More Posts at The American Catholic

Greetings and Salutations,
I was accepted as a contributor for The American Catholic.

Thou shalt check it out!

https://the-american-catholic.com/2023/09/01/the-yin-and-the-yang/

 

The Allure of Eastern Religions

There are times when those who live secular lives in the West are allured by religions of the East, such as any form of Hinduism or Buddhism. At the same time the same individuals may show little or no interest in religions of the West, mainly any one of the many flavors of Christianity. Remember The Beatles? They had everything the secular West could offer in terms of outward abundance, but sought more from the East.

"Help, I need somebody
Help, not just anybody"
- The Beatles

My impression has been that Eastern Religions have a more relaxed and ambiguous moral code and set of beliefs than Catholicism or even Christianity in general, so it might attract those who claim to be spiritual, but not religious; those who like things loosey-goosey. My thoughts expanded somewhat after reading THIS ARTICLE from The Catholic Thing. The article touches on the confusion about “being” itself.

Absolute Oneness
In the West, absolute autonomy is a key “dogma”; this relates to the belief that no one can tell you what is right or wrong (for you). You need to figure that out for yourself and thus make your own meaning to life. In essence you become your own god, and since humans live in societies, you need to acknowledge the autonomous rights of others so we can all live harmoniously as co-equal gods. As this kind of dogma tightens its grip on us, we become self-centered instead of God-centered and everything becomes intense and dramatic. I think this is most evident in our present day political discourse.

Those who grow weary of the intense drama found in a narcissistic culture may finally seek solace in some sort of spirituality. But how can one hold on to absolute autonomy and still be “spiritual”? In this case I believe it’s helpful to view God, or “being itself”, as something like “The Force” from Star Wars. The Force tends to be impersonal, without a strict moral code; it can also be manipulated to do our will. At the same time, The Force seems to be omnipresent and omnipotent and even has a will of its own according to Jedi Knight, Qui-Gon Jinn (@1min, 24s).

“Always remember…your focus determines your reality.”

— Qui-Gon Jinn

The Judeo-Christian story doesn’t sync well with the view of God as a “force”. Would an impersonal life force ever concern itself with man and his little world, his cares or his sins? Would it make covenants with us or become a man like us and die for us; would it ever call us “children” and should we ever call it “Father”?

In Eastern Religions Nirvana (in Buddhism) and Moksha (in Hinduism) speak of breaking the cycle of birth, death and re-birth and reaching a transcendent state of bliss as an ultimate goal. The tendency in Eastern Religions destines man to become indistinguishable from the whole of being. Although many insist on absolute autonomy, being absorbed into an ultimate state of bliss after death mirrors the idea of living in utopia (or bliss) in this life as co-equal gods. In this sense secular Western mentality is well-suited for Eastern Religion and the idea of “being” as absolute oneness.

Absolute Otherness
The opposite view is absolute otherness. If we view God as simply one being among many, like a fairy in the sky or a flying spaghetti monster, we might imagine him as a being that will not embrace everything and everyone, or worse yet, some kind of competitor. Compare this to two small fish in the ocean debating the reality of water. Water is so vast, penetrating and all-encompassing that it is invisible to the fish. If we look for water in the ocean like we look for other objects, like a mermaid, we’ll become confused at best, gravely deceived at worst. Generally, we do not say there is water in the ocean. We are more apt to say the ocean is water, but at the same time we know the meaning of "ocean" is not precisely the same as the meaning of "water".

Islam also syncs with the view of God as absolute other; he is the absolute master and we are absolute slaves. Those who submit to the absolute will of Allah, as dictated through the sacred books of Islam are in a kind of safe space. Those who refuse to submit are not so safe in some Islamic circles—to put it gently. Man is really nothing in himself in comparison to the absolute being of God and I think you’ll be hard pressed to find a Muslim who calls Allah “Father”.

“It’s hard to say which of these two denials of the analogy of being…do the most damage. In both cases, there’s a tremendous cost in terms of the denigration of human dignity and devaluing of the individual person.”1

Catholicism
In Catholicism there are aspects of both oneness and otherness. God is God and we are not. The creation can never be the creator and vise-versa. At the same time God is defined by knowing and loving. We can be known, loved and adopted into the family of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit—and even have Mary as a Mother! By calling God “Father” and “Almighty”, the Catholic Creed joins together a loving family concept that relates more to “oneness” and the cosmic power that relates more to “otherness”. This expresses accurately a main point of the Christian image of God. It resolves the tension between absolute distance and absolute proximity, absolute otherness and direct kinship, the greatest and the least, and the first and the last. God is both-and, not either-or. 2


You're kinda lost without it...

