And it’s not just any conspiracy!
It’s a conspiracy involving The Da Vinci Code (dum! dum! dum!)!
And what you can do about it!
Month: May 2006
One Of The Best Canon Law Websites . . . Is In Kenya?
Strange, but true!
Canonist Ed Peters notes the website of Msgr. Cormac Burke who is one of the world’s most influential canon lawyers and who has retired from the Roman Rota to work in Kenya.
So, indeed, one of the world’s most important canon law web sites is based in Kenya, and has a .ke extension to prove it.
GO KENYA!
Msgr. Burke has made available on his site a wealth of materials, including canonical ones, and those including sentences he wrote at the Rota (so others can read them and learn how such matters are handled at the Rota).
SWEET!
NOTE: I’ve been reading some of Msgr. Burke’s rotal sentences and I must say that I’m impressed. They are very sharp, precise, and thoughtful. I have to say that I feel for him when he’s ruling that the nullity of a marriage has not been proven, despite the petitioner’s desires, but I see why the evidence he’s ruling on genuinely does not prove the nullity of the marriage in terms of the law.
Another Comeback Kid?
Michelle here.
Confession time: I rarely keep up with secular news. I glance at the headlines on the Internet, scan the front page of the newspaper kept in the company break room, and very occasionally watch the local news, but for the most part I’m out of the loop on current events. So Al Gore’s prospects in the 2008 presidential election may be old news to you, but it threw me for a loop.
"The burst of enthusiasm for Gore owes much to his emergence, since 9/11, as one of the Bush administration’s most full-throated critics. On state-sanctioned torture, wiretapping, and, crucially, Iraq, his indictments have been searing and prescient, often far ahead of his party. He has sounded nothing like the Gore we remember — calculating, chameleonic, soporific — from the 2000 campaign. He has sounded like a man, in the words of a top Republican strategist, who ‘found his voice in the wilderness.’
"But the Gore boomlet is also being driven by another force: the creeping sense of foreboding about the prospect of Hillary Clinton’s march to her party’s nomination. ‘Every conversation in Democratic politics right now has the same three sentences,’ observes a senior party player. ‘One: "She is the presumptive front-runner." Two: "I don’t much like her, but I don’t want to cross her, for God’s sake!" And three: "If she’s our nominee, we’re going to get killed." It’s like some Japanese epic film where everyone sees the disaster coming in the third reel but no one can figure out what to do about it.’
"Gore’s loyalists take pains to avoid criticizing Hillary (on the record, at least). But many of them plainly see their guy as the solution to the Democrats’ dilemma. ‘If he runs, he’s certainly the front-runner or the co-front-runner with Mrs. Clinton,’ contends Ron Klain, Gore’s former vice-presidential chief of staff. ‘And, in the end, he would probably win the nomination.’"
(Nod to Katie Allison Granju for the link.)
The Democratic choice in ’08: Lady Macbeth or Treebeard.
Should be fun to watch them duke it out.
[JIMMY ADDS: Michelle wrote this piece last week and over the weekend Al Gore apparently said to "Tell everyone I’m not running." But then politicians frequently say that when they’re planning to run, so who knows?]
Psst! . . . Did You Hear?
A reader writes:
There is something I have been struggling for some time with. When exactly does gossip become a mortal sin.
When it gravely harms the person being gossiped about through calumny or detraction (that’s what’s necessary to fulfill mortal sin’s requirement of grave matter) and when this is done with adequate knowledge and consent to the action (those are the other two conditions for mortal sin).
In the dictionary it says gossip is the spreading of rumors. But not all rumors about a person are negative, eg: So and so is finally having that baby they have been trying so hard for.
It’s certainly true that rumors can be involved in gossip, but not all gossip involves rumors. It can just be malicious talk about things that are true (i.e., detraction). Also, I suspect that the word is used differently by different people with regard to whether gossip is always negative. Some might not count positive stories you tell about people (e.g., they’re having a baby) as gossip. Others might.
In general, you should be aware that Catholic moral theology tends not to use "gossip" as a category for evaluating actions. That’s why I said gossip would become mortally sinful if (among the other criteria I named) it involved grave harm through calumny or detraction. Calumny and detraction are the categories that Catholic moral theology tends to use in covering this territory.
Before we go forward, here’s how the Catechism of the Catholic Church defines those terms:
2477 Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury. He becomes guilty:
– of rash judgment who, even tacitly, assumes as true, without sufficient foundation, the moral fault of a neighbor;
– of detraction who, without objectively valid reason, discloses another’s faults and failings to persons who did not know them;
– of calumny who, by remarks contrary to the truth, harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them.
These definitions will make it easier to answer the questions below.
So I thought maybe you could put the definitions into every day life and make it more understandable. Now I know that Calumny and detraction have to be taken into consideration. Making up lies and then spreading them about someone. Or, spreading the faults of others in order to hurt their name or character.
Is it gossip if:
1. my friend or family member wants to vent to me about her problems with her husband/kids? Her telling me that her husband is “doing this” or he was caught “doing something”, or said something particularly nasty to her, and is not really looking for advice, just venting. Would that be gossip? Would it be detraction since she is making the faults known. Is that a sin for me
to listen to her? What degree of sin? (I believe this is where most of my confusion lies)
It may or may not be considered gossip (I could see some folks distinguishing between venting and gossip), but it should not automatically be assumed to be detraction or to be sinful.
Human beings have a need to process their frustrations, and often times this means that they need to "just tell somebody" about what they’re going through in order to release the emotions they’re feeling and gain sympathy and acknowledgement from another.
