How Relation Is Crucial

How Relation Is Crucial in Human Knowledge, the Sacraments, Signs, and History

In 1970 Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in his book Introduction to Christianity,

Christian thought discovered the kernel of the concept of person, which describes something other and infinitely more than the mere idea of the “individual.” Let us listen once more to St. Augustine: “In God there are no accidents, only substance and relation.”¹ Therein lies concealed a revolution in man’s view of the world: the sole dominion of thinking in terms of substance is ended; relation is discovered as an equally valid primordial mode of reality.”²

When I first came across this quotation, I was studying Thomistic philosophy at Gonzaga, and although I wasn’t a traditionalist at the time, my first reaction to this quotation was a kind of unreflective outrage. I just felt within me that Ratzinger was saying something philosophically wrong, that some sort of liberal or modernist tendency of his was polluting pure Thomistic natural philosophy, which obviously placed substance as primary and accidents as secondary. Now, a few years later, I must admit that he was right, and his insight contains a key component of the solution to the modernist crisis.

Let me turn to another thinker, quite different than Ratzinger, the Canadian philosopher John Russon, who is well known for his philosophical and historical work on Hegel. Russon states what has become of the modern man:

One of the ideas with which we are most comfortable in our everyday life is the idea that we are self-enclosed, independent beings. We strongly defend our claim to being self-possessed, insisting that “it’s my view, and I have a right to it”, or “that’s mine”, or “I’ll do what I like”. In each case, we identify ourselves as the “I” who is in charge of its own affairs, which means an “I with a unique point of view, with a unique body, and with a unique will to initiate actions. On this view, it is up to each one of us to determine who we are and what we shall do. If this is what we are really like, then tradition has little intrinsic value: if we are in full self-possession, then traditions do not bind us or direct us or generate us, but are at most amusing objects of observation.³

We see contained in this statement a summary of all modern political philosophy, such as is found in Rousseau, and philosophy of human nature. We see in it the inevitable separation between Church and state. All liberalism and modernism, the nominalism of Ockham, the immanence of Luther and the Reformers, the rationalism of Descartes are contained here. Here is the mentality of the “cafeteria Catholic,” who picks and chooses according to his internal whims. Here is the pseudo-spirituality of the New Age as for example in practitioners of The Secret, who judge the value of any pursuit with whether they feel that they are remaining in a state of “high vibration,” which is simply the subjective sense of an absence of stress and the presence of pleasure. Here is the viral popularity of the idea that one can “love Jesus and hate religion,” a notion which excludes the social, traditionally defined aspects of spirituality for the sake of an individual relationship defined by the arbitrary decisions of the individual. This is what happens when man’s real relation to reality is severed.

I believe that on a fundamental level, all of reality can be understood in terms of substances with their accidents and the various kinds of relations that exist on different levels of reality. The reason for this is that reality is a faint reflection of its Creator, and its Creator is a single Divine substance and a Trinity of relations. Hence in creation, it is substance and relation at its root. This needs fleshing out and careful qualification, all of which cannot be done in a short talk, so for today, I want to consider two main points:

1. Changes in the conceptual understanding of relation has had significant impact on the development of Western civilization.

2. The health of a society may be judged by the relations it maintains in its philosophical worldview, in politics, and in religion.

The earliest systematic discussion of relation begins with Aristotle in chapter 7 of his short work the Categories. In this work, Aristotle is seeking to establish the different ways in which reality exists by itself and can be spoken about intelligibly. He’s looking at the largest “categories” of mind-independent reality, the dimensions that cannot be reduced to others. He arrives at his basic distinction between substances and accidents. Substances are individual, existing things. Accidents are properties or characteristics existing in substances, properties such as quantity (having a certain height or weight), quality (being a certain color), location, time, position (seated or standing), etc. One of those categories is relation.

Aristotle defined relation as being towards something else (pros ti). The Latin phrase is ad aliquid, towards something. Relations are that by which something is related to another thing.

Now how are relations related to Sacraments, knowledge, history, etc.? After Aristotle, the idea of relation is covertly imported into theological discussions about the nature of the Sacraments, which are quickly seen to be a kind of symbol or sign. Even in the New Testament, St. Paul speaks of how Baptism and the Eucharist refer not only to the effects they bring about but how they also symbolize certain aspects of Christ’s life. For example, Baptism is a symbol of participating in Christ’s death and resurrection (Rom. 6:3-11). The Eucharist is a symbol of the unity of the Church (1 Cor. 10:17). Marriage is a symbol of the bond between Christ and the Church, His Bride (Eph. 5:22-23).

