The Value of 21st Century Thomism Part 3

Posted on May 15, 2012 by admin

This is the third part of an on-going series on the value of Thomism in the 21st century. Part 1 and Part 2 are still available. This work is in progress and comments are greatly appreciated. –jln

The Protagonist

If I characterize the problems of modernity as a loss of autonomy, a loss of meaning, and a loss of reason, what can Thomism offer to the 21^st century to combat these losses? What is the anthropology that Thomism offers that provides a truer and richer picture of the human being than the current ones available? More importantly, perhaps, how can a more honest anthropology help to combat the threats of environmental collapse, despotic government, and inhuman and inhumane education of the contemporary world?

I have described the modern conception of the human being as a machine in a machine. As a machine, the human being is atomistic – whole apart from society. The human being, further, treats the world purely instrumental as an object ready to hand to satisfy his desires. Finally, as machine, he enters society with others contractually, always ready to exit society when it no longer serves his ends and always willing to give only as much as necessary to maintain his legitimacy in society. (Charles Taylor articulates these three aspects of the modern human machine in “Overcoming Epistemology” as disengaged, punctual, and atomistic.)

In contrast, the Thomistic-Aristotelian sees homo sapiens as a living social being. A living social being is, first, living by which I mean a composite of two tensions – a formal tension and a material tension. Neither the formal nor the material can exist outside of this or that particular living being. In the human being, the formal principle determines the material principle to be rational and social. The ancient philosophers would talk about this as the soul – or the form of a living body. What they mean by soul is simply that principle that organizes the matter to be this kind of matter and to act in these characteristic ways. Squirrels are organized to have four legs and a bushy tail and to act in squirrel ways – gather acorns for the winter, climbing trees to avoid predators, etc.

I am not saying anything voodoo here. We can all look out into the world and recognize that things exist as particular kinds of things. Modern science denied final cause as irrelevant to a properly scientific understanding of the world. In so doing, modern scientists separated the ability to name things from what they really are. Even today, evolutionary psychologists, like Richard Dawkins, cannot speak of living organisms without speaking in a way that intuits purpose to their actions. They deny, as they must being strict reductionist materialist, any actual purpose to living organisms, including human beings. Such denials ring with a falseness. A hydrogen atom acts differently when alone than when joined with another hydrogen atom and an oxygen atom. One can say that such different actions can be explained by mathematics, but that is not the point. The point is simply that they are organized differently and act differently. The world around speaks of form – of kinds of things, including kinds of living things.

As living beings, homo sapiens characteristically act in social ways. What do I mean by that?

Human beings clearly are individuals – I can name Sarah and Sue and James and John. Yet, Sarah and Sue grow into their identities because of the social relationships they are in. In contrast to modern social and political philosophies, Thomistic-Aristotelianism insists that human beings arrive, not as fully formed adults in the world, but as individuals who discover who they are and develop who they are in the context of their social networks. We share this insight with radical feminists and care ethicists who deny the atomistic construal of human beings. Claiming that human beings are social does not deny the individuality of human beings; rather, it is to claim that homo sapiens become individuals through social relationships – relationships of giving and receiving in the words of Alasdair MacIntyre. When those relationships are defective – when they don’t exist or when the agents in the relationship abuse the power they have in the relationship – then individuals must struggle to achieve any kind of flourishing. When those relationship are healthy – when the agents truly care for each other, even when they struggle to be with each, and when they avoid abuse of power – then individuals flourish by developing their individuality, their specific talents and skills, their specific knowledges and practices.

Being a social animal, homo sapiens does not fit the model of a machine. First, if one disassembles a machine, the parts are still useful and can be transferred between machines. The parts do not take on a new identity being placed into a new machine. Human beings cannot be so disassembled. Certainly, human beings can lose hands and arms and eyes and function well enough and even flourish. That’s just the point, however: a machine that loses its parts can no longer function, much less flourish. A human being, however, can because the human being is more than a machine – she is a whole being who purposes and ends that unify her actions.

Second, human beings are not like machines because they seek meaning in this world. Machines do not care about the purposes to which they are put to use. Homo sapiens does. In fact, characteristically, homo sapiens seek as much control over the course of their lives as possible. They seek to determine who they marry and who they don’t, who they serve and who they don’t, and what they do and what they don’t. It matters to a homo sapiens whether she marries and raises a family, whether she becomes a doctor, or both. As a social being, homo sapiens has reason, reason by which she discovers in her actions, her community, and the world meaning. These meanings can be found in the purposes she ascribes to the plants and animals of the world, or to the role she plays in society, or to the value she finds in her society and in her relationships. If those relationships or her society are ones characterized by harm, she seeks to leave them and to discover a world in which she can seek meaning. The very being in the world of homo sapiens is a being that seeks meaning and that suffers when the world is bereft of meaning.

Again, I do not have to imply that such meaning is some form of voodoo. Rather, the meaning must be something that answers to her reason.