If you are fortunate enough to have a family, you can frequently talk to your family about your frustrations (e.g., ones you’re having at work), but if your family is who you’re frustrated with at the moment, it can make sense to talk to a trusted friend who will listen, understand, give advice (if possible), and keep his or her mouth shut about what you said.
If this is done constructively, it allows you to go back to your family with your frustrations released and with an attitude that will help you get along better in your family.
If done destructively, it can poison relationships in your family by fostering resentments that should not be fostered.
It therefore is not automatically a good thing or a sinful thing. It depends on the circumstance.
In general, it is not sinful to listen when a friend feels the need to vent. Only the friend knows how strong their frustrations are and whether talking about them will help. That’s a determination that the friend generally has to make, and there is a presumption of deference toward them on that question. (Which is not to say that one always has to listen. You have a life, too, and you may not have the time, patience, or emotional energy to listen at the moment.)
In general one would have an obligation to try to handle the listening side of the relationship in a way that results in it being a constructive rather than a destructive experience, but one shouldn’t over think this or get scrupulous about it. Just do what seems best at the time and leave the rest in God’s hands.
2. What if I am the one frustrated with my husband/kids? Am I gossiping by talking about their annoying habits? Is it detraction?
Not necessarily. Detraction involves disclosing the faults of others "without objectively valid reason" in the words of the Catechism.
Needing to process your thoughts and emotions and get a better handle on the situation can be an objectively valid reason to talk to a trusted friend about them. Just make sure that the friend is really trustworthy.
This is basically the flip-side of the answer on #1. (Or, I should say, the answer to #1 basically covers this territory.)
3. What if it is something good, such as the baby example, or say, so and so’s kid got into college?
There is no calumny or detraction in this case. You’re not harming someone’s reputation by reporting good things (or neutral things) about them, so there is no sin here. (Unless you are deliberately being fast and loose with the truth in reporting good things–e.g., "Did you hear that they just won a million dollars!" when you don’t have adequate reasons to believe that they won a million dollars and they probably didn’t.)
4. Someone comes to me and tells me something bad about someone, for no reason but to say bad stuff about this person. I know she had comitted detraction, what about me as the listener? Sometimes it is hard to get away from certain friends or family members who do this on a regular basis, how do you deal with it?
The burden here is generally on the teller rather than the listener. You as a listener are only responsible if you’re fostering the malice of the person you know is committing detraction.
The social pressure that we are put under by friends or family who want to detract to us usually excuses us from culpability in putting up with them, though there comes a point at which it becomes prudent to say, "You know, I’d rather not talk about that/things of that nature."
When that point arrives will depend on what our relationship with the person is, how successful we’ll be in getting them to stop, how important it is for them to stop, and other situational factors. As before, it’s a judgment call and you just have to do the best you can and leave the rest to God.
5. If they truely want advice and are telling me these bad things, that is not sinful, correct?
Presumptively, the answer would be no, it is not sinful–assuming that the reason they’re sharing the things with you is to get advice or process their feelings. But to the extent that they stray beyond that into pure malice it would be sinful for them. If you encourage them to go beyond into pure malice then it would be sinful for you, but I would assume a person of conscience such as yourself probably isn’t doing that.
Now I know we are suppose to be there to help, and listen when other people need us. But if someone is telling us horrible stuff about their spouse/boyfriend/children and we are telling them we can’t listen because they are commiting detraction (well not tell them in those words) then we are not being charitable, and they will feel they can’t come to us for help.
This is correct. However, as noted, a person can dwell on their problems in a way that becomes morbid and at some point the thing to do may be to deflect the conversation to something else, either temporarily (for this conversation) or permanently (for all future conversations). This gets us back to the judgment call issue.
Thank you for taking the time to help me. This is something that seriously affects me at Communion time and Confession time. When I am trying not to gossip but it comes to me unwanted, and I am sometimes drawn into it. Yes I am aware that I am obsessive-compulsive but if I had a more definite answer it would make things in my spiritual life very much easier.
Based on what you have said, I would strongly counsel you not to let this affect you at Communion time or in confession.
I very much doubt that you are doing grave harm to the person being talked about (as would be the case, for example, if he were detracted or calumniated in a way that cause him to lose his job or his marriage, for example). As long as that is the case, the grave matter necessary for mortal sin is not present.
It sounds more to me like your obsessive-compulsive difficulty is causing you to become scrupulous about this (e.g., worrying about whether saying good things about others is sinful) and that the thing to do is to relax and not worry about this unless you get into a situation where it seems unambiguous that grave damage will result to the person being talked about.
Hope this helps!
20
Evolution & The Pope
What Lawrence Krauss wrote about transporters and souls in The Physics of Star Trek is not the only time he’s engaged the subject of how religion and science relate.
His web page has a number of articles that he’s written on religion and science, and–though I don’t agree with him in everything he argues in them–I find it refreshing how respectful he is of religion in these pieces.
One set of pieces in particular jumped out at me, because it was involved in the recent Intelligent Design debate that Cardinal Schoenborn has been participating in.
It seems that Dr. Krauss first wrote a piece for the New York Times that Cardinal Schoenborn then took exception to (without naming it) in his well-known article, following which Dr. Krauss sent a letter to B16 and later published a piece summarizing the situation and defending his letter against secular critics who thought he shouldn’t bother interacting with the Church.
In this post, I’d like to take a look at the text of Dr. Krauss’s letter to B16 and offer a few thoughts. He wrote it in conjunction with two Catholic biologists who were also signatories of the letter.
