Mirror of Justice

Monday, May 12, 2008

Communion of Saints, Apostolic Succession, Authority, and Conscience

The conversation has been rich (recent posts are here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). This is in response to Steve's May 9 post, The Communion of the Saints and the Big Tent. Steve presents two images of the Church: the apostolic and the communion of saints and recognizes that these two images are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Yet, he hints (correct me if I am wrong Steve) at preferring the "communion of saints" imagery, quoting Joan Chittister as imagining the Church as not an institution "but rather 'the gathering of the seekers who celebrate the continuing presence of Christ among them.'"

Isn't this a reductionist view? Isn't the Church both/and? Isn't it both the communion of the saints and an institution governed by a non-democratic heirarchy who are successors to the apostles? The Catechism clearly contemplates both images. The call to holiness clearly precedes the insitutional aspects of the Church. Paragraph 773 says that the "'Marian' dimension of the Church precedes the 'Petrine.'"

But, the institutional Church is a reality. And, given human weakness, an institutional governing structure is necessary to provide an order and direction toward holiness. Look at the Protestant world, which views the Church primarily as the communion of believers with no heirarchical structure. Today there are more than 20,000 denominations and counting. These denominations often disagree with one another (in mutually exclusive ways) over such core issues as the means to salvation. How is the "saint" to know what proposed teaching is "true?" Further back in our common history there were vigorous and centuries long fights over such central issues as the nature of Christ and the nature of the Godhead. It was the institution that settled these questions.

Steve, would you agree that Christ set up an institutional structure and that the bishops (with primacy in the Bishop of Rome) have governing authority over the Church? If you agree, don't you (we) owe them respect because of their God-given office? This brings us back to Cardinal Dulles article. Cardinal Dulles says that "Dissent, if it arises, should always be modest and restrained. Dissent that is arrogant, strident, and bitter can have no right of existence in the Church. Those who dissent must be careful to explain that they are proposing only their personal views, not the doctrine of the Church. They must refrain from bringing pressure on the magisterium by recourse of popular media." Is Cardinal Dulles wrong? If so, how? Shouldn't the saints attempting to celebrate Christ's presence be modest and restrained?

Subjective conscience and objective moral truth

By Rob Vischer

On the topic of conscience and authority, Steve is correct to emphasize the Christian tradition's deep respect for the subjective dimension of conscience. This does not mean, nor do I read Steve as suggesting, that there is no objective moral truth. Since the time of the Scholastics (and as foreshadowed as far back as Paul's epistles), Christianity has employed a dual framework for understanding conscience: synderesis is a person's general, non-deliberative moral knowledge, and conscientia refers to the freely chosen application of that knowledge to a particular set of facts. The moral truth to which synderesis pertains does not change simply because we do not accurately perceive its substance or practical import. At the same time, it is wrong to act against one's conscience, even an improperly formed conscience. The gap between moral truth and application is not necessarily fixed; it may be closed through experience or teaching.

What then do we do with a conscience that is not, in the Church's understanding, accurately perceiving and/or applying moral truth, especially if the gap cannot be closed through experience or teaching? At some point, is a Catholic supposed to defy the claims of her own conscience and submit to Church teaching that runs contrary to her moral convictions?

Take birth control, for example. Suppose that a Catholic reads all of the relevant Church teaching on the subject, talks to her priest, prays, etc., but that she still remains convinced that the use of contraception within marriage is not immoral. At this point, how should the conversation go between the woman and her Church? The Church can say, "we respect your conscience, but it is improperly formed, so in acknowledgment of that fact, you should submit to Church teaching." The woman responds, "how is it improperly formed?" There is no response that the Church can make on this point that has not already been considered and rejected by the woman. Ultimately, it is a straightforward claim of authority by the Church. If the woman's only reason for concluding that her conscience has been improperly formed is the Church's assertion that it has been improperly formed, that seems to create tension with: 1) a fulsome respect for conscience; and 2) the belief that knowledge of the moral law, as pertains to contraception at least, has been written on our hearts.

I can see how this problem can be worked out from the standpoint of ecclesiology (as members of a faith tradition that is bigger than ourselves, not all of our truth claims require our individual assent), but I have a harder time working it out from the standpoint of conscience (for which individual assent is central). Obviously, I have more questions than answers on this tension, and I welcome others' views.

