What Would It Take to Convince You?

The last Reason Rally was held June 4, 2016. Maybe the novelty has worn off because I can’t find a date for a 2017 Rally. Perhaps it will be every four years, or perhaps "reason" has left this Nation. In any case, the upcoming anniversary got me thinking more about reason vs. atheism. I rarely go on YouTube, but I decided to go ahead and browse some videos of atheists/agnostics debating believers about the existence of God and also conversing with each other, such as this debate between Richard Dawkins and Cardinal George Pell:

And this conversation between Richard Dawkins and Matt Dillahunty:

Since I have some experience conversing (civilly) with atheist/agnostics on this blog and other forums, much of what I heard was not new. As a case in point, I noticed an underlying premise in the videos that I have also noticed in personal conversations. There is normally a fundamental and possibly subconscious premise of “knowing better” about certain things.

For example, if there really was a God who wanted to save us from sin, he surely would have come up with a better plan than becoming a man and then sacrificing himself to himself. If I know better, then I know that a real God would have come up with a plan I can agree with or at least find sensible. It’s the same type of thing with the Old Testament. Why would God first reveal himself to only the Jews (or the ancestors of the Jews)? Why not all people at once? Again, if I know better, then I know a real God would have revealed himself to the entire world and not just a chosen group of people. I suppose—in their minds—this would have made things simpler?

It’s a circular argument…

➤ If it is senseless to me, then it cannot be true

➤ It is not true because I think it is senseless

Something that was new to me was the question “What would it take to convince you that God exists?” There was mention of very clear empirical and sensory evidence that might convince them, like a giant Jesus descending from the clouds for all to see, but for the most part the answer was “nothing”. An answer met with enthusiastic applause from a sympathetic audience in at least one of the videos.

Evidence is another interesting topic in and of itself. Some atheist/agnostics I’ve conversed with came off as self-proclaimed authorities of evidence. Only empirical/scientific data was valid evidence for them. Data from metaphysics, philosophy, witness testimony, inferences and other modes of reasoning were generally dismissed. This poses a problem when debating something immaterial (non-physical). Do inalienable human rights exist? Do you have the right to life? Do you have the right to choose? How do we prove these things? Empirically? If we truly want to be objective, should we look at ALL the data or only the data we like best?
See 20 non-empirical proofs for the existence of God from the fabulous Dr. Peter Kreeft

It’s contradictory and smacks of Scientism…

➤ Using empirical data is the only valid way to prove something

➤ The above is a philosophical statement that cannot be proven empirically

Now, back to the question “What would it take to convince you that God exists?” Atheist Matt Dillahunty argued that God would know exactly what it would take to convince him, but God has not done so. Dillahunty then concludes two possibilities (2^nd video above, 45:50)…

➤ Either God does not exist or…

➤ God does not want him to know that he exists

…and for either case it is of no concern to him

I thought of a third option. Could it be that God would want you to form your own conclusions? Perhaps God respects your mind and does not want to force himself onto your thinking? Maybe there is a fourth option too. There is a God and there is a reason, but we don’t know it. Of course, this conflicts with the premise of “knowing better” as mention above. If I know better, then I know there can only be two possibilities.

What would it take to convince you?

In the spirit of fairness, I pondered the opposite question. What would it take to convince you that God does NOT exist? I had to think about that question for a while. Since Catholics (and others) say God is the ground of all being or being itself(1), we cannot answer the question the way one would answer, “What would it take to convince you that Zeus does not exist?” God is not “one being among many” like Zeus would be and every other being is. It's like asking “What would it take to convince you that being itself does not exist?” or perhaps like asking “What would it take to convince you that existence does not exist?”

In this sense, the question poses a contradiction and contradictions are essentially meaningless. What would it take to convince you that I can draw a square shaped circle? What would it take to convince you that I’m a married bachelor? A square shaped circle or a married bachelor cannot exist in reality. In a similar, but opposite way I do not see how the “ground of all being” cannot be or how existence cannot exist.

