Category: Apologetics

Understanding the “Unanimous Consent” of the Church Fathers

In 1546, the Council of Trent issued a decree which prohibited people from interpreting Scripture “contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers.”

The meaning and significance of this concept has been widely misunderstood, so let’s take a look at the subject.

Here are 15 things to know and share . . .

 

1) What was the context of the decree?

The Council of Trent (1545-1563) was called to deal with two subjects: (1) doctrinal errors that were being spread by the Protestant Reformers and (2) internal reforms needed within the Catholic Church. Consequently, historian Hubert Jedin notes:

By the terms of the decision of 22 January [1564], dogma and reform were to be discussed simultaneously and every dogmatic decree was to be matched by a decree on Church reform (A History of the Council of Trent 2:87-88).

Therefore, the decrees of Trent are divided between those of a doctrinal nature and those of a disciplinary nature. Thus the fourth session of the Council thus released two decrees:

  • Decree Concerning Canonical Scriptures
  • Decree Concerning the Edition, and the Use, of the Sacred Books

The first of these decrees was dogmatic (i.e., concerning doctrinal matters), and it dealt with which books the Catholic Church regards as sacred and canonical.

The second decree concerned Church reform (i.e., disciplinary matters), and it’s the one that mentions the unanimous consent of the Fathers.

 

2) What subjects did the second decree cover?

It dealt with several abuses that had been proposed for reform by one of the Council’s committees (Jedin, 70-71). The final, published form of the decree established several disciplinary norms:

  • Of all the Latin editions of Scripture then in circulation, the Vulgate would be used as the standard one “in public lectures, disputations, sermons, and expositions.”
  • No one is to interpret the Scripture contrary to the sense held by the Church or the unanimous consent of the Fathers.
  • Printers are not to publish copies of the Scriptures unless they have been approved by the local bishop; the same applies to books of a theological nature, which also must carry their authors’ names; and the same applies to the circulation of unprinted manuscripts.
  • No one is to use the words of Scripture in superstitious or profane practices (e.g., incantations or defamatory libels).

The second decree also empowered bishops to impose appropriate penalties on those who violated these norms.

 

3) What did the second decree say about the unanimous consent of the Fathers?

The relevant provision says:

Furthermore, in order to restrain petulant spirits, [the Council] decrees, that no one, relying on his own skill, shall—in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine—wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church—whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures—hath held and doth hold; or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers; even though such interpretations were never (intended) to be at any time published.

Contraveners shall be made known by their Ordinaries [i.e., bishops], and be punished with the penalties by law established.

The core of this statement is:

No one . . . shall—in matters of faith and of morals . . . —interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church . . . hath held and doth hold; or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers; even though such interpretations were never (intended) to be at any time published.

 

4) What does this mean?

It means that the Council is establishing a law providing that—even in writings not intended for publication—Catholics are not to contradict (1) the teaching of the Church about the meaning of Scripture or (2) the unanimous consent of the Fathers about what it means, and if they do, their bishops can apply appropriate penalties.

 

5) Is this an infallible doctrine?

Here we encounter a major misunderstanding of the text.

Trent’s doctrinal decrees contain infallible teachings. These are found among its canons, which use the formula “If anyone says . . . let him be anathema”—anathema being a type of excommunication that existed at the time (not a condemnation to hell).

However, this is not a doctrinal decree but a reform decree. It does not have canons, and it does not use the requisite anathema formula, as the quotation above indicates.

Consequently, it’s establishing a discipline—a law—that barred Catholics from contradicting Church teaching or the unanimous consent of the Fathers about the meaning of Scripture, even in writings not intended for publication.

This law is based on doctrinal principles—which we will cover below—but it isn’t itself a doctrine. It’s a discipline regulating discourse within the Church (note the context, which deals with the edition of Scripture to be used in public, what book printers must and mustn’t do, how people are to avoid profaning God’s word).

The status of this requirement as a law was underscored by Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), who referred to it as a “very wise law” (Providentissimus Deus 14) and by Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), who included it among “the rules and laws promulgated by the Church” (Divino Afflante Spiritu 47).

 

6) Does the decree mean that Catholics can’t interpret the Bible and must simply repeat what the Church or the Fathers say it means?

No. The decree doesn’t say anything so restrictive. Catholics are free to read and interpret the Scriptures.

The law merely established that they weren’t to contradict Church teaching or the unanimous consent of the Fathers when these sources had a definitive teaching on the meaning of a passage.

 

7) Are there many such passages?

No. Pope Pius XII pointed out in his encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu:

There are but few texts whose sense has been defined by the authority of the Church, nor are those more numerous about which the teaching of the Holy Fathers is unanimous (n. 47).

Catholic biblical interpreters thus have a broad liberty of interpretation. As Leo XIII stated:

By this very wise law the Church by no means retards or blocks the investigations of biblical science, but rather keeps it free of error, and aids it very much in true progress. For, to every private teacher a large field is open in which along safe paths, by his industry in interpretation, he may labor efficaciously and profitably for the Church (Providentissimus Deus 14).

 

8) What is the status of the law today?

There is more to its legislative history than we can cover here, but the short answer is that it is no longer part of Church law per se.

Trent added the requirement to the body of canon law that existed at the time, which was scattered in many documents. Subsequently, Vatican I (1870) renewed the decree, and when canon law was codified (brought together in a single volume) in 1917, the first edition of the Code of Canon Law contained provisions that gave the requirement ongoing legal force.

However, Vatican II (1962-1965) did not repeat the requirement, and after the Council it was dropped from the legal instruments where it still existed.

When the 1983 Code of Canon Law was released, it abrogated both the 1917 Code and “any universal or particular penal laws whatsoever issued by the Apostolic See unless they are contained in this Code” (see can. 6, §1, 1° and 3°).

Consequently, canon law has been revised in a way that the decree no longer has legal force.

However, this does not mean that we don’t have to honor the doctrinal principles behind it.

 

9) What are the doctrinal principles behind the decree?

In the case of Catholics not contradicting the teaching of the Church regarding the meaning of Scripture, the decree spelled out the underlying doctrinal principle. Catholics aren’t to do this because the Church “is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures.”

That’s just as true today as ever, and Catholics are bound today to honor the teaching of the Church when it intervenes authoritatively on the meaning of a Scripture passage.

However, apart from a handful of cases, the Church presently gives interpreters very broad liberty in how they take particular passages (see my piece, The Limits of Scripture Interpretation).

Trent did not spell out the doctrinal principles underlying the requirement that Catholics not contradict the unanimous consent of the Fathers. However, it was explored by Leo XIII in Providentissimus Deus:

The Holy Fathers, we say, are of supreme authority, whenever they all interpret in one and the same manner any text of the Bible, as pertaining to the doctrine of faith or morals; for their unanimity clearly evinces that such interpretation has come down from the apostles as a matter of Catholic faith. The opinion of the Fathers is also of very great weight when they treat of these matters in their capacity of doctors, unofficially (n. 14).

Here he considers two different situations:

  1. When the Fathers “all interpret in one and the same manner any text of the Bible, as pertaining to the doctrine of faith and morals,” and
  2. “When they treat of these matters in their capacity as doctors [i.e., teachers], unofficially.”

In the first situation, he says that their unanimity shows that “such interpretation has come down from the apostles as a matter of Catholic faith,” while in the second situation he says that their opinion is “of very great weight.”

