The Josias

January 21, 2016March 20, 2018

Error as a Parasite

A Philosophical Bagatelle

by Peter A. Kwasniewski

I wrote this little piece in 1997, when reading an article on parasites that had appeared in National Geographic.

There can be a philosophy of error—a “love of wisdom” in regard to error—only per accidens. As Aristotle says, a true explanation will at the same time refute the objections or opposed positions. So, too, it may be said that an understanding of how error works, the way error grafts itself onto truth, is implicitly present in understanding what truth is and how it presents itself.

Perhaps the most elegant example is Aristotle’s refutation of Parmenides and Melissus in Book I of the Physics. When he has laid out his own explanation, he returns to the difficulties and shows why the partial truths contained in the erroneous theories can be saved only when they are integrated into the whole he has set forth. There is thus a kind of wisdom attained about the errors, if wisdom signifies a knowledge in reference to the end of a given genus, which is always some whole. The man who is “wise about war” is one who understands the particulars of warfare in reference to the end of victory. There can thus be a “wisdom” about error insofar as one is studying the manner in which wisdom offers the pattern according to which a deceiver or an ignoramus could approximate the truth by a likeness yet not attain it. Without the pattern, there could not be a bad copy; without the whole there could not be a rebellious part.

A theory or philosophy of error has to begin from the fact that error is a parasite which lives by attaching itself to some truth, or host-organism, from which it derives its sustenance, that is, its credibility. The host organism is a larger body of truth which contains enough superfluity, so to speak, to permit an error to be drawn off of it. In other words, if one starts with a very simple truth, like the principle of non-contradiction or the principle of identity, it is rather difficult to generate an error from it immediately. The principle is in itself so clear, and so “thin” as a proposition, that it has no fatness from which a falsehood could derive nourishment. Alhough Hegel’s comment that the concept of being is the emptiest of concepts is false, he is pointing out a truth: when speaking of “being in general,” one has already committed the error of making being a genus. “Being” that is applicable to all things is a logical abstraction. When we say that the principle of non-contradiction is “thin” we mean that its truth is so transparent as to admit of no unclarity, no possibility of mistaking the meaning. At the level of the undressed principle of non-contradiction, no one who was capable of thought or perception could fail to embrace it. Related to this inherent transparency is the principle of non-contradiction’s infinite fertility as a principle, its “thickness” in applicability or extension.

Accordingly, while it is true to say that the principle of non-contradiction contains within itself the truth, or truth-value, of all possible particular propositions, nevertheless it must also be admitted that the universal is the emptiest, as far as its concretion or application is concerned. Its power only becomes apparent when it is “fleshed out,” as the phrase goes; and the more fleshed out it is, the more food it affords for error. As Aristotle observes, we are rarely mistaken about the universals which can be gathered easily from experience (e.g., the whole is greater than any of its parts), but we frequently err in applying what we know in general to what we encounter in particulars. For example, we may know that all mules are sterile, but we may not know that this particular animal is sterile if we do not identify it as a mule. As long as we stick to the simplest axioms and theorems of geometry, we are not likely to fall into error; but the further we go in drawing conclusions, the more complex the proofs become and greater room opens up for making a mistake in reasoning. Room for error becomes broader still when thought shifts from reasoning in the strict sense (i.e., in a manner reducible to syllogism) to reasoning on the basis of probabilities—as when we reason about natural events which are “for the most part,” or about ethics, where tight logical inference is weakened by the factors of free will and custom—or on the basis of likenesses, as when we draw arguments from features common to man and other animals, or properties analogously predicable of God and man.

A superfluity of expanded truth, an unfolded system, a fully-formed and well-nourished body of observations, inferences, or deductions, affords opportunities for a parasite, which is not equal to the task of appropriating the whole, to seize some part of the whole and maintain its independent life by removing and transforming that part into its own life-system. Superfluity, as suggestive of useless excess, may be the wrong term; but I wish to convey the notion of a sort of “padding” around a system of truth, portions of which can be stolen from it without destroying the fundamental truths of the system itself. Without these truths, the parasites can no longer live; paradoxically, their survival depend on the health of the principles and many of the conclusions as well.

Some elements of an “organic” theory of error would be as follows.

The connection of error and truth, or more accurately, the necessary subordination of falsehood to the truth from which it derives its sole means of subsistence. Error is intelligible to the extent that it still contains in its stomach the digestibilia of truth.
The dependence of the parasite idea upon the host idea which precontains the segment used by the parasite; precontains it, moreover, in a holistic way whereby it serves as a part that benefits the greater organism. It is precisely this holistic function of the particular truth that the parasite directly counteracts by isolating a part and taking it out of the whole. The truth is only a “full” or “functional” truth within the organism of which it constitutes an element; when removed, it is dead, like the hand severed from the body which is called a hand only equivocally. Thus, the truth taken by the parasite becomes, in isolation, a falsehood because it is taken out of or away from the context, the body, in which it has a purposeful place in the entire organic structure. The particular truth or element is teleological, in that it contributes to the good of the entire organism; an organism is in fact an “organized body,” a multiplicity governed by the soul for the sake of some end or hierarchy of ends (nutrition, sensation, cognition, volition).[i]
The Mystical Body of Christ can be parasitized; that is the essence of heresy. Heresy is in the theological realm what intellectual error is in the philosophical realm. Protestantism lives to the extent that Catholicity remains within it, as digestibilia. When a Protestantism which has cut itself off definitively from the Body thoroughly digests what it has taken, it dies for want of nourishment, as can be seen clearly in the liberal Protestantism of the 19^th and 20^th centuries which has now metamorphosed into agnostic social activism, usually with a diabolical twist.
Error cannot be understood independently of truth, as though it were an isolated item that could be placed in a separate category or box. The very being of a falsehood is relative to a truth to which it must remain somehow attached, even if in an attitude of antagonism or hostility, or minimally, in an attitude of selfish utility. Thus, for example, the early modern philosophers cannot develop their systems except in contradistinction and opposition to the ancients and medievals[ii]; the modern systems are in fact parasitical in nature, in so far as they start from a rejection of the old whole and carve out whatever portions of it they wish to maintain for their own sub-holistic purposes. They can exist only to the extent that the old whole still exists and provides nourishment to their errors and a whole to which their systems (which are really “sub-systems,” in that they result from a constriction of the prior whole, and not from a separation and independent development) can be opposed.
Biological parasitology can teach us this, too: by far the greater number of animal species in existence, perhaps as much as three-quarters of known species, are parasitical.[iii] By analogy, one would expect error mingled with truth to outweigh pure truth—and so it does, as we can see from looking around us at the errors in which most of mankind is embroiled. The fall of man is a fall from friendship with God, where there is mutual cooperation, to a kind of parasitism off of God’s creation. This is also the essence of capitalism: a mechanism of preying off of other members of the social body for the benefit of the predator.

The truth of the theory of error presented here is confirmed by the simple fact that there could never be a philoplanē or philosphalma—that is, a “love of error” analogous to “love of wisdom”—for the simple reason that the mind of its very nature is borne towards the true and cannot accept anything false except because it has first persuaded itself that the false is true.[iv] A “thought-experiment,” for example, means a situation where one adopts a certain thesis as true, even if it is false strictly speaking, and proceeds to deduce the consequences, as in Lobachevsky’s non-Euclidean geometry. Moreover, if an opponent of non-Euclidean geometry grants that it “works” when applied to curved surfaces, he is admitting precisely that the geometry is true so far as curved surfaces are concerned, but not with plane surfaces where the straight line has an unbending definition.

It seems only fitting to let that great truth-lover St. Augustine have the final word:

People have such a love for truth that when they happen to love something else, they want it to be the truth; and because they do not wish to be proven wrong, they refuse to be shown their mistake. And so, they end up hating the truth for the sake of the object which they have come to love instead of the truth.

NOTES

[i] The term “system” in its original etymology should be examined more carefully along the lines sketched here.

[ii] Gabriel Marcel says that Sartre’s ethical position can exist, as a position, only when there is a contrary understanding of freedom and truth for it to oppose. (The same is true, one might point out, of James Madison’s understanding of man and political community.) One might say that an error only exists as a position, that is, something posited or placed against something else. Truth has a kind of independent or self-sufficient being, which does not stand in need of something extraneous in order to stand; not so with error.

[iii] See National Geographic, October 1997.

[iv] Vincent McCabe argues this point exceptionally well in his book The Catholic Church and Philosophy.

December 1, 2015March 20, 2018

On the Subordination of the State to the Church

by Tommaso Maria Cardinal Zigliara, OP

Translated by Timothy Wilson

Today we continue our series of original translations of important texts relating to Catholic political philosophy. Tommaso Maria Cardinal Zigliara was a prominent Thomist philosopher and theologian in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Among many other accomplishments, he was closely involved with the preparation of the Leonine edition of the Angelic Doctor’s Opera Omnia (the first volume of which contains his synopses and annotations on St. Thomas’ Organon commentaries), and assisted in preparing the encyclicals Aeterni Patris and Rerum novarum.

The chapter translated here is taken from book two of the third part of Zigliara’s widely circulated Summa philosophica (14^th ed., 1910). Having treated of domestic, civil, and religious society in their principles and particulars in the preceding books and chapters of this part, he now sets himself the task of treating in brief the relations which should obtain between those two perfect societies, the Church and the State. The original text can be found here.

This is the last of the five articles of the chapter, treating of the subordination of the State to the Church.

FIFTH ARTICLE

On the subordination of the State to the Church

I. Nature of the question. A religious society, of which sort is the Catholic Church, lives in the company of civil society, such that the spiritual power of the Roman Pontiff is as it were in contact with the civil power, and they who are civilly subjects of the temporal authority are at once subjects of Ecclesiastical authority. It is commonly conceded that the civil authority, within the limits of its ends, is independent of the Church, in that manner in which we say the Church, with respect to its end, to be independent of any civil authority. But it is wholly impossible that two societies should exist at once with equal independence, that is, without mutual subordination to one another; consequently, it is necessary that either the Church be subordinate to the civil State, or the civil State to the Church. Behold the question, concerning which we have said many things in Articles 61 and 63, and whose solution we give in this final article, so that there might more clearly be seen the notion of ethnarchy which belongs to the Catholic Church. Let the conclusion therefore be stated:

II. In no wise is the Catholic Church subordinate to the civil State, but the civil State of its nature is subordinate to the Catholic Church. This proposition is easily proved, if there are recalled to mind the principles which we made known in the preceding Chapter. For the notion or nature of the subordination of societies ought to be taken absolutely from the end: for, seeing that the nature of the society arises from the end to which it is ordered, where the ends of two societies are subordinated, the societies equally ought to be subordinated; and a society whose end is subordinate to the end of a higher society, is also subordinated to that other. These are the principles, without which there consists nothing anymore firm in determining the nature of society. But the end of civil society and the end of religious society are ordered to one another, and the end of civil society is subordinated to the end of the Catholic Church, and not vice versa. Therefore in no wise is the Catholic Church subordinate to the civil state, but the civil state of its nature is subordinate to the Catholic Church. The minor is proved.