Here ’tis:
July 12, 2005
His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
00120 Vatican CityYour Holiness:
In his magnificent letter to the Pontifical Academy [of Sciences] in 1996 regarding the subject of Evolution, Pope John Paul II affirmed that scientific rationality and the Church’s spiritual commitment to divine purpose and meaning in the Universe were not incompatible. The Pope accepted that biological Evolution had progressed beyond the hypothetical stage as a guiding principle behind the understanding of the evolution of diverse life forms on Earth, including humans. At the same time, he rightly recognized that the spiritual significance that one draws from the scientific observations and theory lie outside of the scientific theories themselves. In this sense, claiming that evolution definitely implies a lack of divinity, and/or divine purpose in nature is as much an affront to science as it is to the Church.
This is a pretty good summary of what JP2 said in the letter in question. One could quibble that he’s omitting some nuances JP2 stressed, but in substance it’s a good summary. Particularly to be appreciated is the phrase I’ve emphasized.
The Holy Father also recognized: "It is important to set proper limits to the understanding of Scripture, excluding any unseasonable interpretations which would make it mean something which it is not intended to mean. In order to mark out the limits of their own proper fields, theologians and those working on the exegesis of the Scripture need to be well informed regarding the results of the latest scientific research." Since scientific investigations have repeatedly confirmed evolution by natural selection as a guiding principle for understanding the development of the diversity of life on Earth, theologians who are interested in exploring such questions as human dignity and purpose must take this mechanism into account in their considerations. As he put it, quoting from Leo XIII, truth cannot contradict truth.
The substance of this is also fine, although my Spider Sense goes off at one point because too much weight could be put on the assertion that theologians "must take this mechanism into account in their considerations." If Dr. Krauss means that theologians must agree that evolution is true and incorporate this into their theological explorations then I would have a problem with what he says.
If he means, though, that the evidence for evolution proposed by contemporary science must be taken seriously and in that sense "taken into account" then I would not have a problem. You’ve got to listen to all relevant evidence, though what conclusion you come to based on that evidence cannot be mandated at the outset. You may spot flaws in the argumentation others put on that evidence or you may have additional evidence they are not taking into account. Everyone has to come to his own conclusions on empirical matters.
There is no "scientific Magisterium."
These principles were reinforced more recently in explicit statements by the International Theological Commission, headed by you before your election as Pope. As the Commission document explicitly states, "God is…the cause of causes." As a result, "Through the activity of natural causes, God causes to arise those conditions required for the emergence and support of living organisms, and, furthermore, for their reproduction and differentiation." Finally, referring to evolution as a "radically contingent materialistic process driven by natural selection and random genetic variation", the commission nevertheless concluded "even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation."
Here we run into a significant problem. While the quotations Dr. Krauss gives from the International Theological Commission document are accurate, they are used in a way that is at least somewhat misleading.
First, the Commission does not assert that evolution is a "radically contingent materialistic process driven by natural selection and random genetic variation." It says that many neo-Darwinian scientists and some of their critics have concluded that if that is what evolution is then there is no place for divine providential causality. It then disputes this conclusion and concludes that a "truly contingent natural process" can fall under divine providence.
Krauss correctly points out the Commission’s conclusion on this point, but the way that he has introduced the emphasized phrase makes it appear that the Commission has conceded that this is an adequate and apparently exhaustive description of biological evolution, and it has not.
In fact, in the very same passage that Dr. Krauss is taking his quotations from, the Commission goes out of its way to take note of Intelligent Design critics of neo-Darwinianism, saying:
A growing body of scientific critics of neo-Darwinism point to evidence of design (e.g., biological structures that exhibit specified complexity) that, in their view, cannot be explained in terms of a purely contingent process and that neo-Darwinians have ignored or misinterpreted. The nub of this currently lively disagreement involves scientific observation and generalization concerning whether the available data support inferences of design or chance, and cannot be settled by theology [Communion and Stewardship 69].
In other words: Whether the ID people are right or not is an empirical question that the Church is not intervening to settle (indeed, it says it can’t be settled by theology, which means that science will have to fight it out). As far as the Church is concerned the ID people could be right or wrong.
This should be kept in mind as we proceed.
The Commission goes on in the next section to state that, because the human soul has to be specially created by God:
Catholic theology affirms that that the emergence of the first members of the human species (whether as individuals or in populations) represents an event that is not susceptible of a purely natural explanation and which can appropriately be attributed to divine intervention [op. cit. 70].
So it would not be theologically acceptable to look upon naturalistic evolution (under secondary causation) as an adequate explanation for the emergence of all life forms including man. The latter required a special intervention of God on at least the spiritual level.
Dr. Krauss continues:
Scientists have been pleased to see a convergence between the views of the Catholic Church and the scientific community on these issues, in particular on the compatibility between the results of scientific investigation and Church theology. One of us recently wrote an essay in the New York Times, for example (see attached), praising precisely the Church’s understanding of the compatibility of scientific investigation and religious belief, even when the process being investigated, like Evolution, appears completely contingent.
This is all fine, and most welcome.
Now we get to the controversial point . . .
This week, Cardinal Christoph Schšnborn, archbishop of Vienna, however, appeared to dangerously redefine the Church’s view on Evolution. In an essay, also published in the New York Times (see attached), he claimed that "Evolution in the Neo-Darwinian sense… is not true".
Okay, but he wasn’t speaking as a representative of the Church but as a private individual, and so his remarks are incapable of redefining anything on behalf of the Church. It is his right as a private individual to hold either that neo-Darwinian evolution is true or that it is false (per the ITC’s statement that theology cannot settle this question, see above), and as long as he makes it clear that he is speaking for himself and not for the Church then he would also seem to have a right to air his opinions on this matter in public.
