take up Ulysses, but if I do it now, it'll be too much battle and too little pleasure.

As a further literary aside, I understand you are a fan of William James. You'll be pleased to note that I picked up a copy of his The Varieties of Religious Experience. My reading list is long, but I'll try to remember to give you my thoughts on the matter once I get around to it.

With its strong Scholastic roots, Catholicism may well be more logically coherent than Protestantism, but there are plenty of other religions in the world, not to mention the route Joyce took himself.

The more I study, the more I become convinced that no one in all of human history was like Jesus of Nazareth. Pope Benedict makes some insightful comments in his recent book of that title, and Chesterton captures this brilliantly in the second half of The Everlasting Man. All of history turns upon the hinges of a strange prophet, who preached for three years in the backwaters of the Roman Republic. This important fact is worthy of our attention.

You'll say that I'm distorting your claim here; but, if this isn't what you mean to imply, I can't figure out why you're insisting upon the non-rational, receptive component of experience, which strikes me as quite out-of-place in this discussion.

I'm not sure if you're distorting my view or not, because I'm not exactly sure what you're saying. Also, I may be bringing something out-of-place into this discussion, but if I am, it's because it's somehow connected somewhere in my head.

I was recently reading Thomas Wood's How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization. On page 81, Woods quotes Nietzsche, of all people, concerning the validity of science without faith. I've read a bit of Nietzsche, but the text from which he quotes, The Genealogy of Morals (III, 24) is unfamiliar to me. In any event, here it is:

"Strictly speaking, there is no science 'without presuppositions'... a philosophy, a 'faith' must always be there first, so that science acquire from it a direction, a limit, a meaning, a method, a right to exist. It is still a metaphysical faith that underlies our faith in science.”

I'm curious, in fact, about what kind of evidence could falsify the Resurrection to your satisfaction. As far as I know, the only claim that professional historians are comfortable endorsing is that someone named Jesus existed, had some kind of a popular following, and was put to death by Pontius Pilate.

Disproving the Resurrection at the present juncture would be very difficult to do. But it was not at all difficult during the time shortly thereafter the event allegedly took place. Or anyway, it shouldn't have been.

The historical accounts tell us that Christ's body was laid in a tomb, and that Roman guards were stationed there to prevent the disciples of Jesus from stealing the body and claiming that He had risen. Now, the Jewish and Roman authorities verified that the body was no longer in the tomb; they corroborated on this essential fact. Nonetheless, they insisted that that guards had fallen asleep and that the body must have been stolen in the mean time.

The problem with this theory is that it renders Christianity pointless. This doesn't mean that the Resurrection couldn't have happened, but it is emphatically true that no one could believe in Christianity with this realization in place. Without Christ being raised from the dead, the whole religion is void.

One could attempt to wax conspiratorially here, but we must remember that aside from Judas, who hanged himself, all of the disciples remained fervent devotees of Jesus Christ, indeed, more fervent than they had been while Christ was alive. Further, John excepted, all gave their lives in defense of the Gospel.

Again, I don't insist that the Resurrection happened—though I believe strongly that it did. I merely note men are not in the habit of dying for that which they know to be a lie. But if the disciples, the closest friends and followers of Jesus, did not steal the body, than who did? Unless one operates from a strictly materialist paradigm, the Resurrection can be taken as highly plausible, and perhaps even likely. One would be forced to concoct a wildly ridiculous theory to account for the facts surrounding the early Christian Church without deigning to accept that a miracle did indeed occur.

No one believes in the Resurrection because of the awesome historical record.

I think you're wrong here. If memory serves, Cardinal Newman once defended his belief in Catholicism, not as based on a logical proof, but as a series of closely corroborated facts and hints which led him in that direction. So while no one, save the disciples and those contemporary with Christ, may believe in the Resurrection strictly because of the historical account, many may include that in their list of things that demonstrate Catholicism to be true. I know, but because it's in my own list.

The central thesis of the first Critique is that (to quote the commentator P.F. Strawson) "there can be no legitimate, or even meaningful, employment of ideas or concepts which does not relate them to empirical or experiential conditions of their application." It's not clear to me that the concepts of God, Christ, or Holy Spirit have such conditions of application; they seem, rather, to be employed at the discretionary will of the devout.

