Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

The Douay-Rheims

A reader writes:

At your suggestion (for which many thanks!) I have ordered a copy of Orchard’s 1953 Catholic Commentary; just now I feel rather like a kid before Christmas, eagerly awaiting the present. I noted in reading about it that he uses the Douay Rheims translation of the Bible. I’m curious; what is your take on this version, regarding the accuracy of the translation? I’m now reading the RSV, which I enjoy immensely as a nice blend of accessible (yet not gender-neutral) and dignified prose. Since joining the Church 5 years ago I’ve thought about purchasing a copy of DR, but I just haven’t got around to it. Now with Orchard’s Commentary on the way (and with my birthday coming up), I thought that this might be a nice time to purchase a copy. Any thoughts?

The Douay-Rheims is a fine translation, and if you like King James-era English, I’d definitely recommend it. It’s the one to have if that’s what you like.

It’s not perfect (and you should ignore claims that praise it to high heaven above all other translations–they are never made on its behalf by people proficient in the biblical languages), but it’s a good, basic, traditional translation.

If you’d like to learn more about it, here’s an online article about it. If you’d like to read some of it for yourself to get a flavor for what it’s like, the translation itself is also online.

When Worlds Collide!

antennae-colliding-galaxies--largeKnow what this is? It’s a picture of two galaxies colliding. They’re known as the “Antennae” colliding galaxies (I guess some astronomer thought they look like a bug’s antennae), about 63 million light years away in the constellation Corvus.

Righ now, they don’t look much like galaxies because they are tearing each other apart. That is one of the things that can happen when galaxies collide–if they’re evenly matched. But other things can happen when two galaxies interact if they aren’t so evenly matched. If one is much smaller than the other, it may get torn apart and absorbed by the larger galaxy. Or, if it hits it at the right angle, it may plunge through the larger galaxy, perhaps getting caught in its gravity, looping back, and plunging through several more times.

Now, we live in a big galaxy, as galaxies go. It’s one of the largest galaxies on the block. Together with the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies, the Milky Way is one of the three largest members of the Local Group (which consists of about 35 galaxies).

The fact our galaxy is so big makes it relatively safe from destructive collisions with other galaxies, but the thought of the Milky Way colliding with other galaxies is still rather scary. But guess what–It’s happened before!

The brightest globular cluster we can see in the Milky Way–known as Omega Centauri–now appears to be the remnant of a galaxy the Milky Way ate for breakfast.

Another galaxy–known as the Sagittarius dwarf–has it hit the Milky Way a number of times and is due to do so again in, oh, the next hundred million years. We’ve already been stripping stars off of it, and it’s likely to end up getting absorbed by us, too.

But we found out last year that the Milky Way is gobbling up another galaxy RIGHT NOW! It’s known as the Canis Major dwarf, and it’s the closest galaxy to us–about 25,000 light years away from the solar system, which makes it closer to us than we are to the center of our galaxy (27,000 ly away). Soon its inhabitants (if any) will be fellow Milky Way-ians . . . just like us.

Message to inhabitants of the Canis Major dwarf: “Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.”

Praying For What Won't Happen

A reader writes:

If your interpretation of Jesus’ statement about Judas is correct [here], then doesn’t that mean that certain parts of the Catechism should be changed, namely §1058 and §1821?

Wouldn’t it be illogical to pray “that no one should be lost” if we know that one person already is lost?

Wouldn’t it be illogical to pray that “all men” be saved, if we know, on the basis of your gloss, that one of them is damned?

This question has two aspects: One, taking the question at face value, has application specifically to praying that people won’t be damend. This, however, leads to a second aspect which is broader in scope.

Dealing with the first aspect first, I’d say the following:

1. Prayers of this sort can be taken either distributively or collectively. When taken distributively, they are made on behalf of each person as an individual–i.e., may this person not be damned. Taken collectively, they are made on behalf of all individuals as a whole–i.e., may nobody at all in the human race be damned.

The thing is, prayers can be made distributively for the human race that it would make no sense to take collectively. For example, we might pray distributively for each individual in the human race that he not get sick, though we know with certaintity that some people will in fact get sick. We can wish the good of health for each individual. Nevertheless, it is clear (from the fact that some people do get sick) that God does not choose to give this gift to everyone without exception, so it would make no sense for us to make the prayer in a collective sense.

2. Another axis along which questions of this nature have to be parsed is whether they have to do with the future or the past. We can pray that nobody in the future suffer from a particular evil without implying that we are asking the same for all the people who have lived (and suffered from it) in the past.

3. For the prayers you mention from the Catechism not to make sense, they would have to be taken (a) collectively and (b) for all people, past and present. This is one of only several possible combinations, so we already can see that the prayers can make sense on the thesis I’m advancing.