The end of civil society and the end of religious society are ordered to one another. For man is composed from soul and body, and, as man, is a part of society. But civil society properly looks to the exterior perfection of man, because it is not able to penetrate into the interior things of conscience, and what is more, because it considers man living in this life, it has care chiefly for his temporal perfection; whereas the Catholic Church, as a spiritual society, is ordered rather to the perfection of the soul and directs men to eternal felicity. But although these things are true, yet it is true that man neither is able nor ought to be divided, but just as the soul is for the perfection of the body and the body is for the perfection of the soul, so equally corporeal perfection—to which the civil State directly attends—and spiritual perfection—which the Church of Christ bountifully imparts—both ought to provide for the whole man. Therefore the ends of both societies, although distinct amongst themselves, yet agree in one common end, which is the man to be perfected; and consequently, these ends are ordered to one another.

The end of civil society is subordinated to the end of the Catholic Church, and not vice versa. Indeed, nothing forbids that man, as a composite of soul and body, not procure for himself, in an upright manner, all those things which coincide for living this life comfortably. Nevertheless, it is irrational and repulsive to submit the soul to the body in such a manner that it is the body’s slave, and esteems less his intellectual perfection, so that in his body he leads a life according to the fashion of brute animals; but the body ought to be subservient to the soul. — It savors of dementia, moreover, to think that man should be solicitous of temporal felicity—which felicity he must lose, though he will it or not—and not think of attaining eternal happiness: For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul? (Matt. XVI, 26). For we have not here a lasting city, but we seek one that is to come (Hebr. XIII, 14). Therefore, whatever man seeks in this life, whatever he searches out for himself in civil society and from civil society, he either seeks perversely, or ought to order to the spiritual and eternal perfection of the soul. Because, therefore, the end of the Church is the interior and eternal perfection of man, but the end of civil society is his external and temporal perfection, the end of the Church is not subordinated to that of civil society, but rather the latter to the former.

III. The Catholic Church is an ethnarchic society. Before I prove that the Catholic Church truly is an ethnarchic society, and consequently that there is in it a true ethnarchy, I think it worthwhile to take a moment and put forward the doctrine of St. Thomas concerning Christ, insofar as He is the Head of all men: «There is this difference between the natural head of man and the mystical body of the Church, that the members of the natural body are all together; but the members of the mystical body are not all together: not with respect to the esse of nature, because the body of the Church is constituted from men, who have existed from the beginning of the world even to its end; neither according to the esse of grace, for, of those even who are in one time, some lack grace, to be had later, while others already possess it. Thus therefore, the members of the mystical body are taken, not only according as they are in act, but also according as they are in potency. Yet there are some in potency who are never reduced to act; whereas there are some who are reduced to act at some time or other. And this occurs according to a threefold grade: the first of which is through faith; the second through charity of the way; the third through the fruition of the patria. Thus, therefore, it should be said, that taking it generally according to the whole of the world’s time, Christ is the head of all men, but according to diverse grades. For firstly and chiefly is He head of those who are united to Him in act through glory; secondly, of those are united in act to Him through charity; thirdly, of those who are united in act to Him through faith; fourthly, of those who are only united to Him in potency not yet reduced to act, which yet is to be reduced to act according to divine predestination; fifthly, of those who are united to Him in potency, which potency is never reduced to act: as men living in this world, who are not predestined, who yet, receding from this age, entirely cease to be members of Christ, because they are no longer in potency, as to be united to Christ» (IIIa, q. 8, a. 3).

From these principles, our thesis is easily proved. Indeed the Catholic Church encompasses all nations, whether in act or in potency, as we have heard from St. Thomas; furthermore, it is of its nature a doctrinal society, and possesses an infallible magisterium in the matters which look to dogmas and morals; it is a society whose invisible head is Christ Himself, at once God and man; whose visible head is the Supreme Roman Pontiff, exalted with supernatural dignity, subject to no man, having civil powers subordinate to him, and directed, by the special assistance of the Holy Ghost, to the salvation of nations. In the Church, therefore, you have universality, you have doctrinal magisterium, you have dignity and supereminence: all the things, namely, which are required for an ethnarchy, that is, for valid authority over all peoples or nations. — This wisest kind of politics prevailed, to the good of peoples, in the Middle Ages, that is, when truly Christian peoples and kings received and venerated, in the Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ—whose name, as Isaiah says, is Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace.^{^[1]}

NOTES

^{^[1]} Isaiah 9:6

November 25, 2015March 20, 2018

On Liberty of Teaching

by Tommaso Maria Cardinal Zigliara, OP

Translated by Timothy Wilson

This is the fourth of the five articles of the chapter, treating of liberty of teaching. The final article, on the subordination of the State to the Church, will be posted in the course of the next few days.

FOURTH ARTICLE

On liberty of teaching¹

I. Question. Simultaneously one with liberty of conscience and of cult, there is proclaimed by the more recent liberalism a liberty of teaching, particularly with respect to the means with which it is principally exercised, namely, with respect to liberty of the press (la libertá della stampa). We ask, therefore, whether this liberty is upright, and to be approved by the civil authority. Here again I caution that the discussion is concerned, not with tolerance, but with approbation: evils indeed are able to be tolerated, yet naught but goods ought to be approved.

II. First preliminary note. It has been said more than once by us, that man is born for society, and cannot have the helps for perfecting himself except in society and from society. But the perfection of man chiefly is found in the intellective part of him, to which it is proper to know and to love: to know the truth, and to love the good. Thence it is, that to impede man from the acquiring of truth and the virtues, is in a certain way to kill him intellectually.

III. Second preliminary note. However, there is a certain doctrine which does not instruct minds but perverts them, insinuating error under the guise of truth. On account of which, seeing that man by his nature is drawn to the truth and has the right of seeking it and the duty of shunning error, he has the right that others not induce him into error under the guise of truth. Therefore just as the liberty of truth is honorable, so the liberty of error is the death of the soul, as St. Augustine days, and does not merit the name of liberty, but of license.

IV. Point of the question. Therefore the entire question concerning the liberty of teaching does not touch upon the true liberty of teaching the truth, but the liberty of teaching as it encompasses the instruction both of truth and of error. Is this liberty able to be permitted by the civil authority? To this question, defined in this fashion, I respond with the following conclusion:

V. Liberty of teaching, whether spoken or written, is intrinsically absurd and disgraceful. For it is intrinsically absurd and shameful to concede the same rights to truth and to error; it is intrinsically absurd and shameful that the civil authority should not preserve voluntarily the citizens from the corruption of mind and heart; it is intrinsically absurd and shameful that the civil authority should permit that which it is itself compelled to condemn and punish. But liberty of teaching is of this sort. Therefore it is intrinsically absurd and shameful. — The minor is proved.

Liberty of teaching concedes the same rights to truth and to error. This is included in the very nature of liberty of teaching, as it is understood by liberalism. For it includes in its scope the right of striking down things pertaining so much to the world, as to God, and to religion, morals, individual life, and social life. Now it is not necessary to prove, that men may err in the gravest of matters, which matters natural reason itself commands to be altogether defended and most firmly held. The faculty of teaching therefore having been granted, the same right is conceded to error which is conceded to the truth, that it might propagate itself, to the detriment of truth: no indeed, error would enjoy a greater right than truth. For the truth cannot but employ those means which are honest and worthy, while on the contrary error holds all means as licit. No one of sound mind does not see how absurd and disgraceful are all of these things: for the right is truth; therefore just as error is the lack of truth, so is it the lack of right.

Liberty of teaching works to the corruption of the mind and heart. I assume two things for demonstrating this: 1° that men, from the corruption of nature, are wont to accept theories which favor their passions; 2° that the greater part of mankind is per se incapable of freeing itself from the pursuit of knowledge, and of extricating itself from false reasoning and the sophisms of error. He who would deny these two things, would deny a fact which is at once constant and manifest to all. But: 1° from the liberty of teaching there arises the liberty of error, as has been said above, through which the passions are favored and excited against the intellective part—and, the intellective part erring, it cannot happen that the whole man be not corrupted; 2° on account of the liberty of teaching, men are exposed daily to the danger of erring in those things which they are held to know and about which they are held to think truly—such as the matters which have to do with God, the human soul, morals, and religion—when through false teachers, truths of this sort are assailed with impudent license, and which the greater part of humanity is not able to defend from sophisms. Wherefore, a proclivity toward evil being supposed on one hand, and an impotence for reasoning scientifically on the other, it cannot happen that the liberty, or more truly the license, of teaching does not entirely and efficaciously work to the corruption of the minds and hearts of the citizens. — But it is the right of the citizens that the civil authority defend them from so great a calamity, nor is this authority able to abandon this duty without thereby committing a crime. How much more shameful and absurd it is, then, that the civil authority should proclaim this deformity in its laws, which through an intolerable abuse of words is called the liberty of teaching?

Liberty of teaching is simultaneously approved and punished by the civil authority. On the one hand, liberty of teaching is established, and on the other, they are punished who abuse the press in order to circulate things which in fact are, or are judged to be, opposed to the civil authority. But, either the liberty of teaching in word or writing is to be proclaimed in its whole extension; or on the contrary, it is to be confined within limits lest it lead to evil. But if it ought to be admitted in its full extension, why therefore are they who use and abuse it punished? If it ought to be constrained within certain limits, lest it devolve into license, then: firstly, it is able to be limited so that it does not work evil (la revisione preventiva), just as it is punished after evil has been perpetrated; no indeed, it would be more prudent to obstruct it, for most often the evil is irreparable; secondly, these limits are to be defined only according to truth and integrity; wherefore, just as liberty of teaching is condemned and punished by the civil authority when it inclines to the detriment of the same authority, so a fortiori it is to be condemned and punished whenever the same liberty sallies forth against God, religion, morals, and the true liberty of citizens: because the civil authority is not superior to God, religion, morals, and truth, nor is it more serious to disparage the Rulers of cities and kingdoms, than to disparage God and religion and truth, without which no authority commands and no society consists.

