Happy New Year: reading recommendations

A happy 2015 to you all!

1) A draft programme for the Catholic Social Teaching Classes is now available here. As it is still draft, please check on the blog or with Elizabeth for updates. (See 'Newsflash' on right sidebar of blog.)

2) As everyone else seems to be doing this at this time of year, I thought I'd get some suggestions for 2015 reading. Please feel free to comment or to add your own suggestions!

Philippa Bonella
SCIAF Head of Communications and Education: 

1. Working together, SCIAF, Justice and Peace Scotland and Mission Matters Scotland have produced a resource on Catholic social teaching for parish groups.  A four week programme guides participants through prayer, learning key elements of CST and discussing how to put faith into action within a parish context.    http://www.justfaith.org.uk/resources



There’s also a 3 minute animation on CST for anyone who needs a refresher!


2. Some of the interventions at the recent UN General Assembly by the new Holy See representative are really worth a read.  I particularly recommend the document on poverty eradication – summarising Catholic teaching both current and timeless, in less than 2 pages! [PDF download here]


Elizabeth Drummond Young
Director, Albertus Institute:


Hospitality as Holiness: Christian Witness amid Moral Diversity, by Luke Bretherton (2010) Farnham: Ashgate ISBN: 9781409403494 p/bk £19.99 [Google Books record here.]

 Bretherton  wants to explore how hospitality can be a force for solving ethical disputes. There are two distinct parts to this book; the first is a theoretical discussion of the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and two theologians, Germain Grisez  and Oliver O’Donovan about how their philosophy makes room for  solving intractable issues. Bretherton  sides with O’Donovan, who emphasises the life of Christ on earth as the model for a Christian life. The second part  is  a case study of how hospitality can provide an answer to the  ethical dispute of whether euthanasia is an appropriate response to the terminally ill. Bretherton gives a distinctive Christian response against euthanasia and then uses the hospice movement as a instance of how the  Christian social practice of hospitality  is the way for Christians to relate to non-Christians in ethical disputes. A good example of a book which combines theory and practice. First part hard going if you  aren't a philosopher or theologian - probably best approached in the library with a coffee break or two but worth the effort!


Stephen Watt,
Tutor, Albertus Institute

1) Pierre Manent: Seeing Things Politically: Interviews with Benedicte Delorme-Montini (2015)

St Augustine's Press ISBN: 978-1587318139 h/b £17.84 [Amazon here]

This is either a bit of a cheat as a selection (as it hasn't been published in English yet) or an example of serendipity! I've long been an admirer of Manent who I think deserves to be better known in the UK as a political thinker. (An essay of his which introduces key themes in his thought is here.) I read the French version of these interviews in 2014, and was wondering whether to include them in this end of year 'booklist' when I realized that the English translation is coming out next year. As well as introducing some of Manent's thought, the interviews are a fascinating insight into the life of a key French Catholic intellectual. (And unlike many other French intellectuals, Manent writes clearly!)

2) Edward Feser: Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction (2014) Editiones Scholasticae ISBN: 978-3-86838-544-1p/b £29.45 [Publisher's description here]

Feser has been a highly visible presence in the revival of neo-Thomism which seems to be taking place in the USA. (His blog [here] manages to combine a sure grasp of philosophical technicalities with biting wit when provoked.) With the publication of this manual of scholastic metaphysics, Feser provides an accessible account of the basics of the metaphysics of St Thomas Aquinas as seen by someone who has a firm grasp of modern analytic philosophy. This won't be an easy read for someone without a background in philosophy, but does at last provide a modern alternative to some of the introductory manuals in English which are showing their age! (For those who want a gentler introduction to the metaphysical issues, Feser's earlier (popular) The Last Superstition [Google books here] or (more academic) Aquinas [Google books here] are probably better alternatives.)

Happy Christmas

           A very happy Christmas to all readers of this blog and to all friends of the Institute!

Human Rights Day 2014

Happy Human Rights Day! (Details here.)

I'll admit that I had no idea it was human rights day today until I happened to come across a mention online. Although it celebrates a particular document -the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights- it provides an opportunity for all of us to reflect more widely on human rights.

Catholic teaching on human rights is centred firmly on the dignity of the person. (A helpful page summarising some key points of this teaching can be found here.) The question of how to express this fundamental good in national and international law is rather trickier: given the inevitable compromises and difficulties in getting agreement between people (and peoples) of different backgrounds, inevitably the depths and details of such teaching are almost impossible to institutionalise completely and satisfactorily. However, the Church has been broadly supportive of the UNDHR. As St John Paul the Great stated in Pacem in Terris [here]:


143. A clear proof of the farsightedness of this organization [ie the UN] is provided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights passed by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948. The preamble of this declaration affirms that the genuine recognition and complete observance of all the rights and freedoms outlined in the declaration is a goal to be sought by all peoples and all nations.

144. We are, of course, aware that some of the points in the declaration did not meet with unqualified approval in some quarters; and there was justification for this. Nevertheless, We think the document should be considered a step in the right direction, an approach toward the establishment of a juridical and political ordering of the world community. It is a solemn recognition of the personal dignity of every human being; an assertion of everyone's right to be free to seek out the truth, to follow moral principles, discharge the duties imposed by justice, and lead a fully human life. It also recognized other rights connected with these.

So let's celebrate the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights as a 'step in the right direction'. But let us also be mindful of the fact that these rights are binding not just because (in various ways) they have been taken into the body of international law, but because they rest on truths about human nature and its worth that remain true whatever any particular country or individual or international body thinks. And let's also remember that this vision of true human dignity is often countercultural, both because it is based on timeless truths about human nature often disregarded by particular ages or cultures, but also because it takes account of the supernatural end of human life in the Beatific Vision after death. It can, for example, as in Masaccio's painting of the Crucifixion of St Peter (above), find an image of the height of human dignity in the violent death of a man hanging upside down.


Further reading:

The following paper isn't an easy read (if you're struggling, skip ahead to sections III and IV (starting at p.53)). But it gives a good account of the understandings of human dignity in the works of St Thomas Aquinas and St John Paul:


Aguas, J.J.S. (2009) 'The Notions of the Human Person and Human Dignity in Aquinas and Wojtyla', in Kritike, vol. 3, no 1 (June), pp.40-60.


(PDF downloadable here.)

It's a Wonderful Life...?

Whilst Catholics are still in the penitential season of Advent, the secular world has already begun  what seems to be the 100 days of Christmas, ending some time around mid afternoon on 25 December with the ritual doze in front of the Queen's Speech.

And with this extended season comes numerous screenings of It's a Wonderful Life. (For those of you not familiar with the film, Wikipedia's article is here.) I was amused recently to find a discussion of the film by the Catholic political scientist, Carson Holloway. (Link here.) Although it's a discussion set firmly in the context of American politics (but then, isn't the film itself set firmly in an American context?), it does have much to provoke thought on wider Catholic principles. A taster:


Finally, we might consider the standards that guide Bailey’s service to his fellow men. Why does he think it’s important to help them buy homes for their families? Bailey follows his father’s example, which is more than merely traditional. When Peter Bailey tries to convince his son to work at the Building and Loan, he justifies its work by appealing to human nature. He tells him that the institution’s work helps to satisfy a “fundamental urge,” that it is something “deep in the race” for a man to want his own, privately owned home. This standard found in human nature supplies the Baileys, father and son, with a standard of goodness, of what constitutes true human flourishing, that teaches them how to do good for their fellow men. The things that are good are the things that are experienced as good by human beings as such, and not merely the things that any particular set of human beings might happen to desire.

