Metaphysi-WHAT, now? Wrapping My Head Around Thomistic Metaphysics

The Lord has allowed me to write a few books on Scripture, spirituality, and apologetics; but He has also left me with a glaring weakness: I find reading St. Thomas Aquinas to be extremely difficult. His vocabulary - specifically the philosophical vocabulary he makes use of in his theology - has been a barrier for me (e.g., essence, substance, matter and form, potency, act). I know what the words mean in modern, American English; but Thomas uses them in what appears to be a completely different sense. Theologically, I have still been able to benefit from his insights; but they've come to me through the mediation of others (predominantly via my brilliant friend Kevin Vost, who has written a number of books on Thomas' thought). Even so, when I return to Thomas for myself, the semantic block remains.

I thought that a college course, "Philosophy for Theologians," might help me to finally overcome this hurdle. It was taught by an eminently-gifted Dominican priest, who provided a sweeping introduction to the field. We read Ralph McInerny's St. Thomas Aquinas and A First Glance at St. Thomas Aquinas and John Paul II's Faith and Reason. The course agave me a better grasp upon how human beings come to know and what sets human intelligence apart from that of other animals. I was taught that the study of physics (change and movement) led Greek philosophy to the recognition of an immaterial, Uncaused Cause (God) and thus the need for metaphysics, the science of "being as being." I also learned how relativism and the murky theology of the past century could be traced back to Immanuel Kant's rejection of an "objective metaphysics." Now, the scope of  the class was far too wide to go into these matters in any great depth and the assigned readings honestly didn't do much in terms of helping me read Aquinas. At least I left, however, with a better grasp of what knowledge I lacked - metaphysics!

Afterward, I came across a couple of Fulton J. Sheen's early works that had just been reprinted, The Philosophy of Science and God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy. It seemed like a God-send, given Sheen's talent for making complex subjects intelligible to the layman. Both were advertised as Sheen using St. Thomas to expound upon the objective basis of human knowledge. The description was accurate, but I found myself reading the young Doctor Fulton J. Sheen, just graduated from the University of Leuven and flexing his philosophical muscle, as opposed to the later television host and writer addressing working-class Americans. I made few gains in my quest to understand St. Thomas' metaphysical underpinnings.

I had just registered for another college course when I happened upon Facebook post from the prolific and always trustworthy Mike Aquilina:

"I had the metaphysical itch when I was very young, but found most books on metaphysics unreadable...Then I met the metaphysician Michael Torre who, to teach his intro classes, had written his own textbook, which he would print out from his dot-matrix printer and reproduce for his undergrads. I read the book and was astonished....I begged Michael to send it off to a publisher. He said he’d think about it. We continued that conversation for 25 years, but now, AT LAST, THE BOOK IS IN PRINT. If you’ve always wanted to read philosophy, but always choked by page 10, you now have your book: WHAT IS: Introductory Reflections on Thomistic Metaphyscis."

I ordered it the next day, and after just a few pages realized that it was exactly what I had been looking for. Professor Torre cuts to the chase. What is metaphysics? Aristotle said that it was the investigation of "being insofar as it is being." Torre helpfully translates this to mean the investigation of "the most basic and fundamental principles of anything that exists." Its goal is to arrive at "the first and ultimate cause of all things." (Spoiler: When metaphysics is done well, such as by Aristotle and Aquinas, that cause is "God.") Now, with such a controversial end, metaphysics must also show students, "how to defend its conclusions against skeptical attack...Hence it takes up the first principles of knowing...the possibility of knowledge and of certitude." 

The truly beautiful thing, as Torre repeatedly demonstrates, is that metaphysics - despite the terminology - doesn't require that you come to it with any specialized knowledge; by using our senses to take in the every day world around us, we can reason to an objective knowledge of WHAT (the nature of things) IS (their existence). In the span of 267 pages Professor Torre led me from foundational truths all the way to arguing the existence of God from causality, to discussing the problem of evil. To make a long story short: I just finished that second college course I mentioned above...and I thoroughly enjoyed reading extensive portions of Thomas' Summa Theologica as part of it! My sincere thanks to Professor Michael Torre and his WHAT IS.

