Hey Catholics! I just wanted to remind you about the proper way to go through a confession line. A confession line ought to be set up like this:
NOT like this:
And NOT like this:
And certainly NOT like this:
Really. It is not that hard.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Confession Lines
NOT like this:
And NOT like this:
And certainly NOT like this:
Really. It is not that hard.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Cardinal Pell, Richard Dawkins, Adam & Eve
In case you may not know what I am referring to, Cardinal George Pell of Australia recently agreed to an online debate with famous atheist Richard Dawkins. Basically, Dawkins dominated the terms of the debate and kept Pell on the defensive. Pell, perhaps trying to sound sophisticated or philosophical, hemmed and hawed on several important points of Catholic doctrine; he stated that atheists could go to heaven (not atheists who convert, mind you, but atheists qua atheists), stated his adherence to Balthasar's doctrine that hell exists but is "probably" empty, and then, in the most discussed aspect of the evening's discussion, went on to explain that Adam and Eve were entirely mythological and affirmed his belief that mankind was the product of evolution.
Pell admitted that human beings "probably" evolved, which earned him a round of applause from the audience. At this point, Tony Jones, the moderator, asked a very reasonable question: "But you accept that humans evolved from non-humans, so at what point did the soul come about?”
Cardinal Pell responded: “The Soul is the principle of life. Whenever the soul
was able to communicate then we had the first human. But if there are
humans, there must be a first one.” By the way, this is essentially the position that Benedict XVI took when, as Cardinal Ratzinger, he wrote that "matter signifies a moment in the history of spirit...spirit is created and is not the mere
product of development, even though it comes to light by way of
development" in a 1973 essay on Creation (see here).
Jones: “Are you suggesting a sort of Garden of Eden scenario with an actual Adam and Eve?”
“Well Adam and Eve are terms that mean ‘life’ and ‘earth’. Like an
Everyman. It’s a beautiful, sophisticated, mythological account. It’s
not science. But it’s there to tell us two or three things. First of
all that God created the world and universe. Secondly that the key to
the whole universe is humans. And thirdly it’s a very sophisticated
mythology to try to explain the evil and the suffering in the
world….It’s a religious story told for religious purposes.”
Now Richard Dawkins, who proved himself more astute than Pell in seeing the implications of Pell's denial of a historic Adam and Eve, retorted with this question: “Ah, well, I’m curious to know, if Adam and Eve never existed where did Original Sin come from?” It's painful to watch the Cardinal's sullen, silent expression after this question. He is unable to come up with any answer.
Dawkins is spot on here: No original parents, no original sin. No original sin, no explanation for sin in the world. No explanation for sin, no need for a savior. Christianity, apart from the reality of original sin, does not make any sense. It's a shame that Dawkins understands this better than the Cardinal. That is very troubling.
What is equally troubling is that the Cardinal does not seem aware of Pius XII's teaching in Humani Generis. In that encyclical, Pius XII specifically condemns the opinion known as polygenism, which is the belief that Adam "represents a number of first parents." The pope states:
"When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely
polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the
faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam
there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through
natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam
represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how
such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth
and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to
original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam
and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his
own" (HG, 37).
Notice that the very reason why Pius XII condemns this opinion is because of the objection that Dawkins brings up - original sin. Belief in original sin necessitates belief in first parents, and "a sin actually committed by an individual Adam," as Pius XII teaches. As much appalling as it is that an atheist understands the coherence of Catholic truths better than a Cardinal, I think it is even more appalling that the Cardinal either deviates from the clear teaching of Pius XII or else appears ignorant of it. I do not presume to judge the reason for the Cardinal's statements other than to say that they were unacceptable.
Some have come forward and tried to save original sin in spite of a denial of a historic Adam. For example, Michael Potemra of the National Review made the following argument:
"The fact of the existence of Original Sin does not depend on the
historical existence of Adam and Eve. To say that it does seems to me
the equivalent of declaring that if Mrs. O’Leary’s cow
was not, in fact, responsible for the Great Chicago Fire, then the
Great Chicago Fire must not have happened at all. Original Sin is a
fundamental choice in which man declares his prideful rebellion against
God, and we see that choice in our own hearts" (source).
The problem with this thinking is that Potemra is stating that original sin is basically the existence of sinful tendencies within every man in the present without any account for its origin. Let's follow Mr. Potemra's line of thinking here - so, we need not have an historic Adam because the sinful desires we have in our own hearts prove original sin. Okay, so, where do these sinful desires come from then? Potemra has already ruled out a historic Adam who introduced sin into humanity. What is the genesis of sin, then?
Presumably, the only answer is that Original Sin is "part of human nature", something inherent in every human being and that we all experience intimately in our own hearts. I think this is what Potemra is getting at. Unfortunately, it is not theologically viable explanation. Despite the common parlance that sin and evil are "part of human nature", Christianity tells us that, no, they are not part of our nature. Our nature was created in a state of harmony with God, in a state of natural perfection. Sin was not part of man's nature. To say otherwise is to say that God created sin, and to say that man's current state is the one God envisions for him. This is untenable for a Christian.
One could say that the Chicago Fire can be accounted for without Mrs. O'Leary's cow, but one must admit that the Chicago Fire had some cause. To apply Potemra's logic to the Chicago Fire, we would have to say that we don't need to hypothesize a historical cause for the fire in the past because it is in the nature of cities to burn, and just because the present city is on fire does not mean that that fire had a historical origin. Utter nonsense. The presence of an effect in the present implies a cause in the past, and that cause if either God or man. And to say it is God would be the heresy of stating that God created evil and sin. We are left, therefore, with a first sin committed by man.