Contemporary American liberalism has largely rejected such standards of goodness as unduly restrictive and even oppressive. Fixed standards rooted in human nature might require that society say “no” to some disordered desires that are incompatible with our nature. Our liberalism, however, recoils from such discipline, because it is incompatible with liberalism’s egalitarianism, its insistence that all ways of life and all desires must be regarded as equally acceptable.

I'll let you read the whole piece and decide what you make of it yourself. (Comments welcome!) One reaction I had (to the film and the essay) is that it reminded me of some comments by Yves Simon (in ch5 of his Philosophy of Democratic Government here).

The description of the family found in Aristotle's Politics (Book i) is that of an institution dedicated to the welfare of man in the needs and acts of daily life; with regard to such needs and acts, the family aims at self-sufficiency. [...] the Aristotelian description remained until recently the pattern followed by the rural family. It is hardly necessary to stress the advantages of a system which incloses the whole cycle of wealth, from ownership of the land to the use of the product, within a small unit in which strong feelings of friendship make possible an almost complete community of goods. Such a system rules out the infuriating disorders, so intensely resented by the men of the twentieth century, resulting from the nondistribution of the available product.

So very much the heart of the film: small town America with a close community life, based on a stable family. But Simon goes on:

However, the superiority of rural life with regard to community feelings does not hold in all respects and is not unqualified. In old-fashioned rural families, community feelings are generally restricted to a narrow group and are accompanied by isolationist dispositions which may prove acutely antisocial. Intense devotion to the family often combines with readiness to treat the rest of the world as foreign and hostile; the sense of justice is often uncertain when the partner does not belong to the family circle or to the native community, which is confusedly identified with the family. Besides its general inconveniences, such an attitude of distrust beyond the limits of a small circle is exceedingly harmful to democracy. It makes impossible the normal operation of two essential organs of democratic life -- the party and the labor union. In societies where family feelings are so exclusive as to arouse distrust of every outsider, political parties turn to cliques, and exploitation thrives on unorganized labor.

I think that's my main worry about the film. It portrays the intimacy of small town life well and the Catholic value of solidarity within that context. However, it says little about how to live out principles such as solidarity in a wider, more complex context (and those wider, more complex contexts cannot simply be wished away). For example, the focus of the film is perhaps the Buildings and Loan Association which throughout is threatened by a Scrooge like figure (Mr Potter) and ultimately saved by a whip-round among the townsfolk. All good mythical stuff -and much that can be translated into talk of subsidiarity. But by portraying banking in a moral fable, does the film encourage us to ignore the real problems of international finance (and a globalized economy) and the difficulty of easy solutions, in favour of a pantomime of heroes and villains?

Answers in the comments box please!

Future posts will deal with other Christmassy themes such Heideggerian authenticity in Elf. :-)

Ends of beginning and beginnings of end...

Well, that's the end of the first ten week course! Thank you very much to all of you who attended and a particular thank you to Dr Elizabeth Drummond Young and Dr Ian Thompson.  From them came the original inspiration for the course and without their support throughout, it would not have run.

But we've not finished yet! We will be running follow up sessions which will take forward the various issues discussed in these introductory weeks. A formal programme will be released in the near future, but, for the moment, expect to see meetings same time, same place, beginning in the New Year. (Wednesdays, Dominican Chaplaincy Edinburgh. 6pm.)

The blog will remain open and I'll be looking to post regularly on matters relevant to Catholic Social Teaching.

WATCH THIS SPACE!

Pope's address to European parliament

How, then, can hope in the future be restored, so that, beginning with the younger generation, there can be a rediscovery of that confidence needed to pursue the great ideal of a united and peaceful Europe, a Europe which is creative and resourceful, respectful of rights and conscious of its duties?

To answer this question, allow me to use an image. One of the most celebrated frescoes of Raphael is found in the Vatican and depicts the so-called “School of Athens”. Plato and Aristotle are in the centre. Plato’s finger is pointed upward, to the world of ideas, to the sky, to heaven as we might say. Aristotle holds his hand out before him, towards the viewer, towards the world, concrete reality. This strikes me as a very apt image of Europe and her history, made up of the constant interplay between heaven and earth, where the sky suggests that openness to the transcendent – to God – which has always distinguished the peoples of Europe, while the earth represents Europe’s practical and concrete ability to confront situations and problems.

[From Pope Francis' address to the European Parliament, full transcript here]

Looking forward and looking back (again)

                                                      Where next...?

The discussion at our last meeting (19 Nov) was pretty wide ranging and I won't even try to summarize it all! I think for me the main issue that emerged was the basis of value. For a theistic system, all value in the end is going to depend on God: that allows a (light green) focus on caring for the environment for the sake of its being good for human beings, but also a (dark green) approach based on non human creation having a value (from God) in its own right. That isn't to say that non-theistic philosophies can't also express a dark green viewpoint, but the basis for values which is not based on a value for human beings is much harder to articulate...

The next meeting (this Wednesday 26 Nov) will be our final one and is very much a free for all! There is no fixed agenda, and I intend it to be very much a session where we can pursue any loose ends or refocus on issues that have had less time than they deserved.

A feedback form was distributed at the last meeting which gives you a chance to comment on the course and suggest what we should do next! (Polite versions only!!) An electronic copy is available here. 

Looking forward and looking back

As our next session is about the environment, I thought I'd be economical in my use of posts and combine my usual two posts -one looking back to the last session, one looking forward to the next- into one! (Well, the real reason is pressure of work -but it's a neat story anyway!)

Looking back to our last session on the international aspects of Catholic social teaching (on 12 November) I was struck by two competing views of the future that came up in the discussion: one which questioned whether a narrative about the universal basis for natural (and hence international) law would survive the growing influence of non-Western systems of thought (and hence might be described as pessimistic); and one which took comfort in the growing appropriation of existing standards of international law (say, in the fields of human rights) by new countries.

I suppose the proof of the pudding will be in the eating! As cropped up in the discussion, although Catholic teaching does make claim that there is a natural law, in principle open to human reason unaided by revelation (and thus might expect to take an optimistic view of the future), there is also enough reflection within that teaching on the difficulties of finite and sinful human beings in fact achieving that understanding of natural law to explain any existing or future problems in achieving agreement in fact. Mention in the discussion was made of the Catholic philosopher, Alasdair MacIntyre who has, particularly in his work since 1981, stressed the incoherence (and indeed impossibility) of thinking about ethics from outside particular intellectual traditions. (An article about MacIntyre can be found here.)

Looking forward to our next session (19 Nov) on the environment, I suppose one thing to note is that Pope Francis is due to release an Encyclical on this in the near future! (Perhaps we can come up with some suggestions!) One distinction that is sometimes made is between an environmental ethics based on the good for human beings (thus, global warming will harm human beings) and one based on damaging non-human entities in their own right (so even if no human were affected by (say) the loss of a particular species, that would (might?) still be a bad thing to happen.

A helpful article on existing Papal teaching on the environment is here.

An article on Eastern Orthodox perspectives on the environment is here.

An article on philosophical environmental theories is here.

And lastly, a famous 'thought experiment' you might like to reflect on!


At a conference in 1973, Richard Sylvan (then known as Richard Routley) proposed a science fiction thought experiment that helped to launch environmental ethics as a branch of academic philosophy... Routley’s thought experiment came to be known as the "Last Man" argument.

The thought experiment presents you with a situation something like this: You are the last human being. You shall soon die. When you are gone, the only life remaining will be plants, microbes, invertebrates. For some reason, the following thought runs through your head: Before I die, it sure would be nice to destroy the last remaining Redwood. Just for fun.

Sylvan’s audience was left to ponder. What, if anything, would be wrong with destroying that Redwood? Destroying it won’t hurt anyone, so what’s the problem? Environmental philosophers have been trying to answer that question ever since, and you will hear the question echoing through this book.

How would you answer it?

[From here.]

