Computers Can Do That?

So asked Homer Simpson. I'm wondering if this doesn't prove more (and less) than the article is admitting. In other words does it only (apparently) prove the existence of a "Necessary Being" which is only the first of several logical steps on the road to finding the Father of Jesus and us all?

Scientists Use Computer to Mathematically Prove Gödel God Theorem - SPIEGEL ONLINE.

(Via Reddit Catholicism.)

Theology Properly Taught

This is how to teach the Summa to high schoolers:

Batman v. Superman: Helping High Schoolers Understand the Summa

In the Church History Class I teach, we have finally arrived at the Scholastic period. I simply did not want to gloss over the scholastics without having my students at least try and read St. Thomas Aquinas (we were going to look at the existence of God questions, primarily Book 1, Question 2, Article 3); yet, I was wrestling for a way to try explain Thomas, the scholastic method in a way that they would understand -- I mean an argument free from most technical terms for which the average high school Senior would be familiar.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Catholic And Enjoying It.)

Expert Opinion

is something we all have recourse to. To avoid falling into the "Appeal to Authority" fallacy in logic there are things we must be sure of before we rely on an "expert". What are his Qualifications? Are they current? Are they relevant to the topic under discussion? Does this opinion represent a consensus or is it a minority opinion or even a lonely dissent?

Ok, I like Mark's way of putting better:

Train Wreck Imminent:

Suppose an expert weightlifter were to be given an entire series by the BBC in which he is allowed to hold forth on US Middle East policy, the gold standard, and plumbing techniques in New Zealand. You might ask, "How does expertise in weightlifting qualify this guy to pontificate on these things?" and you'd be right.

But nobody asks why expertise in a rarified branch of physics qualifies Stephen Hawking to pontificate on philosophy and metaphysics. Instead, the theological and philosophical illiterates running the Beeb in the Country that Used to Be England simply assume that a technician will have profound things to say, despite the massive and growing pile of evidence that the man has no idea what he is talking about when he blathers about these things that are clearly outside he field of competence.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)

A Little Exercise for the Grey Cells

can be found here:

The Collection of Atoms Called "Mike Flynn"...:

replies to the collection of atoms designated "Sam Harris" and tries to persuade him to stop babbling nonsense.

Someday I hope Flynn gives up this nonsense of writing award winning fiction and publishing one great novel after another and finds his true calling: explaining Thomistic philosophy to materialist New Atheist dunderheads.

Also, how can I ever publish fiction when anything I even dream of attempting pales next to his work? It's intimidating, dammit!

Read the whole thing.

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)

Just A Brief Rant

about Catholic Update, a publication I loved to hate during my RCIA days: Bland, confusing, uninformed, uninspiring. Ok, rant over:

God is other, people:

My award for "Worst Theological Point Inspired by Earth Day" goes to the following e-card from St. Anthony Messenger Press:

Holy people
such as Sts. Francis and Clare
remind us that
we are not separate
from the natural world
but part of it
in one sacred earth community.

Catholic Update

This one is a close second.

More Earth Day-themed greetings can be found here.

(Via Ten Reasons.)

Climategate

may be getting some uncomfortable exposure over the pond. I'm still agnostic. But the behaviour attributed to some of these scientists seems completely normal given Original Sin.

Opening Night Reviews in the UK Press:

Richard Drake sent in an interesting selection of opening night reviews for the Parliamentary Inquiry from UK parliamentary reporters, most of whom seem to be new to the climate wars and offering a relatively fresh perspective.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Climate Audit.)

Natural Theology

is a branch of philosophy. It's heartening to see it being promoted this way:

All the Evidence for God. An Inquiry:

Ruini outlined three ways of access to God, three proofs of his existence, not theological but rational, and therefore able to be presented to all, not only to believers.

The first way departs from the evident fact "that there is something rather than nothing." The second moves from the observation that the universe can be known by man. The third is based on man's experience of a moral law within himself.

Read the whole thing.

(Via New Advent World Watch.)

Eccentricity

is in the eye of the beholder. There has been a little sensitivity in the Catholic Blogosphere over the Archbishop of Canterbury describing the Pope's theology as eccentric. I'm not as riled as some over the Dr. Williams comments. He seems irrelevant to Catholicism for the most part. But some of the reactions do raise a smile:

Catholic Culture : Commentary: Off the Record:

The Archbishop of Canterbury is annoyed with England's Labor government, and particularly with the way the government treats religions: as if "it's an eccentricity, it's practised by oddities, foreigners and minorities."

Read the whole thing.

(Via Catholic World News.)

More LIght, Less Heat Please

The relatively abysmal state of Catholic education and literacy is making for a lot more heat and very little light when Church teaching on moral principles is concerned. For example, the phoney war Rep. Kennedy has been waging on the Catholic Church for his own political advantage has been illustrative of this problem. Bishop Tobin has been exceptional amongst his brother bishops in that he has not let the calculated ignorance of the scion of the Kennedy clan to go unremarked. He has been temperate and reasonable in his dealings with the CINO politiican. The resulting circus of condemnations from the ignoranti who were, no doubt, educated in the "Spirit of Vatican II" and little else, has been proof positive that the revolution in catechesis since the Second Vatican Council has been a spectacular failure. Could this be one of the most illiterate Catholic generations ever?

So here is a little light to dispel the darkness:

Abortion, Capital Punishment, and War — One of These Things is Not Like the Other:

Ed Stoddard of Reuters’ religion blog Faithworld carries a roundup of the skirmish between Congressman Patrick Kennedy, the son of the late Senator Edward Kennedy, has claimed that Rhode Island Bishop Thomas Tobin.

