Category: +Religion

Yesterday we looked at a question from a Secret Information Club member who is considering becoming Catholic and who was wondering if you have to donate every spare penny to the poor.

The short answer is that you don’t, at least not in normal circumstances. You can read the post to see why.

In the course of answering the question we noted that if everyone tried the donate-every-spare-penny strategy then it would crash the world economy and cause economic chaos that would actually impoverish people.

While helping the poor is imperative for Christians, the donate-every-spare-penny strategy is not the best way to accomplish it.

We also noted that history shows that a better way to help people is by encouraging economic development through letting them have and enjoy private property and offering economic opportunity. This leads to . . .

The Best Way to Help the Poor

The best way to help the poor is thus to enable them to participate in the same kind of economic development that has brought prosperity to others.

It means not shutting them out. Not keeping them down. Helping them get rid of governments that are deliberately obstructing the economic developement of their own people so that the pockets of the local kleptocracy can be lined.

It means all those things.

It’s the same principle embodies in the common idea that if you give a man a fish, he has food for a day, but you teach him to fish, he has food for a lifetime.

To put it another way, giving someone a job is better than giving someone a handout.

Plan B

Both strategies are necessary at times. Sometimes a person is in a situation where, through no fault of his own (or even though his fault), he cannot work.

Handouts in those situations can be absolute lifesavers–literally.

They can, as we have seen in the previous post, be morally obligatory and acts not only of mercy but of justice.

But they are not the preferred solution. Work is better.

As the Church also recognizes, work is ennobling. It better corresponds to the dignity of the individual by allowing him to make a positive contribution to the common good, and helping the poor though economic development (and all that involves, including security, job education, investment, etc.) should be the goal.

Alms for the poor have a definite and very important place, but they cannot be an end in themselves.

They must be “Plan B”–something that is used when helping someone find productive work is not (for the moment or on an ongoing basis) possible.

But when we can, it’s better to help someone with productive employment.

So What About Golf Clubs?

In the previous post, the Secret Info Club member asked, in light of the need to help the poor, whether golf clubs are okay (the kind of golf clubs that you join, not the kind that you swing, although I guess the answer to the first kind will provide the answer to the second kind)–and whether it’s okay to have cable television or take vacations or participate in similar forms of rest and recreation that cost money which could be given to the poor.

Yes.

For a start, not participating in these activities would mean not giving money to the people who make them possible. If people failed to engage in these activities it would mean putting them out of work, and as we saw, work is better than the handouts they would then need to survive.

The activities are morally licit in themselves. There is nothing wrong with playing golf, watching TV, or going on a vacation (though each can be done in a morally illicit way–such as getting super arrogant about one’s golf game, watching porn, or engaging in sex tourism).

As long as they are morally licit for people to participate in them, it is morally licit for people to make their living by helping others do so (e.g., as a golf pro, a TV producer, or a hotelier).

If it’s morally legitimate for people to make a living helping others enjoy these things then that’s preferable to them being reduced to poverty and having to take handouts. So that’s one reason why it’s licit to engage in these activities: It not only provides you with rest and recreation, it provides others with productive work!

Living in a Human Mode

It is always possible for us to “do more” for the poor than we are presently doing, but this fact cannot be allowed to develop into a kind of panicked scrupulosity, where we are terrified that we are sinning if we are not “doing more.”

It will always be possible to do more–either to donate more or to work harder to have more money to donate.

But trying to do those things takes us out of a human mode of existence. It can lead us, for example, to neglect our own needs–including our own need for rest and recreation and, even more importantly, our need to enjoy the good things God has allowed us to have so that we may feel gratitude to him and praise him for his gifts–as well as the needs of our family and those close to us, which are the people to whom we have the strongest obligations, after all.

God does not call us to live in a superhuman way but in a human way–what moral theologians sometimes refer to as living in modo humano.

It may be the calling of some to live heroically on the edge of the human mode. Such people are living saints. But it is not required of us in the main. Unless we find ourselves in a situation that calls for heroic action, we are not called to heroic action.