Looking forward: next session 12 November

One of the greatest differences I find when teaching ancient political philosophy is dealing with the relative lack of interest on the part of most classical philosophers (certainly Plato and Aristotle) of any institutions above the small, city state.

In part due to the Christian sense that all human beings (of whatever nationality) matter equally, and to the intertwining of Christianity with universal institutions such as the Papacy and the (Roman) Empire, this local focus has been replaced by awareness of an international dimension to human affairs. But how is this principle to be applied and institutionalized? Should there be some sort of world government? Is globalization a trend to be resisted or welcomed?

Compendium, 441 [link here]


 Concern for an ordered and peaceful coexistence within the human family prompts the Magisterium to insist on the need to establish “some universal public authority acknowledged as such by all and endowed with effective power to safeguard, on the behalf of all, security, regard for justice, and respect for rights”. In the course of history, despite the changing viewpoints of the different eras, there has been a constant awareness of the need for a similar authority to respond to worldwide problems arising from the quest for the common good: it is essential that such an authority arise from mutual agreement and that it not be imposed, nor must it be understood as a kind of “global super-State”.

Political authority exercised at the level of the international community must be regulated by law, ordered to the common good and respectful of the principle of subsidiarity. “The public authority of the world community is not intended to limit the sphere of action of the public authority of the individual political community, much less to take its place. On the contrary, its purpose is to create, on a world basis, an environment in which the public authorities of each political community, their citizens and intermediate associations can carry out their tasks, fulfil their duties and exercise their rights with greater security”. 

Reflections on last Wednesday's meeting (5 November)

Well, perhaps the picture isn't exactly a memorial to the most successful attempt at Catholic social engagement -but we did meet on 5 November!.

Lively and wide ranging discussion as ever. As ever, I'll stick to picking out just a couple of issues:

1) Universal destination of goods. (In surfing the internet to address this point, I came across this post by the US Acton Institute: here. I think it would be fair to describe the Institute as a fairly right wing Christian think tank, and I wouldn't want to support all they say here. However, I think it does give an interesting entirely free market perspective on the issue.)

Under the principle of 'the universal destination of goods', the Compendium (449) refers to Pope Paul VI's Populorum Progressio (22):


In the very first pages of Scripture we read these words: "Fill the earth and subdue it." This teaches us that the whole of creation is for man, that he has been charged to give it meaning by his intelligent activity, to complete and perfect it by his own efforts and to his own advantage.

Now if the earth truly was created to provide man with the necessities of life and the tools for his own progress, it follows that every man has the right to glean what he needs from the earth. The recent Council reiterated this truth: "God intended the earth and everything in it for the use of all human beings and peoples. Thus, under the leadership of justice and in the company of charity, created goods should flow fairly to all." 

All other rights, whatever they may be, including the rights of property and free trade, are to be subordinated to this principle. They should in no way hinder it; in fact, they should actively facilitate its implementation. Redirecting these rights back to their original purpose must be regarded as an important and urgent social duty.


I think the key point here is that property (goods) is simply an extension of our own activity (work). Just as we have a duty to our fellow human beings, so the things that come into our possession through our work also must be used for others. That doesn't mean that our property isn't any less our property, but it does mean that it is wrong if that property isn't placed at the service of humankind. (How precisely that it is to be best done is of course a separate -and often difficult question.)

2) Competition. I have heard the jibe before that, just because the Church is a hierarchical, centrally planned organization, it finds it difficult to understood to understand or value the decentralized competitiveness of a capitalist free market! Whatever truth there may be in that, in principle, Catholic social teaching does accept the importance of competition between enterprises:

The free market is an institution of social importance because of its capacity to guarantee effective results in the production of goods and services. Historically, it has shown itself able to initiate and sustain economic development over long periods. There are good reasons to hold that, in many circumstances, “the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs”.The Church's social doctrine appreciates the secure advantages that the mechanisms of the free market offer, making it possible as they do to utilize resources better and facilitating the exchange of products. These mechanisms “above all ... give central place to the person's desires and preferences, which, in a contract, meet the desires and preferences of another person”.


A truly competitive market is an effective instrument for attaining important objectives of justice: moderating the excessive profits of individual businesses, responding to consumers' demands, bringing about a more efficient use and conservation of resources, rewarding entrepreneurship and innovation, making information available so that it is really possible to compare and purchase products in an atmosphere of healthy competition. [Compendium, 347.]

However, it also suggests the limitations of such free markets. How that balance is to be struck is never a matter of a formula, but always a matter of a prudential balancing of the tensions involved. In the end, we are all in this together (more formally, the principle of solidarity) and whatever we do must be done with the ultimate aim of serving everyone, even if the means to this are by no means always clear.

I'll post at the beginning of next week about the next meeting (12 Nov).

Looking forward to session 5 November

The coming session this Wednesday will be focusing on: Dignity of work and property. The special claim of the poor. Social exclusion.

I think one of the keys to the Catholic understanding of work and property is a distinction between the subjective and the objective side of work:


 Human work has a twofold significance: objective and subjective. In the objective sense, it is the sum of activities, resources, instruments and technologies used by men and women to produce things, to exercise dominion over the earth, in the words of the Book of Genesis. In the subjective sense, work is the activity of the human person as a dynamic being capable of performing a variety of actions that are part of the work process and that correspond to his personal vocation: “Man has to subdue the earth and dominate it, because as the ‘image of God' he is a person, that is to say, a subjective being capable of acting in a planned and rational way, capable of deciding about himself, and with a tendency to self-realization. As a person, man is therefore the subject of work”.

Work in the objective sense constitutes the contingent aspect of human activity, which constantly varies in its expressions according to the changing technological, cultural, social and political conditions. Work in the subjective sense, however, represents its stable dimension, since it does not depend on what people produce or on the type of activity they undertake, but only and exclusively on their dignity as human beings. This distinction is critical, both for understanding what the ultimate foundation of the value and dignity of work is, and with regard to the difficulties of organizing economic and social systems that respect human rights. [Compendium, 270] [Link here]

In essence, work is important because it produces external goods but also because it reflects human creativity. The lack of suitable work or property excludes people from society in both of these ways: it cuts them off from the goods of wealth, but also from the internal goods which flow from the exercise of one's full human potential.

Looking forward to the discussion on Wednesday!

Final reflections on 29 Oct session: Marxism

I've probably spent an inordinately long time reflecting on the last meeting, but I wanted to give a thorough treatment of the issue of authority in the Church in relation to Catholic social teaching, but also to give space to an important sets of issues that came up in our discussion of Marxism. It's to the latter that I now turn.

One of the things that struck me forcibly about last Wednesday was the strength of feeling about Marxism that was expressed by those who had lived in countries from the former Soviet Bloc. On reflection, my surprise was in itself surprising: why on earth wouldn't people who had suffered from totalitarianism feel strongly about it? Part of the answer to that (besides my naivety) is the difference between experience and ideas. My main contact with Marxism has been as part of an undergraduate philosophy course on Hegel and Marx and with a few communist (British) intellectuals: that's very different from the experience of the reality of a system which declared itself Marxist.

Frankly, I'd been struggling over what to say about all that, other than to acknowledge the tensions. However, re-arranging some bookshelves this morning brought to light a collection of Roger Scruton's essays (Gentle Regrets) which I hadn't looked at for almost ten years. In one essay, 'Stealing from churches', he reflects on the influence of religion, particularly Catholicism, in his life, and, more particularly, on a (chaste) love affair with a young woman in Communist Poland:

The communists had justified themselves as the servants of history, the midwives who would ease the birth of a new order that was in any case inevitable. In every place where they had achieved power they released what was lowest in human nature, rejoicing in destruction and despising every loyalty that was not motivated by cynical calculation. In every communist country you were presented with a vision of chaos. It was as though a great tide flowed through the sewers, into which the people were being thrust by the armed insentient guardians of an order whose main aim was to make people unnecessary, an order in which, as Marx and Engels rightly prophesied, 'the government of men would give way to the administration of things'. (p.76)

That description of the experience of communism, however, reflects directly the ideas of Marxism:

Al the preceding classes that got the upper hand, sought to fortify their already acquired status by subjecting society at large to their conditions of appropriation. The proletarians cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation. They have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property. (Marx: Communist Manifesto.)