I see two flaws here. First, you claim that anything that can't be related to “empirical or experimental conditions” cannot be deemed legitimate. But on what grounds? That claim itself can be dismissed unless you cite "empirical or experimental conditions" which favor it.

Further, if God exists, I don't see why He's required to bend to the whims of humanity who insist upon evidence. Whether or not a transcendent immaterial deity deigns to condescend to man's demands has no bearing on the existence of the deity.

It's interesting to note, too, that Christ insisted that it was an evil generation that demanded a sign (Luke 11:29). Similarly, in the parable of Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), the rich man begs Abraham to let him return to his brothers to warn them off the Hell that awaits them. Abraham insists that if they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not believe even if a man should rise from dead.

Second, when God works a miracle, as at Fatima, or at Lourdes, people still insist that this isn't enough, or doesn't count, and so on and so forth. When paralytics are made to walk and when the blind are made to see; when the mute speak and the dead are raised, I know that something is happening which science can never explain away.

But if I'm wrong about any of this, I might take a look at the passage you refer to.

Regarding Aquinas, Pepin suggests you check out De Ente Et Essentia, which he claims is his fundamental work on metaphysics, and which he says you simply must read. It can be found in its entirety here, though he will give extra credit for this one.

I'll get to the rest of your response in a couple of days.

Response to me

My friend PJ attempted to respond to my previous post, but since blogger tends to fail with some degree of regularity, he wasn't able to post a response. Instead, I received an email. I'll post it in full now, and, rather than clutter this particular post with further responses, I'll respond in another post. (Note: I need to find a synonym for "post".) Here goes:

Me: First, I wish to thank you for participating in what has been, until now at least, a rather civilized discussion. I hope that we can continue charitably.

PJ: My pleasure! And again, my apologies for being so egregiously tardy in my response. As I said, I was too extravagant in my previous post, making promises that would require volumes to satisfactorily fulfill. So, where you find my response obscure or dogmatic, please, just ask for further explanation. Also, if I've ignored something you think represents a genuine challenge to my position, just repeat the point and I'll do my best to address it.

Me: You are right in suspecting that I would assert that rationally atheism should end in nihilistic skepticism. [....] The reason, I would propose, why atheism so seldom ends in nihilistic skepticism is that man is seldom rational. [....] Now, I'm not insisting that the atheist should go out and commit murders and rob liquor stores; nor am I insisting that atheists cannot be more moral than religious individuals. However, if you are having "lucid ethical relations", I cannot see how they can be described as rational.

PJ: All people regardless of their religious beliefs have good reasons to love their family, friends, and neighbors; to improve their local communities; and to take an active interest in long-term
national and global politics. These are -- some of them, at least --genuine ethical relations. I don't at all understand why you think that it is irrational for atheists to lead ethical lives, or the sense in which we are, as Vox Day puts it, "moral parasites." Under what conditions are you willing to describe an action as moral? I'm wondering, here, if you might be operating with an artificially restrictive notion of morality.

Me: [I]f I may use hints by way of proof, it is telling that, while the doctrine of infallibility wasn't formally declared until 1870, no pope has ever contradicted another while speaking when infallibility applies.

PJ: But popes and their advisors know -- in detail -- the historical record of papal pronouncements, and they have an active interest in maintaining institutional consistency. Their success (for which I take your word) is admirable, but hardly miraculous.

Me: The existence of a two thousand year old institution can not easily be explained; Augustine was using the existence of the Church as proof of its claims a mere four centuries after the Resurrection. How much more inexplicable is the Church's existence two millennia after God became Man!

PJ: I'm afraid that, due to historical ignorance, I am unable to account for the existence of Catholic Church with any kind of specificity. I agree that its continuous existence for so many
centuries is truly impressive. Catholic doctrine obviously continues to resonate with many people even today. All I can say -- and this isn't very much -- is that Catholicism emerged out of a felt need of a people, gained popularity as an means for affirming some kind of otherwise unexpressed dimension human freedom, and gradually built up its present institutional existence. Of course, this is terribly vague, and true of all successful ideological systems. It is
compatible with both the existence and non-existence of the Christian God. I hope, though, that you'll agree that there are many possible explanations for the rise of Christianity/Catholicism. The phenomena do not demand a super-natural explanation. All we need is a group of people who come to identify their interests with participation in, and advancement of, Catholic/Christian practices. Institutional success, in short, is meager evidence for the truth of a theology.