Read the whole thing.

(Via First Thoughts.)

Atheism

is apparently suffering from a serious brain drain of late. Professor Richard Dawkins, a leading biologist, periodically wades into philosophy, theology and history in order to confirm this thesis:

Oh my, I do love the cool, calm, and rational thinking...:

Mercy! The man is a wit wrapped in a genius outfit, swaddled in sassy, deep-fried in searing sarcasm, and smothered in spicy polemics. Throw in a 20 oz. lemonade and a Charles Darwin action figure and you have a super-duper Man of Science value meal that kids ages 6 to 12 can enjoy—well, at least until they throw up and grow up.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog.)

The Spirit of Vatican II

Catholics now have a spokesperson. And the choice is revealing on so many levels:

Jesuit: Obama is "the most effective spokesperson" for "the spirit of Vatican II":

John W. O'Malley, S.J., a professor in the theology department at Georgetown University and author of What Happened at Vatican II (Contiinuum, 2007), is so impressed by President Obama's style and rhetorical skills, he appears to have nominated him, in the pages of America, for the position of Pope of the American Catholic Church:

Read the whole thing.

(Via Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog.)

More Torture

I've tried wading into some of the discussion about Torture, primarily in Catholic Blogs where the argument has raged. There are questions to be answered: Does the Church teach that torture is intrinsically evil? Seemingly yes, from Veritatis Splendor, which, in turn, cites Gaudiam et Spes.

What does the Church mean by torture (or torments)? Is there a reasonably clear line that helps us decide what treatments to condemn and which to tolerate? The answer seems to be no.

My intuition remains that water-boarding is a form of torture and therefore to be rejected. But how the relatively recent movement of the Magisterium to reject torture helps in specific cases isn't at all clear to me. So in the process of trying to digest the various arguments here is another take on the problem:

Disproportionate infliction of pain:

In a discussion on a Catholic and Enjoying It! post on the ongoing defense of the Bush Administration's policy of torturing prisoners, I was invited to address the position staked out by Jimmy Akin in a series of posts back in 2006.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Disputations.)

Just To Muddy the Waters a Bit

Here is a more specifically theological look at the nature of intrinsic evil and how that might apply to torture:

JIMMY AKIN.ORG: Intrinsic Evil:

According to CCC 1755, "A morally good act requires the goodness of the object, of the end, and of the circumstances together." If any of these three is lacking, the act will be evil.

Read the whole thing.

(Via JImmy Akin.org.)

It's Good For You

I'm currently nursing a stubborn cold. But once I'm feeling better, I'll quaff a pint of Baron in honour of God's love for us*:

RE: BEER [Kevin Miller]

10/16/2008

And it's not only good for the body, but also good for the soul.

E-Mail Author

Via Heart, Mind & Strength.

*"Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

Benjamin Franklin

InsideCatholic.com - The Joy of Sloth

I'd comment more extensively on this, but it's too much like work:

InsideCatholic.com - The Joy of Sloth: "Two weeks ago, I promised to lay out for you, one week at a time, the 'seven key areas of life where Jesus ruins our fun.' By this I mean the categories of normal human experience that make up the bulk of our lives -- where our instincts, habits, and egos have patched together perfectly serviceable habits of schlepping through, day to day. We'd just as soon our coping strategies weren't disrupted by some fish-multiplying wonder-working God-Man who speaks in riddles. But hey, thanks for thinking of us . . ."

Read the rest...

(Via InsideCathollic.)

In the Interim

while I'm polishing up a statement of core principles for our new political party here in Canada, here's part three of Steven Greydanus' series on voting down south:

Elections, Voting and Morality, Part 3: "

Continued from Part 1 | Part 2

SDG here (not Jimmy).

John McCain supports embryonic stem-cell research.

Although his support appears to be somewhat qualified and conflicted, and there are signs that he may be moving away from supporting ESCR, his history of consistent support for an intrinsic evil remains a grave concern in his candidacy.

No, I won't paper it over with a euphemism. In my last post I argued that 'A candidate who advocates legalized abortion, euthanasia, ESCR or human cloning gravely disqualifies himself for public service, not just for what he or she may do but for what he or she stands for.' By that standard, McCain gravely disqualifies himself for public service on at least one of those four counts.

That Obama gravely disqualifies himself on all four of those four counts certainly makes McCain the less problematic and thus preferable candidate. In my next post I hope to deal with the ethics of voting for the least problematic viable candidate, which is, I contend, always permissible. For now, I want to focus a bit more on potential consequences of a McCain-Palin administration vs. an Obama-Biden administration.

As I've said, I'm deeply skeptical of all four candidates, and uneasy about all possible outcomes. I have no strong feelings regarding which side is better equipped to lead on the economy, health care and other crucial issues.

I do suspect that McCain is better equipped than Obama to lead on foreign policy. That's not necessarily what they're calling a game-changer, though, since (a) I could be wrong (I am a political knucklehead) and (b) it is not wildly unlikely that McCain's health could impair his ability to serve.

McCain's temperament is a legitimate subject of concern. His penchant for fast and risky decisions can make him look decisive and knowledgeable and bold, as when he responded to the conflict in Chechnya; but it can also lead to mistakes.

Obama is clearly smart. Any questions I had on that front were settled on Friday night. He's also articulate and charismatic, a combination we haven't seen in a presidential race since Clinton, and before that since Reagan. (In terms of articulateness and charisma, I mean; I'm not putting Reagan in Clinton's or Obama's league intellectually.)