In other words, the reality of the communism is not accidental to its understanding of human beings but flows as a direct consequence of its ideas.

One of the features of this course that I was determined to focus on -and which is different from many other treatments of Catholic social teaching- is that of examining the teaching as a coherent whole, and of examining its theological and anthropological underpinnings: without understanding the theoretical basis for Catholic social teaching, it becomes easily seen as merely a collection of rather fuzzy ideas, some more plausible than others. Unless account is taken of key aspects of that theoretical underpinning, the full strength (and indeed content) of the teaching can't be seen.

It's difficult to sum up the essentials of that theoretical underpinning since it is so entwined with the whole of the Catholic understanding of the world and God. But key issues that spring immediately to mind are:

a) The supernatural end of human beings in the beatific vision of God: leave out the pursuit of  God and human life makes little sense.

b) The existence of natural law based on objective truths about human nature: human beings cannot just freely remake themselves after any pattern they happen to desire.

c) The flourishing of human beings through living in communities such as the family, the voluntary associations of civil society, and the state: some patterns of life work; others don't.

d) The possibility of a real, albeit imperfect justice being achieved by virtuous action: revolution and class antagonism aren't the only solutions.


OK! That's enough about last Wednesday's class!! I'll say something about the next meeting (5 Nov) at the beginning of next week.

Further reflections on Wednesday's session (29 Oct)

In yesterday's post, I made the broad distinction between an approach to Catholic teaching which basically trusted in the Church's methodology and simply asked for an explanation of how that methodology worked, and an approach which sought a deeper, critical engagement with that methodology. In sum, I left the post with the question as to why, particularly in the modern West, even Catholics often seek firm justifications of Catholic methodology before using it in a way that they wouldn't, for example, subject secularized methodologies to a similar deep probing before using them.

But let's, for the sake of discussion, engage with that deeper probing of Catholic methodology in doing, say, social teaching or, more generally, moral theology. I think the first thing to say here are we shouldn't underestimate the nature of the task. Part of the process of secularization in modernity is to reduce religion to merely an aspect of life, rather like a hobby. It therefore becomes very easy to interpret the justification of Catholicism along the lines of a justification of stamp collecting: something you could imagine being done in a half hour lecture followed by polite questioning. But if you take seriously Catholicism's own self-understanding, the question of justification becomes less one of a particular, narrow aspect of life, but rather one of everything, not just of our supernatural end (our life after death with God) but also of our natural end (what it is to flourish during our earthly life). If you add to that the observation that, discussions even just about fairly narrow religious (or philosophical) questions have rumbled on throughout the ages with smart people on both sides, something of the size and incompletability of the task becomes obvious.

That said, I think there are two aspects of Catholic methodology that have been subject to particular probing during the course so far. First, there is the clarity of it. How easy is it to know what the 'Catholic view' really is? Secondly, there is the rightness of it. Given one knows what is being said, how is the truth of any particular claim to be assessed?

Let's take the clarity first. There is an ordinary, everyday level of teaching in the Catholic Church which is extremely easy to access. If you want to know what the Catholic view is about many things, you can look at officially published documents such as the Catechism or the Compendium of Social Doctrine, or even Papal teaching documents, and find out relatively quickly. It won't sort out every worry you might conceivably have (as was pointed out in the last session, some details of (eg) predestination have been deliberately left open by Papal teaching) but it will give clear answers on a great deal that other churches don't articulate. It is at this ordinary, everyday level that most Catholics live most of the time and all of us live some of the time. (The very fact that we can have a course on Catholic social teaching is evidence of the existence of a (relatively) coherent and well articulated body of teaching in this area.)

The existence of what might be called this pre-critical level of engagement with Catholic teaching is a consequence of what I take to be the fundamental claim of Catholicism: that Christ left a Church and not a book. If we all had to be theologians to achieve salvation, we'd be in serious trouble! So the first thing I'd note is that, on the everyday level of finding out what the Church teaches, there exists a body of teaching that it far clearer and more readily accessed than in most other mainstream religious bodies. But what of the rightness of that teaching? Assuming that we accept the existence of its clarity, what if we begin to worry about its rightness?

It is at this point that I think Catholic teaching displays another of its strengths: its intellectual depth. In essence, I think this is the point that Pope Benedict was making in his Regensburg lecture. If you wish to pursue critical engagement with Catholic teaching, that path both exists and is encouraged: it is possible to be critical catholically. So, for example, if I was prompted to move from that 'pre-critical' level of engagement with Catholic teaching that I have just described, I might move from the Catechism to the underlying teaching documents, and from the underlying teaching documents to the theology of the Doctors of the Church such as St Thomas Aquinas and then, perhaps, to the vast secondary literature that discusses him and the vast preceding philosophical and theological literature from which he emerged. (Given the role of grace and the virtues in our intellectual life, I would also be regularly praying and examining my conscience.)

Now there is no abstract guarantee what the results of such a critical process will be: as I have emphasized over the course, there is a strong emphasis on the pursuit of truth and love in freedom particularly in recent Catholic teaching. I do not know (and the Church does not claim to know) precisely what salvation looks like in every individual case. But there is sufficient clarity to suspect that some processes of critical engagement with the teaching are very hard to describe as Catholic. For example, someone who scoffed at the reality of Christ's presence in the Eucharist, who refused to ask Mary for guidance and protection, who abjured the intellectual inheritance of Aquinas in favour of Nietzsche, and who dismissed the authority of bishops to teach with any sort of authority might still claim to be Catholic, but it would be a claim that I would find very hard to understand let alone accept as plausible. Of course, many examples of 'dissenting' theologians are much less clear cut than that. Equally, some are much clearer: one simple (and helpful) question is often simply, 'Do you regard yourself as a Catholic?'

In sum, Catholic teaching and the process of Catholic critical engagement with that teaching is (relatively) clear. It is of course entirely open to someone to ask why we should be so interested in pursuing a particularly Catholic path rather than a path to truth simpliciter. Two responses to that. In the first place, that is an odd (even if not impossible) question for a Catholic to ask. At the least, I think I would be asking myself what it meant to identify as a Catholic and yet wonder what merit there was in thinking as a Catholic. Secondly, any non Catholic path of criticism will itself be making methodological assumptions which need to be subject to as much critical examination as Catholic claims. In many cases, the challenge to Catholicism in the West is from approaches which have been subject to far less critical examination than Catholicism itself.

In my next reflection on Wednesday's session, I'll turn to consider an approach which does directly challenge the content of Catholic social teaching and which was raised in the discussion: Marxism.

Reflections on yesterday's session (29 Oct)

A lively discussion again last night!

First -and doubtless most important- the above photo shows the switchover from driving on the left hand side of the road to the right hand side of the road in Sweden which I mentioned last night as a symbol of the need for the co-ordinating activity of government. (I'm still not sure whether I'm more impressed by the disorder in the picture or the relative orderliness of the change!)

Turning to matters of more substance, I think there were two issues that struck me particularly:

1) Yet again, we ended up discussing the applications of Catholic social theory to the Church itself.

2) The challenge of Catholic social theory to Marxism.

I'm going to need more than one post to deal with these, so I'll tackle 1) in a couple of posts beginning today and then post (as soon as I find time!) on 2).

