In Christianity, the opposite of "religion" is not "spirituality"; it is "superstition."

A Facebook post made the following observation:

This was posted today from one of my friends who is a very Emergent Christian. "The most boring and unproductive question a person can ask of a religion is whether or not it's true" - Alain de Botton

It may not be the case that Alain de Botton and the emergent guy are indifferent to the truth. What they may be saying is that "talking about religion" is the problem because simply talking about religion can in no way get us to the truth. Religion is one of those things, according to this view, which is not subject to discussion because it is motstly or entirely subjective - something proven or not proven in the interiority of the human.

Of course, the problem with that perspective is that it makes communication impossible because unless there is something objective about the thing we are discussing, then everyone's separate "interiority" is equally uncommunicable - perhaps even the statement that ""The most boring and unproductive question a person can ask of a religion is whether or not it's true" is itself an incommunicable thought.

Pope John Paul II in Fides et Ratio offered this on the problem of defining the religious as incommunicable:

"Deprived of reason, faith has stressed feeling and experience, and so run the risk of no longer being a universal proposition. It is an illusion to think that faith, tied to weak reasoning, might be more penetrating; on the contrary, faith then runs the grave risk of withering into myth or superstition."

Pope Benedict XVI follows up on the role of reason in Christianity and his tour de force at Regensburg, a part of which is the following:

"The subject then decides, on the basis of his experiences, what he considers tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective "conscience" becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical. In this way, though, ethics and religion lose their power to create a community and become a completely personal matter. This is a dangerous state of affairs for humanity, as we see from the disturbing pathologies of religion and reason which necessarily erupt when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it. Attempts to construct an ethic from the rules of evolution or from psychology and sociology, end up being simply inadequate."

We are either reasoning creatures or we are not. God has either made reason a touchpoint for everyone or He has not. If either of those two statements are true, then any belief that cannot be proven by contingent, empirical data is mere superstition.

And if that last bit is true, then who cares what Alain de Botton "thinks"?

The Use of Forgeries in Protestantism.

One of the evergreen tropes of Protestantism is the "Donation of Constantine." I've been in a few internet debates where all of sudden my Protestant interlocutor will utter something along the lines of "What about the Donation of Constantine?" and then scurry off as if some telling blow had been landed.  My reaction is along the lines of "eh?" or "what?" or "how is that relevant to the price of tea in China?" 

As a lifelong Catholic, I know about the "Donation of Constantine" as an interesting bit of history.  The Donation of Constantine was fabricated in approximately the 8th Century, probably in France, and probably for the purpose of bolstering the Carolingian claim against the Emperor in Constantinople. The Donation of Constantine was picked up in the 12th Century by papal apologists who used it as a way of supporting the already on-going "papal revolution," which was a fait accompli by way of the reform of canon law, not because of fabricated documents from the 8th Century. (See Harold Berman's Law and Revolution.)

Did the papacy use forgeries? Absolutely, but the papacy did not forge the documents and was taken in by them as much as anyone else.  An interesting fact is that the Lorenzo Valla, who famously unmasked the Donation of Constantine as a forgery, subsequently became an apostolic secretary and a favorite of Pope Callixtus.  It seems that Valla's historical revisionism did not entirely poison his career with the Vatican, although he did have some rocky moments.

Similarly, St. Thomas Aquinas was apparently taken in by the "False Decretals of Isidore," although presumably at the time they were merely the "Decretals of Isidore," in his "Against the Errors of the Greeks."  The Decretals was a series of purported quotations from Eastern Church Fathers that were also created in the 8th Century as part of the project of ramping up Western prestige against the powerful Eastern emperor.  However, the fact that the Decretals was itself a forgery, many of the quotes contained in it were authentic, and Aquinas could have sustained his argument by using other quotes from Eastern Fathers.  An example of the former is found in Section 33, where he quotes Chrysostom as saying that "he allocated James a determined territory, but he appointed Peter master and teacher of the whole world." Although this was taken from the Decretals, which was a forgery, in fact, Chrysostem did say in his Homily on John that "And if any should say, "how then did James receive the chair at Jerusalem? I would make this reply that He appointed Peter teacher, not of the chair, but of the world."  An example of the latter is provided by James Likoudis.

So, the significance of these forgeries seems to be overstated, albeit it seems to have a particulalry strong resonance in the mind of some Protestants for whom it is the dispositive evidence of "perfidious Rome."

Mind you, this is all new to me.  I wouldn't have spent time learning this stuff except for the fact that it was brought up on a fever-swamp anti-catholic site on Facebook.  Although I pointed out the above, the stated views of the residents - particularly one individual named Dominic Macelli - was that none of this mattered because a forgery is a forgery.