VI. Note. Difficulties are resolved. First objection. There is in man an innate desire of communicating to other men the discoveries of his own talent. But this natural desire is not satisfied, except by means of liberty of teaching. Therefore liberty of teaching corresponds to natural human desire.

I respond. I distinguish the major: there is in man an innate desire of communicating the discoveries of his own talent within the limits of truth, I concede; outside the limits of truth, I deny. — I distinguish also the minor: this natural desire is not satisfied except by means of liberty of teaching rightly understood, that is, through true liberty which is not contrary to truth, I concede; it is not satisfied except through liberty badly understood, that is, through license which is contrary to truth, I deny. — Nature does not give an inclination to error, just as it does not give inclination to evil; wherefore, just as the inclination to evil, which is from the corruption of nature, ought to be checked, so also the perverse inclination to error. — But the liberty of error is not true liberty, but the abuse of liberty, and is license, to be detested and curbed.

Second objection. By reason of liberty of teaching, whether in word or writing, opinions are considered and the truth is more and more made clear. But that which is of this sort not only contains nothing of evil, but indeed confers to itself the greatest good. Therefore liberty of teaching ought very much to be supported.

I respond. In the first place, the adversary concludes, from the fact that there may be some good had from liberty of teaching, to the goodness of this liberty; which conclusion we have proved is not able to be had from this aforementioned good alone, in no. IV of the preceding article. I respond secondly, by distinguishing the minor: Something of this sort contains nothing evil if, through liberty of teaching, only opinions are considered, and errors are not defended, I concede; if error is defended against truth, I deny. — It has been said that error lacks right, and indeed is the lack of right. Where the liberty of teaching is conceded to error, therefore, there is no right, but manifest injustice against truth, which in this case is not elucidated, but is denied.

Third objection. Liberty of teaching having been denied, the State is constituted as the judge of teaching, and additionally, there is conceded to it a monopoly on teaching. But the State is not the judge of teaching, and is not able to arrogate to itself the monopoly on teaching without the greatest tyranny. Therefore liberty of teaching is entirely to be permitted.

I respond. I deny the major, I concede the minor, and I deny the consequence, liberty having been accepted as it is at once a right of truth and error, as it is taken by the adversaries. — I concede that there belongs to the civil State no authority concerning teachings: but it is not necessary that one be endowed with this governance of teaching, or magisterium, in order to discern those things which are manifestly evil, so much in themselves as in relation to civil society, so that the former might be able to be inculcated and the latter prohibited; just as, if one were to defend an innocent from a manifest unjust aggressor, he would not thereby be constituted judge between the two; but the innocent has a manifest right, and in order to defend him from an unjust attacker in the act of aggression, one is able to seek out the help of another. But in the order of teaching, there are certain vices, that is, manifest errors, which indeed the State is able and ought to know and punish, just as other vices, without seizing for itself the teaching magisterium. — But in fact there exists, above the State, a teaching magisterium in the Catholic Church and in the Supreme Pontiff. Therefore the errors which the Catholic Church condemns, the State also ought to condemn, and it ought to accept the teaching magisterium of the Church.

Fourth objection. The right of the citizens, for whom it is easy to reject erroneous doctrines, is not harmed by liberty of teaching. But that which harms the rights of no one, ought to be permitted. Therefore liberty of teaching ought to be permitted.

I respond. I deny the major. For proof of this, I respond in the first place that, even granting that each and every person were able to detect the insidious devices of sophists or those who err, a right to this aggression would not thereby be something to be admitted; just as there ought not to be admitted a right in an unjust aggressor, even if there were the means for repelling his violence in the innocent, whose power to repel injury does not diminish the injustice of the aggressor. — I respond secondly, that it is false that it is easy for all to avoid the tricks of sophists, particularly when the sophisms favor the passions: in fact, we see that men—I speak not only of coarse folk, but of clever men as well—are every day entangled in false doctrines.

Fifth objection. The Church herself desires liberty of teaching, and demands that it be conceded to her from the State by right. Therefore liberty of teaching, which is good in the religious order, is not able not to be good in the civil order.

I respond. I distinguish the antecedent: The Church desires true liberty of teaching, I concede; she desires false liberty of teaching, about which our whole question is concerned, I deny. The Church has never opposed herself to the liberty of truth, but rightly opposes herself to the liberty, or more correctly the license, of error. But justly does she claim absolutely for herself the liberty of teaching, because she is the mistress of truth, whatever be the desire or aversion of her adversaries.

But concerning the liberty of teaching taken in the sense of the adversaries, the Church desires it in the same manner in which she desires the liberty of cult: namely, insofar as it is most unjust that the magisterium of the Church, which is the instrument of truth, is excluded from that liberty which is conceded to error through civil laws. Concerning this matter, let us hear our most holy lord Pope Pius IX, in his Letter of 19 July 1875 to Felice Dupanloup, bishop of Órleans, about the liberty of teaching which the Catholics in France had sought and received in the year 1875 from the French government:

«Although it is to the disadvantage of the eternal laws of justice and of right reason itself, that true and false be had in the same condition, and equal rights be granted to both, yet since the iniquity of the times has transferred right (which is proper by its very nature to the true alone) to the false; and, the word liberty being sufficiently unsuitable, has granted to it the power of proposing, publishing, and teaching its fictions; We judge you, Venerable Brother, to have made an effort, altogether skillfully and advantageously, to adapt this venom forced upon civil society into a remedy for it. Indeed, if it is lawful for anyone of unsound mind to advance fantasies upon the public by means of the laws, and to avail himself of the same also to defend and relate the dogmas of science; there plainly is no reason at hand, why it ought not to be lawful for the truth: nor is there a reason why any person whatever, although he be a follower of fables and a hater of truth—unless he were entirely mad—would be able to deny to it the perspicuity of this right. To this ineluctable strength of argument there accedes no small degree of firmness, whether from the reproach proposed by You with respect to the impediment—to the detriment of science—cast upon so many talented minds, of setting forth their ideas; or from the facts attested to by experience, of the inclination—begotten by the captivity of truth—of letters and the higher disciplines; and also of the impudence, with which principles most pernicious not only to religion, but also to the human community, are even now published. These losses, if they are to be lamented in the license by which error everywhere is proposed to the people, certainly are to be considered deadly things in the instruction of youth and young men, in which the very root of human society is so corrupted, that it is capable only of poisoned fruits, which at length lead it, already ill, ruined, and prostrated, to dissolution.»

NOTES

[1] Cf. Leo XIII, encyclical Libertas præstantissimum §§24-25:

«A like judgment must be passed upon what is called liberty of teaching. There can be no doubt that truth alone should imbue the minds of men, for in it are found the well-being, the end, and the perfection of every intelligent nature; and therefore nothing but truth should be taught both to the ignorant and to the educated, so as to bring knowledge to those who have it not, and to preserve it in those who possess it. For this reason it is plainly the duty of all who teach to banish error from the mind, and by sure safeguards to close the entry to all false convictions. From this it follows, as is evident, that the liberty of which We have been speaking is greatly opposed to reason, and tends absolutely to pervert men’s minds, in as much as it claims for itself the right of teaching whatever it pleases – a liberty which the State cannot grant without failing in its duty. And the more so because the authority of teachers has great weight with their hearers, who can rarely decide for themselves as to the truth or falsehood of the instruction given to them.

Wherefore, this liberty, also, in order that it may deserve the name, must be kept within certain limits, lest the office of teaching be turned with impunity into an instrument of corruption. Now, truth, which should be the only subject matter of those who teach, is of two kinds: natural and supernatural. Of natural truths, such as the principles of nature and whatever is derived from them immediately by our reason, there is a kind of common patrimony in the human race. On this, as on a firm basis, morality, justice, religion, and the very bonds of human society rest: and to allow people to go unharmed who violate or destroy it would be most impious, most foolish, and most inhuman.»

November 24, 2015March 20, 2018

On Liberty of Cult

by Tommaso Maria Cardinal Zigliara, OP

Translated by Timothy Wilson

This is the third of the five articles of the chapter, treating of liberty of cult. The remaining articles will be posted serially over the next few days.

THIRD ARTICLE

On liberty of cult

I. The notion of liberty of cults. Liberty of cult is intimately involved with liberty of conscience. For if each and every citizen is free to decide upon a religion for himself according to his will, since religion implies also an external cult, each and every citizen ought to be free to profess his religion by any extrinsic cult whatever: and because the State is not able to offend against liberty of conscience, so neither may it prohibit liberty of cult; no indeed, it ought to sanction it by its laws. Thus teaches liberalism, the opinion of which the Church has condemned, as has been related in no. VII of the preceding article. Since, therefore, the liberty of cult is wholly founded in the liberty of conscience, it is to be refuted by the same process and with the same principles which we have laid down against liberty of conscience. Therefore let the first conclusion be set forth:

II. Liberty of cult, considered in itself, is absurd. This proposition remains proved in the first place from the things said above. For liberty of cult is inferred from the liberty of conscience. Because, therefore, this latter is absurd, the former ought also to be called absurd. — But furthermore: liberty of cult having been conceded to man, there is removed from God the power of assigning a determinate cult to men, and there is imposed upon God an obligation of accepting or at least approving any cult shown to Him by human reason. And indeed, if God is able to command a cult, if it is clear that He has prescribed a determinate cult, if He is held by no reason to accept the arbitrary cults of men, men are not able, without manifest irreligion or impiety, to oppose the commands of God, and their cult is an arbitrary and true mockery of God, and liberty of cult is superstition and an impiety. But it is an impiety to deny to God the ability of determining cult, and to impose in any way the duty of approving any cult whatsoever indiscriminately. Therefore liberty of cult is absurd. — In addition, let the second conclusion be stated:

III. Although the civil social authority is able at times to tolerate liberty of cult, yet it is in no way able to sanction it by any law. There is nothing to be added concerning tolerance after the things said concerning tolerance of liberty of conscience. And so the thesis is proved with respect to approbative or prescriptive law. We have proved above that political atheism is entirely repugnant. Therefore, just as any citizen, so also society itself, endued as it is with the nature of a moral person, is obliged to the duties of religion, and of true religion, by a most strict precept of nature. But religion implies external cult. Therefore the civil authority, to which it belongs to direct society, is most strictly obliged to observe, inculcate, and promote this external cult: I say that the civil authority is held to a cult consentaneous to the nature of sociality, that is, public, social, and finally, proper to society as it is society, or as a public and moral personality. But a false cult is not religion, but superstition and consequently error and impiety. Therefore to sanction liberty of cult, is to sanction impiety, but the denial of some social cult is the negation of religion in society qua society. Therefore social authority, although at times it is able to tolerate liberty of cult, yet is in no wise able to sanction it in law.

