Confessions For Today

St Augustine
354 - 430 AD

I was reviewing my notes from Confessions by St. Augustine for another project I’m working on and was once again struck by the personal writing style found in this ancient book. Reading Confessions is like stepping back in time to learn from a master who wants to teach us today, especially when stumbling upon a paragraph like this one from Book 2, Paragraph 2.3.5 (in this edition). “To whom am I narrating this? Not to you, my God, but to my own kind in your presence – to that small part of the human race who may chance to come upon these writings. And to what end? That I and all who read them may understand what depths there are from which we are to cry to you.” Think about it; reading Confessions from A.D. 397 in the year 2015 is like someone reading this post in the year 3633!!!

First a couple of analogies; you may have heard the term “own the language”. When we are discussing the reality of intentionally killing unborn babies, use the language of “choice” to give the illusion of freedom. When discussing abnormal sexual behavior in the context of marriage use the language of “marriage equality” to give the illusion of justice. When discussing torture, use the language of “enhanced interrogation” to give the illusion of legitimate government business. We’ll hear more of this kind of talk as the elections gear-up into 2016. One-upmanship, one-liners and buzzwords can dominate the language.

St. Augustine speaks of language in Book 5, Paragraph 5.5.10. “…because a thing is eloquently expressed it should not be taken to be as necessarily true; nor because it is uttered with stammering lips should it be supposed false.” He goes on to give an analogy using food, where the food is the meaning behind the words and the dishes are the way the words are “served”. Spoiled food can be served on the finest china and wholesome food can be served on tattered paper plates; both kinds can be served on either. Today, “owning the language” mostly relates to serving rancid food on elegant dinner ware.

 

Another analogy involved drunkenness. We would not comprehend sleep unless we know what it means to be awake. We would not understand darkness unless we have experienced light. In a similar way, we cannot grasp drunkenness unless we are sober. St. Augustine tells us of teachers who are drunk. “I do deplore the wine of error which was poured out to us by teachers already drunk. And, unless we also drank we were beaten, without liberty of appeal to a sober judge” (book 1, par. 1.16.26). Think of today’s dictatorship of relativism. If you have your truth and I have mine, there is no sense in debating about it; might will make right in the end. Obey or be punished. The baker who refuses to bake a cake for a gay wedding will be “beaten, without liberty of appeal to a sober judge”; however, a pro-gun control photographer who refuses to take pictures at a “Sharpshooter of the Year” banquet organized by the local chapter of the NRA just might be shown some mercy.
 

In Book 1, Paragraph 1.5.6 I read something that sounded very familiar, but I could not quite place it. It said “I believe, therefore I speak.” After mulling it over a bit, it hit me as sounding very much like the famous philosophy of “I think, therefore I am.” What St. Augustine said sounds similar, but might as well come from the other side of the universe. “I believe, therefore I speak” acknowledges that the ability to proclaim Truth ultimately comes from something outside of ourselves. “I think, therefore I am” makes the reality of our own being dependent upon our own thinking. This is the rancid food and drunkenness we find ourselves dealing with today.

Read Confessions.

Getting to Know Evil...Again

Thought I’d republish this from last July given what happened in CT yesterday in case it might help someone. I have a daughter in kindergarten myself. Seems like she was born yesterday and I could not imaging making funeral arrangements now. Another thing I find troubling is the fact that many who mourn the loss of these children today would have gladly supported their killing six years ago…when they were in their mother’s womb.

 

Epicurus
341 - 270 BCE

Many are familiar with what the Greek philosopher Epicurus said centuries ago:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”




We wonder how a God that is all knowing, all powerful and all loving can permit evil. We conclude that there must be at least some error, weakness or indifference about God. A flawed assumption with this kind of thinking is that finite humans can fully understand perfect knowledge, perfect power and perfect love. Think of a child receiving a flu shot. Should the child conclude that the parents either do not know shots are painful, they do not have the power to stop it or they just don’t care? This is NOT meant to compare a shooting to a flu shot. It is meant to compare the perspective of a child to our prospective to God.

St. Augustine of Hippo
354 - 430

Like us, St. Augustine had similar questions about evil before his conversion to Catholicism. He practiced Manichaeism in his younger days, which taught that there were two forces in the universe of equal power, one good and one evil. This would mean that God cannot be all powerful since there was a matching power of evil to counteract Him. Being the intellectual that he was, Augustine knew about Catholicism. He knew that Catholics taught God was all good and all things came from God. He had a question for Catholics, which we can read about in his Confessions, Book 7. The question was “From whence came evil?” If God is all good and all things come from God, where did evil come from? How could evil come into being at all?


