Category Archives: Moral Theology

On Rhonheimer, Part III: Virtue Ethics

Posted on 18 January 2011 by | 4 Comments

(See Part I: Regarding Rhonheimer . . . )

(See Part II: Moral Action Theory)

As for Rhonheimer’s theory of the natural law, my problem with it is that he specifies acts by virtues, not virtues by acts. And, as we have seen, he thinks that this is Aquinas’ doctrine:

Contraception is against nature because it impedes the virtue of chastity (especially the subset of it which I call procreative responsibility) by rendering superfluous the need to imprint right reason into bodily behaviour (by acts of refraining from sexual intercourse for reasons of procreative responsibility). A sinful act must be defined from the starting point of the requirements of the virtue of temperance and, in the present case, chastity, and not vice versa, as you propose. This, after all, is the methodology Aquinas has taught us: that to know whether an act is sinful you must know to which virtue it is opposed. It is the ends of the virtues – which coincide with the principles (or precepts) of natural law – which, by looking at what opposes them, define sinful moral behaviour.

Such is a basic foundation of Rhonheimer’s moral theory.  In many of the works in which he has tangled with specific moral issues, his general presentation consists of a presentation of the moral question; then a presentation of how a physicalistic emphasis on nature will yield one answer; then, he reminds the reader of the an ethics based on the goal of virtuous integration of rational moderation into human action; then, he presents what answer such a view will yield to the case in question, whether that answer is substantially the same or different from “more traditionalistic” views.

Now, it is of course true that virtue is important for Thomas.  Indeed, he even has this to say (De Malo 2, 6):

It must be considered that since the moral act is that which is voluntary, proceeding from reason, it is necessary that the moral act have its species according to something considered in the object which has an order to reason.  And thus in the preceding question it was said that if it be fitting to reason, it will be a good act according to its species; if, however, it be discordant with reason, it will be bad according to its species.  However, that which is not fitting to reason concerning the object considered can diversify the species of sin in two ways: in one way, indeed, materially, in another way, formally.  Materially, indeed, through the opposite of virtue.  For the virtues differ in species according as reason discovers the mean in diverse matters; for example, justice is according as reason constitutes the mean in exchanges and distributions and such actions; temperance, however, according as it constitutes the mean in concupiscences; fortitude, according as it constitutes the mean in fears and darings; and so on with the others… Thus, therefore, also through the opposites of virtues, sins differ in species according to diverse matters, for example, homicide, adultery, and theft.

Thus it seems that comparison to virtue is a very convenient way to recognize what is for or against the natural law.  However, St. Thomas continues:

But since concerning one matter, it happens that there are sins different in species, although there may be one virtue, it is necessary secondarily to consider the diversity of species in sins formally, namely, according as one sins either according to superabundance or according to defect, as fearfulness differs from presumption, and illiberality from prodigality; or according to the different circumstances…

What St. Thomas is saying here is that specification from virtue is only a material consideration of moral action, and it is broader than specification from act, and that specification of sin is more narrow than specification of vice.  Consideration of a habit only provides the genus, not the specification. Fornication and homo-sexuality are both species of unchastity, but how do they get their species within their genus?  From their objects, not from their opposed virtues, for one bears upon a member of the opposite sex not joined to the subject by marriage, the other bears upon a member of the same sex.  The order is: objects specify acts, and acts specify habits.

A habit is said to be good or bad only from the fact that it inclines towards a good act or a bad act. Hence, it is because of the goodness or badness of the act that the habit is said to be good or bad. And thus it is that the act is stronger in goodness or badness than the habit: because that because of which something is such is all the more such. (I-II, q. 71, a. 3)

Virtue can be a handy help to definition, since genera are helpful as a definition is sought.  But the virtue or vice is not the cause of the goodness or wickedness of the act.  It is rather the other way around. Indeed, Rhonheimer’s view of the natural law, like his moral action theory, is quite circular, for just as his exterior act is specified by the exterior act, so his virtue is specified by virtue, as he himself says explicitly:

For virtues are shaped by and aim at concrete performances of acts and their corresponding choices; and single acts and their corresponding choices are morally specified by their intentional contents which spring from the virtues they belong to. (“Contraception, Sexual Behavior, and Natural Law: Philosophical Foundation of the Norm of ‘Humanae Vitae’,” The Linacre Quarterly 56, no. 2 (May 1989): 22)

Why does Rhonheimer insist on virtue as being the sole determinant of morality to such a degree that he ends up reversing the revered specification-by-object truism of the Thomistic tradition?  It is because he thinks that other proposed accounts lead to the Physicalism bogeyman.

As I see it—though I will happily concede if I am wrong—there is a clear alternative: either to root morality simply in facts of nature and physical patterns, like the factual deposition of a man’s semen into a woman’s vagina, or to link morality with virtues. In this case, the virtue of temperance integrates the body into the life of the spirit and, even more concretely, integrates sexual, bodily behavior into procreative responsibility. (NCBQ, Summer 2007: 289)

But if virtue is defined by acts, and not the other way around, as St. Thomas says, how do we know which acts are good and bad?  How does reason judge the object and circumstances of actions as making actions good or bad if virtue comes after acts and not before?  In short, how does reason see that something is against its order, against the natural law?

Well, the modern age doesn’t like it, but St. Thomas says it:

I respond that it must be said that in all things, there are naturally present certain principles by which they can not only effect their proper operations, but by which they may also render them fitting to their end, whether they be actions which follow upon a thing from the nature of its genus, or from the nature of the species… However, just as in things that act from a necessity of nature, the principles of the actions are the forms themselves, from which there proceed proper operations fitting to the end; so in those things which participate in knowledge, the principles of acting are knowledge and appetite.  Wherefore, it is necessary that in the cognitive power there be a natural concept, and in the appetitive power a natural inclination, by which the operation that befits the genus or the species may be rendered suitable to the end.  But since man, among all the other animals, knows the notion of the end, and the proportion of his deed to the end, therefore, the natural concept endowed upon him, by which he may be directed to working fittingly is called the natural law; in the other animals, it is called a natural estimation.  For the beasts are impelled by the force of nature to working those acts that are fitting, rather than regulated as if acting by their own judgment.  Therefore, the natural law is nothing other than a conception naturally endowed upon man by which he may be directed to acting in a fitting manner in his own actions, whether they befit him from the nature of the genus, such as to generate, to eat, and such; or from the nature of the species, as to reason and the like.  Every thing, however, which renders an action unfitting to the end which nature intends from some work is said to be against the law of nature. (IV Sent., d. 33, q. 1, a. 1)

And so, to apply: Reason asks, Is semen reasonably spilled into a latex bag?