That being said, I don’t see any evidence in Cardinal Schoenborn’s piece that makes it clear in what capacity he is writing in (in fact, he talks like he’s speaking for the Church), and in an age of global communications, this is something that can be faulted. Most readers of the popular press do not have a sense for when a cardinal is representing the Church and when he is representing his own theological and scientific opinions, and in view of this fact, high churchmen have a responsibility to make clear to the public the capacity in which they are speaking.
I also should point out that there seems to be a terminological problem here. Cardinal Schoenborn included in his definition of neo-Darwinian evolution the idea that it is "unguided" and "unplanned." I suspect that by stressing the compatibility of evolution with divine providence that Dr. Krauss and his colleagues are not incorporating these features into their understanding of neo-Darwinism and thus that part of the disagreement may be based on the term "neo-Darwinism" being used in different senses.
I also have to raise a concern about the way Dr. Krauss has quoted the cardinal, because there is no string in the cardinal’s article that can be elided to form "Evolution in the Neo-Darwinian sense… is not true." What the cardinal said was: "Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but
evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense – an unguided, unplanned process
of random variation and natural selection – is not."
Dr. Krauss appears to have taken part of this phrase and combined it with an earlier occurrence of the phrase "is not true." Although this seems to be what the cardinal believes, it violates the rules of what can be put in quotation marks and thus misleads the reader regarding what the cardinal actually said.
As a scholar, Dr. Krauss no doubt understands the importance of quoting people exactly when you use quotation marks, and hopefully this was an accidental violation. Since he didn’t misrepresent the cardinal’s meaning, though, I won’t dwell on the matter further.
Dr. Krauss continues:
Moreover, he argued that if divine design was not "overwhelmingly evident" then the associated claims must be viewed as ideology, and not science.
I must confess that I’m having some trouble parsing this sentence, though it does not seem to correspond to what the cardinal said, which was: "Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science." This assertion seems fairly straightforward: The cardinal believes that the evidence for design in biology is so overwhelming that it cannot be denied or explained away without the result ceasing to be science and becoming an ideological construct.
One could agree or disagree with the cardinal on this point, but I have trouble squaring this with the representation of the remark in Dr. Krauss’s letter, so there may have been a typo or a drafting problem.
He attacked not only Neo-Darwinism, but also the multiverse hypothesis of modern cosmology, both of which he claimed were "invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science".
I think that the cardinal has a fair point here. It is arguable that many neo-Darwinists shape their theories in order to avoid evidence for purpose and design in nature, and it is very arguable that this is a key motivator behind the multiverse hypothesis.
Physicists have proposed mathematical models that would allow for the existence of a multiverse, but as yet nobody has actual evidence for other universes, and if you listen to discussions of why one might want to believe in a multiverse, the subject of avoiding design inevitably comes up.
For example, in Dr. Krauss’s book The Physics of Star Trek, he notes that a very large number of features of our universe seem to be calibrated to allow the existence of life. In other words, it looks like our universe was set up to allow life to exist. Dr. Krauss then goes on to raise the consideration that this may be an illusion caused by the fact that there are many universes in existence and that they have different features and that we just happen to be living in one of the universes that is so configured that intelligent life can exist. So of course this universe has the features for life. That doesn’t mean that it was designed to have life. . . . if there are bunches of other universes that are inhospitable to life and don’t have any.
And that’s true. If there are a large number of universes (let’s say that there are an infinite number, just to make it easy) and if their relevant physical properties vary randomly then surely some of them will randomly have the right combination of features to allow the existence of life, and so any species arising in such a universe would see around itself a universe that looked designed to have life even though it was actually random chance that produced these results.
But none of this gives us evidence for other universes or for the idea that their features vary randomly.
In fact, one could argue that postulating the existence of such universes to avoid the appearance of design in this way would be to appeal to evidence that you don’t have. One could argue that, until we have evidence that other universes with random physical properties exist, one should stick with the appearance of design that this universe displays and infer the existence of a Designer.
Or one could argue that the apparent design of this universe is equally consistent either with the random multiverse hypothesis or with the design hypothesis and that science is not (at least presently) capable of distinguishing between the two.
(One could also say that there is a multiverse and that it is designed. Personally, that’s the one I’m hoping for, but only because I like parallel universe stories.)
In any event, we don’t have evidence for the existence of other universes. Mathematical models are not evidence. One can just as well construct mathematical models of the cosmos that incorporate a Designer. Until a model produces a prediction that is subject to falsifiability, Karl Popper won’t want to call it science.
As long as that is the case, the multiverse hypothesis cannot claim greater scientific legitimacy than the design hypothesis, and the point is fair that the multiverse hypothesis frequently seems to involve a motive of avoiding the idea of design.
Equally worrisome, in his effort to claim a line between the theory of evolution and religious faith, Cardinal Schšnborn dismissed the marvelous 1996 message of Pope John Paul II to the Pontifical Academy [of Sciences], calling it "rather vague and unimportant".
Yeah, that was a mistake.
It was, in places, not as precise as one might want, but to dismiss it in this way is not cricket, particularly for a cardinal.
Neither is what Schoenborn went on to do, which was to appeal to various papal audiences of John Paul II in an apparent attempt to neutralize the 1996 letter. He appeared to describe these audiences, in contrast to the 1996 letter, as containing "the real teaching of our beloved John Paul."
From an exegetical point of view, this is quite problematic. Neither papal audiences nor messages to the pontifical academy of sciences have a high level of magisterial authority. They’re both pretty low on the totem pole (compared, for example, to encyclicals). Indeed, if I had to decide which has more authority than the other, I’d go with the message over the audience since it represents a more extraordinary form of communication and thus carries greater weight and presumably had greater thoughtfulness go into it. (Audiences, by contrast, occur every week.)
