Month: February 2007

“Desires For Other Things”

A reader writes:

I have a quick question on the Parable of the Sower. It says, "The worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful."

My question is, are Christians allowed to have "desires for other things" besides God?  For example, if I strongely desire a wife, is it wrong?  I’ve been praying for a wife for years, but this parable convicted me.

The "desires for other things" phrase may be unfamiliar to some because it is found in Mark’s version of the Parable of the Sower, but not in Matthew or Luke’s version, which are better-known.

This phrase need not be an occasion for scrupling, however. It does not mean that desires for things other than God are bad. God himself designed us so that we would desire various things: food, human companionship, respect, love, sex, etc. All of those are goods, and God designed us to desire goods. It’s what motivates us to seek them and thus seek good.

The problem is when we allow desires for temporal goods to crowd out eternal goods. It is not sinful to desire a particular temporal good–such as a wife–but it becomes sinful if one is willing to mortally sin (turn one’s back on God) in order to gain a wife. The same is true of any other temporal good. If we are willing to mortally sin in order to get it then we have fixed our will on it rather than God. The situation is similar if we’re willing to venially sin in order to get it. In that case we’re letting it impede our relationship with God, but we’re not turning away from God to pursue it.

There is nothing wrong with desiring temporal things in addition to God; there is nothing wrong with strongly desiring them. What we have to make sure is that our desires for these things do not lead us into sin. As long as that is the case, there is no problem and the hierarchy of goods is as it should be, with us recognizing the transcendant value of eternal goods over temporal ones.

The balance is struck by Jesus in Matthew 6, where he tells us:

[D]o not be anxious,  saying, `What shall we eat?’ or `What shall we drink?’ or `What  shall we wear?’   For the Gentiles seek all these things;  and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all  these things shall be yours as well. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be
anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the
day [Matt. 6:31-34].

   

20

Selling Your Soul–Part II

The reader with obsessive-compulsive disorder who wrote before about the possibility of selling one’s soul writes:

Thank you very much for the prompt and logical
response.

My pleasure.

Unfortunately, I also read some of the combox, and the
doubting disease kicked in.

Yes, I was aghast when I discovered that–despite the fact this was a Rule 20 post–not only had the rule been violated in the combox but it had been immediately violated by the very first commenter. By the point I discovered it, there was an extensive (over 20 posts) discussion underway, and I couldn’t untangle it all and thus had to simply shut off the combox.

Rule 20 exists precisely in order to not have pastoral answers I’m giving undermined and add to the burden of the people I’m trying to help. I was livid when I discovered this blatant violation of the rule because of the pain it could inflict on the original reader, and I would have banned the commenter who did it immediately except that I don’t think he did it intentionally.

I also have to share some blame myself in that I should have better foreseen that this would happen and not have left the combox open on that post in the first place. At least one can argue that this was a case which was too sensitive to risk handling it under Rule 20.

So my apologies for all that.

One person mentions the
possibility of a pact with the devil — i.e. if I get
the thing that I want, I agree to go to hell.  I think
that’s pretty close to my conception of "selling my
soul" — more as a metaphor: I’d still be "me", but
I’ve agreed to spend eternity in hell.

I don’t want to take much more of your time on this
subject, but could you address the question from this
perspective?

Sure. The above is a metaphorical (not literal) understanding of "selling one’s soul" that is not subject to it being ontologically impossible (the way literally transferring your soul to someone else is). It would be at least possible to agree to go to hell in order to obtain some temporal good, and doing so would be gravely sinful because it is placing some temporal good above one’s eternal destiny.

So what if one did mentally choose this, giving it the full and deliberate cooperation needed to make it a fully human act?

Well, the devil isn’t omniscient, and merely thinking about striking a bargain with him doesn’t mean that you did.

Further, no such bargain would be binding.

You can’t morally obligate yourself to do something immoral, and willfully going to hell is immoral. Any "contract" of this nature would be automatically invalid. It would have no binding force before God. Therefore, all someone would need to do to get right with God–supposing he had done such a thing as a fully human act and thus been responsible for it–would be to turn to God and repent.