Me: As for the uniqueness of the Catholic Church, I shall merely quote the apostate James Joyce. After explaining his rejection of Catholicism, he was was then asked if he would become protestant. He responded: "What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent?"

PJ: Good to see you enjoy Joyce! I'm a fan myself, but in this context, as I'm sure you'll agree, we would need a scholar with credentials in comparative religions. With its strong Scholastic
roots, Catholicism may well be more logically coherent than Protestantism, but there are plenty of other religions in the world, not to mention the route Joyce took himself. In any case, logical
coherence does not establish actual existence.

Me: [J]ust because you've demonstrated that the ground has been stable for your entire life doesn't mean it must continue to be. We can reasonably expect it to, certainly, but, to Chesterton's point, that doesn't mean that it must. I don't wish to be overly pedantic,
yet the logic behind perpetual continuation of the common place escapes me. Believing such should, I insist, be chalked up to a minuscule, but again, entirely reasonable, bit of faith.

PJ: I'm not claiming that the ground is eternal. It's possible (however unlikely) that something will happen to disrupt its solidity, existence, or relation to me such as lets it function as
ground. But none of this has any bearing on the existence of the Christian God. The faith implicit in my activity of moving about in the world is of a different kind than your conceptual claims about divinity. Faith in former is subject to continuous experiential confirmation; faith in the latter is not subject to any confirmation at all, unless upon death. Just because we cannot produce an a priori proof for the continuous existence of the empirical world, which we agree exists, does not make it reasonable to agree about the existence of the Christian God, just because we cannot produce an a priori proof for its existence. You'll say that I'm distorting your
claim here; but, if this isn't what you mean to imply, I can't figure out why you're insisting upon the non-rational, receptive component of experience, which strikes me as quite out-of-place in this discussion.

Me: Second, by definition, a historical occurrence cannot be retested; but that does not mean it cannot be falsified. Would it berational to dismiss the theory of evolution--as applied from apes to man--simply because we cannot repeatedly test it? To reiterate, I accept the Resurrection because I believe it happened. Were it falsified, I couldn't help but disbelieve it.

PJ: First, to quibble, evolution is a theoretical framework that unifies and explains, via specific biological mechanisms, a wide variety of phenomena. Those who believe in the Resurrection believe that it is a singular, historical event, further endowed with a specific theological significance. Historical events are much harder than scientific theories to confirm or refute, unless there is a great deal of well documented evidence from credibly objective
sources. I don't think this is the case for any of the events of Jesus's life. I'm curious, in fact, about what kind of evidence could falsify the Resurrection to your satisfaction. As far as I
know, the only claim that professional historians are comfortable endorsing is that someone named Jesus existed, had some kind of a popular following, and was put to death by Pontius Pilate.

You have to understand my skepticism here. There are lots of reasons to believe that human beings do not come back to life three days after a violent death. It would require a tremendous amount of evidence to substantiate a particular exception to this well established natural fact. Surely no one could reasonably be asked to believe any of the miraculous stories circulated about Jesus's life without an independent theological justification. No one believes in the Resurrection because of the awesome historical record. They believe in the Resurrection because they believe in the Christian God, and tradition has it that he was crucified, died, and on the third day rose again. But why would anyone in the 21st century accept this theology?

Me: If God exists, and if God became man in the person of Jesus Christ, and if Christ imbued the Catholic Church with his Holy Spirit to guide it lo these many years, the assent is neither arbitrary nor irrational. Of course, disagreeing with any one of these premises breaks the chain of rationality, but if they are accepted, the synthesis is cogent.

