Poted 7/24/08

In some of the posts to the board recently responding to topics related to Human Vitae, there has been a good deal of stress on the notion that we as individuals or as a church can attain certitude, or what is also called ‘certain knowledge', about various spiritual and religious matters. When we look to the history of religion and spirituality, we find that thinkers like Sts. Augustine and Aquinas do not stress certitude. It is not stressed by the prophets either. For example, Jesus does not stress that he is right intellectually about various claims concerning ultimates. I believe that much of discussion about religious orthodoxy today is affected heavily by confusions embedded in modern philosophy, and I take almost all stress on doctrine and public discussion of the "truths of the faith" to be reflections in part of a particularly problematic moral assumption, not that we can attain certitude or knowledge of the claims of the faith, but rather that we ought to do this. While both are denied by all great thinkers, it is the latter that is more problematic for us as individuals who seek to come into a deeper relationship with our true selves, other specific individuals, and God.
Rather than claiming that we can know this or that truth about ultimate reality, which some back up by referring to church doctrines, I would like to suggest that we focus on our inner orientation - on what is going on subjectively within us, and that for a moment we let go of focusing heavily on truth as an object, e.g. the truth as articulated by this or that doctrinal claim. That is, I propose that we focus on our subjectivity, ‘subjectivity' understood as depth psychology and as spiritual thinkers conceive it, rather than in contrast to "objective reality" or "truth" along Cartesian, post-Enlightenment lines. My point in arguing that we not stress doctrinal claims is on just that - not stressing them. It is not to say that they are not true. Part of the problem here is that the meaning of "true" is ambiguous, and usually implies for us a modern concept of truth as relating to reality external

Posted 6/3/08 - I don't usually post where I discuss my own experience, but I am doing so here.

I found a great discussion on the meaning behind the concept of penance in Thomas' Green's book "Opening to God", in the chapter titled "The Active Purification of the Soul". When he made the point that we don't take the concept or practice seriously today, it got me thinking about how various practices might count as penance as he explained it. At one point he quotes Jesus referring to the need to "pray and fast" (Mark 9:29). The next day at Mass, the reading was from this same verse! I took these two events - the discussion of penance and fasting - as a kind of comfirmation that I might reflect on how I could "fast" as a form of penance. (I was exposed to the concept of "confirmation" when very involved in the Charismatic movement when I was a teenager in the 1970s) Oddly, around the same time I had decided I was gaining weight and needed to take it more seriously. Perhaps at some level I was thinking that some form of fasting might also be a spiritual practice - penance - but my initial sense that I was gaining weight only made me think: I've got to lose some weight.

Green describes penance as fundamentally an imposition of the will and reason over desire and instinct. So from what I understand, "penance" then is a way of acting where I "heel" my ego and desires - to take a term from dog-training - by being highly disciplined in changing my behavior, even when I really, really don't want to - or even when I really, really want to do this other thing. Like eat cookies and ice cream at around 9 every night. I had just taken a liking to these fudge covered cookies! Green points out that penance is never an end in itself - as those heavily influenced by Calvinism

and Jansenism tend to treat it - (One example that comes to mind of such treatment of penance is the albino in "The Davinci Code" - his self-flagellation seems to fall into this category, and I would argue is in fact a form of masochism.) Anyway, I don't remember the order of thought, but I'm pretty sure my dislike of gaining weight motivated me to do a "juice fast" for a while. I' started a week ago - and have been basically eating only one moderate meal a day, while making juice from my juicer the rest of the day. While I sensed intuitively at some level that maybe there is a connection between controlling desires, e.g. doing a juice fast and not eating at night in partiuclar, and self-emptying, on the other, my main motive was to lose weight simply. I did not start a fast for spiritual reasons. This would never have entered my mind.

My point here: My intention in doing this partial fast was initially to only lose weight. I had a typically physical goal and would never have thought to relate this to any spiritual practice. The whole idea of fasting as a spiritual practice would never have entered my mind! But what I have been amazed to experience in addition to losing weight is, precisely, a spiritual effect. I won't take the space to try to articulate this experience here - for my only purpose is to point out that there seems to be something real behind the practice. The spiritual effect feels just like what writers talk about as "kenosis" or "becoming empty". What amazes me here is that we in the west and the US in particular are not in touch with this concept and real experience - which various writers from the tradition in both the east and west seem to suggest is a - or perhaps they - central feature of the practice. I'm wondering if "kenosis" is the core of spirituality.

Regarding the ultimate form of "kenosis" for Christians - could it be Jesus' attitude and embrace OF the suffering at the hands of those who would try to gain what they really really want with force and violence? Is a core "meaning" in Christianity precisely this "overcoming" of what ends up being misguided self-will and ego (of the powers that be - whether externally in the form of the society around Jesus - but also and ultimately more to the point - within each of us as our "desire" and "willfullness" - in the form of what we might call our "little addictions" - e.g. coffee in the morning?)

Thie above is not my area academically - though I've read about it here and there . If anyone has any remarks, I'd like to hear them. But my main reason for sharing this was because we do not talk about "penance" in the way Green does in his book, and that I believe I've experienced a bit of this last week. I wanted to make this more concrete by describing the experience.

Finally - in doing some searching around for "kenosis" on line, I found an excellent web site - It has an overview of Christian spirituality. The focus is on "practice" and lived experience, as contrasted with "theory". There are remarks about the Course Instructor on one of the links.

Web site with course on Christian spirituality

Original post which prompted my response: Well I figure its about time to introduce myself. My name is x. I was on the december retreat. I'm currently a freshman in college, and do some part time grounds keeping and maintanence work for my local parish. I've of late found it next to impossible to maintain the level of focus I had before and during the discernment retreat. School, work, and debts have slowly whittled away at any peace of mind I'd managed to achieve. I would ask for your prayers, please know you all remain in mine. God's blessings, X.

My response: Hi X, Welcome to the e-group! I wanted to comment on something you said in your introduction. I'll paste it here: "I've of late found it next to impossible to maintain the level of focus I had before and during the discernment retreat. School, work, and debts have slowly whittled away at any peace of mind I'd managed to achieve."   I've noticed over time as I've tried to become more spiritually disciplined that my sense of identity as based on this or that sensibility I may have on any given day seems to change very easily, too easily. So for example I may have a strong inclination or feeling about myself, God and the world on one day and three days later it seems to have gone up in smoke. What this seems to tell me is not necessarily that I am not disciplined enough, but that my understanding of the locus or basis of who I am may be something that is philosophically and theologically questionable, in the deepest sense. (I think of an opening line in the Matrix: "If you take the blue pill, you wake up tomorrow and everything stays just as it was. If you take the red pill you stay in wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes ". When I seek to deepen my relation of myself to the Highest Good - or God - myself and others, and if I stay with this seeking in openess to truth, I might find

To those open to giving such here, I'm asking here for any feedback regarding some of my thinking and feeling about becoming a Jesuit. Perhaps you will also get something out of what I ask. The remarks are somewhat long! You can also email me at "terencehoyt@yahoo.com". I have been thinking about becoming a Jesuit for a few years now. I'm older - 46 - and know I don't have much longer to decide. I have wondered somewhat why I have been hesitating, and am not sure whether a) this is due to concerns about issues that are reasonable in light of my personality and other particular circumstances; b) an indication that I really don't have a calling or c) due to a personality trait to tend to make things more complicated than they might be. I thought it might help me if I posted my "pros" and "cons" for becoming a Jesuit, and see what you guys think of my "cons" as well as the balance between the pros and cons. It does look like there is a balance, but for example, is any particular "con" so significant that it outweighs the pros taken together? Finally, I am having some trouble discerning whether (a) or (c) is dominating. I first give reasons I have thought of for why I would like to be a Jesuit.

Pros:
1) Committing my life to God. For me this is not an abstract ideal. I have felt like God has been "with me" since I was an early teen. I feel a strong desire to "give back".