4. In fact, there are reasons to think that the Church does not intend the prayers in the sense described in point #3:

a. The passages both reference Paul’s statement in 1 Tim. 2:4 that God desires all men to be saved. They represent the Church’s appropriation of this desire of God’s in its own prayer life. Yet (i) we know that, though he doesn’t wish it, God is willing to let people choose hell, as Scripture and the Catechism both state, (ii) St. Paul certainly believed that some people end up in hell, as illustrated by numerous passages in his writings, and (iii) we still have Jesus’ statement that is most plausibly read as stating Judas’ damnation.

b. John Paul II, who approved the Catechism, is on record (e.g., in his book Crossing the Treshhold of Hope) stating that people are in hell, and

c. It certainly cannot be maintained that the world body of bishops, who collaborated on the Catechism, are all von Balthasarians with regard to this question.

Thus we have reason to read the prayers in question in another light, more consonant with Scripture and Tradition, that the Church is praying for the salvation of every human individually, not that hell to be empty.

The second and larger issue is one we have alluded to in dealing with the first: It is the question of praying for things that won’t happen. There are all kinds of prayers in the Church for things that simply aren’t going to happen–e.g., that there be an end to poverty, hunger, sickness, war, and any other evil you might want to name. To really imagine a world where all these are granted prior to the Second Coming would be to engage in unrealistic utopian hopes at best and to participate in the deception of the Antichrist at worst (see CCC 675-677). The world simply won’t be perfected in that way in this age, and the man who tells us that it can be will be the biggest, evilest snakeoil salesman of history.

Thus when prayers of this sort are made (and, personally, I find myself uncomfortable with this style of prayer), they always have to be made with the recognition that God is not going to banish all such evils from the world, and therefore they must be made with an unstated qualifier like “to the extent that it is Thy will, Lord.”

If they are not taken with some such qualifier then they constitute praying for something that one knows God will not grant, which is foolish or presumptuous, depending on the level of knowledge the person praying has.

Praying For What Won’t Happen

A reader writes:

If your interpretation of Jesus’ statement about Judas is correct [here], then doesn’t that mean that certain parts of the Catechism should be changed, namely §1058 and §1821?

Wouldn’t it be illogical to pray “that no one should be lost” if we know that one person already is lost?

Wouldn’t it be illogical to pray that “all men” be saved, if we know, on the basis of your gloss, that one of them is damned?

This question has two aspects: One, taking the question at face value, has application specifically to praying that people won’t be damend. This, however, leads to a second aspect which is broader in scope.

Dealing with the first aspect first, I’d say the following:

1. Prayers of this sort can be taken either distributively or collectively. When taken distributively, they are made on behalf of each person as an individual–i.e., may this person not be damned. Taken collectively, they are made on behalf of all individuals as a whole–i.e., may nobody at all in the human race be damned.

The thing is, prayers can be made distributively for the human race that it would make no sense to take collectively. For example, we might pray distributively for each individual in the human race that he not get sick, though we know with certaintity that some people will in fact get sick. We can wish the good of health for each individual. Nevertheless, it is clear (from the fact that some people do get sick) that God does not choose to give this gift to everyone without exception, so it would make no sense for us to make the prayer in a collective sense.

2. Another axis along which questions of this nature have to be parsed is whether they have to do with the future or the past. We can pray that nobody in the future suffer from a particular evil without implying that we are asking the same for all the people who have lived (and suffered from it) in the past.

3. For the prayers you mention from the Catechism not to make sense, they would have to be taken (a) collectively and (b) for all people, past and present. This is one of only several possible combinations, so we already can see that the prayers can make sense on the thesis I’m advancing.

4. In fact, there are reasons to think that the Church does not intend the prayers in the sense described in point #3:

a. The passages both reference Paul’s statement in 1 Tim. 2:4 that God desires all men to be saved. They represent the Church’s appropriation of this desire of God’s in its own prayer life. Yet (i) we know that, though he doesn’t wish it, God is willing to let people choose hell, as Scripture and the Catechism both state, (ii) St. Paul certainly believed that some people end up in hell, as illustrated by numerous passages in his writings, and (iii) we still have Jesus’ statement that is most plausibly read as stating Judas’ damnation.

b. John Paul II, who approved the Catechism, is on record (e.g., in his book Crossing the Treshhold of Hope) stating that people are in hell, and

c. It certainly cannot be maintained that the world body of bishops, who collaborated on the Catechism, are all von Balthasarians with regard to this question.

Thus we have reason to read the prayers in question in another light, more consonant with Scripture and Tradition, that the Church is praying for the salvation of every human individually, not that hell to be empty.