As I said at the beginning of the course, the teaching of Catholic social teaching in this sort of class is a new venture both for the Institute and me, so I expected some surprises over the weeks. One thing I'm not sure whether or not I expected was the constant push for reflection on the authority of the Church. From one perspective, it is a surprise since the course is directed less at the Church itself and more at society in general. Moreover, the bulk of social teaching is more about the natural law -ie that part of Catholic reflection based on reasoning about human nature rather than revelation about human beings' supernatural end. So for those reasons, I hadn't expected quite such a regular interest in justifying the Church's teaching authority. On the other hand, I'm fairly realistic about both general attitudes to authority and to that of the Church in particular, so, from that perspective I'm not at all surprised!

But given that the issues have been raised, I don't want to dodge them. I think there are two sorts (or perhaps better, 'levels') of challenge to the authority of the Church in respect of Catholic social teaching. First, there is the 'common-or-garden' level based on the perfectly reasonable observation that much of what the Church seems to say about society in general doesn't seem to be applied to the Church. For example, Centesimus annus (here) 46 states:

'The Church values the democratic system inasmuch as it ensures the participation of citizens in making political choices, guarantees to the governed the possibility both of electing and holding accountable those who govern them, and of replacing them through peaceful means when appropriate.'

And yet, the Church isn't a democracy. So isn't the Church just failing to apply its own teachings consistently?

That sort of challenge is really a request for further information and is relatively quickly answered. In essence, the Church isn't the same sort of body as a state. Just as it would be wrong to apply the above paragraph to a family (or even a school or university) a fortiori it would be wrong to apply it to the Body of Christ. (A fuller explanation is provided in my previous post here.)

There is, however, another type of challenge. The former type is exercised within the assumption of the everyday trustworthiness of the Church: to ask the above question is to pursue a deeper understanding of the Church's teachings, not to challenge them. (This can be seen by reflecting on the fact that it is settled quickly by reference to explanatory manuals such as the Catechism or Compendium of Social Doctrine.) The second type of challenge is a deeper and more critical one, and questions the reliability of those common-or-garden explanations.

Now, I'm certainly not going to reject the propriety of that second sort of challenge: it's perfectly reasonable for someone who doubts the authority of the Church (whether a non-Catholic or a Catholic) to ask those sort of questions. But it is important to note that it is a different sort of challenge from the first sort. To take an analogy from a different field, it is one thing to teach science and another thing to teach philosophy of science. In (say) a physics class, the general trustworthiness of the university system and experimental method is normally not challenged (certainly at a very deep level) within those classes. Any request for clarification of methodology is simply that: a request for clarification on how to use that methodology rather than a critical challenge to it. On the other hand, challenges to scientific methodology and critical questioning of it are meat and drink to a philosophy of science class.

In sum, certainly in other academic subjects, there is a broad distinction to be made between those classes which assume a certain methodology and then seek to apply it, and those classes which encourage reflection on the methodology. Moreover, I'd add that it's a feature of the second sort of class that justifications of methodology are never entirely complete or satisfactory: I can't think of a single subject (certainly of any academic weight) where you might suggest that you could sort out the second sort of class in a clear cut manner, so that, methodology settled, you could then proceed in absolute certainty to apply that fully justified methodology.

So one way of responding to the 'deep' challenge to the authority of Church teachings is to ask, why is this deep challenge, suspicious of the authority and methodology, more pressing in the case of the Church than it is in the case of other intellectual pursuits and academic subjects? Why must we settle the authority of the Church in a way far more demanding of greater clarity and certainty than we accept for other subjects? We do not demand  the placing of literary theory on an absolutely firm and completely convincing basis before applying that theory, say, to Chaucer. Why do we demand complete certainty in authority from Catholicism before considering the application of its teaching to society?

I think the rough lines of an explanation here are clear: we accept the normal, secular understanding of the world without any deep (second level) probing and, by uncritically adopting that secular standard, Catholicism apparently stands wanting in authority. But why do we take more on trust from the surrounding secular world than we are willing to take on trust from the (our?) Church? I don't think there is, frankly, a good answer to that if we identify ourselves as Catholics.

To sum up this first post, I think there is good reason to take the claims to authority of the Church on trust and, focusing on the application of Catholic methodology, to judge its success or failure on how well that methodology succeeds in illuminating society. That isn't to deny the possibility of another (second level) enquiry about the deeper aspects of those claims to authority, but it is to note that this is a different sort of enquiry, one as different from Catholic social teaching as philosophy of science is from science.

All that said, I'm not one to seek to wriggle out from a challenge. So, if one does want to pursue that second level, deeper, more critical challenge to authority, what response might be made?

Watch this space...

Thinking ahead to this Wednesday (29 October)

This Wednesday's session will be on, 'The social nature of the human person: politics, the State and the role of the Church.'

I suppose that one of the key differences between Catholic social teaching and the modern 'commonsense' view is the role of the State. There is a (non-Catholic) tendency to think of the State as the source of all legal authority which is to be contrasted with the Catholic natural law tradition that argues a) that the authority of positive (ie State) law is derived from natural law; and b) that there are intermediate bodies (both the family and the associations of civil society) that have a natural right to exist rather than simply a right devolved by the State.

So what then is the role of the State? (Do we really need a State?) Yves Simon  (here) discusses the need for the State under two headings:

a) Substitutional. In certain circumstances, the State may act as substitute for the citizens' own decisions. This in turn takes two main forms:
  i) Permanent substitution: if the citizen body is permanently unable to make decisions which achieve the common good, then the government should do it for them. (This is very much behind Plato's idea that government should permanently be run by experts (philosophers!).)
 ii) Temporary substitution: if the citizen body is temporarily unable to make decisions which achieve the common good, then the government should do it for them but with a view to educating them to be able to run the country.

b) Unifying. Even if you imagine a society made up of entirely wise people, you would still need a government to decide which (of a number of possible good aims) that society should in fact aim at. As Simon puts it:

Even in the smallest and most closely united community, unity of action cannot be taken for granted; it has to be caused, and, if it is to be steady, it has to be assured by a steady cause. Here are a man and his wife -- both are good and clever, but one thinks that the summer vacation should be spent on the seashore, and the other would rather spend it in the hills. If they remain divided, one goes to the seashore, the other to the hills, and common life ceases temporarily. It would come to an end if a similar divergence concerned an issue of lasting significance.

Questions to think about:

a) What goods should a government aim at? (Are there as many different goods as there are individuals with opinions?)

b) Do we need experts to recognize (some? all of?) those goods?

c) Is democracy a good form of government? Why? (And is our modern Western democracy a good form of democracy?)

d) What role should the Church play in thinking through answers to the above?

Look forward to the discussions on Wednesday!

Reflections on last night's session (22 October)

Once more, many thanks for braving the increasingly dark evenings and for all the contributions to the discussions!

As I said, I think in many ways consideration of civil society (and the family) is one of the most important elements of Catholic social teaching: we have a tendency in the modern world to think solely in terms of the State and individuals; and even when we think of other associations, we tend to regard them as creations of the State rather than having a separate and independent source of authority for their existence (in broad terms, that of human nature).

A few specific points that occurred to me:

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a) The issue of subsidiarity and the exercise of authority in the Church came up: roughly, given the emphasis on the transfer of power down to the lowest level, why isn't power in the Church transferred downwards?