We thus need to distinguish, in any given case, which of these two applies. If it is the latter then a modern interpreter needs to give the Fathers’ views due weight, but he is not ultimately bound to accept them.

If, however, something they teach is a matter of Catholic faith, then it is binding.

In fact, to say that something is “a matter of Catholic faith” is a term of art in theology that indicates an infallibly defined teaching.

This means that we need to situate Leo XIII’s statement within the doctrinal development that has occurred on when the Church teaches infallibly.

 

10) What doctrinal development has occurred on the Church’s infallibility?

When Leo XIII issued Providentissimus Deus  in 1893, the First Vatican Council (1870) had met and defined papal infallibility.

However, because of the wars going on in Europe at the time, the Council was unable to complete its work, and it fell to Vatican II to formulate other aspects of the Church’s infallibility. This was done in its document Lumen Gentium.

It held that God has given the Church a charism of infallibility. This gift protects the Church as a whole from error in matters of belief (in credendo), and it protects the Church’s Magisterium from error in matters of teaching (in docendo). Infallibility manifests in the following ways:

  • Through the sensus fidelium (the sense of the faithful, “from the bishops down to the last member of the laity”)
  • Through the “ordinary magisterium” of the bishops scattered throughout the world, teaching in union with the pope
  • Through the “extraordinary magisterium” of the bishops meeting in an ecumenical council
  • Through the “extraordinary magisterium” of the pope when he issues an ex cathedra statement

The conditions for the first of these are discussed in Lumen Gentium 12 (cf. CDF, Mysterium Ecclesiae 2) and the others in Lumen Gentium 25.

 

11) How do the Fathers relate to these categories?

The Fathers were a mixed group. Some were bishops (e.g., St. Augustine), some priests (e.g., St. Jerome), some deacons (e.g., St. Ephrem the Syrian), and some lay faithful (e.g., St. Anthony of Egypt).

The Fathers as a whole thus do not represent the Church’s Magisterium, which consists only of the bishops teaching in union with the pope.

They would, however, be representative of the whole people of God in their day, and thus a unanimous consensus among them could be taken as an unerring manifestation of the sensus fidelium.

On the other hand, the Fathers who were bishops would be capable of exercising the Church’s infallibility, and a unanimous consensus among them could be taken as an infallible exercise of the ordinary magisterium.

 

12) How would a consensus of the Fathers as a whole manifest the unerring sensus fidelium?

According to Lumen Gentium 12:

The entire body of the faithful . . . cannot err in matters of belief. They manifest this special property by means of the whole peoples’ supernatural discernment in matters of faith when from the bishops down to the last of the lay faithful they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals.

One of the keys to understanding this passage is recognizing that the Church’s infallibility applies “in matters of belief” (Latin, in credendo). This is a technical term referring to truths which must be believed as part of the faith, as opposed to mere theological opinions. They therefore represent things which have a definitive character—things that are to be held by the faithful definitively.

The passage then indicates that the unerring sense of the faithful is manifested in these matters when three conditions are met:

  1. “The entire body of the faithful . . . from the bishops down to the last of the lay faithful” is involved
  2. “They show universal agreement”
  3. This agreement concerns “matters of faith and morals”

For the Fathers to fulfill these conditions regarding the interpretation of Scripture, we would need to understand them as representative of the people of God of their time, which is reasonable, thus fulfilling condition (1).

The Fathers then would need to show universal agreement, fulfilling condition (2). The precise nature of this agreement will be discussed below.

Finally, to fulfill condition (3), the matter in question would have to be the interpretation of a particular Scripture text involving “matters of faith and morals.” This is significant because, as Leo XIII noted in Providentissimus Deus:

[The Fathers], in interpreting passages where physical matters are concerned, have made judgments according to the opinions of the age, and thus not always according to truth, so that they have made statements which today are not approved. Therefore, we must carefully discern what they hand down which really pertains to faith or is intimately connected with it . . . for in those matters which are not under the obligation of faith, the saints were free to have different opinions, just as we are (n. 19).

Here the pontiff has in mind matters like the geocentric model of the cosmos, which was one of “the opinions of the age” in which the Fathers lived but which was a “physical matter” that did not “really pertain to faith.”

As noted above, the Fathers would have to be in agreement that this interpretation represents a mandatory belief for all Christians—that it is a belief to be held definitively.

This corresponds to Leo XIII’s distinction between what the Fathers hand on as “a matter of Catholic faith” versus what they teach “in their capacity of doctors, unofficially” (Providentissimus Deus 14).

 

13) How would the bishop Fathers exercise the ordinary magisterium infallibly?

According to Lumen Gentium 25:

[The bishops] proclaim Christ’s doctrine infallibly whenever, even though dispersed through the world, but still maintaining the bond of communion among themselves and with the successor of Peter, and authentically teaching matters of faith and morals, they are in agreement on one position as definitively to be held.

The following conditions thus need to be met:

  1. The bishops are “dispersed through the world”
  2. They maintain “the bond of communion among themselves and with the successor of Peter”
  3. They are “authentically [i.e., authoritatively] teaching matters of faith and morals”
  4. They “are in agreement on one position as definitively to be held”

Conditions (1) and (2) represent the normal state of the Fathers.

Condition (3) corresponds to Leo XIII’s distinction between what the Fathers hand on as “a matter of Catholic faith” versus what they teach “in their capacity of doctors, unofficially” (Providentissimus Deus 14).

For it to be fulfilled in our context, the subject of their authoritative teaching would have to be the interpretation of a particular Scripture text regarding “matters of faith and morals”—as opposed, for example, to merely “physical matters” or “the opinions of the age” (Providentissimus Deus 19).

Finally, condition (4) would be fulfilled when they unanimously agree on this particular interpretation of Scripture “as definitively to be held.”

 

14) What kind of unanimity would the Fathers need to display?

The Church has not given us a mathematical way of determining what kind of consensus the Fathers would need to display either for the body as a whole to represent the unerring sense of the faithful or for the bishop Fathers to infallibly exercise the ordinary magisterium.

In fact, the difficulties of verifying when the conditions regarding these two modes of infallibility are met are the main reason we need the extraordinary magisterium (i.e., the infallible definitions issued by ecumenical councils and popes).

However, we can discern the general circumstances that need to occur:

  1. We would need a large number of the Fathers to address the interpretation of a specific passage of Scripture. One could not say that a consensus existed among them—much less a unanimous one—if only a relatively small number address the passage.
  2. They would need to teach a single interpretation of this passage as true. Assessing this could be somewhat complex because the Fathers could see passages as teaching several things, based on the different senses of Scripture. However, they would have to hold at least one of these interpretations in common.
  3. They would need to teach this interpretation as definitive—i.e., not just something they believe to be true but that something all Christians must hold to be true. Otherwise, the conditions needed for the unerring sense of the faithful or the infallible exercise of the ordinary magisterium would not be met.

It is frequently pointed out that absolute unanimity is not needed and that a moral unanimity suffices. This is true. However, the Fathers represent such a small number of individuals that even a few dissenting voices on a question would prevent us from describing their consensus as unanimous.

In fact, even a single, highly influential Father—such as an Augustine—who held a contrary view could be seen as preventing unanimity, though a Father of minor status might not.

In view of the difficulty in verifying that the needed conditions have been met, Pius XII’s judgment that the unanimous consent of the Fathers applies only to a few passages seems justified (Divino Afflante Spiritu 47).

Anyone who has worked with the texts of the Fathers knows that it is difficult to find cases where the above conditions have been fulfilled.