In other words, the Sacraments are signs. What is the unique nature of a sign? Origen in his commentary on the Letter to the Romans says, “A sign is a visible something that suggests the idea of another invisible thing.”⁴ St. Augustine defines sign in a similar manner in book 2 of De doctrina christiana: “A sign is a thing which causes us to think of something beyond the impression the thing itself makes upon the senses” (Signum est enim res praeter speciem, quam ingerit sensibus, aliud aliquid ex se faciens in cogitationem uenire).⁵ What we see in this definition of sign is the reality of relation. Without relation, which brings one thing towards another, a sign could never bring us to another thing.

As St. Augustine and many other Church Fathers show, there are multiple relations in a Sacrament: the relation of matter to form, the relation of the sacramental rite to the spiritual effects that it causes, the relation of the sacrament to the church in general. But essential to the notion of Sacrament is that it is a sign of a certain sort. In fact, the importance of defining a Sacrament in terms of the sign led the theologian Pierre Pourrat to state, “[W]henver the definition departed from the idea of sign, it lost something of its precision.”⁶ It is from these theological considerations, along with debates on how God relates to creation and the nature of the Trinity, that the notions of relation and sign were further developed in the medieval era.

I will pass over the various complexities, but suffice it to say, the scholastics quickly realized that Aristotle’s account of relation was inadequate and admitted of numerous exceptions. Aristotle’s definition of relation applied to what the scholastics called “predicamental relation,” a real relation existing between two physical subjects. This tree is similar to that tree. But if the second tree were cut down, the relation would cease because there no longer is a second tree to compare to. However, the scholastics noticed at least two other forms of relations that Aristotle did not account for: relations between two mental entities, such as concepts in the mind, such as in mathematical equations, and relations between one physical entity and a mental entity, such as the knowledge of the value of a coin.

Key insights developed during the 13^th century on the nature of knowledge that form the basis of realism as opposed to future epistemologies based on faulty philosophical views. The immediate object of sensory awareness is the external world. In this process, the human observer enters into multiple relations with his environment. Scholastics realized, however, that the relation between man and his environment in the process of knowledge was one more form of relation that went against Aristotle’s defintion! Nothing on the part of physical reality is modified by our coming to know it, but we change as we come to know reality; hence there is no such thing as the “right side of a column” except relative to someone viewing a column from the right side: the change is in the perceiver, not the column.

14^th century nominalism changes things. Ockham begins a process sometimes called the “progressive ‘mentalization’ of sign.”⁷ Peter of Ailly summarizes this shift by saying that the concept is “the very act itself of knowing the thing.” This move, which flattens the process of human cognition, beginning with pre-conceptual sensation and moving to successive levels of differentiation in perception and then intellection, is precisely what leads to Descartes’ rationalism when the latter claims that “ideas are the only immediate objects of my sensory awareness” (“Sixth Meditation,” n. 6). Ockham rejects the notion that relations exist independently of the mind and without realizing it, thus cuts man off from external reality. On the other hand, Ockham strangely upholds the notion that things can be related to each other independently of the mind, the rejection of which would mean that there could be no such thing as act and potency, causality, or identity:

The intellect does nothing to bring it about that the universe is one, or that a whole is composed [of its parts], or that causes in spatial proximity [to their effects actually] cause [their effects], or that a triangle has three [sides], etc. …any more than [the intellect] brings it about that Socrates is white or that fire is hot or water cold.⁸

It is likely that Ockham’s involvement in the political-religious dispute between John XXII and the Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV of Bavaria prevented Ockham from realizing the full implications and almost self-contradictory aspects of his thought. For if relations themselves are merely products of the mind, then man is immediately cut of from reality.

We come now to the second contention of mine, namely, that the health of a society may be judged by the relations that issue from its collective worldview, especially philosophical, political, and religious. The progression from late scholastic nominalism towards the principle of immanence, in which man is the source and measure of all reality, is very straightforward. Due to the severing of man and reality because of the mentalization of the sign and the reduction of relations to mere beings of reason, which are products of the mind, man can no longer be informed by external reality. He now exists on his own. Thus we return to the dawning of modern thought, the core of which is immanentism.

Ratzinger rightly noted the ever increasing emphasis or tyranny of substance in metaphysics. Descartes defined substance as a “thing that exists in such a way that it doesn’t depend on anything else for its existence”⁹ and thus rendered substance as absolutely self-existing, without the need of God. Spinzoa in fact would notice this logical consequence of Descartes’ definition and from it develop his own philosophy of monistic pantheism. Leibniz, describing his own version of substance, called a monad, famously said that they “have no windows,” that is, no relation to external reality. He wrote:

Strictly speaking, one can say that no created substance exerts a metaphysical action or influx on any other thing.¹⁰

And:

There is no way of explaining how a monad can be altered or changed internally by some other creature, since one cannot transpose anything in it, nor can one conceive of any internal motion that can be excited, directed, augmented, or diminished within it, as can be done in composites, where there can be change among the parts. The monads have no windows through which something can enter or leave.¹¹

Not only man, but every substance in reality becomes increasingly isolated and cut off from each other. Every man for himself. The traditional Catholic writer Roger Buck points out that this all leads to what he calls Enlightenment Despair. He cites the poem “Aubade” (pronounced: oh-bawd) by Philip Larkin:

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.

Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.

In time the curtain-edges will grow light.

Till then I see what’s really always there:

Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,

Making all thought impossible but how

And where and when I shall myself die.

Arid interrogation: yet the dread

Of dying, and being dead,

Flashes afresh to hold and horrify. […]

This is a special way of being afraid

No trick dispels. Religion used to try,

That vast moth-eaten musical brocade

Created to pretend we never die,

And specious stuff that says No rational being

Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing

That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,

No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,

Nothing to love or link with,

The anaesthetic from which none come round.

As Buck strikingly puts it, “Here is the work of a man in hell—suffering acutely from the deathly vacuum [that] materialism has generated. May God have mercy on his soul and the souls of all those afflicted by the same terrible dread, ennui and meaninglessness.”¹²

The late Neothomistic philosopher W. Norris Clarke, SJ, said that being naturally enters into relations with other beings because it is the means by which a being shares its “ontological richness” with another, a process necessary for the sustaining of all substances.¹³ Clarke along with a few other philosophers developed the insight based on St. Thomas’s metaphysics that every being in its respective manner simultaneously contains self-perfective and self-communicative dynamics.¹⁴ If it is intrinsically self-communicative, then that being is intrinsically relational; thus esse in is simultaneously and always esse ad aliud, being towards or for another, and being towards implies being from (esse ab alio). Communicativity implies the capacity for receptivity (esse ab) as a complement even if the former is not always actually attained between subjects. Receptivity, then, is a necessary condition, for without it a being could not advance towards its full development. Thus there is a micro-trinity within substance: esse in, which is the substance itself, but also esse ad and esse ab, for every finite substance comes from something else and will be the agent of different causal chains, or at least potentially can be. And the whole arrangement and relation of each substance to each is necessary for the flourishing of all finite being, at least when all is properly ordered according to their natures. Of course, given the fallen state of creation, this doesn’t always attain, but its potential remains rooted in the natures of things, which are both existing in themselves as a unity and existing towards others as a relation.

The recovery of the universality and import of relations not only in abstract metaphysics but in day-to-day relations, in religion, in politics is an essential task for Catholics. We say that man is a microcosm of the universe, but we must also see how man is a microcosm of the Trinity, and when in a state of grace, he actually contains the Trinity and stands in a supernatural relation with the Trinity, a relation that all men are called to by the mercy of God. Virtue, prayer, and the proper formation of the intellect all orient man back into reality and establish him more and more firmly in relation to his end, which perfects him. If civilization is the fruit of the habitual orientation of a society in right relations with God, each other, and each man to himself, then it is the re-establishment of these right relations that will restore civilization.

This leads us to the importance of tradition. Tradition is the means by which each generation is related to the past, to the intellectual and cultural riches of the past, and from this relation to properly orient ourselves to the future. And here also is the importance of Sacred Tradition. We defend Sacred Tradition because it is the only sure means to come into a proper relationship towards God, and by means of which save our souls as St. Ignatius put it at the beginning of his Spiritual Exercises. Maintaining right relations in the present depends on following the sound wisdom and accumulated knowledge of the past, which forms the intellect and guides it to maintain a proper perspective of reality as it enters the future.

Footnotes:

1 St. Augustine, De Trinitate, 5.5.6.

2 Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity (New York, NY: Herder & Herder, 1970), 132, 137.

3 John Russon, “Hegel and Tradition,” in Hegel and Tradition: Essays in Honour of H. S. Harris, ed. by Michael Baur and John Russon (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 3, quoted in John Deely, Four Ages of Understanding (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), 658.

4 Origen, In epist. ad Rom., 4.2.

5 St. Augustine, De doctrina christiana, 2.1.1.5-7.

6 Pierre Pourrat, Theology of the Sacraments: A Study in Positive Theology (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder, 1910), 36.

7 Stephan Meier-Oeser, “Medieval Semiotics,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed 28 Jan. 2017.

8 William of Ockham, Ordinatio I, d. 30, q. 1 in Opera Theologica iv, 316-317.

9 René Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, ed. Jonathan Bennett, http://www.ahshistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/descprin.pdf, I.51.

10 Leibniz, Primary Truths (1689), A 6.4:1647/AG 33.

11 Leibniz, Monadology, n. 7, G VI 607: AG 213-214.

12 Roger Buck, Cor Jesu Sacratissimum (Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2016), 36.

13 Cf. Norris Clarke, “Person, Being, and St. Thomas,” Communio 19 (Winter 1992), 605.

14 Cf. W. Norris Clarke, The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001).

Pope Benedict XVI on Silence in Communication

As we draw near to World Communications Day 2012, I would like to share with you some reflections concerning an aspect of the human process of communication which, despite its importance, is often overlooked and which, at the present time, it would seem especially necessary to recall. It concerns the relationship between silence and word: two aspects of communication which need to be kept in balance, to alternate and to be integrated with one another if authentic dialogue and deep closeness between people are to be achieved. When word and silence become mutually exclusive, communication breaks down, either because it gives rise to confusion or because, on the contrary, it creates an atmosphere of coldness; when they complement one another, however, communication acquires value and meaning.

