Thursday, March 4, 2021
It’s Iimi! Problematic Assumptions (Part II)
Thursday, December 31, 2020
2020: A Year of Ignorance and Rash Judgment
(The image in this piece is of a statue of Lincoln being removed. The intent of the image is Lincoln raising a slave up from slavery. But it has been misinterpreted as a slave kneeling down in front of Lincoln. And that’s a good symbol for one of the major problems of 2020.)
Setting aside the obvious tragedy of COVID-19 as a separate category (so nobody will think I am equating any of the other things I write about in this piece with this), I think one of the biggest tragedies of 2020 is the level of ignorance and accompanying rash judgment. By this, I mean that people showed themselves to be ignorant about facts, intention, and context when they encountered things they disliked. They did not know the facts or context of the matter and, as a result, assumed the worst possible intention for their actions.
As always, I want to make clear that I do not point my fingers at one faction in this accusation. Nor am I saying it came out of nowhere. This was decades in the making. Some of it involved real injustices that were ignored. Other parts involved assuming that whatever one disliked was done with the worst possible motives and those who were accused of that assumed motive needed to be exiled. No attempt was made to understand how people might think differently in good faith, or how people in past eras might have failed to understand what we now know to be morally wrong.
I think the misrepresentation of the pontificate of Pope Francis was a harbinger of 2020. He recognized that even when people do wrong, that does not always mean they maliciously intend to do what they know is evil. As a result, he called for a proper assessment of the person’s knowledge and intention before condemning them. Tragically, people missed the point. They assumed (whether with approval or disapproval) that what he did was “changing” Church teaching, rashly judging his motives when all he was doing was making clear this teaching of the Church. Did he make errors in judgment based on this†? On occasion (the Barros case comes to mind). Did he make deliberate and malicious errors? I reject that claim.
But the treatment of Pope Francis from 2013 to the present served as a warning of what was wrong with our way of thinking. We assumed that we could not be in error, but those who took a different view could, and must be intending evil in holding that different view.
This is not to argue a moral relativism. There are objective moral demands, and some acts are intrinsically evil… things that cannot ever be supported or made good by intention or circumstances. And, yes, when it comes to intrinsic evil, we cannot “explain away” by saying that a past evil had a good intention. Once we come to understand that a thing is evil, we do have an obligation to correct our understanding. But one who is ignorant that a thing is evil might not have any malicious intention at all. Wrong is still done through that ignorance, but the guilt of the evil may be reduced.
Moreover, sometimes an accusation of malice is simply false when the person making it assumes that a moral evil is acceptable and whoever opposes it must be “intolerant.” For example, Christians are constantly accused of bigotry in the West because they insist on saying some actions are morally wrong. So, critics of Christianity in 2020 tend to do what they wrongly accuse Christians of doing—attempt to legally coerce Christians to abandon their moral beliefs—because they think the Christian view is morally wrong.
Some things must be opposed. Abortion, racism, and other injustices can never be given a pass because “other issues are more important.” But we can never just assume the worst possible intention on the part of those who commit them.
This is what 2020, with its cancel culture and other attempts to silence the opposition, has done. Regardless of what you, the reader, thinks of Biden or Trump (or any other factional divide), we have an obligation to assess what is true about a belief or the person who holds it, and making sure our judgment does not act out of ignorance or rashly assume the worst possible motive when we disagree with someone.
I pray 2021 will be better.
________________
(†) I do categorically reject the accusations that he made errors in teaching.
Tuesday, December 8, 2020
It’s Iimi! On Grave Matter and Other Things
Sunday, January 26, 2020
Ignorance and Arrogance: A Reflection
Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity. The same cannot be said for a man who cares but little for truth and goodness, or for a conscience which by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of habitual sin.
2477 Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury. He becomes guilty:
— of rash judgment who, even tacitly, assumes as true, without sufficient foundation, the moral fault of a neighbor;— of detraction who, without objectively valid reason, discloses another’s faults and failings to persons who did not know them;— of calumny who, by remarks contrary to the truth, harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them.
2478 To avoid rash judgment, everyone should be careful to interpret insofar as possible his neighbor’s thoughts, words, and deeds in a favorable way:
Every good Christian ought to be more ready to give a favorable interpretation to another’s statement than to condemn it. But if he cannot do so, let him ask how the other understands it. And if the latter understands it badly, let the former correct him with love. If that does not suffice, let the Christian try all suitable ways to bring the other to a correct interpretation so that he may be saved.