However that may be, the proper approach is to seek whenever possible to harmonize what a given pope said in a message with what he said in his audiences, and it is a mistake to be dismissive of the former in favor of the latter.
I would note, though, that Cardinal Schoenborn is a native speaker of German rather than English, and so describing the letter as vague and unimportant may have had a different resonance and force in his linguistic community than it does in English.
It is vitally important, however, that in these difficult and contentious times the Catholic Church
not build a new divide, long ago eradicated, between the scientific method and religious belief.
This is the language of diplomacy. While it is welcome to have scientists stating that the divide between scientific method and religious belief was "long ago eradicated," and while this is substantially true, there are particular areas–most notably on the question of origins and on medical ethics–where some are advocating a version of scientific method that will clash with religious belief because it would either (a) refuse a priori to acknowledge evidence for a Designer even if overwhelming evidence of design were amassed or (b) insist on conducting the scientific enterprise in ways that are immoral (e.g., experimenting on humans in immoral ways, up to an including creating and destroying human beings for purposes of medical experiments).
As long as that is the case, there will continue to be a tension between religious belief and at least those articulations of the scientific method that make these two mistakes.
We are writing to you today to request that you clarify once again the Church’s position on Evolution and Science, that you reaffirm the remarkable statements of Pope John Paul II and the International Theological Commission, so that it will be clear that Cardinal Schšnborn’s remarks do not reflect the views of the Holy See.
B16 may or may not make substantive clarifications on these points (if he does, he won’t cite Cardinal Schoenborn by name and give him a public spanking), but it is important to point out here that–while he was speaking in a private capacity–Cardinal Schoenborn’s views do not seem to fall outside of permitted Catholic opinion and (if he takes reasonable steps so that people will not think he is speaking for the Church) he is free to argue them in the marketplace of ideas.
As are his critics.
Dr. Krauss and his colleagues conclude:
We thank you for your consideration to this request, and wish you continued strength and wisdom as you continue to lead the Catholic Church in these difficult times.
Sincerely,
on behalf of:
Lawrence M. Krauss (Ambrose Swasey Professor of Physics, Professor of Astronomy, and Director, Center for Education and Research in Cosmology and Astrophysics, Case Western Reserve University)
Prof. Francisco Ayala (University Professor and Donal Bren Professor of Biological Sciences, Ecology, and Evolutionary Biology, Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science, University of Calfornia, Irvine)
Prof. Kenneth Miller (Prof of Biology, Brown University)
If I may add my own postscript to this, I’d like to give my compliments to Dr. Krauss and his associates for being willing to engage this issue in a thoughtful and positive way, and in particular they deserve compliments for even knowing about the ITC document (which didn’t make world headlines the way the 1996 message on evolution did, and so which most folks aren’t even aware of).
I hope other scientists will follow their example of positive engagement on such questions.
The Physics Of Star Trek
I decided to take a little road trip over the Memorial Day weekend, so I loaded up the truck and I went over to Phoenix. While there I went square dancing with the Bucks & Bows club of Scottsdale, which was very enjoyable, and I also got in a good bit of listening to audio books while shooting through the desert.
One of the books I listened to was Lawrence M. Krauss’s The Physics of Star Trek. It was a nice read.
It came out a good while ago, so it didn’t go all the way up to the end of recent Star Trek history, but it was nice to hear a professional physicist’s take on the show.
It was clear that Krauss enjoys Star Trek and can appreciate episodes even when they contain physics mistakes. He also handled the subjects he considered in a quite balanced way, regularly avoiding the trap of saying "This could never happen" while making it clear that the current understanding of physics would make it very, very hard for it to happen.
One of the things that Krauss was most impressed with was how good the technobabble on the show can be. While a bunch of it is just junk (from a physics point of view as well as a dramatic point of view), there are a startling number of times where the writers of Star Trek seem to have picked terminology for things that eerily mirrors the actual terms scientists use, started using after the show, or might plausibly use in the future. (An easy example is a TOS episode in which the writers referred to something that sounds like a black hole–before the term "black hole" had been coined–as a "black star.")
After discussing warp drive and time travel and deflector shields and inertial dampers and the like, Krauss concludes the book with a couple of chapters dealing with particularly good and particularly bad physics moments on Star Trek.
I was kind of surprised that in the bad physics moments that he picked on a few things that dealt with minor matters of terminology that I wouldn’t have included in a top 10 mistakes chapter. I was also kind of surprised that he omitted some of my favorite science errors on Star Trek (like where the heck is Spock getting all of his body mass from as he’s rapidly re-growing to adulthood on the Genesis Planet in Star Trek III? I mean, he should be stuffing his face with food every second, if it were even possible for him to metabolize it into body mass that fast.)
But then that’s the fun of top 10 lists: Debating whether they actually are the top 10 or not.
Krauss also handles the subject of religion quite well. He’s respectful to religious sensibilities and interested in the theological questions that are raised by Star Trek technology, such as the implications for the transporter on the question of whether the soul exists.
In his discussion of this topic, though, I think he makes a mistake in reasoning, though it is a forgiveable one since it would require significant theological background to spot the problem and, after all, "He’s a physicist, not a theologian, dammit!" (Please excuse the bad word in deference to Dr. McCoy.)
Here’s the issue: If a transporter takes you apart molecule by molecule (or particle by particle), it would seem to kill you. If it then assembles an identical copy of your body (either out of the same atoms or new ones) and that new copy works properly then–one might suppose–it looks like we are nothing more than molecules in a particular, replicable pattern. In other words: There is no soul.