The second and larger issue is one we have alluded to in dealing with the first: It is the question of praying for things that won’t happen. There are all kinds of prayers in the Church for things that simply aren’t going to happen–e.g., that there be an end to poverty, hunger, sickness, war, and any other evil you might want to name. To really imagine a world where all these are granted prior to the Second Coming would be to engage in unrealistic utopian hopes at best and to participate in the deception of the Antichrist at worst (see CCC 675-677). The world simply won’t be perfected in that way in this age, and the man who tells us that it can be will be the biggest, evilest snakeoil salesman of history.

Thus when prayers of this sort are made (and, personally, I find myself uncomfortable with this style of prayer), they always have to be made with the recognition that God is not going to banish all such evils from the world, and therefore they must be made with an unstated qualifier like “to the extent that it is Thy will, Lord.”

If they are not taken with some such qualifier then they constitute praying for something that one knows God will not grant, which is foolish or presumptuous, depending on the level of knowledge the person praying has.

Shameless Promotion I

The Curt Jester has a few nice words to say about Defensor Fidei, and I thought I’d share them:

Jimmy Akin has now moved to TypePad.

Jimmyakin.org

RSS Feed

His blog has turned out to be even better and more eclectic then I thought it would be. Besides strait apologetics works we get linguistic information, movie reviews, scientific discoveries, Buddhist hell, and posts referencing Babylon 5 and Stargate. A true Renaissance man.

Cool!

Much obliged, Jeff!

Now I just need to sit down and write one of those shameless promotion boxes for my page margins.

A Time For Honesty

Archbishop John J. Myers of the Archdiocese of Newark has released a pastoral letter titled A Time For Honesty, in which he takes on the subject of abortion and the role it needs to have in Catholics’ political positions.

He is right on target. Go Archbishop Myers!

Some pertinent excerpts:

There is no right more fundamental than the right to be born and reared with all the dignity the human person deserves. On this grave issue, public officials cannot hold themselves excused from their duties, especially if they claim to be Catholic. Every faithful Catholic must be not only “personally opposed” to abortion, but also must live that opposition in his or her actions.

As voters, Catholics are under an obligation to avoid implicating themselves in abortion, which is one of the gravest of injustices. Certainly, there are other injustices, which must be addressed, but the unjust killing of the innocent is foremost among them.

Catholics who publicly dissent from the Church’s teaching on the right to life of all unborn children should recognize that they have freely chosen by their own actions to separate themselves from what the Church believes and teaches.

One who practices such dissent, even in the mistaken belief that it is permissible, may remain a Catholic in some sense, but has abandoned the full Catholic faith. For such a person to express ‘communion’ with Christ and His Church by the reception of the Sacrament of the Eucharist is objectively dishonest.

To receive unworthily or without proper dispositions is a very serious sin against the Lord. St. Paul explicitly teaches this in his letter to the Church at Corinth when he wrote, “This means that whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily sins against the body and blood of the Lord. A man should examine himself first; only then should he eat of the bread and drink of the cup. He who eats and drinks without recognizing the body eats and drinks a judgment on himself” (1 Cor 11: 27-29).

To receive communion when one has, through public or private action, separated oneself from unity with Christ and His Church, is objectively dishonest. It is an expression of communion by one’s action that is objectively not in accordance with one’s heart, mind, and choices.

That some Catholics, who claim to believe what the Church believes, are willing to allow others to continue directly to kill the innocent is a grave scandal. The situation is much much worse when these same leaders receive the Eucharist when they are not objectively in communion with Christ and His Church. Their objective dishonesty serves to compound the scandal.

Some might argue that the Church has many social teachings and the teaching on abortion is only one of them. This is, of course, correct. The Church’s social teaching is a diverse and rich tradition of moral truths and biblical insights applied to the political, economic, and cultural aspects of our society. All Catholics should form and inform their conscience in accordance with these teachings. But reasonable Catholics can (and do) disagree about how to apply these teachings in various situations.

For example, our preferential option for the poor is a fundamental aspect of this teaching. But, there are legitimate disagreements about the best way or ways truly to help the poor in our society. No Catholic can legitimately say, “I do not care about the poor.” If he or she did so this person would not be objectively in communion with Christ and His Church. But, both those who propose welfare increases and those who propose tax cuts to stimulate the economy may in all sincerity believe that their way is the best method really to help the poor. This is a matter of prudential judgment made by those entrusted with the care of the common good. It is a matter of conscience in the proper sense.

