Category: Catholic Corner

Can One Copulate One’s Way to Chastity?

John B. writes,

I'm a regular reader of your blog and I've written very occasionally, but not for a few years.  Here's another comment. 
 
I enjoy your periodic return to the question of whether one can philosophize one's way to a release from philosophy.  But I think that, to split hairs, you're wrong to say that one can't copulate one's way to chastity.  After a manner of speaking, one can.  It's true that one can't copulate one's way to virginity . . . . But isn't "copulating one's way to chastity" at the heart of marriage as the remedium concupiscentiae?  When the Apostle Paul tells his readers that it is better to marry than to burn with lust, he seems to have in mind something like copulating one's way to chastity.
 
Think of a bachelor who has unruly sexual desires, some of which he may act on.  He then falls in love and gets married, agreeing to an exclusive sexual relationship with his wife.  Over the course of his marriage, his inclinations are tamed and re-structured so that, while he may still experience fleeting moments where, sure, he notices that another woman is very pretty, his sexual desire as such is exclusively, or nearly exclusively, for his wife, whom he loves more and more.  Actually having frequent sexual intercourse with his wife is part of this transformation, since having sex with the same partner, in the context of a loving relationship, has powerful psychological effects.  It might be an oversimplification to say that the man in question "copulated his way to chastity," but it would also be an oversimplification to say that he didn't.
 
Take that for whatever it's worth, and keep up the good work.
 
I see your point, John, but if the question is whether one can achieve chastity by sexual intercourse, I would say no.  One cannot copulate one's way to chastity either in marriage or outside of marriage. But if the question is whether being married helps one avoid unchastity, the answer is a resounding yes.  And that, I take it, is the point you succeeded in making.  Marriage channels and directs sexual energy in a licit and productive way even if no procreation results.  It is therefore indeed remedium concupiscentiae. We need the remedy and the mitigation. We are naturally concupiscent from the ground up, and the decadent, sex-saturated society we live in exacerbates the natural tendency,  pouring gasoline on the "fire down below." 
 
The logically prior question is: what is chastity?  "Chastity is the virtue which [either] excludes or moderates the indulgence of the sexual appetite." (Catholic Encyclopedia, here.) It is a form of temperance, one of the four cardinal virtues. Chastity is either absolute or relative depending on whether it excludes indulgence in the sexual appetite or merely moderates it.  Absolute chastity is called continence and is classed as a "counsel of perfection." As such, it is not morally obligatory but supererogatory. The supererogatory is that which is good but above and beyond what is morally required.  Absolute chastity is not required of those in the marital state; relative chastity is.  So the exercise of the virtue of chastity is compatible with at least some forms of the indulgence of sexual appetite in marriage.
 
Chastity in marriage is extremely difficult to achieve. Who would have the temerity to claim that he has achieved it on a regular basis? It is obviously not enough to refrain from sexual relations with partners other than one's spouse.  Suppose you are having sexual intercourse with your wife while thinking lustful thoughts about your neighbor's wife.  That would count as a violation of chastity in marriage. Am I right about that, John?
 
Moral collapse has proceeded so far that discussions such as the above will strike the majority as quaint and absurd and out of all relation to anything 'real.' When the Pope allows a 'devout Catholic' supporter of abortion on demand for any reason at any stage of fetal development to receive Holy Communion in Rome, then we are fast approaching the end.
 

Bergoglio and Biden

They are alike in that neither understands the principles, values, and purposes of the organizations of which they are the heads. Given the termitic nature of the dope pope, the following did not surprise me in the least:

Pope Francis is famous for his tendency to shoot from the hip, which is unfortunate for someone whose every word is watched for significant and authoritative pronouncements. His bad habit was on full display Friday; in expressing sympathy with Ukrainians, the pope declared: “There is no such thing as a just war: they do not exist!” In that single sentence, the pontiff swept aside centuries of Catholic teaching and even undercut the ground for the Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion. All in a day’s work for the Marxist who warns against Marxism.