However, merely having a thought along these lines would not be the
same as committing this sin. Having the thought is just a temptation.
It isn’t a sin. You’ve got to engage the will in order for sin to take
place. Thus if a person with OCD has thoughts along these lines, he
should remember that they are not sins and put them out of his mind.

But what if the person with OCD feels that he has given some sort of
cooperation of the will to the thoughts (i.e., endorsed them). Here he
is to remember two things:

1) In order to actually commit a mortal sin
one must give deliberate consent to the thought. You haven’t committed
a mortal sin if you just feel some kind of partial cooperation of the
will, so don’t worry about it and think of something else.

2) The goal of obsessive-compulsive disorder is to try to inflict pain
on people by throwing thoughts and feelings at them that they don’t
want. It will try to trick them into thinking they are sinning mortally when they are either sinning venially or not sinning at all but just having a temptation. Therefore, an OCD-sufferer needs to follow the advice given to scrupulous people by sound pastoral theology
and assume that they have not given deliberate cooperation to the thoughts and thus have not mortally sinned.

The fact that the reader mentioned in his original e-mail
that he has a strong urge to resist these thoughts shows that he is in
this category and should ignore them.

20

Selling One’s Soul?

A reader writes:

I suffer from OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).
One of my most troubling obsessions is the thought
that I have (or will) sell my soul (e.g. to the
devil).  This thought generally occurs when there’s
something that I want (e.g. I want project X to go
well at work; I see an attractive woman), and is
generally accompanied by an urge to strongly resist
the thought.

I’m hoping you can address this from a theological
perspective.  That is, is it even possible to sell
one’s soul?  If not, I’ll have "ammunition" to ignore
these thoughts going forward, and be able to dispel
all fear that I may have ever given in to the thought
in the past.  If it is possible, how would I know if I
had done it?

It is not possible to sell one’s soul. Period.

The only things that can be sold are things that (1) you own and (2) are alienable (that is, capable of being transferred from one person to another).

It is questionable whether you even own your own soul. To the extent that ownership even applies to souls, it could be stated that God owns our souls. Thus St. Paul, alluding to the fact that Christ redeemed us on the Cross, states:

You are not your own;  you were bought  with a price (1 Cor. 6:19-20).

There is thus a significant argument to be made that we can’t sell our souls because we don’t own them.

Even if one were to quibble on that point, though, we most definitely cannot sell our souls because they are not alienable. They can’t be taken away from us and given to someone else. Why? Because the soul is the essence of who we are.

I can’t transfer my essence–my "me"-ness–to anybody else. He has his own "me"-ness (which to me is "him"-ness), and it is logically impossible for someone else to be both him and me. He’s him. I’m me. That’s all there is to it.

Therefore, a single individual cannot have two souls. This is obvious to see in the case of an embodied soul: Human souls are the substantial forms of our bodies (that’s been dogmatically defined), and a body cannot have two substantial forms. The same thing applies even when our souls are outside our bodies, though. They constitute the irreducible essence of our persons, and as such they cannot be transferred from one person to another, by definition.

The thing to do when these thoughts come to you is to resist them, as you are doing, and to resist them in such a way that they aren’t reinforced. Just do your best to relax and put them out of your mind.

20

Funding For “Baby AIDS” Program Blocked

Joe Carter of Evangelical Outpost writes:

I don’t like to pitch stories to bloggers, but this is an issue that I think deserves our attention. My sources say that the funding of this program–which funds HIV testing for infants to prevent HIV related infections–was blocked by low-level staffers from the CDC. Why? Who knows? But all too often this is "how things get done" in D.C. Some unelected staffer sneaks in wording that circumvents the will of both the American people and our representatives.