These things seem to me to be evident, and I wonder that they are denied not only by the rationalists—who, since they either explicitly deny God or retain Him in word only, logically reject any religion by the individual and from society—but by the liberalism which wishes to be called Catholic. For a Catholic would know that God ought to be worshiped with a true cult, and thus a false cult is not able to be endorsed; that God has spoken to men, has commanded a determinate cult, has constituted the Catholic Church as the sole magistra in those matters which pertain to religion—and hence there ought not to be approved any cult but that ordained by the Church, commanded by God Himself.

IV. Note. A difficulty is resolved. You may say: by means of liberty of cult, the Catholic Church also is able freely to practice its worship, while on the contrary, this liberty having been removed, the Church loses even her juridical liberty. — I respond, that this sort of argument effects a sham, and confounds things which, among themselves, are distinct and ought to be distinguished. For we are able to speak in a twofold manner concerning liberty of cult, relatively and absolutely^{^[1]}. Relatively, against those who proclaim liberty of cult and yet (just as we have heard from Rousseau concerning liberty of conscience) plague the Church, and prohibit her from practicing her worship, we argue in this manner: Either liberty of cult is to be admitted as a true social principle, or not. If it is to be admitted, therefore unjustly and irrationally are Catholics prohibited from profiting by their liberty; but if not, therefore liberty of cult is merely proclaimed by means of a solemn lie. This argumentation is indeed right, and strikes against the adversaries: wherefore also the Catholic Church does not scornfully reject it, but urges it so that she might defend the claims of her liberty.

But this does not imply that the liberty of cult is able to be defended absolutely by Catholics. For liberty of cult, considered in itself, is absurd and impious, as has been proved. Therefore it is absurd and impious to defend it in an absolute manner. And although from such liberty there sometimes arise goods, namely the liberty of Catholics, Catholics are not for this reason able to teach or defend it; for it is not licit to speak error for the apparent defense of truth: «For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie, unto his glory, why am I also yet judged as a sinner? And not rather (as we are slandered, and as some affirm that we say) let us do evil, that there may come good? whose damnation is just» (Rom. III, 7-8).

NOTES

^{^[1]} The Cardinal here refers to vol. 1 of his manual, Logica: Dialectica III, cap. 4, a. II, no. XI, where, delineating kinds of demonstration, he writes:

«Absolute demonstration, and relative demonstration or ad hominem. The first is that which proceeds from premises, the truth of which is admitted by us and is assumed for inferring something absolutely: as when we demonstrate the real existence of God from the contingency of creatures, and other things of this sort. A relative or ad hominem demonstration is that which proceeds from principles admitted by an adversary and assumed by us in order to refute him, an abstraction having been made from the truth of those principles; as if someone were to assume principles admitted by materialists or rationalists, in order to convince them of the falsity of their doctrine.»

November 23, 2015March 20, 2018

On Liberty of Conscience

by Tommaso Maria Cardinal Zigliara, OP

Translated by Timothy Wilson

This is the second of the five articles of the chapter, treating of liberty of conscience. The remaining articles will be posted serially over the next few days.

SECOND ARTICLE
On liberty of conscience

I. The notion of liberty of conscience. Everywhere today, all who profess liberalism proclaim that liberty of conscience is necessary; and not a few Catholics, from the liberal school, as they call it, who thus call themselves liberal Catholics, are of the same mind with the liberal rationalists. But what is liberty of conscience? Generally, according to its defenders, it can be called the faculty of thinking and doing those things which are more pleasing in those matters which relate to God and religion. We ask, therefore, whether man enjoys this right, or this liberty of conscience: and note the words of the question, for we inquire concerning the right.

II. First preliminary note. In the first place, I say that faith is able to be imposed upon no unbeliever through violence, which faith he refuses to admit; because to believe is of the will, as St. Thomas says in IIaIIæ, q. 10, a. 8. Wherefore the Council of Toledo commanded these things: «But concerning the Jews, the holy Synod commands, that force be inflicted upon no man in order that he believe; for God shows mercy to whom He wills, and hardens whom He wills.» (Cf. Francisco Victoria, Relect. V. de Indis, §. XV). Whence they indeed calumniate the Catholic Church, who say that she does violence to consciences in order to obtain the faith of Christ. Certainly, there has been, and is, violence—but the Church has suffered it and indeed now suffers it; she has not inflicted it, as the history of the martyrs and persecutions manifestly attest.

III. Second preliminary note. For our purposes, so that the exercise of true liberty may be had, it is necessary that it disparage no duty: for liberty is not for evil, but for good (Ps. 50, XIV). Therefore as often as a man abuses it for evil, it ought not to be called liberty, but more truly license. To ask, therefore, whether liberty of conscience is licit, is the same as to ask whether the liberty of thinking and doing those things, which are more pleasing in matters which are concerned with God and religion, disparages the duties toward God Himself. This precisely is the sense of the question, and under this aspect it is to be solved; and its solution is easy.

IV. Third preliminary note. In truth, this question, posed in this manner, is able to be defined 1° absolutely, or liberty of conscience considered in itself; 2° relatively, or liberty of conscience considered with respect to social cooperation: under which latter aspect it is chiefly defended by the adversaries. — Let the first conclusion, therefore, be stated.

V. Liberty of conscience, considered in itself, is entirely impious. And indeed, man, by a most strict duty of nature, is held to think rightly of God, and of those things which look to religion, both speculative and practical (33, II). But voluntarily to make resistance to a most strict duty is license, not liberty; and if the discussion, as in our argument, is concerned with the voluntary transgression of a duty toward God, the aforementioned license is an impiety. Since, therefore, through liberty of conscience, a right is given to man of thinking of God as it more pleases him, this liberty, this right is a true impiety. — But, because this first conclusion is hardly examined by the adversaries, the things already said suffice for its proof; and I arrive at the second part of the question. And thus let the second conclusion be stated.

VI. Liberty of conscience, socially considered, if it is able to be tolerated in given circumstances, yet never is to be approved, and much less to be protected or inculcated. That it is able to be tolerated in given cases is easily admitted: for many other evils are tolerated, or are not punished (for to tolerate is not to approve, nor simply to permit, but only not to punish)—no indeed, it sometimes happens that they ought to be tolerated in society, for otherwise worse evils would follow. But this tolerance ought not to be approbation, nor protection, nor inculcation. — The thesis is proved. Liberty of conscience, socially considered, is founded in nothing other than political atheism: it is most pernicious to society, and self-contradictory. Therefore liberty of conscience, socially considered, is in nowise able to be approved. The antecedent is proved.

It is founded in political atheism alone. And indeed, as has been said in the preceding number, liberty of conscience is a right, conceded to individuals, of thinking of God as they should please, or of submitting those things which are of God and religion, and the duties following from these, to the definition and arbitration of individual conscience, which thus is constituted as the criterion of religion. But just as in many other things, man not only errs from ignorance, but also from malice, so in the things which pertain to religion; nay more, in these more than in others, for religion imports more severe duties, to which the depraved passions make resistance: which errors, both speculative and practice, yet constitute an impiety in the religious order. But because, as has been said, in liberty of conscience, the criterion is the individual reason, the right of liberty of conscience is truly a right to error and impiety: which right indeed is not able to be approved in society and by society, unless at the same time there be set in place religious skepticism or political atheism.

It is most pernicious to society. For, as long as actions remain in the conscience, they are proper to the individual, and do not fall under judgment except that of God. But by the very fact that they are manifested, they have relation to the members of society, and consequently, when they inflict evil upon the members of society, they fall under the purview of the social authority. Now just as men suffer either scandal or any other injury whatsoever from the improbity of other men, so a fortiori they suffer scandal and injury from public and unpunished improbity, and much more from the permitted and approved dissemination of error and impiety, by which the intellectual and moral perfection of men is directly impeded. Therefore not to impede, nay more, indeed to approve these scandals, these injuries, more grave than corporal injuries, is not only impiety toward God, but is a perversion of the social order itself.

It is self-contradictory. And in fact, either liberty of conscience is a right, or it is not. If it is not, why is it noisily proclaimed? But if it is a right, why is it limited? In this limitation is clearly found the contradiction of the defenders of liberty of conscience. Indeed, not only do they prescribe religion, but they also forcibly impose in regard to civil laws, in regard to the king, etc. But neither civil laws, nor the king, nor society itself are above God, Who being removed, all other things topple, and all morality is either absurdity or the animal law of the stronger (29, II). Therefore if liberty of conscience is a right with respect to the duties of religion toward God, and political authority is scrupulous in preserving this right inviolate, the political authority itself is not able to impede it, without manifest contradiction and without open violence, so that that right is exercised fully with respect to royal power, with respect to civil laws, and finally, with respect to civil society itself. — And if it be said, that liberty of conscience should be restrained, such that duties toward society are not harmed; I rejoin, therefore much more ought not liberty to be restrained, but rather license of conscience, lest the duties toward God be abused—which duties are more weighty than social duties, such that the latter do not exist, nor are able to exist, without the former.

VII. Corollary. Rightfully therefore are the following propositions condemned in the Syllabus of Pius IX, which propositions affirm both liberty of conscience and indifferentism:

«Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, led by the light of reason, he shall consider true» (Prop. XV).

«Men are able to find the way of eternal salvation in the worship of any religion whatever, and therein to attain eternal salvation» (Prop. XVI).