So as we approach the anniversary of maybe the last Reason Rally, and based on the logic above and the Catholic understanding of “being”, I would have to "reason" that God cannot…not exist.

I’ll end this post with a dangerous picture that can cause brain damage. Study it briefly…but then look away!!!

1. Fr. Robert Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of Faith (New York: Image Books, 2011) p. 61-64.

Passion, Politics and the Existence of God

Could the current political climate in this country be used as evidence for the existence of God? Could we take the recent Women’s March and the Right to life March, which both happened within a week of each other, and point to something transcendent? How about President Trump’s executive order on immigration and all the subsequent protests happening right now? Is there a path to God in such a mess? I think there is and I’m reminded of portions of a book called Jacobs Ladder: 10 Steps to Truth by Dr. Peter Kreeft and excerpts from my own book called Faith with Good Reason. Whether talking politics or religion it all starts with “passion”.

Of Passion...

There is no doubt that one side of the political aisle can see the passion of the other side. What the opposition is passionate about may be called wrong, misguided or even evil, but the observable effects of their passion remains factual nonetheless. Humans get passionate about things and I think we all know the difference between true passion and just a passing interest. Many are passionate about proper ethics, morals or justice (the Good). Others have their passion in art, literature, music, dance, theater, athleticism or nature (the Beautiful). Still others have a passion for technology, science, math or discovery (the True). Many are willing to commit their entire lives to these kinds of things, even unto death. This is also how we know we are different than animals. Not even our closest animal relatives show evidence for having a true passion for “the Good”, “the Beautiful” and “the True”. But passion alone can ignite anything it touches. It’s like blind power. I’m sure Osama bin Laden had passion for his cause.

Of Truth...

If you are truly passionate about a cause, it’s not a big step to accepting objective truth as something that is real. Holding truths to be self-evident, as the founders of this nation wrote, is different than a personal belief or opinion. If you are truly passionate about a woman’s universal right to choose or a baby’s universal right to live, you will not accept relativistic terms like “it’s just true for me” or “it’s only opinion”. If you are passionate about how much you love or hate President Trump's executive order on immigration, you will not think of it the way you might think of loving or hating chocolate ice cream.

Of Meaning...

Meaning is next. Once we consent to the existence of at least some objective truth, the acceptance of some real meaning or purpose behind it all is not a far leap either. All people desire lasting happiness and the truths that we hold are meant to lead us to happiness. We use our heads and our hearts in the pursuit of that happiness.

Of Love...

So what is the meaning of life, which will bring us lasting happiness? If we are only physical beings, then only physical things are needed to keep us happy. Outward abundance and physical pleasure should satisfy us fully and bring lasting happiness, but they don’t. We seek more; we seek love; and love is not the same as “good feelings”. If it were, we could say that taking drugs, which result in good feelings, is what true love is all about. So what kind of love are we looking for? It’s unconditional, unselfish and sacrificial love. This kind of love involves more than feelings. It requires willing the good of others, so it requires an act of the will or a choice. So love is an act of the will and can bring lasting happiness to everyone and is thus the meaning of life.

Of Laws...

Humans live in organized societies, which are guided according to certain principles, and those principles are reflected in the laws.Good laws would support and be consistent with what is good for human beings and the "Natural Law" of love. Bad laws would undermine love and thus be unnatural. Of course, without God’s Grace and with our own fallen nature the meaning of "love" and “good” are too easily confused. What some call good is actually bad and what some call bad is actually good; up becomes down and down is up.

"The peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself"
– G.K. Chesterton

But even with the chaos and muddled-thinking it all points to something…

Of God...

If there is sunlight, there must be a sun. If there is electricity, there must be a generator. If love is from the will and is the meaning of life, there must be a first “willer”. If one has accepted even some objective truth or morals, then there must be a source for it. If there is a natural or moral law that transcends human opinion, there must be a “first cause” for it or a moral law-giver. A loving moral law-giver reasonably implies something with intelligence and “intent” and one would do well to ponder what a curious thing that would be. Nothing in this post definitively proves what Catholic theology would say about God, but to say that the truths we hold as self-evident are only a delusion is wishful thinking for those who wish to avoid the reality of the human condition and its passion.