Well, what is semen ordered to?  The generation of offspring.  Is this done by putting it in a latex bag? No.  Is it reasonable to make use of semen and intentionally prevent the semen from its end? No, that just isn’t reasonable.

To apply St. Thomas’ argument, I cannot see how one can say yes, for semen’s very purpose is to generate, which it must do in conjunction with the female ovum.  This means that it is reasonably employed only when the human subject does at least what it can to dispose for this conjunction of sperm and egg, which at the very least requires local proximity and deposit in the due vessel.  Rhonheimer thinks that this is old-fashioned morality based on the view that the seed was the sole generative principle, and he keeps repeating this.  It does not take much intellectual effort, however, to see that the moral agent must do what it can to act reasonably in its free actions, even if chance or nature prevent an action from having its primary effect.  That is, even if both sperm and ovum are necessary for generation, and mere deposit in the right place is not enough, that does not mean that the old obligations cease; it merely means that deposit of seed is not an immediate disposition for implantation, but just one more remote disposition for generation.  But what is clear is that seed in a latex bag is no disposition at all for generation.  And this is so clear, that it is quite comical that Rhonheimer thinks that only the old biology makes seminal deposit necessary, as if the discovery of the ovum now made condoms a remote disposition for generation.  But again, Rhonheimer does not share St. Thomas’ view of the natural law.

I know that by this post, I will convert no one.  But I only hope it goes to show that I do not assume that Rhonheimer is wrong; rather, I judge that he is incompatible with St. Thomas, and I choose St. Thomas.  And I hope it at least demonstrates that I have thought through the arguments, but, on both counts (moral action theory, and natural law as set by virtue), Rhonheimer merely hides circular justifications of intuitions in Thomistic-personalistic lingo.

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On Rhonheimer, Part II: Moral Action Theory

Posted on 17 January 2011 by | Leave a comment

(See Part I: Regarding Rhonheimer….)

Regarding Moral Action Theory, Rhonheimer is of the opinion that the moral act can only be specified by some kind of basic intentional content, some kind of chosen or intended end that reason proposes as the purposefulness of the exterior action to be done.  To support this, he calls to his aid I-II, q. 1, a. 3, ad 3, as many theologians do, where St. Thomas says that the moral act “is only ordered to one proximate end, from which it has its species.”  Rhonheimer is consistent in all of his works in his interpretation of this, in which he understands the term “proximate end” as the “basic intentional content” of the act.  To quote him:

we cannot understand and define the object of a human act without including in this definition an intentional element that expresses
the “why” one does what one (externally) does.Without such a “why” (a
basic intentionality as configured by reason) we would be left with only
the material elements of the action, not yet ordered by reason, and therefore incapable of being the “form” of an act of the will and of conferring on it, as an end, its moral species.This basic intentionality, which comprises part of the object is, not to forget, Thomistically speaking its “formal” part; as such it is the expression of a good, the “finis proximus” pursued in the action. (Nova et Vetera 2, 499).

Now, this is not St. Thomas.  For St. Thomas, any object of the will is already an end, and the first end is the exterior act itself. When St. Thomas says that the proximate end is that which specifies the will, he is speaking about the exterior act itself, the “what is being done,” not the “why.”  For example, De Malo, 2, a. 3: “the exterior act is compared to the act of the will as an object, which has the notion of an end,” and De Malo, a. 4, ad 9: “…the proximate end of the act is the same as the object, and from this it receives its species.”

Now, Rhonheimer admits this.  But this is his understanding of it:

The object of the exterior act of the will is in itself an end, but not this further end for the sake of which the action itself is chosen; instead it is the sort of end which Aquinas sometimes (very few times) calls the ‘finis operis.’ This ‘finis operis,’ however, is the basic intentional content of a concrete action (without which it would not be a human action at all), and therefore something like the ‘formal object’ of an action. Such basic contents are not events like ‘the raising of an arm,’ but rather ‘greeting somebody’ or ‘giving a starting signal.’ They are neither ‘things’ nor ‘qualified things’ as, for example, a res aliena; but actions ‘under a description’ as ‘misappropriate a res aliena,’ that is ‘stealing.’ The Thomist 58: 31-32

For Rhonheimer, the exterior act can only have moral intelligibility insofar as it is specified by reason already ordering it to at least one basic end.  This is not St. Thomas, who says that the exterior act is specified by its matter (i.e., its materia circa quam, or its object) and its circumstances insofar as these are judged by reason. I-II, q. 20, a. 2: “…in the exterior act, there can be considered a twofold goodness or malice: one according to due matter and circumstances; another according to its order to an end.”  For St. Thomas, the specification of any act is by its object.  For Rhonheimer, the exterior act is its own object, although as re-interpreting itself through reason.

In other words, the goodness of an act of choice, as well as of the voluntary execution of the exterior act (the usus), depends on its object, which is the exterior act; the goodness of this latter, however, does not depend, in turn, on an object of its own, but on an ‘ordinatio et apprehensio rationis’ in virtue of which the exterior act becomes properly the object of a human act. Nova et Vetera 2: 469.

St. Thomas knows that an act is only moral if it is proposed by reason and commanded by the will.  But this is already assumed when we are talking about human acts.  When reason proposes the exterior act, it does so in light of an end; but when it judges it, it does so in light of its object and circumstances first: i.e., can such an act be done on such an object in such circumstances in accordance with right reason?  Is such in act in line with the human good? This is perfectly judicable by reason apart from the consideration of the end for which the act was chosen.