The Fathers are a relatively small group of individuals, often only a few of them comment on a given passage of Scripture, and when they do they frequently make different proposals about its meaning.

When there is a reasonable doubt, one must assume that infallibility has not been engaged, for “no doctrine is understood as defined infallibly unless this is manifestly evident” (Code of Canon Law 749 §3).

 

15) What’s the bottom line?

The concept of the unanimous consent of the Fathers is widely misunderstood.

Trent established a discipline that barred Catholics—even in writings not meant for publication—from contradicting the unanimous consent of the Fathers regarding the interpretation of Scripture.

This law remained in force until the 20th century, but it lost legal force following the Second Vatican Council.

However, the law was undergirded by important theological principles that remain in force and that have been illuminated by doctrinal development.

The unanimous consent of the Fathers as a whole can manifest the unerring sense of the faithful, and the bishops among the Fathers represented the Magisterium of their day and thus could teach infallibly under the usual conditions for the infallible exercise of the ordinary magisterium.

The number of cases where this applies to the interpretation of a particular passage of Scripture is small, but such cases must be taken seriously.

Domitian and the Persecution That Didn’t Happen

DOMITIANIt’s common to encounter claims that the Roman emperor Domitian was a major persecutor of Christians and that he demanded divine worship, insisting on being called “Lord and God.”

It’s even common to hear these “facts” cited as important keys for determining the date and meaning of the book of Revelation, with Domitian serving as its famous “beast.”

But there’s a problem. Here are the real facts . . .

 

The Real Domitian

Domitian reigned between A.D. 81 and 96, and like all of the Roman emperors in this period, he had flaws.

Ancient authors even accuse him of being responsible for the death of his brother, Titus, who had preceded him in office.

He also angered the aristocracy, and he was eventually assassinated by court officials.

However, ancient Roman authors don’t accuse him of being the kind of monster that Caligula or Nero were.

Neither do the earliest Christian sources accuse him of instituting a major persecution of the Faith.

 

A False Narrative Develops

Biblical Archaeology Review recently ran a piece in which biblical scholar Mark Wilson looked at the origin of how the idea of a Domitianic persecution developed. He writes:

Eusebius in his Church History (CH) provides the first reference to Domitian persecuting the church.

Writing over three centuries later in the early fourth century C.E., this ancient Christian historian first quotes Melito of Sardis, who mentioned that Domitian brought slanderous accusations against Christians (CH 4.26.9).

He also cites Tertullian, who claimed that Domitian was cruel like the emperor Nero (r. 54–68 C.E.), but that Domitian was more intelligent, so he ceased his cruelty and recalled the Christians he had exiled (CH 3.20.9).

Eusebius also quotes Irenaeus, who claimed Domitian’s persecution consisted only of John’s banishment to Patmos and the exile of other Christians to the island of Pontia (CH 3.18.1, 5).

Despite these cautious statements by three earlier authors, Eusebius then spun his own alternative fact by claiming that Domitian, like Nero, had “stirred up persecution against us” (“anekinei diōgmon”; CH 3.17).

From here the tradition was enlarged by Orosius (d. 420 C.E.), who, in his History Against the Pagans, wrote that Domitian issued edicts for a general and cruel persecution (7.10.5).

Despite a lack of evidence, [Roman historian Brian] Jones observes that the tradition concerning Domitian’s persecution persists: “From a frail, almost non-existent basis, it gradually developed and grew large.”

Melito of Sardis and Irenaeus of Lyons were individuals who wrote in the late second century, less than a hundred years after Domitian’s reign, and Tertullian wrote at the end of the second and the beginning of the third centuries. They report only that he slandered Christians and exiled some. If they don’t provide evidence of a wide-scale persecution, then it’s very unlikely there was one. Furthermore:

No pagan writer of the time ever accused Domitian, as they had Nero, of persecuting Christians. Pliny [the Younger], for example, served as a lawyer under Domitian and wrote in a letter to Trajan (r. 98–117 C.E.) that he was never present at the trial of a Christian (Letters 10.96.1). This is a strange claim for one of Domitian’s former officials if Christian persecution were so prevalent.

 

“Lord and God”?

What about the claim that Domitian insisted on being worshipped as a god during his lifetime and even demanded the title “Lord and God” (Latin, Dominus et Deus)? Wilson writes:

The poet Statius (Silvae 1.6.83–84) states that Domitian rejected the title Dominus as his predecessor Augustus (the first Roman emperor) had done.

The historian Suetonius (Life of Domitian 13.2) does report that Domitian dictated a letter that began, “Our Lord and Master orders . . . ,” but it was only his sycophantic officials who began to address him in this way.

The story was again embellished by later historians to the point that Domitian is said to have ordered its use.

Jones thinks the story incredible because Domitian was known for his habitual attention to theological detail in traditional Roman worship, so he would not have adopted such inflammatory divine language.

After their deaths, the best that emperors could hope for was to be called Divus (Divine), not Deus (God).

If Domitian were such a megalomaniac who ordered worship to himself, why haven’t any inscriptions been found using this formula?

In fact, no epigraphic evidence exists attesting to Christians being forced to call him “Lord and God.”

 

The Last Refuge of a Failing Hypothesis

Wilson writes:

[Biblical scholar] Leonard Thompson notes that a more critical reading of Eusebius raises doubts about a widespread persecution of Christians under Domitian. He concludes that “most modern commentators no longer accept a Domitianic persecution of Christians.”

However, that hasn’t stopped some from trying to rescue the hypothesis:

Some writers consider Revelation as a source for a persecution by Domitian, although John never identifies a specific emperor. If so, then Revelation would be the only ancient source pointing to such a persecution.

This is a sign of a failing hypothesis: Using the very data that the hypothesis was supposed to illuminate to prop it up instead.

Revelation contains many things that are unclear, and the Domitianic hypothesis was supposed to be a historical certainty that could unlock Revelation and make its meaning clear. Instead, after we realized we don’t have evidence for a Domitianic persecution, the ambiguities in Revelation are now being used to prop up the idea that one occurred.

This is circular reasoning.

 

Breaking out of the Circle

In fact, we have good evidence that Revelation was written well before Domitian’s reign.

First, in Revelation 11:1-2, John is told:

Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there, but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample over the holy city for forty-two months.

This is an unambiguous reference to the temple in Jerusalem. It describes the temple as still in operation (“those who worship there”). But the temple was destroyed by Roman forces in August of A.D. 70, indicating that Revelation was written before this date.

Second, in Revelation 13:18, we read:

This calls for wisdom: let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number [lit., “the number of a man”], its number is six hundred and sixty-six.

A few manuscripts give the number as 616 instead of 666.

From elsewhere in Revelation, we learn that the beast is linked to a line of kings that rules the world, that it demands worship, and that it persecutes Christians. This sounds very much like the line of Roman emperors—especially Caligula and Nero, who portrayed themselves as living gods—and it so happens that both 666 and 616 are the numbers you get when you add up the letters in different ways of spelling “Nero Caesar.”

Nero—the fifth Roman emperor—reigned from A.D. 54 to 68, which suggests that he was or had been on the scene, allowing the original readers to calculate his number.

That would put the writing of Revelation sometime between A.D. 54 and 70. But can we be more specific? We can.

Third, in Revelation 17:9-10 we read:

This calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads [of the beast] are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he comes he must remain only a little while.

The most natural reading of this is that the kings are the line of Roman emperors, who reigned from Rome’s famous seven hills. The first five emperors were Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. These are the five who are fallen.