Consider an analogy from lay apologist Frank Sheed.3 Imagine God’s grace as an electric current and an individual person as an old fashioned filament light bulb. With no electrical current the bulb has no light. Increase the current and we can see some light as the filament glows. Keep increasing the current and the glow intensifies more and more. If the current is strong enough, the light can glow so bright that we no longer can see the filament and surrounding bulb… all we see is light! Thus the bulb and the light appear to be one, but we know the electric current or the light is not the bulb and visa-versa. In the same way God’s grace can flow so strongly through a person it gives the impression of absolute oneness, but the reality of otherness remains.

The Lord "is always close, being at the root of our being. Yet we must experience our relationship with God between the poles of distance and closeness."

— Romano Guardini

1. Fr. Mark A. Pilon , The Catholic Thing [Website], “The Vital Analogy of Being” (329 June 2017), Site address: https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2017/06/29/that-vital-analogy-of-being/
2. Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004) p. 148-149.
3. Frank Sheed , Theology and Sanity, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993) p. 403.

 

Quote of the Day

This speaks to the need for Catholic Faith & Reason in today’s world about as well as anything I’ve ever read.

“When people say that in theology 2 + 2 can equal 5, or that we can’t rely on Christ’s statements as they are recorded in the Gospels because no one followed him about with a dicta-phone, we have a very foundational problem. If we can’t trust scripture and tradition and we can’t trust reason, what have we left? The subjective hunches or prejudices of the local ordinary?? Without the strong foundations the whole system crumbles and we are left with a crude voluntarism. Within such an order brutish power trumps reason and the sheep become confused and scatter.”1

1. Tracy Rowland, The Catholic World Report  [Website], “Tracey Rowland’s Guide Through the Catholic Academic 'Zoo'”, (11 May 2017), Site address: http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/5635/tracey_rowlands_guide_through_the_catholic_academic_zoo.aspx

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.

Imprimatur Granted!

Good news! My book, Faith with Good Reason, recently received an imprimatur (or permission to publish) from our local bishop. A book imprimatur in the Catholic Church is not an endorsement, but an acceptance or guarantee that something is of a good standard, free of any moral or doctrinal error. I'll be working with the publisher to have the proper verbiage printed in the book.

Comment from the reviewing theologian…

"Excellent work! I really enjoyed the book. You have a gift for explaining ancient teaching with modern lingo and examples that lose none of the depth of the teaching."

I'll now have more confidence proposing the book and concept to Catholic organizations, book sellers, schools, etc. The concept itself is age-old in terms of Faith & Reason, but I added what I feel is a unique twist that relates our Catholic faith to elements of analytical problem solving and decision making.

Problem solving seeks to answer the question “Why did it happen?” Decision making seeks to answer “What should we do?” This relates strongly to how we think (the intellect) and what we do (the will). Why do people firmly believe things they can’t prove? For example, does the Earth really revolve around the Sun? Have you seen it? Have you measured it? Or do you firmly believe it because it’s what other people told you?

Since what we think ultimately directs what we do, it's imperative that we study what we think and why we think it. Faith with Good Reason attempts to do just that and to do it for what is mentioned in the Catholic Creed, which is no less than…“all things visible and invisible”.

Please enjoy Faith with Good Reason now available at all these on-line book sellers:

Barnes and Noble

Amazon Books

Books a Million

Chegg Books

Powell's Bookstore

on Climate Change

I thought I’d look at the topic of Climate Change through the lens of the problem solving methodology we use where I work.  Whatever you think about Climate Change, you might agree that people tend to first form a conclusion and then look for data to support it…and, of course, explain away or ignore any data that doesn’t support it. Why is that? Politically speaking, if we can definitively tie Climate Change to human activity (CO2 emissions), it’s a perfect opportunity for a power grab—to control a whole lot of human activity. On the other hand, refuting the aforementioned has the opposite effect if one wants to limit government involvement in human activity.

Before a conclusion can be reached for a problem, a hypothesis must be reasoned. Before a hypothesis can be reasoned, relevant data must be gathered & sorted. Before relevant data is sorted, irrelevant data must be weeded out. Before any data is gathered, sorted or weeded, we must know if there is really any problem to begin with. Before we can decide if there is really any problem to begin with, the situation must be made clear. Before a situation can be made clear any ambiguities and over-generalizations must be dealt with.

