It’s the day I get eye surgery on my right eye (the left will be in a month or so), so that I can (hopefully) stop being legally blind.
Recently, when I was in the eye surgeon’s office, having my eyes measured for the surgery, this exchange occurred:
ME: As far as I know, I’m legally blind right now.
TECHNICIAN WHO MEASURED EYES: (Snort!) That’s a safe bet.
Heh. 🙂
Anyway, I wanted to thank everyone for their prayers.
Some people have asked the exact time, and it’s scheduled to start around 3:15 or 3:30 Pacific Time and run about 20-30 minutes.
Some have also asked for my prayers, including one gentleman who is scheduled for cataract surgery the very next day.
I will be praying for everyone who has been kind enough to pray for me and offer up the experience of the surgery and recovery for their intentions. I’ll also be praying for everyone in similar situations, as well as anyone who might want or benefit from prayer.
Many thanks to everyone!
BTW, here’s a picture I took of my work screen today, to illustrate the giant-type, high-contrast mode I’ve had to put the computer in to be able to read. Even with this mode, it still looks blurry to me, but hopefully that will be over very soon.
This looks blurry to me when I'm a foot away from it.
The Immaculate Conception Is About MaryA reader writes:
Can you point me in the direction of why the Immaculate Conception is important in regards to salvation?
A follow up or clarification might be how does Mary’s Immaculate Conception point to Christ’s redeeming act on the cross?
First of all, let’s deal with a common misunderstanding: The Immaculate Conception does not refer to the conception of Christ by the Virgin Mary. Instead, it refers to the conception of Mary in such a way that she was preserved free from all stain of original sin.
I gather that the first question may be based on a common Protestant objection to the Immaculate Conception.
This objection is based on the fact that the Immaculate Conception has been infallibly defined by the Church and so is required belief for Catholics. To know that it is infallibly defined, to know that beliefs that are infallibly defined must be accepted, and to deliberately reject such belief would fulfill the conditions for mortal sin.
So what makes the Immaculate Conception so important that our salvation should hinge on it?
At First Glance
The concern expressed in the objection is understandable. At first glance, the Immaculate Conception does not seem like something that our salvation ought to hinge upon.
After all, it’s not a truth directly connected with how to achieve salvation. It’s not like accepting belief in God, repenting of sin, having faith in Christ’s atonement, and being baptized. It’s not one of what theologians would call soteriological beliefs (from “soteriology”–the doctrine of salvation).
Compared to the the Trinity, the central mystery of the Christian faith, the Immaculate Conception is lower down on what the Second Vatican Council referred to as the “hierarchy of truths.”
This is illustrated, among other ways, by the fact that the Immaculate Conception was not infallibly defined until 1854
So what makes it important enough that our salvation should hinge on accepting it?
Another Way of Looking at the Issue
Consider this fact: The Bible discusses angels and the fact that they are rational, non-physical beings created by God.
We are obliged to believe in the existence of angels because the Bible is the inspired, written expression of God’s word, and as such it has the Holy Spirit as its primary author. Consequently, whatever Scripture asserts (in the proper sense) is something asserted by the Holy Spirit.
You might look at the doctrine of angels (angelology) and say, “This isn’t directly related to our salvation. It might be helpful to us in some way to know about the existence of angels, but they are clearly far down the hierarchy of truths.”
In fact, knowing about the existence of angels is not dissimilar to knowing about the existence of aliens. If God has created other rational physical beings in the universe, it might be of some use to know about them, but that knowledge isn’t essential to our salvation.
One might object that angels have, in fact, interacted with our race, which is true, but that doesn’t make their existence a truth of soteriology. (Just as if it turned out that aliens had interacted with our race, that wouldn’t make their existence a truth of soteriology, either.)
The point is this . . .
It’s a Question of What God Reveals
The reason that we are obliged to believe in the existence of angels but not aliens is that God has revealed the existence of the former to us but not the latter.
For us to reject the existence of angels would be to reject the authority of God as our teacher, and to do that knowingly and deliberately would be a mortal sin.