Finally, as a living social being that seeks meaning in her world, homo sapiens wants control of her life. She recognizes in herself and in others the ability to direct her life. She also recognizes that, since others are like her and want to direct their lives, she must collaborate with others in determining society so that all can flourish. Homo sapiens is both a social being whose flourishing – including her autonomy – occurs only in society. That society must be constructed in such a way that she and others can join together to find meaning in their world and flourish.

Gay Marriage: A New Christian Response

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Dave

Gay Marriage: A New Christian Response
By Dave Kovacs

Since everyone* is talking about Barack Obama’s affirmation of gay marriage** today, I suppose I should say something about it. First, I am going to suggest that people of faith ought to radically re-think the issue from scratch. This is as true of conservatives as of liberals. Then I am going to suggest that when President Obama’s comments are taken in context, he might actually have a good idea.

(*That is, everyone except people being attacked by predator drones, or by predatory lenders, or who are victims of other injustices).
(**Really, I don’t like the term “gay marriage” since no marriage license application asks your sexual preference. Homosexuals have always been allowed to get married, just as long as it was to people of the opposite gender. But since the parlance of the times must win, I will concede and use the term “gay marriage” in this post in the usual sense).

Part I: The traditional argument against gay marriage.
The old argument goes something like this. Things have purposes and proper ends. The proper end of the sexual act is procreation. Homosexual acts can not result in procreation. Therefore, homosexual acts are morally problematic. Since marriage is the proper place for sexual acts, homosexuals can not get married.

It is worth noting that at the Second Vatican Council, it was hotly debated whether the section of Gaudium Et Spes dealing with family life should invoke the claim that the proper end of marriage is procreation. It was a narrow vote, but the decision was that the old scholastic distinction between “primary” and “secondary” ends of marriage was no longer useful.

Part II: Where I try to save teleology while questioning the traditional argument.
I’m a (subversive) Thomist, so I like teleology (the claim that things have purposes and proper ends).

But it is a basic principle that we come to know the proper function and end of a thing by observing what that thing does in the most general way. That is, what characterizes it? The proper end of a bird is to fly because, as we see every day, birds are basically understood as flying creatures. The proper end of a knife is to cut stuff because knives are cutting instruments.

But it seems that the sexual act, while capable of procreation, is not usually understood as “the procreating act.” There is a reason couples make love even when not trying to conceive. If we thought of the sexual act primarily in terms of procreation it would be, at the least, unromantic. Worse, it would call into question why we expect parents to love each other.

Nor should we be so base as to say that the proper end of sexuality is merely genital stimulation and pleasure. Rather, let us say that, if we observe human sexuality in its best forms, it serves as a basis for self-giving. It is the means by which two people grow in trust, love, affection, and absolute self-giving.

Part III: Why not?
Is there any reason that homosexuals should not be able to participate in this sort of self-giving love?

If sexuality, as I described it above, is what I think it is, then it is also ultimately a spiritual act. Lovers, in finding each other, can find God. For Christians believe that God, in purest terms, is complete self-giving. The message of Christ on the Cross is one of absolute self-giving and total self-sacrifice. When we love, whether in sexual union or in caritas, we are following Christ, we are finding God.

So why should homosexuals be denied this spiritual experience?

Part IV: The “official” argument is self-contradicting.
The official argument of Church officials, for some time, has been that homosexuals are, by reason of their identity, called to celibacy. To refuse to be celibate, for a homosexual, is supposedly sinful.

Celibacy, meanwhile, is seen in Church tradition and current practice as something someone freely takes up in a special way to enhance one’s love affair with God. This is noble and can be found in most of the world’s religions.

But there is a tension: If the homosexual is required to be celibate on pain of sin, then how can it be said that his celibacy is truly free? The homosexual who chooses to be celibate on pain of sin isn’t choosing out of freedom in the virtuous way a priest chooses celibacy. No such merit can be said to exist in such a case.

So the official argument seems self-contradictory.

Part V: Toward a new Christian Response.
I am not here going to suggest a rush to legalize, either in secular law or Canon law, same-sex marriage. My reasons for hesitating are given below. Instead, I am going to suggest that the Christian response is to completely rethink sexuality and to open ourselves toward homosexuals in a radical way.

We must purge our language of terms that are causing homosexuals to have feelings of shame or guilt. We see this when clergymen declare that homosexuals have a “war on marriage.” There is no homosexual war on marriage. In fact, many homosexuals are trying to embrace marriage for the same reasons any lovers do.

We must examine for ourselves, in our own lives, how we treat and view homosexuals. We must open ourselves to them the way Jesus Christ would. Nay, we must treat them with the tender compassion with which Jesus Christ does treat them and all of us.

Part VI: Why a top-down law is not the solution.
Today Obama said he thinks homosexuals should be able to get married; more importantly, he said he thinks it is an issue that should be worked out by the states. I think he is right on both counts.

Recently, Ruth Bader Ginsberg said that the Supreme Court made a serious error in even hearing the Roe v. Wade trial. It wasn’t that their decision was flawed: It was that they should have let the issue work itself out in the states and local courts. Her belief is that in the long run the outcome would have been the same but that the subsequent culture war that it caused would not have happened.

