City Magazine: Ask a Catholic

"City" is a Finnish metropolitan lifestyle magazine. Or that's the general image. In truth it's one over-extended restaurant and club advertisement with sporadic sex-related articles to lure in readers. ;-)

Anyway, recently they surprised their anti-religious readership by publishing an article "Ask a Catholic". Readers sent in questions, all were difficult ones and some a bit sarcastic, and Emil Anton, a young Catholic apologist, answered them.

Emil is actually a close friends of mine. His apologetics blog Hyviä uutisia (Good news) has hundreds of hits daily. This is quite impressive considering the articles are only in Finnish (although Emil himself speaks 20 languages, really, he's a polyglot-freak). Emil just published his first theological book, A Catholic Paul (KATT 2009).

City's article confirms my conception of him: Emil is not afraid of critical questions, even hostile ones. Here are some questions that he answers in the article:

Who gets into heaven? Do Catholics argue about it as we do in the Lutheran church?
Woman, 29

What does the "Devil's advocate" do and how can I become one? Is my gender an obstacle?
Devil's advocate(ss), 19

Why is it that we constantly hear of new paedophilia crimes committed by Catholic priests?
Gay sex legal, paedophilia a crime, 24

Every now and again one hears of Catholic priests who have started a family. How many percent of priests break their vow of celibacy?
Priests are hot, 25

How do Roman Catholics in Finland feel about Papal power? Isn't replacing God by one supposedly infallible person against both reason and the Scriptures?
Paptiti, 28

Considering the obtuse ban against contraception, why don't we see huge Catholic families ... with 16 children or so? How many children do Catholics in Finland have?
Woman, 34

According to the Catholic Church's teaching of the Eucharist, the bread and wine become Jesus' REAL body and blood. Not symbolically, that is. Do you really believe you are swallowing blood and human flesh? Wouldn't it be enough to look at it as a symbolic act of rememberence?
Gross, 24

The Catholic Church does not allow/recommend divorce in any circumstances. This can be fatal. What should you do if you spouse drinks and abuses you and it's obvious that he will not change his habits?
Glad I left, 33

What are the relations between Catholics and Jews? Are you ashamed of the Pope's actions in World War II, or was he infallible then too?
Woman, 32

I couldn't stop laughing after reading his answer to the Eucharist question. The comments are worth reading too. Although I wonder whether the most vocal atheist is actually a Christian just pretending to be an obnoxious atheist so as to downplay and embarrass the case of atheism. In case you missed the link above, the article is here.

What is Worship?

Part I, Part II, Part III

This is an article on the nature of worship. References are to Jaroslav Pelikan's five-part marathon history of the development of Christian doctrine. Reference 4:45 would mean book 4, page 45.

-- -- --

To begin with, we should be careful with liberal uses of the word “worship” when addressed to saints. Historically it has been used for a lack of a better word before “veneration” became the proper word to express a devotional disposition towards saints.

But some, like Jean de Gerson, went as far as to straightforwardly suggest “adoring” Mary and saluting her as “the goddess of love” is “not going too far” (4:41-42). This, to me, blurs the distinction between “adoration” and “veneration” and undermines the “absolute qualitative distinction” between God and man that was mentioned above.

“Superstitions and abuses” concerning, for example, the relics of saints included “trafficking” and selling them (3:179), historically called the sin of simony. “Idolatry” included treating a creature with greater honor than is his due, namely, said Socinus, “honor that is clearly divine, and requiring from him those things that can and should be requested from God alone” (4:329). It is not explained what kind of honor is “clearly divine”, so this begs the question – yet again.

But elsewhere we find an instance of what can be requested from God alone: it was “essential to avoid … the notion that saints conferred grace” or that they “could rescue souls from hell” (4:261).

But it was as essential to avoid the opposite extreme too, “the hoary objection that the veneration of the saints was idolatrous” (4:261).

The potential threat of devotional practices to the integrity of monotheistic worship has not, of course, gone unnoticed. Counter-measures against excesses of devotion have taken many forms. Above all it has been necessary to remember where the true origin of saints’ honor lay.

The opening verse of the Latin version of the last psalm read: “Praise the Lord in his saints” (Ps. 150:1, Vulg.) and what this meant, explained Bernard of Clairvaux, was that “if I discern something in the saints that is worthy of praise and admiration, I find, when I examine it in the clear light of truth, that though they appear to be admirable and praiseworthy, it is Another than they who is really so, and I praise God in his saints”

The saints’ virtues had their origin in God, not in the saints themselves (4:177). Furthermore, saints are venerated “not for their benefit, but for ours,” since “the saints have no need of our honors, nor do they gain anything as a result of our devotion” (4:176).