We may live in a non-heroic but morally decent way and trust God to give us the strength needed for heroic action if we are ever placed in a situation that calls for it. (This harks back to the different we discussed in the previous post about the difference between a law, which all must obey, and a counsel, which may do greater good but is not required.)

Eliminating Poverty

We may not ever be able to eliminate poverty. After all, Jesus said “the poor you will always have with you.” Though he may, hypothetically, have been speaking for his immediate disciples and not for all of world history, the problem of poverty is likely to persist into the indefinite future on one scale or another.

The good news is that poverty is diminishing!

In prior centuries the vast majority of the people of the world lived in crushing poverty, with only a few living outside of its grasp. In the past there was no middle class.

Today huge numbers of people have escaped its grip. Not only is there a middle class, but in many parts of the world people who are on the lower end of the economic ladder are amazingly–unprecedentedly–rich by historical standards.

Here in America even people who are counted as poor by relative standards are likely to have television, computers, air conditioning, telephones, cell phones, smart phones, not to mention better medical care on a charity basis than has been available at any point in human history and more than enough food to keep them from starving to death.

Are there people here in America who are poor by historical standards?

Perhaps, but they represent a tiny number, and the cause of their extreme impoverishment is due to other causes, such as not taking advantage of the enormous number of benevolence programs (run by private charities or the government) that are available to them. Frankly, they are most likely victims of one or another forms of mental illness that prevents them from taking advantage of the numerous forms of assistance that are available.

Do means to reach them and help them need to be found? Absolutely!

But the larger question remains: How can we best help the poor all over the globe?

The Global Solution

If we want to eliminate global poverty–or drastically reduce it to the extent that this is possible–then we should ask how we did the same job in the developed world.

The answer is: by encouraging economic development through respecting private property and offering economic opportunity. Both public and private charity also played a role, but these two were the engines that allowed the developed world, including America, to achieve its developed status.

They are what we need to share with the developing world, and this process is the ideal behind what is known as the “globalization” of the world economy.

We must be careful how this is done, so that entrenched economic interests in the developed world aren’t given an unfair competitive advantage, but that’s the basic goal.

When it comes to the impact of the process on individuals in the developed world and their economic activities, it means not just targeted donations to individuals in the developing world who need handouts. It also means providing work for those in such nations who want to do work and who–due to better international trade or the Internet–are able to do such work at a distance.

In other words, the solution to the global poverty problem–to the extent we can achieve it–involves a mixture of providing work as the foremost solution, providing handouts as the backup solution, and most of us living in a normal human manner rather than in the heroic manner that circumstances can demand of us in particular situations.

 One More Thing

I mentioned at the top of the post that the gentleman who asked the question is a member of the Secret Info Club, and as he notes, he’s not presently Catholic. This reveals something that may not be obvious, which is that the Secret Information Club isn’t just for Catholics. It’s for anyone who likes the kind of information I put on the blog and who would like to receive additional information by email.

For example, right now I’m preparing a message on book recommendations by Pope Benedict.

Like many of us, Pope Benedict takes a vacation in the summer to rest, recuperate, and catch up on projects.

Like the rest of us, he finds himself looking for things he can profitably read during this time.

So does Pope Benedict have any thoughts about what people might profitably read during this time?

He does.

That’s why I’ve prepared a special “interview” with Pope Benedict on just this subject that I’ll be sending to members of the Secret Information Club on Saturday, August 18th.

To find out what Pope Benedict recommends for summer reading (and it’s not big heavy theological works but stuff anybody can read–sometimes in an hour or less), sign up at www.SecretInfoClub.com or use this handy form:

Just email me if you have any difficulty.

. . . but this time I would like to do so.

Here’s the situation: For some time, I have been developing cataracts in my eyes. I’m very young to get them, but I’m told that the men in my family tend to get them unusually early. (I’m also told that some people are even born with cataracts, though that wasn’t the case with me.)

Just recently, I have lost the central part of my vision to the cataracts. The result is that I may, at the moment, I may be legally blind.