But those who considered in sin only that from which it has the notion of fault said that sin only consists in the will.  But it is necessary to consider not only the deformity itself, but also the act that underlies the deformity, since sin is not the deformity, but a deformed act.  The deformity of the act, however, is by the fact that it is discordant from the due rule of reason or the law of God.  And this deformity, indeed, is found not only in the interior act, but also in the exterior act.  But nevertheless, the very fact that the deformed exterior act is imputed to man for fault is from the will.  And thus it is clear that if we wish to consider everything that is in a sin, sin not only consists in a privation, nor in an interior act alone, but also in the exterior act. De Malo 2, 2.

To apply to the situation that Rhonheimer was addressing in Magister’s blog, the specification of “removal of a cancerous ovary” is not “health”, which is always a licit good, but it is precisely, “removal of a cancerous ovary.”  Judging reason’s first question is, “Is a cancerous ovary apt matter for removal?”  Not much deliberation is required to say yes.  But then there are other circumstances.  The woman is married and intends still enjoys the marital right with her husband.  Is the removal still licit under this circumstance?  Yes, according to the Church’s teaching.  Reason finally asks, “Why are you removing it?  For health, or for the ability to have sex without children?”  One of these is perfectly licit to intend, the other not.  But the point is that the specification of the moral act is the exterior act itself defined by the relation of its object and circumstances to right reason, , i.e., judged in relation to the human good; it is not, as Rhonheimer thinks, the exterior act as defined by its relation to the ends proposed by the individual’s deliberating reason, the basic intentional content.

The task of the moral theologian is to name the act in terms of its object and circumstances, and then examine whether the act can be duly done with such objects and circumstances, and for this, there must be reference to the natural law.  One cannot merely short-circuit this nitty-gritty application to the matter by simply resorting to a first basic intentional content.  Hence, to apply it to the condom issue that is so dear to everyone’s hearts:

the object of condomistic intercourse is intercourse with a condom.

Reason judging asks, is this a due use of my generative powers?  Is semen reasonably spilled into a latex bag?

That’s the question that has to be answered first before the question of the end can be answered.

This is only a brief account of why I disagree with Rhonheimer’s moral action theory.  His is not that of Thomas.  There is no warrant for saying that the exterior act has no object of its own; St. Thomas is quite clear that it does, and that it is the first source of good or evil in judging the moral act (I-II, q. 18, a. 2).  Without this source of specification for the moral act, Rhonheimer has recourse to reason to supply for the exterior act’s specification, but he has recourse to reason as proposing for an end, not reason as judging conformity to Right Reason.  I am sure that my post here will not convince anyone, but I have already given my own reading of St. Thomas’ moral action theory at length in the Thomist, 74: 237-282; if anyone wants to know more what I think, they may look there.

(See Part III: Virtue Ethics)

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Regarding Rhonheimer…

Posted on 16 January 2011 by | Leave a comment

In my last post, written a long time ago (I’ve been quite busy), one comment asked that I:

stop assuming Fr Rhonheimer is wrong, and think through the arguments more carefully.

Such a comment indicates that, in the judgment of the reader, I have come to my conclusion about Rhonheimer’s arguments driven at least initially by the precedent assumption that he is wrong, and that beyond that, I have only considered the moral issue of prophylactic condom usage in a superficial manner.

If such is the commentator’s judgment, so be it.  All I can say is, I do not think it is the case, and I have one advantage in making such a judgment that the commentator does not have: I know my own intellectual biography.

When I first heard about Rhonheimer’s 2004 Tablet article, it did push me to further study.  To be perfectly honest, it did strike me as not true, but I knew that I did not have the exact answer as to why, so I suspended my judgment.  I then did three things: 1) I chose Rhonheimer’s view on the prophylactic use of condoms as the topic for my STL Thesis, still not sure how the answer was going to turn out, for I wanted to use the License Thesis as an opportunity for in-depth research. 2) I read much of Rhonheimer’s books and articles, mainly trying to grasp his moral action theory and his view of the natural law. 3) I undertook an even more in-depth study of St. Thomas’ moral works.

I came to the judgment that both Rhonheimer’s moral action theory and his view of the natural law are flawed.  I think that Rhonheimer himself thinks he is a faithful Personalist-Thomist, and I think he is particularly good at dressing his speech in argumentation and vocabulary that makes young theologians take him seriously “because he sounds so Thomistic.”

As most readers might know, the debate on condoms goes on (for a line-up of all that has been thrown back and forth, follow this link or follow this one).  Rhonheimer at times has spoken more meekly of his own position, but has made it clear that he is not changing his mind, as his latest in Sandro Magister’s blog indicates.

There are two sections from this “Reply to the Open Letter of Luke Gormally” that exemplify well my points of issue with Rhonheimer.  The first section regards Humanae Vitae 15, which states that certain therapeutic means for curing diseases of the body, but which will also have an effect of rendering a person sterile, whether temporarily or permanently, can be employed.

“…this passage implies that intending the therapeutic end is not a further intention rendering good an otherwise evil act (impeding procreation) but is instead the proposal or intention that specifies the very object of the act. So by extracting a cancerous ovary, for example, one directly does something which will impede procreation. The therapeutic end, however, is what defines the object of this act as an act of healing (This follows the clear teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas that the human act has a single proximate end from which it gets its species and that the relation to a natural end is accidental to the morality of the act. See “Summa Theologiae” I-II, q.1, a.3, ad.3).

The second touches more on the natural law, which, in Rhonheimer’s mind, is above all a law of reason, as exemplified by the virtues:

“Contraception is against nature because it impedes the virtue of chastity (especially the subset of it which I call procreative responsibility) by rendering superfluous the need to imprint right reason into bodily behaviour (by acts of refraining from sexual intercourse for reasons of procreative responsibility). A sinful act must be defined from the starting point of the requirements of the virtue of temperance and, in the present case, chastity, and not vice versa, as you propose. This, after all, is the methodology Aquinas has taught us: that to know whether an act is sinful you must know to which virtue it is opposed. It is the ends of the virtues – which coincide with the principles (or precepts) of natural law – which, by looking at what opposes them, define sinful moral behaviour.”

In both of these texts, Rhonheimer claims St. Thomas’ patronage for his own moral action theory and his own virtue ethics.  But my research has led me to the conclusion that Rhonheimer is, simply, a bad reader of St. Thomas. I will address the issues that I have with his moral action theory and his virtue ethics in the next two posts.