The “one [who] is” would be the sixth emperor—Galba—who reigned from June of 68 to January of 69.

The “other [who] has not yet come” would be the seventh emperor—Otho—and he did, indeed, reign “only a little while,” from January of 69 to April of 69—just three months.

This would put the writing of Revelation during the reign of Galba, between June of 68 and January of 69.

Once we detach Revelation from the idea of a non-existent, lethal persecution under Domitian, so much falls into place.

The Limits of Scripture Interpretation

Biblical-Interpretation-imageAt Catholic Answers, we get questions all the time like, “What is the Catholic position on this Scripture passage?” Many people seem to have the idea that the Catholic Church has an official interpretation of every passage of Scripture. It isn’t true.

The Church has no official commentary on Scripture. The pope could write one if he wanted, but he hasn’t. And with good reason: Scripture study is an ongoing, developing field. To create an official commentary on Scripture would impede the development of this field.

It’s one thing to create an official textbook for a field that has been fairly well worked out. That’s the case with catechetics, which is why the Church can produce a text like The Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Catechetics can be viewed as the applied science of giving instruction in the faith, and the faith is something we’ve known well for a long time. Not only was it “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3) back in the first century, we have had twenty centuries of practice to show us which ways of explicating the faith tend to lead to misunderstandings. All that gives us a good handle on what would need to go into an official catechetical text commenting on all the major points of the faith.

But the field of Scripture study does not allow for anything like that. One reason is that the Bible is so much larger in scope. One could provide an adequate summary of the basics of the faith in a few hundred well-crafted propositions. But Scripture contains tens of thousands of individual propositions, and to comment on the authentic meaning of each of them would swell the needed number of propositions into the hundreds of thousands or millions. And that is before one takes into account two complicating factors:

First, Scripture has more than one level of meaning. The two basic levels are the literal and the spiritual senses, the latter of which may contain up to three different kinds of meanings, depending on whether it foreshadows something in the New Testament, something at the end of time, or what moral lesson it may teach. Since the literal sense and the subdivisions of the spiritual sense can each be ambiguous (that is, they can carry more than one meaning by the author’s design), the multiplicity of meanings would guarantee that a commentary on the meaning of Scripture would run into the millions of propositions.

Second, while the Holy Spirit has always maintained in the Church a consensus on the individual points of the faith, he did not choose to do so for the individual propositions of Scripture. As a result, there is widespread debate over the correct interpretations of particular texts. In preparing an official commentary on Scripture, the Church would either have to catalogue each permissible interpretation—further multiplying the size of the work—or settle hundreds of thousands of individual debates.

All of this serves to show why the Church has never undertaken the composition of an official Bible commentary. The project would involve a massive expenditure of the Church’s resources when there is simply no pressing need to do so.

It is much simpler to adopt the approach that the Church has in fact pursued—that is, to allow Scripture scholars liberty to interpret any Bible passage in whatever way they feel the evidence best supports provided certain minimal boundaries are not crossed.

What are those boundaries? They have changed somewhat over time.

For example, earlier this century the Pontifical Biblical Commission (PBC) was a body capable of issuing authoritative rulings on what could and could not be taught regarding Scripture. As biblical higher criticism gained ground, the PBC initially issued rulings that held the ideas of the new study in significant disdain, and in some cases forbade the teaching of certain ideas that had been derived using this methodology.

Eventually the nature and mandate of the PBC changed, and its rulings ceased to have force. We may view that either as a bad thing or a good thing, but it’s a fact.

Though today the PBC’s disciplinary rulings are no longer in force, the boundaries that mark off impermissible interpretations of Scripture are still known. The Catechism of the Catholic Church notes that Vatican II enumerated three criteria (CCC 111; cf. Dei Verbum 12), each of which has a long history in biblical interpretation.

The first of these was that “serious attention must be given to the content and unity of the whole of Scripture if the meaning of the sacred texts is to be correctly worked out” (DV 12). This means that no properly understood assertion of Scripture will ever contradict another. If it does so, it must be a false interpretation.

The second criteria was that “the living tradition of the whole Church must be taken into account” when interpreting Scripture (ibid.).

Among other things, the judgment of the Church’s magisterium must not be violated. As when evaluating ecclesiastical statements in general, the strength with which the Church’s judgment has been proposed must be taken into account. The highest form of Church approbation regarding the interpretation of a verse would be for the magisterium to infallibly define the sense of the verse—or a part of its sense. This has been done in a small number of cases.

Only a few passages of Scripture have had their senses partially (not fully) defined by the extraordinary magisterium. For example, according to the Council of Trent:

(1) The reference being “born of water and the Spirit” in John 3:5 does include the idea of baptism.

(2–3) In telling the apostles “Do this [the Eucharist] in memory of me” in Luke 22:19 and 1 Corinthians 11:24, Jesus appointed the apostles priests.

(4–5) In Matthew 18:18 and John 20:22–23, Jesus did confer a power on the apostles to forgive sins, and not everyone shares this power.

(6) Romans 5:12 refers to the reality of original sin.

(7) The presbyters referred to in James 5:14 are ordained and not simply elder members of the Christian community.

Finally, the third limiting criterion named by Vatican II was that the exegete must also take into account “the harmony which exists between elements of the faith” (DV 12), which the Catechism expresses by stating that the exegete must “be attentive to the analogy of faith. . . . [i.e.,] the coherence of the truths of faith among themselves and within the whole plan of revelation” (CCC 114). This means that Scripture cannot be interpreted in a way that contradicts what is theologically certain.

In addition to these definite boundaries to permissible biblical interpretations, there are also influences that should apply to the process of interpreting Scripture. If other books of Scripture probably—though not certainly—teach something, then that should influence the way a given book is read. If the magisterium leans toward but has not infallibly proposed a particular interpretation, that should have a corresponding influence.

The liberty of the Scripture interpreter remains extensive. Taking due consideration of the factors that influence proper exegesis, the Catholic Bible interpreter has the liberty to adopt any interpretation of a passage that is not excluded with certainty by other passages of Scripture, by the judgment of the magisterium, or by the analogy of faith. That is a great deal of liberty, as only a few interpretations will be excluded with certainty by any of the factors circumscribing the interpreter’s liberty

Understanding the Catechism’s Death Penalty Revision

death penaltyOn August 1, Cardinal Luis Ladaria issued a letter to the bishops of the world announcing that Pope Francis had approved a change to the section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church dealing with the death penalty.

Here are some key facts for understanding this revision . . .

 

What does the Catechism now say?

The relevant passage now reads:

2267 Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.

Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.

Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” (Francis, Discourse, Oct. 11, 2017), and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.

For a history of what the Catechism formerly said, see here.

 

Is this revision a surprise?

Not really. The last several popes—St. John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis—have taken a negative tone toward the death penalty, and the Catechism had already been revised once to reflect this. In addition, Cardinal Ladaria explains:

The Holy Father Pope Francis, in his Discourse on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of the apostolic constitution Fidei Depositum, by which John Paul II promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church, asked that the teaching on the death penalty be reformulated so as to better reflect the development of the doctrine on this point that has taken place in recent times (1).

We thus already knew that a revision was under consideration.

 

Is this new revision an exercise of papal infallibility?

No. Although many individual teachings in the Catechism have previously been taught infallibly, the Catechism itself is not an infallible document. This is one reason it is capable of being revised.

