March 24, 2004

WALKING THE DOGMA:

Only Fools Bark at Dogma (Patrick O'Hannigan, 03/22/04, Catholic Exchange)

Many freedom-loving Americans are frustrated by Christianity. They stumble over dogma, not because anything in it is provably wrong, but because dogma is the public face of authority, and they do not comprehend the nature and purpose of authoritative teaching — particularly as expressed by the Catholic Church.

Where pious people part company with thoughtful agnostics is not in thinking that truth and virtue sustain each other, but in articulating the implications that flow from that premise. As Thomas Aquinas wrote in answer to the first question of his Summa Theologica, "The entire salvation of man depends upon the knowledge of the truth."

Note the lack of equivocation: this Doctor of the Church has confidence in our ability to comprehend enough of what is true to preserve both sanity and hope.

The Christian understanding of freedom has an equally impressive pedigree. It dates back to Judaism, and the prominent role that free will plays in the Garden of Eden. As Fr. James V. Schall writes: "No faith is worth anything at all if it is not rooted in freedom, freedom not for its own sake — as if there was nothing further than making our own choices — but freedom to seek and live by what is true and what is right."


One of the great tragedies of modernity is that secularists, libertarians, and the rest have become terribly confused and believe freedom to be an end, rather than a means.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 24, 2004 11:34 PM
Comments

http://blog.zmag.org/ttt/ just in case you guys haven't heard Chomsky has his own blog now with a comments section. play nice!!!

Posted by: andy at March 24, 2004 11:53 PM

oj:

While I agree with your editorial comment, freedom also means that it's difficult to get consensus on what the "end" is.

If one is areligious, and believes that this existence is all that there ever will be, then quality of life is maximized by promoting freedom of choice in all areas, and it is thus an "end".

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at March 25, 2004 1:53 AM

Wasn't there some philosopher who judged the chief end of democracy to be freedom, just as the chief end of oligrachy is wealth and the chief end of timocracy honor. What was his name?

Oh yes: I remember.

Socrates.

Posted by: Paul Cella at March 25, 2004 6:53 AM

Michael:

Yes, they don't belong in a society that is religious and striving to be decent.

Posted by: oj at March 25, 2004 8:20 AM

The reason that freedom came to be an "end" and not just a "means" is that too often the religious people couldn't agree to pursue their own ends and leave each other alone. Modernity didn't become secular for no reason. It got that way because a great many people became disillusioned about the "ends" and "means" pursued in the name of religion. It doesn't help your case to ignore that fact.

Posted by: Brandon at March 25, 2004 10:59 AM

Brandon:

Who's ignoring it?

The violence assoiciated with the religious wars for differing ends was still preferable to the quiet death Europeans have chosen now.

Posted by: oj at March 25, 2004 11:04 AM

Presuming the latter is true, one might get some difference of opinion as to whether sectarian slaughter is somehow preferable quiet death.

Posted by: Jeff Guinn at March 25, 2004 12:09 PM

Yes, from secularists, like the Europeans. Better a murderer than a suicide.

Posted by: oj at March 25, 2004 12:18 PM

Ah yes, "the only true freedom is slavery to Jesus Christ."

I have seen that announced as a sermon topic many, many times.

The Catholic Church has been the greatest enemy of freedom the world has seen.

You know the difference between being enslaved by a sanctimonious priest and being enslaved by an atheist?

There isn't one.

Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 25, 2004 1:49 PM

There's a huge one: the priest binds your conscience, allowing freedom to flourish; the atheist requires the state to bind you physically because you have no conscience. and freedom dies.

Posted by: oj at March 25, 2004 4:32 PM

Absent a secular civic power, the priest binds you physically.

Anyhow, as far as I'm concerned, freedom is an end, not a means. You can even find something about that in the NT. "I was freeborn." (Acts 22:28)

Like most of the good ideas in the Bible, it didn't stick.

Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 25, 2004 9:12 PM

Stated in a slightly different way from Orrin: no one has to listen to the priest but everyone has to listen to the state. I voluntarily follow the priest (and of course, what he represents) but only wish I could voluntarily ignore the state.

Posted by: John Barrett Jr. at March 25, 2004 10:14 PM

Harry:

We are freeborn. But we can either submit to God or render a vile society.

Posted by: oj at March 25, 2004 10:54 PM

"Better a murderer than a suicide."

Do you suppose God sees it that way?

Posted by: Jeff Guinn at March 26, 2004 7:39 AM

Jeff:

He's killed millions but never Himself, so one would have to say yes.

Posted by: oj at March 26, 2004 7:56 AM

John, you are correct that today, when the priest is constrained by the civilized parameters of secularism, you have an option (call it freedom) to follow the instructions of the priest or not.

Before secularism, you would not have had that option, and after the demise of secularism, you won't have it any more.

The American state today, at least, is far less instrusive than almost any religiously organized state ever has been. It also no longer lends much of its power to the church to restrain the behavior of unbelievers.

And since everybody is an unbeliever of somebody else's belief, that's a gain for freedom.

Religion is a form of mental slavery and, all too often, physical slavery as well.

If I preached a sermon on the topic, "the only true freedom is slavery to the ACLU," you would sneer.

Yet you don't sneer when a bigot covers the same shameful trick in a cloak of sanctimony.

Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 26, 2004 4:30 PM
« $5 SAYS WHIMPER: | Main | THE BLIND MAN DESCRIBES THE ELEPHANT: »