IF SOMETHING YOU READ SEEMS OFF - INVESTIGATE!

Don’t take everything that you read at face value even if it appears in the newspaper and is authored by someone who we are told, “is a professor of history emeritus at Northwestern University” and “is the author of ‘Why I Am a Catholic.”  Intelligence, wisdom and understanding are all separate gifts and simply because someone has a “high education” does not mean that they have a grasp on all three of these gifts or that all of their arguments are altruistic.

Such is the case with the editorial in Monday’s Beacon Journal by Garry Wills.  Even if someone might agree with his conclusion, his path to it was a strained one at best.  There are so many problems with this article that one post would not be enough to point them all out.  At least for today two will be pointed out.

The first is an unneeded exaggeration to help make his point.  It is dishonest.  Remember when God said to Adam, “From that tree you shall not eat; for from the moment you eat from it, you are surely doomed to die.”  Gen 2:17.  Later, when speaking with Satan, Eve reports, “it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘you shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die!’"  This is an exaggeration of what God said and makes God appear less reasonable and maybe even a little vengeful.  So when Mr. Wills says that the Church says, “You can be gay so long as you don’t do anything about it,” one must ask the question if this is really what the Church (and as Catholics we would ask is that really what Christ) says?  What it does say is that one may not have a sexual relationship with someone who is not your opposite gender spouse.  Is there far more compassion and room for living in that than the rather sterile and cold, “you can’t do anything about it”?  If a person really believes in the truth of their argument, then they should not need to rely on exaggeration or slights in order to make it.  It should stand on its own.  This is the first sign that Mr. Wills is not exactly confident of his theological position.

The second big area of difficulty is his understanding and use of natural law (which he labels as a “quaint theory.”)  Again, if you need to make light of something in order to make your point, you’ve already begun to weaken your position.  

But here is where I am stuck.  I am not sure if Mr. Wills understands Natural Law so poorly that if he had a similar application in a term paper he might flunk the course, or if he understands it so brilliantly that he is attempting to misapply it so ingeniously in order to lead people astray.  He makes the misleading statement that, “the first biological use of an activity is the only permissible use of that activity.”  (Again, see the Eve problem above.)  This would mean then, that a married couple is not permitted to enjoy sexual relations, that they must only engage in it for procreative purposes.  This is “absurd” he says.  As proof, he says that if we truly follow Natural Law then eating should only be for fuel and we would no longer be able to eat wedding cake or drink champagne.  I would agree with him if this actually had anything to do with Natural Law or actual Church teaching.  Yet he uses this example to say, in essence, if you see that as absurd, then one could logically see the ban on sexual relations outside of traditional marriage as absurd.  But here, once again, he hurts his case.

A married couple can enjoy sex.  There is a broad spectrum of activities in which they may engage.  They may, so to speak, eat cake and drink champagne.  What they may not do is eat things that are not good for them.  We are not permitted by Natural Law to eat road tar for the same reason a person should not put sugar in the gas tank of their car.  Neither should a person eat far more than they need for sustenance (that is called gluttony.)  Except in cases of emergency, we should not try ingesting food through orifices that are not designed for the intake of nutrition.  This is Natural Law, not the banning of champagne toasts.  

Mr. Wills did have some good points not the least of which is the unhealthy keeping of secrets that should not be kept.  But his arguments are so poorly concocted as to do more harm to his point than good - at least for those who are will not to just accept whatever it is that they are reading but to think well for themselves.

IS THIS TITLE TRUE OR MERELY CLEVER?

I lost the reference for the following paragraph by it was from a magazine called, “The Sun” from an edition from this past year.  The author is going to make a statement.  After you read it, stop and think about it.  Do you agree with it or not and most importantly WHY? 

 

“The self is always moving.  It isn’t going to continue existing after you die.  The minute you buy into the idea that some part of you will hang around, you’ve removed yourself from this world of trees and clouds and birds.  And if you’re not in this flowing world of change, then you’re nowhere.”

 

Now stop, pray, and think.  Is this true?  If it is true or not true, why? 

 

Now that you have done that, here is one possible response:

 

The man who made this statement is a man of deep faith.  He bases his theory upon ideas that are no more “provable” than that of the Christian – I would argue even less so.  That nothing of us lives on is an assumed principle upon which the rest of his theory rests.  But even if we grant him this, does the rest of his hypothesis hold true?

 

If that to which he is referring is the Christian theology that is held by much of the Protestant world and that of some other religions that creation is bad and spirit is good, then he may have something.  Those who call the body evil (or at least opposed to that which is good) have to deny the body and focus on the spirit exclusively.  Mud is bad, angels are good.  Therefor the world is something to be used and discarded.  Its sole purpose is to steer us toward the spiritual.  Then it is true that we not ever really here and a part of creation.

 

But is the opposite true?  If nothing of us lives on does that ipso facto make us more here among the birds and the clouds?  If this is the case then there are no consequences for how we treat the nature other what than might recoil back on ourselves as the line goes, “Don’t pee in your own well.”  But when I die, I cease to exist.  Eventually there will be no one to remember me.  The Earth is a fluke that will one day also simply cease to be.  Humans will not even be a memory.  You might want to keep things nice “for the next guy” but in the end that would just because you want to not because there is any truth to the idea of “the good.”  Preservation is just as much a selfish act as abuse.  So why not suck as much life out of this earth as possible?  Throw another log on the fire, drink out of Styrofoam cup, and rev up the gas generator so that you can listen to some tunes on your radio.  If you are abusing anything, you are not really present to it either.