2) I am very comfortable with the charism of teaching/educating the whole person and service to others. I teach philosophy at Loyola now, and I aim to do this with my students. I very much value the keen intellects of Jesuits, and my personality fits perfectly with this aspect of the community. I hope I'll be able to teach in my capacity as a Jesuit, although I am aware of the fact that the Holy Spirit might show me new capacities/abilities I have that I was not aware of or open to beforehand.

3) I very much value the strong emphasis among Jesuits on balance. The book "Contemplatives in Action" nicely lays out several tensions that Jesuits live with. In contrast to the larger society, which tends to go in for extremes, Jesuits in my view have a good understanding that the pre-modern stress on moderation is key to the good life. I strongly believe that for me at least, this stress on moderation and being "even keel" or centered is a key to my living well. Again, this may sound abstract, but it is not at all, as our "mode" of living pervades and informs everything else in our life.

4) Related to three: Contrary to the popular perception of devoting one's life to God, in which the person is seen as completely subordinating their self-hood to some "abstract" ideal which "has nothing to do with ‘real life'", I have found Jesuits to be generally more sensitive to the real, true needs and desires of the individual - and very importantly to me, this includes taking care of themselves. In short, I have sensed that they take very seriously the overall well being of their members. This includes being selfish in a healthy sense. This cannot be said of the larger society, which tends to oscillate back and forth between the appearance of what I call "niceness" on the one hand and a kind of Hobbesian ethic that individuals not only are but for the most part should be motivated by self-interest in the narrow sense of the term - e.g. economic and security needs, on the other.

5) As noted above: I love teaching and hope this would be what I do as a Jesuit.

6) I have been on many short and some longer retreats, and have found that I truly love the time to be contemplative. While I do not have a desire to live as a monk, silent or not, I do feel very much "at home" in these settings.

7) While I very much like spending time one on one, I tend to not be terribly ground oriented, and am very comfortable with the relative stress among Jesuits on community vs. individual. Relative to other orders, there is more room in the Jesuits to be alone when one wants to.

Cons:
1) I somewhat fear giving up my independence and my external freedom. (I say "external" to contrast it with the ideal of internal, or spiritual freedom, distinct from what Americans think of as ‘freedom'.) Granted awareness of this distinction, I still value the former as well.

2) I have a strong streak in me of a kind of romantic individualism, perhaps partly from growing up in the 70's. At the same time, I see as I get older that this individualism has not gotten me what I truly want. It has not made me truly happy, and I think of Kierkeggard who speaks of the Esthetic stage as living from one esthetic pleasure to the next. This negative points dialectically for me at a gut level to#1 in the pro section above.

3) Although I get along with everyone for the most part and am group minded, I am a bit concerned that in my heart of hearts I am too much of an "individualist" to fit into a community. I am told that this is particularly relevant for those who join when they are older.

4) This is perhaps the most important: In the last few years, concomitant to my thinking about becoming a Jesuit, I have become less attracted to what I see as the Platonic side of Catholicism, e.g. the rituals and stress on objective presence, etc. One mentor of mine has said that Platonism has been the historical "temptation of Christianity", and I have come to think I agree. By "Platonism" we mean the notion that "essence" is somehow separate from and apart from our day to day living; that it is 100% transcendent. I have found that for my own life, when I focus heavily on such abstraction it has been harmful and not good for me spiritually. I have come to trust these intuitions. I realize that these rituals are an essential part of carrying on the message through time, but I feel that something is happening in the late 20th century that is pointing us towards a more experiential understanding of God and the Spirit in our concerete living, and that stress on ritual and doctrine prevents this experiential way of relating to God and others from "showing up" . I also believe that such stress is a way for the culture to avoid its truest nature through which and in which God reveals himself. (Heidegger)  Having gone on a bit here: What this means concretely is that I am more motivated by what I envision Jesuits to be doing most of their time. I am not terribly attracted by the notion of being a priest as one who performs the rituals. Of course I realize that I will have to perform priestly functions at times. I guess it comes down to how much stress is placed on this aspect of being a Jesuit. I am not talking about being a priest in principle, which I don't have a problem with, but the actual time spent doing these functions. Having said this, I can envision the possibility that I could come to give good homilies for example, and I believe I would be good at conveying the experiential understanding of God well - e.g. convey the sense that God is right here now and not a Platonic "fixed essence" symbolized as an old man with a white beard sitting perfectly still in the sky. Right now, though, at a gut level, I don't see myself as having an impact on people in the capacity as a priest. Perhaps this is something one grows into. I think this is one of the more important issues here.

5) The issue of obedience. At a gut level, this issue makes me nervous. However, I do feel that God has sent me "messages" in the last few years to give me a better understanding of what this ideal is about. For example, I read a small chapter in Ester de Waals book "Seeking God" called "Listening" in which she explains that the root meaning of‘obedience' is ‘hearing'. This gave me a whole new way to think about the concept. My problem is that obedience must show up in a human institution, and like most Americans, I am concerned about how this plays out concretely. At the same time, I do have confidence that the Jesuits as an order have a strong enough spiritual practice and tradition to prevent the merely human from dominating the process of determining how each Jesuit lives and what roles they take throughout their lives. I also have felt that God has been telling me that for me obedience would be good spiritually, and that I am called to discipline myself to not dwell on the issue I brought up above.

6) Free time: I won't have the free time to see my friends and family as I do now. This makes me feel sad when I think about it. My sense right now is that I'm not supposed to ignore that.

Thanks for any feedback on any of these remarks guys. I'll be going to the November retreat and hope to see some of you there.   Terry Hoyt

Always wary of being exhibitionist, but wanting to shed light... You may think it’s all a coincidence.

About four years ago I began to have a the same dream intermittently. The dream varied in form, but was substantially the same. I am thinking that I won’t have this dream any more. It was like this: I’m in a wooden structure that is somewhat flimsy. It is always wood and that is an explicit part of the dream. It is raining outside – not real hard, but a constant rain. The wind is fairly strong, but not too strong. It is always nighttime. The key image is water running under the structure and everything is wet – not just damp but wet. The sensation or feeling is of chaos and dirtiness. There are cracks in the floor big enough to see under the structure, and it always seems like looking into a shallow very dirty chaotic stream with fast running water. The water is never so deep that I can’t touch the bottom, and in fact is quite shallow. The immediate sensation is that the structure will collapse and I will fall into the water. But I never experience this feeling as identical with a fear of drowning. I experience it as a loss of control. The final part of the imagery is that the structure slowly decays and loses its physical integrity. But at that point I am not in the structure.

For a couple of years I’ve thought that I needed to practice some particular daily spiritual discipline involving a set amount of time. About two months ago I decided to get more concrete and pray and meditate for 10 minutes each morning and the same each night. I never just open the bible randomly, tending to see that practice as bordering on magical thinking, but decided to do so one day. I stress that I had rarely done this, and can’t remember the last time I did. The following passage was what I saw right away. This is from 2 Corinthians 12. Text: And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong. 11

Prior to the last episode of 6 Feet Under, HBO had a show about the series. I found the show meaningful as it portrayed the meaning of life by contrasting it to death. The show about the show was titled “Letting Go”. This particular theme of “letting go” for some reason got me quite intense emotionally. In the next hour the final episode finished by showing the deaths of all the primary characters. The visual imagery – showing them get older and how each of them died was very powerful. Artistically, from the moment the imagery of their lives moved into the future, the characters were portrayed as peaceful and serene, in short they displayed acceptance. The contrast to their lives in “real time” was an important to the overall effect.

In a discussion group I am involved in, on the Tuesday before we left New Orleans, I moderated. The theme I talked about was surrender to and acceptance of God's will.