The RCC in its current degeneracy desperately needs defunding along with every other leftist outfit. I say that as a cradle Catholic with much residual affection for the church of my childhood.

Integralism in Three Sentences

Substack latest.

Here are the three sentences:

Catholic Integralism is a tradition of thought that rejects the liberal separation of politics from concern with the end of human life, holding that political rule must order man to his final goal. Since, however, man has both a temporal and an eternal end, integralism holds that there are two powers that rule him: a temporal power and a spiritual power. And since man’s temporal end is subordinated to his eternal end the temporal power must be subordinated to the spiritual power.

'Post-liberalism' is gaining ground. Integralism is one form of it. I am against both the species and the genus.

Dust and Ashes

Vanitas 2"Remember, man, thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return." Memento, homo, quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris. This warning, from the Catholic liturgy for Ash Wednesday, is based on Genesis 3, 19: In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane, donec revertaris in terram de qua sumptus es: quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris.

Luther's German:  Im Schweiße deines Angesichts sollst du dein Brot essen, bis daß du wieder zu Erde werdest, davon du genommen bist. Denn du bist Erde und sollst zu Erde werden.

Douay-Rheims: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth out of which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return."

How real can we and this world be if in a little while we all will be nothing but dust and ashes?

The typical secularist is a reality denier who hides from the unalterable facts of death and impermanence.  This is shown by his self-deceptive behavior: he lives as if he will live forever and as if his projects are meaningful even though he knows, at a level deeper than his self-deception,  that he won't and that they aren't.  If he were to face reality he would have to be a nihilist.  That he isn't shows that he is fooling himself.

More here.

You Are Going to Die.

Christopher Hitchens has been dead for over ten years now.  In Platonic perspective, what no longer exists never truly existed.  So here we have a man who never truly existed but who denied the existence of the self-existent Source of his own ephemeral quasi-existence. Curious.

On the still life: A meatless skull in the gathering darkness, the candle having just gone out, life's flame having gone to smoke, unable to read, with no need for food. The globe perhaps signifies the universality of the skull owner's predicament and fate.

What the Hell?

Just as Biden and his supporters are disasters for the USA, Bergoglio and his supporters are disasters for the RCC. 'Twould appear that all of the institutions of the West are in dire need of fumigation. See here:

But Pope Francis appears to have scotched that possibility. “No one can exclude themselves from the Church,” he insisted, “we are all saved sinners.” Even those, he adds, “who have denied the faith, who are apostates, who are the persecutors of the Church, who have denied their baptism.  

Yes, these too. All of them. The blasphemers, all of them. We are brothers. This is the communion of saints. The communion of saints holds together the community of believers on earth and in heaven…the saints, the sinners, all.

What are we to make of this? Surely, one asks, he cannot have meant to include unrepentant sinners in the Kingdom of Heaven? That those who deliberately take themselves to Hell, choosing an eternity of loss rather than the joys of Heaven, are nevertheless still members of the Communion of Saints? This is not Catholic doctrine, and no one, not even the Pope of Rome, can make it so by saying so.

Religion Under Assault

Religions are under assault from without, but they also undermine themselves from within. To put it sarcastically, the Roman Catholic Church has worked hard and successfully at destroying its own credibility by refusing (not just failing) to rein in priestly misconduct. Not all, but too many leaders of the RCC from the Pope on down have placed the survival of the temporal institution. the protection of its clerics,  and the preservation of its wealth and privileges above its divine mandate. For too many, the  hustle is the thing, and the noble aims a sham. The ancient edifice is in dire need of fumigation.  To the extent that the RCC has become just another hunk of leftist junk, it should be defunded. 

But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea. (Matthew 18:6, Douay Rheims)

Are Atheists Vincibly Ignorant? (2021 Version)

In Catholic thought there is what is called vincible ignorance. Here is a definition:

Lack of knowledge for which a person is morally responsible. It is culpable ignorance because it could be cleared up if the person used sufficient diligence. One is said to be simply (but culpably) ignorant if one fails to make enough effort to learn what should be known; guilt then depends on one's lack of effort to clear up the ignorance.