I think there is an analogue here. We live in a country where right wing neoconservatives have already made people very suspicious of the government whenever it steps into controversial social territory. Rather than exacerbate that, the Federal Government does well to express vocal support for same-sex marriage (this includes removing barriers to it that are imposed on the states) but to let states work this out over the coming generation.

Those who wish to move this forward may serve their time best, not in political battles, but in social ones. Are we opposing church initiatives to discriminate and harm homosexuals? Are we being vocal about our tolerance, love and compassion? Are we stating publicly that we don’t believe, as some clergy do, that homosexuality is equivalent to a war on marriage?

Once we change the minds and hearts of people that way, I expect the question of how homosexuals express their love (in ways analogous to how heterosexuals currently do) will resolve itself.

As always, the mission of the Christian is the struggle to find ways to live justly and kindly in a world on the brink of collapse. But that collapse is not one that homosexuals are perpetrating.

Views expressed herein are my own and may or may not be shared by other blog contributors.

The Value of 21st Century Thomism Part 2

Posted on May 8, 2012 by admin

This is the second of two parts. Part 1 is here. NB: this is a work in progress. Comments very welcome.

The Antagonist

Everyone you ask has their own diagnosis of the problems of the 21^st century. Some begin with a benign view of modernity and the contemporary world and see only a need for tweaking certain ideas. These optimists include capitalists who believe government just needs to get out of their business, liberals who think government just needs to get out of everyone’s business and treat everyone equally, and Marxists who believe that government needs to be in everyone’s business. Others, pessimists, believe that modernity is a failure or, at best, a hoax. These include religious zealots of all stripes, like Catholics who want a return to an idyllic 13^th century that never existed and call for at least a return to Vatican I days, or like Protestants who want a return to colonial days when religion formed the basis of society or, if not that, the idyllic days of the 1950’s when peace and prosperity flowed in a free America, and cultural-rights people who just want you to keep your modernity out of their culture, thank you very much. Or we might include post-modernists, who, as far as I can tell, exist only in the academy and believe that modernity was just control by another name.

Finally, some of us, realists perhaps, believe that modernity was necessary but that it involves an inherent weakness. Early Frankfurt School theorists belong here, though not Habermassians, because they see the seeds of modernity in Odysseus and recognize the inherent contradiction in the autonomous man bereft of mythology who serves himself as a mythology. Thomists belong here too, and more fully so, for not only can they diagnose the problems with the other approaches to modernity, they can also explain why those other approaches make sense. We Thomists – by which I mean Thomistic-Aristotelians who are not afraid to question our own tradition as well as those of others and who take nothing on authority for authority sake – we Thomists recognize a kindred spirit in the way modernity rejects authoritarian and dogmatic thinking. We also see, however, a corrupted methodology that valorizes mathematics and mechanistic science above its due.

Given this perspective, which is admittedly over brief, I suggest that Thomists characterizes the failure of modernity as a loss of autonomy, a loss of meaning, and loss of reason. Practically speaking, these losses result in an impending environmental collapse, a tendency toward despotic governments in the form of totalitarian regimes or bureaucratic instrumentalism, and a deprived educational and social milieu that allows for the full flourishing of human individuals living in community. In short, these losses and practical problems rest on a distorted anthropology that sees the human being as a machine living in a machine-world driven by machine incentives.

To the optimists, then, a Thomist says, “yes, modernity was necessary. It helped us to move away from an objective worldview that prioritized the cosmos over the individual human being.” That is as far as a Thomist can go, however. She recognizes that modernity has brought about good things like the emphasis on concrete individuals in humanism and existentialism, the recognition of the need for observation in scientific understandings of the world (from which flows modern medicine and technology without which life would be much worse), and a lessening of religious controls that led to the Inquisition. On the other hand, she recognizes that many gains come at a cost –the cost to human dignity in the way modern medicine and science demeans the human beings, to cost to the dignity of the environment, upon which immigrants, the poor, and the old are sacrificed for the profit of others, and the cost of political self-determination.

In fact, the Aristotelian-Thomist can agree with the pessimists: “modernity rejoices at supposed gains which are just other forms of control and sacrifices humility with God on the altar of man’s glory.” Because she recognizes the good aspects of modernity, however, she rejects the idealization of a lost world in which Church and State were one that characterizes the religious zealot. Such a path leads to loss of autonomy and the corruption of the Church. Nor can she accept that all reason is but another imposition of power like the post-modernist. While some naming of mental disease, for instance, imposes a form of control on people who otherwise flourish, other people really suffer depression for which they need help so that they might lead flourishing lives. Politics is not meant to be a mere imposition of power.