Book Review: "Made This Way" by Leila Miller & Trent Horn

Amidst our shifting cultural landscape, a plot of solid ground is valuable real estate. Made This Way: How to Prepare Kids to Face Today's Tough Moral Issues provides the terra firma that parents are seeking. And while this book brings an abundance of Scripture and Church teaching to bear on issues, its keenest strength is grounding its moral arguments in the natural law - the universal moral truths discerned by reason and known to consciences (Christian, theist, and atheist) the world over.

Trent Horn and Leila Miller are the perfect duo to craft such a book. Trent is one of the most gifted thinkers and apologists on the scene, and Leila is an outspoken mother of eight whose blog and last two books address the most pressing needs of today's children.

Miller and Horn tackle ten issues: Sex outside of marriage, same-sex "marriage," divorce, contraception, abortion, reproductive technologies, modesty, pornography, transgender identity, and homosexuality. Each is addressed via the three-pronged approach of: 1) what the Church teaches; 2) how to address the topic with young children; 3) addressing it with older children. The book is written  in Leila's melodic voice, but the brilliance of both minds is on display.

As I said, readers are given a crash course in Scriptural passages and Church documents pertinent to these issues, but most helpful for parents will be the rubber-meets-the-road examples and faultless reasoning they can bring into conversations with their children, especially their teens. An example from the chapter on transgenderism:

When a person has a body dysphoria unrelated to sex or "gender," everyone understands that the person needs help. When an anorexic looks in the mirror, she might see someone who is obese, even if she weighs much less than everyone else her age. We don't tell that girl, "That's right, you are overweight, and we will help you reach the weight that's right for you." Instead we say, "What you perceive yourself to be, well, that isn't you. In reality, you are dangerously underweight, and because we love you, we aren't going to help you harm yourself." That is the loving response.... 

....[I]f we are rightly disgusted that a doctor would amputate the healthy limbs of a person who suffers from Body Integrity Identity Disorder [or trans-ableism], then why aren't we equally disgusted by doctors amputating the healthy genitals of persons who identify as transgender? This mental gymnastics of holding both positions at once (trans-able = bad; transgender = good) is not tenable, unless we completely obliterate in our own minds that man and woman mean something objectively, as we know that healthy and disabled do. (p. 210-12)

That is powerful reasoning, one that any teen should be able to grasp and bring with her into conversations with peers of different religious and philosophical backgrounds. My favorite part of their argument on this subject, however, was when they raised the example of Rachel Dolazel, the former head of the Spokane NAACP, a caucasian woman who claims to be "trans-black":

...[I]f Dolazel had claimed she was a black man, then her "progressive" critics would have said she was half right. Yet, how can we tell a person she's wrong about her sincere sense of her racial identity, but right about her sense of gender identity - when both exist only in the imagination? There is no logic to saying we affirm your "sense" of being a man but we condemn your "sense" of being black. Your teens will see the contradiction here. (p. 211)

Yes, I dare say they will - as should anyone sincerely committed to logic and common sense.

Miller and Horn have created a resource that will be cherished by every parent looking to raise their children on tried and true, solid moral ground. Made This Way (Catholic Answers Press, 2018) has my wholehearted endorsement.

Hey Friend - Worshiped An Idol Lately?

No, this isn't a post about the tripe that Catholics worship idols such as statues and icons. I have never met, nor even heard of, a Catholic who practices such nonsense; and the Catechism debunks the anti-Catholic allegation with a concise explanation (CCC 476-7; 2129-32). I have, however, met a number of Catholics - and other Christians - who choose to worship a god of their own making instead of the God Who reveals Himself to us in Christ. This came to me very forcefully a few years back in a conversation with a friend.