To understand the level of authority of an individual teaching, one must look at the circumstances of an individual act of teaching to determine what level of authority it has.

As Cardinal Ladaria explains in his letter, Pope Francis approved the new revision that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) proposed, but he did not issue it in a document of his own. This is significant for two reasons:

  1. Popes cannot delegate their infallibility to departments of the Roman Curia, such as the CDF. Consequently, the approval that popes regularly give to CDF documents does not make them infallible.
  2. To issue an infallible teaching, popes use a special form of language, typically invoking their authority as the successor of Peter and using the phrase I/we define as a way of indicating that the teaching is definitive. (See, for example, the language Pius XII used in defining the Assumption of Mary in Munificentissimus Deus 44.) Pope Francis did not use this kind of language in granting the approval of the new revision.

 

What level of authority does the new revision have?

According to Cardinal Ladaria:

The new revision of number 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, approved by Pope Francis, situates itself in continuity with the preceding Magisterium while bringing forth a coherent development of Catholic doctrine (7).

As a doctrinal development, it would qualify as authoritative teaching (as opposed to mere theological opinion), and it would qualify as non-definitive (i.e., non-infallible) Church teaching.

According to Vatican II, such teachings call for “religious submission of mind and will” on the part of the faithful.

 

What if I have trouble accepting this teaching?

The Church recognizes that individuals can have difficulties accepting non-definitive Church teaching and that, in some cases, they may find themselves unable to accept them.

This situation is addressed—with specific application to theologians—in a 1990 instruction from the CDF known as Donum Veritatis, which states:

Such a disagreement could not be justified if it were based solely upon the fact that the validity of the given teaching is not evident or upon the opinion that the opposite position would be the more probable. Nor, furthermore, would the judgment of the subjective conscience of the theologian justify it because conscience does not constitute an autonomous and exclusive authority for deciding the truth of a doctrine.

In any case there should never be a diminishment of that fundamental openness loyally to accept the teaching of the Magisterium as is fitting for every believer by reason of the obedience of faith. The theologian will strive then to understand this teaching in its contents, arguments, and purposes. This will mean an intense and patient reflection on his part and a readiness, if need be, to revise his own opinions and examine the objections which his colleagues might offer him (28-29).

Donum Veritatis further states:

It can also happen that at the conclusion of a serious study, undertaken with the desire to heed the Magisterium’s teaching without hesitation, the theologian’s difficulty remains because the arguments to the contrary seem more persuasive to him. Faced with a proposition to which he feels he cannot give his intellectual assent, the theologian nevertheless has the duty to remain open to a deeper examination of the question (31).

Of course, having a private disagreement does not entail a right to publicly oppose Church teaching. Fortunately, those experiencing such difficulties can have the consolation that the Holy Spirit is guiding the Church “into all the truth” (John 16:13).

For a loyal spirit, animated by love for the Church, such a situation can certainly prove a difficult trial. It can be a call to suffer for the truth, in silence and prayer, but with the certainty that if the truth really is at stake, it will ultimately prevail (31).

 

Does the new revision indicate that the death penalty is intrinsically evil?

One might think so, since it says the death penalty is “inadmissible” because “it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.” However, a careful reading of the revision, and Cardinal Ladaria’s letter, suggests this is not the way the phrase should be understood. (Msgr. Charles Pope reaches the same conclusion.)

First, the revision notes that “a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state.”

This refers to the fact that in the past the state’s penal sanctions were understood principally as administering justice (including divine justice) to wrongdoers, but today the Church understands them principally as seeking to protect society and (hopefully) rehabilitate the offender (see Ladaria 7 and the changes made to paragraph 2266 in the Catechism).

Second, in light of this new understanding of the function of the state’s penal sanctions, the death penalty could still be justified as a means of protecting society.

However, according to the revision, “more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.”

From these considerations, one could understand the death penalty as something that involves “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” but an attack that could be tolerated or even required in situations where there is no other way to effectively protect society.

This understanding appears to be confirmed by Cardinal Ladaria, who seems prepared to acknowledge that “the political and social situation of the past made the death penalty an acceptable means for the protection of the common good” (2).

He further seems prepared to acknowledge that, as in the previous edition of the Catechism, “it can be justified if it is ‘the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor’” (3).

He states that “given that modern society possesses more efficient detention systems, the death penalty becomes unnecessary as protection for the life of innocent people,” though, “certainly, it remains the duty of public authorities to defend the life of citizens” (7). He thus concludes:

All of this shows that the new formulation of number 2267 of the Catechism expresses an authentic development of doctrine that is not in contradiction with the prior teachings of the Magisterium. These teachings, in fact, can be explained in the light of the primary responsibility of the public authority to protect the common good in a social context in which the penal sanctions were understood differently, and had developed in an environment in which it was more difficult to guarantee that the criminal could not repeat his crime (8).

The new revision would be “in contradiction with the prior teachings of the Magisterium” if it held that the death penalty was intrinsically evil and thus had always been wrong in the past. Instead, Cardinal Ladaria indicates that the revision is warranted by the changed understanding of the state’s penal sanctions and the development of more effective detention systems.

 

If the death penalty is not being judged intrinsically evil, what has changed?

It appears that Pope Francis has made a prudential judgment that, given present circumstances in society, there are no longer situations in which the death penalty is warranted.

Consequently, this judgment has been added to the social doctrine of the Church, which applies the underlying principles of its moral doctrine to concrete situations in society.

The underlying moral principles have not changed, but, in Pope Francis’s judgment, society has changed in a way that requires a different application of them.

This judgment is now reflected in the Church’s social doctrine, without contradicting prior teaching on the underlying moral principles. Thus Cardinal Ladaria says that the new formulation “expresses an authentic development of doctrine that is not in contradiction with the prior teachings of the Magisterium.” It is the Church’s social doctrine that has developed, and its prior moral teachings have not been contradicted.

Changes to the Catechism on the Death Penalty

Although many teachings that the Catechism of the Catholic Church contains are infallible, the Catechism is not infallible as a whole.

Consequently, it has been revised on a number of points. None of these have been more substantial than the way it handles the subject of capital punishment.

In another post I look at the most recent change, but here are the three ways it has addressed the subject.

 

The 1992 Original

The original edition of the Catechism, release in 1992, had this to say:

2266 Preserving the common good of society requires rendering the aggressor unable to inflict harm. For this reason the traditional teaching of the Church has acknowledged as well-founded the right and duty of legitimate public authority to punish malefactors by means of penalties commensurate with the gravity of the crime, not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty.

2267 If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

 

The 1997 Revision

Following the release of John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, the Catechism was amended in 1997 to read:

2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people’s rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and the duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people’s safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.

2267 Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, nonlethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm—without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself—the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically nonexistent” (John Paul II, Evangelium vitae 56).

 

The 2018 Revision

In 2018, paragraph 2267 was further revised to read:

2267 Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.

Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.

Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” (Francis, Address, Oct. 11, 2017), and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.

The reasons for the most recent revision are explained in a letter by Cardinal Luis Ladaria, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The Challenge of Transhumanism

android-arm-human-arm-michelangelo-640x353Transhumanism is a movement that wants to reshape the human race.

It believes that we will soon have the power, through scientific and technical means, to transcend our limitations and be transformed as a species. I.e., transhumanists want there to be a new race of “posthumans.”

Transhumanism hopes to manage the transition from today’s humans to tomorrow’s posthumans. The transition will be more dramatic—vastly more dramatic—than the transition from Neanderthals to Homo sapiens.