For present purposes, it suffices to say that 'God' refers to the supreme being of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and that an atheist is one who denies the existence of God.

I hold that there is vincible ignorance on various matters. But I deny that atheists qua atheists are vincibly ignorant.  Whether or not God exists, one is not morally culpable for denying the existence of God.* Nor do I think one is morally culpable if one doubts the existence of God.

If God exists, and one is an atheist, then one is ignorant of God, but it does not follow that one is culpably ignorant. This commits me to saying that the atheist is invincibly ignorant of God. He is invincibly ignorant of God because God cannot be known to exist. If I cannot know that such-and-such, then I cannot be morally culpable for not knowing it.  If I ought to X, then I am capable of X-ing. And so, by contraposition, if I am not capable of X-ing, then I am not morally obliged to X, whence it follows that I am not morally culpable for not  X-ing.

If the atheist is invincibly ignorant of God, then so is the theist, whence it follows that I am not morally praiseworthy for being a theist.

This puts me at odds with St. Paul, at least on one interpretation of what he is saying at Romans 1: 18-20.

_______________

*Why not?  Because it is not clear that God exists. There are powerful albeit uncompelling arguments against the existence of God, chiefly, arguments from natural and moral evil, and, while there is plenty of evidence of the existence of God, the evidence does not entail the existence of God.  Will you tell me that the evidence renders the existence of God more probable than not?  I will respond by asking what probability has to do with it. Either God exists or he does not. If he does, then he is a necessary being. If he does not, then he is impossible.   I will demand of you that you attach sense to the claim that such a being — one that is either necessary or impossible– can have its probability raised or lowered by evidence.  This is a huge and controversial topic. No more can be said about it now.

Kadın erkeğin şeytanıdır

"Woman is man's devil." (Turkish proverb)

Never underestimate the power of concupiscence to derange, disorient, and delude.

When Spanish bishop Xavier Novell resigned last month, the Roman Catholic Church cited strictly personal reasons without going into detail.

It has now emerged in Spanish media that he fell in love with a woman who writes Satanic-tinged erotic fiction.

In 2010 at the age of 41, he became Spain's youngest bishop, in Solsona in the north-eastern region of Catalonia.

[. . .]

It came as a shock when Religión Digital reported that he had fallen for divorcee Silvia Caballol, a psychologist and erotic novelist. The news site said that the former bishop was now looking for a job in the Barcelona area as an agronomist.

Caballol's books include titles such as The Hell of Gabriel's Lust and the trilogy Amnesia. In the blurb for one of her works, the reader is promised a journey into sadism, madness and lust and a struggle between good and evil, God and Satan with a plot to shake one's values and religious beliefs.

Story here.

An Ecclesiological Contretemps: Edward Feser versus Rod Dreher

Start here with Dreher.  Feser's response to Dreher. Dreher's reply (scroll down). Feser again.

……………………………

Addendum 5/31. Dr. Vito Caiati, historian, comments (minor edits added by BV):

With regard to the exchange between Edward Feser and Rod Dreher on the latter’s rationale for leaving Roman Catholicism for Orthodoxy, which I too have been closely following, I have an observation that may be worthy of your notice.

While I believe that Feser exposes the non-rational and hence inadequate motivation for Dreher’s apostasy (and Skojec’s crise de foi), he advances an argument regarding the present theological and ecclesial crisis of the Catholic Church that is not at all cogent or convincing. This is evident [from the] the essential equivalence he draws between it and earlier disputes and conflicts in the Church’s distant history. He writes:

Skojec is scandalized by the fact that the confusion and heterodoxy fostered by Pope Francis’s many doctrinally problematic statements have not yet been remedied despite his having been in office for eight years.  This is quite ridiculous.  Eight years is nothing in terms of Church history.  The utter chaos introduced into the governance of the Church by Pope Stephen VI’s lunatic Cadaver Synod lasted for decades.  So did the chaos of the Great Western Schism.  Pope Honorius’s errors were not condemned until forty years after his death.  Further examples could easily be given.  Few people remember these events now, because things eventually worked themselves out so completely that they now look like blips.  If the world is still here centuries from now, Pope Francis’s chaotic reign will look the same way to Catholics of the future. 