Silence is an integral element of communication; in its absence, words rich in content cannot exist. In silence, we are better able to listen to and understand ourselves; ideas come to birth and acquire depth; we understand with greater clarity what it is we want to say and what we expect from others; and we choose how to express ourselves. By remaining silent we allow the other person to speak, to express him or herself; and we avoid being tied simply to our own words and ideas without them being adequately tested. In this way, space is created for mutual listening, and deeper human relationships become possible. It is often in silence, for example, that we observe the most authentic communication taking place between people who are in love: gestures, facial expressions and body language are signs by which they reveal themselves to each other. Joy, anxiety, and suffering can all be communicated in silence – indeed it provides them with a particularly powerful mode of expression. Silence, then, gives rise to even more active communication, requiring sensitivity and a capacity to listen that often makes manifest the true measure and nature of the relationships involved. When messages and information are plentiful, silence becomes essential if we are to distinguish what is important from what is insignificant or secondary. Deeper reflection helps us to discover the links between events that at first sight seem unconnected, to make evaluations, to analyze messages; this makes it possible to share thoughtful and relevant opinions, giving rise to an authentic body of shared knowledge. For this to happen, it is necessary to develop an appropriate environment, a kind of ‘eco-system’ that maintains a just equilibrium between silence, words, images and sounds.

The process of communication nowadays is largely fuelled [sic] by questions in search of answers. Search engines and social networks have become the starting point of communication for many people who are seeking advice, ideas, information and answers. In our time, the internet is becoming ever more a forum for questions and answers – indeed, people today are frequently bombarded with answers to questions they have never asked and to needs of which they were unaware. If we are to recognize and focus upon the truly important questions, then silence is a precious commodity that enables us to exercise proper discernment in the face of the surcharge of stimuli and data that we receive. Amid the complexity and diversity of the world of communications, however, many people find themselves confronted with the ultimate questions of human existence: Who am I? What can I know? What ought I to do? What may I hope? It is important to affirm those who ask these questions, and to open up the possibility of a profound dialogue, by means of words and interchange, but also through the call to silent reflection, something that is often more eloquent than a hasty answer and permits seekers to reach into the depths of their being and open themselves to the path towards knowledge that God has inscribed in human hearts.

Ultimately, this constant flow of questions demonstrates the restlessness of human beings, ceaselessly searching for truths, of greater or lesser import, that can offer meaning and hope to their lives. Men and women cannot rest content with a superficial and unquestioning exchange of skeptical opinions and experiences of life – all of us are in search of truth and we share this profound yearning today more than ever: “When people exchange information, they are already sharing themselves, their view of the world, their hopes, their ideals” (Message for the 2011 World Day of Communications).

Attention should be paid to the various types of websites, applications and social networks which can help people today to find time for reflection and authentic questioning, as well as making space for silence and occasions for prayer, meditation or sharing of the word of God. In concise phrases, often no longer than a verse from the Bible, profound thoughts can be communicated, as long as those taking part in the conversation do not neglect to cultivate their own inner lives. It is hardly surprising that different religious traditions consider solitude and silence as privileged states which help people to rediscover themselves and that Truth which gives meaning to all things. The God of biblical revelation speaks also without words: “As the Cross of Christ demonstrates, God also speaks by his silence. The silence of God, the experience of the distance of the almighty Father, is a decisive stage in the earthly journey of the Son of God, the incarnate Word …. God’s silence prolongs his earlier words. In these moments of darkness, he speaks through the mystery of his silence” (Verbum Domini, 21). The eloquence of God’s love, lived to the point of the supreme gift, speaks in the silence of the Cross. After Christ’s death there is a great silence over the earth, and on Holy Saturday, when “the King sleeps and God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages” (cf. Office of Readings, Holy Saturday), God’s voice resounds, filled with love for humanity.

If God speaks to us even in silence, we in turn discover in silence the possibility of speaking with God and about God. “We need that silence which becomes contemplation, which introduces us into God’s silence and brings us to the point where the Word, the redeeming Word, is born” (Homily, Eucharistic Celebration with Members of the International Theological Commission, 6 October 2006). In speaking of God’s grandeur, our language will always prove inadequate and must make space for silent contemplation. Out of such contemplation springs forth, with all its inner power, the urgent sense of mission, the compelling obligation “to communicate that which we have seen and heard” so that all may be in communion with God (1 Jn 1:3). Silent contemplation immerses us in the source of that Love who directs us towards our neighbours [sic] so that we may feel their suffering and offer them the light of Christ, his message of life and his saving gift of the fullness of love.