“Man does not explain himself to himself without the odd suspicion that he is missing something.”

 – James V. Schall, S.J. 

Answering a Sweeping Question with Dr.Kreeft

I recently ran across this comment on another blog:

“I’d like to learn more about this God. Are you suggesting that I read the Bible and follow the teachings of the Catholic Church in order to accomplish this? If so, why?”

It’s a sweeping question. Based on other comments from this person the question may have been posed more in sarcasm than sincerity, but whatever the case it certainly cuts to the chase. The question reminded me of a good answer from a book I read called “Jacobs ladder: 10 Steps to Truth” by Dr. Peter Kreeft.

 

Unlike aspects of this blog that tend to lead with the head in hopes that the heart will follow, Dr. Kreeft’s book seems to lead more with the heart, and the answer does not start with the Bible or the Catholic Church.  I thought I would share some notes and thoughts on this 10-step logic path in hopes that it can assist anyone with the sometimes difficult journey from the the heart to the head.

 

STEP 1: Passion

This is the first rung of the ladder. Humans get passionate about transcendent things like “the good”, “the beautiful” and “the true” and we all know the difference between true passion and just “interest”.

Many are passionate about morals or justice (the good). Others have their passion in art, literature (blogging?), music, dance, theater, athleticism or nature (the beautiful). Still others have a passion for technology, science, math, problem solving or discovery (the true). This is also how we know we are different than animals. Not even our closest animal relatives show evidence for having passion for “the good”, “the beautiful” and “the true”.

 

 

But passion alone can ignite anything it touches. It’s like blind power. This is why it is very dangerous to stop at step one. Adolf Hitler had passion. Imagine if his passion was driven by love instead of hate. Maybe we would be calling him Saint Hitler today.

STEP 2: Truth

If you are truly passionate, it’s not a big step to get to the second rung of the ladder and accept objective truth as something real. Holding truths to be self-evident, as the founders of this nation wrote, is different than a personal belief or opinion. If you are passionate in holding the truth that genocide is wrong, you will not accept relativistic terms like “it’s wrong for me” or “it’s wrong in our culture”. No, it is wrong…period. Just like a physical law, genocide being wrong is something universal and unchangeable.

STEP 3: Meaning

Once we consent to the existence of at least some objective truth, the acceptance of some meaning or purpose behind it all is not a far leap either. All people desire lasting happiness and the truths that we hold are meant to lead us to happiness. We use our heads and our hearts in the pursuit of that happiness that will ultimately lead us to the meaning of life.

 

STEP 4: Love

If we are only physical beings, then it stands to reason that only physical things are needed to keep us happy. Outward abundance and physical pleasure should satisfy us fully and bring lasting happiness, but they don’t. We seek more; we seek love and love is not the same as “good feelings”. If it were, we could say that taking drugs, which result in good feelings, is what true love is all about.

So what kind of love are we looking for? It’s unconditional, unselfish and sacrificial love. This kind of love involves more than feelings. It requires willing the good of the other, so it requires an act of the will or a choice. So love comes from an act of the will and it brings lasting happiness to everyone and is thus the meaning of life.

 

“If you find the meaning of life, you’ve found something more precious than the little time it took you to find it, because you’ve found the meaning of ALL your times.”

― Dr. Peter Kreeft
 

STEP 5: Principles (law)

Humans live in organized societies which are guided according to certain principles and those principles are reflected in the laws. If love is the meaning of life that will bring lasting happiness, then the law should be love’s servant, not love’s masters; love’s ally, not love’s enemy. Good laws would support and be consistent with the natural law of love. Bad laws would undermine love and thus be unnatural.