To the optimists and the pessimists, the Thomistic-Aristotelian points out that their views rest on the same distorted anthropology. This anthropology comprises a picture of the human being as a rational, self-interested machine that is best left alone to do what he does best. The capitalist and the liberal, then, demand that government keep its nose out of the business of the human being, while the Marxist insists that man must be led to a state that frees him from his previous misconceptions so that he can live in an anarchy of egalitarian individuals. Similarly, the pessimist, not trusting the rational, self-interested machine to behave itself, insists that he must be subjected to the authority of God through the State or, better, simply through the Church (of whatever form). All that matters is the individual’s salvation. The post-modernist, of course, shares the same vision, except that he or she sees rationality as simply another form of the exercise of power. In any case, the individual seeks to impose his will on the world through whatever means possible.

The capitalist and the liberal care not about the impending environmental collapse or, at least, to the extent that they do, they care only because an environment is necessary for the machine to operate in at optimal capacity. Nor do they care about despotic forms of government. The capitalist does not care, for, as we saw with Hitler, profit grows even under extreme forms of totalitarianism. The collapse of the Soviet Union occurred, not because freedom was necessary, but because it no longer served to make profit, which the new Russian oligarchs swim in. Education means nothing in advanced industrial societies except learning to be a consumer. If any one wants evidence of the failure of education or the collapse of social milieu suited for flourishing they need look no further than the national politics of their own country.

The religious zealot cares not about environmental collapse either, denying it insofar as he can. We all know, too, that government is too liberal because it doesn’t prevent the collapse of morals all around. As for education, the religious zealot can agree that education does not teach the virtues and will, insofar as possible, remove his child from the educational system, either to teach at home or indoctrinate at the expensive private school. Let’s not talk about improving the local community school or, worse, engaging with others in the community on determining the common good.

Of course, I am being snarky, but the situation calls for it. The Thomistic-Aristotelian can agree with the insights of both the optimist and pessimist. She can go further, indeed, and diagnose the disease of which the optimist and the pessimist are both symptoms. Further, she can explain the failure of the optimist and the pessimist to address the real practical problems of the 21^st century. The reason that no one listens to the Thomistic-Aristotelian lies in the fact that she says “a pox on both your houses.” Yet, if people do not begin to listen, then the world is due for a collapse that will leave many starving, many diseased, and many more dead.

Earth’s Crammed with Heaven

Posted on May 7, 2012 by admin

Earth’s crammed with heaven,

and every common bush afire with God;

but only he who sees takes off his shoes

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

This statement is so beautiful and so powerful and points to the truth of God in every part of nature. It is, also, very Thomistic. This view — that earth is crammed with heaven — underlies much of the subversive aspect of Thomism.

Consider, for instance, that God created all things. God is pure being, and every thing that exists mirrors God in that being. Some existing things — some beings — exhibit less being or more being than others. What does such a metaphysical statement mean? Essentially it means “mitakaye oyas in” — we are all related. Everything that is shares in being. Such a statement does not come from a pantheism that sees everything in God. Rather, just as God IS, each thing that exist is in some lesser degree. Pantheism is like a casserole. Everything that is in the casserole constitutes the casserole. The parts of the casserole might thing of the casserole as something greater than themselves of which they are a part, but, in the end, they and the casserole are one. Rather, God is like a giant electrical plant, and everything that runs is powered by God — but they are not identical to God, and they do not, as a whole, comprise God. God exists independently.

If we consider ourselves as thus related, then what arises from the mind and the heart is the dignity of all created things. Thus, all being is good — is lovable in some aspect. This point is truly subversive, for if everything is good because of an inherent and necessary likeness to God, then that fact means we must treat all things that are with respect. We must love all things.

Consider, also, that every common bush is afire with God. What a wonderful statement. And if every common bush is afire with God, what does that entail about how we ought to treat each other? We often say that God is in each of us, that each of us is Christ to the other. But when we really live that way, it changes our whole way of being with each other. We should seek the light of God in each of us and stoke that fire to its brightest. Which, on a political level, means something much more than cutting taxes and cutting state aid to the marginalized.

Finally, only he or she who sees takes off his shoes. When we wear shoes, we wear something that protects us, that distinguishes us from them, and that establishes a certain arrogance to ourselves. Taking off our shoes means living humbly with God. It means learning to walk with the shoeless, the foodless, the homeless, the jobless. It means recognizing that, in the presence of God, we are unworthy. Yet, God is in each of us!

Thomas Aquinas: Sometimes It’s Okay To Take Other People’s Stuff

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Dave

Thomas Aquinas: Sometimes It’s Okay To Take Other People’s Stuff

I want to write a paper in the coming months about Aquinas’s theory of property. I’m still working out the details, but I’ll toss the idea out here first.

This is important because an objection sometimes raised against taxes, wealth redistribution, etc. is that they are all forms of theft. Things are owned by individuals who come to own them by earning them via labor.

Is that so?

Several articles in the Summa are relevant here. Both are in Secunda Secundae, Q. 66. Article 1 asks a basic question: Can people own things?

Thomas’s answer is that external things exist to help satisfy man’s needs. This is their telos. This is also common sense. It isn’t a license for exploitation, either. However, this aspect of their existence is not bound up in their nature per se, Thomas says. According to their nature per se, things belong only to God. Things exist to satisfy man’s needs in their ability to be used. So, it is appropriate for humans to use the things of the world (not persons—that’s another topic) to satisfy needs.