It’s simple logic, but once again we have a bad assumption. The assumption is that evil has “being”.Catholics taught and still teach (because Truth does not change) that evil has no substance or “being”. Think of physical darkness; it has no “being”.Darkness is merely the absence of light. It doesn’t come from anywhere or find its source in anything; it is merely the lack of something. By the way, the Devil is NOT the source of evil, just like night time is NOT the source of darkness.

I'm finding this post disturbing.

After his conversion, Augustine equated evil to “disharmony”. I play some guitar and I’ve owned my current guitar for over twenty years. I can hear when it is even slightly out-of-tune, even if one string has the slightest disharmony with the other five. It may sound perfectly fine to you, but I know it can sound better. In a sense, I know my guitar’s perfection within the context of its nature. When all six strings are way out-of-tune, the guitar is gravely out of harmony with how it should be, and playing any chord would make an “evil” sound to anyone’s ears. It’s been said that without evil there would be no such thing as good. That is akin to saying without an out-of-tune guitar there would be no such thing as an in-tune guitar.

Thomas Aquinas tells us that good signifies “perfect being” and evil signifies “the privation of perfect being”, so when a thing lacks a perfection it ought to have, we perceive the deficiency as an evil. Blindness is evil for a human because a human ought to have sight. Blindness is not evil for a stone because a stone should not have sight. Also, think of a tree seedling trying to grow into as perfect of a tree as it can within its nature. Things preventing this like insects, disease, bad weather, animals or a man with an axe are evil to the tree, in the sense that they bring deficiency to it.

How does any of this help anyone? Does it take away the pain and confusion when a loved one is suddenly and senselessly taken from us? So what if evil has no “being”? So what if we understand evil better? We can still ask, “Why does God allow the privation of goodness to happen?”

One thing I’ve learned from years of dealing with complex problems in my professional and personal life is this….The more you understand a problem, the better you can deal with it, EVEN IF you can’t necessarily solve it. And so it is with the problem of evil.

The Cloud of Unknowing

Two Catholic Men & a Blog
Reading Chair/Time Machine

Reading books from centuries ago may be the closest thing to time travel we have, especially the kind of non-fiction where the author is sharing an experience or trying to teach you something. One can imagine going back in time to learn, or the author coming forward in time to teach, or some amazing rendezvous in-between. If reading Catholic classics, it’s a great reminder of the communion of saints. The saints are alive and in God’s presence as are we, except we cannot yet see God face to face, never the less, we are together in a sense.

 

Reading The Interior Castle by St. Therese of Avila (AD 1577), The Compendium of Theology by St. Thomas Aquinas (AD 1273) and Confessions by St. Augustine (AD 397) are examples of when I’ve had this sense of learning right at the feet of the masters, especially when stumbling upon a paragraph like this one from Confessions Book I. “To whom am I narrating this? Not to you, my God, but to my own kind in your presence – to that small part of the human race who may chance to come upon these writings. And to what end? That I and all who read them may understand what depths there are from which we are to cry to you.” Think about it; reading Confessions from AD 397 in the year 2012 is like someone reading this post in the year 3627! It boggles the mind!


Star Date 3627.0

No book could give a more direct communication from the past than the very first sentence of a book called The Cloud of Unknowing; a contemplative classic written by an anonymous English monk during the late 1300’s. The Cloud of Unknowing is a metaphor for a privation of knowing that stands between us and God. The monk speaks of “the exercise” which can help one to “smite upon that thick cloud of unknowing with a sharp dart of longing love.” In modern Catholic language I think one could interpret “the exercise” as Centering Prayer.

The Cloud of Unknowing

Here is the opening sentence that immediately got my attention (to say the least) “To you, whoever you are, who may have this book in your possession, whether as owner or custodian or barrow: I lay this charge upon you and implore you with all the power and force that the bond of charity can command.” He goes on to basically say that the book is only for those who are sincere about following Christ in BOTH the active and contemplative life.