I don’t know whether that’s the case, but I do know that at the moment my vision is so bad that I can’t:

1. Drive a car.
2. Walk across a multi-lane street (can’t see approaching cars or lighted “Walk” signs).
3. Cook food (e.g., meat) that I would need to see in order to determine whether it is underdone, done, or overdone.
4. Read anything written on paper (e.g., anything in any book or anything on an individual sheet of paper).
5. Read anything on a normal computer screen (i.e., one that hasn’t been specially adjusted for my condition).
6. Read anything at all without significant eye strain.
7. See the letters on the keyboard I’m typing on (fortunately, I touch type, but it makes it hard to enter complex passwords when the characters on the specially-adjusted screen are blanked out).
8. Use audio or video editing software (making it hard to do my podcast and YouTube videos).
9. See faces and facial expressions, even when the person is close.

It’s also really hard to read and respond to email, so I’m slower about that, too.

You can imagine how this is forcing me to adapt to loss of vision (e.g., I’m having to use coping techniques like memorizing where I put down an object so that I know where to find it again), how it’s slowing down some of my efforts (e.g., after straining my eyes at a computer screen all day, I don’t have that much vision left to interact on the Internet at night), and generally adding strain to my efforts to lead a normal life.

Basically, I can’t see anything far away or close up. I can only see things in middle distance, and then they look blurry and cloudy, like I am looking at a world filled with fog through a blurry lens.

All this has given me a new understanding of the situation that those find themselves in who have vision far worse than the nearsightedness that I’m used to. I’ve been having to develop many of the coping techniques needed by the blind and partially blind.

I can, surprisingly, call square dances. In fact, I can even “sight call” (i.e., use visual cues to match the dancers up using the color of their clothing as clues to who they are). I just need someone to give me a ride to and from the dance which, happily, my Friday club is providing me.

The good news is that cataracts should be eminently fixable. In fact, they tell me that once I get the needed surgery in both eyes, my vision is likely to be better than it has been since I was a boy. I may not need glasses at all to drive, and I may not need anything but nonprescription, supermarket glasses to read (if that).

But we’ll have to see (no pun intended). Things could go badly with the surgery or the healing of my eyes afterward.

And the stakes are high. It’s my eyes we’re talking about.

That’s why I thought I’d break with my usual practice and let people know about the situation in case they would like to pray.

I would be very greatful.

The surgery on my first eye is scheduled for Tuesday, August 21st. The second eye will be operated upon a few weeks after that.

Whatever mention of me and my intentions that you might feel moved to make in your prayers, you have my sincere gratitude.

Please also pray for all those who have to live with vision loss on either a temporary or a permanent basis.

Thank you!

A member of the Secret Info Club writes:

I’ve been a Bible-believing Protestant for thirty years and I am seriously looking at becoming Catholic. I have an important question regarding the Catholic Church’s teaching on wealth and giving.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

2446 “Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life.  The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs.  The demands of justice must be satisfied first of all; that which is already due in justice is not to be offered as a gift of charity.”

“When we attend to the needs of those in want, we give them what is theirs, not ours.  More than performing works of mercy, we are paying a debt of justice.”

Jimmy, would you please clarify what the Church’s teaching is?  My wife and I give a lot to the poor and to ministries, but I also belong to a golf club and we have cable TV and sometimes take a vacation and stay in a hotel.

Is the Catechism teaching that Catholics should not have these “goods,” that it is wrong to have luxuries like being a member of a golf club or cable TV?  If I don’t give away all my superfluous goods, anything above what is needed, to meet the needs of the starving, am I in mortal sin?  Or is this talking about personally seeing a starving man and turning away from him?

I’ll be happy to do what I can. Let’s get started . . .

A Debt of Justice

Let’s start by the Catechism’s statement that in performing works of mercy like giving to those in need we are paying a debt of justice.

The basis for that statement involves the fact that God gave the earth and its resources to mankind to care for our needs. The Church refers to this as the “universal destination” of the goods God has given us.

He has also structured human nature so that we are social beings who are meant to care for one another. If someone is in need, the rest of us have an obligation to do what we can to help him out.