Bretzke and Conscience

By Steve Shiffrin

James Bretzke did not take the position that Richard describes. Father Bretzke maintains, as did Aquinas and the Catechism, that a person is morally bound to follow his or her conscience. He does not maintain that following one’s conscience is a guarantee of correctness. As he puts it, “It is the constant teaching of the Church that an individual always follow his or her conscience, even when that conscience might be in “objective” error on what is morally right.” He, of course, recognizes the obligation to form and inform our consciences and discusses the obligation at some length. What he rejects is the view (which he attributes to Grisez) that we are obliged in virtually every situation to follow the Magisterium instead of our conscience.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

another response on authority/conscience

By Richard Myers

I had a couple of quick reactions to the useful discussion of authority/conscience.

First, the view that Steve mentions (as set forth by Father James Bretzke SJ) is precisely the view of conscience critiqued by Pope John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor (and critiqued by Pope Benedict in his numerous writings on conscience). In paragraph 32 of VS, JP II mentions that "certain currents of modern thought have gone so far as to exalt freedom to such an extent that it becomes an absolute, which would then be the source of values....The individual conscience is accorded the status of a supreme tribunal of moral judgment which hands down categorical and infallible decisions about good and evil. To the affirmation that one has a duty to follow one's conscience is unduly added the affirmation that one's moral judgment is true merely by the fact that it has its origins in the conscience. But in this way the inescapable claims of truth disappear, yielding their place to a criterion of sincerity, authenticity and 'being at peace with oneself,' so much so that some have come to adopt a radically subjectivistic conception of moral judgment."

This last point is quite important. Under the subjective understanding of conscience, the concepts of good and evil lose meaning. Under the subjective view, we are "infallible," and I realize that there is a attractiveness to that position. (I think that was the only time the idea of infallibility was used in the encyclical.) Our choices are beyond criticism (except in the rare cases when the choice is insincere).

Second, Pope John Paul tried in VS and other writings to counter the idea that adherence to a view of moral truth means that one is subject to the heteronomous commands of an arbitrary sovereign. In the Pope's view, the moral law is something that is built into our human nature. Living in the truth is the key to our genuine fulfillment and authentic freedom. Our adherence to the truth is our participation in the wisdom and providence of God.

Richard M.

Friday, May 9, 2008

A Response to Authority/Conscience

By Robert John Araujo, SJ

I would like to thank Steve for his thoughts about authority and conscience. Over the last few years, he and I have respectfully exchanged views on both subjects separately and together along with other members of MOJ. I plan to offer a few thoughts to his early posting today on the subject of “authority/conscience.”

It may well be that there are some folks who would follow the Magisterium regardless of what it teaches. I for one think that most people who know what the Magisterium teaches and follow it do so because they have thought about what the Magisterium teaches and they also think about views which are not consistent with those of the Magisterium on the topic before consideration. They follow the Magisterium not out of blindness but out of a well-formed conscience and right reason.

For what it’s worth, human beings have always lived in a complex world, but that does not make the moral choice complex if one thinks about what is at stake. If all moral choices are “complex,” then relativism will triumph—be it the relativism of the “mystery of life” passage from Casey or the relativism of the individual who insists that “I was only following orders.”

The moral law, if it is true to its identity and what is constitutive of it, must be objective. The exercise of conscience, which is always crucial to moral decision making, must also be objective. With due respect to those who assert that conscience is first and last a purely subjective matter, I cannot agree with their contention. This view reflects the problematic formulation of Casey that it is up to the individual to determine the meaning of life, the mystery of the universe, etc. If, indeed, this understanding is correct, then how, as I have argued or suggested in previous postings, is the conflict about any moral decision, great or small, that will inevitably emerge, to be resolved? I take no dispute with the issue that it is ultimately the voice of God, but how is God’s voice to be received and understood? If it is always by the individual and nothing more, then Casey wins and God loses. Why?

John Courtney Murray was on target when he mentioned that “the right to do what my conscience tells me to do, simply because my conscience tells me to do it” is a “perilous theory.” As Murray further explained, the particular peril of this approach “is subjectivism—the notion that, in the end, it is my conscience, and not the objective truth, which determines what is right or wrong, true or false.” I can imagine that each of us who contribute to MOJ could claim that God has revealed to her or him what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is false without any other mediating influence. In this case, we could all claim to be right and true. But, what happens when our views to which we claim rightness and truth conflict with one another?