We were talking about something we had seen in the news and, in connection with the coverage, my friend expressed his agreement with a behavior that both Judaism and Christianity has always recognized as a sin. (No need for me to name the behavior, other than to say it is in the sexual/procreative sphere. There are an increasing number of troubling behaviors being celebrated in our culture; and the point I seek to make is applicable to all.) Because both of us are Catholic - and knowing that my friend attends Mass each week - I asked him how he could reconcile that with what God had said on the matter. I mean, Scripture clearly says that this specific behavior is a gravely serious sin. His response really troubled me - "I simply don't believe that. The God I believe in wouldn't say that."

"Whoa!" (mentally, in my best Joey Lawrence voice). My friend, I realized, had fallen prey to not just moral relativism, but - subconsciously, to be sure - idol worship. Instead of worshiping God as He is (as He revealed Himself to Israel and the Church), he had substituted his own idea of God. Now, before we go condemning my friend, we have to admit that each of us has been guilty of that at some point in our lives (and maybe we are right now...Catholic social teaching is challenging and seems to have elements that rub people of all political persuasions the wrong way). Often times, it is simply because of lack of knowledge. God's revelation of Himself and His will often have not been adequately proclaimed to us and so, we fill that void with our own notions. What we do after being  presented with the Truth, however, is decisive for our life with God.

 "But you realize," I continued, "there's only one God...I don't have my God and you have yours. He exists, objectively; and His stance on what behaviors are, in themselves, sinful doesn't change depending upon what you or I think. When God reveals His mind to us - and that's what we have in Scripture - we have an obligation to live it out."
"Yeah, but we Catholics aren't fundamentalists," my friend answered; "We interpret the Bible."
"You are correct," I said, "that we aren't fundamentalists, but by that we mean that when we read Scripture, we pay attention to what type of literature we are reading - history, poetry, apocalyptic, etc. - to understand what the author truly meant to say. Poetry expresses the truth differently than a book of history. Genesis, for example, tells about the creation of humanity in symbolic language; it is not making scientific claims.  But, once we understand the genre, and understand what God and the writer of Scripture meant to teach then we are absolutely bound to it. So, when St. Paul was inspired to write a pastoral letter and label [this behavior] a sin, telling his readers that it could separate them from God for eternity, that is God's word to us; and we really are obligated to obey it."

"But [this behavior] really has to do with two people expressing their love for each other, and isn't that what God is all about?"

"That's just it," I tried to explain.  "God is love. He is true love, and He is trying to teach us how to love.  If He says that something is sinful, then be assured that how ever loving we might mistakenly feel it is, it is not so in reality. We want to see things as they really are, not as we imagine them to be. God only has our best interests at heart."  My friend wasn't able to bring himself to reconsider his stance on this particular issue, at least not at that moment. But we remain close friends, and that tells me that he was willing to listen...and that's a wonderful first step!

As I reflected on that conversation a few more thoughts occurred to me: 

• These false images of God that we construct are violations of the First Commandment. They truly are acts of idolatry. Those who try to "interpret" away the portion of God's revelation recorded in Scripture frequently appeal to the "spirit" vs. the "letter" of the law. Well, this is the spirit of the First Commandment! Any time we construct an image (silver, gold, or mental) and bow down to it (by giving it our obedience), we give worship to a false god and commit idolatry
• The prophet Isaiah said some scathing things about worshiping idols: 
• "You [idols], indeed, are nothing and your work is nothing at all; whoever chooses you is an abomination." (Is. 41:24)
• No, [idols] are all a delusion; their works are nothing; their images are empty wind." (Is. 41:29) 
• "All who make idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit; their witnesses neither see nor know. And so they will be put to shame." (Is. 44:9)
• The idea that Jesus did away with the "harsh" requirements of the Mosaic Law, and in effect rubber stamped any behavior we deem to be loving is absolute rubbish.  Jesus said that He did not come to abolish Israel's law and prophets, but to bring the to fulfillment, or completion (Mt. 5: 17). And if we look at how Jesus went about turning people from the letter of the law to its "spirit," we will quickly discover that the spirit of the law is a hundred times more demanding than the letter! (Thank goodness for baptismal regeneration and the gift of the Spirit to make it possible!) Just look four verses after it speaks of Him bringing the law to fulfillment: 
• "You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hellof fire." (Mt. 5:21-22) 
• “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Mt. 5:27) 
• “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other..." (Mt. 5:38)

Oh, if only Jesus had allowed us to stay at the letter! But His intention is to make us like Himself - images of the Father. "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt. 5:48). But that is all dependent upon our faithfulness to God as He is, as Jesus has revealed Him to us - and not as we imagine Him to be.