Things get interesting in Article 2. The question here is whether it is appropriate for a person to own something as his own. The first objection is that “No, no one should own anything as his own because according to common law everything is owned in common.” Whoa, big claim there. And, interestingly, one Thomas doesn’t seem to have an issue with in his response to the objection. Yes, he says, natural law does dictate that everything is common property, but human convention and agreement has made it possible to also have a system whereby somethings are owned properly.

Why? Well, we’ll find out in a moment from the Respondeo of this article. But, first, let’s think about the implications: According to natural law, everything is common property! We already said that things are to be used to meet man’s needs; and, this article tells us that things are not here to only meet one person’s needs, but everyone’s needs. Water doesn’t exist so that someone can get rich by bottling it; water exists so that everyone can drink. Farmland doesn’t exist so that Monsanto can patent food; farmland exists so that every single human being can enjoy the nourishment and pleasure of food.

So how does this rascal Aquinas combine his claim that natural law dictates common property with his contention that its okay to own something? Well, private ownership is conventional, and its useful for largely arbitrary reasons: Without some notion of private ownership, the care of things tend to be neglected. Farmland exists for the good of all humanity, yes; but unless we agree, even just for the sake of convenience, to let the farmer say he owns it (and all this ownership amounts to is the entitlement to some sort of income) who else is going to take care of the farm and harvest the crops?

This is all true, Thomas says, with regard to how things are procured and dispensed. In other words, its basically a barter and trade system. But, with regard to their use* things are owned in common, and thus the apostle is quoted: “Charge the rich of this world . . . to give easily, to communicate to others.”

(*The biggest task of my paper on this will be to get clear on the distinction between procurement, dispensement, and use).

All of this brings us to the seventh article. Here’s a fun question: In the case of serious need, is there such a thing as theft? And Thomas’s answer: When serious need exists, all property is common property, and taking what one needs is not theft, especially if it is taken from a rich person.

So there you go: If taxes are collected progressively to help society meet certain needs (and we can debate about what constitutes a need, but we must admit needs exist), it isn’t theft: It’s recognizing the natural law: Things, insofar as they can be used, are always owned in common.

So the next time you’re out on the occupy line and someone in an SUV drives up and tells you to stop looking for handouts, tell him you aren’t looking for a handout: You’re looking for natural law.

Should Catholics Celebrate “Loyalty Day”?

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Joan

No. This is not “Loyalty Day.” It is the Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker, and it is May Day, an internationally celebrated day honoring the victories and ongoing struggles of working people, a day whose origins lie in Chicago with a strike for the eight hour work day and the famous Haymarket Riot. For Catholics, this is a day for renewed commitment to the dignity of labor, in accord with Catholic social teaching and in accord with the intent of the Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker (which was established after May Day had become known as a day honoring labor, and which gave Catholics a way to participate in May Day). This is not a day for narrowness or patriotic jingoism, but universalism and human dignity.

President Obama’s declaration of May 1 as Loyalty Day is disturbing on multiple levels. Obviously, it was no accident that May 1 was the date selected. Those who are celebrating May Day by marching for justice with labor, immigrant, socialist, and anarchist movements—and this year, those marching in solidarity with the Occupy movement—are thereby implied to be “disloyal,” since they are spending their day advocating global justice instead of singing the praises of things uniquely American. Loyalty Day is a plain attempt by the 1% to disrupt and discredit left movements. (It is not the first time the 1% has tried to co-opt May Day, as my co-blogger Dave points out—Reagan christened it “Law Day.”)

Beyond its obviously reactionary function, a day celebrating loyalty is troubling for two other reasons:

Firstly, loyalty is an ambiguous virtue, if it is one at all. It is not traditionally one of the central virtues of Christianity, since it does not number among the cardinal virtues, nor the theological virtues—loyalty does not seem to be quite the same thing as “faith,” and it seems able to exist in the absence of love and of hope. One can imagine a loyal soldier, for example, whose loyalty is fueled by hatred of the enemy and a pessimistic pledge to “go down fighting” with his unit.

Aquinas, for his part, does not seem to treat loyalty as a virtue. He does treat “obedience” as a virtue,* but obedience has certain restrictions; one is not bound to obey an unjust command, and Aquinas stresses that obedience is not the greatest of all virtues but is always secondary to love (charity). Nor does “obedience” seem to carry the affective weight of “loyalty.” When one thinks of loyalty, included in that concept might be a Japanese samurai warrior impaling himself in shame for failing to live up to the expectations of his master, or a group of U.S. college students in matching clothing cheering for a team while smashing cars wildly. Loyalty is not just a calm, rational questioning of the commands with which one is presented and a careful parsing of which of them one is to bound to obey (which is what Aquinas’ virtue of obedience seems to be).

