Epistemo-paloosa!

After Mass on Trinity Sunday, Father & I were talking about Mystery. No, not Aurthur Conan Doyle or Dan Brown (my apologies to Sir Doyle) type mysteries. But genuine Mystery.

Modern man doesn't much like Mysteries. They remind us too much of our limitations & finitude. We don't mind them in stories when they eventually resolve themselves - usually by our own wit - into a self-gratifying conclusion. But Mysteries before which we simply stand dumbfounded & "fold the wings of the intellect"? Not so much.

Christians holds for many Mysteries, but the central Mystery, the one on which all others dependant & without which all vanish like a vapor is the Holy Trinity - one God in Three Persons. It cannot be reasoned; man cannot figure this out on his own; it can only be revealed by that same Trinity.

St. Thomas said that truth is reality in accord with right reason. When we perceive something to be a certain way & it really is that way, then we have stumbled upon the truth. The truth resonates with human beings. Despite our fallen condition, we still intuitively seek the truth. In fact we crave it. For one, the success of Law & Order testifies to this.

When it comes to God; however, the truth is so overwhelming that many balk at attaining to it. It goes without saying that our own limitations posit no obstacle for God in revealing himself & continually calling us. However, he does require our cooperation & consent. Yet, so many balk...

In many ways, our responses to this invitation to know & participate in this Mysterious Truth are like Jesus' parable of the sower of seed (Matthew 13). We come up with all kind of schemes to avoid staring straight into the heart of this Mystery. Three things come to mind. We profess belief with our mouths but not with our hearts & lives. We alter the Truth to something more palatable - perhaps the most common today. Or we simply turn our backs, throw up our hands, declare that the truth is unknowable, & get on with the practicalities of life.

The point Father made in his homily is that, while we cannot know everything about a Mystery, it does not follow that we cannot know anything about it (BTW, this is where the Church runs afoul of so many today - it actally has the gall to claim that it is the custodian of the fullness of revealed truth, & that any other person or institution is, by definition, deficient). It means that no matter how much you yearn, no matter how much you explore, & no matter how much you strive to learn, there is always more & richer depths to plumb. In mathematics, it would akin to the properties of ininite numbers. It is reasonable that this "ever knowing more" is part of the experience of the Beatific Vision.

Note that my usage of Mystery & Truth has somewhat merged, which might seem a paradox. Yet, they truly are one, because they are ultimately God himself. A God that loves us & calls us to communion with him. Yet, the father of lies plants that evil seed & we doubt whether there is really an attainable truth. Maybe it is all man's attempt to explain the world we observe before the advent of modern science. Maybe there is no God. Or maybe we simply have no way to know.

And here our human nature, without any reference to revelation, comes to our aid. If there is no God, then we are just a random occurence, merely the most articulate of all animals. Then we are freed of any moral obligations & perfectly justified in tearing at each other as competitors for vital resources, even if the competitor is mother's own child in the womb. What a dismal picture of humanity emmerges, but one that doesn't really jive with our natural sense of worth & dignity; the produndity of the depth of our own being & of others around us; our desire to love & be loved. It is clear that man is an uncomfortable sojourner on the earth, always searching, always questioning, never content.

It is in this longing that we turn our minds upward - a metaphor for reaching above the carnal earth. We recognize a likeness of ourselves to the Other. We hear when he calls us. Our souls find solace in his presence. We find our higher purpose. We find in the heart of this Mystery Truth.

...

I could go in a hundred different direction here, relaying all kinds of sincere conversations or bizarre encounters I've had about how we can possibly know the truth of anything. I encourage you not to let anyone shake your faith on this. You can approach this Truth, you can enter into this Mystery simply because God wants you to.

...

Photo of Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Hangzhou, China taken in May 2010.

Back From China

Greetings All, I'm back from the Orient (again). Still fascinated by getting a chance to meet & live with these people first-hand, because I assure you that stereotypes don't really work there. It is an extremely complicated place. However, some generalizing is required unless we want to just throw our hands up & stop asking questions, because we know that the common culture gives people a common frame of reference for most of their internal & external activities.