For those who have been exposed to God’s revelation such that they know he has revealed the existence of angels, their salvation does hinge on their believing in angels–not because the doctrine of angels is high up in the hierarchy of truths, and not because it is a truth directly connected with salvation, but because it is a truth God has revealed.
We are obliged to accept whatever God has revealed. We may have questions at times about what the meaning is of something he has revealed, but if we know for a fact that a particular proposition has been declared to us by God, we must accept it in order to be in union with him.
This is what the Church refers to as having divine faith, which includes belief in God and in whatever he reveals–because of the authority of him who reveals it.
There is another mode of faith, though . . .
Catholic Faith
Catholic faith refers to the faith that we are called to exercise when the Church has definitively proposed something. It also ultimately rests on divine faith, because the Church has no teaching authority apart from God.
However, God has given the Church the authority to teach us and even to infallibly proclaim things to us in certain situations. He also has revealed that this is the case, and so divine faith entails Catholic faith.
One of the key functions of the Church’s teaching authority, or Magisterium, is to help us understand what God has revealed, to make sure that we don’t ignore or misinterpret it, and it has done so in a variety of ways down the centuries.
Early in Church history, the truths that are at the top of the hierarchy of truths were infallibly defined–the existence of one and only one God, the divinity of the Son, the divinity of the Holy Spirit, etc. And over time, once the most important issues were taken care of, the Church has deemed it appropriate to define truths that are lower in the hierarchy.
The Immaculate Conception
By 1854, the Magisterium determined that the time had come to define the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and so Pope Pius IX defined it in that year.
It had already been divinely revealed and thus called for divine faith, but not that it had been infallibly proclaimed by the Church, it came to call for catholic faith as well.
As such, it is obligatory for us, not because it is a truth at the top of the hierarchy of truths, not because it is directly connected with how to be saved, but because it has been infallibly proposed by the Church using the authority given to her by God. To know all this and to deliberately reject it would thus be to reject the teaching authority of God, and thus commit a mortal sin.
That’s true of anything that must be believed by divine faith or by catholic faith, for both are backed by the authority of God.
God, for reasons known to him, deemed it useful for us to know about the existence of angels, and so he revealed that truth. He also deemed it useful for us to know about the Immaculate Conception of his Son’s mother, and so he revealed that as well.
To promote knowledge and ensure belief in the latter revelation, the Church deemed it useful to exercise the authority God gave it to infallibly define it.
The reason why has to do with the reader’s section question . . .
The Immaculate Conception & the Cross
The Immaculate Conception can be related to Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross in various ways. Some of these go beyond Church doctrine and into the realm of theological elaboration. But here are two ways that seem certain. . . .
The Immaculate Conception Prepares for the Cross
First, the Immaculate Conception prepares for the Cross by making Mary a fitting mother for the Son of God, who came to die on the Cross. It isn’t that God had to make Mary immaculate in order to send his Son into the world. He didn’t. God is omnipotent, and his power is not limited. He could send his Son into the world without an immaculate mother if he chose.
But it was fitting that the mother of Christ be a holy woman, and in fact a woman who was a perfect example of holiness. Thus he prepared her for this role from the moment of her conception by giving her a special grace to preserve her from all stain of original sin.
This is why in the apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus, in which he defined the Immaculate Conception, Pius IX spoke of it being “fitting” that Christ’s mother would be so prepared, not that it would be “necessary” that she be so prepared.
The Immaculate Conception Reflects the Cross
Second, the Immaculate Conception reflects the cross in that it is what Jesus did on the Cross that made the Immaculate Conception possible.
By preserving Mary from all stain of original sin, God thus redeemed her. He redeemed her in an even more spectacular way that he does us, for he preserved her from falling into sin rather than pulling her out of it after she had fallen into it.
This is why the Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting in part the Second Vatican Council, explains the Immaculate Conception by saying:
508 From among the descendants of Eve, God chose the Virgin Mary to be the mother of his Son. “Full of grace”, Mary is “the most excellent fruit of redemption” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 103): from the first instant of her conception, she was totally preserved from the stain of original sin and she remained pure from all personal sin throughout her life.