Krauss remains neutral in the book on whether souls exist, but I would take issue with whether the above line of reasoning works.
From a Catholic perspective, everything that is alive has a soul. Not everything has an immortal soul (only rational beings have those as far as we know), but life and the possession of a soul are concomittant.
So if a transporter makes an identical copy of your body and it’s alive then it has some kind of soul. If it’s clearly rational then it also clearly has a rational and thus an immortal soul. (But be careful here: The reverse is not necessarily true. If it isn’t clearly rational then that doesn’t mean it automatically lacks an immortal soul. Irrational people still have immortal souls by virtue of their membership in a rational species–mankind–even if their exercise of reason is impaired.)
If a transporter made a down-to-the-particle copy of you and it was not rational then I would say that this constitutes evidence that the soul does exist since clearly something other than a molecular copy of your body is needed for you to be rational.
But if it makes a copy and the copy is rational then I don’t think we have evidence one way or the other about the existence of the soul.
Why is that?
Because the evidence is consistent with either the hypothesis that we are nothing more than patterned molecules or the hypothesis that the copy has a new soul (yours presumably having departed when you were taken apart and killed).
To see the basis for the second hypothesis, let’s set aside the issue of killing: Suppose that the transporter doesn’t destroy your body. It just scans it and makes a copy of you, so now there are two of you. In this case, the transporter is functioning as a kind of high-tech cloning device, one capable of making an identical copy that doesn’t even have to grow up and acquire new memories. It’s a totally identical clone in the best tradition of bad sci-fi cloning stories.
But this would put the theological issue on the same footing as cloning, which theologians have already had the chance to chew over in real life.
As I’ve often pointed out before, if you were able to clone a person (either by fissioning an early embryo or by nuclear transfer) and you got a rational being as a result then it would be unambiguous that the clone has a rational soul.
Why is that?
Well, all you’ve done in this case is come up with a new human body by a morally illicit means. God means human bodies to come into existence as the result of sexual union between a husband and a wife, and at the moment the body comes into existence, he provides it with a soul. That’s how he set things up to work for our species, and that’s the only way that it is moral for us to bring new humans into the world.
But God has already shown himself willing to provide souls even when human bodies are not generated in a morally licit manner. Humans have had the ability to create new human bodies in immoral ways for a long time (e.g., by premarital sex, by adultery, by rape). Recently we’ve added some new techniques (e.g., in vitro fertilization). And we may soon add more (e.g., cloning). But it’s all the same thing: You’re just coming up with a new human body by immoral means.
God has been willing to endow people who were born in such ways with rational souls as is evidenced by the fact that they are both living and rational. Jesus even had some people like that in his family tree (think: the Tamar incident in Genesis 38).
So if–in addition to artificial twinning and nuclear transfer–you come up with a new cloning technology (transporter cloning) then you haven’t changed the playing field theologically. All you’re doing is coming up with a new human body (a rather mature one) by immoral means, but that won’t stop God from endowing it with a rational soul.
So it doesn’t seem to me that having a transporter produce rational copies of you would be evidence for the non-existence of the human soul.
It would be evidence for the existence of the soul if the transporter couldn’t produce rational copies that were known to be particle-for-particle identical to you. In that case we would have found an instance where God doesn’t provide a soul even though we’re providing a body. But the reverse isn’t the case.
I would thus say that the existence of the soul is to some extent verifiable but not falsifiable by transporter technology.
That doesn’t mean I’d be theologically comfortable with transporter technology. If it works as advertised then it’s basically a murder/cloning device.
Fortunately, in at least one episode, they indicate that you remain conscious through the transporter process, and if that’s the case then it doesn’t look like you’re being killed at all but simply adjusted in some way that allows you to pass through solid matter without actually being killed.
I’VE WRITTEN ABOUT THAT BEFORE.
So I differed with Krauss’s reasoning on this point, but it was still nice to listen to him tackle the obvious theological question that transporter technology would pose, and it was a pleasure to listen to his balanced and informed take on the physics of the show.
If you’d be interested in hearing an actual physicist offer a sympathetic but critical look at the subject then be sure to
Happy Birthday, Gilbert!
Yesterday was the day that G. K. Chesterton turned 132 year old!
(Not counting the time he was alive in the uterus.)
(And not counting the fact that he happens to be dead at the moment–which I’m sure he would say is immaterial [PUN!].)
Fortunately, his birthday has not gone unnoticed, and some folks in the blogosphere are having a multi-day celebration of it.
Totally Absolutely 100% Crazy
A reader writes:
Would you please comment on the following article in yesterday’s LA Times?
The story in question is about a parish in the Diocese of Orange where the new priest has–among other things–forbidden people to kneel following the Agnus Dei, and a huge controversy has errupted.
IT’S A STORY THAT I’VE COMMENTED ON BEFORE.
But I’ve only commented on certain aspects of it, and the L.A. Times piece gives me the confirmation I need to go further into the issue.
First, though, I’d mention that there are notable flaws in the L.A. Times piece. They don’t get their history of recent liturgical law right, there is a bizarro attempt to link the kneeling issue to The Da Vinci Code (I’m not making that up), and they notably fail to document other aspects of the story that are important, such as the fact that the parishioners weren’t just disinvited from attending Mass because they insisted on kneeling after the Agnus Dei. They are also accused of handing out literature making false allegations against the diocese and the priest, which is a much more serious and canonically actionable offense than refusing to stand at the Agnus Dei. See my prior commentary for more info on this.
They also talk to an expert at the Georgetown liturgy center who is off in liturgical la-la land, but I can’t hold the stupid things he says against the Times. (At least not in a direct way.)
