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...
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