Joe links to a story HERE, which states:

Every year thousands of babies, predominately from poor African-American families, are born at risk of developing HIV. Many of these children develop HIV related infections that could have easily been prevented by prenatal testing and treatment. States that have implemented HIV testing for infants have seen their infections rates drop dramatically. Such success even inspired Congress to pass the Ryan White Early Diagnosis Grant Program. The program authorized $30 million in funding to states with infant HIV testing in order to ensure that these vulnerable children are protected.

The program was created just two months ago yet someone has already included language in the appropriations bill to prohibit funding for the “Baby Aids” program. Section 20613(b) of H.J.Res. 20 states:

(b) None of the funds appropriated by this division may be used to: (1) implement section 2625 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300ff-33; relating to the Ryan White early diagnosis grant program)…

This provision does not save any money but simply prohibits funds to help identify these toddlers. In fact, the funding was already included in President Bush’s FY08 budget request. So why would anyone insert this language into the bill?

Earlier this week, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) attempted to add an amendment to restore the funding. Unfortunately, Democratic Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) never allowed the amendment to be included before the bill reached the Senate floor for a vote.

One would think that protecting sick babies is an issue that both Democrats and Republicans would fully endorse. So who inserted this language? And why wasn’t Sen. Coburn’s amendment added? Every American who cares about children should be asking that question – and demanding that Congress give us an answer.

The Face Of Chick?

JackchickWhat you are looking at may be the first known, recent photo of Jack T. Chick (left) to emerge on the Internet.

It is found on the home page of Victory Baptist Church in Clarkston, Michigan and is captioned as "Jack Chick & Pastor Bob Nogalski, Summer 2006."

The figure alleged to be Chick is holding a copy of his tract Bad Bob! and pointing to Pastor Nogalski because of the similarity of Pastor Nogalski’s life story to that of the character Bad Bob.

The Victory Baptist Church web site also includes Pastor Nogalski’s testimony regarding his life and how it intersects with Bad Bob’s.

VIEW THE PICTURE IN THE ORIGINAL CONTEXT.

READ PASTOR NOGALSKI’S TESTIMONY.

READ "BAD BOB!"

Now, the question on the minds of most JA.O readers will be: Is the photo of the reclusive Chick authentic?

In our day and age, photos certainly can lie, and so I’d be interested to know what PhotoChoppers can make of the picture’s authenticity. That’s a subject I can’t speak to, but perhaps we’ll hear from some of them in the combox.

What I can say is this: The man in the picture does look (apart from the comic expression on his face) much like I remember Jack Chick looking when I met him at the premier of his film, Light of the World.

YOU CAN READ ABOUT THAT HERE.

And here’s the picture I drew of Chick after the event:

Jackchick2_1

I can also say that the setting in which the picture was taken lends some credibility of the photo. It looks to me like the descriptions of the foyer of Chick Publications that I’ve read. I would guess that Pastor Nogalski visited Chick Publications in Summer 2006, met Chick, and (impressed by the pastor’s testimony regarding his connection with Bad Bob) Chick let the picture be taken, likely not realizing that it would find its way onto the Internet.

I’ve thought about driving up to visit Chick’s offices. They’re just a couple of hours up the road from me. But I’ve never done it.

Maybe after this picture, I will.

(BTW, a TEN GALLON CHT to the reader who e-mailed!)

Who’s Holding Back Who’s Hand?

A reader writes:

I’m in RCIA right now, and I have a question that’s been bothering me for a while. I’m hoping you can shed some light. Someone on one of the combox threads posted the following:

“Our lady is holding back the hand of her beloved son from seeking retribution on those who wear the clerical cloth and those that are worshiping as humanists and not God himself.”

Now, the fellow in question may or may not be right, but I’m sure I’ve heard the first part of the quote before.

Here’s my question: I thought (as a Protestant) that it was Jesus who was staying the hand of God (out of love for His Son, God was withholding immediate judgment on the world). The quote makes it sound like it’s Mary who’s staying the hand of Jesus. I know the Church teaches that Mary intercedes for us with Christ, but this is starting to sound like a daisy chain. Help?

It’s understandable that this type of image would be a bit perplexing, especially if one is coming from a Protestant background, since many Protestants stress the idea of Jesus turning away God’s wrath from us.