On first encountering the aspirations of transhumanists, it’s easy to dismiss them—to laugh them off as jokes or sci-fi delusions—but transhumanists are serious.

They are so serious that many have compared the movement to a religion—one with messianic aspirations and a gospel of technological salvation and eternal life.

 

Background to Transhumanism

Around 380 B.C., Plato described his ideal society in The Republic. Among the groups of people he described in his ideal society was a class of guardians to protect and to rule the population.

For such important functionaries, one would want people of high quality, so in Book V of The Republic, Plato proposed that the guardian class be specially bred—like dogs or horses. Those thought likely to produce desirable offspring would be paired up for breeding; and those expected to produce less desirable offspring would not be given the opportunity.

The dream of selectively breeding humans did not die with Plato. It has appeared in various forms in history. In the early 20th century, the eugenics movement proposed to improve the human race by encouraging people with positive traits to breed and discouraging or preventing those with negative traits from doing so.

At times, eugenicists urged the forcible sterilization of those with undesired characteristics—such as being poor, feeble-minded, alcoholic, mentally ill, etc.

In 1930, Pius XI condemned such measures, stating: “Public magistrates have no direct power over the bodies of their subjects; therefore, where no crime has taken place and there is no cause present for grave punishment, they can never directly harm, or tamper with the integrity of the body, either for the reasons of eugenics or for any other reason” (Castii Connubii 70).

This exhortation did not prevent the Nazi government from enacting extensive eugenic policies, leading up to an including the “final solution of the Jewish question,” which used death camps to commit genocide on a massive scale in the interests of improving racial “health.”

The Nazis gave eugenics such a bad name that support for the philosophy waned, and even those who supported it avoided using the name.

Now, however, transhumanism wants to alter the human race in ways that the eugenicists could not have dreamt.

The term transhumanism was coined in 1957 by the British biologist Julian Huxley—a eugenicist and brother of Aldous Huxley, author of the dystopian novel Brave New World (1932), which dealt with the scientific manipulation of human nature.

By the 1980s, people referring to themselves as transhumanists began to organize.

 

 

What transhumanism is

The most popular transhumanist organization is Humanity+ (pronounced “humanity plus”), and their web site offers two definitions of transhumanism:

(1) The intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason, especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.

(2) The study of the ramifications, promises, and potential dangers of technologies that will enable us to overcome fundamental human limitations, and the related study of the ethical matters involved in developing and using such technologies (“Transhumanist FAQ,” HumanityPlus.org).

These don’t convey the full drama of what transhumanists have in mind. Everybody wants to improve the human condition, and studying the potential ramifications, promises, and potential dangers sounds like a good thing to do. But there are flashes of drama when the definitions refer to eliminating aging and overcoming “fundamental human limitations.”

It’s when you start hearing specific examples that the gobsmacking nature of the change they’re after becomes clear.

 

What transhumanists want

The first definition says that transhumanists want to use technology to “eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.”

Of these, the key ones are the elimination of aging and greater intelligence.

Eliminating aging sounds like a very ambitious goal, but transhumanists are deadly serious. In fact, they want to do more than eliminate aging: They want to reverse it.

In the transhumanist future, people would be capable of physical immortality, lived at any biological age they wished. Not only would they not die, they would be able to stop or reverse the effects of aging so that we could have perpetual youth and health (as well as beauty).

Of course, a person might still be killed by accidents, violence, natural disasters, etc., but apart from these he would be able to go on living indefinitely—hundreds or thousands of years or more.

Accompanying the elimination of aging would be a major boost in intelligence. Transhumanists commonly speak of the development of “superintelligences” that would be as superior to ours as ours are to apes.’

With unlimited lifespan and superior intelligence, posthumans would have the time and ability to make whatever other changes they desired, leading to the enhanced physical and psychological capabilities mentioned above.

These could include greater strength, ability to survive in adverse environments (e.g., on other planets), the elimination of mental illness, and the ability to control moods, stimulate creativity, and enjoy profound and lasting joy.

In other words, transhumanists are out to create a posthuman techno-utopia.

 

How transhumanists expect to do this

Transhumanists expect to achieve these goals through a blend of science and technology.

One of the great revolutions of our times is in the biological sciences. Just a few years ago the human genome was sequenced, and now the genomes of many other species are being decoded.

Transhumanists expect that soon we will have a vastly improved understanding of how genes work, and as that understanding grows, it will become increasingly possible to manipulate our genes.

One application of this will be to cure genetic diseases, but another will be to make fundamental improvements in our genetic stock—and not just in future generations but among people who are already alive.

They propose to do what the eugenicists of the twentieth century wanted to do—and more—but without using reproduction to accomplish it. Once a certain level of scientific and technological development is reached, transhumanists foresee people making changes in their own genetic codes.

This is one way they think the goals of immortality and superior intelligence may be accomplished, but they recognize there are limits to what can be done biologically.

That’s why they don’t plan on limiting themselves to medicine. They also expect to use mechanical means. For example, they envision building computers capable of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that is superior to ours.

In fact, many transhumanists see better-than-human AI as a key tool. If we can build a machine smarter than us then that machine can work of problems too hard for us and design solutions that we either couldn’t arrive at or that would take us too long. In principle, a better-than-human AI could to improve upon itself and design an even more advanced AI.

Transhumanists also see many other technologies becoming available, including the widespread use of nanotechnology, in which machines the size of a few atoms would be able to restructure matter on the atomic level.

Robust nanotechnology would be amazing, as illustrated by proposed applications like utility fog. This would be a cloud of tiny robots that could arrange themselves into any shape needed. If you wanted a house to live in, you could program utility fog to become a house. If you wanted a car, you could program it to become a car. Or you could just have the fog carry you wherever you wanted to go.

Transhumanists foresee the merger of man and machine. Many people already have artificial replacements for body parts—knee and hip replacements, artificial hearts, etc.

Sometimes the replacement parts are better than the original. I, myself, had to have cataract surgery, which left my eyes with artificial lenses that contain built-in protection from ultraviolet light.

Transhumanists expect this trend to continue, with artificial replacements and improvements for every organ in the body.

For example, the brain might be supplemented with a neural implant allowing it to connect to computers. One of the simpler applications of this would be connecting to the Internet and communicating over it—or communicating directly with people who have similar implants, producing the electronic equivalent of telepathy.

A brain-machine interface could also allow us to supplement our memories, better analyze our experiences, and improve our intelligence. At least, that’s what transhumanists are hoping for.

They even foresee the possibility of people transcending the human form an “uploading” their minds into computer systems, where they would have digital immortality and as vastly increased mental abilities.

 

When transhumanists hope to accomplish this

Transhumanists hope to accomplish these things “in our lifetimes,” but given that they’re planning on immortality, that means an open-ended timetable.

They don’t expect these things to be achieved all at once but incrementally. For example, they don’t expect to wake up one day and hear the news that someone has invented an immortality pill. Instead, they see medicine continuing to improve slightly each year and extend the human life a little bit more.

They predict that at some point in the next few decades, the average human lifespan will be growing by more than one year per calendar year.

For example, in 2030 the average human lifespan might be 90, in 2031 it might be 91.5, and in 2032 it might be 93. As long as the rate the average lifespan is increasing is greater than one year per year, the “average” person can live indefinitely.

Transhumanists would then have all the time they need to work on their goals.

And, they argue, many may come sooner rather than later. They foresee better-than-human AI coming within a few decades, which could make all of their other goals appear much more quickly.