I set this question aside in the session simply because I didn't want to refocus the discussion from the general principle of subsidiarity in civil society to a specific (and different) case. However, we will have a chance to return to it if people want, both in the session on the State (which will include some consideration of the Church) and in the final 'open' session where we can pick up any topic that is of interest. For the moment, I suppose all I would say is that there seem to me to be a number of relevant considerations here:

i) First, it's entirely possible that the Church in some areas (and certainly some specific parishes in some places) doesn't always get it right! It would be highly implausible to argue that it does (and certainly it's no part of Catholic doctrine that it does).

ii) Secondly, there is the issue of the appropriate level to which power and authority is passed: as discussed, subsidiarity isn't the principle that authority is passed down to the lowest level regardless of appropriateness: some authority is appropriately exercised at higher, central levels. (And that of course leads to consideration of what appropriateness involves in specific cases.)

iii) Thirdly, unlike the State (which is legitimized by the authority of the people -ie authority proceeds (roughly) upwards)- the Church 's hierarchy possesses authority directly from God. (That certainly doesn't mean that power can't be passed downwards, but it does mean that, for at least some aspects of the hierarchy's exercise of authority, unlike that of the people in the case of civil power, there is no right to that authority.)

Contrast:

Civil authority:

1) Suarez: Book III, ch2, Defensio fidei Catholicae: [link here]

For, first, the supreme civil power viewed in itself, is indeed given directly by God to men gathered into a perfect political community, not in truth in consequence of any peculiar and quasi-positive institution, or by gift altogether distinct from the production of such nature, but through the natural consequence by the force of the first creation of it, and thus by the force of such gift this power is not in one person, nor in a peculiar congregation of many, but in the whole perfect people or body of the community. 

[...]

From these considerations finally it is concluded that no king or monarch has or has had (according to ordinary law) directly from God or from divine institution a political principality, but by the medium of human will and institution. This is the distinguished axiom of theology, not for derision, as the king proposed, but in truth, because rightly understood it is most true and especially necessary for understanding the purposes and limits of civil power.

2) Compendium Of Social Doctrine, 395 [link here]

 The subject of political authority is the people considered in its entirety as those who have sovereignty. In various forms, this people transfers the exercise of sovereignty to those whom it freely elects as its representatives, but it preserves the prerogative to assert this sovereignty in evaluating the work of those charged with governing and also in replacing them when they do not fulfil their functions satisfactorily. Although this right is operative in every State and in every kind of political regime, a democratic form of government, due to its procedures for verification, allows and guarantees its fullest application.


Ecclesial authority:

Catechism, 880-2: [link here]


When Christ instituted the Twelve, "he constituted [them] in the form of a college or permanent assembly, at the head of which he placed Peter, chosen from among them." Just as "by the Lord's institution, St. Peter and the rest of the apostles constitute a single apostolic college, so in like fashion the Roman Pontiff, Peter's successor, and the bishops, the successors of the apostles, are related with and united to one another."

The Lord made Simon alone, whom he named Peter, the "rock" of his Church. He gave him the keys of his Church and instituted him shepherd of the whole flock. "The office of binding and loosing which was given to Peter was also assigned to the college of apostles united to its head." This pastoral office of Peter and the other apostles belongs to the Church's very foundation and is continued by the bishops under the primacy of the Pope.

The Pope, Bishop of Rome and Peter's successor, "is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful." "For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered."

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b) After the session I was asked the very good question as to whether there was any real evidence that the associations of civil society were actually under threat in modernity. (So, eg, I mentioned that it was more and more difficult to get membership of political parties or the scouts.)

This strikes me as a good point because it does remind us that we need to separate out what is essential to Catholic social teaching as what is merely a (plausible) application of it. It is essential to Catholic social teaching that civil society flourishes: if human beings are not able to form the sort of intermediate associations that we discussed, the full flourishing of their nature is impaired. But while it is essential to the teaching that civil society should continue and be facilitated, it certainly isn't essential to the teaching that (in any particular society or age) this or that civil society is actually under threat. For example, although books such as Putnam's Bowling Alone (see previous post) do seem to me to provide convincing evidence that there is a problem here in the West, it may well be that what we are seeing is simply a change in the nature of civil society (perhaps from participation in bowling clubs to participation in (say) online gaming). There's no magic solution to this other than the exercise of practical wisdom (prudentia): reasonable disagreement about the nature of social problems and the solution to them is not eradicated by the existence of Catholic social teaching. Catholics should be concerned about the survival of civil society. But precisely how that concern should be manifested on any particular occasion is not something that can be revealed by that teaching: there we simply have to do our best to discern both problems and solutions.

I'll post in a few days with thoughts about the next session!

Looking forward to the next session: 22 Oct

One of the abiding themes of Catholic social teaching has been subsidiarity. As the Compendium says (s185 here):

It is impossible to promote the dignity of the person without showing concern for the family, groups, associations, local territorial realities; in short, for that aggregate of economic, social, cultural, sports-oriented, recreational, professional and political expressions to which people spontaneously give life and which make it possible for them to achieve effective social growth. This is the realm of civil society, understood as the sum of the relationships between individuals and intermediate social groupings, which are the first relationships to arise and which come about thanks to “the creative subjectivity of the citizen”.

This week we'll be looking at civil society, used in the sense of those intermediate bodies and institutions that exist between the State and the individual. In totalitarian societies such as Nazi Germany or Communist Russia, these intermediate communities were reduced to mere tools of the State, while in modern capitalism, there appears to be a gradual reduction of such community life in favour of individualism.

Questions to think about:

a) Do you think the community life of civil society has changed over your lifetime? If so, has this been for the better or worse?

b) Does it matter? Can't small communities be rather oppressive at times? Isn't there a welcome freedom in individualism?

If you've got time, you could have a look at this interview with Robert Putnam. (Here.) Putnam's book, Bowling Alone, is a classic study of the decline of the sort of social networks involved in civil society.

Message from the Synod on the Family

The Synod on the Family in Rome has presented its message on 'the pastoral challenges to the family in the context of evangelisation'. Some interesting stuff particularly in view of our recent discussions:


There is also the evening light behind the windowpanes in the houses of the cities, in modest residences of suburbs and villages, and even in mere shacks, which shines out brightly, warming bodies and souls. This light—the light of a wedding story—shines from the encounter between spouses: it is a gift, a grace expressed, as the Book of Genesis says, when the two are “face to face” as equal and mutual helpers. The love of man and woman teaches us that each needs the other in order to be truly self. Each remains different from the other that opens self and is revealed in the reciprocal gift. It is this that the bride of the Song of Songs sings in her canticle: “My beloved is mine and I am his… I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine”.
This authentic encounter begins with courtship, a time of waiting and preparation. It is realized in the sacrament where God sets his seal, his presence, and grace. This path also includes sexual relationship, tenderness, intimacy, and beauty capable of lasting longer than the vigour and freshness of youth. Such love, of its nature, strives to be forever to the point of laying down one’s life for the beloved. In this light conjugal love, which is unique and indissoluble, endures despite many difficulties. It is one of the most beautiful of all miracles and the most common.
This love spreads through fertility and generativity, which involves not only the procreation of children but also the gift of divine life in baptism, their catechesis, and their education. It includes the capacity to offer life, affection, and values—an experience possible even for those who have not been able to bear children. 

Full text here.

Reflecting on last Wednesday's meeting (15 October)

Thank you for the liveliest discussion yet! May there be many more!!

A few thoughts (not in any particular order):

1) On the course being challenging. Although I said a lot of what I wanted to say about this during the evening, I'd also want to add that it's intended to be very much a course you can access on different levels. Certainly, I do think that the intellectual life of the Church in Scotland could do with upping its game and I'd like to think that the course, but more importantly the Institute as a whole, is part of that attempt to bring the full riches of the Catholic intellectual tradition out into the open. If you've got plenty of time and the inclination, you'll find many resources here and much thought provoking material to take that exploration further.