Basically, the "holding back the hand" metaphor is just that: a metaphor. As such, it contains elements of truth, but it is also figurative. Mary is not literally holding back Jesus’ bodily hand to keep him from physically whacking erring clergymen. Neither is Jesus literally holding back God the Father’s hand to keep him from physically squashing us with it. That’s a metaphor.

The question is: What does the metaphor mean and what are its limits?

It would seem that the metaphor can refer to the fact that it is through Christ’s death (and his ongoing intercession at the "right hand" [another metaphor] of the Father) that we are treated more mercifully than we otherwise would be. In this sense we can say that Jesus restrains the "wrath" (bad consequences) that would otherwise come to us, for God has chosen to make his mercy toward us conditional on the work of his Son. Thus Jesus could be depicted as staying the Father’s wrath or holding back his hand.

But the metaphor also has limits. First, God doesn’t literally get angry. Anger is a passion, and God doesn’t have passions. When Scripture speaks of God’s anger, it’s using a metaphor to communicate the idea that he will allow bad consequences to occur to those on earth on account of their wrongdoing. He’s not literally seething with rage.

Quite the contrary! It is he who sent his Son to die for us on the Cross and thus provide salvation in spite of our sins! God sent his Son because he loves us and wants us to be saved. Thus he’s really on our side. It’s true that he will allow bad things to happen if we refuse his offer of grace (i.e., he will allow us to choose to reject him if we insist on it; he won’t force himself on us), but he wants to provide us with grace, and he sent his Son to make that possible.

Thus if we wish to view what is literally true, we must look past the metaphor of anger and of Jesus restraining his Father from squashing us in a fit of rage. That image is not literally true.

The content of the metaphor seems to consist in two points: (1) We deserve bad consequences for our sins but (2) we don’t receive these bad consequences because of Jesus’ work on our behalf.

Going beyond the metaphor, we also recognize (3) the Father loves us and (4) it is he himself who sent his Son so that we might receive mercy.

The same exact thing applies if we speak of Mary (or anyone else) restraining divine wrath. That’s a metaphor as well, and it communicates basically the same content, with the necessary changes folded in.

God wants to give us benefits, but he has willed that these benefits sometimes be contingent on the prayer of others. Thus he encourages the Christian community to be built up in love and concern for each other by giving it additional benefits when we are drawn out of ourselves to be concerned for and to pray for other people. It’s his reward system for turning our thoughts to him and to others, instead of focusing exclusively on our selves.

Based on this fact, it would be possible to modify the metaphor of restraining divine anger such that the intercession of Mary (or anyone else who prays) is pictured as what averts the bad consequences that would otherwise come. As the Mother of Christ, Mary is a particularly powerful intercessor, and so this metaphor is sometimes applied to her, but it could also be applied any time anyone’s prayers help us out.

Yet the content of the metaphor is basically the same: (1) We deserve bad consequences on account of our wrongdoings but (2) we don’t receive these bad consequences (at least in some cases) because of the intercession of another (Mary, in the case we are considering).

Looking beyond the metaphor, we also realize (3) that God (Father and Son and Holy Spirit) loves us and (4) it was God himself (Father and Son and Holy Spirit) who allows us to be blessed through the intercession of others, based on the work of Christ.

Hope this helps!

Prayers for Allison

Immhtfin3I don’t normally use JA.O as a bulletin board for prayer requests. There are other avenues for that, and Jimmy’s blog is really about apologetics more than personal issues and devotions.

But this is one instance where I feel a direct appeal for prayer is justified, and so I have a special, urgent prayer intention that I would like to pass on to Jimmy’s readers.

My niece, Allison (16), is in the hospital right now awaiting a heart transplant. We had prayed that her heart could be repaired, but it is not keeping up with the demands of her body. She has been growing weaker and now weighs less than my 11-year-old daughter.