Beginning at the beginning, we can see that the term “Climate Change” is ambiguous because “change” can mean too many different things to too many different people. I went to a NASA website for clarification on what is changing. I found these:

• See levels are rising
• Ice sheets are shrinking
• Arctic sea ice is declining
• Glaciers are retreating
• Snow cover is decreasing
• Oceans are acidifying
• Extreme weather events are increasing
• The Earth and oceans are warming (Global Warming)

Whatta mess! Looking at one thing at a time, we should look at the most serious concern first, which would be the concern with the biggest current and future impact.  I’ll go forward with the premise that Global Warming is the highest priority concern on the list above because it could conceivably be causing most of the other things on the list.

If my superiors at work were to ask our group to look into the Global Warming situation, we would first look at something called “The Should” and also something called “The Actual”. For this case, “The Actual” would be the current average global temperature assuming we can get a reliable measurement. “The Should” would be the Earth’s “normal” average temperature range…the way it should be. What would be the upper limit of that range and what would be the lower limit? I can tell you that a huge difficulty we’d run into right away is defining “The Should”.

But why not just look at the rise in CO2 since that is the presumed main cause of the warming? We could, but we’d invariably be back to the same questions about the Earth’s temperature. What “Should” is good? I work for a large manufacturer of imaging products and we’ll define “The Should” for a product or system based on historical manufacturing records and control limits and/or established industry standards among other things. There are no such standards for the Earth’s average temperature range that I know of, but we can look at history.

Let’s suppose we have about 200 years of accurate global temperature data. My guess is that it is much less than 200 years because of the many years with no satellite temperature data from space, but we’ll go with it. The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, but I’d say the climate 4.5 billion years ago is irrelevant data for humans living today. Let’s go back an amount of time in which the first mammals were happily living on Earth, breathing clean air and drinking clean water. Mammals go back about 200 million years. Keep in mind that 200 million years is only 4% of the Earth’s lifetime, so it’s a relatively short period of time to look at, but we’ll go with it. 200 years of temperature data in 200 million years would represent .0001% of the time.

To put this in context, the Dow Jones Industrial average (DJIA) has been around for about 120 years. .0001% of 120 years is about 63 minutes. Suppose that something very bad were to happen in the world on the next trading day causing the DJIA to dive 1000 points from 1:00PM to 2:03PM. At 2:04PM, should we conclude a long term financial disaster and an urgent need for more industry regulation? I’d say no.

For even more context, consider that 0001% of ten years is about 5.3 minutes. Suppose you walk into a ten year old home for the very first time with a family inside going about their business and you begin measuring the temperature. You note a warming trend of about 1°C after about 5.3 minutes and announce a domestic warming crisis and begin to regulate the families’ activity. Seems like hysteria to me without more data.

In either the case of the family home or the DJIA, if you were to declare a crisis and an urgent need for regulation you’d likely be on the receiving end of some blank stares.

This does not mean there should be no concern for Global Warming. In my profession I would need to report that there is not enough information to define “The Should”, so we would likely move this issue away from a problem analysis and into a decision analysis. Problem analysis focuses on the question “Why did it happen?” while decision analysis focuses on the question “What should we do?”

A good decision in this arena is above my pay grade. But… before a decision can be reached, options must be reasoned. Before options are reasoned, relevant data must be gathered & sorted for each option. Before relevant data is gathered & sorted for each option, the decision objectives must be clear.  Before objectives can be made clear, we need to clarify the purpose. Before we can clarify the purpose, we need to know what we are trying to do.

Whatever the decision, let’s be aware of two opposing extremes…

#1 Nature Worship

The view that nature is “perfect” just the way it is acts as a kind of secular “dogma”. With this as a base premise, we can see the logic that concludes the following…any unnatural interference or manipulation of nature for the benefit of man is a deprivation of nature’s perfection, and a good definition of evil is just that—a deprivation of perfection.1 Therefore, defending anything in nature against man is intrinsically “good” and promoting man’s industrialization and expansion is intrinsically “evil”.

#2 Nature’s Neglect

Beware of any ideology that says man can and should interfere and manipulate nature anyway we see fit. God wants us to take care of the temporary dwelling place he gave us. “The Lord God then took the man and settled him in the Garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it.” (Gen 2:15) So if we are to be good stewards of all the gifts God gives us, including the Earth, should we not be trustworthy stewards?  Of course we should! “Now it is of course required of stewards that they be found trustworthy.” (1 Cor 4:2)

1. St. Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas’s Shorter Summa (Manchester: Sophia Institute Press, 2002), p. 125.