Some have proposed that there will be a technological “Singularity” in which technological change begins happening at a fantastically accelerated rate, making it impossible to predict what comes next.

Computer scientist Vernor Vinge has suggested that such a Singularity will occur before the 2030s (“The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era,” www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/), while entrepreneur and futurist Ray Kurzweil has predicted it before 2045 (The Singularity Is Near).

 

An influential minority

The number of people who identify as transhumanists is small. Humanity+ represents approximately six thousand people, though there are many transhumanists who do not belong to it.

Despite their numbers, transhumanists are disproportionately influential, making them a “creative minority.”

An illustration of their influence is that in 2012 Google hired Ray Kurzweil as its Director of Engineering, where he works to transform the company’s search feature by incorporating artificial intelligence and the ability to understand natural language requests for information rather than just search terms.

And aspects of the transhumanist agenda are being pursued by people who don’t identify as transhumanists. Medicine, science, and industry are all working on projects that fit in to the transhumanist agenda.

But how much of that agenda will be achieved?

 

An uncertain future

Transhumanists acknowledge that the future is uncertain—and that the technologies they propose could be dangerous.

The atomic age made us familiar with the dangers posed by nuclear weapons, but the transhumanist vision features multiple technologies with similar threat potential—including AIs that can out-think and out-compete humans, genetically engineered plagues, and runaway nanotechnology turning everything into “grey goo.”

They argue that the potential benefits outweigh the risks and urge that serious consideration be given to how to mitigate the dangers of these technologies.

 

How much will happen?

It’s virtually certain that science and medicine will continue to progress. We may expect new cures, somewhat longer lifespans, and technologies with the power to improve—and threaten—human life.

However, transhumanism assumes that key trends will continue indefinitely into the future, and this is not clear.

Even if medical science progresses to the point that it’s able to add more than a year to the average human lifespan per calendar year, there’s no guarantee that this trend will continue long term and turn into practical immortality.

Technologists are concerned that Moore’s Law—a well-established trend suggesting that computers double in power every two years—may already be breaking down. Computers will still improve in the future, but perhaps not in the exponential way they have in recent decades.

Some of the advances transhumanists want may not happen for a long time—or at all. Some experts think that better-than-human AI is unachievable.

And some transhumanists goals seem flat out impossible. The idea of “uploading” your consciousness into a computer is metaphysical nonsense. Even if there was a way to make a digital representation of all your memories and thought processes, it would still just be a digital representation—not the real you.

However, the fact some transhumanist dreams are silly does not mean the movement shouldn’t be viewed with concern.

 

The Holy See on genetic engineering

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has already expressed concern about the misuse of genetic engineering. In 2008, it warned against some of transhumanism’s aspirations:

Some have imagined the possibility of using techniques of genetic engineering to introduce alterations with the presumed aim of improving and strengthening the gene pool. Some of these proposals exhibit a certain dissatisfaction or even rejection of the value of the human being as a finite creature and person. Apart from technical difficulties and the real and potential risks involved, such manipulation would promote a eugenic mentality and would lead to indirect social stigma with regard to people who lack certain qualities, while privileging qualities that happen to be appreciated by a certain culture or society (Dignitas Personae 27).

In other words, non-therapeutic genetic engineering could lead to the creation of a genetic elite that would lord it over the unmodified.

Transhumanists argue that, in their preferred future, such modifications would be voluntary, and those who chose not to have them wouldn’t be forced to do so—thus some number of “normal” humans would still exist.

However, this does not mean that normal humans and their choices would be just as valued. Thus the CDF argues that tampering with our genetic codes this way “would end sooner or later by harming the common good, by favoring the will of some over the freedom of others” (ibid.).

This prospect is also discussed by C.S. Lewis in his book The Abolition of Man, in which he explores the consequences of manipulating human nature the way transhumanists want.

 

Playing God

Perhaps the most fundamental problem with transhumanism is that, by wanting to produce a new, posthuman species, its advocates want to play God. Discussing radical genetic engineering, the CDF writes:

[I]t must also be noted that in the attempt to create a new type of human being one can recognize an ideological element in which man tries to take the place of his Creator (ibid.).

This is exactly correct. It is one thing to improve the human condition by fighting disease and inventing new technologies, but it is another to have the creation of a new, superior species of posthumans as your explicit goal.

That goal means you want to play God, and that’s dangerous territory.

The account of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 features a similar effort by men to ascend to heaven through their own power, and that ended with disaster.

Even if God chose not to intervene directly to thwart transhumanist plans, the attempt to play God could by itself bring on terrifying disasters, some of which we have already mentioned.

People are already describing transhumanism as a kind of secular religion, and in recent history we’ve seen a eugenically-inspired secular messianism and what it did to millions it deemed genetically inferior back in the 1940s.

Transhumanists could argue that this is an unfair comparison since their emphasis on individual rights and choices would prevent that kind of thing from happening again.

However, it is reasonable to ask whether, if they began to achieve even some of their goals, transhumanists would begin to look down on unmodified humans who refused to “get with the program.” Unmodified humans might then be viewed as second class citizens, as people to be out-competed, dominated, and replaced—the way our ancestors replaced the Neanderthals.

After all, that would be only human.

 

The Transhumanist Declaration

This declaration was developed in 1998 and adopted by the Humanity+ board in 2009.

  1. Humanity stands to be profoundly affected by science and technology in the future. We envision the possibility of broadening human potential by overcoming aging, cognitive shortcomings, involuntary suffering, and our confinement to planet Earth.
  2. We believe that humanity’s potential is still mostly unrealized. There are possible scenarios that lead to wonderful and exceedingly worthwhile enhanced human conditions.
  3. We recognize that humanity faces serious risks, especially from the misuse of new technologies. There are possible realistic scenarios that lead to the loss of most, or even all, of what we hold valuable. Some of these scenarios are drastic, others are subtle. Although all progress is change, not all change is progress.
  4. Research effort needs to be invested into understanding these prospects. We need to carefully deliberate how best to reduce risks and expedite beneficial applications. We also need forums where people can constructively discuss what should be done, and a social order where responsible decisions can be implemented.
  5. Reduction of existential risks, and development of means for the preservation of life and health, the alleviation of grave suffering, and the improvement of human foresight and wisdom should be pursued as urgent priorities, and heavily funded.
  6. Policy making ought to be guided by responsible and inclusive moral vision, taking seriously both opportunities and risks, respecting autonomy and individual rights, and showing solidarity with and concern for the interests and dignity of all people around the globe. We must also consider our moral responsibilities towards generations that will exist in the future.
  7. We advocate the well-being of all sentience, including humans, non-human animals, and any future artificial intellects, modified life forms, or other intelligences to which technological and scientific advance may give rise.
  8. We favor allowing individuals wide personal choice over how they enable their lives. This includes use of techniques that may be developed to assist memory, concentration, and mental energy; life extension therapies; reproductive choice technologies; cryonics procedures; and many other possible human modification and enhancement technologies.

Deportation Argument Reveals Principles for Reading Church Documents

st peter's basilicaImmigration is controversial in many parts of the world, including Europe and the Americas.

The Church’s teaching on the topic is summarized in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.

Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens (2241).

This seeks to balance the needs of the citizens of the receiving countries with the needs of the immigrants, and it recognizes obligations on both. Citizens of more prosperous countries are not given the option of a “no immigrants allowed” policy, and immigrants are not guaranteed automatic access.