PJ: Right; however, I doubt not only the veracity, but even the cogency of these premises. My reasons are essentially Kantian. The central thesis of the first Critique is that (to quote the
commentator P.F. Strawson) "there can be no legitimate, or even meaningful, employment of ideas or concepts which does not relate them to empirical or experiential conditions of their application." It's not clear to me that the concepts of God, Christ, or Holy Spirit have such conditions of application; they seem, rather, to be employed at the discretionary will of the devout. This is not to say that there's nothing to them -- clearly there is, or they would not
have persisted in the way that they have -- only that their truth has not been adequately articulated. (More on this shortly.) This thesis, which Strawson calls the "principle of significance," is my primary theoretical justification for rejecting theological language.

Me: I would add, too, that the apparent absurdity become easier to accept and even understand with a little bit of natural theology.

PJ: The thought here is that "natural theology" (something of an oxymoron, in my view) gets us some kind of an "infinite" entity, and so casts Christianity in a more positive light, as the correct
description of an independently established entity, rather than as a groundless set of extravagant theological and historical assertions? I'm hesitant to delve into Aquinas, my concern being that one cannot assess a particular passage without studying the whole, monstrous
volume. But if I'm wrong about any of this, I might take a look at the passage you refer to.

Me: In what ways has the world changed? Human nature doesn't change, which is why Catholic doctrine always and everywhere applies.

PJ: Ah, but human nature does change and with it, the social world. Or, if you prefer, human nature is to have a self-transformative "second nature." Our "first," material-biological nature is the product of evolutionary forces, of course; but morality is a relatively new phenomenon, in the vast time-scales of the life sciences, and it can only emerge for beings who develop our kind of
social "second" nature. *What* we are, in terms of first nature, has been tautologically stable for as long as there have been homo sapiens. The ethical question, however, is of *who* we are, who we might become, and the obligations thereby incumbent upon us. Who we are cannot be articulated in the terms of the natural sciences. Rather, selfhood can only be cashed out in terms of irreducibly social commitments and identifications.

This, I am afraid, is to run rough-shod over your libertarian commitments, because individual selfhood, on this model, is not a metaphysical given; it is a historical accomplishment, sustained only through relations of mutual recognition. I can only articulate and actualize my identity in terms of self-sustaining social practices, intelligible only with reference to historically achieved norms and objectives. These practices are always up for further negotiation, but only from the inside-out, as it were. We must start from life as we know it; no one can legitimately claim a God's-eye-view as to how things "truly" ought to be, from the perspective of eternity. The
very idea, I would contend, is nonsense (think back to the principle of significance). We cannot attribute norms to an external party on pain of mystifying the very concept of a norm and, by extension, individual selfhood. Only those norms that the human community legislates to itself can be legitimately binding for it. To abide by anything else, according to the Hegelian analysis of modernity, is to exist in a state of self-alienation.

Our ethical-political project, then, is to identify and strengthen those practices in the modern world most conducive to human flourishing. Some of these practices will be recognizably moral or
judicial, but many will not. And this is as it should be. Morality is crucial, but it is not the summum bonum or "purpose of life." Goods have no status and life has no purpose apart from what we ourselves establish and maintain in our concrete, historical practices.

None of this is to say that we leave our first nature completely behind. But we transform it profoundly when we situate it within our social world of meaning. It can be rational, for instance, to risk one's life to preserve democracy or Catholicism in a way that makes no sense at the biological level of body- or species-preservation.

To return, then, to the previous topic and make some good on a promissory note above, religious beliefs and practices can be understood as a kind of "misrecognition" of the social. The divine
is the historical community as seen through a glass, darkly. The "glass" is a mirror, the idea being that, reflecting on God, we are reflecting on ourselves without realizing that that is what we are doing. (This is a claim advanced in different ways by Hegel and Émile Durkheim.) Theologies typically present a strongly teleological model of the world, according to which meanings and purposes are writ directly into the fabric of mind-independent reality. The Enlightenment subjects this worldview to heavy -- in my opinion, damning -- criticism, as represented, for instance, by the Kantian principle described above. Meaning, value, morality, etc. have then to be relocated in the mind-dependent social reality of the historical community. This community then does the work traditionally ascribed to God; it has, in fact, been doing this work all along. It is not a super-human agent or a metaphysical given, but just *society* -- construed in terms of self-transformative networks of mutual recognition -- that make up the fabric of the spiritual/conceptual world in terms of which our meaningful human life is nurtured and sustained.