On Friday the day before we had to leave, five of us were watching a film in my apartment. We were not yet sure we would have to leave the next day. The film we watched was called “Magnolia”, from 1999. There is a explicit biblical reference at the end of the film to Exodus 25. “And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneadingtroughs: 4 And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants. 5 And the LORD spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch forth thine hand with thy rod over the streams, over the rivers, and over the ponds, and cause frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt. 6 And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt. 7 And the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt. 8 Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Intreat the LORD, that he may take away the frogs from me, and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the LORD. 9 “

The timing of all this seems to point to something beyond mere coincidence. For me it "feels like" a confirmation of my sense/intuition/faith that God is here, always. At the time of this writing, soon after I experienced losing the New Orleans I had come to see as home, this is very much a part of my gut sense,

Last week, I found an article in Commonweal Magazine critiqing Rick Warren's "The Purpose Driven Life". URL here: http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/article.php3?id_article=1530 The book had bothered me for a long time as I suspected it was 80% Americanism and 20% Christian. I got into a discussion of the issues brought up in the Commentary article with a friend. I wanted to share the last interaction I had with this friend. There are a fair number of typos. My initial claim was that if money is heavily involved with a "religion" then it is not seriously a part of the tradition. The first remark is his reponse to this claim.

Friend: As a non-adherent, I expect to see profit-motive (or profitable results) associated with any organized religion. A successful organization perpetuates itself in part through husbanding its financial resources. Conversely, an organization without resources will never show up on our radar screen. The hermit who retires from the world takes his truth with him.

Me:There is an easy but somewhat subtle distinction to be made that many nowadays do not make. My style may sound pedantic or even a bit patronizing - but here goes: I find that even very thoughtful people don't make this distinction and I think it has something to do with the prevalence of the fact-value distinction (You might do a search on that. - here's one I got by typing "Strauss fact value distinction" in google) http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=strauss+fact+value+distinction)But in case I sound ideological by bringing up Strauss - one doesn't have to know Strauss of the fact-value "controversy" to have a gut sense for the issue here.The things you referred to in religious institutions relate to what they DO DO - or that is , you described their behavior. And you did use the term "sociological". I need to get at the issue in a few ways... Here's how I would put it in my own more personal way: A key element in any true tradition/religion has three elements. If any one of these is missing, it is not a true spirituality or religion: The elements regard the subject, the object and the way the object is conceived. (Kant is influencing me here somewhat) 1) There must be an intention on the part of the subject to seek the good. I'm thinking of Plato here and adding a notion that the inner intention is significant. We can see that the intention to seek the good is paramount when we notice in Plato and the Greeks that we never actually gain knowledge of that object. Experientially/phenomenologically/existentiallly, what matters is the serious intent to relate my being to the Good. (Plato)2) The object must be conceived as transcendent. Obvious examples are God and heaven. This conception regards both space and time. If I conceive God as in space and time, which would make him fit the categories of the understanding (Kant) this excludes my conception of God from being within the bounds of the tradition. If I conceive that Heaven is going to happen at some point in the future - whether definite or not - I "immanentize the eschaton" (Voegelin) and exclude my conception of the Object of my seeking from the tradition. Voegelin argues that there has been great pressure in Western civ. to conceive the Highest Good as IN TIME, with Hegel's Absoulte Spirit in the form of the State the highest example. 3) The ethical RELATION between the subject and object is the paramount reality in a true spirituality, and not anything which is merely an object of description. This relation includes 1 and 2 above, but the key element is an inner intention based on an "intuition" of a transcendent object. Christianity has a cool way of "combining" the transcendent with the immanent - e.g. God is immanent and transcendent - without destroying either side of the tension. Pantheism, for example, destroys one side of the tension, placing God fully in space and time, or nature. So you may be abstractly DESCRIBING a sociological phenomenon, but this is not the self-understanding of any tradition. No tradition would explain ITSELF by saying what you said below. While one task of a thinker is to understand and EXPLAIN reality, the influence of Descartes and much modern philospohy on us moderns has been to bring the thinker to think that his proper goal is to GET OUTSIDE the context and explain it, or merely KNOW it. The tension between action and thinking can also be the tension between living WELL and DOING THEORY. In short, what I am saying is that we're taking two DISTINCT approachs to the subject we're trying to talk about. What else might I say to try to clarify my point(s) here: Any adequate account of religion or spirituality must include an INTENTION TOWARDS THE GOOD. The reference to wealth doesn't do this - and again, if someone is MOTIVATED to make money and saying that this is COEQUAL with spirituality in the way I discussed above - again, I would just say that no prophet or religious figure would explain THEIR OWN ACTIONS that way. (Think of the image of Jesus in the temple throwing out the money changers.)Anyway - here's your relevant remark s

Friend: The Vatican collected gold. L. Ron Hubbard established Scientology after confiding to a friend that the way for a man to get rich is to found a religion. David Koresh summoned the wrath of the Federal government for cashing too many bad checks. The Catholic Church has been successful, the Church of Scientology less so, and the Branch Davidians were wiped out. ME: You're also pointing implicitly to the distinction, again, betwween the good man and the good citizen. So the church may have been a good citizen - if that - on this basis - but it is not a good man - and the latter is the interest of true spirituality - not the good citizen, let alone getting mine. FRIEND: Wealth, around the world, has been a sign of God's favor. It doesn't matter what God's name is - if you're rich, then obviously S/He favors you. The author of P-DL claims success and wealth because, obviously, it is God's Will. ME: Again, no real prophet would say this. Jesus says the opposite - saying to sell everything. I dont really think the point is the EXTERNALS - e.g. no one is saying wealth is bad or poverty good IN ITSELF - but rather , in short terms - the issue of ATTACHMENT seems to be core here. FRIEND: And if God "told the author" to give up all his money tomorrow, no doubt he would do it.

Me: I seriously doubt whether a writer who seems so heavily invested in Americanism as a moral ideal would be able to imagine God telling him to do this. Having said that, I have not read that book - only ABOUT it - and the first name "RICK" screams "Marketing". (You can invite him to your barbecue since he has a one syllable first name.) I would say here that if you are taking the stance of a non-adherent, then you may not

Friend: As a non-adherent, ALL such claims sound as preposterous and pretentious as that of the author's. I think this is where our quibble lies. You seem to think that SOME or ONE such claim of the right to disseminate the Word of God is valid, while the others are not, and that some can rightly claim "spirituality," while others try and fail.

Me: Here I would repeat my remarks about looking a the way the prophet/relgious person UNDERSTANDS THEMSELVES. Not how they understand "the world" or "metaphysics" or "reality". I say this because Descartes influences us to dualism - thinking that the virtue of the thinker is to ACCURATELY DESCRIBE EXTERNAL REALITY - or in this case to ask: Is the understanding of REALITY of the prophet or religious TRUE. This is not the right question I would suggest. External reality is not the issue in spirituality/religion. Most critiques of religion by thoughtful people are in their own way saying precisely this - they are suggesting that dominant religions are doing metaphysics - e.g. DESCRIBING the real and claiming knowledge of it. Liberal types often critique this. And rightly so. But what I find in academia - again I think because of Descartes - is a tendenncy to not take seriously the kinds of thinks I talked about above - e.g. the need to pay attention to the SELF UNDERSTANDING of the prophet.

Me : Heavily stressing well being in the hear and now and seeing it as a sign of Gods favor is not spiritual simply because instead of leading to detachment, it increases attachment - in this case to one's subjective view of God. As the commentary writer put it, it leads to an idolatrous view of God. But because it is not at first sight evident how there can be such a thing as an "idolatrous view of God", the one who is motivated as such will tend not to remain closed to the possibility of seeing the problem in the view.

Friend: Yes, I agree. But I don't think the followers of the P-DL doctrine would agree. They say, "Let Go, Let God." They claim to devote every part of their lives to His Glory, and to exercise submission to His Will. Reminds one of a good Muslim.

Me: I may be assuming I can know too much or making too strong a claim about the inner motives of the followers of PDL - Im very influencled by Kant here - who really stresses that if I "sensify" an object, it becomes of interest only in a psycholgical sense - e.g. it tells me more about my EGO than it EDIFIES MY RELATION TO THE GOOD. Kant is worried about the effects on the SUBJECT of what we might call "psychological idolization of an object" - in his case God or Jesus. This is a typical Protestant worry. FRIEND: And it sounds to me like a unself-conscious, (spiritually) egotistical person, one who erects a "subjective view of God."

Me: Yes.