The conversation turned to the issue of the Deuterocanonical texts.  As part of this discussion, Macelli quoted the following:

“St. Jerome distinguished between canonical books and ecclesiastical books. The latter he judged were circulated by the Church as good spiritual reading but were not recognized as authoritative Scripture. The situation remained unclear in the ensuing centuries...For example, John of Damascus, Gregory the Great, Walafrid, Nicolas of Lyra and Tostado continued to doubt the canonicity of the deuterocanonical books. According to Catholic doctrine, the proximate criterion of the biblical canon is the infallible decision of the Church. This decision was not given until rather late in the history of the Church at the Council of Trent. The Council of Trent definitively settled the matter of the Old Testament Canon. That this had not been done previously is apparent from the uncertainty that persisted up to the time of Trent” (The New Catholic Encyclopedia, The Canon).

That looks like a particularly impressive bit of evidence: the Catholic Encyclopedia appears to be saying that there was no defined canon until Trent in the 16 Century.

But it smelled funny because based on my extensive historical reading it was so wrong.

And there were problems with the quote. First, it is entirely inconsistent with the historical evidence. Second,  I couldn't find it in the Catholic Encyclopedia on the New Advent site.

I pressed Macelli for his source.  He had consistently taken the position that he would not provide jumplinks for his sources because he was afraid of his interlocutors reading his sources and pointing out his errors. Apparently, people were supposed to take his quotes on "faith alone."  After pressing him, he pointed nebulously to a message board.


 "New Catholic Encyclopedia" article on "Canon, Biblical," p. 26.

Another strange thing was that this quote could only be found on anti-catholic sites.


It turns out that there is a "New Catholic Encyclopedia," which is nowhere to be found online.

So, I went to the local library and looked for the quote, and found out that the anti-catholic apologists had done a "False Decretal of Isidore" number and provided a forged and fabricated quote.  



Here is what the relevant passages actually say:

"St. Jerome (A.D. 340 - 420) distinguished between "canonical books" and "ecclesiastical books." The latter, he judged, were circulated by the Church as good "spiritual reading," but were not recognized as authoritative Scripture.  St. Augustine, however, did not recognize this distinction.  He accepted all the books in the LXX as of equal value, noting that those designated as apocryphal by Jerome were either unknown or obscure origin. Augustine's point of view prevailed and the deuterocanonical books remained in the Vulgate, the Latin version, that received official standing at the Council of Trent.

The situation remained unclear in the ensuing centuries, although the tendency to accept the disputed books was becoming all the time more general.  In spite of this trend, some, e.g., John Damascene, Gregory the Great, Walafrid, Nicholas of lyra and Tostado, continued to doubt the canonicity of the deuterocanonical books.  St. THOMAS AQUINAS has for a long time been listed as a dissenter because of his supposed doubts about Wisdom and Sirach, but P. Synave has argued convincingly to clear him of this imputation (Revue biblique 212 (1924) 522 - 533). The Council of Trent definitively settled the matter of the OT Canon. That this had not been done previously is apparent from the uncertainty that persisted up to the time of Trent."

Obviously, this text is far different from the fabricated quote being circulated on such anti-catholic sites as "Just for Catholics."  I would, however, dissent from the New Catholic Encyclopedia's insinuation as to the level of uncertainty.  The deuterocanonical works had been used in the liturgy for over a thousand years by the time of Trent.  In De Libero Arbitrio (Discussion of Free Will), Erasmus directs Luther to the text from the Wisdom of Sirach (aka Ecclesiasticus) 15:14 - 18 that:

"God created man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel. He added his commands and precepts: if you will keep the commandments, and keep acceptable faith forever, they will keep you. He set water and fire before you; stretch out your hand to whatever you desire.  Before man are life and death, good and evil; whatever he pleases shall be given him."

Erasmus follows up his quote from Sirach/Ecclesiasticus with the following:

"I do not suppose that anyone will plead here against the authority of this work that it was not originally in the Hebrew canon (as Jerome points out), seeing that the Church of Christ has unanimously received it into its canon, and I see no reason why the Hebrews should have thought this book ought to be excluded from the canon, given that they accept the Proverbs of Solomon and the Amatory Song."

(See Collected Works of Erasmus, Vol. 76, p. 21 - 22.)

In short, Erasmus - one of the leading scholars of Hebrew, Greek and Latin of his age - was aware of Jerome's dissent as a kind of intellectual abstraction, which did not bear a great deal of weight in the face of the actual practice, which was that Christians had been reading Sirach/Ecclesiasticus as part of the divine liturgy throughout Christian history!