I Think...Therefore I Do

I’ve been speaking at a few parishes within my home diocese of Joliet, IL about my new book, Faith with Good Reason. During the talks, a general theme has come up which is quite simple in concept, but perhaps sometimes forgotten; it’s the fact that what we think ultimately directs what we do.

Many might be familiar with the tragic philosophy that says, “I think, therefore I am”. This makes the reality of our being dependent upon our thinking; it also bodes very well for a narcissistic society. With this as a base premise, one could see how believing in “yourself” is the most important thing in the universe to believe in. It also explains how bad things can happen in democracies in which the souls of the citizens are ruled by their own desires.

St. Augustine said something that sounds similar, but might as well come from the other side of the universe; “I believe, therefore I speak.”1 Perhaps St. Augustine got this from St. Paul who wrote, “Since, then, we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, ‘I believed, therefore I spoke,’ we too believe and therefore speak” (2 Cor 4:13). Both saints would acknowledge that their ability to proclaim Truth ultimately comes from something outside of themselves…and that something is what we call “God”.

If God is Truth itself, then “I think, therefore I do” may be more accurate words to live by if put in the context of the human soul. Our intellect thinks and our will does. Our will reaches for what our intellect has understood.

 

Consider the importance of “thinking & doing” in the following non-theological example: 2

• A World Series bat and ball signed by some famous Chicago Cubs costs $1500.
• The bat costs $1000 more than the ball.
• How much does the ball cost?

Let’s go forward with the thinking that says the ball must be $500. Now suppose an individual offers you the same ball for $400 and you think, “Good deal! I can save a hundred bucks!” If you were to pay the $400 you would actually be losing $150 because the ball is only $250!

Breaking the problem down step-by-step, we can see the reality:

                    The bat and ball cost $1500:      Bat + Ball = $1500

  The bat costs $1000 more than the ball:      Bat = Ball + $1000

     We now express the problem like this:      (Ball + $1000) + Ball = $1500

                How much does the ball cost?:      ($250 + $1000) + $250 = $1500

So the ball is $250 and the bat is $1250 for a grand total of $1500. Why is this important? Because what we think directs what we do. If we are thinking wrongly (like thinking the ball is $500), then we will be doing wrongly (like taking a bad deal).

Some of this logic can spill over into the notion of “Love the sinner, but hate the sin”. This is an important idea because we know we can separate an inclination we have from what we do about it. I am a sinner, but it is not necessary that I sin. To internalize this and make it real I need to understand what sin is and why it’s bad for me. If I were an alcoholic it would not be necessary that I drink, but again, to internalize this and make it real I would need to understand what alcohol is and why it’s bad for me. Loving the sinner, but hating the sin also frees us to love our enemies, since we are able to separate the two.

But what if we go forward with the thinking that says…

1. Who we are is what we do
2. Our inclinations define who we are

If this is true, then our actions are as integral to who we are as our skin color or our gender. With this mentality it’s easy to see why those who dissent from Catholic teaching in areas of human sexually (the topic of almost all dissent) might hate the phrase “Love the sinner, but hate the sin”.

For example, if some are inclined toward same-sex attraction, that’s who they are—and who they are and what they do cannot be separated, right? In other words, if you are gay, you should be gay. It’s an immutable fact. Go out and start dating; try different things with different partners. See what you like and what you don’t. Be who you are! Furthermore, if anyone hates what you are doing, they must also hate you personally since the two naturally go together. By the way, the exact same thinking can apply to opposite-sex attraction in the context of fornication. Go out and start dating; try different things with different partners. See what you like and what you don’t. Be who you are.

If we are thinking wrongly, then we will be doing wrongly! If God is Truth, then objective Truth should be the object of our intellect, which will in turn direct the will. If love is an act of the will, then to love or discern something we need to know it. The primacy of the intellect is important in order to act and love properly.

“The origin of all deviant practice is deviant thought. The knowing why it is deviant is a function of mind based on a standard of reason. It is the steady ‘knowing why’ that, before anything else, we are missing.” 3

1. Saint Augustine, Confessions (New York: Barns & Noble Books, 2007), p. 5.
2. Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011), p. 44.
3. James V. Schall, S.J., Catholic World Report [Website], “Catholics and the Present Confusion”, (9 January 2017), Site address: http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/5337/catholics_and_the_present_confusion.aspx