(See Part II: Moral Action Theory)

(See Part III: Virtue Ethics)

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My two cents on Theology of the Body, part VII (the final part)

Posted on 8 August 2009 by | 2 Comments

See part I here.

See part II here.

See part III here.

See part IV here.

See part V here.

See part VI here.

7. (the last post) What’s the use?

In my opinion, TOB has its uses. It seems that it is pastorally effective. People have converted from a life of sin after being introduced to it. It is persuasive for many.

The art of persuasion is rhetoric. Rhetoricians attempt to manifest reasons that a certain action should be undertaken or not.  In this endeavor, any good reasons are adequate; one need not only relate the per se and proper reasons. Rhetoric normally has recourse to singular examples (read, “experiences”) and arguments from likelihood. This, in my opinion, is what TOB does. It is not a theological treatise on the causes of rightness or wrongness of acts. It is not a new field of undiscovered theological territory. It is an apologetical tool; it is arguments to live what the Church teaches.

Hence, I think that there is no need to rid the world of it. But I do think that Catholic theologians should realize that it is not a new interpretative key for the whole of theology. It gets people back on track, morally.

Sometimes, some of those people will ask further questions; they will wonder why contraception really is wrong; they will wonder why fornication really is wrong; they will wonder what man’s highest calling is; they will wonder what depths of wisdom and knowledge divine revelation has freely granted to men; they will wonder about the order of the universe and the deep things of God as He is in Himself. As Fr. Angelo Geiger put it, “apologetical explanations are not sufficient to complete a catechesis. If a new vision of human sexuality gets them in the door, only the tradition of the ages will get them to the sanctuary.”

Some will think this is not true. Some will think it is unrealistic, perhaps pointing out that no one is satisfied with the traditional theological exposition on marriage. Well, I simply don’t know if that’s true. I tell people what St. Thomas says, I tell them what St. Alphonsus says, I expound what I have expounded here to people, and I have tended to find that people do like it. Ideas that have lasted since the beginning of man’s search for wisdom tend to ring true in people’s ears. But I admit, I don’t generally deal with the sexually wounded. I am not an apologist, I don’t tend to deal with the large crowds of Catholics who can’t figure out any reason for the Church’s teaching on sexual morality.

But I do have the optimism that Wisdom, which judges all things in light of the highest causes, and sees things in terms of their order in the whole, rather than from just their particular intentionalities–I tend to hope that such wisdom, though regarded as rare in the ancient world, is within the reach of all who have access to the fonts of grace. Indeed, St. Augustine claims that one of the triumphs of Christianity is that it makes the masses of men able to obtain what the ancient philosophers regarded as only possible for a few. In my opinion, every baptized individual is called to be a theologian to some extent. If you love God, you want to be united to Him, and this will push you to try to know him more, not always by learning new things, but certainly by contemplating Him.  Such a desire is not satisfied until the Beatific Vision, but it does not therefore remain idle in this life. We can continue to grow in our knowledge of God by prayer and study. When people advance in this knowledge of God, I think that sex might take on a little more perspective. As Peter Kreeft once put it, asking if there will be sex in Heaven is like a kid asking if adults can eat candy when they’re having sex. Admittedly, it’s a matter that is on the forefront of most men’s minds. But it was not the principal reason for God’s revelation. Those who take up the office of teaching theology should not be that afraid to tell people that we could always use a little bit of curbing and a re-directing of our energies and focus.

[So what about John Paul II?  I think that, for the most part, JPII's project was thoughtful, inventive, and effective.   But one thing I have noted in my doctoral studies is that every genius, by definition, brings to the body of knowledge an excellent contribution; but for some of them, the problems begin in the following generation with those pupils who only learn the doctrine of the genius without first learning what the genius himself/herself learned.  I see this time and again.  And I see it in much of my contact with TOB pupils.  This is to be expected... not everyone can learn everything in every generation.  But at least there will always be those who pioneer the new, and those who remind people of the old... It's the way things have to be.  And it is part of the mission of Novantiqua.]

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My two cents on Theology of the Body, part VI

Posted on 28 July 2009 by | 1 Comment

See part I here.

See part II here.

See part III here.

See part IV here.

See part V here.

6. Insensibility is less grievous than lust

[Note: this post is exclusively about TOB, not in itself, but as it is taught or defended by some, as a needed antidote to Puritanism.  Fr. Faggioni claims (and I am inclined to agree) that it is not an attribute of TOB as Pope John Paul II taught it.  I only post it here because some people with completely normal sensibilities are scrupulously wondering if in fact they are prudes.  And they wonder this explicitly because of what they have learned of TOB.]

Many advocates of TOB assert that it is needed to respond to the Puritanism, Jansenism, Manicheanism, Albigensianism, Montanism, Gnosticism–in a word, any “body-is-evil”-ism, which apparently was the staple of Catholicism before TOB came on the scene.

The first problem with this claim is that it needs to be proven. While there were certainly Catholics who perhaps regarded most or all of sex as sinful, they may not have had anything to do with any of these “-isms.”  Personally, I think the charge is exaggerated, giving too much credence to people’s excuses for why they went in the other direction (e.g., Hugh Hefner’s sad story about his mother not hugging him enough).  People’s impediments to sex may be totally on the level of the emotions, having nothing to do with an espousing of any one of these speculative doctrines in their intellect.  If someone does not hold that our spiritual nature is a seed of divine light trapped in matter, then he or she is not  Manichean.  And if someone does not hold that only perfect charity is acceptable to God, and that any acts that are not done with the purest of motives are therefore sinful, then he or she is not a Jansenist.  If some people thought that sex was evil in itself, they did not get that from Catholic orthodoxy.  It is not the teaching of St. Thomas (see especially here, reply to the third) or St. Alphonsus Liguori (Theologia Moralis, Lib. VI, tract. vi., cap. ii., dub. i., 882), for instance.