In any event, the irony of the situation is that anti-catholic apologists who condemn the Catholic Church on account of the Donation of Constantine seem to have no problem using fabricated documents of their own.

The final irony was that after I pointed out that Dominick Macelli was probably using a fabricated quote, I was ejected from the Facebook group.

Lorenzo Valla received better treatment.

Response to JD on the Private Interpretation and the Epistemic Advantages of "thinking with the Church."

Jon, on further reflection, as I was driving to Santa Cruz, I think it is obviously true that everyone engage in “private interpretation” to some extent and likewise everyone thinks "with the Church” (Augustine) or with the “mind of Christ” (Paul) to differing extents. As human beings, I think it would be impossible not to.

What I think may be underlying what seems to be our different attitudes is the difference between the “classical” approach to knowledge and the “modern” approach.

Let’s take Descartes as an example of the modern approach. Descartes insisted that truth be measured by what he found to be “clear and distinct” principles in his mind. He stripped down the accretions of conventional wisdom that might cause him to err. He made his individual reason the touch point for determining what the truth was.

The classical approach took a more communitarian strategy to the issue of learning what the truth is. Hence, in Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle dwells upon the idea that developing the habit of taking counsel and deliberating with those who have the virtue of making good decisions is an element to the individual’s acquisition of the virtue of practical wisdom. Aristotle also spends several chapters on the goodness of friendship, which he describes being necessary for the development of an individual’s virtues, which is related to the virtue of taking good counsel from others.

So, from the classical viewpoint, the approach to learning the truth is not by individual meditation, as it was with Descartes, but through public discussion with wise men.

Now, obviously, once counsel has been taken, the individual himself has to make the choice, but hopefully by being furnished with the counsel of wise men – and having seen how wise men go about making decisions - he is more likely to make the right choice.

On the whole, I think that Aristotle’s approach has more common sense truth about it than Descartes.

On still further reflection, I think – underline “think” – that Descartes’ approach goes back to our old friend William of Ockham’s nominalism, which denied the existence of “transcendentals.” Nominalism made things very individualistic. It is said by some that nominalism was essential for science and, so, for modernity. Nominalism was also a major influence on Martin Luther, who was a major influence on the modern way of thinking. So, in a way, we are all influenced by the presuppositions of nominalism, which makes it harder for us to recapture the classical approach to realizing the truth, albeit, in fact, we take that approach all the time – we just don’t like to admit it since it cuts against our ingrained view of ourselves as essentially autonomous individuals.

Further from Facebook

Karen's response:

"I don't actually have all day to debate this, but I do think I should point out that I have not purported to equate the Catholic Church with fundamentalist Islam's imposition of the burqa on women, not to mention a host of other rules that limit the rights of women to realize their full potential. They do have common elements, but the consequences to a woman in not being able to say Mass vs. a woman who ventures outside her home unaccompanied by a male relative are vastly different. They are different in degree, but they both derive from a common rationalization, and both involve what I believe is a fundamental perversion of religious doctrine. They are not, however, equal, and it's nonsense to attribute that view from my earlier comments. To the extent you actively avoid trying to understand the mechanisms that some people use to repress other groups of people by the argument that every situation is different, you miss the opportunity to understand root causes and thus to address them.


BTW, I grew up Catholic, and to be honest, I don't give a damn what doctrinal reason the Church relies on for continuing to exclude women from the priesthood. I've voted with my feet (and wallet) on that issue.

Finally, with respect to your last question, it suffices to say that there are some "customs" that are so abhorrent (slavery, anyone?) that no culture ought to tolerate them. I'm perfectly comfortable to say that it isn't cultural imperialism to advocate for human rights. "

I'm posting my response here to take any discussion off Facebook

Karen,

I don’t intend to have you debate all day, but one of the rare pleasures of life is the intellectual give-and-take that comes from discussing different perspectives. I probably have more experience in this than most, having been in more than my share of “combox debates.” I’m also certain that there has never been a time where I haven’t come out of the discussion learning something, even if it is where my views are weak.

I leave the tweeting of political or religious emotions to the massus damnatum.

On reflection, as someone with an abiding interest in history, what sets my teeth on edge about the Kristoff column is its shallow appeal to the prejudices of his presumed readers. Thus, everyone knows that religion oppresses women and that Islam is particularly noxious in that regard, but if you move from the “common sense for common folks” approach, you find that the issue is far more complex. For example, the single most common form of hatred, violence and oppression of women throughout human history has been female infanticide. The anthropologist Marvin Harris points out that cases of “accidental overlaying” in early 20th Century America had a female cull rate that approximated the cull rate of male and females in cattle herds. Nonetheless, despite the universality of female infanticide in his culture, and in human cultures generally, Mohammed preached against female infanticide in Sura 81 and promised that the victims of this hideous crime would have justice. For that matter, what about the inclusion of women in the Umma and in the fact that female Muslims share the experience of equality before God signified by the pilgrimage to Mecca?