VIII. Note. A difficulty is resolved. The things which present-day liberals teach concerning liberty of conscience in the social order are not new—indeed, Rousseau had already given them in his Social Contract, Book IV.8. Let us therefore hear this sophist, that from his mouth we might become acquainted with the arguments of the others: «Subjects are not obliged to render a reason to the civil power concerning their opinions, except so far as these are referred to the community. But it is in the interest of the State, that each and every citizen profess a religion which impresses upon him a love of his duties; but the dogmas of this religion concern neither the State nor its members, except so far as they are referred to morals and to the duties which the citizen is obliged to fulfill toward others.»^{^[1]}

That these things were written by Rousseau in hatred of the Catholic Church, is manifest from the things which he invents with respect to the will in the chapter cited. Next in order, we shall see the contradictions and absurdities which we encounter throughout in his words and in those of his imitators. — Without doubt, so long as religion is shut up in the interior conscience, it lies hidden from both the civil and ecclesiastical power; and consequently God alone is the judge of it. But when religion becomes the rule of morals, by this very fact it is referred to the community. In this sense, Rousseau thought the State to be present so that each citizen might profess that religion which impressed upon him a love of his duties. But only true religion impresses upon citizens a love of their duties. Therefore, contrary to what Rousseau illogically concludes, it ought entirely to be said, that even from his principles, it is not only fitting to the State that the true religion be at least externally observed by all the citizens, and the propagators of irreligion or of false dogmas be restrained, but it is incumbent upon it as a most grave duty of carrying out that which is proper to it.

All of which things are in such wise true, that Rousseau himself, who defends liberty or license of conscience against the Catholic Church, utterly destroys it after the words just cited by making firm the omnipotence of the State, or Statolatry: «Therefore there ought to be admitted a purely civil profession of faith, the right of which belongs to the Sovereign to determine the articles, not as dogmas of religion, but as they are sentiments of sociability, without which it is impossible that a man be a good citizen and faithful subject. The Sovereign has no faculty for imposing faith in articles of this sort, but he is yet able to make an exile of him who does not believe them, not as one who is impious, but as one who is unsociable and incapable of sincerely loving the laws and justice, and of pouring out one’s life, if necessary, for the carrying out of a duty. And if a man were publicly to admit the aforementioned dogmas, yet led a life as if he did not believe them; let him be punished by death: for he perpetrates the greatest crime, because he has spoken falsely before the law: qu’il soit puni de mort: il a commis le plus grand des crimes, il a menti devant la loi.»^{^[2]}

Thus speaks Rousseau, and thus speak they who follow after his sophisms. They set out from the principle: Nothing pertains to the Sovereign concerning the religious opinions of the subjects, so long as their exterior life is conformed to social duties, but immediately it is added, that a code of religion ought to be rendered by the Sovereign, which ought to encompass positive dogmas, that is, the existence of God, the future life, rewards for good deeds, and punishments for bad; and negative dogmas, which Rousseau reduces to intolerance alone. Finally, it is concluded that those citizens ought not to be tolerated—and indeed ought to be expelled from the State or punished by death—who do not hold to this civil religion, even if in other quarters they observe all those things which pertain to duties toward others. That is, religion is excluded from the State by reason of liberty of conscience, as if the principles of true religion should in fact be of no concern to the State; by reason of sociality, religion itself is submitted to the arbitrary will of the Sovereign; and by the arbitrary will of the Sovereign, the citizens, in admitting religion, ought to comply in a blind fashion, under pain of exile or death!

Nor could it have been concluded in any other way. For liberty of conscience, if once admitted, just as it is opposed to true religion, thus is opposed to the true felicity of the State; because there is no morality without God, and no duty without religion. But if regulation in those matters which pertain to religion is taken from the Church of God, it is necessary that it be given over to the arbitration of the civil power: which, lacking authority in religion, imposes its own tyranny upon consciences; and thus the true liberty of souls is oppressed by means of the same principles with which the false liberty of conscience is proclaimed by Rousseau and his followers. — Cf. Principes du Droit politique mis en opposition avec le Contrat social de J-J. Rousseau, par Honoré Torombert, etc., Lib. IV, par M. Lanjuinais, p. 335 (Paris, 1825).

NOTES

^{^[1]} This is our direct translation of the Latin text given by the Cardinal. The 1782 translation by G.D.H. Cole from the French renders it thus:

«The subjects then owe the Sovereign an account of their opinions only to such an extent as they matter to the community. Now, it matters very much to the community that each citizen should have a religion. That will make him love his duty; but the dogmas of that religion concern the State and its members only so far as they have reference to morality and to the duties which he who professes them is bound to do to others.»

^{^[2]} Cole renders it:

«There is therefore a purely civil profession of faith of which the Sovereign should fix the articles, not exactly as religious dogmas, but as social sentiments without which a man cannot be a good citizen or a faithful subject. While it can compel no one to believe them, it can banish from the State whoever does not believe them — it can banish him, not for impiety, but as an anti-social being, incapable of truly loving the laws and justice, and of sacrificing, at need, his life to his duty. If any one, after publicly recognising these dogmas, behaves as if he does not believe them, let him be punished by death: he has committed the worst of all crimes, that of lying before the law.»

November 20, 2015March 20, 2018

On Political Atheism

by Tommaso Maria Cardinal Zigliara, OP

Translated by Timothy Wilson

This is the first of the five articles of the chapter, treating of political atheism. The remaining articles will be posted serially over the next few days.

CHAPTER FIVE
On the mutual relations between Church and State

The nature of the Catholic Church having been set forth, and its power, consequently it remains to speak of the mutual relations existing between the Church and the civil State. And indeed it is proper to the Catholic Church, that it have members in every part of the world, and thus would rule over subjects of all nations; whence it comes about, that its power is found in intimate relation with civil States. It is necessary, therefore, that we speak of these mutual relations between the Church and the civil State. Indeed it is a difficult subject, not by its nature, but on account of the injustice of times and the malice of men. But that we might plainly determine the aforesaid relations, we begin from more remote principles, inquiring firstly of political atheism: whether indeed the political State thus is able to conduct itself as if no religion existed, and as if God did not exist;—secondly, of liberty of conscience, as they call it;—thirdly, of liberty of cult;—fourthly, of liberty of teaching;—fifthly, of the subordination of the State to the Church.

FIRST ARTICLE
On political atheism

I. The notion of political atheism. Earlier in our treatise we distinguished atheism into the species of theoretical and practical, insofar as either the existence of God is positively denied, or life is conducted as if God did not exist. In this second sense do we inquire concerning political atheism. For the elements of society are two: the governing element, in which there rests social authority, and the governed element, or the subjects, who are ordered by the ruler to the common good. And with respect to the governing element—whether he be called a prince, or is called by another name—is he able, in the drawing up of laws, in their execution, or in exercising judiciary power, to act as if God did not exist, and consequently to have no regard for divine laws, whether natural or positive? Behold the question.

II. The principles of political atheism. To the question proposed, the political atheist responds affirmatively; it is not difficult to assign the erroneous principles from which it is logically inferred, for they are both designated and proscribed many times in the lauded Syllabus, delivered by the authority of our most holy lord Pope Pius IX. Accordingly, whether the existence of God is denied; or, as with pantheism, his nature is confounded with the nature of the world; or, the existence of God having been posited, His divine providence is denied—God is always excluded from the world, such that «any action of God upon men and the world is to be denied» (Prop. II).

From this it follows, 1° that «Human reason, having no regard at all for God, is the single arbiter of the true and false, good and evil; it is a law unto itself, and suffices, by its natural powers, for procuring the good of men and peoples» (Prop. III).

— 2° Thus, «They derive all truths of religion from the native force of human reason; hence reason is the chief norm by which man may be able and ought to arrive at knowledge of all the truths of any sort of knowledge whatsoever» (Prop. IV).

— 3° Therefore «the laws of morals by no means require divine sanction, and it is not at all necessary, that human laws should be conformed to the law of nature, or that they should receive binding force from God» (Prop. LVI).

— 4° Therefore «Knowledge of philosophic and moral matters, and likewise civil laws, are able and ought to decline from divine and ecclesiastical authority» (Prop. LVII).

— 5° «Therefore the State, as the origin and font of all rights, enjoys a certain right circumscribed by no bounds» (Prop. XXXIX).

— 6° Therefore «right consists in material fact, and all duties of men are a hollow name, and all human deeds have the force of right» (Prop. LIX).

— 7° Therefore «the chance injustice of a deed causes no harm to the sanctity of right» (Prop. LXI).

— 8° Therefore «Authority is nothing other than the sum of number and material powers» (Prop. LX).

Errors of this sort, as anyone may see, are connected: for from the denial of God, descending, one arrives at materialism, and material force is opposed to individual right, and the despotism of the stronger to social right. Behold political atheism, both in its principles, and in its inferences proved by fact itself. Bayle, with whom Voltaire himself disagreed concerning this matter, dreamt of an atheistic society; Rousseau, for the most part, consented to Bayle in Book IV, ch. 7 of the Social Contract; both are more or less followed by those politicians who argue for the absolute separation of the State from the Church. Against all these, the conclusion is set forth:

III. Political atheism is absurd. It is proved. Political atheism dissolves society itself: because it is directly opposed so much to the end as to the essential elements of society. Therefore political atheism is absurd. — The antecedent is proved.

It is directly opposed to the end of society. The end of society is the perfection of the citizens, to be obtained through means which each and every person is not able to have from himself, and has from society; which perfection consists chiefly in the knowledge of one’s proper duties, and in the virtue by which those duties are carried out. But we have proved (32, IV) that the more principal duties of religion are the foundation of all other duties.^{^[1]} Therefore in society, and from society, the citizens principally ought to have the means by which they might carry out the duties of religion. But political atheism is either the denial of those things which pertain to religion, or at least an indifference and carelessness concerning the same, as it indeed defines itself. Therefore political atheism is directly opposed to the more principal end of human society. Wherefore Rousseau himself, in the text cited, against Bayle and indeed against himself, acknowledges that never was there any State founded, the basis of which was not religion. But if religion is the basis of society, then, religion having been expelled, it is necessary that human society should collapse.