It therefore would be contrary to human nature and to the universal destination of the goods God has given us to knowingly and deliberately allow a person to starve to death when we can reasonably prevent that. (The same applies to allowing other basic needs to remain unmet, but let’s stick with starving to death, because it is a clear case.)

Because it would be contrary to human nature and God’s universal destination for the resources of the earth, it would be unjust to just let someone starve to death.

Since death is a grave matter, to knowingly and deliberately allow it to occur when it could be reasonably be prevented would amount to a mortal sin. (Grave matter and adequate knowledge and deliberate consent being the conditions needed for mortal sin.)

Thus it is reasonable to describe helping starving people as a debt of justice and to describe failing to do so (under the conditions specified) as a mortal sin.

But let’s dig a little deeper . . .

What Counts as Reasonable?

You’ll note that I specified that letting someone starve to death whe it could be reasonably prevented. This is because there are some situations in which there is no reasonable way to prevent it.

For example, if the only way to prevent one person from starving to death were to take food from another person so that he starves to death then there is no reasonable way to prevent the first person from starving.

We are not obliged to save one person from starving at the price of causing another person to starve.

So we must ask the question of what counts as reasonable.

Here there can be a temptation toward what the Church refers to as scrupulosity, or excessive worry about whether something is sinful.

It is easy for us to imagine doing more than we are to help the poor. We can, for example, imagine working super-hard, making lots of money, keeping for ourselves only the amount needed to barely ensure our survival, and donating every spare penny to the relief of the poor.

Are we obliged to do this?

No.

Here’s one way to show that , , ,

The Rule Cannot Be Generalized

If a rule cannot be generalized to everyone then it cannot represent a general obligation that everyone has.

So what if everyone tried to obey the rule just proposed? What if everyone worked super-hard to make money, kept only a survival-level amount, and donated the rest? What would happen?

Chaos.

For a start, if everyone tried to do this, how would we be making money in the first place? Where would the money come from? Suppose your skill is making widgets. In order to make money, you need to sell widgets. But if everyone is buying only the amount of necessities that they absolutely need to survive, then you will only be able to sell subsistence-level amounts of widgets–if the widgets you seel are even necessary for survival. If not, you won’t be able to sell any widgets.

The market for widgets (and all goods and services) would shrink dramatically–catastrophically–thus stopping you (and everyone else) from being able to make the money that you want to donate to the poor.

Trying to apply the proposed rule would thus effectively destroy the economy and reduce those who are not presently poor to a state of poverty.

What would happen to the former poor?

They would receive a short-term infusion of cash (or food, or other goods and services), but then this resource would dry up as the former world economy crashed.

Without economic infrastructure in place in the developed world, the former poor would not be able to manage the wealth suddenly transferred to them or instantly get a new economy going to replace the former one.

And there are a host of other bad effects that would result as well. In fact, every large-scale sudden transfer of wealth (such as sometimes happens as part of political revolutions) tends to go disastrously.

Chaos ensues.

Law or Counsel?

This means that the idea that everyone in the developed world is neither obligated to adopt the donate-every-spare-penny rule nor should they.

Some people might choose to do so. It might even be very good for them to do so. They might even lay up treasure in heaven by doing so. But they are not obliged to do so.

This points to a distinction that the Church makes between a law and a counsel. Laws are things that we are obliged to do. Counsels deal with things that are good to do but that are not obligatory in ordinary circumstances.

Thus Jesus on occasion invited individuals to sell their property and follow him, living a life of evangelical poverty, but he did not expect everyone to do this. (After all, if everyone did it, who would buy all the property being put on the market?)

A More Generalizable Way

While evangelical poverty may be appropriate at times, it is not the way for the whole of society to operate. There is a better way to promote the common good–including the good of the poor–than the donate-every-spare-penny strategy.

This plan involves incentivizing people to work by letting them enjoy the fruits of their labors.

As has long been observed, if you provide positive incentives for a particular behavior, people will engage in more of it.

So if you want to cultivate the earht’s resources in a way that the needs of all people are met, you need to incentivize that cultivation.

Historically, the most successful way of doing that has involved the protection of private property and providing economic opportuity to individuals.