But I also want it to be a course that can be skimmed (or dipped into!). Just by turning up on Wednesdays and participating in the class, I hope that you'd get quite a lot out of it, even if that's mostly: 'There's a lot here that I can have a look at when (if) I finally get the time.' The Church and its intellectual tradition is much bigger than any one of us: we're all dipping into it in our short lives.

2) Celibacy. Oddly, I hadn't envisaged the conversation taking the turn it had on celibacy! (I'd really just intended to talk about the goods of marriage!) When comparing celibacy and married life, I think the key point (as others made rather better than I did!) is to note the goodness of both. As the Catechism says (s.2349 link here):


' "People should cultivate [chastity] in the way that is suited to their state of life. Some profess virginity or consecrated celibacy which enables them to give themselves to God alone with an undivided heart in a remarkable manner. Others live in the way prescribed for all by the moral law, whether they are married or single." Married people are called to live conjugal chastity; others practice chastity in continence:
'" There are three forms of the virtue of chastity: the first is that of spouses, the second that of widows, and the third that of virgins. We do not praise any one of them to the exclusion of the others. . . . This is what makes for the richness of the discipline of the Church." '

There has undoubtedly been a change in emphasis in the Church's teachings over the years which has led to a greater understanding of how sanctification can be pursued through the married state as well as celibacy. I'd be happy to leave it there for the purposes of this course, but, as I did mention on Wednesday, there has been a strong view in the tradition that celibacy is a more direct path to our supernatural end. Aquinas for example says:

' I answer that, According to Jerome... i) the error of Jovinian consisted in holding virginity not to be preferable to marriage. This error is refuted above all by the example of Christ Who both chose a virgin for His mother, and remained Himself a virgin, and by the teaching of the Apostle who (1 Cor. 7) counsels virginity as the greater good. It is also refuted by reason, both because a Divine good takes precedence of a human good, and because the good of the soul is preferable to the good of the body, and again because the good of the contemplative life is better than that of the active life. Now virginity is directed to the good of the soul in respect of the contemplative life, which consists in thinking "on the things of God" ..., whereas marriage is directed to the good of the body, namely the bodily increase of the human race, and belongs to the active life, since the man and woman who embrace the married life have to think "on the things of the world," as the Apostle says (1 Cor. 7:34). Without doubt therefore virginity is preferable to conjugal continence.'

(STh IIa IIae q152 a4 link here)

I think my chasing that difficult issue was slightly going off on a tangent so far as this course is concerned though: for the normal working of society, it's the goodness of marriage that is more important.

3) Complementarity. We still didn't really get to deal with this completely! I'm going to take that as a sign from the Holy Spirit and move on! I've posted up the material on this for this week and last week if anyone wants to pursue it further. I think a fair summary of the case for  the importance of a woman and a man at the centre of the family would be:

i) from the point of view of the procreative purpose of marriage, first, its biological necessity (!) and also the importance of a female and male presence in bringing up children (although noting of course that this ideal isn't always possible).

ii) from the point of view of the unitive end (ie being good for the spouses) that engagement with the distinct sensibilities of the other sex is part of the process of sanctification (roughly, men are made better men by women, and women are made better women by men).

Phew!

I'll be back with further thoughts for next week (on civil society -ie those bodies intermediate between the family and the state) before Wednesday.

Thinking ahead to Wednesday (15 October: Meeting 4)

Since we didn't complete the discussion of the family last week -and, in particular, didn't really get on to discuss what I suppose is probably a key worry about Catholic social teaching: that it imposes a particular shape on the family (one man, one woman in a lifetime exclusive commitment for the raising of children)- we'll focus on that this week. We can then postpone week 4 until 5, and combine weeks 5 and 6 to form a discussion of politics and the role of the Church. This gives us:


Week 4) The family (continued).

Week 5) The social nature of the human person: civil society and the role of associations intermediate between family and State.

Week 6) The social nature of the human person: politics, the State and the role of the Church.

Key issues it might be worth thinking about before Wednesday:

a) What follows ethically from biology and our physiology? It takes a male/female couple to produce a new individual by way of sexual intercourse: does this biological fact have any implications for what follows ethically (particularly thinking about the shape of the family)?

b) A related question: women and men are certainly physically sexually dimorphic (ie we are built differently!). Given that physical complementarity (ie the need for both to come together to produce offspring), what about psychological (or even ethical) complementarity? (Do we need each other in deeper ways?)

c) Are families just about love? (What's important is that the members of a family love each other rather than that they are are certain types of persons.)

It might be worth reading this article by Rod Dreher before Wednesday (link here). The questions that it prompts me to ask would include:

i) Given that we have to see sex as part of a greater (theological) whole, are there elements of Christian teaching that suggest a traditional emphasis on procreation and sexual difference actually fits badly into this greater whole?

ii) Does Catholic teaching in this area depend on (revealed) theological principles rather than natural law? (Which would suggest that the Christian worldview on sex would not be accepted by a culture which did not also share those revealed principles.)

Look forward to seeing you on Wednesday!

Reflections from last night (8 October)

Some excellent discussion last night: thank you!

As I said, we really didn't get to cover the issue of sexual complementarity (which has come to prominence both as part of the Theology of the Body and as an explanation as to why the family should take a particular shape (ie one woman; one man) ). We'll have a go at that next week!

One element that did figure quite prominently in last night's discussion was this idea of a 'hermeneutic of continuity'. (This phrase is usually attributed to Benedict XVI in his Christmas address 22 December 2005. (Link here.)) In short, it is possible to understand some twentieth century developments in Catholic theology (particularly Vatican II) in two ways: either interpreting them as a radical change from the past ( a hermeneutics (ie way of interpreting) of rupture) or in continuity with past theology.

It should be clear by now that I'm a hermeneutic of continuity man myself!! So, in my understanding, Catholic theology has simply developed and deepened through events such as Vatican II, rather than radically changed. But, as one very good question put it last night: why does this matter? Clearly some things have changed: we don't burn Protestants any more (!). So why the desperation to cling onto a narrative of continuity rather than perhaps adopt a more honest admission that there has been a radical change?

Part of my answer to this would be that it does depend on the precise meaning of 'radical' change. In one sense, there has been great change -that's clear. So would it matter if we adopted a hermeneutic of rupture? I'd make two replies.

The first -and perhaps least important- is that it would change the way we used (say) pre-Vatican II material. Rather than going (say) to a thirteenth century Doctor of the Church such as Aquinas and expecting to find there the same theology as we have now, we would have to go without that assumption. I think that certainly would be a profound change both in the way we used materials and also in the attitude we have to the (intellectual) communion we have with those Doctors. But to accept that is of course not to answer the objection that such a change is both necessary and welcome...

The second -and more important reply- is that it would alter the nature of the teaching authority of the Church. There is no evading the fact that the Catholic Church has -and still does- make very strong claims for itself. Here, for example, are the relevant paragraphs from the Catechism on the teaching authority of the Church on morality (link here):


2032 The Church, the "pillar and bulwark of the truth," "has received this solemn command of Christ from the apostles to announce the saving truth." "To the Church belongs the right always and everywhere to announce moral principles, including those pertaining to the social order, and to make judgments on any human affairs to the extent that they are required by the fundamental rights of the human person or the salvation of souls."

2033 The Magisterium of the Pastors of the Church in moral matters is ordinarily exercised in catechesis and preaching, with the help of the works of theologians and spiritual authors. Thus from generation to generation, under the aegis and vigilance of the pastors, the "deposit" of Christian moral teaching has been handed on, a deposit composed of a characteristic body of rules, commandments, and virtues proceeding from faith in Christ and animated by charity. Alongside the Creed and the Our Father, the basis for this catechesis has traditionally been the Decalogue which sets out the principles of moral life valid for all men.