But even if the sensibilities of American Catholics needed a little enlightenment, it’s not as if the excesses of the pornographic age are closer to the moral good, and thus preferable. As Josef Seifert put it, “Hugh Hefner’s ‘sexual revolution’ is even far more opposite to John Paul II’s and Dietrich von Hildebrand’s ‘sexual revolution’ than prudishness, which at least is no deadly sin or even any sin…” [he said it here, but it has since been removed]

This is exactly right. Everyone knows that virtue lies in the mean between the extremes. But this does not mean that each extreme is equally disordered. Of the two vices opposed to any virtue, one has a greater commonness with the virtue; one goes at least in the same direction. The other is more contrary, as Aristotle says:

To the mean in some cases the deficiency, in some the excess is more opposed; e.g. it is not rashness, which is an excess, but cowardice, which is a deficiency, that is more opposed to courage, and not insensibility, which is a deficiency, but self-indulgence, which is an excess, that is more opposed to temperance. This happens from two reasons, one being drawn from the thing itself; for because one extreme is nearer and liker to the intermediate, we oppose not this but rather its contrary to the intermediate. E.g. since rashness is thought liker and nearer to courage, and cowardice more unlike, we oppose rather the latter to courage; for things that are further from the intermediate are thought more contrary to it. This, then, is one cause, drawn from the thing itself; another is drawn from ourselves; for the things to which we ourselves more naturally tend seem more contrary to the intermediate. For instance, we ourselves tend more naturally to pleasures, and hence are more easily carried away towards self-indulgence than towards propriety. We describe as contrary to the mean, then, rather the directions in which we more often go to great lengths; and therefore self-indulgence, which is an excess, is the more contrary to temperance (Nicomachean Ethics, II, 8 )

When persons (due to their consitution or upbringing) have a particular inclination to the excess (quite likely in today’s situation), the remedy is actually for them, in their own mind, to aim for the deficiency (for it will not be the true deficiency).  And this is particularly the case when dealing with matters of pleasure:

For of the extremes one is more erroneous, one less so…But we must consider the things towards which we ourselves also are easily carried away; for some of us tend to one thing, some to another; and this will be recognizable from the pleasure and the pain we feel. We must drag ourselves away to the contrary extreme; for we shall get into the intermediate state by drawing well away from error, as people do in straightening sticks that are bent.

Now in everything the pleasant or pleasure is most to be guarded against; for we do not judge it impartially. We ought, then, to feel towards pleasure as the elders of the people felt towards Helen, and in all circumstances repeat their saying; for if we dismiss pleasure thus we are less likely to go astray. It is by doing this, then, (to sum the matter up) that we shall best be able to hit the mean (Nicomachean Ethics, II, 9).

Both prudishness and lust are sins against temperance. But of the two, the first is less serious. Furthermore, it is not often found:

The opposite of lust is not found in many, since men are more inclined to pleasure. Yet the contrary vice is comprised under insensibility, and occurs in one who has such a dislike for sexual intercourse as not to pay the marriage debt.

I think TOB advocates would do better to focus on the problems of the age, rather than set up historical straw men.

The early Christians also lived at a time when there was rampant sexual license in the pagans on the one hand, and heretical sects of Montanists and Gnostics on the other, these latter asserting that the body was evil. And yet, the early Christians did not attempt to spread the word of God by asserting that the Revelation of the Eternal generation of the Son and the Trinity of Persons was the clarion call for a joyful sex life.  They preached Christ and Him crucified, and they preached against sexual excess. They told husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, but they also were not ashamed to express most sexual matters in terms of  “don’t”s. It’s the way sexual morality has to be, since temperance mostly involves curbing.  It’s the very meaning of the word.

See part vii here.

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My two cents on Theology of the Body, part V

Posted on 20 July 2009 by | 2 Comments

See part I here.

See part II here.

See part III here.

See part IV here.

5. “…and man fully alive is the vision of God” (St. Irenaeus of Lyons,  Against Heresies, Bk. 4, 20, 7).

An interpretation of the image of God as principally concerning man’s intellect (which, unlike sex, is proper to the intellectual creature, and not common to him and the beasts)–such an interpretation will not tend to express the end of man in the same way as TOB. Indeed, it is very hard to maintain seriously in such a view that sexual “ecstasy,” for instance, is a foretaste of heavenly bliss. It is  indeed so, in the sense that it is a good, and all good things are a participation in the supreme good. But it seems that there would be other goods proper to man that would be closer to the joys of Heaven, goods that are at least of the same genus as heavenly bliss, such as the spiritual delights of contemplation, which even Plato and Aristotle considered to be more delightful than bodily pleasures. These delights are not sexual. Strictly speaking, they are not even sensual, they are not bodily, though many of them will have concomitant bodily effects. The fact is, if you can feel it, it’s not God, but some concomitant effect due to the overflow from your contemplation of God. Spiritual delights are the delights of the will in the good of the truth known. The Dan Brownian interpretation of Bernini’s statue of the ecstasy of St. Teresa of Avila is not the guide here.

We all grant that the goal of our striving is some kind of communion with God. But what is that communion with God?  Does it mean hugging Him?  Does it mean having a barbecue with Him?  Does it mean sitting by the fireside with Him?  More seriously, does it mean feeling Him?  How does the rational creature become united to Him?  I am sure many will say (along with Scotus) that it means loving Him. But the fact is, we already have that. At Baptism, we are granted the theological virtue of charity, which attains to God as He is in Himself. Our charity can always grow, but as far as its object is concerned, there is nothing left for it to be perfected. That’s precisely why Faith and Hope pass away in Heaven, for they are per se imperfect, but charity remains. And yet, we still strive after Baptism. There is a union that we still lack, a union toward which charity itself impels us (caritas Christi urget nos). Charity is love; and love in the absence of the beloved desires; in the presence of the beloved, it delights. How do we pass from absence to presence?  From desire to delight?  From striving to rest? What is the union with God that charity desires?