But with abortion (and for example slavery, racism, euthanasia and trafficking in human persons) there can be no legitimate diversity of opinion. The direct killing of the innocent is always a grave injustice. One should not permit unjust killing any more than one should permit slave-holding, racist actions, or other grave injustices. From the perspective of justice, to say “I am personally opposed to abortion but…” is like saying “I personally am against slavery, but I can not impose my personal beliefs on my neighbor.” Obviously, recognizing the grave injustice of slavery requires one to ensure that no one suffers such degradation. Similarly recognizing that abortion is unjust killing requires one—in love and justice—to work to overcome the injustice.

Canonization of the Damned: Part II

A number of folks didn’t seem to cotton to the idea of canonizing anti-saints, as can be seen from the comments to the prior post and the original post.

I provided some responses here, but I thought one person’s response struck close to the mark of what many people are likely to feel on the subject, and I thought I’d respond to it here.

A reader writes:

What possible purpose could there be for us to know in this life who is damned? The purpose of knowing who is in heaven is not merely to satisfy curiosity but to give us certain knowledge that particular individuals can intercede for us in a special way because they are in God’s presence.

I also think “canonizing the damned” would create too big a temptation to “write off” people who haven’t yet been “canonized as damned” but seem –to us — to qualify. Those people then, who may have achieved salvation through final repentance, would be deprived of our prayers if they are in purgatory.

I know that there is a huge temptation to unofficially canonize saints (i.e., “I just know Mom went straight to heaven”), and that is a temptation that must be fought; but I can’t help but think that it would be an even worse temptation to unofficially canonize “anti-saints,” and that may be one reason why the Church has never done so. Not even with Judas, whose salvation just might be the ultimate “Surprise!” awaiting us in heaven.

It’s certainly true that if my interpretation of what Jesus says about Judas is wrong then he could be in heaven. I would be very surprised, but also glad, as I desire not the loss of any soul.

I also agree that it is problematic to unofficially canonize anti-saints. We may legitimately form the impression intellectually that, given what we know about an individual, it does not look likely that they made it (i.e., because they appeared to be a person with the faculty of reason who nevertheless lived a life of apparently knowing and deliberate grave sin right up to the end), but we can never know what happened in the privacy of their own mind in the last few seconds of their life, and God can work miracles even then.

But the case of Judas is different. In his case we aren’t simply guestimating based on the person’s observed manner of life. We have a statement by Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself that appears to pertain directly to the fate of Judas. Our Lord obviously meant something by it and meant people (at least some people) to understand it. That changes matters. It is therefore legitimate to us to treat the damnation of Judas differently than we treat that of anybody else.

As far as what might motivate the Church to define the damnation of certain souls and whether it would be prudent for it to do so, it doesn’t strike me as a particular risk that defining Judas and potentially a few others as damned would discourage people from praying for those in purgatory. In fact, it seems to me that, if anything, it would do the opposite. Here’s why:

We live in an age in which the great majority of people take their own salvation for granted. By defining that Judas is in hell, the Church could hold him up as an example (which is what Jesus was doing, after all) of how hell is a real possibility.

This would force people to take a new look at the salvation of their own souls, and the souls of others. It could lead to renewed attention to what happens after we die, renewed evangelization, renewed praying for those who have died (though this would not benefit the damned, obviously), renewed attention to the need for confession, and renewed attention in general to our own need for grace. In short, in a society like ours, defining the damnation of a few individuals could do a world of good . . . and result in fewer people actually going to hell.

There would, of course, be costs as well (e.g., the media would have a violently negative reaction), but there would also be plusses, like those mentioned above. Whether the plusses outweigh the minuses in making such a definition . . . is for a wiser head than mine. 🙂

Episode 1.5: The Snakehead Menace

This story about a pond in Maryland that was recently drained after a Chinese snakehead fish was found in it . . .

. . . gives me the opportunity to point to one of my favorite Scrappleface stories of all time.

(Along with another of my favorite Scrappleface stories, and one that isn’t even from Scrappleface. These two don’t have anything to do with snakehead fish. They’re just funny.)

Terminatorland

It is a little surreal living in a state where Arnold Scharzenegger is governor:

Even his critics find him a hard man to dislike. This is a governor who bombs around the freeways with his old motorcycle buddies every weekend, who loves a crowd and whose favorite word is “fantastic.” His wife is “fantastic.” [Loathsome, disgraced ex-governor] Gray Davis is “fantastic.” He even described a $4 million judgment against him in a campaign finance case as a “fantastic” decision. Criticism bounces off like rubber bullets. When John Burton, the Democratic leader in the State Senate, accused him of “pontificating,” the governor called him up and said: “That’s funny! Pontificate. Like the pope!” “Nothing fazes him,” Mr. Burton observed [ Author Jimmy AkinPosted on Categories Current Affairs5 Comments on Terminatorland