2034 The Roman Pontiff and the bishops are "authentic teachers, that is, teachers endowed with the authority of Christ, who preach the faith to the people entrusted to them, the faith to be believed and put into practice." The ordinary and universal Magisterium of the Pope and the bishops in communion with him teach the faithful the truth to believe, the charity to practice, the beatitude to hope for.

2035 The supreme degree of participation in the authority of Christ is ensured by the charism of infallibility. This infallibility extends as far as does the deposit of divine Revelation; it also extends to all those elements of doctrine, including morals, without which the saving truths of the faith cannot be preserved, explained, or observed.

2036 The authority of the Magisterium extends also to the specific precepts of the natural law, because their observance, demanded by the Creator, is necessary for salvation. In recalling the prescriptions of the natural law, the Magisterium of the Church exercises an essential part of its prophetic office of proclaiming to men what they truly are and reminding them of what they should be before God.

2037 The law of God entrusted to the Church is taught to the faithful as the way of life and truth. the faithful therefore have the right to be instructed in the divine saving precepts that purify judgment and, with grace, heal wounded human reason. They have the duty of observing the constitutions and decrees conveyed by the legitimate authority of the Church. Even if they concern disciplinary matters, these determinations call for docility in charity.

In essence, the Church is claiming the same authority as Christ in Matthew 7:29: 'For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes' (ie as an authoritative source, not merely as an interpreter). If the Church has completely changed its mind on important matters of theology and morality (rather than deepening its understanding or changing the application of principles because of changed circumstances) this undermines its claim to such a unique authority.

Of course, much more to be said on both sides here! (Whenever isn't there?) But given the Church does seem clearly to make unique claims about its teaching authority, are those claims to be rejected as simply false (as most non-Catholics would) or can they be interpreted as somehow claiming a unique authority which is compatible with radical discontinuity (even contradiction) in teaching? In rejecting both of those possibilities, the supporters of a hermeneutic of continuity are accepting the unique claims of the Church to teaching authoritatively, and understanding that to mean that the Church does not change its teaching even when it deepens it.


Further reading:

Cardinal Newman: An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. (Link here.)

Daniel Lattier: 'The orthodox rejection of doctrinal development' (link here). (The Eastern Orthodox Churches (unlike the Catholic Church) are commonly held to reject any idea of the development of doctrine (rather than simply its preservation). The author argues that in fact there is an acceptance of some forms of development in Eastern Orthodoxy and that Newman's own understanding of development is compatible with these.)

Pascendi Dominici Gregis: Pius X's condemnation of Modernism (which includes condemnation of the idea of doctrine's evolution).  (link here).

Thinking ahead to session 3 (Wednesday 8 Oct)

As I mentioned last week, in  many ways the individual was the wrong place to start our account of Catholic social teaching: unlike modern (non-Catholic) social contact theories which tend to portray the formation of the state as a matter of individuals coming together to form a state by agreement, Catholic approaches tend to regard the household as the building block of society.

So one of the things I suspect we'll be talking about this Wednesday is why Catholic social teaching starts off with this emphasis (and is it right to do so?). Another important question is what do we mean by a family or household? We've just been through the question of legislation about same sex marriage in which there was clear, official Catholic opposition to the proposal in Scotland. In part, this opposition was based on the idea that the man/woman/children unit was natural and thus not something the state should interfere in. (This raises the question of subsidiarity: what is the power of the state over entities within its territory? Should power be retained (not devolved) to 'lower level' institutions such as the family?) But it also raised the question of the makeup of that household unit: even if Catholic social teaching was right about its importance in society, is there one model of the household, and, in particular, does that model have to be based on a female/male couple in a lifelong commitment? (And if it does, how does that model reflect the reality that such a unit is increasingly uncommon?) To deal with such questions, we're going to have to address traditional Catholic claims about the procreative and educative function of the household, together with the issue of the role of differences between the sexes in human flourishing.

Key questions to have a think about:

a) How important is the family to society?
b) What is a family? Is there any restriction to its shape? (And if so, why?)

Reading:

You could try St John Paul II's Familiaris consortio (link here) but it's long and densely written. Short excerpts from relevant teaching documents on the family can be found here.
Chapter 5 of the Compendium of Social Doctrine on the Family can be found here.

Reflections on last night (1 October: meeting 2)

Again, thank you for an enjoyable session last night!

A couple of reflections on the discussions:

a) Evangelization. One of the things I particularly like about Catholicism is that no one ever tried to convert me (at least in any obvious way). On the other hand, I've been approached by who knows how many other groups of one ideology or other who want to convince me to sign up to their particular understanding of the world.

Now this reticence does have its bad side: in part because Scottish Catholics in particular have learned to keep their heads down in an environment that, in the not so recent past, was extremely hostile, I sometimes think we are too reticent about what we believe. But I think there are two good reasons which might explain the lack of apparent effort:

i) You don't get anywhere by bludgeoning people. If we take seriously the claim I made last night that the emphasis on truth and love in achieving our supernatural end (ie the beatific vision of God) militates against the imposition of the good life by the State, I think it's also true that (in the majority of cases) going up to a stranger and asking if they're saved also doesn't work. (It's a bit like trying to find a boy/girl friend by slipping notes to strangers and asking if they'll go out with you: it might work on occasions, but usually you'll just get a reputation as a bit creepy!)

ii) Being 'saved' isn't just a decision. Some non-Catholic Christians do think (or at least seem to think) of salvation as just an event: you are asked if you want to accept God; you say yes and accept God. End of story. Instead, Catholics think of being saved as a process which ends in the Beatific Vision of God: both God's grace and our co-operation with that grace are required for that process to succeed. (And that process may well involve a period of post-mortem cleansing in Purgatory.)

From this perspective, the sort of discussions we are having are part of that process: again, if we think of the pursuit of God as characterized by truth and love, a free pursuit of truth and understanding is likely to be rather more important an element in sanctification than a brief exchange on a doorstep.

I'm saying all this because I suppose I do wrestle with the practical implications of this every day when teaching philosophy in a secular environment but also in these classes. In one sense, I never think of myself as evangelizing: I'm not trying to convert anyone to Catholicism even in these classes which are explicitly Catholic (at least in the sense that they are about Catholicism even if we are not all Catholics!). I'm merely concerned to try and pursue truth (and goodness and beauty). On the other hand, I do think (and hope) that such a pursuit does lead (in principle even if not always in fact) to Catholicism. (Whether any of this is the right attitude is of course another question!)

Reading I've found useful in this area (but I'm certainly not pretending to a complete understanding here!):

Council of Trent, Sixth Session: On Justification [link here]
Lutheran-Catholic Joint Declaration on Justification [link here]
Garrigou-Lagrange: The Three Ages of the Interior Life (a book by perhaps the most eminent neo-Thomist of the twentieth century: chIII article III deals with the relationship between the effects of grace (the infused virtues) and the virtues acquired by our own efforts. [Link here.]

b) Disagreement. Sticking with this emphasis on the pursuit of God as understood as characterized by truth and love, I see no reason to expect that such a pursuit shouldn't be aided by argument and disagreement. I think of Catholic social teaching as really Catholic political philosophy, and it's absurd to think of philosophy as pursued without some sort of argument and disagreement. I'll quote the Dominican, Timothy Radcliffe here:

'The conviction which I explore in this letter to the Order is that a life of study is one of the ways in which we may grow in the love which "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." (1Cor. 13:7)

[...]

'In part it is because we are marked by a culture which has lost confidence that study is a worthwhile activity and which doubts that debate can bring us to the truth for which we long. If our century has been so marked by violence it is surely partly because it has lost confidence in our ability to attain the truth together.

[...]

'We can never build community unless we dare to argue with each other. I must stress, as so often, the importance of debate, argument, the struggle to understand.'

[Extracts from: Radcliffe: 'The wellspring of hope' (link here).]