What I find particularly interesting here is a particular assertion that was made by the priest of the parish (he apparently hasn’t been appointed its pastor, just its administrator) in a bulletin. I had seen this statement reported before in material from the distressed parishioners, but I didn’t have confirmation of it. Now the L.A. Times confirms it:
Kneeling "is clearly rebellion, grave disobedience and mortal sin," Father Martin Tran, pastor at St. Mary’s by the Sea, told his flock in a recent church bulletin. The Diocese of Orange backs Tran’s anti-kneeling edict.
Actually, the L.A. Times again has it slightly wrong. You’ll notice that the word "kneeling" isn’t included in the quotation. Here’s what Fr. Tran actually said in context:
As I said before, Liturgy is the "public worship" of the Church whose authority belongs only to Rome, the National Conference of the Catholic Bishops and the local Bishop, and not a private worship or business which belongs to any person(s) or group that can take it into their own hands by intentionally setting their own norms, disregarding the permission from the local Bishop or despising the authority of the local Bishop, the National Conference of one’s country. That is clearly rebellion, grave disobedience and mortal sin, separating oneself from the Church.
The highlighted part is the apparent antecedent for "that," which is what Fr. Tran says is mortally sinful.
And there’s an element of truth in what he says. There are things that one can do in violation of the Church’s norms that would be mortally sinful–for example, if one decided that something other than wheat bread is to be used for confecting the host. That kind of violation of the Church’s norms would be mortally sinful if done with adequate knowledge and intent.
But not all violations of the Church’s norms are created equal. This is a fact that is expressly recognized in the instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum, which recognizes at least three different levels of gravity in liturgical offenses, one of which is clearly non-grave matter.
This means that it is pastorally irresponsible in the extreme to wave the threat of mortal sin in parishioners’ faces unless an actually grave offense is in question, and that does not appear to be the case here. Fr. Tran goes on–immediately after the paragraph quoted above–to state:
The reason for this is that all the current liturgical norms of the Diocese and of the U.S. are officially recognized and allowed by Rome. Furthermore, Fr. Johnson was allowed only to have the Tridentine Mass here at St. Mary’s with its own norms: communion by tongue, with one species, no sign of peace, kneeling after "Agnus Det’l Lamb of God… that some parishioners here name that "traditions" of St. Mary’s. Besides, Fr. Johnson allowed other liturgical practice/norms belonging to the Tridentine Mass to be applied to other Masses of Vatican II, including the Novus Ordo Mass: that is not correct. For it was out of line with the current liturgical norms of the Diocese. These have to be changed. Fr. Sy and I were appointed by the Bishop, working together with the Bishop to re-establish the liturgical norms at St. Mary’s to be in line with the current liturgical norms of the Church in America and of the Diocese (allowed by Rome). And this binds all with total obedience.
As one family, all of us have the responsibility to correct our disobedient brothers and sisters. If they do not listen, that is their serious problem!
Now, it is apparent that Fr. Tran is not the clearest writer in the world. It is also clear that he is not the most pastoral priest in the world. In fact, he comes across as a Grade-A Jerk in this text (particularly toward the end), although allowance must be made for the previous history of the situation, which may have caused tempers to flare on both sides.
Still, it seems that the nut of the issue is that Fr. Tran is trying to bring the parish into line with the Diocese of Orange’s liturgical norms for the current rite of Mass after his predecessor allowed practices from the Tridentine Mass to be applied to the current rite of Mass. What these are, Fr. Tran isn’t clear on, but the most likely friction points are the ones he names as aspects of the Tridentine rite of Mass: Communion on the tongue, Communion under one species, not having an individual exchange of peace, and kneeling after the Agnus Dei.
Communion on the tongue is a protected right of the faithful, so he can’t (validly) accuse parishioners of being disobedient to liturgical law if they want to receive on the tongue. Neither is there any requirement for people to receive under both species if both are being offered to the faithful, so there’s no grounds for valid charges of disobedience there, either. If he’s calling for an individual exchange of the sign of peace and parishioners are utterly refusing to do it (e.g., not even nodding and smiling at those around them) then he’d have some grounds for criticism, but that doesn’t seem to be the big issue here. The L.A. Times–and those on the other side of the issue–seem to understand kneeling after the Agnus Dei to be what’s causing all the ruckus.
So (in the absence of further evidence) let’s go with that: Fr. Tran seems to be threatening people who are kneeling after the Lamb of God with mortal sin. That’s certainly what they’re understanding him to be doing, and–despite the lack of precision with which he writes–he’s definitely waving charges of mortal sin in their faces over lack of compliance with the norms of the diocese, and kneeling seems to be what is at issue.
If that is what he’s doing then he is totally, absolutely, 100% crazy . . . speaking from the point of view of liturgical law.
The Church simply has not invested the question of the posture of the laity with the gravity needed to result in mortal sin. Indeed, Rome has shown significant sympathy and indulgence toward those who wish to kneel at traditional moments.
Here’s a nice test case: Kneeling for Communion. The current norms for the United States establish a posture of standing to receive Communion and–because of the gravity of the moment itself (you’re receiving God Incarnate in Holy Communion) and because of the public nature of the moment (you’re up in front of everybody where you can be easily seen)–kneeling at this moment would be more disruptive by way of example to others than at any other moment in the Mass. So if any moment of kneeling praeter legem would be a grave offense, this one would.
So what does liturgical law say regarding people who insist on kneeling for Communion?
Communicants should not be denied Holy Communion because they kneel. Rather, such instances should be addressed pastorally, by providing the faithful with proper catechesis on the reasons for this norm [GIRM (2002, U.S. ed.) 160].