The latter is reflected in the Catechism’s acknowledgement that nations are obliged to accept immigrants “to the extent they are able” and that they “may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical considerations.”

What happens when political authorities determine “for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible” that they cannot accept more immigrants or when immigrants do not abide by the juridical considerations the state requires?

One solution—which many regard as preferable to imprisonment—is to return immigrants to their country of origin or to another country willing to receive them. In other words, deportation.

 

A Counter-Argument

However, some have recently argued that deportation is intrinsically evil, citing John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical Veritatis Splendor, which stated:

Reason attests that there are objects of the human act which are by their nature “incapable of being ordered” to God, because they radically contradict the good of the person made in his image. These are the acts which, in the Church’s moral tradition, have been termed “intrinsically evil” (VS 80).

The encyclical then quotes Vatican II’s document Gaudium et Spes to provide examples:

Whatever is offensive to human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution and trafficking in women and children . . . all these and the like are a disgrace, and so long as they infect human civilization they contaminate those who inflict them more than those who suffer injustice, and they are a negation of the honor due to the Creator (GS 27).

Since deportations are listed among the acts “offensive to human dignity,” the argument goes, they are intrinsically evil, and the state could never legitimately deport anyone.

Evaluating this argument reveals several principles that are important for reading Church documents.

 

Principle 1: Checking the Original

A starting point for interpreting any document is figuring out what its authors have in mind.

This is done principally by examining the words they use, and we must employ some caution here. Words can have meanings that are not obvious, especially when translations of technical documents—like those of the Magisterium—are involved.

It can be important to check the original language and see what meaning a word has in theological discourse.

The Latin word used by Gaudium et Spes is deportatio, and a check of competent dictionaries reveals it has the same basic meaning it does in English. Leo F. Stelten’s Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin reveals that it means “deportation, banishment,” and the Oxford Latin Dictionary reveals that it means “conveyance to a place of exile, deportation.”

Based on this, Gaudium et Spes might have in mind any and all deportations, but our work is not done, because brief dictionary definitions don’t tell us everything we need to know.

 

Principle 2: Checking the Historical Context

Documents are written at particular moments in history, and this affects the issues they address. They generally address issues being discussed in their own day, not ones from the past or the future.

This means we need to ask what kind of deportations Vatican II had in mind. When Gaudium et Spes was released in 1965, what kind of deportations would have been on the Council’s mind?

Immigration was not a major, controversial issue then, but there was a kind of deportation that was very much on the European mind: the deportations that occurred during World War II.

In fact, in October of 1943—as part of the Nazi Holocaust—the Jewish population of Rome was deported, with many sent to Auschwitz. The memory of this event still lives, and in 2013 Pope Francis sent a message to the chief rabbi of Rome deploring it.

This was one of many deportations during World War II, and it raises the possibility that Gaudium et Spes doesn’t have any and all deportations in mind but those in which Jews or others are forcibly relocated from lands in which they have long dwelled as part of the process of “ethnic cleansing” (a term coined in 1941).

 

Principle 3: Checking for Counterexamples

Whenever considering a possible interpretation of a document, it is important to cross-examine it by looking for potential counterexamples, so can we think of any situations where the Holy See would accept the compulsory removal of people from a place?

Catholic moral theology would hold it is legitimate to remove people from individual dwellings in some situations. If a person has broken into your home, it’s legitimate to remove him. Similarly, landlords can evict tenants who don’t pay their rent or when their lease expires.

The Holy See even has an agreement with the state of Italy providing for the extradition of those accused of crimes. Article 22 of the 1929 Lateran Pact provides:

The Holy See shall hand over to the Italian state all persons who may have taken refuge within the Vatican City, when accused of acts committed within Italian territory which are considered to be criminal by the law of both states.

The Holy see thus acknowledge the existence of situations in which it is legitimate to remove a person or group of people from a particular place, even unwillingly, even across national lines (as in the case of extradition from Vatican City).

This suggests the deportation of immigrants also could be legitimate in some cases.

 

Principle 4: Reading in Harmony

A final principle that needs to be applied when reading Church documents is the presumption that they should be read in harmony with each other. Pope Benedict XVI referred to this as the “hermeneutic of continuity.”

Applying it in this case, we should assume that the Catechism’s teaching regarding limits on immigration does not contradict the teachings found in Veritatis Splendor and Gaudium et Spes regarding deportations.

Given the other things we are aware of—including the historical deportations Vatican II likely had in mind and the potential legitimacy of removing people from places, as in the Lateran Pact—it is most natural to understand the Holy See as condemning mass “ethnic cleansing” deportations of people who have long lived in a country, but not every individual case of deportation.

This does not tell us how best to resolve thorny questions of our own day, but it does illustrate the principles we need to use when reading Church documents. For further discussion of these principles, see my forthcoming book Teaching with Authority.

Are There UFOs in Religious Art? (And More Weird Questions!)

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In this episode of Catholic Answers Live (May 25, 2018, 2nd hour), Jimmy answers the following questions:

02:33 Why do we associate good with “up” and down with “bad”?

04:11 Why do some Medieval religious paintings look like they have spacemen and UFOs in them?

08:15 Could a priest or the pope bless an entire ocean and make it holy water?

16:24 How can we solve the “Trolley Problem” for self-driving cars? Does it make a difference if the five people who get hit are nuns and the one person who lives is an escaped convict?

23:28 Did Mary or Jesus ever get sick? Could they?

29:00 If we colonize another planet in the future, how would the Church on Earth communicate with Catholic colonists? What would need to be done before sending Catholics to such a colony?

35:40 If strong Artificial Intelligence (AI) is created, would it falsify the Church’s teachings on the soul? How likely is such the development of such intelligence?

45:00 Is it ever okay to lie to a Cyberman?

49:37 Is the multiverse theory at all compatible with Christianity?

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE.

The Mysterious Ascension of Jesus (And More! Livestream)

ascensionIn this live stream, I tackle the following questions:

00:26 What is the fundamental meaning of the Ascension?
01:09 Why did God choose to Ascend (since God isn’t in outer space)?
03:19 Why do we imagine God being “up” from an earthly perspective?
06:45 Why do we associate “up” with good or superior things?
09:48 How does the Ascension help with defending the Resurrection of Jesus?
15:50 Why do we refer to Mary being “Assumed” into heaven rather than “Ascending” to heaven?
18:25 How does the Ascension relate to Elijah going up to heaven?
20:50 Does Eucharistic adoration conflict with the purpose of the Eucharist to be received in Holy Communion?
25:38 Is heaven a place or a state? Is it one or the other or somehow both?
28:27 Is there time in heaven?

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Answering an Atheist’s Objection (And More! Livestream)

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In this live stream, I tackle the following questions:

00:44 How close are Catholic and Protestant views on justification?

04:08 Why would one want to pray to Mary?

05:20 Could “I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it” apply to the Protestant Reformation keeping the Faith alive?

09:25 Does belief in the Real Presence mean a form of Fundamentalism?

14:06 Does the fact the universe is expanding faster undermine the argument for God’s existence based on the Big Bang?

23:41 Are natural disasters due to original sin?

28:38 What should we make of the fact many Old Testament figures were polygamous?

31:39 Does European church art “cover up” the fact Jesus and other biblical figures were Middle Eastern?

37:48 Is embryo adoption ever legitimate?

40:08 Does John 5:18 show that Jesus broke the sabbath?

44:08 How should we respond to claims that the Resurrection of Jesus is based on pagan myths?

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