I've been very interested in the issue of immigration for a long time. It seems to be showing up again as an issue. I wrote this as a way of trying to bring some clarity to the issue. I believe there is a lot of moral confusion across the political spectrum on the matter, one which tends to make us osscilate between unapplicable moral abstractions and mean spiritedness. Immigration is heating up again as a national issue. What stance is the right one to take on immigration? What criteria are to be used in thinking about national policy on this issue? We need to beware of the default positions across the political spectrum which tend to mix moral language with modern political foundations. I have been arguing that this tendency - to mix the language of positive morality and justice with modern political ideals - shows a misunderstanding of modern political foundations, and importantly the foundation of the US itself.

The paradoxical result of an attempt to base national policies - whether domestic or foreign - on appeals to morality is a decline in the moral and spiritual well being of American civilization generally to the deteriment of all. The reasons why it does not seem to be conducive to goodness to try to base national policy on positive moral visions are a mystery, but perhaps ultimately this is because God wants each of us to focus on our own backyard, so to speak. When we attempt to apply morality to such a large category as national policy, we end up too easily failing to pay attention to what matters most: my relation to myself, God and other particular people in my life. But back to the issue of immigration.... The issue is not whether or not to allow immigration, but what is a reasonable amount each year. A weakness of modern thought, one which shows up on both the left and right of center, is that we have trouble talking about moral issues when the issue is not black and white. In other words, we have trouble saying why, for example, 1 million immigrants a year is bad for the United States and why 500,000 is reasonable, or beneficial to the well being of American citizens. The rate of immigration over the last ten or more years has bordered on extreme and is bad for the United States, but our thinkers and leaders across the board are not able to articulate this in any coherent fahsion. We end up being left with a policy influenced on the left by essessively abstract moralising and on the right by both abstract moralising as well as the economic interests of businesses to get the labor it needs at low cost. The extremes on both sides tend to both put pressure on letting immigration increase. This is at the expense of the well being of American civilization and concrete American citizens. My purpose here is not to say why high immigration is bad, but to try simply to discuss how to arrive at criteria for choosing what level of immigration is good for Americans. We can at least say this: If our immigration policy is determined by the argument on the left that "all men are created equal" and "all deserve a chance", this approach is understood by the larger society as purely modern, and unable to say at what point immigration is too high. Any argument that cannot admit that some level of immigration is too high is not a position worthy of a hearing, since it implies practically that there should be no limits. If the position is based on the assumption that we are to be Christian towards those wishin to come here, I would suggest that one cannot and should not attempt to base national policy on Christian premises.  An important reason for this is that the founding "structure" does not admit of such premises, and to attempt to use them has a result of throwing a monkey wrench into the works, so to speak.

It is not merely due to an internal inconsistency that we ought not mix the "apples" of true religion with the "oranges" of the realm of Ceasar.  Christianity regards my relation to other single individuals and not the relationship between nations, for reasons noted above as well as others. While it can inform minimum standards of international policies as well as immigration policy, positive moral visions are not the proper foundation of such policies. (See the above remarks on the mystery of why we are unable to do this.) The founders of the United States have taught us that we are to use morally neutral foundations in our relations with other nations. Positive morality stops at the border. Only by adhering to this policy in a disciplined fashion can we hope to preserve our own moral traditions with our culture. There is a serious danger within the modern mind, and one that strongly affects idealists on both the left and right as well sometimes those who think they are being Christian, to adopt policy positions which are highly abstract and unable to serve the common good. The common good happens within the context of a particular culture and not "all men" or "the world community",let alone free markets and capitalism as a universalized economic system which is unable to account for moral and spiritual good. There is no concrete way to base a national policy on the category of "all men" or "the world community" other than negatively: e.g. "we as a nation are not to do actions which positively harm others." National policy in relation to other nations and cultures is not to be based on a positive moral vision, simply. No religious prophet ever suggested that the way to realize his ideal was to focus on public policy. Again, avoiding a moral bad is not the same thing as seeking a positive moral good, and the prophet is always primarily prodding us to attain the positive moral good. The poltiical philosopher, by contrast, is focused on creating an impersonal system whose primary goal is to avoid poverty and chaos. Neither of the these goals is a positive moral good. Our pragmatism often makes us conflate these two, but when it comes to spirituality and goodness, the difference is everything, and one which our thinkers and artists are for the most part loathe to articulate, perhaps due to political correctness, but most likely due to their own existential fear of the fact that no "system" or person can save them. In Kierkeggards language, each individual must seek their salvation in fear and trembling. Getting overly passionate about public policy and seeing it as an arena in which I can enact a moral vision is not one which requires any fear and trembling, I would suggest.

A few criteria that come to mind on how to arrive at a policy which serves the common good of the American citizen - and not the "world community" are -

a) The policy must be moderate. This means that it must somehow take into account historical patterns of immigration and the current situation of the United States. It cannot be based on claims such as "everyone that came to the US was originally an immigrant." This is not imformative and attempts to make a moral point concerning rights of those who potentially want to come to the US. Appeals to the rights of humanity as the primary basis of an immigration policy paradoxically harm the interests of Americans, which it is the task of the American government to serve. The task of the American government is not to enact a positive moral vision or do justice to the "world community". No policy based on such a motivation can meet the standard of moderation as understood by the founders of modern political philosohy and the founders of the US in particular.

b) The policy cannot be motivated by mean-spiritedness. This means importantly that those who talk about the policy or politicans who take a position cannot be responding to mean spiritedness in themselves or their constituents. To say that the policy discussion or position cannot be based on mean-spiritedness is different than saying: the policy must be motivated by positive concern for the well being of those who wish to come to the US. It is bad for the moral well being of our culture if policy is motivated by mean-spiritedness. But the United States does not have a moral obligation as a political entity to take care of the material well being of "the world." Each individual American has a moral obligation to care for other individuals. But this is not and I would suggest cannot be, in accord with the deepest truths of human existence understood as truths of nature and not truths of a nature wholly abstracted from the way humans are, to be translated into a national policy.

c) The policy is not be determined primarily by econonmic interests of business needing cheaper labor. While the need for business for labor can be taken into account, the well being of American workers is to be prior to the well being of the need of private business for cheap workers. A corrolary of the truth that the United States does not have a positive moral obligation to the material well being of the world is that it is not the purpose of American policy to maximize the economic interests of private business as such. The purpose of American policy is to maximize the common good and the good of the American citizen as such. It is not to maximize the interest of a particular part of the American population particularly problematic at this time: The international trader who has no allegiance to this culture and this nation. Today we are risking giving over our power to this interest above all.

d) The policy is not to be determined by moral appeals to any universal claims about the rights of man or appeals to equality. The reason for this is that these concepts were never meant to articulate deep moral truths, but rather to morally neutrally describe the foundation of a political economy which maxmized order and material well being. The notion that "all men are equal" and "all have equal rights" is purely modern, and thus has no relation to Christianity in essence. Each of us knows this in our hearst: If we were to start treating other particular people in our lives on the basis of these ideals primarily, our relatioships would suddenly seem highly abstract and unrealted to these other individuals as such. We would be treating them as an abstraction only. A minimal criterion for Christian action is that the activity must be contingent upon free will and interpersonal relationships between individuals or small groups. National policy cannot "capture" Christian values in any positive fashion simply because it cannot meet this latter standard. National policy can and should avoid going against Christian values - e.g. note that religiously based rules which are conceived to be rules of conduct are negative, though shall not kill, etc. (This is why abortion restrictions are a legitimate moral concern - they attempt to avoid a moral negative - killing. They are not conceived as means of attaining a positive moral vision via law.) Almost never do we see positive moral commands being made to "all men" as a group. "Love one another" is what we are to do, not "love the entire world community as such". We cannot repeat this contrast enough today. Here is a link to an articular in the NYTimes on Saturday on the issue.

FOLLOW UP:

X,

I'll try to be concise here, but the issue is complicated and to do some justice to it I'll risk being a bit repetitive. Feel free to email me privately if something I say isn't clear.

I've inserted my remarks after the remark of yours. I cut out stuff I'm not responding to.