But since all redemption comes to mankind through the Cross, it was the Cross itself that made the Immaculate Conception possible.
There is also another way in which the Immaculate Conception reflects the Cross . . .
An Icon of Our Destiny
Although God does not redeem us the same way he redeemed Mary, at the beginning of our lives, he will eventually free us of all stain of original sin as well. We will all one day be “stainless” (immaculate) if we persevere in his grace.
Thus, by redeeming Mary in such a way that she was given this gift while still in this life–and at the very beginning of her life–he made her an icon of what he will one day do for all of us.
Mary thus shows us what we an be–and will become–as a result of Christ’s death on the Cross, if we only persevere in the Christian life. She shows us the fruit of the Cross in one who is a mere human being, like us.
Christ also show us what we will become, for as Scripture says, when he appears again we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.
He, of course, is not just human but also the divine Son of God. Mary, however, is just human, and thus she serves as a direct example of what it is like for a human to be fully conformed to the image of her Son.
All these may offered as reasons why God–and the Church–deemed it important for us to know about the Immaculate Conception.
By the Way . . .
I’m currently preparing a mailing for the Secret Information Club in which I talk about Pope Benedict’s book recommendations for summer reading.
I had to delay the mailing a few days while I’m waiting on eye surgery. (I was able to get the piece composed, but not loaded into the highly graphical interface to send it.)
As a result, there’s still time to sign up!
Would you like a book recommendation from the pope?
Assuming all goes well with the eye surgery (prayers appreciated!), I should be sending out the special mailing with Pope Benedict’s summer reading recommendations later this week.
You’ll also get additional fascinating things. In fact, the very first thing you’ll get when you sign up is an “interview” I did with Pope Benedict on the Book of Revelation (I composed the questions and took the answers from his writings). Its fascinating stuff, so be sure not to miss out!
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:
I am caught in the odd–maybe not uncommon–situation of my Catholic godson getting married in the Church to a non-Catholic, yet, based on reasonable presumption, not living a Catholic life, not attending Mass, not having anything to with the Church practically, etc. and presumably having no intention of doing so in the future.
If my presumptions noted above are accurate, I find it distasteful to be “using” the sacraments this way.
Perhaps, my godson will even be engaged in receiving the Sacrament of Marriage in mortal sin, thereby sacrilegiously receiving it.
Yet, it appears, my godson is being faithful to the Church’s mind since he is bound to be married in the Church, and he is doing so.
Despite the fact the Church still requires him to be married in the Church, is there not something to be said for witnessing to the seriousness of what is taking place by deciding my godson is not at the point of taking it seriously enough and therefore not attending?
Alternatively put, as godfather, might it be wrong or even sinful for me to be present and witness to my godson that he can act like a Catholic for this ceremony and then go on about his business as a non-practicing Catholic?
Thoughts on any or all of these fronts?
I take a strict line on attending weddings that are presumptively invalid. I never advise people to go to those because of the signal it will send to the participants–and others.
But if the marriage is presumptively valid, I don’t view it that way at all.
Who Else Is “Showing Up”?
After all, if God is willing to show up for the marriage (i.e., make it valid), and if the Church is willing to show up for the marriage (i.e., witness it, which is what the Church does, since the sacrament is performed by the parties themselves), then you should be able to as well.
I understand the distaste of a situation where the person may be celebrating a sacrament in a sacrilegious way (i.e., in a state of mortal sin). But the fact is that the sacrament will still be valid. God will still cause it to come into existence.
Big Trouble!
That’s a good thing because lots and lots of people are not in a state of grace at the time they get married.
That’s been the case since marriage between baptized persons was made a sacrament (and, frankly, it was the case even before marriage could be sacramental).
If not being in a state of grace invalidated marriage then we would be in big trouble.
So God has determined that, though it grieves him the parties are in a state of mortal sin, he is willing to go ahead and make their union a sacrament.