Like Children

"That's not fair!  You hate me!"

How many times have we heard children say those words after their parents have told them "No"?  Children only hear their parents frustrating their desires for happiness.  It never dawns upon them that their parents could be acting in their (the child's) best interest.  As adults we come to understand that that is exactly what good parents are supposed to do!

"That's not fair!  You hate me!"  Those are the same charges leveled against the Church and individual Christians when they say "no" to behaviors (especially those of a sexual nature).  There is no attempt to step back and consider the possibility that this "no" might have an entirely different motivation - one grounded in reason and authentic love for all concerned.

You would think we would have learned not to jump to conclusions so quickly.

Either Embryos Have Human Dignity, or It's All Just a Sham

We speak of human beings having innate dignity, and that innate dignity being the basis for human rights; but then we pretend that embryos do not share that dignity and are not entitled to the same rights as are those who have been born.

And that is absolutely nuts!  Seriously, think it through:

For someone to make the claim that human beings have dignity, while simultaneously claiming that embryos do not have dignity and innate rights, they have to hold that human beings only obtain dignity when they have reached a certain level of physical or cognitive development.

But if that is true then there is really no such thing as "innate dignity" - a dignity that we humans have simply as a result of existence (which science recognizes as beginning at conception).  Rather, human dignity is a human construct - an idea that we came up with, and which we are able to apply or deny to whomever we wish.

And if that is the case, then Martin Luther King, Jr.'s whole argument for civil rights was baseless, and the atrocities committed by Adolph Hitler completely justifiable.  If human dignity is not real - if it wasn't granted to us the nanosecond that we came into existence - then that is the reality. 

But we can't have it both ways, not logically.  Either human dignity is real, or it is an illusion.  If real, then we recognize the dignity and right to life of the unborn.  If not, then we admit that we have no innate dignity either; and we can be disposed of however the most powerful among us decides - and that isn't wrong; it's just the way the universe works.

Making Moral Judgments

"You shall not act dishonestly in rendering judgment. Show neither partiality to the weak nor deference to the mighty, but judge your fellow men justly" (Leviticus 19:15).

We Christians place a high value on empathy and compassion - or at least we should, if we are trying to live in the image of Christ!  Where far too many Christians run into trouble today however, at least in the West, is when we sacrifice truth in the name of compassion - when we excuse, or worse yet affirm, what Christ would call sin in the name of sparing someone's "feelings."  There is no love without truth.  Sentimentality, yes; but not love. 

Love seeks the other's good, his/her objective good - and that is freedom from sin and life with God.  A person can derive pleasure from something that is killing them.  We see it on the natural level:  smoking, abuse of alcohol, contraction of a sexually transmitted disease.  And the same is true on the supernatural level!  Sin kills the soul, and to remain in that death - to never have repented and accepted God's forgiveness - is to step into Hell.  And for a Christian to affirm someone else engaging in what is objectively sinful behavior, or to keep silent when speaking up could save that person's life, is the opposite of love. 

The Christian does not speak up out of the desire to condemn, but to save - exactly as Jesus did.  We need to judge - to evaluate actions - by Christ's criteria. His judgment does not change because we shed a few tears or feel "condemned" by what He tells us; He loves us far too much to cave to that kind of sentimentality.  He knows our lives hang in the balance.  "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him" (John 3:17).

Jesus asks, "But Who Do You Say That I Am?"

Today the Church celebrates the "Chair of St. Peter"  - Jesus' establishment of the Papacy.  (If you would like to read more, you can click here, here, or here.)  What I want to focus on today is the question Jesus asked Peter, because it's the question he asks you and me - "But you, who do you say that I am?"  