List participant:
Firstly, the separation between church and state does not exist. Even the
founding fathers defaulted to a higher law. Jefferson wrote, "We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these
are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Me: First, when I said that the founders did not attempt to attain a positive moral or spiritual good, I have something very specific in mind and am really attempting to get people to think about certain assumptions we make today that are not helpful either politically or spiritually. Also, I was not saying whether I thought the modern political project insofar as it removes the issue of salvation from the public realm was good or bad for us spiritually. I know that it has been good for us as regards an efficient political-economy. One hint about the stance we are to take on the matter might be found in Jesus' remarks that we give to Ceasear what is his and to God what is his. What kinds of actions belong in the realm of the political - or that is, are we to do in our capacity as a citizen of a society with 300 million people, and what kinds of actions belong in the realm of the spiritual or true religion - which I argued belong to us as single individuals acting in relation to ourselves, others we have direct contact with, and God? This is one question I posed, sugesting that many Americans assume there is no "tension" between the two capacities we all have. I think that this tension and being conscious of it heightens the changes that we will live better lives in both capacities.

I made a contrast bewteen a) modern political philosophy attempting to create a foundation for an efficient political-economy, saying that this goal is not to be confused with deep moral goods, and b) pre-modern philosophy stressing moral virtue. While a functioning political economy will get us what we need materially, as a goal this says nothing about moral virtue, or that is, our spiritual well being.

The text you speak of in the founding documents, I would suggest, is not coming out of the spirit of Christianity. I would argue that it isn't supposed to. My argument was that it is not the task of a large political system to positively attain moral goals, or that is, salvation.

The text you referred to above is strictly modern as intended by those who spoke the words in the context they did. First, the truths pointed to in a religious tradition are never conceived to be "self-evident". You would never see such language used in the Bible or by Jesus or any other prophet. (There are moral reasons why such truths should not be self-evident. Self-evident truths are needed for each of us as members of a society, not to base our spiritual striving on. I would suggest that conceiving the basis of my spiritual striving to be "self-evident" hinges on a kind of idolotry, the idolatry of reason. The founders did not mean these truths to be the basis of spiritual or religious life, but political-economy.)

There is no fear and trembling involved in basing my life on a "self evident" truth. There is, however, a better likelihood that the society as a whole will be more stable and materially prosperous is we base the "rules of the game" on self-evident" maxims based on reason alone and not on revelation. These distinctions have been instrumental in making the United States one of the longest lasting political-economies in human history. I said nothing about how this relates or supports the moral-spiritual well being of Americans who have tended to conflate the means and ends of modern political philosophy with true religious ends. While the former can support the latter in the way the foundation of a house supports the house itself, it is never to be confused with it. It is not the foundation we care about as an end but rather good living on the basis of that foundation.

The notions of equality and liberty are not meant to support any ends which we usually think of a "religious" or "spiritual". The purpose of these ideals as they function in modern political philospophy is to help lessen religious conflict, which was a serious problem leading up to the time of the founding. We are seeing the results today of a misunderstanding by American leaders of the insights of the founders: Never get the political community as such involved in conflicts with are essentially religious. This is another variation on "give what is to Ceasar Ceasar's and to God God's". It is no coincidence that we see heavy stress on liberty and equality after a long period of religious conflict.

List participant:
Simply we must default to
natural law. God's law on our hearts. This is what our laws are based on.

Me:
Natural law as understood by the founders of modern political philosophy is understood by reason alone, not revelation or faith-based claims. While Locke does speak of God's law being written in our hearts, this language plays no practical role in the way the law is to function in society. This is very important. If you read the constitution and all supporting documents, no relgious claims are made the basis of justification of any argument. Religoius claims are never present in the laws themselves or made the basis of the law. Our courts are not based on revelation, but on reason. It is a mistake to assume that making the law explicitly based on faith-based claims would make us better off spiritually or morally. Such would be to conflate the political and the spiritual - which I suggested above is a form of idolatry. It is also a mistake to assume, as many moderns do, that basing my life on reason alone is the sign of an advanced way of life. This is just another way that modern political philosophy has confused us moderns.

I am to pursue the salvation of my own soul and contribute to the spiritual well being of concrete other individuals I have an immediate and not abstract distant relation to - as this relates to a religious tradition - in fear and trembling - or that is, based on faith. I am not to pursue the well being of "all men" or "the world community". I am not to take any political action to open wide the borders of the United States. In my capacity as a citizen of a large society, or that is, in my capacity as one who contributes to the political and economic well being of the nation, I am to come to a decision about what limit is to be placed on the borders of the United States. This will never work and does me nor others any moral or spirital good. I suggested reasons why the structure of human existence may be as such in my last post.

List participant:
Theft, murder, polygamy, and a host of other immoral acts are not illegal
because we deem them, rather God has given us the Grace to discern right and
wrong.

Me: But whether or not God deems them such plays no functional role in the way these laws work out in the society as a whole. Note too that the LAW stresses avoiding the morally BAD. The law as such never stresses the positive moral good, e.g. salvation of my soul. (YOu will find no reference to positive moral or spiritual ends in the founding text of the United States. The closest we come to such positive moral language is in the form of European socialism and communism. But these projects cannot work as they attempt to make the circle of pre-modern religious tradition fit into the square of modern political philosophy.)

Without reference to a positive moral or spiritual end, we have no end to our lives. This end is given by true religion and not by philosophies whose primary purpose is to support a political community as such - whether we are talking about socialism, communism, or free-market libertarianism so influential today. (The real problem with the free-markets and libertarians is that they treat the system as a relious object. They tend towards idolatry, and are hence a serious danger to our well being to the extent we allow them to influence policy making. This is the first time to my knowledge that this form of idolatry has gained power in the U.S.)

Jewish law is heavily aimed at the maintenance of a political entity and not the salvation of the souls of the individual members of the community. These are two different kinds of ends and need to be distinguised, lest we harm either or both.

List participant:

You said that all men are not created equal


Me: I didn't say this. I said that the claim that all men are created equal is not meant as a deep moral claim. If it were meant as a deep moral claim, this would present all sorts of moral and spiritual "dead ends" we are not accustomed to thinking about today. Jesus himself hinted at them, as did most pre-moderns. Again, our modern categories do us spiritual harm to the extent that we conflate them with morality and spirituality. Our modern categories for the most part are merely foundations - or starting points - for treating others well. They are not meant as ideals in and of themselves.

List participant:

The human life is sacred. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Man's
dignity and core are equal, because it is not us but Christ in us.

Me: I believe this in my heart and "know" it is true, but this is not a claim that is based on reason. Modern political foundations are limited to reason-based claims.

List participant: The Statue of liberty says, "Give me your
tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched
refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" These principals are what we should
live by. Why not welcome immigrants into the country. Lets educate them.
Give them job training. allow them to contribute and make this great nation
even better.

Me: I repeat my challenge again: No pre-modern philosopher or prophet talks about morality or spirituality and "principles". Principles are not all that they are chalked up to be in relation to true moral and spiritual well being. Concrete action in my life based on my will and hearts relation to God, myself and others in my life is what counts morally and spiritually. We can see the abstract nature of the remarks you make about immigration here simply when we imagine letting the whole world enter the United States. No one would say that this is either politically or morally good.


Thanks for the feedback.

Terence Hoyt

 

MORE FOLLOW UP:

 

Me to List participant,

I'm planning to make my own web site, partly to respond to the problem you mention - my posts tend to be long, I know. I feel so German...!

Ill be brief(er) here. This also again addresses some of what Jesse brought up. I cut and paste my original remark and your response here:

Me:
The notion that "all men are equal" and "all have equal rights" is purely modern, and thus has no relation to Christianity in essence.

List participant:
Is it? Maybe the governmental "this world" dimension is, but from reading Paul I see that we are all equal in our relationship to God. We are all part of the same covenant.
....Is seeing Christ in everyone treating them as an abstraction?

My point was that the founders understood this claim as wholly modern, and that this way of understanding the claim matters. It matters insofar as the way the idea of equality plays out in our society for the most part is not "about" the spiritual ends/goals Paul speaks of. I am not arguing as many seemed to in the 70's that this is good - Stated another way, Im not arguing that it is good for us as a society to base our collective lives on reason alone, as the founders wanted us to. (They left true religion, if they believed in the category as we do here on this list another question - to private conscience and small communities.)