 

But what if, as in Catholic theology, everything that is is good.  God created all from nothing and he holds it in being.  Then everything to some extent participates in God.  The computer screen on which you are reading this is good.  The paper, ink, persons depicted, and form of a porn magazine are good.  What man did with those things is bad.  (Hence the true perversion of sin!)  If the world is good, if there will be an accounting of how we handled the world (as there was with Adam and the garden,) then won’t we appreciate more, be better to, be more aware of, and be more present to the trees, the clouds, and the birds?

 

I had a skateboard once that I used on the parking lot across the street from my house.  I would skate down the hill and then kick the board back up.  My Mom stopped me one day to explain how expensive that toy was and how I was expected to take better care of it.  Knowing that my actions would be seen, and being taught about the value of my board, I was much more present to it.

RANT - COUNTER RANT: WHY WE STILL NEED TO THINK

It is time to return to the ancient craft of thinking.  We have handed over so much of our thinking to remembering devices and calculating devices, and instead of freeing up our brains for more lofty endeavors, have mindlessly given over that time to other devices that whittle away life for us while we put thinking on hold aside from wondering who might get kicked off of the island next.

 

As a counter to this a book was recently suggested to me: Peter Kreeft’s, “Socratic Logic; A Logic Text Using Socratic Method, Platonic Questions, and Aristotelian Principles.”

 

There’s a winning title.

 

And I will admit, as admirably as Mr. Kreeft tries to make it a fun exercise, it is a lot of work learning how to think.  But the pay offs are magnificent.  Like learning another language, if you can put up with the long fuse, the boom at the end is well worth it.

 

I would love have a course like this taught in our parish school and even open it up to the rest of the parish.  (We shall see.)  This is for two reasons: first, it would prevent people from embarrassing themselves writing mindless drivel as Mr. Richard Kunkel did in his letter to the editor in the Akron Beacon Journal on Wednesday, August 14^th concerning abortion, and second, it would help students to see mindless drivel when it appears before them.

 

There is so much to write about in this letter I doubt I can do it in one post but here are some high – er – lowlights.  After stating that a recent letter to the editor really made him think, he wrote, “Suppose Honda had a bad model, and it was recalled.  Should we make a law forcing Honda to close?  Or how about a law that would close every automaker in the state?”  Is this a fair comparison?

 

To begin with, Honda does not design anything that is intended to kill anybody.  Their products are supposed to be convenient and safe.  Therefore, if something goes wrong, we make them fix their product and make them safe once again.  Abortion is not designed to keep a person safe but to kill them.  If we don’t want people killed, then yes, we do shut them down.

 

Further, the product that Honda makes does not affect the morality of a nation, the family structure, religious freedom, or health care.  It is a false example.  A better one would be independent brain surgery clinics (if such a thing existed.)  If they were in violation should we keep letting them perform brain surgeries and work with them in eventually coming around to being a safer clinic?  No.  I would say stop all surgeries now.

 

Mr. Kunkel also states that the only problem here is that one group doesn’t want abortion so therefore it should be legal.  Really?  There are (essentially) three groups out there: those who want abortion, those who don’t, and those somewhere in between.  In a democracy such as ours that is always the case and we vote to see what we should do.  For example, there are a great number of people out there who enjoy smoking.  There are those who think it should not be done in public, and the somewhere in between group.  I could use his same argument to say that only one group wants there to be no smoking in our country – therefore the rest of us should be able to smoke next to him at his favorite restaurant.  Bet he doesn’t buy it.  (All of a sudden his call for tolerance disappears.)

 

Ah!  See?  I’m already going too long.  But I can’t stop.  “If you don’t want abortion, don’t have one,” is another tired and silly diatribe.  He likens it to, “If you don’t like alcohol, don’t drink,” as if it were an equal case.  How about this better one: If you don’t like racial prejudice, don’t use racial slurs, but don’t trample on the rights of those who want to use them or burn crosses on public property as long as they have a permit.  But that hardly solves the problem.  (And really, there is only one group that wants us to get rid of racial inequality – right???)

And he calls this a “war on women.”  Switching the conversation to women’s health and rights is a clever way of covering over what is at the center of this debate: another innocent human being.  It is a war on humanity and the rights of the weakest and least politically connected among us.  And as we become a nation that takes the throwing away of human life more and more easily, we become less human, appreciate all human life less, and take another step backward in the advancement of human dignity, worth, and love.

 

Last point and then I will try to stop.  Mr. Kunkel states that we should be able to do whatever is legal and not be unfettered “by my or anyone else’s dislike.”  The tyranny of tolerance.  Of course what I want to do may be in direct contradiction to what you want to do.  Who gets to win?  My Aunt had a neighbor who put in a chimney that met code but only caused smoke to be trapped between the houses and forcing smoke into her house, leaving an odor and making a mess.  Yet it was legal.  Was the neighbor therefore morally in the right because the city said they had their hands tied because he was up to code? 

 

And once again (I know, I said I would stop) we forget the idea that there is a human person in the womb.  He was a human person at conception, as he develops he is a human person, and he will only ever be a human person as he develops.  He struggles for life and will be born and grow if we let him.  I would say these are signs of what this human person wants.  But we silence him so that he does not have a say and we can do away with him without giving him any real consideration.  It is legal after all and therefore must be morally right and good for us as a nation.  Right?