This brings me to what I actually would like to share. The unknown mystic from the past speaks of our spiritual life in terms of two parts, the active life and the contemplative life, both of which have two levels, a high and a low. The low active life consists of good & honest corporal works mercy and charity. The high active life AND the low contemplative life both involve spiritual meditations. The high contemplative life happens in the cloud of unknowing with a loving impulse and gaze into the simple being of God.  All of this is described in three levels of good, better and best. Whenever a “best” is proclaimed it normally demands that at least two things precede it, a “good” and a “better”.

A visual would be most helpful at this point:

 

It would be wrong and a hindrance for someone engaged in contemplative life to turn their mind to outward corporal works during meditation. This may sound dismissive of outward corporal works, but the 14th century monk reminds his reader that only one thing is necessary.  It is the “one thing” spoken of at the house of Mary & Martha (see Luke 10:38-42). Martha might think that she or Mary could love and praise God above all other business and at the same time be busy about the many things of this life, but Jesus made it clear to her that she could not serve both perfectly; imperfectly she could, but not perfectly.

It is the nature of the active life to begin and end in our lifetime. Not so, however, of the contemplative life; it begins in this life, but lasts without end. The “best” is truly yet to come. As The Lord said to Martha, it is the part that shall NEVER be taken away, because that perfect moment of love which begins here shall last without end in the bliss of heaven.

 

I’ll close with the monks own words in the book’s last paragraph:

“Farewell, spiritual friend, in God’s blessing and mine. And I beseech almighty God that true peace, sane counsel, and spiritual comfort in God with abundance of grace always be with you, and all those who on earth love God. Amen”

Getting to Know Evil

I’ve been meaning to do an evil post, meaning a post about evil, not a post that is objectively evil. Regrettably, it took the horrific shootings in Colorado last week to spur me on. Studying Augustine and Aquinas helped me to understand evil better, so I thought I’d pass along some concepts that are rarely talked about, even in Catholic circles.

Epicurus
341 - 270 BCE

Many are familiar with what the Greek philosopher Epicurus said centuries ago:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”



We wonder how a God that is all knowing, all powerful and all loving can permit evil, like what happened in CO. We conclude that there must be at least some error, weakness or indifference about God. A flawed assumption with this kind of thinking is that finite humans can fully understand perfect knowledge, perfect power and perfect love. Think of a child receiving a flu shot. Should the child conclude that the parents either do not know shots are painful, they do not have the power to stop it or they just don’t care?

St. Augustine of Hippo
354 - 430

Like us, St. Augustine had similar questions about evil before his conversion to Catholicism. He practiced Manichaeism in his younger days, which taught that there were two forces in the universe of equal power, one good and one evil. This would mean that God cannot be all powerful since there was a matching power of evil to counteract Him. Being the intellectual that he was, Augustine knew about Catholicism. He knew that Catholics taught God was all good and all things came from God. He had a question for Catholics, which we can read about in his Confessions, Book 7. The question was “From whence came evil?” If God is all good and all things come from God, where did evil come from? How could evil come into being at all?


It’s simple logic, but once again we have a bad assumption. The assumption is that evil has “being”. Catholics taught and still teach (because Truth does not change) that evil has no substance or “being”. Think of physical darkness; it has no “being”. Darkness is merely the absence of light. It doesn’t come from anywhere or find its source in anything; it is merely the lack of something. By the way, the Devil is NOT the source of evil, just like night time is NOT the source of darkness.

I'm finding this post disturbing.

After his conversion, Augustine equated evil to “disharmony”. I play some guitar and I’ve owned my current guitar for over twenty years. I can hear when it is even slightly out-of-tune, even if one string has the slightest disharmony with the other five. It may sound perfectly fine to you, but I know it can sound better. In a sense, I know my guitar’s perfection within the context of its nature. When all six strings are way out-of-tune, the guitar is gravely out of harmony with how it should be, and playing any chord would make an “evil” sound to anyone’s ears. It’s been said that without evil there would be no such thing as good. That is akin to saying without an out-of-tune guitar there would be no such thing as an in-tune guitar.

Thomas Aquinas tells us that good signifies “perfect being” and evil signifies “the privation of perfect being”, so when a thing lacks a perfection it ought to have, we perceive the deficiency as an evil. Blindness is evil for a human because a human ought to have sight. Blindness is not evil for a stone because a stone should not have sight. Also, think of a tree seedling trying to grow into as perfect of a tree as it can within its nature. Things preventing this like insects, disease, bad weather, animals or a man with an axe are evil to the tree, in the sense that they bring deficiency to it.