How precisely the community can function as the stable foundation of our meaningful world can present itself as something of a puzzle. Authoritarianism, self-defeating relativism, or some other form of nihilism, may appear to threaten. I contend that Hegel dissolves these threats by replacing the teleological model or reality with a robust, non-reductive alternative that emphasizes the self-legislative autonomy of the historical community. I've gestured towards this model throughout, and I'll send you a paper that contains a more systematic exposition, for you to read or skim at your leisure. (Don't feel bound to read the whole thing if you find it unduly technical or obscure.) Otherwise, I'm afraid I'll have leave these final claims at the level of bare assertion, since I don't have time to elaborate any further today. We'll continue the
discussion in subsequent posts.

All the best,
PJ

We get to study Thucydides

Vox and the dread ilk will be discussing The History of the Peloponnesian War. I for one am quite excited. The book has been sitting on my shelf, neglected, and it would probably remain thus for a good while longer had it not been for this fortuitous occurrence.

With one exception, all of the people I've been mentioning this to have looked at me quite askance, but if you should care to join in, then my all means do.

Reason number 4,532 to home school.

Courtesy of The Peter Principle, which, it should be noted, was written in 1969:

"So, to avoid the accumulation of incompetents, administrators have evolved the plan of promoting everyone, the incompetent as well as the competent... The result of this wholesale percussive sublimination is that high school graduation may now represent the same level of scholastic achievement as did Grade 11 a few years ago. In time, graduation will sink in value to the level of the old Grade 10, Grade 9, and so on." p. 158

Bear in mind that the home-schooled child receives an equivalent high school education in a mere nine years. Part of it, no doubt, is to the superiority of the method. But it is difficult to underestimate the degree of enstupidiation foisted upon the nation's youth, courtesy of the government run monopoly known as the public school system, funded by the tax dollars of the American citizenry.

Ratio et Fides

I finally got around to acquiring a copy of Pope Benedict's book, Jesus of Nazareth. Naturally, it gets my recommendation. I thought I'd quote a brief passage which may be relevant to the little debate a friend and I are in the midst of--and which I hope we shall continue shortly--which started with my attempt to defend "logic" and faith:

"The world is now seen as something rational: It emerges from eternal reason, and this creative reason is the only true power over the world and in the world. Faith in the one God is the only thing that liberates the world and makes it "rational". When faith is absent, the world only appears to be more rational. In reality the indeterminable powers of chance now claim their due; "chaos theory" takes its place alongside man with obscurities that he cannot resolve and that set limits to the world's rationality. To "exorcise" the world--to establish it in the light of ratio (reason) that comes from eternal creative reason and its saving goodness and refers back to it--that is a permanent, central task of the messengers of Jesus Christ." - p.174

The triumph of tradition

A good friend sends along a wonderful two part series on the monks of Clear Creek. The article discusses the reemergence of the Latin Mass in Catholic churches.

Part of the first generation born after the Second Vatican Council, Carpenter grew up hearing Mass in English instead of Latin. Since the council in the 1960s, most Catholic services have been in a country’s common language.

Whether the changes sparked a crisis or simply coincided with it, that’s a matter of debate. But church attendance has dropped, seminaries face shortages of new priests and millions of Catholics openly dissent from church teachings.

Now a growing movement is trying to “reform the reforms,” bringing back Latin in hopes of bringing back faithfulness in general. The pope himself recently changed church rules to encourage a broader use of Latin in services.

As a traditionalist, I applaud Pope Benedict's freeing of the Latin Mass. Another good friend pointed out that I should attend one before having an opinion about it. She pronounced herself unimpressed.

I merely note a few things. First, I pontificate upon all sorts of things, knowing as little--or less--concerning them than I do the Tridentine Mass. Bloviating not inelegantly is what I--attempt to--do.

Second, the Latin Mass would have to be paltry indeed to be more distracting than the Norvus Ordo Mass--though, of course, I should work harder at not being distracted.