In other words, Mohammed may have to stand as a revolutionary feminist in some ways since he challenged a conventional social practice on the grounds of the female’s right to justice and essential equality before God.

Thus, is it fair to talk about “common grounds” for the oppression of women in “religion” – and specifically Islam – as repressive of women in light of these facts, which I suspect that Kristoff has never heard of?

I’m willing to say that the issue is complicated, that there are social and religious practices that cut the other way, but unless we are looking for the cheap emotional thrill of seeing the things we despise calumnied – and who doesn’t get a frisson of schadenfreude when our faith is vindicated? - we ought not to take the easy way out of knocking down strawmen. I say this, by the way, even though I don’t hold a brief for Islam.

Undoubtedly, where Islam fell down in further elevating the status of women was its retention of polygamy. The single most important development for the status of women was the institution of life-time companionate monogamous marriage with strict rules against divorce. Even in this day and age, we know how divorce generally disadvantages women relative to men. Thus, it seems obvious that the cultural customs that permitted men to divorce women (as in Judaism) or for men to have multiple wives (as in Islam) clearly put women in a weak and easily threatened state in such marriages. So, Jesus also looks like someone who took a radical position in the name of the essential equality of women and in the development of a custom that would have immediate and long-term payoffs with respect to recognizing the equal nature of males and females. (St. Paul, likewise, deserves kudos relative to his explicit imposition of express obligations on the husband relative to his wife.) These men probably deserve kudos for being uber-feminist, particularly when compared with the anti-women alternative of Gnosticism, which denied that women could be saved as women, and is, ironically, is a favorite of feminist liberals like Elaine Pagels.

History and humanity are complicated, and when we judge the failings of the cultures of our ancestors, we ought to have a little humility in light of our own failings. After all, we have managed to re-establish a form of female infanticide through the use of sex selection and abortion, which is evidenced best in officially atheist China with its surplus of 30 million excess males. Future generations may point to “abortion on demand” as the single most anti-female development of the 20th Century. I don’t know that for certain, of course, but if I take the long-view that doesn’t seem unreasonable.

I didn’t know that you were “raised Catholic.” As a cradle Catholic myself, I know two things. The first thing I know is that people who were raised Catholic are tremendously ignorant of the faith they were raised in, largely as a result of the dismal state of Catechesis after 1965. The other thing I know is that when someone says “I was raised Catholic”, the next thing they are going to say are going to be the wildest form of misunderstanding that they managed to invent when they were 10 years old, and I say this as someone who has debated anti-catholic former Catholic Protestants and anti-catholic former Catholic atheists. So, it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that you don’t know what “altus Christi” means, or how that idea is central to two-thousand years of Catholic theology, and has nothing to do with the “oppression of women” and everything to do with the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation by which the supernatural and natural worlds were brought together as a historical, empirical fact, but that really means that you have no basis for making the statement that the burqa and the male-only priesthood “derive from a common rationalization.” They clearly don’t, although you are certainly free to believe they do in light of the feminist doctrine that everything is about power and male subjection of women. All I am trying to do is offer interesting reasons for why this statement is not so obviously true.

I share your intuition about slavery and if Obama wanted to lead a crusade against slavery, I would sound like a bagpipe. But what about things like a low tax policy, the right to contract, due process and other Western ideas about the just society? I also think we also have to reflect on the fact that it is the fact that we are exporting our Western views about the just society – merely as a by-product of globalization - that is a primary cause of Islamic terror against the West. That may be a war worth having, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves that our war against the burqa is cost-free.

On further reflection, it seems obvious that it is cultural imperialism to advocate for human rights. By definition - well, the traditional leftist definition - imposing one's view of the good society on someone else is "imperialism."  Now, it might be the case that it is justified cultural imperialism, but I don't think that it is intellectually honest to claim that it is not "cultural imperialism" when it happens to be a cultural form that we really like.

Also, I really appreciated the opportunity to write about Sura 81 and female infanticide.  That's been a factoid, I've been waiting to share for 30 years.

Update: 


I've also been defriended.

It's a pity that some folks have such a brittle approach to differences of opinion. I tend to view such differences as vital to living a good life. Other people feel very threatened by the thought that there are some who disagree with them.