It is opposed to the essential elements of society. The elements of this sort, as has been said, are the sovereign and the subjects: the former commands; the latter should be subject to him by the laws. Again, according to the hypothesis of political atheism, social authority depends upon no moral foundation and has no reason for existing. And this is indeed the case. Social authority is not the sum of number and material powers (51, V), but is something essentially moral, claiming for itself the right of ruling the human multitude. And thus it is not from the individual reason, to which no command or authority belongs of itself over other men, nor from an impersonal source, which is something abstract and fantastical, but is immediately from God, as a derivation or participation of the divine authority (ibid. IV). Therefore, political authority is not able to call itself atheistic, lest by this very act it necessarily and essentially negate itself. — The same result comes to pass if social authority were considered with respect to setting forth laws. For civil laws are naught except either proclamations of the law of nature, or determinations of that law of nature (25, VIII): but the law of nature is nothing other than a participation of the eternal law, from which every other law has its force. In consequence, political atheism is the denial of authority in itself; it is the denial of human legislation, which is null, for according to this hypothesis, it has no moral force to obligate. — Finally it should be added, that political authority, if it removes in whatever degree from God, should be said to depend on nothing other than itself. But this is State-theism, or, as it is called in the vulgar tongue, il Dio Stato, which in fact is able to be nothing other than the individual reason or will of rulers, governed not by a moral and superior principle, but by the force of arms and a supremely powerful ruler. Evidently, in political atheism, human society is not ruled by moral authority, but by the will and violence of individual reason, in that manner by which brute animals are governed.

The same conclusion is entirely proved, if we should consider the subjects. For these are men, that is, moral beings, to be directed in their course not through violence, but through law. Seeing, therefore, that the political authority professing atheism depends upon no moral principle, and the laws drawn up by it rest upon no principle superior to the individual reason, the citizens, reasoning in an ad hominem manner (L.41, XI), are not able to consider the authority as morally superior to themselves, and its laws as having the force of moral obligation; but they oppose individual reason to the individual reason of the one ruling. There remains the material force which prevails in the ruler; but material force is not a social bond of men; thereon to be shunned by means of ill will, no indeed, it is able to be overcome; and thus, by means of force, impious and foolish sovereigns are able to rob majesty from the citizens, which majesty they abuse against God. And so it happens that political authority, rising up against God in a most impious manner, sees its subjects rising up against itself.

I do not speak of the impiety of political atheism: for this is clear in itself. For if it is impious, that a citizen deny to God the duties of religion, it is most impious among those who rule society. For these latter are men, and so are obliged to fulfill those things which are man’s for God; they are rulers, and so ought to lead the way for all their subjects in the example of virtue and religion; they are for the good of society, and so ought not to subvert or subordinate religion, but ought, with all their powers, to promote it, so that men might not draw detriment from society—from which they have the right of aspiring to moral perfection—in those things which chiefly look to perfection, that is, religion and the eternal salvation of the soul.

NOTES

^{^[1]} Zigliara here makes reference to earlier sections in the Ethica (lib. I, cap. 1, a. III no. III; cap. 2, a. I, no. IV) where, treating of right, duties, and religion considered in itself as a virtue, he writes:

«III. Nevertheless, in a created moral person, duty is more prior than right. And in fact, the first thing which is found in an existing man (and the same is said of any other created moral person) is the creaturely esse, which essentially implies a dependence, physical as well as moral, upon the Creator, so that the creature might observe the laws of the Creator, pursuing faithfully the order to the end set in place by Him. This primitive and essential duty having been posited, there spring forth the rights of preserving and defending life, of employing means necessary for perfecting themselves and for achieving their end, and others of this sort; but, that primitive and essential duty having been removed, all rights crumble because destitute of rational foundation: which is also clear from other quarters from the things said before (29, II). Whence that is to be retained as an unshaken principle: Human rights proceed from duties toward God.

[…] IV. The duties of religion are the chiefest duties, and are the foundation of all duties. This proposition is the corollary of the preceding. For the duties of religion emerge from the very essence of man, and from the very essence of God, as we have proved in no. II. Therefore they are the chiefest. — In addition, God having been removed by hypothesis, there also perishes by that very fact the reason for any duty whatsoever. Therefore religion, which implies an ordering to God, as has been said, is the foundation of all duties. Let St. Thomas be heard, who, by reason of the end to which the virtues are ordered, infers that religion is preeminent among the other moral virtues, and consequently that the duties of religion are chief among all our other duties: “Those things which are for an end, draw their goodness from the order to the end; and thus, however much they are nearer to the end, so much are they better. But the moral virtues, as has been said above, are concerned with those things which are ordered to God, as to an end. But religion approaches more nearly to God than the other moral virtues, insofar as it works those things which directly and immediately are ordered to the divine honor. And thus religion is preeminent among the other moral virtues” (ST IIaIIæ, q. 81, a. 7).»

October 26, 2015

The Corruption of the Papal Court and the Roots of Modern Liberalism

by Ludwig von Pastor

Ludwig von Pastor’s History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages is a great gem of recent Catholic scholarship. Spanning forty volumes and five centuries, Pastor’s history traces the Papacy from the Babylonian Captivity at Avignon, through the Conciliarist crises of the mid 15th century, the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, and beyond, up to the outbreak of the French Revolution. For his work, Pastor was given free use of the Vatican Secret Archives, and was commended by both Leo XIII and Pius XI.

The excerpt below is taken from the first volume of the series, which discusses the Avignon Popes and the Great Schism. Our readers will find it interesting for the light it throws on the relationship between the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor, the corruption of the Papal Court at Avignon, and the emergence of a school of political and religious thought identical in essence to the liberalism which still plagues the Church today.

Financial Difficulties at Avignon

The financial difficulties from which the Popes had suffered in the thirteenth century became much more serious after they had taken up their abode on French soil. On the one hand, the income they had drawn from Italy failed; and on the other, the tributary powers became much more irregular in the fulfillment of their obligations, because they feared that the greater part of the subsidies they paid would fall into the hands of France.

The Papal financiers adopted most questionable means of covering deficits. From the time of John XXII. especially, the hurtful system of Annates, Reservations, and Expectancies, came into play, and a multitude of abuses were its consequence. Alvaro Pelayo, the most devoted, perhaps even over-zealous, defender of the Papal power in the fourteenth century, justly considers the employment of this system, liable to excite the cupidity of the clergy, as one of the wounds which then afflicted the Church. His testimony is all the more worthy of consideration, because, as an official of many years’ standing in the Court, he describes the state of things at Avignon from his own most intimate knowledge. In his celebrated book, On the Lamentation of the Church, he says : “Whenever I entered the chambers of the ecclesiastics of the Papal Court, I found brokers and clergy, engaged in weighing and reckoning the money which lay in heaps before them.”

This system of taxation and its consequent abuses soon aroused passionate resentment. Dante, “consumed with zeal for the House of God,” expressed, in burning words, his deep indignation against the cupidity and nepotism of the Popes, always, however, carefully distinguishing between Pope and Papacy, person and office.

Conflict between the Empire and the Church

It was not long, however, before an opposition arose which made no such distinctions, and attacked not only the abuses which had crept in, but the Ecclesiastical authority Itself. The Avignon system of finance, which contributed more than has been generally supposed to the undermining of the Papal authority, greatly facilitated the attacks of this party.

From what has been said it will be clearly seen that the long-continued sojourn of the Popes in France, occasioned as it was by the confusion of Italian affairs, was an important turning-point in the history of the Papacy and of the Church. The course of development which had been going on for many centuries, was thereby almost abruptly interrupted, and a completely new state of things substituted for it. No one who has any idea of the nature and the necessity of historical continuity, can fail to perceive the danger of this transference of the centre of ecclesiastical unity to southern France. The Papal power and the general interests of the Church, which at that time required quiet progress and in many ways thorough reform, must inevitably in the long run be severely shaken.

To make matters worse, the conflict between the Empire and the Church now broke out with unexpected violence. The most prominent antagonists of the Papacy, both ecclesiastical and political, gathered around Louis of Bavaria, offering him their assistance against John XXII. At the head of the ecclesiastical opposition appeared the popular and influential order of the Friars Minor [the Franciscans], who at this very moment were at daggers drawn with the Pope.

The Friars Minor and John XXII.

The special occasion of this quarrel was a difference between them and him, regarding the meaning of evangelical poverty; and the great popularity of the Order made their hostility all the more formidable. The Minorites, who were irritated to the utmost against the Pope, succeeded in gaining great influence over Louis of Bavaria, an influence which is clearly traceable in the appeal published by him in 1324, at Sachenhausen, near Frankfort.

In this remarkable document, amongst the many serious charges brought against “John XXII., who calls himself Pope,” is that of heresy, and it is asserted that he exalts himself against the evangelical doctrines of perfect poverty, and thus against Christ, the Blessed Virgin, and the company of the Apostles, who all approved it by their lives. After a passionate dogmatic exposition of the poverty of Christ and a shower of reproaches, comes the appeal to the Council, to a future legitimate Pope, to Holy Mother Church, to the Apostolic See, and to everyone in general to whom an appeal could be made.

This document, in which political and religious questions were mingled together, was sedulously disseminated in Germany and Italy. It must have greatly embittered the whole contest. A religious conflict was now added to the political one. Louis, a simple soldier, was unable to measure its consequences and powerless to control its progress. It grew more and more passionate and violent. The Minorites no longer confined themselves to the province of theology, in which the conflict between them and the Pope had at first arisen, but also took part in the political question. Led on by their theological antagonism, they proceeded to build up a political system resting on theories which threatened to disturb all existing ideas of law, and to shake the position of the Papacy to its verv foundations.

Subversive Doctrines of Occam, Marsiglio, and Jean de Jandun

The special importance of the action of the Minorites consists in the assertion and maintenance of these principles, which indeed did not at once come prominently forward, for the writings of the Englishman, William Occam, in which they are chiefly propounded, collectively date from a period subsequent to the Diet of Rhense. There can, however, be no doubt that the views which Occam afterwards expressed in his principal work, the Dialogus, had already at an earlier period exercised great influence.

According to the theory of Occam, who was deeply imbued with the political ideas of the ancients, the Emperor has a right to depose the Pope should he fall into heresy. Both General Councils and Popes may err, Holy Scripture and the beliefs held by the Church at all times and in all places, can alone be taken as the unalterable rule of Faith and Morals. The Primacy and Hierarchical Institutions in general are not necessary or essential to the subsistence of the Church; and the forms of the ecclesiastical, as of the political, constitution ought to vary with the varying needs of the time.