Obama is also inexperienced. I suspect that's not as big a deal as some might think. It may be embarrassing for a candidate to suggest that Iraq is not a serious threat, or that Chavez came to power during the Bush administration rather than the Clinton administration, or that unconditional presidential-level meetings with rogue dictators is a good idea; but hey, your advisors clue you in and you move on. I'm sure Palin would be making some of these gaffes if she were on the grid as much as Obama. The 'It's all about judgment' line is neither the whole truth nor completely wrong.

Here is something that is a game-changer for me.

Among serious concerns in our society today are power grabs by different elements within government. Several concerns in this regard have been raised in recent years regarding the executive branch, most recently in connection with the bailout effort.

Arguably the most sustained, influential and successful power grabs in recent U.S. history, as far as I can tell, is that of the judiciary.

The judicial system seems to me to concentrate a great deal of power, particularly at the top, in the hands of a small number of people who are unelected and unaccountable, who can hold their positions essentially for life and whose decisions have far more lasting impact than that of many public officials. Subsequent justices are expected, on principle, to respect previous verdicts in a way that other officials are not. There is no stare decisis for presidential executive orders, for instance.

As far as I know, recourse for abuses of power at this level, or for addressing flaws in the system in any way, are dauntingly remote. Practically speaking, about the only readily available course of action I know of is to promote judicial self-restraint over judicial activism by nominating candidates who espouse judicial restraint, i.e., originalism or strict constructionism. This is a very limited and problematic approach, but I don't see that there is any other immediately available option.

So much is this the case that a president's Supreme Court nominations may well be his most far-reaching act in office. What did Gerald Ford do in office that had rivaled the long-term impact of nominating John Paul Stevens?

The issue is especially crucial because the judiciary has been instrumental in subverting both the judicial and the democratic process in imposing the fiction of an anti-life 'right to choose.' Other grave evils highly damaging to society, such as same-sex 'marriage,' are highly likely to be imposed by judicial fiat given a judiciary with sufficient political will and lack of self-restraint.

In general, left-leaning Democratic presidents reliably nominate candidates for the Supreme Court who are reliably evil-activist. The record of right-leaning Republican presidents and the nominees thereof is, unfortunately, more mixed. We do seem to have gone three for three now, and the one before that was a seemingly unavoidable wild card. There almost seems to be a kind of corrupting influence inside the Beltway that sucks justices to the dark side. We can only do what we can do.

McCain has taken a lot of flak from conservatives for his leading role in the 'Gang of 14.' This is a complex issue and I'm not sure what I think about it. I'm not sure nuking the filibuster would have been the best outcome. And it does seem that some of Bush's lower-court nominees can reasonably be accused of conservative activism no less blatant than that of many liberal activist judges.

I oppose judicial activism in principle, not just based on of how it is used. I don't want activist conservative judges any more than activist liberal ones. I want judges who know their job description, who stick to interpreting the law and leave emanations and penumbras to the psychic readers. Give me nine liberal Supreme Court justices who support abortion rights, same-sex marriage, euthanasia and so on, but who also know how to read the words on the page, and who believe that these rights should be advanced by the legislative and democratic process rather than by judicial fiat, and I'll be happy.

Certainly McCain says just exactly the right things about what kind of justices he likes and what kind of nominees he would put forward. Better still, I think McCain probably gets the principle of judicial restraint vs. activism better than Bush, who I think was more likely to go on personal trust rather than qualifications (Harriet Myers anyone?).

So I find this comparatively reassuring, though it's impossible to be entirely reassured. Knowing how much McCain loves to reach across the aisle, etc., who knows what the heck he'll actually do in office? And that's prescinding from the potential disparity between how candidates may say they'll judge and what they actually do on the bench.

On the other hand, I have absolutely no doubts what kind of candidates Obama will put forward, and get, and what kind of verdicts we will get from them.

This is the single most important issue that I think can be most confidently held in advance to represent a clear difference in outcomes based on who wins the election. It is a decisive issue for me, if not the decisive issue. I don't quite want to reduce it to 'It's The Supreme Court, Stupid,' but that wouldn't be wholly wrong either. At any rate, along with the substantial differences between the candidates on the life issues, it is a decisive reason for rejecting Obama and for regarding McCain as preferable candidate.

But what about the claim that we can't or shouldn't support a candidate who supports any intrinsic evil, even if the other candidate is worse on every fundamental issue? That will be the subject of my next post.

Continued from Part 1 | Part 2

"

(Via JIMMY AKIN.ORG.)

Voting, Part Two

Here's Steven Greydanus' follow-up on voting for viable lesser evils:

Elections, Voting and Morality, Part 2: "

Continued from Part 1

SDG here (not Jimmy).

In my previous post I said 'There are good reasons not to be thrilled with either of the two major candidates.' I want to reiterate that. I don't see the election this year as a holy crusade of Good Guys Against Bad Guys.

Specifically, I don't see any Good Guys in this race, or even among the also-rans of the primaries. I'm skeptical of all the candidates — and of the judgment of anyone who isn't. At this point, I believe any sensible person ought to be profoundly uneasy about all possible outcomes. I don't begin to understand the much-mocked quasi-messianic euphoria on the one side, and on the other side, despite some energizing of the base after the VP pick, there is still plenty of room for misgivings.

The story of the hour, of course, is the historic financial crisis and the federal takeover of Fannie and Freddie. Fingers are pointing in all directions. Proposed narratives that lay all the blame on a single doorstep — the Administration or the GOP generally, the Congress or the Dems generally, Wall Street — strike me as dubious. Narratives that blame the abuse of money and power by all of the above, not necessarily in equal degree, seem much more plausible. I won't muddy the waters with whatever ignorant notions I might have about how much guilt to assign where.