It is not sex. It is not feeling him emotionally. It is not just loving him more, for even if our charity continued to grow forever in this life (there is no limit to how much it can grow), we would still not pass over to from desire to rest, we would still await something. It is not being somehow closer to Him, for local proximity only has place with regard to bodies. And God is not a body (what about the Incarnation?  Well, even if we had our bodies in local proximity to Christ’s body, as we will have in Heaven after the general resurrection, charity would still desire something more. The Apostles were not yet in full union with God when our Lord walked among them, though certainly his presence was a cause of utmost joy). God is a spirit. God is immaterial. How is one united to something that is immaterial?  By knowing it. Knowledge is nothing other than a union between the known and the knower. But such a union cannot take place in a material manner. The intellect, itself immaterial, is precisely that power in nature by which things can be united immaterially. Even in the case of our knowledge of material things, knowledge is the possession of the other material thing as other, without taking their matter into ourselves, but abstracting their form from the matter, by the light of the agent intellect, which renders the object immaterial, abstracting the common from the many. Immateriality is the condition required for a thing to be united to our intellect. But immateriality also makes a thing unattainable by our senses. God is supremely immaterial, having absolutely no admixture of potency. He is, therefore, supremely understandable, supremely able to be united to the intellect, but also supremely unattainable by the senses. What the will informed by charity desires is to know God. This is the union we all desire, the goal of our striving. And this union is not an operation of our sensitive powers, but an operation of the intellect, eternally gazing upon the divine essence. This is what it means to see God “face-to-face,” to “see Him as He is.”  It is what we mean by the Beatific Vision, for vision is a term denoting cognition.

Certainly, there are some creatures for which the good of sexual intercourse is the highest possible participation in the Supreme Good that they will experience. As a friend of mine pointed out, it’s the closest a barnacle can get, endowed only with the sense of touch. But we who have cognition, we who have intellects should be able to get closer than that, even in this life, endowed as we are with Faith and Charity, which attain to God as He is in Himself, and not to some creaturely participated goodness. If such delights exist, they seem more worthy of being called a foretaste of Heavenly Bliss.

It is no accident that one’s view of the end of man will correspond to one’s view of where the image of God lies. Indeed, as we have said, being created in the image of God is a property of the intellectual creature. And as Aristotle pointed out, a thing’s end is its own proper activity. A knife’s proper activity is to cut, and this is also its end. A house’s proper activity is to shelter, and this is also its end. If we say that the image of God is found in the distinction of the sexes, we will tend to see Heaven and the delights of spiritual contemplation as somehow like sexual delight. But if we place the image of God in the intellect, it is evident that the end of man is an intellectual operation, with its concomitant delight in the will.

This is something the pagans knew. It is a basic foundation in Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics and in the newly found Protrepticus. It is the basic conclusion of Plato’s Symposium. In this work, Socrates refuses Alcibiades’ offer to “give himself” in exchange for Socrates’ tutoring for the simple reason that the exchange is not fair: it is “gold for bronze.”

(Of course, one might say that this example proves nothing. Alcibiades offered something that was morally reprehensible, i.e., homosexual intercourse.  The argument would not work so well if what was being offered to Socrates was the holy union of matrimony. I agree that this is true. But even in matrimony, there are two aspects: the union itself, and the “matrimonial act.”  What Socrates was refusing was sensible delight. In matrimony, this comes with the matrimonial act. The union of matrimony which makes it so much more than mere sensible delight is the maxima amicitia, the greatest friendship that St. Thomas says should exist between husband and wife [Summa Contra Gentiles, Bk. III, 123]. And if we cull from the other texts on friendship in Aristotle and Aquinas, friendship is the greater where more spiritual delights are shared. Those marriages are certainly the happiest where husband and wife share the goods of virtue and contemplation. If this were offered to Socrates, perhaps it would have given him pause. But the point is that even this happiest of matrimonies presupposes the primacy of spiritual delights over sensual, and man’s happiness being in his proper activity.)

Now, once again, I admit that TOB in its rigorous form would admit all of the above. But with David Schindler and Fr. Granados and I am sure many others, I cannot help but notice a “pansexualism” that often accompanies TOB. We would do better to inform people of what their true goal is, where their Faith and Charity actually tend, rather than continuing to try to offer them bronze. At some point, we should grant them the meat after the milk, instead of bread and circuses that will certainly tickle their fancy

See part vi here

See part vii here.

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Some helpful clarity for economics issues

Posted on 16 July 2009 by | 2 Comments

A lot of people have been commenting on the Pope’s new encyclical, Caritas in Veritate.  I have yet to finish it (been busy lately) but I have gathered that, while bringing clarity by reminding the world of some very important basic principles, it seems to have left many confused as to what the Church expects us to do in the concrete (to be honest, I have always found this to be the case with regard to the Social Doctrine of the Church, but I can’t honestly say yet if that’s my fault or not).

This is the nature of ethics.  The more concrete you get, the more mixed up in contingent things you get, and the lesser the certitude that one can seek (see St. Thomas Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. 1, lect. 3).  And the higher you go up in the threefold grade of monastics, economics, and politics, the more difficult it is still, since one is ordering a whole lot of contingents.  Economics and Politics are just hard.

In light of this, I hope that some will find this video of a presentation given by Fr. Sebastian Walshe, O. Praem.  As I have mentioned before, Fr. Sebastian is author of The Primacy of the Common Good as the Root of Personal Dignity in the Doctrine of St. Thomas.

Fr. Sebastian’s gift is clarity.  This presentation was given before the publication of the encyclical, but I think it will be of great help for all those trying to understand it and other Church documents.

Check it out here.

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My two cents on Theology of the Body, part IV

Posted on 16 July 2009 by | Leave a comment

See part I here.

See part II here.

See part III here.

4. The image of God is according to the mind.

Hence, we  may certainly take TOB to be included in theology insofar as it attempts to discourse about God. The next question is, what does the human body tell us about God?  What does it tell us about God that no other material creature can tell us?

As I understand it, TOB approaches this question in this way: man is a body, but it is clear that he is also a person, insofar as he experiences himself as the subject of his acts. And these two are always going to be intertwined, since all of man’s personal acts are performed through a body.