Third, and most importantly, since the Latin Mass is optional--that is, one may choose instead to attend the Mass in English--it a welcome sign that our Holy Father reverences tradition. Of course, no Pope can really cut himself off from tradition, but whereas John Paul II was wont to experiment, albeit in the playground of tradition, Benedict seems more intent on restating and re-emphasizing the forgotten.

The more I read, the more I become convinced that the only way we will extricate ourselves from the messes we have created will be by returning to the Faith, that is, a belief in Jesus Christ and in all that His Church teaches. This is one reason I have no trouble abstaining from participation in the political process. Culture--religion being an intregal facet thereof--is always more important than politics, since the latter is informed by the former. We will continue to appoint and elect dullards and charlatans so long as the culture is corrupt. Only a return to tradition will save us.

George Carpenter, the blacksmith, arrives with only one son, while his wife and six other children — plus one more on the way — have stayed home.

Around here, that’s not a particularly large family. Some parents count children into double digits.

“If you understand that a child is the greatest blessing that God can give you,” Carpenter says, “well, why would you do anything to keep God from blessing you?”

Last year, Carpenter took an informal census of the Clear Creek community — counting 35 families with a total of 145 people, including 96 children.

Fortunately, tradition always triumphs.

After a couple of generations, 145 people can multiply into several hundreds, then a few thousand. In five or six generations, the descendants of Clear Creek might amount to a tribe of their own, taking conservative values and traditional morals with them.

“That’s the way the faith reaches into the future,” Carpenter says. “That’s how traditions survive.”

This pronouncement is made, not out of presumption, but out of faith. The Church has seen dark days before, and she will see darker ones yet before the crisis is through. But God will not forsake her because He promised that He will not. It is through people like these, insignificant and wretched in the eyes of the world, and the tradition, maligned as antiquated superstition, with which they arm themselves, that God will keep that promise.

Mitt for V.P.?

Drudge has been running various headlines suggesting that McCain may snag Romney for his vice president. Now, on the one hand I can't stand Romney. The man is an inept politician, not because of his honesty, merely because he's so much of a whore that he'll do or say anything to get elected. For some reason completely incomprehensible to me, what's left of the right clung to Romney as the conservative savior in this election. By resurrecting him to play V.P., McCain may be trying to prove to conservatives that he's one of them. It's not true, of course, but voting is largely a matter of self-deception.

I've also read that Romney would help McCain tackle the economy, an absolutely ludicrous notion. The economy is looking bad now, and it's going to get much, much worse. As Ron Paul continually pointed out during the debates, the inflationary policies of the Fed have financed our war on terror. That's just one reason as a true proponent of limit government I oppose it. But more importantly, the dollar is starting to falter, and although they're liable to try, the Fed won't be able to inflate their way out of the mess. Just some pessimistic sentiments, but reasonably informed ones.

Anyway, the good news is that if McCain does pick Romney, watching the religious right try to sell such an appalling ticket to the pro-lifers will make for some good entertainment. I know it's touch to realize that the party sold you out, but trust me, after a few months of bitterness, it becomes enjoyable to watch the circus as a bemused onlooker.

The United States of Soft Authortarianism

Whereas a soft totalitarian state will employ direct suppression of offending books, imprisonment of authors, state control of Internet servers, and dismissal or imprisonment of dissidents, soft authoritarianism achieves its ends through peer pressure, bullying, fear of ostracism, giving priority to group norms, and eliciting conformity through social sanctions of various kinds. Under both types of regimes, elections are usually to one degree or another only formalities, behind which permanent state officialdoms actually govern. - Chalmers Johnson, Blowback, p. 151.

Does the latter not apply to this country? Never presume for a moment that because one's ancestors were free, one must necessarily possess that selfsame freedom.

We have the ostensible right to free speech, but if we wander outside the realm of acceptable thought, we will be punished for exercising it. Just ask Larry Summers or James Watson.

Meanwhile, the field has been whittled down to three remarkably similar presidential candidates. The media is convinced that Obama has the nomination wrapped up, but if Johnson's comments truly apply, we'll either see him quietly exit the campaign or he'll learn to leave the non-interventionist rhetoric aside and stump for the MIC.

Of course the book gets my hearty recommendation.