Leaving aside the question of whether relevant “further examples [that] could easily be given,” is it in fact the case that the nature of the contemporary crisis in the Church is essentially of a kind with the three cited medieval crises? In other words, is something going on at the present moment, under the present pope, and more broadly in the decades that stretch back well into the last century that indicates some fundamental rupture with traditional Roman Catholic thought and practice? Are we indeed simply witnessing events that, like those of the past, will “look like blips” in time, or are we, undergoing a unique crisis that, in the words of historian Roberto Pertricci, “segna il tramonto di quell’imponente realtà storica definibile come ‘cattolicesimo romano’” [‘marks the sunset of that imposing historical reality that can be defined as Roman Catholicism’]?

The histories of the three medieval crises mentioned by Feser are highly [complicated?]and resistant to rapid summary. Suffice it to say, that two of these, the Cadaver Synod of 897 [and] Great Western Schism (1378-1417) were the offshoots of political and dynastic conflicts among orthodox members of the Catholic household of Europe. Neither involved questions of dogma or doctrine, and if the latter was troubling for papal power and prestige, encouraging the conciliarism of the 15th century and the graver Protestant challenge of the 16th, its more long-term [effects?] were not. The case of Pope Honorius I (625-38) involves a letter written in 635 by this early medieval pontiff to Sergius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, who successfully solicited Honorius’ support for the conciliatory position that he, following the Emperor Heraclitus, had adopted toward monothelitism to promote unity among his flock. Honorius was condemned by the Third Council of Constantinople (680-81) not for heresy but for allowing its propagation. Here, although the dispute was doctrinal in nature, touching on the Chalcedonian understanding of Christ’s two natures and two wills, we are dealing with an isolated, although fundamental doctrinal misjudgment, expressed in a letter that is otherwise orthodox, of a pope who was highly regarded during his reign and who manifested no other signs of heterodoxy.

I think that even this highly unsatisfactory summary of these distant events in the life of the Church is sufficient to set them apart from the events of our own time and particularly those under the present pope. There is no need to catalogue the questionable if not heretical statements and judgments of Bergoglio, all designed to encourage confusion and heterodoxy in the Church; his scandalous actions paying homage to pagan idols; his  protection and advancement of sexual predators and sodomites; his purges of orthodox prelates and laymen from important Vatican positions and commissions; his undermining of Church unity to the extent that the German Church is in actual, if not declared schism; his collaboration in the destruction of the loyal Catholic Church in China; his incessant attacks on orthodox Catholics; and his substitution of left wing politics for the Gospel. But more beyond the actions of this pope we have to take note of the systemic rot throughout so much of the Church that has made him and those of his ilk possible; everything from the protection of sexual predators, to the abandonment of Catholic teaching in the Church’s schools and universities, to the passivity of most bishops when confronted with heresy in the Church or public scandal (communion for those who advocate and advance abortion, for instance), and so on.  

What is going on now, right before our eyes will never become some historical “blip.” The magisterium, both ordinary and extraordinary, may still stand, but how long will this be the case if it is increasingly ignored, subverted, and questioned? If the words of the Pater Noster, which are clear in both Greek and Latin, can be altered at will to make them more theologically acceptable to the bien pensant, what is beyond the reach of “reform”? Thus, those who remain loyal to the Church should have no illusions about the uniquely destructive nature of this crisis. It is being advanced by dangerous “progressive” forces, increasingly aligned with the global Left, that have taken control of the leading institutions of the Church and whose objective is the eradication of the very core of traditional Roman Catholic thought and practice.

Sacramental Efficacy Despite the Corruption of the Church?

Here:

Therefore, the serious believer is thrown back upon his or her own inner resources. Thankfully, the Sacraments are still efficacious despite the corruption of the Church . . . .