A person, moreover, can only fulfill himself or herself in a self-gift which is reciprocated, thereby entering into a communion of persons. This is, as it were, the end of the person (though many personalists will deny that it is the only possible ultimate end able to be intended, since free choice, in their view, entails not only indetermination about the means, but also about the end). I think that there are three main supporting arguments for this:

a. Experience. We experience a kind of fulfillment when we give of ourselves. This is a sign that total self-gift alone fulfills the person.

b. The nature of a person, not insofar as it is incommunicable (i.e., an individual substance of a rational nature), but insofar as the person is the subject of its own acts. The argument goes that, since the person is a free acting subject, it is most free and most “person” in that act where there is found least of all the tendencies of nature, and most found the sign of total freedom. And this is found in that act which includes no taking, which has no bit of self or nature at its center, but focuses totally on the other. And this is the act of total self-gift (note: this view has its own problems, but I am not interested in getting into them here).

c. We are made in the image of God. God is a trinity of persons in which the Father totally gives himself to the Son, and both give themselves to each other, forming the ecstasy that is the Holy Spirit. We have to image that more perfectly if we want to fulfill ourselves as image of God.

These three arguments all together have only told us that we must give of ourselves. They cannot yet tell us how.

The body enters into the reasoning when it comes time to reflect on what it means to be in the image of God, which will affect what it means to give oneself totally. And this is where TOB probably has its most radical difference with the theological tradition.

The theological tradition was pretty well unanimous that man was made to the image of God according to his intellect. As one example among many, I will quote St. Thomas:

Not every likeness, not even what is copied from something else, is sufficient to make an image; for if the likeness be only generic, or existing by virtue of some common accident, this does not suffice for one thing to be the image of another. For instance, a worm, though from man it may originate, cannot be called man’simage , merely because of the generic likeness. Nor, if anything is made white like something else, can we say that it is the image of that thing; for whiteness is an accident belonging to many species. But the nature of an image requires likeness in species; thus the image of the king exists in his son: or, at least, in some specific accident, and chiefly in the shape; thus, we speak of a man’s image in copper. Whence Hilary says pointedly that “an image is of the same species.”  Now it is manifest that specific likeness follows the ultimate difference. But some things are like to God first and most commonly because they exist; secondly, because theylive ; and thirdly because they know or understand; and these last, as Augustine says (QQ. 83, qu. 51) “approach so near to God in likeness, that among all creatures nothing comes nearer to Him.” It is clear, therefore, that intellectual creatures alone, properly speaking, are made to God’s image (ST, I, q. 93, a. 2).

TOB, on the other hand, seems to indicate that man is made in the image of God according to his body, and specifically, in the distinction of sexes.  As Christopher West puts it:

This “mystery hidden in God” refers to the eternal union of the three Persons of the Trinity and our privileged invitation in Christ to share in the Trinity’s eternal exchange of love. This is the “theology” that the human body signifies. How? Precisely through the beauty of sexual difference and union. In the normal course of events, the union of the “two” leads to a “third.” Here, in a way, we see a trinitarian image. Thus, John Paul concludes that we image God not only as individuals, but also through the union of man and woman.

This interpretation is understandable. Does not the book of Genesis say, “To the image of God he created him: male and female he created them”?

The main problem with this interpretation is the fact that all higher animals have sexual differentiation. They all also engage in sexual union, and they all reproduce by means of it. If this were the way in which God was imaged, then all higher animals would be in the image of God.

Of course, one could object that we have sex differently than the beasts. They just engage in it through instinct, whereas in us, there is a personal dimension. This is true. But that still means that the image of God is found in us primo and per se according to the intellect. Sex in us would image God only secondarily, presupposing the intellect.  St. Thomas averts to this as well, although through a different discursive iter:

First, we may consider in [the image of God] that in which the image chiefly consists, that is, the intellectual nature. Thus the image of God is moreperfect in the angels than in man, because their intellectual nature is more perfect , as is clear from what has been said. Secondly, we may consider the image of God in man as regards its accidental qualities, so far as to observe in man acertain imitation of God, consisting in the fact that man proceeds from man, as God from God; and also in the fact that the whole human soul is in the whole body, and again, in every part, as God is in regard to the whole world. In these and the like things the image of God is moreperfect in man than it is in the angels. But these do not of themselves belong to the nature of the Divine image in man, unless we presuppose the first likeness, which is in the intellectual nature; otherwise even brute animals would be to God’s image. Therefore, as in their intellectual nature, the angels are more to the image of God than man is, we must grant that, absolutely speaking, the angels are more to the image of God than man is, but that in some respects man is more like to God (ibid., a. 3).

But what about Genesis 1:27?

As Augustine says (De Trin. xii, 5), some have thought that the image of God was not in man individually, but severally. They held that “the man represents the Person of the Father; those born of man denote the person of the Son; and that the woman is a third person in likeness to the Holy Ghost, since she so proceeded from man as not to be his son or daughter.” All of this is manifestly absurd; first, because it would follow that the Holy Ghost is the principle of theSon, as the woman is the principle of the man’s offspring; secondly, because one man would be only the image of one Person; thirdly, because in that case Scripture should not have mentioned the image of God in man until after the birth of the offspring. Therefore we must understand that when Scripture had said, “to the image of God He created him,” it added, “male and female He created them,” not to imply that the image of God came through the distinction of sex, but that the image of God belongs to both sexes, since it is in the mind, wherein there is no sexual distinction (ibid, a. 6, ad 2).

None of this mean that the Medievals thought that the body had nothing to tell us about God.  We have already seen that  the sexual distinction in man images God in a way that the angels cannot, though secondarily and per accidens. Just as God proceeds from God, so man proceeds from man. But this is not the principal way in which the body imaged God in the Patristic/Medieval view.

Although the image of God in man is not to be found in his bodily shape, yet because “the body of man alone among terrestrial animals is not inclined prone to the ground, but is adapted to look upward to heaven, for this reason we may rightly say that it is made to God’s image and likeness, rather than the bodies of other animals,” as Augustine remarks (QQ. 83, qu. 51). But this is not to be understood as though the image of God were in man’s body; but in the sense that the very shape of the human body represents the image of God in the soul by way of a trace (ibid., ad 3).