So, with that in mind, I would like to share some results of a little mental experiment I've conducted while in China. Because of the sheer number of people, I've tried testing a few of the assertions made in Franciscan U. philosophy of the human person class against the culture.

1. Persons belong to themselves, & therefore cannot belong to another.

It is true that every person & relationship is colored by the uniqueness of the individuals in question, but it is in conflict with other forces - citizens belonging to the state, workers belonging to the factory, or possibly children belonging to the parents. But I noticed that even in factories where everyone dresses in drab uniform, many will accentuate their individuality & independence by adding a pink scarf, or a bit of jewelry, or a crazy hairdo. People inherently know of their own dominion over themselves & seem to naturally rebel against the idea of conformity, sameness, or ownership, even in China.

2. Persons are wholes of their own, & never mere parts.

In a country with something approaching a billion & a half people, it is tempting to for both the individual & the state to take this approach - that every one fits into the society as gears fit into a machine. However, people do not fit into society like parts of a machine; they are a complete machine unto themselves. Or if you prefer a more organic example, people are never arranged in society like organs in a body, each with its own & purpose & function, but each individually only making sense when properly fitted into the whole. No, persons are wholes bodies, literally & otherwise. Newman said each person is an "infinite abyss unto himself."

However, people feel a little uneasy about the idea of a billion and a half infinites walking around, and perhaps we either tend to avoid or downplay the responsibility that comes with having such a completeness of existence unto ourselves. This is evident in China, just as it is in our land; however, there is some evidence that people in China are waking up to their birthright as an infinity, as a whole unto themselves. Much of the clamor for material comforts & the rampant rise of consumerism in China may be a kind of unhealthy expression of this discovery of self, not as a part, but as a complete whole.

3. Persons are never mere instrumental means, but are ends in themselves.

In a pseudo-Communist society, the first three of these proposals resonate rather strongly. In this statement, we say that a person must act according to their own wills & nature, & that no one can appropriate that self-determination, either with or without the person's knowledge or permission. It is unclear to me if the idea of self-determination is strongly present in China, though I have undoubtedly met many individuals who have the strength of character that manifests personalistic self-determination. It is only a recent development in Western philosophy that people are their own ends & therefore determine themselves. But on a natural level, we seem so beholden to so many ties & limitations, whether family, friends, church, work, school, society, politics, charity, even our own bodily limitations & failings. With all of these present, no wonder we have such a hard time seeing ourselves as the strong self-determinants we were meant to be.

Unlike here in the U.S. where most people seem to work to provide a high living standard capped by the pursuit of leisure, in China, the cost of living is much higher, the work load is much heavier, & just getting by is the order of the day. It is the rare individual that has the space in their lives to ponder such things. Perhaps this is one reason for the recent emergence of a full-bodied philosophy of the person - people have a hard time pondering such things when they don't know if they will be able to feed their family.

There are also some other cultural factors like history or religion that are harder to pin down. It seemed to me that most people in East China are Buddhists. Even if not practicing, they seem to carry some of its ideas in their thinking - such as the notions that everything is in essence a unity & that everything proceeds in cycles. These seem to rub harshly against the concrete individualism, self-distinction, & self-completeness proper to each human person. Also, the pervasive belief in luck, astrology, & magic seem to undermine the person's self-determination in favor of spiritual forces that just blow us along for the ride.

In the end, the most interesting results were found by comparing my observations of the Chinese culture to our prevailing post-modern culture, & then to contrast those with the notion of person proposed by Catholic Christianity. There are more similarities than one might think between East & West, but I would finish by noting that history shows that the attempt to build a society without accounting for the nature of the human person will generally leave man in the most depersonalized & unhappy state.

Bahhhh!!!

The erudite Msgr. Charles Pope has written a nice article for the Archdiocese of Washington's blogsite about the last Sunday's Gospel reading - John 10:27-30 (which also ties in to the previous weekend's Gospel - John 21:1-19). We always hear that we are like sheep: always wandering off & getting lost. And that's probably true.

But the good monsignor has some other interesting observations, both good & not so good. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if I reproduce one of the more salient points here...