With the Minorites two other men soon came to the front, who may be considered as the spokesmen of the definite political opposition to the Papacy. It was probably in the summer of the year 1326 that the Professors of the University of Paris, Marsiglio of Padua and Jean de Jandun, made their appearance at the Royal Court of Nuremberg. The “Defender of Peace” (Defensor Pacis), the celebrated joint work of these two most important literary antagonists of the Popes of their day, is of so remarkable a character that we must not omit to give a further account of its subversive propositions. This work, which is full of violent invectives against John XXII., “the great dragon and the old serpent,” asserts the unconditional sovereignty of the people. The legislative power which is exercised through their elected representatives, belongs to them, also the appointment of the executive through their delegates. The ruler is merely the instrument of the legislature. He is subject to the law, from which no individual is exempt. If the ruler exceeds his authority, the people are justified in depriving him of his power, and deposing him. The jurisdiction of the civil power extends even to the determination of the number of men to be employed in every trade or profession. Individual liberty has no more place in Marsiglio’s state than it had in Sparta.

Still more radical, if possible, are the views regarding the doctrine and government of the Church put forth in this work. The sole foundation of faith and of the Church is Holy Scripture, which does not derive its authority from, her, but, on the contrary, confers on her that which she possesses. The only true interpretation of Scripture is not that of the Church, but that of the most intelligent people, so that the University of Paris may very well be superior to the Court of Rome. Questions concerning faith are to be decided, not by the Pope, but by a General Council.

This General Council is supreme over the whole Church, and is to be summoned by the State. It is to be composed not only of the clergy, but also of laymen elected by the people. As regards their office, all priests are equal; according to Divine right, no one of them is higher than another. The whole question of Church government is one of expediency, not of the faith necessary to salvation. The Primacy of the Pope is not founded on Scripture, nor on Divine right. His authority therefore can only, according to Marsiglio, be derived from a General Council and from the legislature of the State; and for the election of a Pope the authority of the Council requires confirmation from the State.

The office of the Pope is, with the College appointed for him by the Council or by the State, to signify to the State authority the necessity of summoning a Council, to preside at the Council, to draw up its decisions, to impart them to the different Churches, and to provide for their execution. The Pope represents the executive power, while the legislative power in its widest extent appertains to the Council. But a far higher and more influential position belongs to the Emperor in Marsiglio’s Church; the convocation and direction of the Council is his affair; he can punish priests and bishops, and even the Pope.

Ecclesiastics are subject to the temporal tribunals for transgressions of the law, the Pope himself is not exempt from penal justice, far less can he be permitted to judge his ecclesiastics, for this is the concern of the State. The property of the Church enjoys no immunity from taxation; the number of ecclesiastics in a country is to be limited by the pleasure of the State; the patronage of all benefices belongs to the State, and may be exercised either by Princes, or by the majority of the members of the parish to which an ecclesiastic is to be appointed. The parish has not only the right of election and appointment, but also the control of the official duties of the priest, and the ultimate power of dismissal. Exclusion from the Christian community, in so far as temporal and worldly interests are connected with it, requires its consent.

Like Calvin in later days, Marsiglio regards all the judicial and legislative power of the Church as inherent in the people, and delegated by them to the clergy. The community and the State are everything; the Church is put completely in the back-ground ; she has no legislature, no judicial power, and no property.

The goods of the Church belong to the individuals who have devoted them to ecclesiastical uses, and then to the State. The State is to decide regarding sale and purchase, and to consider whether these goods are sufficient to provide for the needs of the clergy and of the poor. The State has also power, should it be necessary for the public good, to deprive the Church of her superfluities and limit her to what is necessary, and the State has the right to effect this secularization, notwithstanding the opposition of the Priests.

But never, Marsiglio teaches, is power over temporal goods to be conceded to the Roman Bishop, because experience has shown that he uses it in a manner dangerous to the public peace Like Valla and Macchiavelli, in later times, Marsiglio assumes the air of an Italian patriot, when he attributes all the troubles of Italy to the Popes. This is a palpable sophistry, for that reproach was in no way applicable to Marsiglio’s days. Italy was then under the sway of her most distinguished monarch, King Robert of Anjou, whom the Popes had protected to the best of their power, and Louis of Bavaria’s expedition to Rome was certainly neither their wish nor their work. On the contrary, at a later period, Pope John XXII. issued a Bull with the object of separating Italy from Germany, and thereby destroying the influence of the ” Ultramontanes,” or non-Italians in Italy.

In face of these outrageous attacks and this blank denial of the Divine institution of the Primacy and the Hierarchy, there were never wanting brave champions of the Apostolic See and of the doctrine of the Church. Most of them, unfortunately, were led by excess of zeal to formulate absurd and preposterous propositions. Agostino Trionfo, an Italian, and Alvaro Pelayo, a Spaniard, have, in this matter, gained a melancholy renown. As one extreme leads to another, in their opposition to the Caesaro-papacy of Marsiglio, they exalted the Pope into a kind of demigod, with absolute authority over the whole world. Evidently, exaggerations of this kind were not calculated to counteract the attacks of political skepticism in regard to the authority of the Holy See.

Envenomed Struggle between Church and State

The theory put forward in the Defensor Pacis, regarding the omnipotence of the State and the consequent annihilation of all individual and ecclesiastical liberty, far surpassed all preceding attacks on the position and constitution of the Church in audacity, novelty, and acrimony. Practically this doctrine, which was copied from the ancients, meant the overthrow of all existing institutions and the separation of Church and State. Many passages of the work go far beyond the subsequent utterances of Wyclif and Huss, or even those of Luther and Calvin, whose forerunner Marsiglio may be considered. The great French Revolution was a partial realization of his schemes, and, in these days, a powerful party is working for the accomplishment of the rest. Huss has been styled “the Precursor” of the Revolution, but the author of the Defensor Pacis might yet more justly claim the title.

Louis of Bavaria accepted the dedication of the book which brought these doctrines before the world and promulgated political principles of so questionable a character, but a still greater triumph was in store for Marsiglio. In union with the anti-papal Minorites and the Italian Ghibellines, he succeeded in inducing Louis to go to Rome and to engage in the Revolutionary proceedings of the year 1328. The collation of the Imperial Crown by the Roman people, their deposition of the Pope and election of an anti-Pope in the person of the Minorite, Pietro da Corvara, were the practical results of the teaching of the Defensor Pacis.

Some of the Emperors of the House of Hohenstaufen had been men of stronger characters than Louis was, yet none had ever gone to such extremes. He appealed to doctrines whose application to ecclesiastical matters was equivalent to revolution, and whose re-action on the sphere of politics after their triumph over the Church would have been rapid and incalculable. For a century and a half the Church had been free from schism; by his action he let loose this terrible evil upon her. His culpable rashness gave a revolutionary and democratic turn to the struggle between the Empire and the Papacy. He repudiated all the canonical decisions regarding the Supremacy of the Pope which the Emperors of the House of Hapsburg had accepted, degraded the Empire to a mere Investiture from the Capitol, and despoiled the Crown of Charles the Great, in the eyes of all who believed in the ancient imperial hierarchy, of the last ray of its majesty. It is strange that under Louis the Roman Empire should actually have been thus desecrated and degraded, so soon after Dante’s idealization had crowned it with a halo of glory.

It is impossible in the present retrospect to describe all the vicissitudes of Church and State during the struggle which was so disastrous to both. Envenomed by the dependence of the Popes on France, the exasperation on both sides was intense. The ecclesiastical power was implacable, lost to all sense of moderation, dignity, or charity. The secular power, cowardly but defiant, shrank from no extreme, sought the aid of the lowest demagogues, and by its vacillations frustrated each favourable chance that arose. The long and obstinate warfare, so little honourable to either party, could have no result save the equal humiliation of both and the complete ruin of social order in Church and State. John XXII., restless and active to the last, died at a great age on the 4th December, 1334.

September 30, 2015

War in the Hobbesian State – Sovereignty’s Justification and Limit

by Jeffrey Bond

If we wish to investigate the heart of Thomas Hobbes’ political teaching in the Leviathan, there is no better place to look than Hobbes’ conception of war. After all, although Hobbes denies that there is any summum bonum, a greatest good toward which all our pursuits and actions are hierarchically ordered by nature (p. 70),[1] he does posit a greatest evil, namely, the war of all against all which characterizes the state of nature (p. 231).[2] Thus Hobbes justifies the need for an absolute sovereign because the solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short life in the state of nature is the one thing above all else to be avoided: “And though of so unlimited a Power, men may fancy many evill consequences, yet the consequences of the want of it, which is perpetuall warre of every man against his neighbor, are much worse” (pp. 144-145). For Hobbes, the peace established by the political art is not, as it was for the ancients and the medievals, the end toward which men are directed by nature which is necessary for the fulfillment and perfection of their being; rather, peace is to be sought because it is the absence of war,[3] which absence allows men to pursue their relentless quest for gratification of one desire after another (p. 70).

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August 5, 2015March 20, 2018

Freedom as Choosing the Good, Against the Nihilists

by Peter Kwasniewski

All the same, one might enquire how what happens under the impulse of desire can be self-determined [i.e., voluntary] when desire leads one to what is outside oneself and has deficiency in it; for that which desires is led, even if it is led to the good. And a difficulty must be raised about intellect itself, whether, when its activity is what it is by nature and as it is by nature, it could be said to have freedom and anything in its power, when it does not have it in its power not to act [for the sake of the good]. . . . But then how can there be freedom when even these higher beings [intellects] are slaves to their own nature? Now, to speak the truth, where there is no compulsion to follow another, how can one speak of slavery? How could something borne towards the good be under compulsion, since its desire for the good will be voluntary if it knows that it is good and goes to it as good?

—Plotinus, Ennead VI.8

The connection between choosing the good and attaining greater freedom is not easy to set forth deductively. Let us begin with the end. Willing and final causality are utterly wed to each other. Where there is a natural power, there is a natural purpose. There is no willing that is not for some end; there is no voluntary end which is lacking a moral content. This moral content, the object of the act of willing itself, is what gives the species or type to the action. The moral content, the intentional target of the deed, is what enables us to classify an act of killing as murder or as self-defense—the former punishable, the latter praiseworthy.

The will is a power that inclines towards the good apprehended by reason. That the will can choose false goods or lesser goods over genuine or higher goods is due to the fact that reason is capable of viewing things from many different angles, and can therefore see some limited good in what is nonetheless evil for the whole man. If a good is cognizable, reason can apprehend it and the will can choose it. Hence, we may glimpse the answer to the question, Does choosing the good necessarily lead to more freedom? Freedom is the perfection of the natural faculty of will; the ultimate perfection of a faculty results from its proper use, its being put to the right use again and again. If a state of freedom (self-command) is the result of choosing what is objectively best, namely the genuine good, then freedom should be defined as a perfection of the will when it has chosen consistently well. In light of this, we see the extent to which the will’s perfection depends upon the condition of man’s reason, how reason views various desirable things. If reason is in good estate, the will is the first beneficiary.