Pragmatist philosopher Josiah Royce suggested that “loyalty to loyalty,” or loyalty to a just cause, lies at the center of moral life. Perhaps he is right. But we have to understand that the institution of a new national holiday will be understood from within the context of popular culture and popular understandings of “loyalty,” and if the reflections of philosophers on loyalty do not reflect that popular understanding, they will likely play little role in shaping how the holiday is practiced. In popular culture, loyalty is loyalty to people, groups, and flawed institutions, not just ideals. We think of loyalty to brands, teams, companies, countries, spouses, families, schools, professions, social clubs, ethnic groups, religious institutions, and so forth. Loyalty isn’t all about brave Antigone defending the law of the gods against the unjust law–which is really no law at all–of the state. It’s not all sunny natural law and standing up to what’s corrupt, out of faith to what’s eternal. It is also, in the eyes of popular culture, the mafia and the Marines. That is, loyalty in popular culture is often seen as a kind of blind, emotional devotion to a close-knit group, which draws a clear line between insiders and outsiders, a kind of loyalty that can be very damaging to virtue.

Secondly, in addition to the fact that loyalty is a dubious virtue, Loyalty Day is troubling for Christians, Jews, and Muslims because Western monotheism has a strong tradition of opposition to idolatry. All lower allegiances are expected to be subjected to the higher allegiance to God, and perhaps also, for Christians, to the church—here we mean the church in a very profound sense, as the community formed by Christ, not a mere earthly institution, not the Magisterium, etc. Mennonites, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others who refuse to say the pledge of allegiance to the flag are on to something; there is a close affinity between patriotism and idolatry. This affinity should be especially troubling to Catholics, because we are proud of being connected to a tradition that precedes modernity. With the rise of capitalism, Protestantism, and the Enlightenment, we witnessed a “migration of the holy” from the Church to the state. (William T. Cavanaugh has written elegantly about this; see his latest book, Migrations of the Holy.) Withdrawing our allegiance from the state is in some ways a necessary part of Christian faith in the modern world, since the state (and the capitalist market it upholds) so often fills the role of the holy in our society and supplants the divine.

(Parenthetical aside: The recent U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ letter on religious liberty seemed to be more grounded upon American history than Church tradition, which is problematic, as a blogger at Vox Nova pointed out. “Freedom is not only for Americans, but we think of it as something of our special inheritance, fought for at a great price, and a heritage to be guarded now,” the USCCB document states. “We are stewards of this gift, not only for ourselves but for all nations and peoples who yearn to be free. Catholics in America have discharged this duty of guarding freedom admirably for many generations.” The document is confusing because it appears to derive obligations for Catholics from American values, rather than subjecting American values to scrutiny under the lens of Catholicism.)

Finally, one might object that loyalty to country is not all that threatening. What if, one might ask, loyalty to one’s country just means loyalty to certain values shared by one’s country and one’s faith, such as respect for persons, for freedom and so forth. That sounds nice, but loyalty to anything that isn’t divine is risky; it has a way of moving from one object to the next rather quickly. Once one is willing to offer loyalty to a political party, a nation, a family, a corporation, I hypothesize that one has already become a participant in the project of loyalty as such. The reason that I think this might be the case stems from a recent event in my neighborhood. (And then I’m done, I swear.) The University of Kentucky Wildcats recently won the national basketball championship, as you could not have avoided knowing if you live in Lexington, Kentucky. After the win, students poured into the streets, celebrating and chanting. Some of the chants surprised me, however. Instead of the usual, “C-A-T-S! Cats! Cats! Cats!” I also heard, “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!” Why were the students cheering for America, when in fact they were excited that a Kentucky team had defeated a Kansas one? It was the same chant that I had heard in my neighborhood after the news of the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. What did a nationalistic slogan have to do with a basketball championship? Precisely this: when loyalty isn’t tempered by higher values, like love or faith, it is volatile and easily exploitable. It is slippery, transferring from one thing to another. It plays upon the constant temptation to idolatry and stirs up irrational feelings of devotion that are easily exploitable for malicious ends.

So, no, Catholics shouldn’t celebrate loyalty to America. We should keep using May 1 as a day to remember and act upon the universal human dignity of labor. Happy Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker.

***

*My thanks to Dave on this as well.

The Value of 21st Century Thomism – part 1

Posted on May 1, 2012 by admin

Work in progress. Comments extremely welcomed

Setting the Stage

If we are to ask, “what is the value of Thomism in the 21^st century?” then we must try to understand what question we are asking. Are we asking a philosophical question – something purely academic, or maybe even something purely historical? Or is this question simply a religious question, one addressed simply to priests and seminarians of the Roman church? Or do we ask a question that has social import? For me, the last question is the only one worth asking. Thomas himself asked this question in the 13^th century about Aristotle. In answering the question, however, he also addressed the value of Aristotle historically and ecclesiastically. So, I take it, if I address the social question, I will go some ways to addressing the value of Thomism historically and ecclesiastically for the 21^st century.