In sum, I am at least saying that if we aren't clear on the different understandings of such ideas as equality - e.g. the notion as it it implicit in Jesus and Paul's words vs. the way it is understood by the modern political founders, we may end up doing ourselves as a nation no good. We may further harm ourselves both spiritually and practically. This is because the larger society does not understand such ideas in the way people on this board might - as relgiously grounded - but rather they understand the idea in purely modern form. The modern understanding of such ideas as equality will tend to further the ends of a materialistic culture whose end is not the spiritual and moral well being of the person, but the efficiency of the system. To repeat a theme I brought up in the last post, if we do not sharply distinguish between the realm of Ceasar and God, we may further certaing negative tendencies in modernity rather than futher the spiritual and moral goals we see ourselves as enhancing.

 

 

There's a very well written, deep article by Carl Ratzinger (Pope Benedict) in January?s "First Things" on the moral-spiritual crisis in Europe in particular and the west more generally. http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0601/articles/benedict.html (This may not be viewable in the future.)
An understanding of this argument is essential, in my view, if we are to play a role in countering the decline. Below, I copy some remarks and make some comments.

This quote from the middle of the article where he is discussing Europe after the 19th century.
:
The totalitarian model, by contrast, was associated with a rigidly materialistic, atheistic philosophy of history: It saw history deterministically, as a road of progress that passes first through the religious and then through the liberal phase to arrive at an absolute, ultimate society in which religion is surpassed as a relic of the past and collective happiness is guaranteed by the workings of material conditions. This scientific fa?ade hides an intolerant dogmatism that views the spirit as produced by matter and morals as produced by circumstances. According to its dictates, morals should be defined and practiced on the basis of society?s purposes, and everything is moral that helps to usher in the final state of happiness. This dogmatism completely subverts the values that built Europe. It also breaks with the entire moral tradition of humankind by rejecting the existence of values independent of the goals of material progress.

Me: Benedict is here pointing to a deep problem in the Enlightenment, one which started to manifest strongly in the 60's on the left and recently on the right in the US. That problem is the assumption that reason alone can lead us to a good life, both individually as well as collectively. In our country, it shows up when free marketers and libertarians tell us that the government should have no involvement in the economy. Such a view implies that self-interest alone should rule society, and confuses a moral impulse with an economic one. It fails to understand the manner in which modern society is founded on explicitly reason-based premises and in particular self-interest. Because of this it fails to see the need for a source of morality and spiritualy other than this modern foundation. The secular left has always had the problem of holding this philosophy although it at least is consitent - it means to be purely modern and secular - This is to a significant extent the problem holding the Democratic Party back today.

Ratzinger: Since reason is inherently fragile, however, these lay systems have proved to be weak, becoming easy prey for dictatorships. They survive only because elements of the old moral conscience have persevered, even without the earlier foundations, making it possible for a basic moral consensus to exist.

Me: This quote, from the prior page, relates to the argument I've been interested in making that both the left and right in the US are confused about the sources of moral goodness, seeing reason alone to be its source. By "lay systems" Benedict means any system grounded on the belief
that reason can bring us a deep moral good, in contrast perhaps to a view which sees a Supreme Being at the center of material and moral/spiritual life. To understand both a) that most of us hold that reason alone brings us a good life and b) a contrast, imagine your friends are in a society where the majority of people are members of monasteries or convents. Imagine how they would judge this. It would be seen as "unreaonable" and they would have trouble finding language to express why such a society could possibly be a good one. Imagine a society based on free sharing of goods, where people did not try to get a lot of material goods. This is not reason based in the sense the moderns understood the foundations they bequeathed to us.

In the above Ratzinger, try this little experiment: Replace "dictatorship" with "ideologues who argue that the market should be totally free?. By "old moral conscience" he is referring to explicitly Christian values, in contrast to Enlightenment values. The argument is that the modern west thinks it is functioning on reason alone, while in fact its Christian values are what hold it together and bring about any deep good.

Ratzinger:
The decline of a moral conscience grounded in absolute values is still our problem, and left untreated, it can lead to the self-destruction of the European conscience, which we must begin to consider as a real danger?above and beyond the decline predicted by Spengler.

Me:
The prior Pope had a degree in modern philosophy and in phenomenology. Unless Pope Benedict qualifies "absolute values" by some reference to some concrete way we humans access them, the reference lacks meaning. Simply because it brings up the issue of "how do we access absolute values". It will not do to say that the Catholic Church is the bearer of such values. The Church has historically contributed to the problem Benedict is diagnosing precisely because it has given into the temptation to present truth as if it were self-evident and knowable in a formulaic fashion. No deep spiritual or religious tradition treats the truth in this way, including Christianity. To understand the decline of the West as well as the problem of fundamentalism in the US, we need to look to how the Church historically has tended up until Vatican II to reduce truth to a matter of dogma and formula. Vatican II has been a great attempt to respond to this grave error, and needs to be viewed in this light.

Ratzinger:
But when it comes to Jesus Christ and that which is sacred to Christians, freedom of speech becomes the supreme good. This case illustrates a peculiar Western self-hatred that is nothing short of pathological. It is commendable that the West is trying to be more open, to be more understanding of the values of outsiders, but it has lost all capacity for self-love. All that it sees in its own history is the despicable and the destructive; it is no longer able to perceive what is great and pure. What Europe needs is a new self-acceptance, a self-acceptance that is critical and humble, if it truly wishes to survive.

Me: I think this is right on. I see the west after the 60's in particular as committing a kind of self-imposed moral and spiritual lobotomy. In the US, this began on the left with many telling us that our political economic foundation was all bad, and then on the right with many telling us that are foundation is all good. The problem on both the left and now the right is that a) our thinkers can only envision problems in purely rationalistic terms, e.g. terms based on reason alone, which means on the basis of utlitarian calculation, and b) the solutions our thinkers offer to our problems are purely mechanistic and even deterministic, e.g. they both want to make the market function better. While at least the left of center has a sense for an explicit moral value, e.g. equity, the right caring only about efficiency - a purely materialistic issue, not value, - the left defines their morality in terms of material conditions. The way both define the good wholly in material terms is a sign that something is seriously wrong in the spiritual, moral and intellectual realm. (The right does this by seeing economic wealth as a sign of moral virtue. While this makes for a vibrant economy, it is not a spirituality, no matter how much Richard Neuhaus - editor of First Things - confuses the two kinds of impulses!) Neither the old left nor the current right, including fundamentalists, have a sense for how far removed their sense of morality and spirituality is from the Western tradition.

List participant: Hi list, As you may have heard, Canadian authorities thwarted a terrorist attack this week against their prime minister. I read this editorial this morning and it troubled me: Jonah Goldberg: The price of 'nice' for Canada Our northern neighbor thinks being all multicultural and sucking up to the United Nations will keep the terrorists away. Think again. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-goldberg8jun08,0,4578691.column?coll=la-story-footer Goldberg is a fairly well-known conservative columnist who writes for the National Review. This paragraph in particular struck me: -- begin quote Indeed, there's good reason to believe that niceness is part of the problem, not the solution. Many Canadians (and Americans and Europeans) cling to a deep-seated belief that more multiculturalism, more interfaith dialogue, more "understanding," more Western apologies, more acceptance of Sharia, more "niceness" will fix the problem. -- end quote Let's ignore the political dimensions of this question and focus on the religions ones. The question is what attitudes we should have towards Islam as Christians. I'm one of the people whom Goldberg criticizes who thinks that more interfaith dialog is a good thing. But he makes a strong point that this position denies reality. Thoughts?

