Based on Rob’s recent comments on matters eschatological, I think he and I agree that even the secularist can come to realize that some things about the physical world are destined to come to an end, such as the life of the planet and the life of each human being. I would characterize the important questions he properly raises from a different perspective about the role of Christian in teaching about the future of the human race that should have a role in the development of law and public policy.
Today many believers and unbelievers conclude that the human race is unnecessarily degrading the planet and hastening if not an end then certainly avoidable yet harmful consequences for Earth and all its inhabitants. In an earlier period, from the 1950s to the very early 1980s, the human-generated threat of global disaster was primarily viewed as general thermonuclear war rather than environmental degradation. It seems that we have avoided the former but now face the latter. In either case, we see the capacity of man to harm substantially if not destroy the human race and the world that surrounds and sustains it. While averting man-made disaster is crucial, it is not the only matter which the Christian, or for that matter the secularist, should be concerned.
There is, when all is said, the matter of salvation, the matter of redemption, the matter of eternity. The secularist may not be too interested in these. He or she may say: I don’t believe; therefore, I am not concerned. But, can the believer, the Christian, the Catholic take the same approach? My answer is: no! And why do I suggest this is so?
To borrow from Jacob Marley (a realization made a bit too late by him), “Humanity was my business!” But just what about humanity is my/our business? It may be that the conflagration of the Earth by the Sun is more than just a few years ago, as Rob properly states. However, the end of each of our earthly lives is far closer at hand. This factor, too, is scientifically verifiable like the Earth’s conflagration by the Sun. While that collective end-time may be quite remote, the personal one is close at hand. It is quite a challenge to translate this issue into matters with which public policy, Barry Lynn, and the ACLU can agree. So, I come to Rob’s “bigger question”: how does the theist base his or her political position that will be accessible to the secularist? On what grounds does the disciple rely?
Let me offer a humble and modest suggestion by posing a question for the secularist who has at least an equal share in the direction of public policy as does the theist: have you thought about the future? The secularist may dismiss the direction in which my inquiry is going, i.e., in an eschatological path. All I can do then is to propose that the secularist reflect on something that he or she may have never considered. And how might I do this? Let me offer the following illustration:
I could say, “You may be right, Secularist, that it is all over when we die. But I ask you to consider the following: we both will die (however that happens), and this event is inevitable. You may look at me and say, ‘see I (the Secularist) was right. You have wasted a lifetime.’ But, my suggestion to you is this: But if I (the theist) am right, I will not have wasted a lifetime, but you will have wasted an eternity.”
I wonder what the Secularist’s response will be to this exchange? It could well be an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. But in the meantime, it is my responsibility to demonstrate to this person, through proposition rather than imposition, why the secularist approach is lacking and mine is not. This is evangelization simple and proper and of which I spoke earlier today in my posting on the recent Doctrinal Note issued by the CDF [HERE]. I don’t think I have satisfactorily addressed all the nuances raised by Rob—but this is a life-long enterprise for me and those other believers who acknowledge that the human salvation that is at stake goes beyond the present moment and the planet on which we live it. RJA sj
This from Notre Dame’s Center for Ethics and Culture:
“[P]lease keep in mind that our 2008 annual Fall conference: The Family: Searching for Fair Love, will take place November 6-8, 2008. We believe this theme will prove very timely. In 2008 the Church will celebrate important anniversaries of Pope Paul VI’s Encyclical Humanae Vitae (1968), and Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem (1988), and we have also noticed that Pope Benedict’s message for the celebration of the World Day of Peace on January 1, 2008, already available on the Vatican website, takes the family as its central theme. In that message the Holy Father says that “The natural family, as an intimate communion of life and love, based on marriage between a man and a woman, constitutes “the primary place of ‘humanization’ for the person and society,” and a “cradle of life and love.”” Our 2008 annual Fall conference will aim both to explore and to promote the Holy Father’s exaltation of the family as the primary place of humanization for the person and society.”
Chris Eberle writes:
Just a quick note about Rob Vischer’s recent post. I take it that Rob’s view is that “the creation of the perception of imminent death” by way of “extreme physical suffering” is a sufficient condition of torture – waterboarding is torture because it does just that. That doesn’t seem to be to be right. After all, creating the perception (and reality) of imminent death by way of extreme physical suffering is what soldiers do to enemy combatants all the time, but killing, wounding and maiming enemy combatants isn’t torture. Moreover, many American soldiers undergo waterboarding, during which the aim is to create the perception (without the reality) of imminent death by way of extreme physical suffering. But waterboarding is not torture in those cases, or, if it is, then it’s permissible torture. Perhaps that’s why, as I was wandering through the hall here in Annapolis, it was hard to find someone who thinks waterboarding is torture.
Of course, that hardly settles the issue – we can’t rely on the expertise of military folks to determine whether we should engage in waterboarding if for no other reason than that they are divided on that matter. For what it’s worth, I think that we ought not engage in that practice – that’s where my gut is – but it’s very difficult to specify what it is about that practice that’s so heinous. Neither Rob’s post nor the editorial from the Armed Forces Journal helps remove that perplexity.
Readers might be interested, by the way, in this post of mine ("What Is 'Torture'?"), over at the Vox Nova blog, and also in the many interesting comments.