If I ask, though, after the value of Thomism in the 21^st century, where am I to start? Here too, the answer requires asking other questions. Most importantly, we must ask, “why are we asking after the social value of Thomism in the 21^st century?” In other words, why are we in the 21^st century seeking the value of Thomism, for to ask after that value is to presume some need in the first place. Facts – the facts of the 21^st century – and values – in this case, the value of Thomism – are not separate. What I am getting around to asking, then, is this: what problems do we in the 21^st century face that lead us to look at Thomism as a possible object of ressourcement?

Of course, I cannot ask that question without asking it from some specific perspective. Asking “what’s for dinner” because I am hungry is not the same as asking “what’s for dinner” when I am the cook. As a diner, I may experience regret at the dinner, or even some fear. As a cook, I might experience drudgery or boredom. Further, the possibilities for dinner might be larger as a diner who can enjoy a variety of foods than as a cook whose expertise is limited. The point of which analogy is simply to say that, it is important to recognize that when I come asking a certain question, I am looking at the question as this or that kind of philosopher and expecting answers of this or that variety. As a Thomistic-Aristotelian, I expect the possibility that Thomism has a contribution to make to the social questions of the 21^st century, and my Thomistic-Aristotelianism entails that I view the 21^st century through a particular lens. This lens, however, is not vicious for we can only view the world through this or that particular lens, whether we admit to it or not.

In the rest of this address, then, I will suggest three problem areas for the 21^st century from the perspective of Thomism, and I will further suggest that a ressourcement of Thomism can help us to live better lives in the 21^st century.

Rationalism Podcast

Posted on April 28, 2012 by admin

This is a podcast for a student and will only be available for a short time.

EpistempologyRationalists

No, Paul Ryan, You’re Not a Thomist

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Joan

Representative Paul Ryan’s proposed budget, including drastic cuts to food stamps, Medicaid, and other government assistance programs, has drawn the condemnation of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The bishops condemned the Ryan budget for “’failing to meet [the] moral criteria,’ of protecting human dignity, prioritizing the needs of the hungry and homeless and promoting the common good.”

Perhaps the grassroots activism of many lay Catholics, including the Good Friday protest—or “advertisement for love”—organized by Occupy, Catholics and Catholics United outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City with a banner reading, “Were you there when they crucified the poor?”, helped draw the attention of the bishops to the gross inconsistency between Catholic Social Teaching and the Ryan budget. Sensus fidelium, and all that.

Anyway, later, when Ryan was scheduled to speak at Georgetown University, over eighty Georgetown faculty members signed an open letter condemning his economic policies. The letter denounced the proposed drastic cuts to anti-hunger programs and to Pell Grants and rebutted Ryan’s claims that his budget aligned with the Catholic Social Teaching principle of subsidiarity:

Subsidiarity is not a free pass to dismantle government programs and abandon the poor to their own devices. This often misused Catholic principle cuts both ways. It calls for solutions to be enacted as close to the level of local communities as possible. But it also demands that higher levels of government provide help—“subsidium”—when communities and local governments face problems beyond their means to address, such as economic crises, high unemployment, endemic poverty, and hunger.

But the real zinger in the letter was this: “In short, your budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Her call to selfishness and her antagonism toward religion are antithetical to the Gospel values of compassion and love.”

Apparently the chastisement by the Georgetown faculty hit a nerve. Rep. Ryan rushed to paint himself as nothing but a stalwart Catholic Thomist in an interview with National Review. His enthusiastic devotion to Ayn Rand was nothing more than an “urban legend,” he retorted—and labeling him an Objectivist was unfair: “I reject her [Rand’s] philosophy. It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going to try to paste a person’s view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas.”

So, which is it? Is Paul Ryan’s favorite philosopher Ayn Rand or Thomas Aquinas?

Well, America magazine has unearthed this little gem, a Paul Ryan campaign video singing the praises of Ayn Rand. Enjoy:

“You know, it doesn’t surprise me that sales of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged have surged lately, with the Obama administration coming in, because it’s that kind of thinking, that kind of writing that is sorely needed right now…But more to the point is this: this issue that is under assault, the attack on democratic capitalism, on individualism and freedom in America, is an attack on the moral foundation of America. And Ayn Rand, more than anyone else, did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism. And this to me is what matters most. It is not enough to say that President Obama’s taxes are too big, or the health care plan doesn’t work for this or that policy reason—it is the morality of what is occurring right now and how it offends the morality of individuals working toward their own free will, to produce, to achieve, to succeed, that is under attack.”

The morality of capitalism? The morality of individualism? That doesn’t sound like Catholic Social Teaching, which has been intensely critical of individualism and of allowing capitalism to take priority over moral values. And it certainly doesn’t sound like Thomism.

