Faith and Lies

This is an interesting article: http://justinis.com/trapped/

The author, Justin, who I don't know, is very honest and admirable in his journey to appropriate his beliefs and to question. Just some reflections that have been in my mind the past two days, based on that blog article and some conversations I've had.

There is always a tension between the commitment of faith and its object or content. St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiæ, 2a2æ.5.4; http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3005.htm#article4) taught that faith is to adhere to God—i.e. the commitment of faith—as He has revealed Himself—i.e. the content of faith—and this adherence rests on the authority of God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. God gives faith to us and perfects it in us; we must accept faith and use it.

There are two aspects of faith I just want to touch on here, and they are often confused. There is the object of faith, what we adhere to by faith, the content, the "object" of faith. This is faith "objectively" speaking. But then there is faith "subjectively" speaking, our trust in God, our adherence to creeds, propositions of our religion, of Scripture.

Considered objectively, faith grows insofar as the object of faith becomes more explicit to the believer through a deeper understanding of God. Our knowledge of the Church's teaching, which is breadth of knowledge, and our meditation on that teaching, which is depth, grows with effort and application.

In the participation of adhering to God by the believer through faith, faith grows in two ways: 1) in the intellect, in terms of certainty and firmness; and 2) in the will, in terms of promptitude, devotion, and confidence. The first aspect deals with the mind; the second, with the heart.

These qualities of faith and how they affect a believer can to a certain extent be observed by science, but we cannot reduce faith to an external, psycho-physical activity; otherwise the supernatural order is reduced to the natural in a kind of physicalism or naturalism.

Science, by definition, is limited to the physical and observable, but faith, by definition, involves the spiritual and unobservable. Therefore, faith goes beyond the purview of science. To say that faith therefore is unprovable or nonexistent in the way that believers would propose requires something further, namely, a philosophy of science, a framework or paradigm of propositions or concepts that propose that science is the naturalized equivalent of Sola Scriptura. Anything outside of Scripture is useless for faith and theology; likewise, anything outside the physical and observable is useless for science. Hence the error of using the Bible as a science textbook but also the error of using the science textbook as a Bible or as explaining away a Bible. The two are incommensurable paradigms or frameworks because they explain different aspects or dimensions of reality. Of course, reality isn't totally compartmentalized, so there is a sense in which the two interact or overlap, but to discourse about such overlap requires careful articulation, philosophical, theological, and scientific, in order to avoid serious errors.

When a believer believes something incorrect regarding God, their error does not pertain to faith per se but to their adherence to the object of faith. Faith itself deals with the truth of God as revealed by God, so nothing false can fall under faith properly speaking. But faith does not override our natural way of thinking, of acting, of being. It merely perfects and elevates that way to a supernatural plane, but this process is slow, arduous, subjunctive, rather than immediate, easy, and declarative. We can form beliefs, but those beliefs are wrong if they adhere to false conclusions or premises. Our beliefs must conform to reality as reality proposes itself to us in some intelligible way. God reveals to us the nature of reality with respect to faith, just as we discover reality through science. (I honestly didn't mean for this to turn into a faith-science essay, but it helps articulate some points I'm trying to make.)

Thus for example, if a Christian believer thinks that there are circumstances in which it is morally good, acceptable, or excusable to lie, such a belief does not fall under faith, for God gave the commandment not to lie to our neighbors. Jesus Himself said, "Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one." There is a long theological traditions in the various Church Fathers that attempts to explain certain passages in the Bible where it appears that either God or some holy figure, such as Moses or Abraham, is lying. The point is always made: lying is never acceptable. It can be used as a means to a good end, but it is an immoral means and offends human dignity.

There is a story from St. Thomas Aquinas's life that illustrates this point. He was called the "Dumb Ox" because he was rather large and relatively silent. People often took this silence as a sign of stupidity and were somewhat doubtful about Thomas's vocation, for the Dominican order was established to preach against error, to refute heresy, to defend the truth with profound and penetrating arguments. Dominicans see themselves not as defending "Dominican truth" but simply "the truth," wherever it is to be found. Hence St. Thomas once wrote in a letter with advice about studying, "Do not consider who says what but simply what is said," whether it is true and useful or not. But to return to the story...

When Thomas was a Dominican novice (he would have been around 20 years old), a Dominican brother pointed out the window excitedly and said, "Look! A flying pig!" Thomas, curious and trusting, promptly went over to the window and looked out to see this purported spectacular creature. All the Dominicans laughed at him for being so gullible. But with serenity Thomas turned to the Dominican who had made the joke and said, "It would have been better for pigs to fly than for a Dominican to lie."

Thomas would later on, in his theological masterpiece the Summa Theologiæ, argue that every lie is morally wrong (2a2æ.110; http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3110.htm). He makes use of various arguments, but he first of all aligns himself with Scriptural proof as well as the authority of St. Augustine. He even addresses a situation in which it would seem better to lie in order to avoid a greater evil (we can apply this to white lies as when a lady asks, "How do I look?" and you really don't think she looks all that good, or when the Nazis were seeking out Jews in hiding). Here is the full objection:

"Further, one ought to choose the lesser evil in order to avoid the greater: even so a physician cuts off a limb, lest the whole body perish. Yet less harm is done by raising a false opinion in a person's mind, than by someone slaying or being slain. Therefore a man may lawfully lie, to save another from committing murder, or another from being killed."

And here is St. Thomas's response: "A lie is sinful not only because it injures one's neighbor, but also on account of its inordinateness, as stated above in this Article. Now it is not allowed to make use of anything inordinate in order to ward off injury or defects from another: as neither is it lawful to steal in order to give an alms, except perhaps in a case of necessity when all things are common. Therefore it is not lawful to tell a lie in order to deliver another from any danger whatever. Nevertheless it is lawful to hide the truth prudently, by keeping it back, as Augustine says (Contra Mend. x)."

But lest one thinks that St. Thomas is absolutist or pharisaical in his approach to lying (although he is absolute in believing that every lie is immoral), Thomas admits that not every lie is equally immoral, but just as with all human actions, there is a scale from best to worst, good to evil. Nevertheless, many people, influenced by our culture and society and brokenness, make excuses or exceptional cases to justify their behavior. But the point that I was originally trying to make is that faith is simple. We make it complex because of our refusal to listen and submit to God.

The simplicity of faith comes from the simplicity of God, who holds all truth together in one intuitive moment or glance. Our knowledge of things is propositional, discursive, temporal. God's knowledge is intuitive and eternal, inseparable from His very being, whereas our knowledge is an application of a capacity that we have in how we relate with the world.

I highly recommend reading the section in the Catechism of the Catholic Church on faith, paragraphs 142-184. It's pretty Thomistic, which is nice.

I pray for Justin and all who struggle with their faith in a similar manner. I have certainly done so. There but by the grace of God go I, and we stay on track only by God's grace. What person honestly thinks he can walk the path of truth without any mistakes? But the worst is to deviate early on the path and end up far away from any truth whatsoever. The journey back is pretty rough if it is made at all.