In silent contemplation, then, the eternal Word, through whom the world was created, becomes ever more powerfully present and we become aware of the plan of salvation that God is accomplishing throughout our history by word and deed. As the Second Vatican Council reminds us, divine revelation is fulfilled by “deeds and words having an inner unity: the deeds wrought by God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the teaching and realities signified by the words, while the words proclaim the deeds and clarify the mystery contained in them” (Dei Verbum, 2). This plan of salvation culminates in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the mediator and the fullness of all revelation. He has made known to us the true face of God the Father and by his Cross and Resurrection has brought us from the slavery of sin and death to the freedom of the children of God. The fundamental question of the meaning of human existence finds in the mystery of Christ an answer capable of bringing peace to the restless human heart. The Church’s mission springs from this mystery; and it is this mystery which impels Christians to become heralds of hope and salvation, witnesses of that love which promotes human dignity and builds justice and peace.

Word and silence: learning to communicate is learning to listen and contemplate as well as speak. This is especially important for those engaged in the task of evangelization: both silence and word are essential elements, integral to the Church’s work of communication for the sake of a renewed proclamation of Christ in today’s world.

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Source: Benedict XVI, "Message of His Holiness Benedict XVI for the 46th World Communications Day: Silence and Word: Path of Evangelization," January 24, 2012, accessed August 9, 2015, http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/messages/communications/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20120124_46th-world-communications-day.html.

Pope Benedict XVI on the Relation between Church and Culture

Human culture, of which [the Church] is a guarantee, has developed from the encounter between divine revelation and human existence. The Church represents the memory of what it means to be human in the face of a civilization of forgetfulness, which knows only itself and its own criteria. Yet just as an individual without memory has lost his identity, so too a human race without memory would lose its identity. What the Church has learned from the encounter between revelation and human experience does indeed extend beyond the realm of pure reason, but it is not a separate world that has nothing to say to unbelievers. By entering into the thinking and understanding of mankind, this knowledge broadens the horizon of reason and thus it speaks also to those who are unable to share the faith of the Church.

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Source: Benedict XVI, "Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI on the Occasion of Christmas Greetings to the Roman Curia" (address presented in the Vatican, December 21, 2012), accessed July 1, 2015, http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2012/december/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20121221_auguri-curia.html.

Pope Benedict XVI on Gender Theory

[...] It was noticeable that the Synod repeatedly emphasized the significance, for the transmission of the faith, of the family as the authentic setting in which to hand on the blueprint of human existence. This is something we learn by living it with others and suffering it with others. So it became clear that the question of the family is not just about a particular social construct, but about man himself – about what he is and what it takes to be authentically human. The challenges involved are manifold. First of all there is the question of the human capacity to make a commitment or to avoid commitment. Can one bind oneself for a lifetime? Does this correspond to man’s nature? Does it not contradict his freedom and the scope of his self-realization? Does man become himself by living for himself alone and only entering into relationships with others when he can break them off again at any time? Is lifelong commitment antithetical to freedom? Is commitment also worth suffering for? Man’s refusal to make any commitment – which is becoming increasingly widespread as a result of a false understanding of freedom and self-realization as well as the desire to escape suffering – means that man remains closed in on himself and keeps his “I” ultimately for himself, without really rising above it. Yet only in self-giving does man find himself, and only by opening himself to the other, to others, to children, to the family, only by letting himself be changed through suffering, does he discover the breadth of his humanity. When such commitment is repudiated, the key figures of human existence likewise vanish: father, mother, child – essential elements of the experience of being human are lost.

The Chief Rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, has shown in a very detailed and profoundly moving study that the attack we are currently experiencing on the true structure of the family, made up of father, mother, and child, goes much deeper. While up to now we regarded a false understanding of the nature of human freedom as one cause of the crisis of the family, it is now becoming clear that the very notion of being – of what being human really means – is being called into question. He quotes the famous saying of Simone de Beauvoir: “one is not born a woman, one becomes so” (on ne naît pas femme, on le devient). These words lay the foundation for what is put forward today under the term “gender” as a new philosophy of sexuality. According to this philosophy, sex is no longer a given element of nature, that man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society. The profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious. People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves. According to the biblical creation account, being created by God as male and female pertains to the essence of the human creature. This duality is an essential aspect of what being human is all about, as ordained by God. This very duality as something previously given is what is now disputed. The words of the creation account: “male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27) no longer apply. No, what applies now is this: it was not God who created them male and female – hitherto society did this, now we decide for ourselves. Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist. Man calls his nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and will. The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned. From now on there is only the abstract human being, who chooses for himself what his nature is to be. Man and woman in their created state as complementary versions of what it means to be human are disputed. But if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation. [Note: And by extension, marriage is no longer intelligible.] Likewise, the child has lost the place he had occupied hitherto and the dignity pertaining to him. Bernheim shows that now, perforce, from being a subject of rights, the child has become an object to which people have a right and which they have a right to obtain. When the freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God, as the image of God at the core of his being. The defence of the family is about man himself. And it becomes clear that when God is denied, human dignity also disappears. Whoever defends God is defending man.