Now, canon law requires ministers of the Eucharist to deny Communion to anyone who is "obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin" (can. 915), so if a person insisted on kneeling in spite of admonitions then you’d have to deny him Holy Communion if this were a grave sin (since it’s obviously manifest). Since the text says that Communicants are not to be denied Holy Communion, the only conclusion is that kneeling for Communion is not a grave sin and thus not capable of being a mortal sin.
And if kneeling for Communion is not a mortal sin then–a fortiori–kneeling after the Agnus Dei is not a mortal sin.
The claim that it would be is just crazy and shows a profound lack of awareness of the mechanics of liturgical law and the way Rome handles these things.
Indeed, the actions of Posture Nazis (of liberal or conservative bent–and there are conservative Posture Nazis) are simply not consonant with the attitude Rome takes toward the regulation of posture at Mass. That attitude is expressed in a recent Responsum issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments regarding kneeling after Communion:
Dubium: In many places, the faithful are accustomed to kneeling or sitting in personal prayer upon returning to their places after having individually received Holy Communion during Mass. Is it the intention of the Missale Romanum, editio typica tertia, to forbid this practice?
Responsum: Negative, et ad mensum [and for this reason]. The mens [reasoning] is that the prescription of the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani, no. 43 [i.e., the main section dealing with posture], is intended, on the one hand, to ensure within broad limits a certain uniformity of posture within the congregation for the various parts of the celebration of Holy Mass, and on the other, to not regulate posture rigidly in such a way that those who wish to kneel or sit would no longer be free [June 5, 2003 (Prot. N. 855/03/L); printed in BCL Newsletter, July 2003].
So whether one would insist that it is mortally sinful to kneel or not to kneel at particular points in Mass, one would be misreading liturgical law. The Church simply has not invested the regulation of posture with grave matter and it intends only to establish "a certain uniformity" that has "broad limits" and it does not intend to "regulate posture rigidly."
This makes troubling a reported comment by a diocesan spokesman. According to the L.A. Times:
Father Joe Fenton, spokesman for the Diocese of Orange, said the diocese supports Tran’s view that disobeying the anti-kneeling edict is a mortal sin. "That’s Father Tran’s interpretation, and he’s the pastor," he said. "We stand behind Father Tran."
You’ll note that once again the L.A. Times has not gotten the word "kneeling" into the quote, so we’re not entirely sure what Fr. Fenton said (assuming he was even quoted accurately). Given the number of other sloppy, problematic points in the article, I can’t be sure if he was quoted accurately or if the question he was responding to involved the issue the Times represents or, if he was and if it did, whether he was speaking after mature deliberation or just reflexively trying to support a diocesan priest in the face of criticism.
But I can tell you this: If this matter goes up to Rome the mortal sin interpretation of the parishioners’ actions will not be sustained.
Instead, we’re likely to get back something that sounds very much like the Responsum on the question of whether you can kneel after Communion.
Cui Bono?
More wisdom from Thomas Sowell on immigration:
Of all the insults to our intelligence in the current discussions of immigration legislation, the biggest insult is the claim that border control legislation and legislation on the illegal immigrants already in the country must go together.
Why? What will happen if they are done separately? And who will be worse off?
The claim that the two pieces of legislation must be passed at the same time has been repeated endlessly. But endless repetition is not a coherent argument. . . .
Who would lose anything by this separate consideration of the two pieces of legislation? The country would not lose anything. Neither would the illegal aliens already in the country.
The biggest losers would be politicians. They could no longer be on both sides of the issue by voting for a package deal but would have to stand up and be counted on border control.
Bush Weaker On Border Security Than Clinton
The Washington Times makes some interesting points in an editorial today (EXCERPTS):
Put plainly, when Mr. Bush talks tough on border security and enforcement, conservatives don’t believe him, and they have the facts to back them up. Last week’s address to the nation, during which Mr. Bush proposed adding 6,000 Border Patrol agents by 2007, wasn’t the first time he’s made such a promise. When one considers that it was just a couple of years ago when Mr. Bush promised to add 2,000 agents every year for the next five years, only to submit a 2006 budget calling for only 210, it’s no wonder why conservatives remain wary.
Here’s one instance where the administration can reverse its abysmal
record on employer sanctions, which dropped from 417 who had been fined
for hiring illegal aliens in 1999 to just three in 2004.Also, the administration should stop advertising how many illegal
aliens it has apprehended and start telling Americans how many it has
deported. Mr. Bush’s trumpeting of his administration’s arrest and
deportation of 6 million illegal aliens is actually a decline compared
to any five-year period under Mr. Clinton.
These points can play a potentially useful role in getting the Bush administration to get serious about border security. A "Bush weaker than Clinton on border security" meme would do a lot of good right now. Hopefully the blogosphere will start percolating the idea.
The points that the Washington Times raises illustrate why I simply do not trust President Bush on the subject of the border. All his tough talk about putting the national guard on the border (in a neutered form that won’t let them do hardly anything) and beefing up border patrol agents means nothing. It’s just empty show.
The same goes for his declarations about ending "catch and release." It’s easy for politicians to talk tough about what they’re going to do with personnel, but personnel can fall through the cracks at budget time or get de-funded later on or get reassigned or be forbidden by policy to do their jobs or simply be unable to respond to the magnitude of the problem they’re facing given limited resources. Personnel is too variable and too easy to reassign or neuter by policies of inaction.
That’s why I’m not going to be satisfied with anything less than a fence that completely seals the border. Fences can’t be reassigned or used as part of a shell game nearly as easily as personnel can. They stay there and do their job until structural damage is done to them. They’re not perfect, but they are effective and less susceptible to political subversion than personnel is.