Just last week the Holy Spirit gave me opportunity to repeat that question to someone.  A friend had emailed to ask if she could run a couple of religious questions by me.  When we sat down I expected a couple of factual questions about what Catholics believe or why we do this or that, but my friend dove straight into the deep end:  "I haven't been to church in a long time; but I believe that Jesus is God, and I believe that everything the Bible says is true.  But I also have a very open mind, so on a matter like gay 'marriage,' I think that so long as two people love each other and it makes them happy, they should be able to go ahead and get married.  I am like that on other matters too.  Am I going to go to Hell for that?  I think I try to be the best person I can; could I still go to Hell for thinking differently?"

Alright, first thing I did was to ask to back up from the question of going to hell for a moment and start with what she had told me about her faith.  I reflected back, "You told me that you believe Jesus is God, believe in the Bible; but then you also want to say that certain actions, that you know directly contradict Jesus and the Bible, are alright - so long as they make a person happy.  Seems to me that you are trying to hold two contradictory statements in your mind at the same time."  She smiled and shook her head, acknowledging that she understood that was exactly what she was doing.

I continued, "When you say that you believe Jesus is God, you are saying that you believe He created this world we live in and that He understands what will and will not ultimately lead to our happiness.  Our emotional reactions to something are not the real measure of what is good or bad.  A twelve year old boy might tell you that sniffing model airplane glue makes him feel happy; but you, with a wider knowledge base, understand that it can also damage his brain.  If we believe that Jesus is God and that He understands - objectively, perfectly understands - what leads human beings to happiness; then to say that He is wrong on some point doesn't make any sense.  You can't have it both ways."

"So far as who is going to heaven and hell, no one but God can tell you that.  What I can say is that He has told us - again, objectively speaking - which actions are compatible with the lives of his children and which are not.  But what factors lessen or increase a person's culpability for those actions ... only God knows a person's history - how much of the truth they have been exposed to, their thought processes, the movements of their hearts.  I don't despair for anyone's salvation; I pray for God's grace to be at work in them, just as I pray for it to be at work in me.  Heaven is the culmination of a relationship with God.  And like all relationships, a relationship with God is dependent on our response.  If you had never responded to your boyfriend's dinner invitations, you wouldn't have much of a relationship today.  God invites us to get to know Him in many ways:  meeting Him at church on Sunday, receiving the sacraments, reading that Bible that He went to so much trouble to bring to us.  Do we live our lives in the way He has asked us; or do we tell him that we know better and go our own way?  At the moment of death, when this life ends and everything around us melts away; will we find ourselves next to God or at a distance?  If at a distance then we will experience loneliness, and that loneliness will not end.  That is Hell.  But it was us who moved away from God, not the other way around."

"Jesus asked the apostles and He is asking you, 'Who do you say that I am?'  You answered, 'God.'  Alright.  Now what are you going to do about it?"

My friend has a good head on her shoulders and love in her heart.  I am excited to see what this next year holds for her.

"I Know I Sound Insane ...

... to some of the people who stumble upon this blog.  Jesus being the fulfillment of our deepest needs, angels and saints, my statements regarding Christian divorce and remarriage, sexual expression, contraception, etc.  To a non-Christian immersed in today's culture these things are foreign, if not laughable.  I know I sound insane to self-described "moderate" and "liberal" Christians too.  (Not that these labels from the world of politics actually have anything to do with our commitment to Christ Jesus, the Truth.)