Giving people the opportunity to use their talents and then enjoy the fruits of their labors will lead them to do so, and thus increase the cultivation of the earth’s resources for their good and the good of others.

Thus the Catechism says:

2402 In the beginning God entrusted the earth and its resources to the common stewardship of mankind to take care of them, master them by labor, and enjoy their fruits.  The goods of creation are destined for the whole human race. However, the earth is divided up among men to assure the security of their lives, endangered by poverty and threatened by violence. the appropriation of property is legitimate for guaranteeing the freedom and dignity of persons and for helping each of them to meet his basic needs and the needs of those in his charge. It should allow for a natural solidarity to develop between men.

2403 The right to private property, acquired by work or received from others by inheritance or gift, does not do away with the original gift of the earth to the whole of mankind. the universal destination of goods remains primordial, even if the promotion of the common good requires respect for the right to private property and its exercise.

Historical experience has showed that this model more effectively assures the cultivation and distribution of the earth’s resources than alternative models. It is thus a more generalizable rule–one that can be put in practice on a large scale in a way that promotes the common good.

This leads to . . . the best way to help the poor, which we’ll deal with in my next post.

The takeaway from today’s post, however, is that the donate-every-spare-penny strategy is not obligatory. There are situations in which donating is obligatory–such as when I know that a person will starve if I don’t assist him and when I have the ability reasonablly to provide that assistance. But this is not the usual circumstance. 

 One More Thing

I mentioned at the top of the post that the gentleman who asked the question is a member of the Secret Info Club, and as he notes, he’s not presently Catholic. This reveals something that may not be obvious, which is that the Secret Information Club isn’t just for Catholics. It’s for anyone who likes the kind of information I put on the blog and who would like to receive additional information by email.

For example, right now I’m preparing a message on book recommendations by Pope Benedict.

Like many of us, Pope Benedict takes a vacation in the summer to rest, recuperate, and catch up on projects.

Like the rest of us, he finds himself looking for things he can profitably read during this time.

So does Pope Benedict have any thoughts about what people might profitably read during this time?

He does.

That’s why I’ve prepared a special “interview” with Pope Benedict on just this subject that I’ll be sending to members of the Secret Information Club on Saturday, August 18th.

To find out what Pope Benedict recommends for summer reading (and it’s not big heavy theological works but stuff anybody can read–sometimes in an hour or less), sign up at www.SecretInfoClub.com or use this handy form:

 

Just email me if you have any difficulty.

The names of the first five books of the Bible sound rather strange: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

What do these names mean, and where do they come from?

Genesis

The name Genesis is easier for us to understand, but for a rather ironic reason.

Everybody knows that the book of Genesis is about the beginning. It starts with the beginning of the world, it goes on to describe the beginning of God’s people, Israel, and along the way it describes a lot of other beginnings as well.

Thus it’s no surprise that the name of the book has become a metaphor for beginnings. As a result, we might today speak of the genesis of modern science, the genesis of the Civil War, or the genesis of the Internet. In each case the word genesis is used to refer to the beginning of the thing in question, and most people perceive this as a metaphor based on the name of the book of Genesis.

The word genesis comes into Enlglish through the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible, and the Vulgate got it from the Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint.

The irony is that in Greek the word genesis actually means “beginning.” So it originally meant beginning, became the name of a biblical book, and is now perceived by many people as a metaphor for “beginning,” based on the name of that book.

Why is the book called Genesis in Greek? Is it just because the book deals with beginnings or is there more to it?

Actually, there is a bit more: In Hebrew–the langauge in which the book was originally written–it is known as B’r’shit.

B– is a preposition in Hebrew that means “in.” R’shit means “beginning.” So the book in Hebrew takes its name from its opening words, commonly translated in English as “In the beginning . . . ” (Gen. 1:1a).

Exodus

This is another case where we get the book title from the Latin Vulgate, which took it from the Greek Septuagint, though the ending of the word changes a bit. It’s Exodus in Latin but Exodos in Greek (this is normal when a word is brought from Greek into Latin).

In English, the word exodus basically means “departure,” “journey away from,” or “emmigration.”