Suppose I go to what used to be called Confession, but is now foolishly called Reconciliation. The priest, I have reason to believe, is a  practicing homosexual, a sodomite, a child molester, and doesn't believe a word of traditional doctrine. The Roman Catholic Church is his mafia, his hustle, except that he lacks the honesty of the mafioso who in private will admit that  he is a criminal out for self and pelf.  We all know that there are plenty of priests like this. 

Forgive me, father, if I can no longer bring myself to accept the doctrine of sacramental efficacy given the deep moral corruption of you and your church. I grant the abstract logical possibility that the efficacy of sacraments is untouched by the corruption of their ministers.  But how, in your presence, could  I achieve the heart-felt compunction necessary for true confession knowing that you are a moral fraud? Would the achievement of that state of compunction not be more likely in the  depths of my privacy in claustro?

Steven Nemes’ Review of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s Ethics: Some Questions

The review is a well written and very fair summary of von Hildebrand's book. (I read portions of the latter in graduate school days but I do not currently have it in my library.)  Here is the review's main critical passage together with my remarks.

[Von] Hildebrand’s arguments for the objectivity of value therefore seem unsuccessful. It is true that one experiences an object as possessing some value which motivates a particular form of response to it. But it is another matter whether one has grasped a value in the object on its own or in the object as it is related to oneself in experience. Food is experienced as delicious, but there is no property of gustatory value inhering objectively in chicken tikka masala. It can be appetizing to one but not to another. Or consider that human beings love fruit, but dogs and cats generally do not.

BV: Nemes invokes the fact that for beings capable of gustatory experience, what is appetizing/delicious/tasty can vary across individuals in a species, and across species.  This is because the property of being appetizing is not an intrinsic property of the edible or potable item, but involves a relation to the consumer.  I have been called 'Old Asbestos Tongue' on account of the pleasure I derive from fiery comestibles.  The positive or negative gustatory value resides not in the comestible itself, but in the relation between consumer and comestible between, say, 'Old Asbestos Tongue' and the jalapeno pepper.  My constitution is such as to allow for the enjoyment of what others will find highly disagreeable. Hence, de gustibus non est disputandum. There is nothing to dispute since there is no fact of the matter.  It is 'subjective' in one sense of this polysemous term.

But how negotiate the inferential move from

1) That which has the value of tasting good often varies from individual to individual and from species to species

to

2) The value of tasting good is subjective, not objective.

This looks to be an illicit slide. (1), which is plainly true, is consistent with the negation of (2).  For it could be that the value of tasting good is objectively the same for all despite different edibles being tasty to different people or animals.

That is to say: tasting good could be an objective value despite the fact that different edible items have this value for different people.  The perceiver-relativity of taste, which makes taste subjective, is consistent with the objectivity of gustatory values.

If values are essences and essences are ideal objects that subsist independently of our value responses (Wertantworten), as von Hildebrand maintains, then, while different perceivers find different things appetizing/delicious/tasty, this needn't affect the value itself.  The tasting of an incendiary comestible involves a physical transaction; the intellectual intuition of the value does not. One does not taste the value, one tastes the jalapeno-laden enchilada; and one does not intellectually intuit  the enchilada, one tastes it.

SN: Similarly, a purported moral value can be “noble” in the eyes of the “virtuous” but repellent to the “profligate.” It could well be that the difference in perception is accounted for merely in terms of the different structures of the persons involved.

BV:  It is not the value as ideal object that is noble, but a person who has the value.  The person is noble in virtue of instantiating the value. The base are value-blind (wertblind):  they cannot 'see' or appreciate the value that noble people instantiate.  But that fact is consistent with the value's objective existence in itself apart both from anyone's appreciating it and anything's instantiating it.

My point is that von Hildebrand has the resources to turn aside Nemes' objections. The latter are not rationally compelling. Give von Hildebrand's Platonism about values, Nemes' arguments are non sequiturs.  This is not to say that von Hildebrand's axiology is true; it is to say that Nemes hasn't refuted it.