Sheep are wary... Sheep have the remarkable quality of knowing their master's voice and of instinctively fearing any other voice and fleeing from it. In this matter sheep are smarter than most of us. For we do not flee voices contrary to Christ. Instead we draw close and say, "Tell me more." In fact we spend a lot of time and money to listen to other voices. We spend huge amounts of money to buy televisions so that the enemy's voice can influence us and out children. We spend large amounts of time with TV, radio, Internet. And we can so easily be drawn to the enemy's voice. And not only do we NOT flee it, but we feast on it. And instead of rebuking it we turn and rebuke the voice of god and put his word on trial instead of putting the world on trial. The goal for us is to be more wary, like sheep and to recognize only one voice, that of the Lord...

A little H.E. advice: read everything Msgr. Pope writes.

Mosaic photo taken at the Basilica de Notre Dame de Fourvier overlooking Lyon, France in 2008.

The Bible V: Interpretation

Now that we have some idea of what the Bible is - the collection of writings that the Catholic Church accepts to be inspired by God – we turn to consider how we can understand it. Fortunately, the Bible originated within the Church, so we can learn from her how to profit from a correct reading of it.

...

The Church’s understanding of Divine Revelation was well summarized in the conciliar document Dei Verbum & further elaborated upon in the Catechism (50-141) (both documents available at the excellent Vatican website: www.vatican.va). These documents are well-grounded in the Church’s theological meditations since antiquity & provide a set of guiding tools for understanding the Scriptures. Anyone making a serious inquiry into the Bible should first take time to read & re-read these crucial texts, which are relatively short, but extremely rich.

...

Now, I hear all the time that “in the old days” the Faithful were discouraged from reading the Bible. While this undoubtedly happened in some times & places, this mentality is definitely not in accord with the mind of the Church, which has unceasingly striven to impart to the Faithful every good thing necessary for the sake of their salvation using every means available. However, what the Church has always been against is handing someone the spiritual equivalent of a nuclear device without the training & tools to operate it &, rather, leaving it to their own devices to figure it out, which has historically proven disastrous. Recall that every major heresy in history of the Church has hijacked the Scriptures to “prove” that it was right. Even a casual look into the Bible will be enough to show that it is not exactly crystal clear & self-explanatory; & that some help is required.

...

Starting with these two documents, we can profit tremendously from the wisdom of Holy Mother Church in approaching & reading the Bible. Next we will examine some specific techniques.

...

Other articles in this Knights of Columbus newsletter series:

The Bible IV - From the Church for the Church

The Bible III - Inspiration of the New Testament

The Bible II - Inspiring and Inspired

The Bible I - The Sacred Collection

Resurrexit sicut dixit

He is risen!
Alleluia!
Indeed, He is risen!
Alleluia!

We have so much for which to be grateful, especially God's gift of himself to us in the person of Christ Jesus, crucified & risen.

We should also be grateful for our Pope, whom I believe to be one of the greatest theological & philisophical intellects of recent times, while still preaching & teaching in a wonderful pastoral manner. Click here for his amazing homily for Easter Vigil from the Vatican website.

Of course the central message is Baptism, but notice all the different approaches & symbols he uses to reveal its meaning & power. There is too much there to take in at once - it requires pondering from several different angles:

The postponing of death vs. the medicine of immortality,
The oil of gladness & the garment of light,
The darkness of the fallen world of the West vs. the rising sun of the East,
The works of death & of life,
Finally, the gift of joy.

I wish you all a peaceful & joyful Paschal week.

Resurrexit sicut dixit
"He is risen, as he said." Mt 28:6

Photo from Whitefriar's church in Dublin, Ireland

The Bible IV: From the Church for the Church

Another installment from the Knights of Columbus newsletter (with modifications).

Remember our working definition of the Bible? "The collection of writings that the Catholic Church accepts to be inspired by God." One might ask - & many have - if the Bible is inspired by God, then why do we need a Church?