More to the point, it seems likely to me that there is no persuasive sense that either ticket necessarily represents the obviously right team to deal with the crisis. Any effort to cast the financial crisis as an obviously compelling reason to vote one way or the other would seem to suggest either extraordinary insight or else conjectural special pleading. Until I have reason to believe otherwise, my money (whatever that turns out to be worth next week) will be on the latter.

There are undoubtedly serious issues to be explored (and obfuscated) here. How much power does the executive branch actually need here? How much will they get? How may it be used or misused? How badly and unnecessarily may taxpayers be shafted, and what if anything can or will be done to minimize this? How egregiously have the rich and powerful abused their influence to their own advantage over the years, and what if anything can or will be done about that?

These are complex questions, and Catholic teaching, rooted in divine revelation, emphasizes that the enormity of the perennial abuse of the poor by the rich. There is also a long, sad track record suggesting that the practical answers are unlikely to approximate justice to any great extent. Rail against this by all means. Just don't suppose that either ticket represents the white hats here to save us.

Other important problems loom. Ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq pose serious issues. Was it right to go to Iraq in the first place? How much unnecessary harm has been caused by bad or wrong decisions, including treatment of prisoners? What is the best course of action now? What approach to health care is best? How can we best care for the environment? What about other conflicts and crises around the globe? What about energy? And so on, and on.

With all these legitimate and pressing concerns, it may be understandable that some may look with fatigue at seemingly long-unchanging battle lines between well-entrenched sides in an issue like abortion, where too often candidates and politicians have offered lip service rather than leadership, and conclude that, in the absence of real hope for change on this subject, the political contest ought to be about other things.

After all — the style of thinking goes — has any pro-life candidate of either party at any level of government ever made enough of a difference on abortion to warrant hope that the outcome of this election might matter too? In this presidential election, how much will it really matter with regard to the unborn which party takes the White House? What about the argument of Catholics like Douglas Kmiec and Morning's Minion who suggest that Obama's overall agenda is either unlikely to affect abortion numbers, or might even help reduce abortion rates more than any pro-life action from McCain?

This style of thinking is understandable. It is also, I submit, fundamentally flawed and contrary to authentic Catholic principles.

Let's review some basic considerations.

We all know that in Catholic moral and social thinking not all moral issues are of equal weight, nor do all involve moral absolutes. For example, in an oft-quoted passage from his 2004 memo to Cardinal McCarrick, then-Cardinal Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, contrasted the grave and intrinsic evils of abortion and euthanasia with the less black-and-white issues surrounding capital punishment and waging war:

Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not, however, with regard to abortion and euthanasia.

In this passage Ratzinger is addressing moral principles in the context of worthiness to receive communion, and while he excludes the possibility of a diversity of opinion on the morality of abortion and euthanasia, he does not specifically address the question of support for or opposition to laws legitimizing or proscribing abortion and euthanasia.

However, in his landmark encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), which develops the ideas of the 'culture of life' and the 'culture of death,' Pope John Paul II argues that the right to life is 'the fundamental right and source of all other rights,' and that the 'first and most immediate application' of the connection between civil law and moral law absolutely excludes 'laws which legitimize the direct killing of innocent human beings through abortion or euthanasia':

Now the first and most immediate application of this teaching concerns a human law which disregards the fundamental right and source of all other rights which is the right to life, a right belonging to every individual. Consequently, laws which legitimize the direct killing of innocent human beings through abortion or euthanasia are in complete opposition to the inviolable right to life proper to every individual … In this way the State contributes to lessening respect for life and opens the door to ways of acting which are destructive of trust in relations between people. Laws which authorize and promote abortion and euthanasia are therefore radically opposed not only to the good of the individual but also to the common good; as such they are completely lacking in authentic juridical validity. (EV 72)

Because the right to life is the ground of all other rights, efforts to seek or pursue the 'common good' while denying or undermining the right to life are fundamentally fraudulent:

It is impossible to further the common good without acknowledging and defending the right to life, upon which all the other inalienable rights of individuals are founded and from which they develop. A society lacks solid foundations when, on the one hand, it asserts values such as the dignity of the person, justice and peace, but then, on the other hand, radically acts to the contrary by allowing or tolerating a variety of ways in which human life is devalued and violated, especially where it is weak or marginalized. Only respect for life can be the foundation and guarantee of the most precious and essential goods of society, such as democracy and peace. (EV 101)

Again, from John Paul II's Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici (The Lay Faithful):

The inviolability of the person which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, finds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights — for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture — is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination. (CL 38)

The US bishops pastoral statement Faithful Citizenship concurs:

There are some things we must never do, as individuals or as a society … A prime example is the intentional taking of innocent human life, as in abortion and euthanasia. In our nation, 'abortion and euthanasia have become preeminent threats to human dignity because they directly attack life itself, the most fundamental human good and the condition for all others' (Living the Gospel of Life, no. 5). It is a mistake with grave consequences to treat the destruction of innocent human life merely as a matter of individual choice. A legal system that violates the basic right to life on the grounds of choice is fundamentally flawed. (FC 22)

Faithful Citizenship concludes: 'The direct and intentional destruction of human life from the moment of conception until natural death is always wrong and is not just one issue among many. It must always be opposed' (FC 28).

It is not enough, then, to hold that abortion and euthanasia are intrinsic evils. Catholics must also regard laws legitimizing them as intrinsic evils antithetical to the foundational principles of civil society and law. A culture in which intrinsically evil acts attacking life itself are claimed as basic human freedoms — a legal system in which such acts are protected (and even funded) as basic human rights — is corrupted and poisoned at the very root. It is a society 'without foundations,' a house built on sand. Such a society can only represent a culture of death.

This is the crucial flaw in Kmiec's approach. Here is Kmiec's pitch:

Obama does not advocate the reversal of Roe vs. Wade, and orthodox Catholics do. We do for the very clear reason given by [Cardinal Francis] George in a Sept. 2 letter — namely, 'one cannot favor the legal status quo on abortion and also be working for the common good.'

That's exactly right, but what's wrong is for Republican partisans to claim this to be Obama's position. It's not. Rather, Obama believes there are alternative ways to promote the 'culture of life,' even given the law's sanction of abortion. …

Both reasonable extrapolations from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics and a recent Catholic in Alliance for the Common Good study find that improving the economic well-being of the average family in general, and of the women facing the abortion decision in particular, can save unborn lives.

In these brief sentences, Kmiec radically distorts both Obama's agenda and Catholic teaching. Technically, it is true that Obama does not merely 'favor the legal status quo on abortion.' Rather, he is firmly committed to further solidifying and advancing the legal status of abortion by signing the Freedom of Choice Act, which would apparently eradicate various limitations on abortion allowed by post-Roe Supreme Court decisions. He would also expand public funding for abortion (e.g., rescinding the Mexico City policy), and would surely seek to liberalize access to abortion in other ways.

More fundamentally, though, talk of 'alternative ways to promote the 'culture of life'' while actively promoting abortion is rank contradiction. It is not enough merely 'not to favor the legal status quo on abortion.' As John Paul II wrote, 'It is impossible to further the common good without acknowledging and defending the right to life.' Kmiec's argument seems downright disingenuous.

Even on a pragmatic level, the calculus of concluding that this pro-abortion candidate's overall agenda might possibly impact abortion numbers more positively than that anti-abortion candidate's overall agenda is dubious enough. Admittedly, if it were really true, and known to be true, it might be considered a knotty issue. Certainly the sheer scale of abortion numbers — millions of guiltless human lives legally snuffed out every year — dwarfs the enormity of other even other per se equally grave issues like euthanasia and ESCR, as well as serious issues of non-intrinsic evil such as the death penalty and the war in Iraq. Anything that reduces the incidence of abortion is obviously to that extent a good thing.

However, in the first place, the argument assumes what is at best unknowable, if not outright dubious. Who really knows what will happen to the abortion rate in the next four or eight years even regardless which party is in office, or what effect any particular administration's policies will or won't have on it? If we can't even say for sure why abortion rates have behaved as they have in the recent past, how can we claim to plot varying trajectories going into the future? If it's all about actual outcomes, who knows how a candidate's stated agenda will affect his performance in office — or how successful he will be at implementing his agenda?

It may be true, as Kmiec argues, that 'improving the economic well-being of the average family in general, and of the women facing the abortion decision in particular, can save unborn lives.' Of course, it's also true that the 'economic well-being of the average family in general' rests at least significantly on factors beyond any president's control, even assuming that Obama would pursue the right policies successfully while McCain would not.

More pointedly, actions like rescinding the Mexico City policy (which Obama would certainly do) and signing the Freedom of Choice Act (which he is determined to do, and which he may well have at least as much chance of succeeding at doing as 'improving the economic well-being of the average family in general') would cost unborn lives. How exactly does Kmiec's calculus account for that?

In the end, though, what makes Kmiec's reasoning not just dubious but finally indefensible is that the root issue is not merely numbers, but the radical corruption of the first principle of justice in law. Even if, theoretically, a pro-choice candidate's agenda were to reduce the incidence of abortion, it would be gains built on sand as long as the law continues to call evil good and good evil. It is the first and most fundamental responsibility of civil society to safeguard the right to life of every member of the community. The law must recognize this first and most fundamental duty before it can begin to fulfill it.

In our society today, the juridical fiat, functioning as law, that the right to end innocent human life is guaranteed in our nation's foundational legal document subverts the whole basis of civil law and jurisprudence more critically than any other injustice we face. This is not to elevate abortion above other life issues in terms of moral gravity; it's just that we are not (yet) burdened by a Supreme Court decision positing iron-clad constitutional warrant for, say, the right to 'die with dignity.' In American rule of law as we know it today, the fiction of the 'right to choose' is the knife in the heart of justice. Or the scissors in the back of the skull.

Just as the culture of death is not simply a matter of numbers, it is also not simply a matter of existing pro-abortion legislation and jurisprudence. Political advocacy from candidates and politicians militating against the right to life, including advocacy of abortion, euthanasia, ESCR and therapeutic cloning, is also a taproot of the culture of death. Above and beyond the policies they implement, simply by espousing abortion and euthanasia as 'rights' — by defining freedom in the public square in terms of 'freedom' to end human life — candidates and politicians actively foster and advance the culture of death. Such advocacy is to political life what pro-abortion legislation and jurisprudence is in the legal sphere — a cancer at the root.

For reasons to be discussed later, we can't write in stone that a politician who advocates an intrinsically immoral policy, even legalized abortion, must always be opposed by all Catholics. (If nothing else, I will argue that a pro-choice politician may always legitimately be supported over a more pro-choice politician, even if in particular cases other courses of action may be judged preferable. A less cancerous root is preferable to a more cancerous one.)

However, one cannot glibly reason that abortion numbers are likely to be unchanged or even improved by a candidate's overall agenda, and so his pro-abortion advocacy doesn't matter. It matters gravely. It is worse than having a hate-spewing racist or a pornographer in office. It is poisonous. A candidate who advocates legalized abortion, euthanasia, ESCR or human cloning gravely disqualifies himself for public service, not just for what he or she may do but for what he or she stands for.

Thus the Vatican's Archbishop Raymond Burke, recently named Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura (roughly the Vatican equivalent of the Supreme Court's Chief Justice):

We cannot accept for ourselves a political leadership which does not safeguard the inviolable dignity of human life. Are there other issues? Of course there are, but the primary issue has to be the question of human life.

Does this mean that we should settle for lip service? Is it enough that candidates tell us what we want to hear once every four years and then go their merry way till the next election? For that matter, doesn't McCain support ESCR?

No, we shouldn't, and no, it isn't, and yes, he does, or at least he has, though with qualifications, and there are signs that McCain may be shifting on ESCR (again, more later). I'm not now making the case for McCain, but the case against Obama (or any candidate with an Obama-like agenda). It is enough for now to note that while McCain's qualified support of ESCR is a serious strike against him, Obama's unqualified support is even more serious. On every issue touching directly on the most fundamental right and the source of all other rights, Obama's stance is diametrically opposed to the foundations of the culture of life.

Very simply, Obama is the candidate of the culture of death. He's probably the purest culture-of-death presidential candidate in American history.

Does that mean Catholics can or should support McCain simply because he's not Obama? For now, let's just say: It's a start. I have more to say about this,' and will continue when I can.

"

(Via JIMMY AKIN.ORG.)

All Catholicism is Divided into Three Parts...

(A take-off on Caesar's Gallic Wars.) I've been following the American Presidential election cycle with considerable interest since the beginning of this year. But I've refrained from commenting because it doesn't feel right for a Canadian to pontificate on American political affairs. But some issues that have come up have application to our own situation here.

There has been a raging debate, some of which has spilled into the blogosphere, about how Catholic doctrine and sound reasoning apply to the election. There are among that minority of Catholics (those for whom conforming their thinking and action to that of the Church is a public duty) three basic divisions: Pro-Obama, Pro-McCain and Pro-Anybody Else. The first position is taken by Professor Kmiec and I will treat it as unreasonable and leave interested readers to investigate it for themselves. The next, perhaps the majority of this minority, argues that a vote for McCain/Palin is morally defensible and best in the circumstances. The last party is best represented by Mark Shea, though several other Catholic bloggers have expressed similar thoughts: both major candidates are morally objectionable and one must vote for some other, third-party candidate, even with no hope of defeating the first two. Steven Greydanus is attempting to engage these last two positions and his argument may have some bearing on our situation here in Canada, where viability of candidates is a tricker thing to assess:

Elections, Voting and Morality, Part 1: "

SDG here (not Jimmy).

In this election season, questions about voting and morality are naturally under discussion in the Catholic blogosphere and the larger Catholic world. At times, the range of possible answers being proposed and discussed has included some dubious opinions and claims.

There are good reasons not to be thrilled with either of the two major candidates, and it's not surprising that some thoughtful and serious Catholics and others may choose not to vote at all, or to vote for some quixotic third-party candidate as a form of protest against the major candidates.

More surprisingly, some serious Catholics have seemed at times to incline toward the view that, although one of the two major candidates is far less problematic than the other, even the less problematic candidate is still problematic enough to make supporting or voting for either of the two major candidates not only not obligatory, but actually objectively wrong. Rarefied theories regarding the purpose and moral significance of voting have been floated that seem hard to reconcile with Catholic teaching.

Even more surprisingly, some serious Catholics have actually gone so far as to argue that the preferable candidate is one whose agenda is about as radically opposed as it is possible to be to Catholic teaching on fundamental moral issues (including abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, therapeutic cloning and same-sex marriage) rather than his opponent whose views are much more convergent with Catholic teaching on most, if not all, of those issues. (More on this later.)

This last view has become most widely associated with Douglas Kmiec, Professor of Constitutional Law at Pepperdine University's School of Law and former Dean and St. Thomas More Professor of Catholic University's law school. After working with fellow Catholic scholar Mary Ann Glendon on Mitt Romney's presidential bid, Kmiec stunned American Catholics by endorsing Barack Obama for president.

While acknowledging that McCain's opposition to abortion is consonant with Catholic teaching while Obama's abortion advocacy is contrary to it, Kmiec seems to feel that the social and economic benefits of Obama's overall agenda could actually help reduce the incidence of abortion more effectively than any anti-abortion actions McCain is likely to undertake. Similar views have been taken by, among others, Catholic bloggers at Vox Nova and Eastern Orthodox convert Frank Shaeffer.

Kmiec also challenges McCain's pro-life credentials by citing McCain's failure to oppose the death penalty. (Perhaps oddly, I have not seen Kmiec mention the more crucial issue of McCain's failure to oppose embryonic stem-cell research. Surely Kmiec knows that Catholic teaching permits a diversity of opinion on the death penalty, but not on embryo-destructive programs.)

Kmiec's arguments for Catholic Obama advocacy have been roundly rejected by prominent Catholic commentators. At times, unfortunately, resistance to Kmiec's views has been taken to extremes: On one occasion a priest wrongly refused Kmiec communion because of his Obama advocacy, a canonically unjustifiable move.

The Church has penalties for procuring an abortion (automatic excommunication), and there seems to be a growing consensus among the bishops that Catholic politicians who actually support legalized abortion should not receive communion. (Strong arguments have been mounted that, following Canon 915, politicians who obstinately persist in manifestly supporting legalized abortion should be denied communion, though consensus on this point among the bishops has been slow in coming.)

However, when it comes to citizens supporting or voting for politicians who support intrinsically evil policies like abortion, Church teaching acknowledges that this can be morally justifiable if two conditions are met. First, one must support the politician in spite of his evil policies and not because of them. Second, there must be proportionately grave reasons outweighing the evil policies (again, more on this later). The question whether such morally proportionate reasons exist in any particular case, like the question whether a particular war is just, is not a matter of binding teaching, but of a permissible diversity of opinion.

This doesn't mean, of course, that all opinions are equally good, or all arguments equally plausible. I agree with those who find Kmiec's reasoning and his Obama advocacy indefensible. But people may hold indefensible views, and engage in indefensible acts, in good faith. Church teaching provides clear lines that cannot be crossed without cutting oneself off from communion. Mere advocacy for particular politicians, even with very problematic views, is not such a line. Although Obama advocacy is (in my judgment) objectively wrong, it is wrong extrinsically, not intrinsically. (For example, Obama advocacy would obviously be morally defensible if, say, Obama were running against Hitler.) But good Catholics can disagree in good faith — though again, not always with equal plausibility — about what is or is not extrinsically wrong.

Among these rightly dismissing Kmiec's arguments is my long-time friend, Catholic writer and blogger Mark P. Shea. Mark is strongly critical of both major candidates, but he clearly sees — as most informed and non-dissenting Catholics see and as even most reasonably fair-minded observers can see — that anyone giving priority to fundamental Catholic moral concerns must regard Obama as far and away the more problematic candidate.

At the same time, Mark is, entirely legitimately, no fan of McCain. I've always had significant reservations about McCain myself, and in a recent blog post I discussed why I might not vote for him, particularly if he chose a pro-choice running mate. (He didn't, of course, and his choice potentially addresses some concerns while arguably raising others; I'll be posting more on this soon.) I am thus sympathetic to Mark's choice not to vote for either of the two major candidates, but to register a protest vote for a quixotic impossible candidate instead.

Where I think Mark goes wrong is in leaning toward the view that not voting for either of the two major candidates is not only a morally legitimate option, or even a morally preferable option, but the only morally viable option. Although he argues, far more credibly than Kmiec, that McCain is the less problematic candidate, Mark seems at times to feel that McCain is still problematic enough that McCain advocacy is also objectively wrong. This view has been maintained and defended even more assiduously (and problematically IMO) by Mark's co-belligerent, anonymous blogger Zippy Catholic.

Some caveats here are necessary. In leaning toward such views, Mark naturally means to express an opinion, not a definitive fact. It is an opinion about objective right and wrong, but still an opinion, and Mark would certainly acknowledge that it is an area of permissible dispute, and in principle he could be wrong. Second, I take it for granted that Mark makes no judgment about the culpability of McCain advocates, any more than either he or I judges Kmiec's culpability for his Obama advocacy. Third, Mark clearly doesn't put McCain advocacy on a par with Obama advocacy, either regarding plausibility or degree of evil. Still, it does seem that Mark feels or has felt that there are two unequal but objectively wrong choices — voting for either of the two major candidates — and only one morally legitimate course, not voting for either one.

I find this position untenable. In any contest between two or more viable candidates, I submit that it is always morally legitimate to support and vote for the candidate one regards as the preferable — or least problematic — viable candidate. (By 'viable candidate' I mean of course 'candidate with a realistic chance of winning.')

In fact, not only is it always morally legitimate, by default supporting and voting for the preferable or least problematic viable candidate should be the usual, preferred course of action. Other courses of action should be comparatively extraordinary, though in particular circumstances it may reasonably be judged preferable or more prudent to take another course.

For example, there may be legitimate reasons in a particular contest for considering it preferable (though not morally necessary) not to vote at all, or to vote for an admittedly nonviable, quixotic candidate as a form of protest. However, one can never rightly claim that it is morally necessary not to vote for any viable candidate, or that those who do support or vote for the least problematic viable candidate are (however sincerely) objectively wrong to do so.

Again, in a three-way contest, one may regard all three candidates as somewhat viable, but may still choose not to vote for the least problematic viable candidate, if one feels that the second–least problematic candidate is more viable and thus has a better chance of defeating the most problematic candidate. Others may feel, also credibly, that the least problematic candidate is worth supporting, even if he is a long shot.

Such decisions can be very difficult, because if opposition to the candidate viewed as most problematic is split among two challengers, the candidate viewed as most problematic by most people may eke out a victory. Whether this works out for the best or the worst, or to the advantage of one party or another, may vary with circumstances. From a democratic point of view, it is probably an unfortunate outcome, but for better or worse it is the nature of our current one-person, one-vote system. Whether another system would be better is a question for another time.

Another good question for another time concerns the nature of the system that yields the particular viable candidates we get. However that may be, once it becomes clear that one or another of a very small pool of people will in fact win the election, my thesis is that it is always morally legitimate to support and vote for the candidate one regards as the preferable or least problematic viable candidate.

In upcoming posts, I'll try to make the case for this thesis and answer objections to it. I will also discuss the particulars of fundamental moral principles and Catholic teaching in connection with the two candidates, and why I think McCain is the least problematic viable candidate.

For some, if I can make this case persuasively, this may be good news. Many, like Mark, may feel conflicted, opposing Obama but feeling unable to vote for the only viable alternative. Mark has said to me that he's not voting for McCain because he feels he can't; if felt he could vote for McCain, he would do so. I want to make the case that, in fact, he can if he wants to — and so can others.

To be continued...

"

(Via JIMMY AKIN.ORG.)

What is Scholarship?

And how should it treat the Bible?

Should we call for biblical studies to be reformed?:

Rather a lot of people mistrust biblical scholars.  Other scholars look at them sideways.  Christians treat them with suspicion, because they so often appear on TV in the UK bashing the Christians.  Since few outside of Christianity are much interested in biblical studies, the curious effect is that the discipline in general is brought under suspicion of being biased against its subject matter.

It is, perhaps, a sensitive subject.  Those who raise it often find themselves being screamed at.  Cynics may feel that the discipline might incur less odium if it made more of an effort to be objective, and to steer clear of religious and political controversy, and there is probably truth in that, at least in the UK.  I’m not sure whether that is entirely fair, however.

But quite by accident today I saw this post which advertises a historical Jesus seminar.  I’d like to look at the abstract of the first paper, as an example of the sort of thing that makes me quite uneasy about biblical studies.  I don’t know who wrote that abstract, and I certainly don’t want to pillory the author who doubtless reflects the college he comes from.  But I have seen the same sort of attitude, expressed or insinuated more subtly, on a number of occasions.  Here’s the start:

‘‘How did Jesus cure?’ … It has become common in NT studies to avoid such questions by either declaring them inadmissible or providing supernaturalist explanations which would be unacceptable in any other discipline and are not usually considered appropriate when looking at comparable figures with reputations as healers in antiquity.’

The author is plainly not a Christian; but that’s fine.  He appeals to objective standards, and so is that.  But somehow this distills the essence of much of my unease.  To the author, the only objective way to study Christianity is on the basis that it is untrue.

Now one might have various things to say about this.  But this is not a value-neutral position!  It is, in fact, the intrusion of a prejudice as an axiom.

I must ask whether this is how we want to study any ancient text?  Do we define in advance that, in every important element, the text before us is wrong, and its authors mistaken, duped or dishonest?  I would feel deep unease at any study of any book that started on that foot.  We might draw that conclusion at the end of our studies; but hardly in advance.

There is genuine difference of opinion among the educated on questions such as whether miracles happen.  Is it the place of scholarship to answer that?  If it is — which seems doubtful — is it right to do it, not by debate, but by means of subterfuge and insinuation?  It seems to me that the above sentence does just this. For instance, are we not invited to acquiesce in the belief that either we must hold that every ancient superstition was genuine, or else we must reject Christianity? Likewise does it not insinuate that Jesus is no different from any other healer in antiquity? Both of these might be discussed, although not here, but they can hardly be assumed, or treated as ‘objective’.  I feel that this sort of thing is rather common.

It is certainly quite possible that Christianity is not true.  Let us frankly admit this.  But is it the job of biblical studies to take a position that it is not, before starting work?

The real issue is how we do scholarship.  On any subject, I want to see the data gathered, conclusions drawn cautiously from it, and a general refusal to speculate or introduce extraneous political or religious opinions, on which people may well have differing opinions.

Let’s look at that paper in this light.  What data exists on ‘how Jesus cured’?  Jesus heals a leper; but neither Jesus nor the leper is available for interview. No archaeological evidence exists or indeed is conceivable.  We’re reliant solely on the accounts in the New Testament, perhaps leavened with a bit of patristic quotation from Celsus.

And what do these say?  Well, it hardly matters: because we have already decided that any testimony they give to supernatural events must be rejected without discussion, and every last source suggests that supernatural means are involved.  But if that is the case, surely we have nothing further to discuss, not based on data and deductions from it!  All the data gives one answer.

Disentangling some core of truth from a book that is (on this hypothesis) a complete and persistent set of lies must be impossible without some further external data.  All that is left is silence.  But we’re not offered silence; so we must be looking at unevidenced speculation which is contradicted by the only literary source.  Is that scholarship?   If it is, then I would treat scholarship as a fraud on the taxpayer and on the public.

But I think better of scholarship than this, despite my scientific training and the contempt for the humanities that Oxford instills.  This is merely bad scholarship, where a theory takes the place of the data, and prejudice substitutes for evidence.  Haven’t we all seen this habit, in all sorts of fields of scholarship?

I tend to wonder whether biblical studies, as a discipline, needs to be reformed.  After all, to whom — outside of the few in the field — is it currently convincing?  There is much genuine scholarship around in biblical studies.  One has only to look at NA27, or at Metzger on the Text of the NT, to see that at once.  But then there is stuff like this.

But if biblical studies should be reformed, how should it be carried out?  What measures will restore the confidence of the public in the discipline?  What measures would convince the academy at large that biblical studies is a genuine, objective discipline, and not merely an excuse for peddling religion (or, in fear of that accusation, its reverse)?

Or is it easier to scream at anyone who asks whether the emperor has any clothes?

"

(Via Thoughts on Antiquity.)

Today We Celebrate

(1) "pornography and the objectification of women’s bodies"

(2) "divorce, abortion, out-of-wedlock pregnancies, and venereal disease"

(3) "forced abortions in China to involuntary sterilizations in Peru"

(4) and plastic surgery and silicon breasts

All of which, at least indirectly, was predicted by Pope Paul VI on this day forty years in his notorious encyclical Humanae Vitae. We continue to ignore this prophet at our own peril:

The Anniversary of Humanae Vitae: "You know the story. Forty years ago —on July 25, 1968 a tired, grumpy, and celibate old man in Rome issued an encyclical called Humanae Vitae, solemnly declaring that birth control is bad, and half the world responded with a shrug. The other half responded with a sneer.
It’s hard to imagine a worse moment for Pope Paul [...]"

(Via FIRST THINGS: On the Square.)