STEP 6: God

If there is sunlight, there must be a sun. There are always the traditional proofs for the existence of God, like how the creation proves the Creator or the design proves the Designer, but in the context of these steps God is not a far leap of faith after step 5. If one has accepted objective truth or morals that are not sourced from human opinion (step 2), then there must be a truth giver of some sort. If love is from the will and is the meaning of life (steps 3&4) there must be a first lover and a first “willer”. If there is a natural law (step 5) there must be a natural law giver.
 

“…they told you that love is just down here, under the clouds; so when you climb up high enough, beyond the clouds, to places you can’t see from down here, you won’t find love but something else.”

― Dr. Peter Kreeft

 

STEP 7: The Jews

Why doesn’t this God revel himself publicly? Well, He did, and in a big way. God revealed himself publicly to both believers and non-believers when establishing the nation of Israel. The Hebrew people were few and weak, but broke out of bondage and survived for thousands of years even with many powerful nations wanting to destroy them. They received and passed on the greatest moral code in history (10 commandments) which the world still lives by today.

They taught us that God is one, a person, a creator, eternal, perfect, faithful and loving. This notion of god or gods did not come from the Egyptians, Romans, Greeks or anyone else in history. They taught us that God loves us and wants us to love Him and each other in return. This fits with the meaning of life we concluded in step 4.

STEP 8: Christ

The Jews were expecting a savior as can be read about in the Old Testament. Other religious figures like Buddha or Mohammad were not anticipated ahead of their birth and certainly did not make the radical claims or do the radical things that Jesus did. God went public once again in the person of Jesus through many public miracles and a public resurrection with many witnesses.

Although many Jews were expecting a political savior, a savior that can free us from sin through sacrificial love makes more sense in the logic of life we are following. Sin is what separates us from God which means we are separated from the source of love. Since we are saying love is the meaning of life (step 4), it makes sense that we need to be freed from sin to travel properly from passion (step 1) all the way up to God (step 6).

STEP 9: Catholic Church

Jesus was concrete. He was historical, visible and authoritative, so it stands to reason that His Church would also be concrete, historical, visible and authoritative. He didn’t wait for us to invent a church of our own. Jesus authorized His Apostles and they in turn authorized their own successors. The two big reasons for believing the Catholic Church is to be sure to get Jesus right and to be sure to get the Bible right. Jesus founded a Church, not a book.

STEP 10: Authority

We need the authority of the Church when reason isn’t enough. Things like the Trinity or the cannon of scripture cannot come from reason alone and certainly cannot come from the Bible alone. All Church creeds are basically answers to heresies of the past.

If you reject step 10, you must water-down or completely reject step 9 and so on with the other steps, all the way back to rejecting step1,  which leaves you nowhere, and that’s where many people are today.

It is inconsistent to have…

• Authority without a Church…or a Church without authority
• The Church without Christ…or Christ without a Church
• Christ without Jews…or Jews without a Christ
• Jews without God…or God without Jews
• God without laws…or laws without God
• Law without love…or love without law
• Love without meaning…or meaning without love
• Meaning without truth…or truth without meaning
• Truth without passion…or passion without truth

Please take the time to read and explore the 10 Steps to Truth in their totality!

 

 

Five Minutes of Awesomeness

I'd say this video fits the theme of this blog rather well. Learn about the Big Bang vs. the Big Banger. Learn about what requires blind faith and a closed mind. Learn about what requires only reason and an open mind.

Winning the Culture War

The last post on this blog reflected on a talk by Dr.Peter Kreeft about why Catholics are losing the culture war. In light of all the same-sex marriage talk lately, it seems more than appropriate to share some insights from the second half of the talk entitled  “Winning the Culture War”, available on CD from Lighthouse Catholic Media.

