Questions for Archbishop Chaput based on "Render Unto Caesar"
Now, even as Archbishop Chaput properly suggests that his fellow Catholics "[must] bring to the discussion and debate one's deeply held values and moral convictions," before the Archbishop either explicitly or implicitly suggests that they are, in his words, somehow:
a) "putting aside their deeply held moral and religious beliefs"
b) "muting themselves in public debate on foundational issues of human dignity"
c) "[reducing] faith to private idiosyncrasy, or a set of opinions that we can indulge at home but need to be quiet about in public"
d) "separating [their] private convictions from [their] public actions ... diminishing both"
e) "smothering [their convictions] under a snowfall of alibis" ---
it seems to me that it is incumbent upon him to inquire of this or that fellow Catholic as to exactly what type of assent they have given to this or that moral teaching.
This is to suggest that some Catholics might have, with utmost deference and a most cordial attention, demonstrated a clear willingness to be instructed, and further, that these very same Catholics have, then, with all due reverence, sincerely and obediently adhered to and acknowledged, sometimes with an obsequium religiosum, sometimes with even an obsequium fidei, this or that moral teaching of the Church, even as they have not consciously and deliberately engaged an act of inference in following a logical argument, although, not unreasonably extending such assent to a non-logically proved proposition.
This is also to suggest that other Catholics, with the same deference, attention, willingness, reverence, sincerity, obedience, acknowledgment and obsequium may have assented even though they have indeed engaged an act of inference but, in so doing, could not, with all intellectual honesty, be moved by this or that syllogistic force or concur in this or that logical conclusion, perhaps, in all good faith, not even recognizing certain of the concepts and categories employed in such arguments. This is to suggest that the snowfall of ad hominem characterizations of such loyal Catholics and faithful citizens would melt before it hits the ground, because such rash judgment is one thing that assuredly has no place in our public square.
So, when it comes to moral teachings that are not fully transparent to one's human reasoning, for example, involving the metaphysical distinctions regarding human life and human personhood (and especially as such distinctions might, for many in the political arena, reasonably raise parvity of matter questions that are particularly pertinent when values begin to conflict and compete), to the extent one obeys such teachings out of deference to a teaching authority and not rather as a consequence of reasoning one's way from an is to an ought, how could one then coherently urge such deference (what amounts to an obsequium religiosum or even fidei?) on others in a pluralistic society?
It is not enough to claim that such a teaching authority's moral reasoning is grounded philosophically and is not essentially theological?
That reasoning must also be genuinely compelling (perhaps especially to one's own flock, not to mention to a pluralistic society as a community of value-realizers writ large)?
Metaphysical questions are at stake and metaphysics, by its very nature, is an exploratory and not an explanatory enterprise; it traffics in vague references and not robust descriptions, its language employing more so heuristic and less so theoretic concepts and categories, whereby metaphysics can legitimately probe but not conclusively prove realities. Hence, our deontologies should be considered as tentative as our ontologies are speculative, and urged, therefore, more modestly, which is to say more fallibilistically?
Book Review here:
http://www.geocities.com/rc4o08/abortion_politics.htm
col55, Are you describing
col55,
Are you describing RC4O08, or the bishops, with the term "SUPERFLUOUS VERBOSITY"? I can understand any bishop's writings that I have attempted, but I cannot understand RC4008.
Here's a simpler treatment
Here's a simpler treatment of the same issue, although one must recognize that the problem in our public discourse on very complex moral issues has exactly been oversimplifications (and infantilization of the laity).
Cal Thomas writes: “Is abortion ‘intrinsically evil’ and ‘a non-negotiable issue for Catholics,’ as FCC President Heidi Stirrup asserts? If one is a Catholic and subscribes to the belief that the interpretation of Scripture and moral truth is the responsibility of the pope and the apostolic bishops, then one would have to say, ‘yes;’ and when faith and politics conflict, a politician should be required to choose one or the other. Some Catholic politicians have tried to have it both ways. They have even tried to gain favor among their fellow Catholics by noting their strong opposition to capital punishment, which puts them in an oddly inconsistent position. Such Catholic politicians favor preserving the lives of convicted murderers, but choose to do nothing when they have the power to stop, or at least curtail, the killing of the innocent unborn. While I am not a Catholic, it seems more than inconsistent to take such a position. One chooses one's denomination, just as one chooses one's political affiliation. No one forces another to become a Catholic and no one requires one to become a Democrat, or Republican.�
Summary response: A Catholic may indeed give "practical" assent to church teachings while withholding "intellectual" assent. A Catholic may "defer to" and respect this or that voice of authority while unable to "infer from" this or that teaching. There is nothing inconsistent in withholding "theoretical" acceptance from a teaching while, at the same time, offering one’s "practical" acceptance, loyalty, fidelity, acknowledgment, deference, attention, willingness, teachableness, reverence, sincerity and obedience to a teaching voice. Thus, there is nothing inconsistent in opposing capital punishment but not the morning after pill or embryonic stem cell research. There is nothing inconsistent in assenting to a church moral teaching both theoretically and practically, even, while maintaining that criminalization is impractical or otherwise fails certain criteria of jurisprudence. There is nothing inconsistent in agreeing with an authority regarding various moral realities while disagreeing regarding the various political strategies that will be the most efficacious in the realization of such values.
Thankfully, Catholicism is just a tad more nuanced than Mr. Thomas’ facile caricature admits. In one fell swoop of a hypothetical, he oversimplifies the interface between politics and a multifaceted, richly-textured, two-thousand year old religious tradition. He’s not alone, of course, and hardly to blame, for enough fundamentalistic Catholics do the very same thing.