Please pray that she and her parents will be comforted by the Holy Spirit, that they will find an appropriate donor heart at the right time, that God will guide the hands of the surgeons, and that she will make a complete recovery soon after the surgery. Pray also that they will have the financial help they need, not only for the medical bills, but to help make up for a great deal of missed work.

Please pray also for the soul of the heart donor, whoever that may be.

I think it would be especially appropriate to offer your prayers through the intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In addition, given that this is St. Valentine’s Day, and hearts are everywhere, you might also ask his help for Allison’s heart. And, okay, since this is a big day for flowers, you might put in a prayer to St. Therese!

For those of you who would like more information or who might like to contribute financially, I will be happy to pass on your messages to the parents. For the sake of their privacy, I don’t want to publish names and locations here.

In addition, I thought it would be appropriate as a fund raiser for Allison to offer reproductions of my painting "Immaculate Heart" (above, 11"x14") on stretched canvas for $100(US), with all profits going to Allison’s parents to help pay for her medical care. If you would like to purchase one of these reproductions, you can e-mail me at timjonesart@yahoo.com. Just include the name "Allison" in the subject line so I can tell it from the SPAM. I’ll then e-mail you a PayPal invoice. Your print will be shipped within ten days.

Thanks everyone! Your prayers mean more to me and my family today than any chocolate or flowers.

UPDATE: Allison’s family have given the OK to publish her name and contact information. Cards with good wishes can be sent to Allison Jones, Room 309B, The Children’s Hospital, 1056 E. 19th, Denver, CO, 80218

Thanks again, and God bless you all.

Job Assistance For A Former Priest

A reader writes:

I live in Philadelphia, where I left the presbyterate a few years ago….

I am currently employed but am not making enough money to survive.  I feel like I am at a dead end.

Is their a former priest’s network support group that can help find former priest’s find employment?  Or would you happen to know someone who could help me?

Please advise.

I don’t know of such an organization–or one that is faithful to the Church, anyway–but my knowledge on such matters is very limited, but perhaps readers can help with suggestsions in the combox. I’ll make sure that the person who wrote gets the suggestions that come up.

The reader who wrote is to be commended for trying to find help without resorting to some of the illegitimate ways that former priests can try to make money (e.g., serving as a "rent-a-priest" and selling sacraments–or claimed sacraments [several would be invalid without proper faculties]–for money).

Incidentally, I know that I’ve got some cantankerous readers who are concerned about the number of departures from the priesthood, but this combox is not the place for finding fault or discussing those issues. We don’t know what may have led to the gentleman’s departure from the priesthood, and there can be perfectly legitimate reasons for doing so, just as there can be perfectly legitimate reasons for ending a marriage.

As it is, the reader is in a tough spot, and he’s sincerely reaching out for help and asking for ideas. Let’s do the Christian think and try to help, following the example that St. James tells us is set by God himself:

"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men
generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him" (James 1:5).

If that’s how God gives information to those who need it, let’s make sure we follow his example.

20

Gattica! Gattica!

If a House bill goes through in its current form and becomes law, we’ll be one step closer to the genetic dystopia of GATTACA.

The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins writes:

A bill with serious ramifications for the disabled and others medically at risk is scheduled for mark-up in the House Education and Labor Committee on Wednesday. As I previously mentioned, H.R. 493, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), was introduced to prevent insurance companies and employers from refusing to cover individuals or families based on the results of genetic tests. Unfortunately, due to a large loophole in the bill’s language, the definition of "family member" does not include children who are "to be born" or those who are in the process of being placed for adoption. Without an amendment to expand the definition, an insurance company could, on the grounds of a prenatal test, cancel a woman’s insurance–or encourage her to have an abortion because it doesn’t want to pay for the costs of a special needs child with an illness or disability such as Down Syndrome. When the bill was first introduced in 2005, sponsors said the language would be clarified. However, with the House now poised to act on the legislation, this has not been done. In our conversations with House members, we’ve learned that an amendment will likely be offered in committee to favorably change the bill. We encourage all representatives to vote for this equitable pro-family clarification.

MORE.