Is the truth of things the object of the intellect? Is the goodness of things the object of the will? If one answers “no” to either question, one is compelled to maintain either that there is no natural end to the intellect and the will, i.e., the power is wholly indeterminate and has no orientation whatsoever, or that the end is arbitrarily chosen and set up, in the manner of an idol. Either position destroys objectivity and morality, leaving us with no way of arguing against any intellectual or moral position, however absurd, cruel, or disgusting. Any human being who takes his own life and the lives of other people seriously implicitly accepts an objective order (however difficult it may be to articulate it) by which the wiser and better person can judge the actions of others who offend against the principles of this order. Try to think or live as though there were not a built-in predetermined purpose to your faculties; it will not work. The orientation to goodness is not a gloss on the dark purposelessness of nature, nor is it a condition that compromises freedom. In order to be truly free, does one have to be free to create oneself? Contemporary existentialists look upon all determination or form as irrational impositions over which the individual has no control; the individual, they say, ought to be absolutely free to determine what and who he will be. This is none other than a doctrine of uninhibited metaphysical license that has as its counterparts political anarchy, ethical relativism, and intellectual nihilism.

Is it problematic, on the other hand, to say that one is free to determine the way in which one will realize his own good—that one can choose what is to count as happiness for himself in this life, even though happiness is the end all men desire by nature? Such an individual does not lose his freedom, if, with an eye towards happiness, he can choose the manner of life he wants to lead. What sort of freedom is the existentialist looking for—freedom to create new worlds, to pursue unhappiness as an end, to annihilate himself, to experiment with the space-time continuum? Even God has an end, namely, Himself, the Goodness that is He. Judging from the remarks of some philosophers, one would think the very notion of an end is arbitrary and stifling. Yet nothing can exist without ordering to an end; it is against the nature of being itself. One cannot think “being” without co-thinking “end”—another way of saying, with Aristotle, that the formal cause cannot be divorced from the final cause. In short, only nothing has no purpose.

Moderns assert that to have freedom is to be able to determine oneself absolutely. To be free, they hold, one must be able to give oneself an end. But what else could this mean, except to give oneself a nature—which amounts to creating oneself? The very thing which distinguishes creation from making is that the maker (or poet) only makes some part or aspect of the thing made, whereas the creator brings the whole thing, including its act of being, into being. Now to bring a thing into being means to bring a “this something” into being; there is no creatio without some boundaries as to the appetites and abilities characterizing the creatum. To create is to give being to something—and this something, even to be a something, must have a certain form and thus a certain end, since form and end are unintelligible apart from each other.

It seems to me, therefore, that to speak of a rational creature, a creature having as its highest reality a power by which to apprehend the true and the good, which nonetheless does not have as its necessary end the resting in that very truth and goodness, is to speak without meaning. It is to say that a creature is made capable of partaking in the perfections of its origin, yet is left wholly on its own as to the end towards which it will be inclined to go, or without determination as to whether or not it will even have an end. I do not see how any sense can be made out of that.

All men desire happiness, or, if the word reminds you too much of Hollywood, substitute another term: completion, fulfillment, enduring bliss. There is nobody who does not will this end, because to be rational is to be the sort of creature that (a) is capable of knowing or being aware of itself; (b) in knowing itself recognises that there is such a thing as the full possession of and rejoicing in what is good, viz., happiness; (c) upon glimpsing the possibility of happiness, desires it ardently as a way of reaching the zenith of what it is; and (d) strives always to reach this maximum actuality. The question of what exactly is taken as the end should not be mixed up in this discussion. We are only concerned with the universal question: what does it mean to live a human life? It means to work for one’s completion. We should not ask why man desires this end; for how could he not? A creature endowed with the power to partake of truth and goodness necessarily tends towards that which he takes to be true and good. This is not compulsion or slavery, this is simply a precondition of all action and passion. If a man did not naturally want something, he could never move himself to want anything voluntarily. We never deliberate about means until some end is fixed; we would never deliberate at all were there no distant target which was seen as the ultimate justification of our actions. If we designated our final end, if we created our own natures, action could not be other than totally arbitrary, neither right nor wrong, and neither describable in itself nor communicable to others. We could not act in concert with other human beings; we could not even act as a single subject of a life of action. Each man would be his own species, or non-species; each act would be an isolated fact with no prelude, no postlude, no context. And then we would have to ask: could love or hatred, the most basic of our responses to the world and its inhabitants, survive in this metaphysical wilderness?

A large impediment to accepting the Thomistic account is the routine failure to distinguish between the end as given generically, and the end as “coloured” by a particular person’s life, choices, habits, opinions. Our perceptions of what makes for happiness can differ dramatically, as is obvious from living in a world where some people would identify fulfillment with (say) endless and unfatiguing electronic entertainment. Because reason can have different apprehensions of the good, the will can tend towards different goods in the right or the wrong order, putting lower goods above higher ones, or, albeit more rarely, higher goods above lower ones when it is not appropriate to do so. The will is not automatically harnessed to the natural and supernatural means of human perfection, nor is the intellect prepackaged with instructions as to what will ultimately fulfill it. This is why Aristotle says that education counts for just about everything, together with habituation to virtuous or vicious actions (and, as Christians, we can add the presence or absence of grace). If men can mentally locate their fulfillment in wealth or pleasure, the two most common follies of our fallen race, then they can go about living as though wealth or pleasure really were the final end for which they exist. There has been a conscious decision, a choice or free act to orient oneself to some “x” as constitutive of happiness, where “x” can be anything that is perceived to have some degree of goodness in it.

Perhaps, after all, the modern replies: to have freedom to choose what I will construe to be my happiness is no freedom at all, if I am still naturally made for a certain final end and will be miserable if I do not choose it.

Yet is this argument sound? Consider some examples. Is the murderer not free because he commits an action that will make him miserable? Is any man less free for doing something stupid? In one sense, of course, he is not as free as he might be if he were acting in a way that would perfect him rather than damage him, but he is free as long as the origin of action remains in him and is not the result of instinct, chance, or coercion. If this freedom were not real, would there be any basis for distinguishing between manslaughter and murder, as criminal investigators and courts of law do on a daily basis? It seems as though moderns need to go back to school with Socrates in the Gorgias. The entire point of having morals, of striving to be virtuous, is to live in such a way that one will not be miserable. To be tending towards happiness or misery is, at least on the natural level, within our power.

The modern may still object that if the rational creature has been given a will, it should be free to choose what it is going to be for. That is perfectly true if by “choosing what it is going to be for,” one means the choices all men make about what goods to pursue here and now, what to construe as happiness, for what (or whom) am I living my life. It is obvious that not only are we free to do this, we are always doing it. Our experience of freedom is undeniable and all-pervasive: we are in charge of ourselves whenever we say “I could do this or that or neither, but I choose to do this.” All of a man’s life is taken up with decisions about this step or that, this object or that. Reading the plays of Sartre, one might almost begin to think that such decisions are irrelevant and somehow too ignoble to be taken seriously as free acts! Comparatively speaking, speculation about the final and absolute good is a luxury for the few who are capable of bearing the strain of concentration. Most people carry on from day to day trying to be happy in some fashion, without rising to the level of secondary reflection where we pose the question “what’s it all for.”

On the other hand, if by the statement “the rational creature should be free to choose what it is going to be for” one means that a rational creature should be free to endow itself with an end or have authority over its orientation to the good, then I say: impossible. Doing so would involve defining what is actually good, producing goodness as an artist produces an artifact. The creature would cease to be a creature; it would become God, and a strange God at that, since there would no longer be any such thing as “the good.” All would be chaos, relativity, meaninglessness. But the Good Itself cannot be defined by the creature; not even God defines the Good. He is the Good, He cannot be otherwise, and there is no need for Him to be able to be Not-Good in order for Him to be free.

The existentialist is worried about preserving the creature’s freedom. If he were thinking rationally, he might rather turn his mind to the problem of God’s freedom. For on his view, God not only could not be free, He would be the most unfree being of all—He would be a total and complete slave. Yet what fool at this point would not blush from embarassment and retire to his room, eager to find a less ridiculous position?

July 22, 2015

On the Utility and Necessity of Prohibiting Harmful Books

St. Alphonsus Liguori

To protect the faithful from pernicious ideas, Pope Paul IV established the Index of Prohibited Books, which remained in use as a safeguard for the protection of public morals from 1559 A.D. until the reorganization of the Holy Office under Bl. Pope Paul VI in 1966 A.D. The Index came under attack during the time of St. Alphonsus Liguori, and he chose to include a treatise defending it in an Appendix to the first book of his great Theologia Moralis. St. Alphonsus was named a Doctor of the Church by Bl. Pope Pius IX in 1871 A.D.

Alphonsus’s magisterial moral manual, which was praised by Pope Benedict XIV as being “of great profit for the salvation of souls”, has never yet been translated into English. Here we are pleased to present a translation of one chapter of Alphonsus’s Treatise on the Just Prohibition and Destruction of Dangerous Books, for the first time in English. The original text can be found here. —The Editors

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A Philosophical Bagatelle

by Peter A. Kwasniewski

NOTES

by Tommaso Maria Cardinal Zigliara, OP

Translated by Timothy Wilson

NOTES

by Tommaso Maria Cardinal Zigliara, OP

Translated by Timothy Wilson

NOTES

by Tommaso Maria Cardinal Zigliara, OP

Translated by Timothy Wilson

NOTES

by Tommaso Maria Cardinal Zigliara, OP

Translated by Timothy Wilson

SECOND ARTICLE On liberty of conscience

NOTES

by Tommaso Maria Cardinal Zigliara, OP

Translated by Timothy Wilson

CHAPTER FIVE On the mutual relations between Church and State

FIRST ARTICLE On political atheism

NOTES

by Ludwig von Pastor

Financial Difficulties at Avignon

Conflict between the Empire and the Church

The Friars Minor and John XXII.

Subversive Doctrines of Occam, Marsiglio, and Jean de Jandun

Envenomed Struggle between Church and State

by Jeffrey Bond

by Peter Kwasniewski

St. Alphonsus Liguori

SECOND ARTICLE
On liberty of conscience

CHAPTER FIVE
On the mutual relations between Church and State

FIRST ARTICLE
On political atheism