Authority and Reason

What a wonderful discussion.  Thank you Eduardo for posing the question.  I’m afraid my response will be less academic and more autobiographical.

To quote Winnie the Pooh, “I am a bear of very little brain.”  I am bounded by my own intellectual limitations, my education, my family, my culture, my biases, my preferences and desires (both ordered and disordered), my will, my profession (we are, I think, a profession of rationalizers), and this particular and very short moment in history in which I live my life.  As a bear of very little brain, I must rely on the authority of others to help guide me through life, even (and maybe especially) life as a practicing intellectual.

For most of my life, I thought that I had placed my trust in the Church and looked to it as the authority for my life.  In reality and unbeknownst to me, as regards the intellectual areas of my life, I had given authority (for the most part) to the high priests of secular liberalism as filtered through a reductionist version of Catholic Social Teaching.  In a way, how could I have escaped this authority?  After all, it is part of the cultural air we breathe, as Jean Elshtain has said.  And, although I was raised Catholic in faith and concern for social justice, I was not raised in the Catholic intellectual tradition (most who went through CCD in the 1960’s and 1970’s can identify with this).

Once my eyes were opened a little over a decade ago (thanks in large part to a prominent law professor who is not Catholic), I could think freely and openly (at least to myself) about these questions of authority.  One of the first things that I noticed was that secular liberalism, like communism and fascism, had an inadequate anthropology – an inadequate understanding of the human person.  Using my limited reasoning powers, I refused to give any of these ideologies conscious authority over me or my intellect.  The Catholic Church, however, seemed to have a more complete, a more reasonable, and more coherent anthropology.  And, I consciously placed myself under its authority. 

In practical terms, what does this mean?  It means that if my own views do not correspond to the Church’s on basic issues of faith and morals, I become highly skeptical of my views.  What am I missing?  What biases or limitations are blinding me, preventing me from seeing the larger truth?  This doesn’t mean that I (or the Church) can’t learn much from secular thinkers or thinkers from other faith traditions.  Of course we can. Augustine and Aquinas, for example, learned much from Plato and Aristotle.  And, secular economists, scientists, political theorists, etc. may have much to offer.  But, when it comes to basic truths (the bedrock or fundamental truths) about the human person in community, I place my trust in the Church over my own fallible human reason.  To answer Rob’s question “what happens if one's scholarly pursuits lead to a conclusion in conflict with the Magisterium, assuming that this conclusion remains firm after substantial reflection and consultation?”  If the area of disagreement concerns one of these bedrock truths (as opposed to a conclusion that the Church has made based on faulty economic data for instance – see Michele Pistone’s work on brain drain/STEP OUT migration, for instance), my inclination would be to stay silent, at least publicly.  I would trust that a) the Church has more experience and knowledge than I have – possessing 2000 years of experience and learning in nearly every culture of the world, b) the Church has the deposit of faith, and c) the Holy Spirit will guide the Church into the fullness of truth. 

Being a bear of very little brain, I have to put my trust in some authority, and I freely (and after reasoned reflection) put it in the Church.  I’ll let others judge this decision's impact on my scholarship.

Michael