And honestly, they are right ... if Jesus and His promises are untrue.  Christians who actually believe everything Christ taught are the definition of "putting all your eggs in one basket."  In the first decades of our Church, St. Paul wrote:

We preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength ... (1 Cor. 1:23-25)
... We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing ... The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them ... (1 Cor. 2:6,14) 

We are speaking truths about human dignity, moral absolutes, the beauty and sacredness of human sexuality that this culture and many of our brothers and sisters have closed their ears to, choosing the voice of the world over the voice of God.  It is a temptation in every period of history and in every life.  But we go on enunciating these truths because they ultimately come from the mouth of Jesus - the Way, the Truth, and the Life - and ignoring them can damage us to such a degree that we are separated from Him for eternity.  We recognize that this makes us look "backward" to some, but our vision is really focused far into the future: 

... If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.  If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1 Cor. 15:17-19)

But our hope in Christ is not just for this life.  This life is only the first moments of eternity, but moments where we choose our trajectory.  A little pain making for an eternity of gain:

... I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. (Rom.8:18)

So we must go on living and speaking with joy, with your eyes fixed upon Jesus, our End.  We do not compromise with this age - with, for instance, the Planned Parenthoods and the agenda of handing out birth control to our teens because "their just going to 'do it' anyway ..."  We hold out the vision that we are creatures of incredible dignity, with the ability to practice self-control, to sacrifice and make an authentic gift of ourselves in love.  We will not make use of sinful means in the attempt to bring about our desired end because we Jews and Christians have understood that the path to hell is paved with the best of intentions. "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death" (Prov.14:12).

So I, so all of us Christians, have to be willing to take our lumps because we believe the One Who said, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world" (Jn.16:33).  We have Hope, the theological virtue of Hope, that looks ahead with incredible joy to the world that is to come.

Things I Wish I Learned in Catholic School

More prep for tomorrow's radio show on EWTN (1-2 p.m. Eastern)

What do I wish I would have learned in my 13 years of Catholic school, but didn't?

Grade School

I don't recall any clear teaching when I was in school on what we Christians mean when we say we have been MADE God's children in baptism.  No clear teaching on the operations of grace.

What was communicated to me by teachers was that God expected us to be good people, and that the judgment at the end of our lives was basically God weighing our good and bad actions in a scale.  Those who came up on the good side would need some purification in purgatory but were going to heaven.  If you did more bad then you were going to hell.  Alright, that isn't what you find in the New Testament; and that isn't what the Catholic Church teaches.

I was taught that God the Father had adopted me, that Jesus came to me in the Eucharist, and that I would receive the Holy Spirit in Confirmation, and that's all of course true; but I wasn't taught the audacious truth that God Himself, the Blessed Trinity had already come to live in me in Baptism.  I became His Temple.  My body and soul are His Church.

Jesus wanted to love and pour Himself out to His Father and brothers and sisters, in the Holy Spirit, through me!  I was to be another Christ in the world; that was why I had been created.  I was already in an intimate, personal relationship with all three members of the Blessed Trinity; and I should expect it to deepen throughout the course of my life - expect to see God doing things in and all around me.

This is the dignity of Christian children.  This is where our moral teaching becomes more than a laundry list of right and wrong.  Instead we understand that we must do the actions of Jesus.  We do not lie, we do not degrade our bodies or use other people's bodies as toys because we could never imagine Jesus doing that.  And He lives in us!

The good that we do isn't done under our own power.  It is Jesus living and acting in us through the Holy Spirit.  It's the grace of God.  We say yes, we cooperate with it and, as St. Paul says, become God's coworkers.  We will inherit eternal life not because the things we've done under our own power have tallied up to 51% good, and only 49% bad, so God owes us life in heave.  We enter life in heaven because we've already been living it here below:  Jesus giving Himself to the Father, in the power of the Spirit, through us!

High School 
I will forever sing the praises of my teacher sophomore year, Mr. Burns.  He was Jewish by birth, Catholic by belief; and he taught me an incredible semester course on the synoptic gospels with close attention to their first century context.  He also gave me a good look at the two creation stories we find in Genesis.

But we never attempted to study the writings of Paul, that's 2/3 of the N.T.  And we certainly never ventured into the Book of Revelation!  We didn't actually read the OT's historical books or chart the images of Jesus that run through the OT from Genesis to the Wisdom Books and Prophets.

I had classes on morality and the Sacraments that told me what we Catholics believe; but it wasn't explained WHY we believed these things.  It wasn't properly anchored in the truth that "This is what God has revealed - through His Church and the natural law.  Here let me show you ..."  There is something about us human beings that when we are told what we are to believe, but not WHY it is true, we come to assume there ISN'T a reason.
 