The 12th century canon Adam of Dryburgh conveys the same idea, quoting Ovid in support:

He created you according to His image and likeness. We read in the Psalm that, “The Lord our God is upright, and there is no iniquity in Him” (Ps. 92: 15). He created you upright, since He is upright. He created you upright, I say, but you made yourself bent down. And perhaps that passage of Ecclesiastes approaches this: “This I have found, that God made man upright, and he mixed himself up in infinite questions” (Eccl. 7:29). And thus, He made him upright in mind, just as also in body. For indeed, the uprightness of the latter is the example and incentive to the uprightness of the former. It is exceedingly uncomely that you should be upright in body and bent down in mind. To show yourself a man in body and a beast in mind is a kind of monster. For the body to be inclined to the lowest things is beastly; but for it to be directed to the highest things is human. Hence, we have even these words of the pagan:

On earth the brute creation bends its gaze,
but man was given a lofty countenance
and was commanded to behold the skies;
and with an upright face may view the stars. (PL 198, 448; citation from Ovid, Metam., I, 84)

Men and angels are made in the image of God according to the intellect. And man’s body is full of the signs of that intellect.

An upright stature was becoming to man for four reasons. First, because the senses are given to man, not only for the purpose of procuring the necessaries of life , which they are bestowed on other animals, but also for the purpose of knowledge. Hence, whereas the other animals take delight in the objects of the senses only as ordered to food and sex, man alone takes pleasure in the beauty of sensible objects for its own sake. Therefore, as the senses are situated chiefly in the face, other animals have the face turned to the ground, as it were for the purpose of seeking food and procuring a livelihood; whereas man has his face erect, in order that by the senses, and chiefly by sight, which is more subtle and penetrates further into the differences of things, he may freely survey the sensible objects around him, both heavenly and earthly, so as to gather intelligible truth from all things. Secondly, for the greater freedom of the acts of the interior powers; the brain, wherein these actions are, in a way, performed, not being low down, but lifted up above other parts of the body. Thirdly, because if man’s stature were prone to the ground he would need to use his hands as fore-feet; and thus their utility for other purposes would cease. Fourthly, because if man’s stature were prone to the ground, and he used his hands as fore-feet, he would be obliged to take hold of his food with his mouth. Thus he would have a protruding mouth, with thick and hard lips, and also a hard tongue, so as to keep it from being hurt by exterior things; as we see in other animals. Moreover, such an attitude would quite hinder speech, which is reason’s proper operation (ST, I, q. 91, a. 3, ad 3)

The body can tell us many things about God, just as it tells us many things about our rational nature, which is the closest a creature can get to God. To put it more bluntly: man’s body is not just about sex; in fact, sex is common to it and the animals.  I think that these considerations are important to keep in mind. As Dr. Schindler put it so well,  “One must always be clear that the theology of the body is not synonymous with a theology of sexuality.”

See part V here.

See part vi here

See part vii here.

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THE CDF CORRECTS FISICHELLA

Posted on 12 July 2009 by | Leave a comment

Archbishop Fisichella’s intervention regarding the abortion of the twins of the nine-year old Brazilian girl has been corrected by the CDF, via a front page article of the Osservatore Romano.
See the story down at Sandro Magister.

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My two cents on Theology of the Body, part III

Posted on 12 July 2009 by | 2 Comments

See part I here.

See part II here.

3. What God tells us about the body, or what the body tells us about God?

This one is more of a clarification than a problem.

For a long time, Theology was considered a science, and it was considered as supremely one. And as a science, it had its own principles, which also set the method for the science (since every science’s proper method will depend on what its principles are). The principles of theology are found in Revelation. Philosophy can tell us a little bit about God, insofar as He is first Mover, Pure Act, etc. But the knowledge of God in Himself is something that only God could grant through Revelation.

However, what God reveals is not restricted to His own inner Life and other things that cannot be known by reason. God has also revealed many things that are knowable by reason, and also many things that seem to be particular historical facts, which are normally not the province of scientific (i.e., universal) knowledge. This is because what makes something part of theology is not the fact that it had to be revealed, but the fact that it is revealed. St. Thomas says it thus:

Sacred doctrine is one science. The unity of a faculty or habit is to be gauged by its object, not indeed, in its material aspect, but as regards the precise formality under which it is an object. For example, man, ass, stone agree in the one precise formality of being colored; and color is the formal object of sight. Therefore, because Sacred Scripture considers things precisely under the formality of being divinely revealed, whatever has been divinely revealed possesses the one precise formality of the object of this science; and therefore is included under sacred doctrine as under one science…

Similarly, objects which are the subject-matter of different philosophical sciences can yet be treated of by this one single sacred science under one aspect precisely so far as they can be included in revelation. So that in this way, sacred doctrine bears, as it were, the stamp of the divine science which is one and simple, yet extends to everything (ST, q. 1, a. 3, co. and ad 2).

So can theology be about the body?  Undoubtedly yes. It is not at all an oxymoron. Scripture contains many things about the body.

But the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord: and the Lord for the body. Now God hath raised up the Lord and will raise us up also by his power. Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid!  Or know you not that he who is joined to a harlot is made one body? For they shall be, saith he, two in one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. Fly fornication. Every sin that a man doth is without the body: but he that  committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. Or know you not that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God: and you are not your own? For you are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body (1 Cor. 6: 13-20)

There is certainly room, then, for a theology of the body.

However, it is generally my impression that TOB advocates are less interested in what God has revealed about the body, and more interested in what the body can tell us about God. This, strictly speaking, is not properly theology. It is, at best, a kind of philosophy, examining what one particular creature can tell us about the first cause. Such an approach is not merely an ailment of TOB; it is quite fashionable today with all our “aspect theologies”. We have feminist theology, Hispanic theology, black theology, I think we even have gay and lesbian theology; theology of the corporation, theology of cooperation, theology of liberation, theology of the web, etc… It would be desirable at some point to see once again a theology of God. We can’t just choose a point of view and see where its coloring of our thought leads us with regard to the subject of the science.

That being said, however, one thing remains true: the conclusions of the philosophical disciplines are included in Theology insofar as they are necessary to understand what is revealed. Hence, if the body does tell us something about God, it could be included in theology. Nevertheless, in itself, it remains properly a philosophical inquiry, just as Aristotle’s examination of habits, for instance, is properly a philosophical investigation, and yet, since it is necessary for understanding the supernatural moral life (e.g., the infused moral virtues), it is taken up into theology.  But there is a difference between this and the mere choice of a “coloring” we are going to give to our theological thought.  The study of God deserves no agenda.

See part iv here

See part v here

See part vi here

See part vii here.

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