One Catholic friend of mine, a layman, offered a few possible symptoms, concrete examples that would imply an unhealthy disposition towards saints. Among these were: “one does not pray directly to God anymore”; “does not understand, that the role of the saints is to direct us to Jesus – see Mary’s advice at the wedding at Cana: ‘Do whatever he says’ (John 2:1-11)”; “is attached to a saint but forgets God”; and “neglects the sacraments and the reading of Scripture through which one gets to know Jesus.”

Clichtove’s treatise from the sixteenth century, The Veneration of the Saints, traced the development of the practice of veneration, Pelikan comments, “with such balance and care that, despite Protestant attacks, it continued to serve as a model” (4:260) for a considerable time. Through a proper veneration of the saints, Clichtove urged against critique, the glory of God was not diminished but magnified (4:261).

(We find an echo of this in the order of loves. The type of love that pertains to Christian love is charity or agape, divine self-sacrificing love, the word John used when he said that “God is love [agape]”. When we love, agape, our neighbor, we love them through God, who is the source of love, and we love God through them, who are images of God, provided the order of our loves is proper. In this way Christ’s two commandments form one “great commandment”. They are two sides of the same coin.)

All we can take away from the above is that “worshipful adoration” of God means worshiping him for his own sake; whereas “worshipful respect” of saints means honoring them not for their own but for God’s sake.

In light of the degree/quality distinction, this, strictly speaking really amounts to neither. They’re not different qualities of worship, nor are they worship of different degree. Rather, there’s a difference in one’s basic attitude and understanding of why one worships. Does one worship the object for its own sake or for the sake of something beyond the object?

One could say that if this – one’s basic attitude – is really what we are looking at, if this is the only distinction, it is no wonder that the “accusation of idolatry and the response to it struck at a deep and sensitive point in Christian belief” (2:127). But, as with sacrifice, one’s basic attitude may make a greater difference than we may think. To this too, then, I shall have to return later.

From degree to quality: sacrifice and “basic attitude”

Let’s recap again. Here is the crux of the problem set in a historical context:

“From Augustine’s City of God came the explanation of the fundamental difference between the cult of the saints and the Pagan practices to which Protestant critics were comparing it. The ‘adoration’ paid to the Creator pertained to him alone, the ‘adoration’ of saints was that appropriate to God’s creatures; strictly speaking, ‘the church does not adore saints … but honors them.’ Christ was the only ‘Mediator of redemption,’ but the saints were ‘mediators of intercession.’” (4:261.)

It is probably clear by now that I find this distinction of “adoration to God only” and “veneration of saints” only partly helpful. It differentiates between the object of honoring, but it does not substantiate as to how the acts of honoring differ except as far as their object goes. So Augustine’s “explanation” begs the question. Over and over again I have pressed for a difference in the acts themselves, not only in their objects.

But we haven’t said all that can be said about “sacrifice” as a constituent of worship.

I said earlier that sacrifice belonged to both worship and veneration, if – but only if – the difference between them was only a difference of degree. And in this case sacrifice had to be defined vaguely as “something” that could be offered to both God and man. But, as it is, theologically sacrifice is defined as something that belongs to God solely. And in this case, what follows is that the difference between worship and veneration is not, after all, merely a difference of degree, but of quality as well.

Everyone agrees that “the merit of salvation” (4:261) belongs solely to Jesus. There is such a sacrifice which belongs to worship only. We are talking about the sacrifice for the atonement of sins. Offering such a sacrifice to a creature rather than to the Creator would be idolatry. And asking for forgiveness of sins from a creature rather than from the true God would be idolatry.

The cult of the saints did not imply that “the church offers sacrifices to the [saints], but only to the one God, the God of the [saints] and our God,” explained Remigius of Auxerre centuries ago (3:176). The only one to whom Christ could “offer the sacrifice of his passion,” said Robert Pullen, “was the One whom he was obeying by his suffering” (3:139).

It is the “sacrifice of his passion” (3:139), the “body of Christ” (3:136). The Catholics believe that in the Eucharist the power of Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice – for Christ is not, to be sure, “crucified” each time anew – becomes manifest. (For Christians who don’t hold onto the sacrificial character of the Holy Communion such talk is likely to sound odd, if not blasphemous.)

But it is not only Christ’s suffering that is sacrificed to God only. Worship implies the “sacrifice” of each person’s life to God, understood as “a total commitment” to him only.

One Catholic friend of mine, a priest, explained what “a total commitment” meant for him. A worshipful disposition toward God includes at least the following (which, he was at pains to emphasize, can never be said of a saint): “acknowledging that the recipient of worship is the Creator and thus the rightful Lord of every creature”; “’letting God know’ that he is the rightful Lord of one’s being”; “knowing that you have been created and accepting it, and the voluntary transformation of this knowledge into worship”; “the coming together of humility and freedom in forming your inner attitude”; and “worshiping God unreservedly, that is, obeying him unreservedly.”

In Catholic tradition “worship” is clearly sacrificial in character, whereas other “types of reverence” which are directed to the saints are non-sacrificial. Of the latter, a further distinction is made between ordinary reverence (“dulia”) to saints in general and a higher form of reverence (“hyperdulia”) to Christ’s mother. This said, my friend said that it was important to remember that “hyperdulia” was not a “third” form of reverence in between sacrificial “adoration” and non-sacrificial “dulia”, but it belonged fully to the category of “dulia”.

We finally come to the end of this article. We shall close with saying something about the “basic attitude” which, as noted earlier, affects a difference between worship and veneration. But earlier I questioned its significance: I asked whether “mere attitude” can make the crucial difference.

But at the end of the day, when all outer criteria for evaluating the “purity” of one’s worship fails, isn’t one’s attitude – largely hidden from observers and fully seen only by God – at the heart of this issue after all?

Does not one’s attitude make all the difference in one’s spiritual – and moral – life? What happens outwardly is not unimportant, but it is secondary; an echo of what takes place in the soul. Isn’t one’s attitude what distinguishes murder from accident, authentic friendship from selfish manipulation – and worship of God from self-love (the story of the praying Pharisee)?

What is Worship?

Part I, Part II, Part III

This is an article on the nature of worship. References are to Jaroslav Pelikan's five-part marathon history of the development of Christian doctrine. Reference 4:45 would mean book 4, page 45.

-- -- --

Historical attempts at differentiation

Now, I must admit that as far as my central questions are concerned, Pelikan’s monographs offered me no new insights, though they frequently employed the terms “worship” or “adoration” and “veneration” – and even attempted to differentiate between them. Well, the monographs didn’t need to as they were books on the development of dogma, not books on basic theological questions. The author must presume that the readers know the answers to elementary theological questions, like “What is worship?” (or as for my other article, “Why is doctrine important?”). I didn’t. I don’t.

It truly was a challenge to sail through the 2,000 pages on the lookout for clarity, especially when the author often used “worship” and “veneration” interchangeably (see, for example, 2:96-99, 106). This was very odd. Why would he do that? I doubt that a theologian of his caliber would not distinguish between them in his private thinking, so it must be presumed that he was trying to faithfully follow the belief of his sources as it chronologically developed.

For early on in the chapter “Images of the Invisible” in the second volume we get the first (yet still minimalist) definition of worship: it is “paying honor” (2:103). The definition, though welcome, is unfortunately not very helpful, for it does not explain what “paying honor” means – and surely one can “pay honor” to both God and people, so “paying honor” belongs to veneration as well as to worship.

But later, a need for clarification and distinction becomes clearer. Eastern theologians made it clear that “it was one thing to pay proper respect [τιμή] to the saints, quite another to address worship [προσκύνησις] to them, and yet another to portray them in worshipful images” (2:112). But this distinction too, though welcomed, remains one of mere terminology, for “paying proper respect” and “addressing worship” are not defined.

Eventually the question that bothers me was raised in a straightforward manner. The italics are mine:

The orthodox “were obliged to set forth a theory of worship that would protect the uniqueness of the worship of the true God and yet permit other acts of reverence”.

When iconoclasts argued that “there is only one kind of worship, not many kinds,” the orthodox replied that “this is true of the worship of adoration [λατρευτική]” but that the worship of mortals “was nevertheless permissible by analogy and derivation from the single worship of God”. There was a “worship of adoration, which we pay only to the God who is by nature adorable”, but there was also a worship paid to “the friends and worshipers of God” for his (God’s) sake, because of “their derivative divine nature; this included both angels and saints”.

“Adoration pertained only to God, but either by love or by reverence or by law one was also bound to other to whom one paid worshipful respect. This distinction was grounded in biblical evidence about worship paid to creatures by men whose adoration of the one true God was beyond reproach.” (2:126.)

But even the distinctions above pertain only to the object of the reverential act, not to the act itself.

But as said, “adoration” in its technical sense as distinguished from “veneration”, could be offered to God alone. Saints could be venerated and even glorified, but only God could Anselm of Canterbury (who thought God was present even in the holy cross) “adore, venerate, and glorify” (3:132). One theologian said that “[e]ven though the saints are [sometimes] called ‘gods,’ they are not worshiped; only Christ is called ‘God’ and is worshiped” (3:55). “Believing in Christ,” said another theologian, meant “venerating and loving the Logos” (whereas “believing Christ” meant simply affirming “that he speaks what is true”) (3:4). If the “preexistent Son of God incarnate” was not in Jesus, “the worship of Jesus would be idolatry” (3:248).

“[W]hile the worship paid to the icons was one of honor rather than of adoration,” explained Cyril of Alexandria, “the worship paid to the Eucharist was one of adoration rather than merely of honor, because the presence in the Eucharist was that of the Lord himself” (2:291). If Christ, who was present in the Eucharist, was not true God, “there would be no reason to venerate the elements [of the Holy Communion] as the worship of the church did” (3:200). The elements were “adored”, but “such worship, addressed to a mere symbol of the body of Christ, would be idolatrous” (4:55).

Idolatry is precisely what it was (and is), according to Protestant critics of the practice.

But everyone agreed on this point, however: we are not to “adore or worship anything except the true God” (3:68) and “[t]he catholic faith is this … that we worship one God in Trinity” (3:19).

As for veneration, of all the saints Mary was “the woman who uniquely deserved to be venerated”, said Bernard of Clairvaux (3:162), one of her most ardent devotees. Her unique relationship with Christ was the basis of her uniqueness.

“Expressions of devotions” or “devotional expressions” to her (3:171), and in her honor, could include, say, the praying of the rosary and the commemoration of events in her life, like her birth, the “immaculate conception”. It was fitting that “veneration and prayer” should be addressed to her – which Pelikan calls “such worship of the Virgin” (making my head spin because of yet another “liberal” use of the word “worship”).

Not every theologian even during the Middle Ages was happy with the growing cult of Mary, but most were (3:178-179).

Yet Mary was not God. “The absolute necessity for a qualitative distinction between Christ and Mary,” Pelikan explains, “served as a restraint” (4:40; also 3:165-168) on the tendency of going too far, on “possible excesses of devotion” (3:176).

In search of concrete criteria

If find these “possible excesses of devotion” very interesting. Not from a (Protestant) polemical point of view, but from the point of view of establishing possible criteria for distinguishing between “true worship of God only” on one hand, and “idolatry” and “proper veneration of the saints” on the other. You see, there must be a way to differentiate and evaluate.

Let me expalin. In science, there is such a thing as “pseudo-theory”. Pseudo-theory is a theory or belief system, which cannot be refuted. It cannot be refuted, not because it is a “perfect theory”, but simply because it is eternally flexible: whatever you throw at it is absorbed and interpreted in its favour.

Marxism has been thought to be one such theory. Literally whatever you say in attempt to criticize it, it can respond by saying: “Well of course, that’s exactly what we should expect if Marxism was true.” If you say “White” it will reply, “Of course, white is what was to be expected.” But saying “Not-white” will give you the exact same reply, “Of course, not-white supports our theory.” How can one argue constructively with such responses?

Some social sciences, too, like sociology and social psychology, are sometimes dangerously close to being (at least partly) pseudo-scientific or mere tautology, as Alisdair MacIntyre has shown (After Virtue 1981). And the theory of evolution has been receiving a lot of flak lately for precisely its pseudo-scientific aura.

But the point here is not this or that theory of science, but only to acknowledge that the “cult of the saints” too, in order to make any sense, needs some criteria for knowing when “veneration” has become “excessive” (and in what way) or when it has turned into “idolatry” (worship of creature). Without such criteria the practice of veneration saints is “pseudo-scientific”, so to say.

“Superstitions and excessive credulity in the cult of saints” (4:248), it goes without saying, is to be shunned, but this advice is totally useless if it is not explained what such “superstitions” and “excessive credulities” could possibly be!

Well, what could they be?

What is Worship?

I thought that a Sunday would be a proper day to ask a basic question that pertains to all Christians, whether layman or theologian. The question is:

What is worship?

As I read volume two, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom, of Jaroslav Pelikan's five-part history of the development of Christian doctrine, there were two questions that loomed large in my mind. The other one which I won't discuss here was “What is the point of dogma?” Both this and “What is worship?” are theological questions that seem simple. Almost too simple to entertain seriously, but when further reflected on, they prove to be absolutely fundamental for every Christian. I was hoping to find, if not proper answers to them, at least a satisfactory articulation of the questions themselves.

Indeed, what is worship? What exactly do we mean when we say we “worship” God?

We Christians believe that worship is the proper response of creature towards Creator. We believe that worship is the primary calling of man in relation to God. One could say that love is this primary calling. Yes, worship and love may be treated as one. Both overlap each other, and both are prerequisites for happiness in the truest sense (“human flourishing”). And happiness includes (but is not limited to) eternal happiness.

We also believe that the object of worship must be the “true God”, not our construction of him, otherwise we worship and idol (in other words we are “idolizers”). Also, not only the object of worship but worship itself must be “true” or “right”, otherwise it is imperfect at best and meaningless at worst (making us unjust towards our Creator to whom, and only to whom, true worship is due).

Now, what constitutes worship? Here’s a sub-question: how does worship towards God differ from a proper disposition towards other things, like people?

Some distinctions

Catholics make a distinction between “worship” and “veneration”. The first, when applied to God is proper, and when applied to people (mainly to saints, “our forefathers in faith”) is not only improper but also a mortal sin. The second, when applied to saints is proper, and when applied to God is either proper or, when not accompanied by worship, meaningless.

Thus far the distinction, however, is only of terminology. Where lies the “real” difference, the difference in terms of “substance”, the difference that counts, the difference that can be experienced and observed in reality? What, exactly, is reserved for God only that is constituent of worship and not of veneration? In other words, what is the heart of worship?

Is the difference between worship and veneration a difference of type or a difference of quality? To use an analogy, is veneration a mild electric current which, as it grows stronger, approaches worship (difference of “quality”), or is veneration a mild electric current and worship something quite different, like fire (difference of “type”)?

If the difference is that of quality, “proper worship” would be a “proper order of worship” – God merits our highest worship, and lesser things merit lower worship. In traditional theology, such an “order of loves” (ordo amoris) is very common. But if the difference is that of type, we need to clarify more precisely what these two types – worship and veneration – are. I will not discuss the type option here.

An “order” of loves and worship

What, then, if the difference is that of quality?

We have treated worship and love as nearly synonymous. What follows is an order of love. Loving objects in the proper order is the (or a) key of right worship.

Is this backed by Scripture? It would seem so. The disciples asked Jesus of the “proper order of commandments”. “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31.)

Implicit in Jesus’ answer is an order of loves: the most important thing is to love God, and secondly, you must love your neighbor as yourself. The right order is the “measure” and difference of proper worship and veneration: if the order is wrong, worship and veneration become corrupted in some sense.

We must remember that the type of love we are here discussing is charity or agape, divine self-sacrificing love, the word John used when he said that “God is love [agape]”. When we love (agape) our neighbor, we love them through God (who is the source of love) and we love God through them (who are images of God) provided the order of our loves is proper. In this way these two commandments form one “great commandment”. They are two sides of the same coin.

Faithfulness and sacrifice

So, we’ve established an order of things. What else can be said? By connecting love to worship and by establishing an order of love/worship we’ve found part of the answer to our question. But, the core of the question still remains: What, exactly, is love (or worship)?

Jesus provides another key when he says that: “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15) and: “The person who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me” (John 14:21). This is helpful. Love (or worship) is doing the will of God. (Here I am not going to ask if obeying, “works”, is merely the fruit of love, “faith”. I take it that they are organically connected.)

Continuing with the quality paradigm, we can add sacrifice as one constituent of love/worship. It is remembered that agape is self-sacrificial. Now, what is sacrifice? This is a difficult question, and I will not attempt an answer here. But one thing can be confidently stated. Our presuppositions imply that sacrifice belongs to the quality category (not to “type”), because sacrifice is a constituent of love/worship.

From this it follows that, if the “order” is right, sacrifice can be directed and offered both to the Creator and to the creature. This makes sense: humans often “make sacrifices” for each other, especially for spouses and children, and we commend them for that.

Summa summarum

We left many important questions unanswered. But, if the difference between worship and veneration is that of quality, at least we’ve established a few things.

We know that worship, veneration, and love are all intimately connected. Their legitimacy or illegitimacy depends on the proper order of their objects. Love/worship of God implies doing God’s will. Lastly, love/worship is sacrifice (whatever that is).

So, when we say that we “worship God”, if our words are backed by our whole being, we are saying at least the following: that we love him, that we love him above all else, that we love our neighbors as ourselves, that we live by his will, and that our love is sacrificial.

We understand that we haven’t said what “sacrifice” is, and we understand that loving God requires knowing him (we cannot love that what we don’t know – worship/love requires the right object).

Any extra light from Pelikan?

Now, I must say that The Spirit of Eastern Christendom offered no new insights to the question of worship. Well, it didn’t have to as it was a book on the development of dogma, not a book on basic theological questions. The author must have presumed that the readers know the answers to elementary theological questions, like what is worship. I didn’t. I don’t.

In the chapter on icons, “Images of the Invisible”, Pelikan uses “worship” and “veneration” interchangeably (see e.g. pp. 96-99, 106). That is very odd. Why would he do that? I doubt that a theologian of his caliber would not distinguish between them in his private thinking, so it must be presumed that he is trying to faithfully follow the belief of his sources as it chronologically developed.

For early on in the chapter we have the only (yet still minimalist) definition of worship: it is “paying honor” (p. 103). The definition, though welcome, remains a mere verbal one and begs the question: What, then, is “paying honor”? But later, a need for clarification and distinction becomes clearer. Eastern theologians made it clear that “it was one thing to pay proper respect [τιμή] to the saints, quite another to address worship [προσκύνησις] to them, and yet another to portray them in worshipful images” (p. 112). But this distinction too, though welcomed, remains one of mere terminology.

Attempted articulation

Eventually the question that bothers me is raised in a straightforward manner. The italics are mine.

The orthodox “were obliged to set forth a theory of worship that would protect the uniqueness of the worship of the true God and yet permit other acts of reverence”. When iconoclasts argued that “there is only one kind of worship, not many kinds,” the orthodox replied that “this is true of the worship of adoration [λατρευτική]” but that the worship of mortals “was nevertheless permissible by analogy and derivation from the single worship of God”. There was a “worship of adoration, which we pay only to the God who is by nature adorable”, but there was also a worship paid to “the friends and worshipers of God” for his (God’s) sake, because of “their derivative divine nature; this included both angels and saints”. “Adoration pertained only to God, but either by love or by reverence or by law one was also bound to other to whom one paid worshipful respect. This distinction was grounded in biblical evidence about worship paid to creatures by men whose adoration of the one true God was beyond reproach.” (p. 126.)

Yet the exact difference between “worshipful adoration of God” and “worshipful respect of saints” remains unclear. All we can take away from these clarifications is that “worshipful adoration” of God means worshiping him for his own sake; whereas “worshipful respect” of saints means worshiping not for their own sake but for God’s sake.

In light of the type/quality distinctions above, these really amount to neither. They’re not, strictly speaking, different types of worship, nor are they worship of different quality. Rather, there’s a difference in one’s basic attitude and understanding of why one worships. Does one worship the object for its own sake or for the sake of something beyond the object?

Question left unanswered

If this is really what we are looking at, it is no wonder that the “accusation of idolatry and the response to it struck at a deep and sensitive point in Christian belief” (p. 127).

Cyril of Alexandria rejected any “adoration or worship of them [images of saints]” (p. 284) but from this we cannot make out whether Cyril took adoration and worship to mean different things or the same thing (in either case, he rejected it). And since no explanation has been offered as to how the different kinds of worships differ concretely (mere use of different words does not count), even these potentially helpful passages shed no new light on the problem:

“The worship paid to them [images] was an act of ‘honor [τιμή],’ not one of ‘adoration [λατρεια]’” (p. 291). “[W]hile the worship paid to the icons was one of honor rather than of adoration, the worship paid to the Eucharist was one of adoration rather than merely of honor, because the presence in the Eucharist was that of the Lord himself” (p. 291).

Discussion Continues...

The first of my three political theory questions that I posted some time ago has received several new comments.

Do contribute to the discussion, everybody! This is a joint venture.

Click here.

Political Theory - Q#2: Origin of Change--Law or Conscience?

Political theory #1: Matter vs. Spirit
Political theory #2: Origin of Change--Law or Conscience?
Political theory #3: Christian Politician's Dilemma

It is no secret that democracies don't always work by majority vote and are no secure defense against error or wickedness. As regards the first, influential lobbyists and the "court of public opinion" can so affect government that its laws and decisions do not, as they ought to, faithfully reflect the thoughts and beliefs of the people. As regards the latter, even when the first danger has been avoided, in other words even when the outcome of a vote is a true depiction of the people's will, it may still be blatantly erroneous or downright evil. Slavery was legal in the U.S. over the period of several consecutive presidencies, Hitler rose to power by majority vote, and so on. Examples of both vacuous prohibitions and wicked liberties are easy to come by even in today's societies.

This does not mean that democracy is not a good form of government. It does mean that it has its own hangups and defects. One (neutral) difference is that the responsibility of serious blunders is more evenly distributed than in, say, dictatorial monarchies. This is because more people exercise freedom and take part in the decision making.

One could argue, based on what has been said, that to improve a democracy is to minimize the risk of these two problems: (1) the misrepresentation of collective beliefs, and (2) the sanctioning of misguided (evil) collective beliefs.

The second of the three political dilemmas that bother me relates to (2) above. How does one contribute to the defense of truth in a democratic society? What role does law, private/public conscience, and their interplay have in this?

These are huge questions, and an exhaustive answer is beyond my powers. I take it for granted that, as the building blocks of society are individual human persons, change must begin there - here, within ourselves. It has become a platitude (at least among Christians) to say that the quickest and surest way to better the world is to better oneself. But surely this is the case. To live by virtue (whether this takes a conscious religious dimension or not), to raise one's children to recognize truth, beauty, and goodness, and to live a life that requires an answer -- i.e. inspires onlookers to think, "I want what s/he has." Over time, many would catch this "good infection" and goodness would permeate human life collectively as well.

Now, when private beliefs change, public belief changes - and when public belief/opinion changes, a pressure builds to bring legislation on par with the new situation. Initiatives are made, individuals rally and speak in unison, and once all the appropriate procedures (bureaucracy or revolution) is dealt with new laws are passed and reinforced. They must be reinforced because, as we remember, a minority - perhaps a considerable number - voted against it.

But then something happens. Often, over time, the critical voices disappear one by one. Public opinion changed and changed the law, but now a changed law changes public opinion. For unreflective people, the mere fact that something is officially illegal is enough to convince them that that's how it should be. Many Finns, for instance, think a 3-month-old fetus is not a human person because the law says it is not. Or consider the law prohibiting the physical discipline of your children. This has been illegal only a few years, yet the number of people who think this is an excellent law has grown considerably since it was passed. When a moral obligation or what is considered a fact is expressed, defended, and reinforced publicly, public opinion tends to conform.

In a nutshell, both - public opinion and legislation - affect the other.

What more can be said of this interplay? How far can we elaborate? What can be learned from it? How ought it affect the thought and work of a politician, Christian or not? For example, if there is danger of a bad law being passed, should the "wiser" politician use all means necessary, even overriding public opinion (see (1) obove), to defend reason and goodness, while trusting that eventually public opinion will catch up, as it were? Etc.

Political Theory - Q#1: Matter vs. Spirit

(or Externality vs. Internality)

Political theory #1: Matter vs. Spirit
Political theory #2: Origin of Change--Law or Conscience?
Political theory #3: Christian Politician's Dilemma

My thoughts are still very muddled, but I thought I'd anyways give it a go and try to communicate the first of the three theoretical problems in politics as I see them. I'm hoping that even a semi-successful formulation of the issue will help me proceed a few steps towards its solution.

The dilemma arises out of two truths that, taken separately, seem intuitively quite solid but that, taken together, seem contradictory. If it's a real contradiction one of the truths is a fallacy. If it's only an apparent contradiction - that is to say, a paradox - my anxiety is lessened but I'd still very much like to get to depths of it.

The first truth is this. A perfect society shall never come about by simply making some adjustments, rearranging society here and there, or fixing other external factors. The other side of this truth is that the problems of society can never be reduced to (explained by) simply societal maladjustments, disorganization, or some other superficial factors. The belief that they can is a key fallacy of all secular world-views, be they Marxist or western democratic utopias that stem from Enlightenment ideas.

T. S. Eliot expressed it this way: "Some dream of a such a perfect society, that it is no longer necessary for us to be good." Herein lies the wisdom that counterbalances secular thinking's folly. The problems of life are not ultimately technical, they are moral. They stem from the heart of man, the disorder from within, not the disorder from without. Christian tradition calls it the Original Sin. No matter how great the structure, no matter how educated, wealthy or cultured the society, everything comes tumbling down eventually. And the corrupt people make it to the top, or the top corrupts the people that make it there, whichever way it is.

The second truth is this. Taken the fact that the ultimate source of human misery, both on the individual and collective level, is a fundamental flaw in us, it is yet true that in some societies it is easier to be a "good person" than in others. Some have expressed it this way: a good society is a society in which the good man finds it easy to be good, and a bad society is a society in which the good man finds it difficult to be good.

Take, for instance, a country where a given vice is prohibited. I would suspect that in this country it is easier to avoid the vice and practice the virtue opposite to it. Or take a wealthy country - chances are that there is less social unrest or war in that country than in its poor neighboring country. Poverty is a cause of other social problems. Take away poverty and various blessings will follow. All this, however, seems to suggest that there is an element of truth in Marxist etc. ideas.

Now, at first the first truth - that perfecting society on the structural level won't erase wickedness from life - seems to present the legislator or politician (or any good willed person, for that matter) a problem. If it won't work, what's the point in trying to perfect society then? I have explained here why I think we ought to do our best to work for a better society and why a certain form of "perfect society" does, in fact, exist logically and potentially in practice too. But this is not the point I'm trying to make here.

The first truth - perfecting society won't erase wickedness - seems to be in contradiction with the second truth - perfecting society will lessen wickedness (make it easier to be good).

What's up with this? Is one mistaken? If not, can their interplay be explained more satisfactorily? What constitutes the apparent contradiction? Is there a level to this paradox that simply must be accepted by faith, or can we by making qualifications weaken the aura of mystery? What effect (if any) ought it have on the politician's thinking and acting?

I find this whole question very difficult. I'm not even sure that I nailed it. Hopefully I'll do a better job with the two other dilemmas to which I'll return later.

Human Language

I'm sure I'm not the only person who has these kinds of moments. Every now and then, when you're thinking about a familiar word, any word, thinking about what it means, how it's spelled, what it sounds like when it's said aloud, maybe repeating it a few times - an odd thing may happen. Suddenly, you see it in a new light. This word, used thousands and thousands of times in the past, now seems, looks, and sounds ridiculous. You think to yourself: “Ha, what a dumb word!” (Not the thing the word symbolises, but the words itself.)

Two minutes later, it doesn't seem so stupid anymore, it's returned to its normal familiar state.


I wonder whether on these rare occasions we actually feel the truth which we generally know to be true: that words are merely symbols we quite arbitrarily choose for realities?

The words vary from language to langauge and evolve within each language over time, but the reality remains the same. The thing itself is real, the word is not. But through endless repetition the word and the reality it symbolises have fused into one so that speaking the word immediately brings forth the picture of the reality. But on rare occasions they're detached for a brief moment. And during those moments when the link between the thing and the symbol is not apparent, we realise how inadequate and clumsy the symbol is in comparison to the thing itself.

Perhaps someone can draw even more fundamental conclusions. I don't think trivial phenomena like these are trivial at all: very often they're an echo of an intriguing secret. That makes them so fascinating and worth reflecting on.

Is All Philosophy Faith-Based?

We often hear about the juxtaposition of “faith”-based and “fact”-based or “knowledge”-based thinking or argumentation. The basic idea behind the distinction is that the former ultimately relies on “faith”, or unprovable assumptions, whereas the latter bases all thinking on empirical and verifiable data only.

It seems to me that this juxtaposition is false. Not that the former so-called faith-based thinking is, upon closer examination, fact-based after all, but rather that the latter so-called fact-based is, upon closer examination, faith-based after all. Always, without exceptions.

Sounds unbelievable? I think so too, but cannot see how it (logically) could be otherwise. Let me try to explain.

When we reason or make arguments, we begin from premises and arrive at conclusions. Or we begin from the conclusions and, upon being questioned, reveal the premises. Classical reasoning, or one should say nearly all reasoning, is axiomatic. This means that, ultimately, at the very root of all our thinking are axioms: unprovable premises (or unprovable basic assumptions) upon which we base our thinking and opinions. If one thinks that one does not rely on axioms this way, one is simply wrong. Careful back-tracking of one’s thinking will reveal that, in fact, the last (or first) assumptions/premises cannot be proved but have to be simply accepted or rejected.

For instance, say you believe M (let M be any belief you have about history, nature, life, religion, etc.). Why do you believe M is true? After thinking, you may answer that you believe M because of K and L (let K and L be factors that together make M seem plausible/believable). In other words, the premises K and L together resulted in the conclusion M. Now, why do you believe K and L are true? Again, after thinking about it, you may come up with even more fundamental arguments, like I and J, which together make K and L seem plausible/believable.

The rejoinder question - “Why?” - can be repeated as many times as necessary. Sooner or later, the answers stop. This is a necessary logical fact - you cannot continue arguing or supplying proofs and proofs of proofs etc. ad infinitum. Ultimately you’ll come up against A - the axiom(s) which you cannot prove but simply have to accept (or reject).

In some instances, the jump to the unverifiable A (axiom) is instantaneous. Such is the case with, for instance, the reliability of Reason itself in the first place.

Is human reasoning trustworthy (= can it yield true conclusions)? You have to answer “Yes” or “No” immediately. Any prior analysis of the problem (or argumentation in support of your answer) is futile. Why so? Because if Reason is not trustworthy in the first place, what good is reflection then? Reflection/argumentation relies on Reason.

Okay, let’s recap. Our thinking is based on axioms - faith-based assumptions. Now, many philosophers do not like this at all. Bertrand Russel, for example (a great critique of Christianity, by the way), said: “No! We cannot base philosophy on faith like this.” This lead to the attempts to develop other kinds of reasoning or verification systems, which (apparently) wouldn’t involve axioms. The most famous is the so-called Model Theory. Basically, it’s thesis is: once you’ve built a theoretical system (model), if all the “items/data” you place within that system fit together and retain the system’s coherence, they can be called “true”.

But is Model Theory, in truth, non-axiomatic? Does it avoid the problem of faith? It seems to me it does not. You see, there is at least one axiomatic belief (faith-based assumption) it falls back on. It is this: that Model Theory itself is a valid method for seeking truth. Which, of course, cannot be proved. It must be accepted or rejected.

At the end of the day it seems - I’m not certain, but it definitely seems - that all attempts to base one’s reasoning purely on non-faith-based methodologies must fail.

Peculiar Art

A piece of art, that's a given, but what kind of art exactly? I'm asking you. I took this picture a little over a year ago. It was breathtaking - for me at least.

Eat My Grandma?

In many Eastern religions meat-eating is prohibited. Even more so if the animal in question is a cow. Many who endorse samsara (the belief in a cycle of re-births) believe animals can be human relatives and loved ones incarnate.

It’s no surprise they follow a vegetarian diet. Everyone can understand the dislike of the idea of eating your relative, say, your Grandma. And if you believed that any given animal can, in fact, be your Grandma, abstaining from meat seems a rather reasonable option.

But what about the fact that in the animal kingdom some animals eat other animals?

I would like to find an answer to these two interrelated questions: (1) If meat-eating is so strongly prohibited for human beings, how and why do our reincarnate friends and family pick up the habit of eating one another? (2) Why is it prohibited for a human being to eat meat, when his reincarnate friends and family do the same every day?

Perhaps in the Hindu “hierarchy of animals” the “less holy” animals are carnivores and omnivores? I don't know.