Catholicism draws distinctions between different types of revelation (e.g. General and Special) and recognizes different types of witnesses to revelation (e.g. Scripture, Tradition, Magisterium, Sensus Fidelium, Theologians, Reason, Experience). Each witness to revelation can speak in several voices (e.g. literary-historical, canonical, magisterial, spiritual, experiential, existential) to different realities (e.g. literal, historical, moral, creedal, anagogical) and can address different types of audiences (e.g. the Church, the Modern World, the Faithful, the Public Square), sometimes separately and at other times combined. Each voice commands a different response (e.g. due respect, willing compliance, unqualified theoretical and/or practical acceptance, assent, obsequium) from each different audience.
Responses to propositions can be formal and/or informal, for example, derived from natural law and syllogistic logic or grounded, rather, in relational dynamics, such as appeals to authority and/or tradition. If informal, one might, for example, “assent to� a proposition, practically accepting it. If informal, one might, in that case, “infer from� a proposition and thus give one’s theoretical assent.
The concepts of assent and obsequium evoke manifold relational responses like theoretical acceptance, practical acceptance, loyalty, fidelity, acknowledgment, deference, attention, willingness, teachableness, reverence, sincerity, obedience, going beyond the merely propositional to the object, which is Truth. Contrastingly, an inference is a proposition that is intrinsically dependent on other propositions, where the object of inference is truth-like and ultimately syllogistic.
Propositions, themselves, may be creedal or moral, for example, as distinguished from the practical or legal, and even further distinguished, for example, from the jurisprudential, or even the political. One may dissent from a proposition, of course, responsibly or irresponsibly, and in a manner that is orthodox or heterodox. If heterodox, depending on the proposition and whether one’s response is theoretical and/or practical, for example, one may even excommunicate oneself, but does not cease being a Catholic (for example, with such obligations as mass attendance and such privileges as the Sacrament of Reconciliation, with limitations; one loses rights, but not obligations, of the law). Finally, there is the distinction between human life and human personhood, which, for all “practical� purposes, the Church does not recognize, but which, obviously, many other people of large intelligence and profound goodwill do recognize, both theoretically and practically, the moral status of the embryo apparently increasing as gestation advances, for many of these people (e.g. as can be discerned from their stances toward abortifacient birth control or embryonic stem cell research as contrasted with their objections to the abortion of sentient or sapient human life). Many find such distinctions either morally repugnant vis a vis their moral sensibilities or, at least, a very slippery slope to climb on vis a vis ethical formulations.
Made aware of these distinctions, perhaps Mr. Thomas can see the silliness of his syllogism? Primarily, a Catholic may indeed give practical assent to church teachings while withholding intellectual assent. A Catholic may "defer to" and respect this or that voice of authority while unable to "infer from" this or that teaching. There is nothing inconsistent in withholding theoretical acceptance from a teaching while, at the same time, offering one’s practical acceptance, loyalty, fidelity, acknowledgment, deference, attention, willingness, teachableness, reverence, sincerity and obedience to a teaching voice. There is nothing inconsistent in opposing capital punishment but not the morning after pill or embryonic stem cell research. There is nothing inconsistent in assenting to a church moral teaching both theoretically and practically, even, while maintaining that criminalization is impractical or otherwise fails certain criteria of jurisprudence. There is nothing inconsistent in agreeing with an authority regarding various moral realities while disagreeing regarding the various political strategies that will be the most efficacious in the realization of such values.
At great variance from Mr. Thomas’ facile caricature, Catholicism does not so narrowly conceive the sources of revelation, witnesses to revelation, voices of witnesses and their audiences and responses. Finally, under no circumstances does the Catholic Church make one choose between one’s faith and one’s politics inasmuch as one’s Catholicism is indelibly marked at Baptism.
What would be inconsistent is to give intellectual assent to one position vis a vis the primacy of one’s own conscience and to go into the Public Square and articulate yet another, which one has otherwise only assented to practically and out of loyalty, fidelity and reverence, stances which, as would be expected, would necessarily lose their normative impetus in the interreligious, much less, secular arena, which is indeed looking for a formal argument with significant syllogistic force (which is to recognize, perhaps, that "The Pope said it." just won't cut it in the Public Square, much less the argument that "it is the Catholic Church's constant tradition.")
I can catch a meaning every
I can catch a meaning every now and then - but most of your words fly right by me. Can you rephrase your post in a few really simple sentences, for really simple people to understand?
Thanks,
Thomas
Exactly. If our culture
Exactly.
If our culture were not pluralistic, it is doubtful that the bishop would have the freedom to cast such aspersions upon his fellow-Catholics.
This post is a very good
This post is a very good example of one of the primary problems that is a blight, a plague of biblical proportions that has infested our leadership:
SUPERFLUOUS VERBOSITY
In other words, there is a lot of rhetoric, but it almost all unintelligible, and for the most part empty and meaningless. Superfluous verbosity has one and only one function - to confuse those it is written to, and to artificially elevate the egos of those doing the writing. (perhaps two)
I propose that if the Holy Spirit was truly guiding Chaput and the others of the Bishopric, the writings and speeches would be written in a manner that the laity, ALL of the laity could easily understand. The fact that they are not, is proof that the source of these "materials" is indeed NOT the Holy Spirit, but IS the personal ego of those who are writing them.