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Source: Benedict XVI, "Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI on the Occasion of Christmas Greetings to the Roman Curia" (address presented in the Vatican, December 21, 2012), accessed July 1, 2015, http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2012/december/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20121221_auguri-curia.html.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger on True Worship and Human Life

True worship is the living human being, who has become a total answer to God, shaped by God's healing and transforming word. And true priesthood is therefore the ministry of word and sacrament that transforms people into an offering to God and makes the cosmos into praise and thanksgiving to the Creator and Redeemer. Therefore Christ, who makes an offering of himself on the Cross, is the true high priest [....]

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Source: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, Part Two: Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, trans. by Philip J. Whitmore (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2011), 238.

Joseph Card. Ratzinger on Degrading the Traditional Latin Mass

I am of the opinion, to be sure, that the old rite should be granted much more generously to all those who desire it. It’s impossible to see what could be dangerous or unacceptable about that. A community is calling its very being into question when it suddenly declares that what until now was its holiest and highest possession is strictly forbidden, and when it makes the longing for it seem downright indecent. Can it be trusted any more about anything else? Won’t it proscribe tomorrow what it prescribes today?

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Source: Joseph Card. Ratzinger and Peter Seewald, Salt of the Earth, trans. by Adrian Walker (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1997), 176–177.

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For fostering a true consciousness in liturgical matters, it is also important that the proscription against the form of liturgy in valid use up to 1970 should be lifted. Anyone who nowadays advocates the continuing existence of this liturgy or takes part in it is treated like a leper; all tolerance ends here. There has never been anything like this in history; in doing this we are despising and proscribing the Church’s whole past. How can one trust her present if things are that way? I must say, quite openly, that I don’t understand why so many of my episcopal brethren have to a great extent submitted to this rule of intolerance, which for no apparent reason is opposed to making the necessary inner reconciliations within the Church.

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Source: Joseph Card. Ratzinger and Peter Seewald, God and the World, trans. by Henry Taylor (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2002), 416.

The Morality of Convenience

The song "Live and Let Die" came to my mind and made me start reflecting on how it serves as a contrast to the common phrase "live and let live." The idea of "live and let die" is that one who began as a person who endorsed "live and let live," who went on one's happy way and allowed others to go on theirs without any sort of condemnatory judgment, eventually became hardened by the evils of the world, resulting in an apathetic cynicism, a kind of ennui towards life.

This reflection in turn made me consider that many of my coworkers and those I notice in society, either through media or social media, subscribe at least unconsciously to a "morality of convenience." Pope Benedict in his homily before the conclave upon his election to the Papacy in 2005 said (source: http://www.ewtn.com/pope/words/conclave_homily.asp),

How many winds of doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. The small boat of the thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves - flung from one extreme to another: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism and so forth. Every day new sects spring up, and what St Paul says about human deception and the trickery that strives to entice people into error (cf. Eph 4: 14) comes true. 

Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be "tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine", seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires.

 The Pope emeritus suggests that relativism is the most common go-to attitude among today's pluralistic society. It seems to be the only attitude that allows each viewpoint a "respectful space" to exist, to "COEXIST" rather, among other viewpoints.

I find, then, that working hand-in-hand with this attitude of relativism, and perhaps lending fuel to it, is the morality of convenience, a moral ethos established on, as Benedict said, "one's own ego and desires." A few examples may help draw out this morality of convenience at work in regular conversation:

1. A woman objects, "It's my body. I can do what I want with it!" Others reply, "Let the woman do what she wants!"

2. People retort, "What does the Church have to do with my private sex life?"

3. Others argue, "What's wrong with gay marriage? It won't harm me, and I don't see the harm that will come from it. I think others exaggerate when they say it will lead to the entire collapsing of our society."

4. COEXIST and TOLERANCE bumper stickers.

5. The oft-used dismissal: "Who are you to judge?" This dismissal is closely related to the other exclamation, usually said in a joking way, a phrase which I even used the other day, "Don't judge me!"

6. "Whatever floats your boat"; "Different strokes for different folks"; "That's good for you" (as opposed to, say, "That's good for you").

The examples can be multiplied. An intellectual argument is presented that can roughly be modeled as follows: my actions are as good as any other, so you cannot condemn them. Ultimately there is no "good." Those who are praised or condemned are treated as such either on the basis of what simply pleases or offends me. Desire and aversion become the framework by which moral action is judged.