Political or judicial action to keep marriage defined in civil law as it is in natural law is fine, but this kind of action is geared more toward the effect of the problem than toward the cause. Almost all dissent from Catholic teaching today involves something sexual and I think the problem of sexual sin in our culture can be framed as follows:

 

Here is the gist of a seven-point plan on how to take corrective action on the problem of sexual sin and win the culture war from the root of the battle:

1. Give to Caesar what is Caeser’s: It’s not about politics. Fight Christ’s war using Christ’s weapons of truth and love. In the end politics must be based on force (soldiers, police and lawyers). This is not The Way Jesus spoke of.

2. Stop the Happy-Talk: You are in a war, so shut-up and fight! But be a happy warrior because it is a glorious war. Losing your hope is like losing your faith because we know God always wins in the end.



3. Stop the busyness: Be Mary instead of Martha or do the works of Martha in the spirit of Mary (see Luke 10:38-42). Seek a contemplative presence with God. When Jesus comes to your house, stop cleaning the house and clean your mind instead.

4. Forget what is fashionable: …and all the time and energy it absorbs. Give Christ the loaves and fishes of your life and He will multiply them. Start spending time in Eucharistic adoration (even if you don’t feel like it) and He will change you. Do it as an act of the will.

5. Conquer the sexual revolution: As mentioned above, almost all dissent in the Church has to do with sexuality. Abortion, homosexuality, contraception, women’s ordination, inclusive language, fornication, divorce & remarriage all have an aspect of sexuality to them.

Anything between consenting adults is now justified and often glorified, even murder. We demand sex without babies. Since unrestricted sex is so indispensable we dispose of the babies instead, and the killing must remain just as unrestricted as the sex. What other examples of killing innocent life is tolerated like this? Not even the killing of animals. Even some trees have more rights.

The answer is JP2’s Theology of the Body. It’s like reading St. Augustine in the 5th century or St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century.  It’s the big picture. It’s the plug in the dam of our cracked society.

6. Be a saint:  Saints understand one thing very well; God is God and we are not. Saints give God EVERYTHING. This is easier said than done. I like to equate it to weight loss. What’s so difficult about weight loss? If you burn more calories than you take in, you will lose weight; VERY simple. What could be simpler? But how difficult it is to lose weight with our natural tendency towards fatty food, our bad habits, hunger pains and the culture of food we live in? So it is with the culture of death and we need God’s Grace to overcome it.

Whether it’s something sinful or saintly, it all starts with thoughts. “Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

7. Be saintly, not spiritual: Do not seek only the subject of God; seek the object of God. Do not seek subjective truth, but objective truth. Reject the motto “I feel, therefore I believe”. Reject the axiom that says the only sin is upsetting someone. Seek repentance instead of self-esteem. Love holiness, not niceness. Replace the fear of man with the fear of God.

Fighting the culture war involves fighting some BIG lies and the bigger the lies the bigger the suckers. Some lies are so big that they become hard to see unless you step back from the fray to see the big picture. The earth always looks flat until you break-free of worldly gravitation and start seeking the heavens. The message to all Catholics is clear. Seek first the Kingdom of God and the rest of the victory will be given to you.

Catholic Phony

Peter Kreeft has a fascinating way to describe how Catholics have been losing the culture war over the past few decades in a talk called “Winning the Culture War”, available on CD from Lighthouse Catholic Media. He describes how Satan plots to destroy Catholics à la Screwtape Letters. In case you are not familiar, The Screwtape Letters is a book by C.S. Lewis about an older demon, Uncle Screwtape, writing a series of letters to his nephew, Wormwood, about how to land a Christian in Hell.

 

The talk begins by explaining that God is being itself and the goal of Satan is to move us away from true being or “the real”, and move us toward non-being or “the unreal”. Moving toward the unreal makes us phony, and he used the acronym of P-H-O-N-E-Y to make some powerful points. Ironically, even the acronym of PHONEY is phony since it’s spelled incorrectly. The speaker seems intelligent enough to have planned it this way, but whatever the case, it is a very clever approach to bringing out problems within the Church that may not seem like problems on the surface. It acts almost like a modern-day examination of conscience. Are you P-H-O-N-E-Y?

Now hear this!