My response:

Regarding the issue of terrorism, what is interesting to me is the disconnect between a) the self-understanding of the terrorist as seeking the higest good and b) the fact that in reality his actions destroy the basic conditions of civil society. This brings to mind Aristotle for whom moderation is the highest political good.
As I so often do, I make use of Aristotle's distinction between 'the good man' and 'the good citizen' to gain insight a fruitful question: What motivates religious fanaticism and terrorism? I also make use of Plato's insights into human psychology, and in particular his analysis of two traits in human beings he seems to bring up between the lines throughout his dialogues esp. in The Republic. The first of these traits is one I've talked about here, and, if I can put it as exactly as I am able, a) a deep need to gain certitude, or knowledge, of the truth. What I am particularly interested in here is the innersubjective need for certitude in some individuals esp. in late modernity, not whether or not truth exists and whether we can know it. The second trait Plato points to is b) indignation in some individuals in reponse to a perceived injustice or wrong. I stress "perceived" here because again, the issue for Plato seems to be the inner, subjectively based response of certain personalities to the perception of injustice and the effects of this inner experience on civil society.

I believe Plato is both an important source of moral perfectionism in the west, as well as the the Middle East, as well as a source of insight into a kind of psychology which has a) needs to know it is morally righteous and b) gets indignant in response to perceived or real slights to their sense of injustice. Plato suggests in the Republic that indignation will be the most important issue when seeking to found an orderly political economy. In other words, he seems to hint that there will be a very small percentage of the population which will become indignant in response to perceived injustice, and will justify violence on the basis of this indignation, or that is, the use of force to attain their vision of the highest good. (See esp. where he attempts to tame Glaucon's desire to know the perfect definition of justice, and later, of the good itself. I don't know offhand which Books in the Republic t his is in, but I think it centers around Book III-V.) To understand Plato's analysis, it is important to keep in mind that he is writing about the founding of the just political order, and "just" means basically the attainment of order and the conditions which allow the citizens to gain their basic needs. He makes a strong distinction between a) justice understood a s the conditions of order and material well being and b) the Idea of the Good, which in religious terms might be likened to "God's will". Justice as conceived by Plato and our tradition is not a deep moral good, and the Greek sense is not quite the same as the Christian sense. It is more about external equality and less about inner states of heart which animate the way I as a single individual treat and relate to others as persons in society, then, about what Aristotle will call "the good citizen". (Christianity can be looked at as a wonderful way of "bridging" the disconnect between the 'good man' and 'good citizen' found in the Greek root of our tradition. In fact, I believe this is the reason that socities in which Christianity is the founding religion are stable, successful and generally agreeable to live in.)

The good citizen, (as distinct from the good man) on Plato's terms, "minds his business" and "does his job well". He contributes to the external functioning of the society. There is no concern for the inner condition of his soul on society's part. Note that this is somewhat sad. It is a basic insight adopted by modern societies generally. (Salvation is essentially privatized, in part to prevent "religious wars" resulting from the indignation resulting from perceived slights to ones understanding of the Highest Good) The political-economic order, on our model, has nothing to do with what I have called the "deep good". This order, however, can reasonably be understood as bequeating to us the conditions which are NECESSARY TO the deep good, or that is, the good for man as man, e.g. what we might call the true spiritual and religious ends of mankind. These conditions very simply are lack of chaos and the ability to get basic economic needs met. (Note that neither of these conditions are being met in Iraq. .) Stated more simply, a basic insight of Plato is that we cannot go on to the deeper ends of human existence if we cannot get our basic needs met.

One of the ideas that flows from out of Plato and Aristotle's analysis of the relationship between society and the deep moral good is that the latter is attained one individual at a time or in small communities. (Mega churches do not and cannot contribute effectively to the propogation of the deep spiritual good, in this view, for by their very constitution they will tend towards being about the good citizen as defined above, in which case the members will tend to be overly concerned with external behavior and less so with a change of heart. I imagine there is little intuitive grasp that there is a tension between a) what I need to do to attain a deep level of spiritual living and b) what I need to do to get alone well in society, .in mega churches. This is, for that matter, a deep tension that any organized religion must continually deal with to remain spiritually true to the experiences of its founders, who always experienced themselves to be in strong tension to the values of the surrounding society.)

One thing I love about the Jesuits as an order is that they at least seem to understand these matters intuitively.

But I need to get to the point about the what Paul and Stephen brought up about how we might deal with Islam!.

Without having Islam much formally, it seems that Islam triggers what Plato has called "indignation" without any counter-balancing forces that we in the west have built into our founding philosohpies. One teacher put it well: When she went to a conference on Islamic culture, she found that the scholars had little support for the use of reason and moderation as we in the west take for granted.) (Moderation is the highest POLITICAL virtue in the west. See Aristotle's N. Ethics.) It seems that each individual that allows himself to take on a life dedicated to violence in the manner some few indivduduals in Islamic culture allow themselves to be has been taken over by indignation. Such individuals also display a strong need to know they are right and righteous, and this is a "felt need" more than it is theoretical. The issue here is not whether he is objectively justified in any claims against the US or the West, but the extreme degree to which he displays certain traits, ultimately manifesting in the claim that he has a right to use force to attain what he subjectively believes is a deep moral good (as suggested by the invocation of the theme that "allah is great". Westerners would sense intuitively that mixing up the political-social with public talk about God, e.g, in a political context, is somehow a manifestation of a misunderstanding. (The nature of this misunderstanding is one of the topics discussed in many Western thinkers, including Augustine's City of God. The 'City of God' is a great example in which we see a founding western thinker contributing more to our understanding of the distinction between the realm of Ceasar and God; the good citizen and good man.)

Once the individual becomes entranced with the notion that he has knowledge of the deep moral good (the good for man as such) and has no understanding of the ideal of political moderation as discussed above (e.g. that we are not to expect what religion called "the kindgom of God" to be realized "on earth" = because that would be to conflate the 'good for man' and 'the good for the person as a citizen", which is idolatry) - Plato suggests that he has gone past the point of no return. Reason will no longer influence him. He becomes a danger to society. It will be as if he is under the spell of a very potent drug. He has been "blinded by the light", so to speak, and gotten too close to it. For Plato, the political results of a) confusing the deep good with b) the political and social good are dangerous insofar as they can lead some individuals to become violent in an attempt to use force to attain a moral ideal. While the one under the spell will think there is a direct route between his use of force and the moral vision which he sees himself as motivated by, in fact the use of force will negate the necessary conditions of any kind of good. (This is obvious to those not under such a spell, as violence is never creative but merely destructive. The nihilistic philosophies following Marx and Nietzsche of the late 1800's can't undo this truth.) This disconnect is the reason "ideology" is dangerous to society.

So what we might ask ourselves, without expecting to get the answer, is: What is motivating the self-defined terrorist? In most cases, I will expect that Plato and Aristotle will give us insight into what is going on with the terrorist.

Terry Hoyt

List Participant: I have an additional interest in your response to his article and to Confession as a viable sacrament for your age group.
I will be giving a talk to a group of young adults about Confession in today's Catholic Climate. I would like your input. In other words, I'm looking for help! If you have any sort of comments re confession, please share them with our norsjvoc group.

Here again is Anthony's fine article:

Confessions of a college student: it’s all good
Catholic Spirit, June 2006, Good News
By Anthony Pham
Guest Columnist