The Church’s Pastoral Judgment
The Church has also judged it pastorally prudent to go ahead and conduct such weddings, perhaps in part because it will help the people in question maintain contact with the Church and, though they aren’t leading a Catholic life now, the fact that the Church was willing ot marry them may help them return to the Catholic ife of faith later.
Marriages, like funerals and baptisms, are one of those moments in a person’s life that get really emotionally charged, and if they get alienated at that moment, it can do enormous–perhaps permanent and fatal–damage to their relationship with Christ’s Church.
As a result, the Church has judged it pastorally prudent to marry such people, even though the situation is not what it should be.
A Godfather’s Role
I would counsel you to do likewise. In other words, if you can reasonably go, go! Particularly in light of the fact you are the gentleman’s godfather. Like the priest or deacon who officiates at the wedding, you are also an official representative of the Church to this young man, and I would show the same attitude that the Church does.
In fact, staying away as a way of making a statement about the young man’s practice of his faith would send a mixed message that could appear to put you in opposition to the Church on this point. As a godfather to this young man, that’s a signal you don’t want to send.
I would also bear in mind that the young man may not be in mortal sin–or at least he may not incur a new mortal sin by getting married this way. If he is like many young people today, he may lack the knowledge needed to realize his situation, and thus one of the needed requirements for a mortal sin may be missing.
Ways to Help?
This is not to say that you might not be able to do things to help the young man.
Depending on your relationship with him (and this is always a judgment call), you might invite him to see this as an opportunity to renew and grow closer to his faith.
You might even mention going to confession before getting married, to make sure he’s right with God before undertaking this sacred step. (Though you might also check first to see if this is covered as part of his marriage prep, in which case you don’t need to bring it up).
If you yourself went to confession before getting married, you might speak of how it meant a lot to you to be able to approach the altar knowing that you were right with God–or whatever you think might best help him.
The Bottom Line
In any event, if you can reasonably go, I would say go–especially in view of the fact that you are his godfather.
If God and the Church are doing their parts to help him have a valid marriage, I think it would be a good idea for his godfather to do so as well, despite the understandable concerns and discomfort about the way the situation appears.
I hope this helps, and I encourage people to keep the young couple–and all in similar situations–in their prayers.
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.
Would you like a book recommendation from the pope?
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:
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:
Drive a car.
Walk across a multi-lane street (can’t see approaching cars or lighted “Walk” signs).
Cook food (e.g., meat) that I would need to see in order to determine whether it is underdone, done, or overdone.
Read anything written on paper (e.g., anything in any book or anything on an individual sheet of paper).
Read anything on a normal computer screen (i.e., one that hasn’t been specially adjusted for my condition).
Read anything at all without significant eye strain.
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).
Use audio or video editing software (making it hard to do my podcast and YouTube videos).
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.
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.
Would you like a book recommendation from the pope?
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:
Is everything in the Bible historical? What do the teachings of Jesus reveal?
Everything in the Bible is historical in the sense that it was written in historical times. The Bible is a small library of literature that was written over the course of about 1,000 years–a period that ended nearly 2,000 years ago. So the biblical books are historical documents in that sense.
But what about the content of the biblical books? If you open up the Bible to a random passage, does that mean what you are reading is automatically history?
An Obvious No
In one sense, the answer is an obvious no. Not all books in Scripture are trying to recount historical events.
The Gospels are. The Acts of the Apostles is. Many books of the Old Testament are. But relating history is not the purpose of other books.
For example: the epistles of St. Paul or the epistles of James, Peter, John, and Jude. These are concerned with building people’s faith, but they aren’t narratives. They don’t tell the story of what happened in a particular period in history the way that Matthew, Acts, or 1 Kings does.
We can learn certain historical facts from them, but these historical items are things mentioned in passing, not the principal purpose of the epistles.
Similarly, in the Old Testament we find books like Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. These also may make passing references that are of value to historians, but they aren’t intended to tell us the story of particular historical periods.
What About Prophecy?
What about the prophetical books? Don’t these tell us about history?
Yes, but they also are not straightforward historical texts.
The book of Revelation contains information about both the beginning and the end of Church history, and so it relates to history in a definite way.