His review raises for me a fascinating question: does phenomenology by its very nature, and given that intentionality is its central motif, support realism or idealism?  For von Hildebrand and J-P Sartre the former; for Husserl the latter.  I should take this up in a separate entry.

For now I recommend that Nemes study chapter V, "Objectivity and Independence," in von Hildebrand's What is Philosophy? 

Nemes Binity

Husserl, Thomas, and Sister Adelgundis

Some of us live within the tension between the autonomy of reason and  obedient faith and trust.  On the one side, we are admirers of Edmund Husserl with his  ethos of critical examination, of cautious inquiry  painstaking and protracted, of scholarly sobriety; we share his fear of error, of doxastic over-extension; we subscribe to an ethics of belief, we feel the anxious concern for intellectual honesty. His question, Wie kann ich ein ehrlich Philosoph sein? is ours. On the other side, that of Thomas, we feel the willingness to take doxastic risks, to go beyond what can be strictly known, or even shown to be possible; we desire  truth whether or not it can be philosophically validated; we are open to the  allowing of church authority to override the judgment of the individual, even if in the end we cannot accept the Church's magisterium.

Husserl was drawn to the Catholic Church in his later years. But he felt too old to enter her since he would need at least five years to examine each dogma, as he explained to Sister Adelgundis.  (See John M. Oesterreicher, Walls are Crumbling: Seven Jewish Philosophers Discover Christ, London: Hollis and Carter, 1953, p. 80.)

A comparison with Simone Weil is apt. She lurked outside the Church for years but could not bring herself to enter. Intellectual scruples were part of it. She was strongly opposed to Blaise Pascal's bit about just taking the holy water and going through the motions in the expectation that outer practices would bring inner conviction.

Husserl's attitude was that it would be intellectually irresponsible to accept the dogmas prior to careful examination to see if they are rationally acceptable. To which the believer will say: How dare you question God's revelation? God has revealed himself in the Incarnation and you will waste five years 'examining' whether it is logically possible when it is a foregone conclusion that you with your scrupulosity of method will be unable to 'constitute' in consciousness the Word and its becoming flesh?  It's a fact that lies beyond the sphere of immanence and irrupts into it, and thus cannot be 'constituted' from within it. What can be constituted is at best a transcendence-in-immanence, not an absolute transcendence. What's actual is possible, and what's possible is possible whether you can understand how. If it is actual, then it is possible even if it seems self-contradictory!

Oesterreicher: "But to do so [to examine the dogmas] is to judge the Judge, to try the word of God, forgetting that it is the word of God that tries us." (Walls are Crumbling, p. 80) Oesterreicher goes on to say that Husserl tries to shift "the centre of being and truth" "from God to ourselves." (ibid.) That is exactly right, and this shift is the essence of modern philosophy from Descartes (1596-1650) on.  The 'transcendental turn' does indeed make of man the center, the constitutive source of all meaning and being.

"It is this luminous authority which gives faith its certainty." (p. 81)  But how do you know that this certainty is not merely subjective? Objective certainty alone is of epistemic worth. And how do you know that the authority really is an authority? Josiah Royce's religious paradox is relevant here.

One option is just to accept the faith and seek understanding afterwards. Fides quarens intellectum. And if understanding doesn't come? Well, just keep on believing and practicing. On this approach, faith stands whether or not understanding emerges. "I accept the Incarnation without understanding how it is possible; I accept it despite its seeming impossible."  Faith does not have to pass the tests of reason; reason has no veto power over faith. There is a Truth so far above us  that the only appropriate attitude on our part is like that of the little child. "Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 18, 3)

Would this response move Husserl? No. Should it? Not clear.

Perhaps Wittgenstein in his Vermischte Bemerkungen gives the best advice:

Go on, believe! It does no harm.

Believing means submitting to an authority. Having once submitted, you can't then, without rebelling against it, first call it in question and then once again find it acceptable. (Culture and Value, tr. Peter Winch, p. 45e)