It is, as I have suggested, the voice of God that mediates, but it is not the voice of God as presented by the view of purely “personal revelation.” God’s voice is an outside authority, and so is the voice of Peter and his successors which are essential to the process of the proper exercise of conscience. Without both, my exercise of conscience is simply what I think or what I feel, and not much more. Making into God that which is not is idolatry, even when that is only my naked conscience and nothing more. The well-formed conscience, as I have previously stated [HERE and HERE], is something more.

I again thank Steve for his interesting points and look forward to further discussion with him and others on this subject. RJA sj

God's sovereignty and Myanmar

By Rob Vischer

Georgia law prof Randy Beck responds to my post on God and Myanmar as follows:

Coming from a Reformed Protestant perspective, I think you're right that for a theology grounded in Scripture, the sovereignty of God will be unavoidable. The theme is equally strong in the New Testament and the Old. The crucifixion of Christ, for instance, occurred "by God's set purpose and foreknowledge." (Acts 2:23)

The problem comes when people claim to know why God allows particular events to occur. Scripture offers a wide range of reasons why God might permit someone to suffer, and punishment for sin is only one of the possibilities. Christ dealt with this issue in Luke's gospel, rejecting the crowd's facile assumption that those who suffer must be worse sinners than other people. (Luke 13:1-5)

One thing Scripture does affirm is that God works all things for good--that he brings good even out of evil. (Rom. 8:28) I think that's the point of Joseph's comment to his brothers after they sold him into slavery, a sin that ultimately led to their survival in spite of famine: "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." (Gen. 50:20) To my mind, the sovereignty of a good God gives believers reason to hope even in a situation like the tragedy in Myanmar. Even this is not outside of God's control and He will bring good from it that we can't as yet anticipate.

The Communion of Saints and the Big Tent

By Steve Shiffrin

Susan on her blog wonderfully expressed a view of Catholicism: “I saw an image of the apostolic line stretching forward from Peter through the Popes over the years through to the present day Pope. I saw that it is that apostolic line that holds the structure of this tent we call Catholicism.” Others in the tent are moved by a different image (the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive), namely the communion of saints. Consider a part of the description of the communion of saints from Joan Chittister’s wonderful book on the Apostle’s Creed, In Search of Belief 178, 182 : “The Creed is talking . . . about the unity of strangers that forms about the image of Christ who calls us beyond our past into a demanding and sometimes lonely present. In communion with these people who have lived their faith to the end before us, we all trek on, alone but together, together but alone, depending on the hand and the sight of the other to take us further still . . . . The communion of saints is not about the sinlessness of those who went before us. It is about sinfulness transcended, made holy in the milling of everyday life, of everyday politics, of everyday ecclesiastical consternation. The communion of saints is every color, every level, every challenge of mankind. It is the cosmic vision of Christ made plain. It crosses time and culture and the quagmires of national politics and Church conflicts to leave us with the face of a Church that is human [and] is us at our best. It is the Christ-face drawn differently in every age by every people.”

For Chittister, the Church is not the institution, but rather “the gathering of the seekers who celebrate the continuing presence of Christ among them, in them, and through them. The Church is the assembly of believers who are a sign of the Christian tradition, who make Jesus present now, who by serving, loving, proclaiming in the Jesus in whom they believe make the link between the human community and the touch of God in time.”

Authority/Conscience

By Steve Shiffrin

There is a tendency to confuse the responsibility of the bishops to teach with the responsibility to determine in conscience whether the teachings of the bishops are acceptable. Some think it warranted to decide that they will follow the Magisterium regardless of what it teaches. James T. Bretzke, S.J., forcefully argues that the latter position is untenable in his A Morally Complex World: Engaging Contemporary Moral Theology 112: “To replace the authority of conscience as the ultimate voice of moral authority, even if it be the pope or the bishops, would open up a huge number of problems concerning authority and mature human action. Heteronomy, the imposition of the moral law from some outside source . . . is not the traditional Roman Catholic position. Whatever authority one believes is absolute is, in effect, the voice of God for that person, and if we allow any outside authority – no matter how respected – to supplant the individual’s conscience, then we are, in effect, making this heteronomous moral authority into God for that person. Making into a “god” that which is not truly God is idolatry . . . .”