A thought:  what if we made Scripture our primary text in Catholic schools, and it was read in the light of the Fathers and the great Tradition of the Church, the way Vatican II instructed us to read Scripture?  What if someone had read John 6 with me and stopped there to unfold our belief in Jesus' Real Presence in the Eucharist?
 
What if someone had read Matthew 16 and stopped to unpack what it meant for Jesus to give Peter the Keys of the Kingdom and to appoint him as the rock on which He would build the Church.
What if my teacher had said, "The First Epistle of Peter (5:13) alludes to his presence in Rome and we have writings beginning before 100 A.D. that witness to the bishops who succeeded Peter in Rome having pure, binding teaching and a responsibility for leading the entire Church?"  What if he was able to show me the writings of Irenaus of Lyons in 185 A.D. where he records Peter's successors up until that point, and claims that all Christians must be in agreement with the great Tradition that has come down to us through them?

Abortion is the Taking of a Life, Not an Extraction of Cells

A couple of thoughts on what constitutes Life:

First thought:  Lets say that the Mars Rover, Curiosity, sent back data to NASA indicating the existence of single-cell lifeforms on Mars.  The entire world would be abuzz, "We're not alone in the universe!"  It would be considered one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time.  Images of those single cells would be magnified and broadcast to every television screen on our planet, "Life!  Alien life!"  You know I'm not exaggerating.

Aren't you dumbfounded when you contrast that with the double-speak surrounding unborn children?  
"I can't say for sure when life begins; that's above my pay-grade."
"It's a mass of cells, not a child."

Bull.  The picture at left is 3-D ultrasound at 12-weeks gestation. That's a human being.  It was a human life when it was only one cell!  That cannot be debated:  1) it is a living cell (as alive as any bacteria or protozoa on Earth, and more alive than any imaginary cell on Mars), and 2) analysis of its DNA will tell you it's human.  A fertilized egg, a zygote, is a human life, a human being at his or her earliest stage of development. That's not religious extremism, that's science.

Second thought:  When I spray Lysol in my bathroom, I do it to kill bacteria, one-celled organisms.  I don't try and  sugarcoat it, or play word games.  When I hit that single-celled organism with poison, I am killing a living thing.  Again, that cannot be debated.

So lets put the pieces together:  whether we are talking about a zygote, or an embryo at 30-weeks gestation, we're talking about a human life; and an abortion ends it. Abortion ends a human life.  The deliberate taking of a human life is called murder.  We can call ourselves "pro-choice," and manipulate the language so as to delude ourselves; but the cold, hard truth is that we allow unborn children to be murdered in this country.  It is a horrendous violation of human rights.  If we do not acknowledge that and the corresponding need to halt it, then we are the most pitiable of nations.

I tend to think that Mother Teresa of Calcutta saw things more clearly than the vast, vast majority of us.  Listen to how she broke it down:

"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."

"Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign."

"Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion ... if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?"

If your eyes have been closed, then it is time to open them.  This is the most pressing issue in American society today - one million of our children each year are put to death through abortion!  As the November elections draw near, we must all search our souls.  Whatever we think about the economy, student loans, entitlements, foreign policy, etc., we have to come to grips with the fact that casting a vote for a politician who does not wish to legally restrict abortion will make us complicit in his/her crimes.  We can debate every other point under the sun, but to say that a mother should have the legal right to end the life of her child has no justification - not scientific, philosophical, moral, or religious. It is always an intrinsically evil act. 

Will there be people who still seek abortions and those who perform them?  Yes, just as there are people who commit murder, rape, and every other infraction in our criminal code.  The fact that they are illegal keeps those acts from occurring more often ... and their being illegal is a show of moral sanity.