The Greek term is derived from two Greek words: the preposition ek, which means “out” or “from,” and hodos, which means “road.”

An exodos thus means taking the road out, or just going out, and in the book of Exodus, the children of Israel go out of the land of Egypt under Moses. That’s why it has the Greek name it does.

This has nothing to do with its Hebrew name, though. In Hebrew, it is called Sh’mot, which means “Names.”

As before, that’s a reference to the opening of the book in Hebrew: “These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household” (Exodus 1:1).

Leviticus

This is another Greek to Latin to English special. In Greek, it’s Leuitikos, which gives us the Latin and English Leviticus.

So what does it mean?

It’s based on the Greek word for “Levites” (Leuites), which refers to members of the priestly tribe of Levi.

All told, Leuitikos means “relating to the Levites” or “concerning the Levites,” and it is this book that contains most detailed regulations regarding what the priests and other Levites are supposed to do in the conduct of their ministry. In fact, the first seven chapters are detailed regulations about how to offer sacrifices.

In Hebrew the name of the book is Va-yiqra (“And he called”), from the opening words: “And he (the LORD) called Moses” (Leviticus 1:1).

Numbers

At last! A book with a straight-forward English name!

“Numbers” is an English translation of the Latin name: Numeri (“Numbers”), which is a translation of the Greek name Arithmoi (same root as “arithmetic”).

So we all know what numbers are, which makes the name of this book easy to understand, right?

Not so much.

Despite what you’d think, this book does not have a lot to do with mathematics.

Instead of being used in its standard, familiar sense, the term “numbers” is being used in a somewhat specialized one that might be better rendered “numberings.”

The reason is that at the beginning and the end of the book, they take a census (a counting, a numbering) of the children of Israel. There are two censuses in the book, so it’s the book of numberings, or Numbers.

As before, the Hebrew name is based on the first words of the book. It’s B’midbar, which means “In the desert” (note the same “b-” preposition as in B’r’shit).

The opening verse reads: “The LORD spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai” (Numbers 1:1).

Deuteronomy

Although Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers have names that are or have passed into English as familiar words, Leviticus and Deteronomy don’t. We’ve already seen what Leviticus means, but what on earth does Deuteronomy mean?

Once more, we’re getting it from Latin (Deuteronomium) from Greek (Deuteronomion).

It comes from two Greek words meaning second (deuteros) and law (nomos).

It’s called that because in Deuteronomy Moses delivers the law to the children of Israel for the second time (not just the Ten Commandments, but a much broader body of rules and regulations).

The generation that originally received the Law ended up dying in the wilderness, and now that their children are about to go into the Promised Land, and thus complete the exodus from Egypt begun several books ago, Moses sums up for them (with some variations) the teaching God has given in the interim. Hence, a second giving of the Law.

The Hebrew title is Devarim (“Words”), from the opening words in Hebrew: “These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness” (Deuteronomy 1:1a).

Learning More

I’m currently writing a book–titled Secret History of the Bible–which will go into this kind of information and more, revealing fascinating facts that bear on how, when, and by whom the Bible was written.

That’s not out yet, though, so until then you might want to check out my Secret Information Club. In fact, if you join then the very first think you’ll get is an “interview” with Pope Benedict about the book of Revelation. (I composed questions and then took the answers from his writings.) It’s fascinating reading, so I hope you’ll check it out.

You should click here to learn more or sign up using this form:

Awesome!

I just received a new endorsement for the Secret Information Club from Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers (“the Dynamic Deacon”), who writes:

I joined Jimmy Akin’s Secret Information Club a while back, and I thought you might like it.

It’s fun and informative. Jimmy sends out information about the Catholic faith and makes it easier to understand.

Tell him the deacon sent you!

Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers
www.DeaconHarold.com

I’m always delighted when fellow Catholic professionals recognize the effort I’m putting into the Secret Information Club and trying to make it fun and informative for everyone.

Thank you, Deacon Harold!

If you’d like to see what “the Dynamic Deacon” is talking about, be sure to check out www.SecretInfoClub.com or just sign up using this handy signup form:

What is the Secret Information Club?