PLEASE NOTE: The following is paraphrased from Dr. Kreeft's talk and is written in the context of Satan giving instructions to other demons on how to completely destroy Catholics (along with the rest of civilized society), while at the same time making them think they are really faithful and quite helpful to the world.

 

 

 

P is for Politicization:

Make them treat politics as religion and religion as politics. Make them worship the elephant or the donkey instead of God. In this way they will make politics absolute and religion relative.

H is for Happy-Talk:

Keep them focused on peace, love, tolerance and non-judgmentalism. Convince them that the spiritual battleground is really a spiritual playground. Make them forget that in the past few decades they have lost about half their priests, two thirds of their nuns, Mass attendance went from 75% to 25% and confessions have been reduce by even more.

Don’t let them see that Catholic families are being destroyed at about the rate as non-Catholic families. They abort, contracept, sodomize, fornicate and divorce at about the same rate as everyone else, but make sure to convince them that all this is “progressive”. Of course we know that calling someone who supports these things “progressive” is like calling a cannibal a chef.

O is for Organizationalism:

Make sure they see the Church as an organization, not an organism; an earthy business instead of a supernatural mystery. Make them want success and not sanctity. Make them fear failure and not sin. Keep them busy and distracted; make them Marthas instead of Marys.

 

Do not allow any silence in their lives; prevent it at all costs because silence can lead to the “one thing” spoken of by Him at the house of Mary & Martha. This point cannot be emphasized enough. Use all the power and principalities at your disposal to keep them from contemplative silence which leads directly to the “one thing”. Nothing is more devastating to us and we have no defense against it (see Luke 10:38-42).

 

N is for Neo-Worship (worship of the new or fashionable):

Teach them that what is new is true and what is old is false. Make sure that they dismiss their “old’ weapons against evil and refer to them as “pre-Vatican II”. These things should include the Mass, the Eucharist, Eucharistic adoration, frequent confession, the Rosary, any traditional devotion to Mary or the saints, all dogmas and the whole idea of infallibility. In fact, it may even be possible to convince them Jesus himself is “pre-Vatican II”.

E is for Egalitarianism, especially among the sexes:

Men are superior to women at being men, and women are superior to men and being women, but make them think that men and women are the same. In this way the beauty of men and women is negated like making the beauty of black and the beauty of white into a dull gray. Make certain that any non-physical difference noted between men and women is immediately labeled as sexist bigotry. This will keep them quiet about the reality of the sexes.

Y is for Yuppiedom or Hedonism:

Make them shoppers instead of saints. Addiction to the comforts of this world will make them unwilling and unable to practice sacrificial love or embrace suffering. Make them want Christ without the cross, which is the same as no Christ at all.

Some Final Instructions:

Turn strength into weakness, but call it compassion. Make faithfulness faithlessness and have them call faithfulness fanaticism. Make them think of humility as stupidity and obedience as cowardice. Don’t overestimate them when they are lacking God’s Grace. In this state it is possible to convince them that good is evil and evil is good. Don’t underestimate yourselves; you can coax them into believing that snow is black if you need to. Make everything lead away from reality which will lead them to insanity. The unreal is the same as non-being, which is the same as non-living, which is exactly where we want them. Remember, the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).


The 2nd part of Peter Kreeft's talk deals with how Catholics can ultimately win the culture war. I’ll share some notes & thoughts on that part in a week or two. Until then, God bless.

The Logic of Moral Relativism

The doctrine of subjectivism is a curious thing.  It claims that for each person, truth is different.  There is no absolute truth.  If this is indeed the claim, it is easily refuted as this claim itself is an absolute statement.

I suspect that subjectivists take a more soft line in this respect (in order to avoid this embarrassing conundrum) and might say "there may be an absolute truth, but we may or may not know what it is."

Applied to morality, subjectivism becomes moral relativism.  As far as moral judgments are concerned, an act's moral goodness or badness depends upon the perspective of the people involved.  