I grew up thinking that the sacrament of penance was something we should try to avoid by striving to be sinless. My notion was that when I sinned, I needed to go to confession as a penalty for my sins, and didn’t really think of the sacrament any other way. I didn’t see the point of confessing all my sins to a priest either. Couldn’t I just ask God for forgiveness at the end of the day and my sins would be forgiven? In recent years, I have learned much more about forgiveness and healing simply by receiving the sacrament on a regular basis. Through celebrating the sacrament of penance regularly, I discovered myself making more of a conscious effort to avoid the sins that would hurt my relationship with God and others. Before, I would just pray and ask God for forgiveness, but often fell into the temptation of thinking that it is OK to sin because I can just ask God for forgiveness afterwards. I love God and his mercy is boundless, but I realize now that I don’t want to take our relationship for granted. When I was younger I thought that I had to figure out what I needed to say and in what order, and if I did not follow the formula, my sins would not be forgiven. After a while, I learned that God desires our honesty and sincerity. I started to really enjoy the conversations I had with the priest in confession. The priests I know are always comforting and give useful advice. I get the sense that God, our loving Father, is ministering to me, speaking through the priest who acts in the person of Christ. God doesn’t punish or condemn with lightning bolts, but embraces and forgives. Since moving to College Station, I have found many opportunities to receive the sacrament. I am always humbled and amazed at how many people take advantage of these opportunities. At St. Mary Catholic Center, the Catholic campus ministry at Texas A&M and Blinn College, the sacrament of penance is offered every week on Wednesday evenings and Saturday afternoons. Penance services are also offered during Advent and Lent, and students have the opportunity to go to confession during retreats. Appointments can also be easily made outside of the regularly scheduled times. Every now and then, I’ll run into a visiting priest in the student center and ask if he’s got a spare moment for a confession. While it may not be possible to celebrate the sacrament every week, I find it very beneficial to go as often as I can. An athlete must continue to train in order to remain in top condition. In the same way, I must actively grow in my relationship with God. I find it very uplifting and comforting to go to a priest once or twice a month for confession. I always get more out of something when I put in a good honest effort. My relationship with God is the same way. Anthony Pham is an electrical engineering major at Texas A&M in College Station and will graduate in December. He is member of The Attic Band, a praise and worship group that just released its first CD, “Day to Day.” The band’s Web site is www.daytodayworship.com

List participant:
My great thanks to you,

My response:

Im not sure this is what you were looking for {list participant}, but here are some of my thoughts on this issue.

My first sense about the issue of confession is that it is not what it is often taken to be: a kind of mechanical verbal list of things I have done wrong. In this scenario, which I'll exaggerate somewhat to make a point, what is mistakenly taken to be "confession" is a mechanical verbalizing of the wrongs done. I see this as akin to a child under the age of reason who is a) told that he must state what he did that b) someone else told him were wrong. Here, the individual doing the confessing is not asked to understand why what he did was wrong. No understanding of why the act is wrong is required, and if there is, the reasons tend to be highly external and more about law than heart. There is little or no stress on the harmful effects on the relationships between the one who did wrong and others resulting from the sin. I see relationship to my true self, God and others as the central issue in all true spirituality.

I believe the concept of sin is very problematic as it is understood in modern society. I also believe that Jansenists notions more often than not conceal an accurate understanding of sin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jansenism While self-described traditionalists often believe they are conserving our tradition when they complain that we don't take sin seriously today, I argue in contrast two points: a) that their understanding of sin more often than not reveals a misunderstanding of what Jesus was talking about when he made forgiveness central to his ministry and which is to be central to how we live - a way of life in which relating in a qualitatively specific way to my (true) self, others and God is the mark of the Christian, and b) that this dominant understanding of sin is wholly modern, grounded in the 1700 and 1800 notions coming out of France and later Ireland. Contrary to this dominant understanding of sin, the Puritanical notions of sin which are dominant in the west today are not ancient. My point here is that a lot of work is required to ameliorate the problem in the way we understand the very concept of sin. This opinion is largely responsible for so many leaving the church. Responding specifically to this problem will require work at the level of scholary theology, but we can't rely only on academic work alone to respond to this problem. Demonstrating a different understanding of sin than that offered by Janseneism and puritanism more broadly speaking, can also be accomplished by showing how we live differently.

I have come to a working definition of sin as follows: I sin when I "try to get my needs met in the wrong way". We need to define "wrong way". I conceive of "wrong way" as ways of acting which harm my relation to my true self, God and/or other people. "Harm" is defined as "increasing the distance between". The purpose of confession is to make right these three relationships, with the possibility to emphasize any among the three. A true confession must, then, somehow effect my relationship to my true self, God and/or others.

I tentatively offer this practical necessary condition of a true confession: If the act does not affect any or all of these relationships such that I end up at the end having revealed more of myself as I really am, the act does not constitute a true confession. Note that in the instance where confession is called for, two things come to the foreground at the level of experience: a) that I with another person see in increased clarity some fault of my own and, b) that entailed in this clarity, if the act is done right, is an increase in acceptance of myself as I really am. (Note that this suggests the primary purpose of a confession is not to do something for the one being confessed to. I would also suggest what may be harder to accept: the same can be said for making amends to one I have wronged. I do this to better my relationship to God, my true self, others, and not essentially for the other. There can be a good moral or spiritual effect on the other, but this is not to be my reason for doing the confessing or making of amends.) Finally, when the right words are spoken and spoken with the right state of heart in a confession, I learn at the level of experience - e.g. not theoretically - that there is a significant difference between my initial fear of feeling humiliated, on the one hand, and being humble, on the other.

I wanted to share some of the feelings and thought that came to me after the retreat. When I began seriously thinking about applying to the Jesuits again last April, I started thinking about the difference between merely feeling close to God in my heart, and living this out more fully. I have felt and experienced God with me since I was an early teen, and I am now getting older. This "getting older" made me start asking: If God is so important in my life, should I remain at the level of God essentially being a "feeling" in my heart? Yes, I do feel very close to God and I can tell that this inner experience of God concretely affects the quality of my life and my decisions. Yes, I have faith and "know" he is "right here with me". But still, I thought this was an important question: If I told God I wanted to do His will when I was younger - might it be that I am now being called to go further and beyond an inner experience of God? Since I've tried to talk to God and tell Him I sincerely want to know His will regarding this question and have tried to become willing to hear what He wanted, I have had the distinct sense that God wants me to put myself out there and get more involved. This is the "sense" I'm having. One of the things that has flustered me a bit in the last three or so months is this: What should I do with this sense? At this point, am I supposed to talk about God? If I do that, it has to be in the right context, and with the right motive. I believe that the Holy Spirit is moving in the land today - and that God wants to breathe a new kind of life into those who are open to hearing His voice. What does it look like to have God in my life in concrete ways; ways that show up in some form of action? As one song-writer put it, I am like a feather on the breathe of God. This seems to put it well. God's interaction with me is not forceful. He does not "make" me do this or that, nor does he prevent me from indulging behavior that is destructive to my life and the life of those close to me. But when I listen with an attentive ear and heart - when I "lean into" trying to become like those "who have ears to hear"; when I sincerely and diligently seek to do His will and follow this up in concrete ways of living and concrete actions, I seem to get "confirmations" that I am on the right "path". If I do God's will and obey, things in my life go smoothly and I am content in a deeper way than I could have imagined possible. "Obey" means essentially "to hear and respond to what I hear". It doesn't mean simply going through rote actions and acting in accord with a law that is written in a text that I experience as essentially external to me. To "obey" means to "hear", as Ester de Waal puts it, and act on what I hear when I "have ears to hear". I love the TV show Joan of Arcadia. I think it has theological insights that are deeply true. I have no idea what the training of the writers is, but I am convinced that the image of God that comes across on the show is truth-ful. In each episode, God shows up in the form of various people who interact with Joan. In each episode, God gives Joan a task. The essentials of the task include the following: The task's purpose is not clear to Joan; often times the task seems arbitrary. She cannot ask God why and expect an "answer". Each time, though, Joan finds that when she "does God's will", she gains a needed insight. Something changes in her in a way that she knows is Good. She cannot explain this to herself or anyone else in everyday language. One of the little quotes I tell myself is that "patterns do not lie". I have a particular interest in paying attention to patterns. Sometimes I am convinced that God speaks to me through patterns. I'll finish with this post with this example: On each episode of Joan of Arcadia, as I noted above, God gives Joan a task. He does not interact with her very much, and after He gives her the task, He usually walks away waving from behind while Joan is complaining that she doesn't get it and doesn't have enough to work with. In an episode I watched after I returned from the retreat, God interacted with her in a way I had never seen in any other episode. The show ended up with Him sitting down at a park chess table. He was complimenting Joan on some of her qualities. She said to him: "Why are you being so nice to me"? I don't remember what was said, but she ended up sitting down with Him. The episode ended with a wonderful shot of her sitting across from "God" with Him making a move, followed by her making a move. This image hit me powerfully and continues to stay with me. It made me feel like God was continuing to follow up on my attempt to be more open to his Voice. For this was a clear image, to me, of an increased level of interaction with God, and it felt like I was supposed to see it. And it feels right, and amazing!

Thanksgiving 2008