If Thomas Aquinas, not Ayn Rand, were Paul Ryan’s favorite philosopher, he would condemn usury. He would crack down on the big banks and end the foreclosure crisis. He would support legislation for a jubilee on student loan debt, instead of slashing Pell Grants. He would fight for the just wage–a real living wage, not a mere minimum wage–that everyone deserves merely in virtue of his or her dignity as a human person. He would abandon Chicago School economics. He would demand a just price for basic necessities, and charitable aid to those unable to afford them. Instead of slashing benefits for the poor, the sick, the young, and the elderly, he would create a budget that prioritizes the needs of the poor and the vulnerable, not the wealthiest one percent.

But Paul Ryan is not a Thomist. He can talk all he wants about Aquinas’ “epistemology,” but he’s an Objectivist at heart. American exceptionalism, capitalism, individualism and selfishness go much further towards explaining Ryan’s policies than anything found in the pages of the Summa. The logical contortions that Ryan will have to go through in an attempt to argue that his profoundly immoral budget is somehow “Catholic,” have only just begun—as has the Catholic mass resistance to this assault on the poorest and the most vulnerable among us.

RANDOM THOUGHTS AND QUESTIONS ABOUT THE VATICAN AND THE NUNS

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Dave

RANDOM THOUGHTS AND QUESTIONS ABOUT THE VATICAN AND THE NUNS

By now, everyone has heard about the Vatican’s decision to rehabilitate the LCWR, the main organization representing nuns and women religious in the United States. If you haven’t heard, just Google it and you’ll find analysis and opinions from everyone and his brother. Some are saying that this represents the divide that grew between female religious and the bishops fifty years about how to interpret Vatican II; some say that female religious are leading the way in the truest display of Christian charity and ought to be respected and learned from; and then some are saying its about time we deal with these radical nuns who think they can get away with wearing pants and studying academic theology with the big boys.

I haven’t been able to think of anything original to add to the analysis already out there, so I thought I would offer random questions and thoughts about the matter. Some of these points I hope to return to in the future. But these are the points which jump out at me in the whole discussion.

1. What exactly is the charge? The LCWR is accused of some sort of doctrinal heterodoxy, but specific examples are lacking. The Bishops do cite a speech given several years ago by Sr. Laurie Brink, O.P. in which she mentions that some religious today see themselves as moving “beyond Jesus.” Yet if one examines her comments in context, she is only pointing out what everyone has known all along: That the Gospel isn’t the end of the story, but the beginning, and that our deep meditation on it should lead us to encounter something more profound than words. If the best example the bishops could find of something doctrinally questionable is a single comment taken out of context, what, then, are we to make of this charge in general?

2. The Double Standard. Are we to really believe that controversial theological opinions are only expressed in women’s religious community? Who does not know a priest who does not hold or has not voiced a controversial opinion. And in many seminaries some level of creative questioning is not only tolerated but sometimes encouraged. So why the crackdown on women? Is it that we are stuck clinging to a mindset in which theological discussion and creative innovation, “the dirty work” of academia, is still restricted to men while it’s the job of women to simply prop up the institutions?

3. The condemnation of silence. One of the most unusual assertions made by the Bishops is that, while religious sisters have done a fine job campaigning for the poor, they have not spoken out often enough about abortion. Is there some specific minimum number of hours we need to spend talking about gonad politics in order to confirm our Catholic identity? Or, in the midst of the election year debacle the USCCB is getting itself involved in, does this look more like “We’re trying to set an agenda here and you really need to get on board?”

4. The Double Standard, Part II. For as much money as the Church has had to pay out in sex abuse cases, with two bishops currently involved in legal cases of abuse, with ten years of priestly abuse cases still yielding no clear solution, why is the Vatican more concerned with nuns expressing new ideas than with priests violating the church teaching that prohibits rape?

5. The man who will fix everything. I am not going to put down Archbishop Sartain. I’ve heard he is a very compassionate man who has a nuanced and genuine approach to his pastoral office, and I wish him well in his new task. But if one of the supposed charges against the LCWR is that they have openly questioned the all male hierarchy of the Church, does anyone really expect it will do any good to send a male representative of that all male hierarchy to correct the problem?

6. How often have women theologians been encouraged to participate in active dialogue with the bishops and Roman hierarchy? Last year the Bishops roundly condemned Sister Elizabeth Johnson’s book Quest For the Living God without any consultation or meeting with her. As female religious theologians have continued to put forth alternative Catholic theories in theology, have the Bishops taken them seriously or have they merely said the questions must stop?

7. What does it mean to be obedient to the Church? If the Church is the people of God, the body of Christ, the living manifestation of the divine among human beings, human society, and human history, then surely obedience must mean more than doing whatever the pope says. If we are going to accuse nuns of disobedience, then we must find out what we mean by obedience (this will be the topic of a future post, I am sure).

8. To what extent is this about spiritual growth and to what extent is this about political control? It is not at all clear how the Vatican’s action is going to lead to anyone’s spiritual growth or improve anyone’s relationship with God. But that has been a growing problem for a while: Most major actions by the hierarchy today are not pastoral but political. Instead of reforming from without the LCWR, perhaps the bishops should be asking “What can we do for you to help you in your mission and spirituality?”

(Per usual, thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily represent a consensus among Subversive Thomism contributors. DKK)