One argument in favor of moral relativism is that one culture may consider an act to be good and another culture may consider it to be bad.  Here is the argument:

1. If an act is good for one culture
2. And the same act is bad for another culture
3. Therefore the act's moral value is relative to the culture

The premises of this argument can be shown empirically by looking at two cultures that have different values about a particular act.  For example, cannibalism or killing the elderly are variously considered good and bad among different cultures.

Let's look more closely at those premises.  Premise 1 is "If an act is good for one culture."  What makes an act good?  In this case, the culture must consider it to be good.  That is, the culture's opinion of this act is what makes it good or bad.  Isn't this hidden premise begging the question?  That is, if the culture's opinion of what makes an act good or bad actually makes it good or bad, that is a restatement of moral relativism.  The argument assumes what it is trying to prove.

Here is a restatement of the argument for clarity

1. If an act is considered good for one culture
2. And the same act is considered bad for another culture
3. And an act's moral value is determined by the culture (hidden premise)
4. Therefore the act's moral value is relative to the culture

You can now see that the new, third premise is equivalent to the conclusion.

This new premise is very interesting in that it means that one should never disobey one's cultural morality.  Whatever the culture considers right is, in actuality, right.  In essence, relativists can never object to the law.  They can only be status quo conservatives and therefore moral absolutists are the only ones that can be progressive and radical!   Only a moral absolutist has a trans-cultural standard by which to judge actions and can say to Hitler or Saddam Hussein, "what you are doing is wrong and must be stopped."  Relativists can only say, "different strokes for different folks, I happen to disagree but that's all."


It’s amazing how the public perception of these roles are the exact opposite of what I have just outlined.  Moral relativists are typically depicted as the liberal agents of change, while moral absolutists are supposed to be conservative dogmatists.  We can now see that moral relativists are secretly dogmatic and moral absolutists are radical and agents of change for good in the culture!

Those of us who understand that there is an absolute standard of right and wrong are agents of change. To settle into a comfortable conservatism is a surrender of the moral leadership that is required and expected of us. The reversal of the relativist and absolutist roles in the culture today will be addressed in Part Two.

Thanks to Peter Kreeft for much of the material for this post 

The Third Eye

Peter Kreeft has an interesting way of explaining how we see with the eyes of faith.  He refers to seeing with our "first" eye as using our bodily senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste), seeing with our "second" eye as using our mind or our reason, and seeing with our "third" eye as using our heart.

Anyone, animals included, use the first and the second eyes to see with.  The first is simple data gathering.  There is a wall there.  There is light coming in through the cracks in the wall.  The second eye reasons.  The wall is old and must be broken to be letting in the light.  The third eye however is used only by humans.  We go beyond reason just as reason goes beyond data gathering.  The third eye will look at the same crack in the wall and see along it.  It will see the hole reveals a world outside.  That the light is coming from the sun (which cannot be seen directly via the crack) and that it indicates a way out of the room.  There is more here than what meets the eye.

This third eye is how the heart sees.  It is also referred to as seeing by faith.  Animals do not understand a book, for example.  The dog sees the page.  It sees the markings on the page.  However it does not understand that the markings point beyond themselves to concepts beyond the print.  Only human beings can make the leap from a thing to what that thing symbolizes, to what it points to.

To a materialist, science is the limit of what can be seen.  The second eye, while very powerful for understanding and connecting the physical universe, is not sufficient to understand what cannot be seen by it.  To a materialist, a marriage is a simple pair bonding wholly explained by physical interactions, hormones and mutual advantage.  There is no more because the second eye can see no more.  On the other hand, the third eye can see that a marriage points to something beyond itself.  It is a sign of the love of God in the Trinity.  It understands that a man and a woman are created to be united as one in marriage, expressed in part by the physical, but the ultimate meaning of the marriage dwarfs the mere physical.

Just as reason makes sense of the data, the heart makes sense of reason.  This is not to say the heart is irrational, but that it goes beyond the merely rational.  As Pascal puts it, "The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing."