Rhett Segall

I read Josef’s essay with great interest and can understand his repudiation of the abortion of the twins of the 9 year old girl on the principle that the direct taking of innocent human life is intrinsically wrong and always evil. I suspect the unborn twins could have been delivered by caesarean section.

But doesn’t the situation beg the question as to what constitutes innocent human life? I believe that the crux of the issue with the 9 year old was whether the pregnancy was a threat to her life. A human life may be materially a threat to another,and thus not “innocent”, without being a formal threat. Some one with small pox would be a material threat to other humans with out being a formal threat.  An insane person wielding a gun would be a material threat without being a formal threat. Society should deal with material threats as often as possible with some kind of containment, e. g. quarantine. But that is not always possible. In the often used life boat scenario a person trying to save himself by getting into a boat that could only safely hold 12 people when 12 people were already in the boat would be a material threat to the safety of the 12. Wouldn’t the 12 have a right to prevent the person from getting into the boat or, if he started to get in, to force him out of the boat?

Surely it’s modern technology that enables surgeons to deliver babies by C section. But what about places in the world where there isn’t modern technology? Might it not be morally permissible to abort a fetus which was a material threat to the mother’s life if there were no other method available to deliver the baby?

Lauretta, I think the sincere atheist who disbelieves because tragedy and chaos are so much to the forefront of his/her mind, might reflect on the root of their very sincerity and courage in faceing the darkness. Does not that very sincerity and courage speak of a transcendence that Christians call God?

Our discussion centers on the question “Do we need God to be good?”

Those who say no will marshal much evidence to show that belief in God is often connected with monstrous evils such as the wars of religion.

Those who say yes will say that twentieth century atheistic governments have murdered more people than all the religious wars of history.

My own thinking begins with Thomas Jefferson’s assertion: “We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Jefferson was exactly right, I believe, in asserting that human dignity is rooted in the self evident truth that God has given to humans a dignity that no human has a right to violate. Without the foundation of God’s affirmation of the individual, all will crumble. Boris Pasternak said it this way in Dr. Zhivago-“Without Christ we die like dogs in a gutter.”

Why then are religious people often involved in monstrous evil? Why do married people often engage in the most terrible fights? Not because of marriage or religion. Rather, in both marriage and religion we have the possibility of the activation of the highest potential in humans, love. But with that potential comes the danger of demonic pride manifested in the will to dominate..

Jules asks why humans need God in order not to be at each others throats. George Orwell hinted at it in “Animal Farm” when he has the animals supposedly all equal, but in reality the pigs take over the farm and Orwell notes “some animals are more equal than others.”

At the root of humans need for God is, I believe, that God keeps us human. First of all acknowledgement of God’s existence keeps humans humble. National Socialism set the Aryan race as the criterion for humanity and sort to weed out all they considered undesireable.They made National Socialism god and in doing so sowed the seeds of its own destruction.

Karl Rahner stresses the in eliminating God from our consciousness humans would simply become clever animals. I think he’s right.

Dear Josef:

Thank you for your response which opens up many avenues of reflection!

The many levels of your analysis reminds me of the maxim that a person is not a “problem to be solved” but a mystery with inexaustible depths.

Rhett

Dear Dr. Seifert:

I wonder if you might address from the perspective of freedom the phenomena in St. Paul’s classic expression “The good I will that I do not, the evil I will not, that I do.” (Rom. 7:19)

Suppose a husband decides to always speak reverently to his spouse. Nonetheless on occasion he is sarcastic and rude. He is aware of this and is contrite and resolves to change. Yet time and again he fails. This seems to me to exemplify Paul’s conundrum. On the level of “inner freedom” he sanctions reverence and disavows nastiness. But his “cooperative freedom” is unable to effect the reverential response. I suspect too that on a certain level his inner freedom is choosing to be irreverent. Theologically this is sin.

I’m not sure if this reflection responds in any way to your philosophy of freedom but wonder what you think.

It is a wonder that Greely writes the novels he does. But then the Song of Songs, surely erotic literature, is a wonder. So is Ezekiel chapter 16.
However, I think neither the Song of Songs nor Ezekiel 16 is pornographic and both are perfectly appropriate in context.

I am reminder here of a story I think connected with the painter Jean Ingres.The story may be apocryphal, but the point is on target:
Ingres was painting a nude who was perfectly unself conscious. Suddenly from the balcony above it became evident there were some people staring. The model became very embarassed and immediately covered herself. The onlooker presence changed the meaning of the occasion which was immediately intuited by the model.

I’ve read some of Greely’s novels and do not see them as “soft porn”. I think Greely has an eroticism in his novels. By that I mean an emphasis on sexual love, not lustful desire. He uses this sexual love as a metaphor for God’s passoniate interest in human beings.
Be that as it may, my point was that the sexual imagery of the paschal candle was promoted way before CW and I used Fr. Greely as an example. I also stated I find the imagery distorting the richer spiritual imagery of the Easter Liturgy.

I thought the following quote from Fr. Andrew Greely, sociologist and theologian, relevant to the discussion.  Greely does not give the source of his assertion but I think he is a careful writer. The copyright is 1973.

  “The central symbol of Christianity is the combination of the cross and resurrection.  Jesus who died now lives. How can that symbol possibly shed any light on the complexities and ambiguities of human sexual relationships?
    I am afraid that one must say that it ought to be obvious how the cross and resurrection are pertinent to human sexuality. That it is not obvious comments not on the ineffectiveness of the symbol but on our own prudery and fear.  The Christians of early Rome, who transferred the pagan spring fertility rite of plunging the candle into water, had no such difficulties. They knew that the lighted candle represented the penis and that water represented a vagina and a womb; and they knew, too, that their pagan friends and neighbors performed this rite in order to guarantee the fertility of their fields, their animals, and their wives. The early Christians thought that when Christ rose from the dead, he consummated his union with his bride, the church.  If the resurrection looked like a sexual symbol then, and does not look like one to us, the reason, perhaps, is that they had a much clearer realization than we do that life presumes fertility.” (Andrew Greely: Sexual Intimacy, 1973, pp. 194-195)

    Whether Greely is right about the early Christians’ perspective on the Easter Ritual, I have my doubts. Seeing the Easter Ritual along the lines of the pagan perspective does violence, I believe, to the sursum corda of the Liturgy and distorts what DvH would call the immanent logos of the situation. By the same token, in presenting sex in such a crass manner it harms our human sensitivity to its mystery. Along the lines of phenomenology I think the only proof for this is the inherent clarity of the assertions.

Thank you, Scott, for the link to the report of the Bishops regarding the pedophilia scandal. It will be helpful in my work in Catholic Education. One of the most difficult tasks is informing one’s conscience regarding controversial issues and you have supplied an important tool.

Katie, your point about the uniqueness of the moral decision is true in one sense and erroneous in another. (DvH deals with this in “True Morality… “ in the chapter on Circumstance Ethics.) It is clear that a person’s situation regarding a moral demand will be unique so far as the circumstances are concerned. However, the principles guiding the decision will be universal. (DvH utilizes the example of Sonia in Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment.” Sonia, you will recall, was involved in a dire situation of poverty. In addition she was the sole support of her family. She chose prostitution as a way of handling the situation. What was unique in her situation was her temperament, her family, the social milieu, etc. What was universal was the wrongness of prostitution.) I think that the position you espouse of the absolute uniqueness of every moral situation is a form of Nominalism, i.e. there are no common denominators to various moral situations.

So far as Maritain is concerned, in Existence and the Existent, I think he is saying that in a particular situation, because of a person’s unique temperament, he may be called upon to do something that others may not be called to do. Dietrich Bonheoffer’s decision to participate in a plot to assassinate Hitler is an example. However, Maritain does not deny the application of universal principles. (pp. 50 ff.)

Here’s a further quote from DvH on the imitation of Christ:

“Christ and transformation in Christ are the very themes of the Christian’s life; and this transformation implies that morality is not a mere presupposition, but an essential element belonging to its very core.  Transformation in Christ-the imitation of His Sacred Humanity-is equivalent to the sanctification of which St. Paul says”…this is the will of God, your sanctification.”) (1 Thes.4;3) (Graven Images: Substitutes for True Morality p. 182)