How does any of this help anyone? Does it take away the pain and confusion when a loved one is suddenly and senselessly taken from us? So what if evil has no “being”? So what if we understand evil better?  We can still ask, “Why does God allow the privation of goodness to happen?”

One thing I’ve learned from years of dealing with complex problems in my professional and personal life is this….The more you understand a problem, the better you can deal with it, EVEN IF you can’t necessarily solve it. And so it is with the problem of evil.

Professor Ratzinger on Modern Physics

WARNING: I about fell out of my chair when I read this. Please be seated with seat belts fastened before reading.

This is the final post in a series paying tribute to Pope B16 seven years on. Below sums-up several pages of Introduction to Christianity, Part I, Chapter V, Belief in the Triune God.

Faith consists of a series of contradictions held together by grace. This expresses, in the realm of theology, a discovery that relates to the law of complementarities in physics. Here we meet the play between faith and modern thought.

The physicist is becoming increasingly aware that we cannot embrace given realities – like the structure of light or matter – in one form. From different sides we glimpse different aspects which cannot be traced back to each other. Only by circling round, by looking from different, apparently contrary angles can we allude to the truth, which is never visible to us in its totality.

E.Schrodinger promoted the structure of matter as "wave alone", thereby hitting on the idea of being that has no substance, but is purely actual, whose apparent “substantiality” is only from the pattern of movement from superimposed waves. This is an exciting allegory for God subsisting in a multitude of relations, which are not substances, but “waves” which form a perfect unity and fullness of being. This is already formulated for all intents and purposes in St. Augustine, when he develops the idea of the pure act–existence (particle–wave).

We know today that in a physical experiment, the observer enters into the experiment. Only by doing so can he arrive at a physical experience. This means that there is no pure objectivity in physics, and that even here, the result of the experiment (natures answer) depends on the question put to it.

He who tries to be a mere observer experiences nothing. Even the reality of God can only impinge on the vision of him who enters the faith experiment with God. Only by entering does one experience; only by cooperating in the experiment does one ask at all; …..and only he who asks shall receive.

“The scientist has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

Robert Jastrow- Former leading NASA scientist.

It's a little slow, but science

finally seems to be catching-up to Catholicism.

Measure My Feet – A Warning about Your Imagination

My 4-year-old daughter recently asked me to "measure her feet". I could not figure out what she really meant. She then pointed to our digital bathroom scale. Think about it; you stand on the scale, look down, and a number pops-up over your feet........measure my feet. This is pure, unbiased observation logic with one incorrect assumption; the number must relate directly and specifically to the feet.

We observe something like standing on a scale; call it “A”. We then observe something else like a number appearing; call it “C”. We try to connect “A” to “C” by inserting “B” as a bridge in our mind. The result in our example is thinking the scale measures something about feet. All too often “B” comes strictly from our imaginations. Adults do this too. In my profession, we call it bad troubleshooting. In the spiritual life, it’s bad theology.

Example 1

Observation A:	I prayed for something
Observation C:	It did not happen
Imagination B:	God does not care about me

Example 2

Observation A:	My friend has sinned
Observation C:	My friend gets cancer
Imagination B:	God has punished my friend with cancer

A+B ≠ C



Have you ever listened to those who do not know their faith, talk about their faith? Have you ever heard the most theologically absurd things and ask, “Where do they get that stuff from?!?” Consider that it may have come purely from their imagination. Our imagination can instinctively take over if we have no other way to connect “A” to “C”. We then create our own personalized reality that is not real. This is a kind of insanity, and it is dangerous. This is why it is important to study good theology and apologetics in order to gain knowledge.

Scripture gives us a subtle hint on the topic. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”(Hosea 4:6) St. Augustine also makes mention in Confessions. “But who can invoke you knowing you not? For one who knows you not may invoke you as other than you are.”

Theologian Frank J. Sheed gives a stern warning about the imagination in his book Theology and Sanity. He says that since The Fall, there is nothing that can be done with the intellect until the imagination has been put firmly in its place. We’ve fallen into the habit of using our imagination as a crutch since it saves the intellect so much trouble. As a result, the intellect grows flabby and tired. It must learn to walk on its own again and this means great pain for muscles so long unused. This is easy to understand since we know that thinking is very hard, imagining is very easy…and we are very lazy!

Beware Your Imagination

For more Faith & Reason visit http://faithandreasonblog.blogspot.com/