Sunday, September 1, 2019
False Meaning From a Failure to Understand
There is, moreover, another false worship. This is the greatest idolatry that we have practiced up until now, and it is still rampant in the world. All the religious orders are founded upon it. This kind of worship involves only the kind of conscience that seeks help, comfort, and salvation in its own works and presumes to wrest heaven from God. (The Annotated Luther, vol. 2, page 303)
Saturday, June 8, 2019
An Ignorant Wrath
Friday, January 25, 2019
A Little Knowledge is Dangerous
A person who procures a completed abortion incurs a latae sententiae [automatic] excommunication.
Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.
According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which they possess, they have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful, without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons.
Monday, October 29, 2018
Not Knowing We Don’t Know
Tuesday, September 4, 2018
Fault Lines in Finding Fault
In geology, fault lines are where tectonic plates grind past each other. Sometimes they stick for awhile. When they finally slip, the result is an earthquake [§]. I find fault lines a good metaphor for the current strife in the Church. People pushing it in the direction they think best cause friction and conflict and, when a major scandal comes, this friction turns into a major jolt. While we can’t predict where slips—or scandals—will occur, the visible fault lines give us a sense on the general region the earthquake will be centered in.
To do this, we need to catch ourselves when we think “There’s no good reason the Pope (or Vigano) would do this! He must be lying!” There can be a good reason that exonerates. Or there can be an earnest mistake that reduces or eliminates culpability. We need to be aware of the possibility and consider how the one we think wrong might have reached the conclusion sincerely.
Friday, December 26, 2014
TFTD: They Revile What They Do Not Understand
But these people revile what they do not understand and are destroyed by what they know by nature like irrational animals. (Jude 1:10)
A couple of days before Christmas, I was involved in a combox discussion on the issues over the satanic counter to the Nativity Scene in Florida. My own thesis was that the putting up a “religious” display with the intent of protesting religious displays was a self-contradiction. What struck me was a comment from one of the atheists. It was a tu quoque claim that the Bible was full of contradictions. Today, there seems to be a lot of atheists on Facebook and in the comboxes bashing Christianity over Neil deGrasse Tyson and his tweet in celebration of the December 25th birthday of Sir Isaac Newton (the actual tweet struck me as being more pathetic than offensive, apparently trying to imply Newton was more important than Christ).
Basically, the theme is that Christians are stupid for believing in God while blaming Christianity and religion in general for every crime in the history of humanity (denying the role of the atheistic ideology in the worst atrocities of the 20th century). These things are pretty tiresome, and fairly frustrating. The bashing is basically illogical and factually wrong. They would actually be easy to refute—if people took the time to listen and investigate whether what they say is true.
Ven. Fulton J. Sheen expressed things very well when he wrote:
“There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church—which is, of course, quite a different thing.” (Radio Replies vol. 1)
Ven. Archbishop Sheen makes a good point. The Catholic Church is not really hated for what she teaches, but for what people think she teaches, and when people run afoul of the Church teachings, we are told that these teachings were made out of hatred of women, of people with same sex attraction, of divorced people, the poor, the rich, sexuality etc., simply because we have a teaching on the morality of certain actions.
People don’t even ask what we teach, let alone why we teach it. People assume that the worst possible portrayals of the Church in history are true, never realizing that even in past centuries there were people with ideologies and axes to grind who had no problems denigrating the Church to build up their own agendas. Because they know nothing of Catholic teaching and history, but assume the Church is capable of the worst, they assume that the horror stories they hear must be true and done out of sheer malice—never mind facts and the context of the times.
Sometimes I wish people couldn’t post on a subject online unless they could demonstrate they understood what they were bashing.
But we shouldn’t expect that. Our Lord did warn us that we could expect hatred from the world if we sought to be faithful to Him:
18 “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you. 20 Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. 21 And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin; but as it is they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me also hates my Father. 24 If I had not done works among them that no one else ever did, they would not have sin; but as it is, they have seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But in order that the word written in their law might be fulfilled, ‘They hated me without cause.’ (John 15:18-25)
So we endure hatred and try to reach out to the person of good will who wants to learn the truth, praying for all of them.
Monday, September 3, 2012
TFTD: Damnant quod non intellegunt (They condemn what they do not understand)
Dammant quod non intelligunt – They condemn what they do not understand. These words of wisdom by Cicero are important to consider when witnessing the modern American political discourse. All too often we see rhetoric which condemns a position while that condemnation demonstrates no comprehension of what they oppose.
A couple of days ago, someone posted the following comment on Facebook.
"[A]ll of us need to put a stop to the 'Republican WAR ON WOMEN'. I can NOT, I am mean [sic] I can not understand why ANY woman would be a republican."
Which made me think of a comment made by GK Chesterton:
"It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.
—G.K. Chesterton in The Catholic Church and Conversion
I think this points out the dangers of the ideology being forced on us today. The people who cannot comprehend why we believe what we do respond by ad hominem attacks condemning those they disagree with.
GK Chesterton wrote once, in the article, The Drift from Domesticity:
In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."
This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious. There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools; but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease. But the truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served. But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion.
I think it is a valid point. I can understand why a Blue Collar Catholic or a Feminist might support the platform of the Democratic Party. I believe their reasoning is faulty and leads them to a wrong conclusion, but I do understand the point their reasoning comes from. I can also understand why certain Conservatives might be tempted by the Ayn Rand concept of Objectivism (a wrong turn in the concept of objective truth), even though I believe it is also wrong. It is by understanding what they do think, I can also understand where they go wrong.
But when someone who opposes the Republican platform says, "I can not understand why ANY woman would be a republican," shouldn't such a person step back and ponder the issue before condemning it? How do they know their knowledge contains all truth and no part of untruth?
Essentially this mindset argues that (to put it in a valid form):
- Everything I understand is true (All A is B)
- I do not understand [X] (No C is B)
- Therefore [X] is not true. (Therefore No C is A)
Even if the major premise is true (doubtful), that does not mean Everything that is true I understand (all [B] is [A]). There can be gaps in the knowledge, and if there are gaps, there can be things which are true and you do not understand. So it is foolish to think that because you do not see a reason a thing can be so, it follows that it cannot be so.
One can say, "I understand what they claim, but reject it as false." One can say, "I do not understand, and so I need to explore more." One can say, "I understand what is claimed and I accept it as true." These three responses can be wise. But to say, "I do not understand, so I think it is wrong" is not the act of wisdom, but the act of a fool.
This is one of the problems of modern thinking. Nobody seems to recognize Socrates' maxim, The unexamined life is not worth living (Plato, Apology 38a), which is a pity Responding to the question at his trial as to why he cannot just be quiet and stop teaching to save his life, he says:
Now this is the hardest thing to make some of you believe. For if I say that such conduct would be disobedience to the god and that therefore I cannot keep quiet, you will think I am jesting and will not believe me; [38a] and if again I say that to talk every day about virtue and the other things about which you hear me talking and examining myself and others is the greatest good to man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living, you will believe me still less.
Plato. (1966). Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 1 translated by Harold North Fowler; Introduction by W.R.M. Lamb. Medford, MA: Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd.
In other words, Socrates believed he was obligated to continue to examine himself and others as the greatest good to man, and the life which failed to do so was not worth living – not an endorsement of suicide but a commentary on the quality of life of the person who does not do so. All of us are called to search for the truth and to absorb it into our lives.
To refuse to accept truth and to refuse to reject error on the grounds of not understanding, is foolishness.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Brief Reflection on "Science Saved My Soul"
Someone on Facebook shared the video, Science Saved My Soul, the upshot being the video makes the claim that science saved his soul from religion. Watching the video and reading the transcript, I was struck by how bad it was. So what is wrong with it?
The man has minimal knowledge of religion and assumes it to be an enemy of science. He asks:
If God exists, God made this. Look at it. Face it. Accept it. Adjust to it, because this is the truth and it’s probably not going to change very much. This is how God works. God would probably want you to look at it. To learn about it. To try to understand it. But if you can’t look—if you won’t even try to understand—what does that say about your religion?
The funny thing is, many scientists were Catholics who believed that because God created the universe, the universe must be reasonable. The myth of Galileo aside, it was the Catholic Church who did the most to advance Astronomy (35 craters on the Moon are named for Jesuit astronomers). Cathedrals were built to function as observatories.
Consider that. Now consider the narrator's words:
Religions tell children they might go to hell and they must believe, while science tells children they came from the stars and presents reasoning they can believe. I’ve told plenty of young kids about stars and atoms and galaxies and the Big Bang and I have never seen fear in their eyes—only amazement and curiosity. They want more. Why do kids swim in it and adults drown in it?
Now consider that the founder of the theory which would become to be known as The Big Bang Theory was Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître – a Catholic priest from Belgium who was an astronomer and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Louvain. He founded it in 1927. He was the one who demonstrated the expansion of space was shown by the red shift of galaxies.
(Religious person – must be ignorant of Science according to the video)
The person who says Science and Religion are in conflict may know a great deal of Science – but he or she is demonstrating a profound lack of knowledge of religion.