And in fact, in this framework, moral action is reduced to something accidental to human life, not essential. We are no longer essentially moral beings with free will who work towards our proper flourishing. We are smart animals who try to get our way in a dog-eat-dog world, all the while paradoxically singing, "Live and let live." Yet we eat each other at any chance we get—a honk here, a flip of the bird there, an abortion here, a random stabbing there, etc.

We no longer have a direction but are like the crowd of swimmers in the tidal-wave pool, supported simply by our floatation devices, trying to stay above the waves that we create with our own machines.

We want to demand our rights and our absolute autonomy and exist as moral atoms.

There are so many contradictions in this viewpoint. An example that came to my mind is the cry of feminists who rail against patriarchal and sexist forces. These same feminists find nothing objectionable about a woman using her body to get what she wants, but the deliberate reduction of the body to an object is simply the same manipulation of a patriarchy but only in a different social sphere. Manipulation is manipulation, plain and simple. One cannot condemn the use of gender or sex-based power for one sex/gender and turn around and advocate it for the opposite sex/gender.

The morality of convenience is borne simply out of convenience, simply out of the most basic animal cognitive processes: the sorting of objects in an animal's awareness into either something 1) favorable, 2) unfavorable, or 3) neutral. All animals do this to the objects that come into their awareness. A morality of convenience simply is a more sophisticated version of this process, one that often makes use of sophistry to justify itself.

And this is why a morality of convenience goes hand in hand with the reduction of man from a moral being with a free will, the object of which ought to be the moral good, to a "smart animal," not much better than apes, self-determining and often acting like a baby or spoiled child.

The Cross is utterly antithetical to the morality of convenience.

How do we overcome the morality of convenience? It is simply the process of growing in holiness as all the Saints have taught. St. John of the Cross especially showed us its basic psychological element, which every spiritual theologian since then has reconfirmed and systematized:

1) We must detach ourselves from creaturely affections.
2) We must attach ourselves to the Divine.
3) Insofar as we detach ourselves from creaturely affections, we become free to reorient our psychological powers to the Divine and open a space in ourselves to be drawn by the Divine, for only by the grace of God can we desire God.

These three steps are a heuristic cycle; each step reinforces the other, and all lead eventually to that perfection of charity that is possible even here on earth.

In fact, St. John of the Cross's analysis is more relevant than ever, for what St. John of the Cross is telling us is the precise remedy to the morality of convenience. The morality of convenience has us pursue objects that please us and avoid or condemn those objects that repulse us. St. John of the Cross tells us to be indifferent to both—sights, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings, etc. What does it matter?

Obviously, some objects we ought to be attracted to—such as food when hungry or warmth when cold. Some objects we ought to be repelled by—such as behaviors or things that would probably or certainly entail our death or serious injury. Nevertheless, we ought to be indifferent to what Providence disposes for our experience; thus, if we get into a car accident (and weren't TRYING to get into one by some bizarre misapplication of St. John's teaching), we ought to be indifferent about such a matter and simply praise the will of God that has allowed such an event for our good.

How do we know what we are attached to? It is very easy—just look at what draws you. What do you find favorable? There is a psychological test for determining whether one is attached to something—can you live in the absence of that object for at least three months? This may seem rather strange, but consider—if a person gives up eating chocolate to test whether he is attached to it or not and never thinks about chocolate again (at least until it is accidentally brought to his attention by someone or something else), then it's clear that he isn't attached. But if a man gives up chocolate and finds, even if it's only several times a month, that he craves for it or "sneaks" some chocolate, then we know that he is attached. If his mind continuously fixates on chocolate, even to wonder, "Am I attached to it?" then we know that there is something off. After all, continuously pondering, "Am I attached to it," simply keeps it in mind. Well, if you're not attached to it, paradoxically, you just don't think about the object or the attachment.

As an aside, after I told some seminarians about St. John of the Cross's doctrine and this psychological test, one seminarian bitterly remarked, "Oh, so does that mean if I don't eat carrots for three months, then I'll know that I'm not attached to them?" (Subtext: "This is bullsh**"). The reply would be—yes, if you can continue on with your life without any concern for carrots for three months, then you'll know for sure that you have no attachment to carrots.

Now, having identified what you find favorable and unfavorable, remove yourself from favorable objects and accept unfavorable ones indifferently or even as if it were favorable.

But what about objects that are necessary for life that we may be attached to? Then you'll need to modify the behavior and bring it under a control; this is the place of virtue. For example, an attachment to sleeping—then set boundaries for the sleep and follow them strictly until they become easy, and you are indifferent to whether you get a chance to indulge in sleep or not. (This example may not be the best since most people are sleep deprived and to take the time to fix that would require considerable effort and possibly be impossible to coordinate with one's work schedule...) For eating food, one can follow a diet or give up certain foods or eat only certain amounts at certain times, etc.