As we discussed last time, before the Council of Carthage in 397, there were widely varying lists of Christian writings accepted by the various regional churches, & none of them could with certitude be called the New Testament. The Church used various criteria in deciding what writings belonged to the scriptural canon: Was the writing credibly linked to an Apostle or one of his close collaborators? Did it enjoy wide acceptance throughout the Christian world? Was it proclaimed in the Sunday liturgies? Did it claim anything that was not already known & accepted by the Church? While much of this seems to be mere literary archaeology, the last point is critical to understand the place of the Scriptures in the Christian faith; for just as the Bible is not the Bible until the Catholic Church declares it to be so, its contents cannot be properly understood without her help & guidance.

The Lord Jesus while he walked among men preached & taught by the spoken word, & his Apostles did the same throughout the world, converting thousands, establishing local churches, & appointing episcipoi (bishops), along with presbyterio (priests) & diakonio (deacons), to continue their work. Thus, the Christian faith is primarily one of the spoken word - an oral handing on of what has been handed to us. The Church carries in her bosom the living memory of her Lord Jesus & what he has revealed to her. It is ultimately against this divinely-protected standard that any judgement in matters of faith can be made. This living memory is Sacred Tradition (from the Latin tradere, "to hand on"), what has been handed on to the Church by God for her own good & for her mission to proclaim the Gospel to the world.

Though the Apostles & their immediate successors eventually felt compelled to put some matters of the Faith into writing in the latter half of the first century, the New Testament writings themselves declare that not everything that our Lord Jesus said & did was written down, or that the Bible itself contains everything we need to know for the sake of our salvation, or that what was written down is self-explanatory. In fact, the writings of the New Testament continuously point either explicitly or implicitly to an authority outside of itself as the rule of Christan belief & life.

..

The Church's Magisterium is the divinely-guided teaching office that brings forth the truths contained in Scripture & Tradition for the sake of the salvation of the faithful. Though Protestants may proclaim the Bible alone as the solitary & self-interpreting rule of faith, the simple observation that any two well-intentioned people can read the same passage & arrive at wildly varying & even contradictory conclusions debunks this man-made myth. The New Testament Scriptures, then, were composed in the heart of the Church & are interpreted by her to help her children on their earthly pilgrimage. The Protestant notion of a purely private interpretation of the Scriptures by reading them apart from the source that produced them is not only harmful, but also utterly alien to the Scriptures themselves & to the Christian Faith as believed from the beginning. The Church is the People of God, so fracturing, division, or individualism has little place in it.

Dei Verbum, the Second Vatican Council's Constitution on Divine Revelation, sums up this interdependence this way: "It is clear therefore that, in the supremely wise arrangement of God, sacred Tradition, sacred Scripture, & the Magisterium of the Church are so connected & associated that one of them cannot stand without the others. (DV 10)" As Scottish Bishop Henry Graham said so eloquently in his classic work, Where We Got the Bible, "It was written by the Church... it belongs to the Church, & it is her office, therefore, to declare what it means."

..

Here are the other articles in the series:

The Bible I - The Sacred Collection

The Bible II -Inspiring & Inspired

The Bible III - Inspiration of the New Testament

Pictures from China

No time to write, but here are some photos from my January trip to China...

Anji is about 2 hours west of Shanghai in the bamboo-forested mountains. This resource fuels the area's main industry - furniture. It snowed the day I arrived.

Hotel lobbies in China are always very nice. This one is decorated for the New Year celebration in mid-Feb - the year of the tiger.

Interesting artwork in the Anji Bamboo botanical garden.

In retrospect, handling birds probably wasn't the best idea. It was fun, though.

Handling pandas probably isn't a very good idea, either. I'm sure these giant toy animals could take a chunk out of you if they wanted to! Mostly, they just roll around & eat, though.

Lovely hotel lobby in the resort town of Hangzhou, famous for it's beautiful West Lake where the emperors built their palaces.

Interesting sights along the West Lake strand.

The new West Lake pagoda - the original fell down in the mid-20th century. I'm pretty sure the original didn't have an elevator.

Each floor of the pagoda was filled with amazing artwork. This relief-carving tells the legend of the broken bridge. Maybe I'll post the whole thing sometime.

The market in Hangzhou. Among all the tourist junk for sale, there are some beautiful things made by very talented artists. Lots of interesting music, food, & people, too.