The Old Testament prophetical books contain material that relates to the events of their own day, to times soon after, to the time of Christ, and to the end of the world, so they also relate to history.
But they convey this material in advance and through symbols. That makes them different than straightforward historical records.
The Example of the Gospels
Consider just the Gospels. These books are historical in the sense that they relate what Jesus did during his earthly ministry. But they also contain Jesus’ teachings. While these were given at a certain point in history, they aren’t about history. Jesus was not serving as a history professor. The content of his teachings deal with God and our relationship with him.
Consider in particular Jesus’ parables. These are lessons that communicate theological truths in an allegorical way.
When Jesus says, “A man left on a journey,” or “A sower went out to sow,” or “There was a man who had two sons,” he is not intending to tell us about about particular historical events. It would be a mistake, when told about the man with two sons, to ask, “What were their names?”
Instead, Jesus is using allegory told in the form of a story to reveal a spiritual truth. The parables thus show us something very significant . . .
A Story Is Not Enough
The fact we are reading a story in the Bible does not automatically mean that we are reading history.
Jesus’ parables contain stories with beginnings, middles, and ends, but Jesus is not intending to tell us about a specific historical event that really happened.
That means that when we read a story in the Bible, we must examine it to see whether it is meant to be a historical account or something else. We must look to the cues it gives the audience to signal what kind of account it is.
Taking Your Cues from the Text
It is notable that, in his parables, Jesus almost never names anyone involved in the story. (The only exception is Lazarus in the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man.) Instead, he leaves the principal figures anonymous: a king, a master, a son, a servant.
That is one of the conventions Jesus uses to tell us that what we are reading is a parable rather than a historical narrative. But this is not the only way that the Bible signals something other than history.
Another signal is obvious symbolism. If you open the Bible to certain prophetic passages, you will find passages in describing monsters–dragons, wild beasts that combine the features of different animals, things with many heads.
This kind of obvious symbolism can also serve as an indicator that what you are reading isn’t straightforward history but something else.
Subtler Cases
Jesus’ parables and the prophetic texts are obvious cases that contain cues which even people today, raised in a totally different culture, can pick up on. But there are texts in the Bible that use cues subtle enough that it is easy for people today to miss them.
Consider this: Suppose we took the parable of the Prodigal Son and gave names to the characters. Suppose we added the name of the village where they lived–a real village. Suppose we even said the year in which the events took place (according to the ancient way of reckoning years). What would we make of the story then?
We might well conclude that Jesus was telling us about an actual historical event.
There might be cues in the tales that would signal their allegorical nature, but in the absence of the familiar cues of nameless characters in a nameless place at a nameless time, we might mistake what we were reading for straightforward history.
So here’s something interesting to think about: If, within the Gospels, Jesus told short allegories that could be taken as historical accounts if a few details were supplied, could God inspire an entire book–not just part of a book–that is an allegory? Could he even supply names, dates, and places, trusting the ancient audience to recognize the allegorical nature of the text where we might miss it?
And not just could God do this, but has God done this?
John Paul II was of the opinion that he has.
John Paul II on Allegorical Books of the Bible
He didn’t give an exhaustive list of allegorical books (many would put the book of Job into that category), but in 1985 John Paul II gave a brief review of the books of the Old Testament in which he stated:
The Books of Tobit, Judith, and Esther, although dealing with the history of the Chosen People, have the character of allegorical and moral narrative rather than history properly so called [General Audience, May 8, 1985].
Why would he say this?
Tobit, Judith, and Esther all contain named figures–some of whom are known to history. They mention real places. And they refer to datable events. So why would he say they are allegorical rather than history proper? What cues in the text would reveal that?
In coming posts, we’ll take a look at that, and it will give us a chance to learn some interesting things about the Bible.
In the meantime, though, allow me to mention . . .
Pope Benedict’s Recommended Reading
Would you like a book recommendation from the pope?
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:
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deutonomy: Why the Strange Names?
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
He has interesting things to say on the Book of RevelationI’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.