Through this process, we transcend our most basic cognitive-psychological process of acting on our desires and provide a space to act in moral freedom, in pursuit of the good.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux and Pope Benedict XVI on Desiring Eternal Life

“Nightlong in my little bed I sought him whom my soul loves.” It is a great good to seek God; in my opinion the soul knows no greater blessing. It is the first of its gifts and the final stage in its progress. It is inferior to none, and it yields place to none. What could be superior to it, when nothing has a higher place? What could claim a higher place, when it is the consummation of all things? What virtue can be attributed to anyone who does not seek God? What boundary can be set for anyone who does seek him? The psalmist says: `Seek his face always.' Nor, I think, will a soul cease to seek him even when it has found him. It is not with steps of the feet that God is sought but with the heart's desire; and when the soul happily finds him its desire is not quenched but kindled. Does the consummation of joy bring about the consuming of desire? Rather it is oil poured upon the flames. So it is. Joy will be fulfilled, but there will be no end to desire, and therefore no end to the search. Think, if you can, of this eagerness to see God as not caused by his absence, for he is always present; and think of the desire for God as without fear of failure, for grace is abundantly present.

Source: St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Commentary on the Song of Songs, trans. by Killian Walsh, Paths of Love Website, accessed October 31, 2013, http://www.pathsoflove.com/bernard/songofsongs/sermon84.html, Sermon 84.1.

“What do you ask of the Church?” Answer: “Faith”. “And what does faith give you?” “Eternal life”. According to this dialogue, the parents were seeking access to the faith for their child, communion with believers, because they saw in faith the key to “eternal life”. Today as in the past, this is what being baptized, becoming Christians, is all about: it is not just an act of socialization within the community, not simply a welcome into the Church. The parents expect more for the one to be baptized: they expect that faith, which includes the corporeal nature of the Church and her sacraments, will give life to their child—eternal life. Faith is the substance of hope. But then the question arises: do we really want this—to live eternally? Perhaps many people reject the faith today simply because they do not find the prospect of eternal life attractive. What they desire is not eternal life at all, but this present life, for which faith in eternal life seems something of an impediment. To continue living for ever —endlessly—appears more like a curse than a gift. Death, admittedly, one would wish to postpone for as long as possible. But to live always, without end—this, all things considered, can only be monotonous and ultimately unbearable. [...]

Obviously there is a contradiction in our attitude, which points to an inner contradiction in our very existence. On the one hand, we do not want to die; above all, those who love us do not want us to die. Yet on the other hand, neither do we want to continue living indefinitely, nor was the earth created with that in view. So what do we really want? Our paradoxical attitude gives rise to a deeper question: what in fact is “life”? And what does “eternity” really mean? There are moments when it suddenly seems clear to us: yes, this is what true “life” is—this is what it should be like. Besides, what we call “life” in our everyday language is not real “life” at all. Saint Augustine, in the extended letter on prayer which he addressed to Proba, a wealthy Roman widow and mother of three consuls, once wrote this: ultimately we want only one thing—”the blessed life”, the life which is simply life, simply “happiness”. In the final analysis, there is nothing else that we ask for in prayer. Our journey has no other goal—it is about this alone. But then Augustine also says: looking more closely, we have no idea what we ultimately desire, what we would really like. We do not know this reality at all; even in those moments when we think we can reach out and touch it, it eludes us. “We do not know what we should pray for as we ought,” he says, quoting Saint Paul (Rom 8:26). All we know is that it is not this. Yet in not knowing, we know that this reality must exist. [...]

This unknown “thing” is the true “hope” which drives us, and at the same time the fact that it is unknown is the cause of all forms of despair and also of all efforts, whether positive or destructive, directed towards worldly authenticity and human authenticity. The term “eternal life” is intended to give a name to this known “unknown”. Inevitably it is an inadequate term that creates confusion. “Eternal”, in fact, suggests to us the idea of something interminable, and this frightens us; “life” makes us think of the life that we know and love and do not want to lose, even though very often it brings more toil than satisfaction, so that while on the one hand we desire it, on the other hand we do not want it. To imagine ourselves outside the temporality that imprisons us and in some way to sense that eternity is not an unending succession of days in the calendar, but something more like the supreme moment of satisfaction, in which totality embraces us and we embrace totality—this we can only attempt. It would be like plunging into the ocean of infinite love, a moment in which time—the before and after—no longer exists. We can only attempt to grasp the idea that such a moment is life in the full sense, a plunging ever anew into the vastness of being, in which we are simply overwhelmed with joy. This is how Jesus expresses it in Saint John's Gospel: “I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” (16:22). We must think along these lines if we want to understand the object of Christian hope, to understand what it is that our faith, our being with Christ, leads us to expect.

Source: Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, Encyclical letter on Christian hope, Vatican Website, November 30, 2007, accessed October 31, 2013, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi_en.html, numbers 10-12.