"Must be nice living in your 'black and white' world"

Has someone ever responded like that to you when you're talking about moral issues?  I bet you were discussing something relating to sexuality.  How did I know?  Oh, I've been in quite a few of those discussions over the years.  Someone inevitably chides me for being too rigid - believing its always wrong to abort a child ... or to have premarital sex ... or to use contraception, etc.  Can't I see how much "grey area" there is in those kind of issues?  Next time someone sarcastically says how nice it must be for me to live in a "black and white" world though, I think I have a ready response:  

"It really is.  My life became so much easier after I realized that every time I touched the hot stove I got burned; every time I tried flying like Superman gravity still won out; and every time I tried to breathe underwater I nearly died.  As many times as I tried, I could never find any grey areas.  Seeing as how we're both here having a discussion, I'm going to say that you didn't either.  The only difference between us is that you won't admit that there our laws at work in our sexual expression too; you're just refusing to acknowledge the cause and effect we see working itself out in the society around us - not to mention what happens at the level of the soul." 

I'm thinking out loud here.  Click on the comment section and chime in.  (If your comment doesn't pop up right away, don't worry; there's an approval process.)  Look forwarding to hearing from you!

Moral Relativism - Making Conversation

Here are some common things you will hear from people who subscribe to moral relativism and brief responses that you can use in challenging them to rethink their position.  Again, let me acknowledge my debt to Beckwith & Koukl's Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air 

“You shouldn’t force your morality on me.”

Is that your conviction?  You honestly believe that?

Well, my conviction is that I should try and convince others of my moral beliefs.  Are you telling me that my convictions are false?  How can you say your convictions are true and mine are false?   What gives you the right to force YOUR CONVICTIONS on me?

“You shouldn’t force your morality on me”

Why Not?  If you think about it, you are trying to force your morality on me - your belief that it is wrong for me to try and "force" my beliefs on someone else.  You are trying to get me to change my behavior; and that's the very thing you just told me not to do.

“Who are you to say?”

You can respond with, “Who are YOU to say, ‘Who are you to say?'  I’m not asking you to agree with me because I’m some kind of moral authority.  I’m asking you to explore this issue with me rationally, in the belief that intelligence and reason can lead us to an understanding of right and wrong.

“Jesus said, ‘Judge not lest you be judged.’”

I like to respond, “and what was Jesus next statement?”  It was “condemn not, lest you be condemned.”

When Jesus said that we are not to judge, he meant it in the sense of not concluding that an individual was damned in the eyes of God. He did not tell us to refrain from judging actions.   

HE SAID THIS IN THE MIDST OF THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT.  It’s a three chapter sermon on what ACTIONS, on what BEHAVIORS, are virtuous and which are sinful - which behaviors will lead you to the kingdom of heaven or Gehenna!

Tolerance is given to people, not ideas or behavior.  I won’t despair of a pedophile's salvation, God can bring anyone to repentance.  But I do want him incarcerated, and I will shout that pedophilia is a disgusting wrong from whatever tower you’ll allow me.  I’ll do that for a long list of human behaviors.  
Jesus certainly has not revealed to me who is going to heaven or hell - there is such a myriad of variables involved that no one but Him should ever attempt to make that kind of statement.  What Jesus has done is tell to us, objectively speaking, what actions lead to each destination.  No one but He is aware of an individual soul's culpability.

Battling Moral Relativsim - Resources

Hey, here are those links to resources I promised on today's radio show. 

Lets start with links to writings from Blessed Pope John Paul II:
Faith & Reason (Fides et Ratio)
The Splendour of Truth (Veritatis Splendor)

Next, let me recommend a very readable, down-to-earth presentation of the issue, Francis Beckwith & Gregory Koukl's Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air
 
Now, for the more philosphically-minded out there, looking for a bit of a challenge.  Let me point you to pertinent sections from St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa:
Natural Law, Summa Theologica > First Part of the Second Part > Question 94
Truth, Summa Theologica > First Part > Question 16

And then there a some helpful articles on these same points in the Catholic Encyclopedia (they break down Aquinas' thought a bit more):
Natural Law
Truth

If you come back tomorrow I'll put up some of those tips Dr. Vost and I shared for talking with people who embrace moral relativism.