One could say that the Chicago Fire can be accounted for without Mrs. O'Leary's cow, but one must admit that the Chicago Fire had some cause. To apply Potemra's logic to the Chicago Fire, we would have to say that we don't need to hypothesize a historical cause for the fire in the past because it is in the nature of cities to burn, and just because the present city is on fire does not mean that that fire had a historical origin. Utter nonsense. The presence of an effect in the present implies a cause in the past, and that cause if either God or man. And to say it is God would be the heresy of stating that God created evil and sin. We are left, therefore, with a first sin committed by man.
If our leaders are going to take the approach of trying to look sophisticated to impress atheists and secularists, they'd better just knock it off. The true tragedy of this was summed up in a great article in the Remnant:
"A few million viewers of the Pell-Dawkins debate walked away wondering
since when have Catholics become so eager to debunk their own Scriptures
and discard their own theology. Outright enemies of the Catholic Faith
couldn’t invent more expedient ways to baffle (and thus alienate)
non-believers than those the Modernist leaders of the Catholic Church
have come up with all on their own."
This dialogue probably should not have happened; Cardinal Pell could have done more for the world and the Church had he spent that hour in Adoration praying for the conversion of poor sinners. It reminds me of a story I have referenced elsewhere in the life St. Louis IX. Apparently, a discussion panel had been set up by a local abbot between some rabbis and some monks to debate the Christian faith. After the rabbis said something amiss against Christ and the Virgin Mary, an knight watching the debate struck the rabbi. The abbot rebuked the knight, but the knight had an interesting retort:
"The abbot went up to the knight and told him he had acted most
unwisely. The knight retorted that the abbot had been guilty of even
greater folly in calling people together for such a conference, because
there were many good Christians there who, before the discussion ended,
would have gone away with doubts about their own religion through not
fully understanding the Jews."
It is good to have dialogue for the purpose of defending our faith and giving an answer to the heathen. But if the result of the debate is going to be that Christians go away more confused than before, then it becomes folly. Trying to present sophisticated, modern interpretations of the Faith that explain away or mythologize the Scriptures do not help Catholics strengthen their faith; it simply confuses them and makes us look like idiots.
Knock it off, Cardinal Pell!
Sunday, May 13, 2012
JustFaith and Fr. Richard Rohr
The first half of week nine of the JustFaith program spends 50 minutes listening to Father Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest who has built a small New Age empire around books and talks on subjects ranging from the Enneagram, the Cosmic Jesus, Liberation Theology, and the Men’s Movement. Titled “Portrait of a Radical,” this talk seems to be a surprising detour. There is nothing in it about social justice other than a passing comment that even peace and justice activists can be happy because it’s not their job to save the world – it’s God’s.
That’s a true enough point, but it’s unlikely that’s all the JustFaith participants are meant to take from the talk. The facilitator materials, describing “Portrait of a Radical” as an attempt “to draw the viewer into a space where Jesus can be seen from the perspective of his radical, compassionate, and inclusive teachings,” clarifies the intention of the JustFaith program to leave the participant with additional messages, which are confirmed in follow-up questions: “How did this representation of Jesus’ ministry add to…understanding of Jesus as a person? As the Son of God?” (pg. 4, JustFaith facilitator’s materials, week 9: 2011-12)
Rohr’s talk is largely a challenge to the institutional church, what he dubs “managed” religion. Jesus, he says, has been largely misunderstood by European Christendom. “In so many ways, it didn’t matter what He [Jesus] said; it’s what we wanted Him to say and many people really thought He said these things that they presumed they wanted Him to say.” Rohr wants to get us back to the honest, Jewish Jesus so we can get away from dealing with Jesus as “the divine savior of our denomination.”
The Bible, according to Rohr, moves us from a violent, angry, “toxic” God demanding to be placated with human – and later with animal substitutions – blood to a God who has taken away human shame about being naked and unworthy. Far from demanding our blood, Rohr says, we are confronted with “the most extraordinary turn-around in the history of religion – God spilling [His own] blood to get to us.”
“But how do you give away God?” Rohr asks. Nobody wants Him; He’s too frightening. Yet, God could not be content to be a theology, which we’d like because we can argue about it and “keep God as a private possession in our pocket.” So, He became a person, and “we see in the Risen Christ a God Who blames nobody…The Good News is that the end of the Bible is a totally non-threatening, non-blaming, non-violent God” – not that God was ever violent, Rohr adds, but that we had created Him in our own image.
This “non-blaming” Jesus says nothing about the things the Church is obsessed about, such as premarital sex – He is only concerned with violence and greed….and in overcoming those diabolical possessions with possessing us Himself. “We’ve been so comfortable with violence – we’ve been comfortable with greed – since the 3rd century, since Constantine made us the established religion. It almost seems like some kind of smoke and mirrors game is going on here – some kind of shadow game, diversionary tactic: ‘Look over here, so you won’t see what He’s really talking about…”
Of course, Rohr is quick to say that he’s not condoning pre-marital sex but “the Christianity is much more about mystical issues than about moral issues.” Get the mystical issues right and “the moral issues will take care of themselves.”
That mystical relationship is about intimacy, the “emptying of self so there’s room for another person inside of me.” “It’s almost sexual, cannibalistic language, this Eucharistic language. Jesus saying, basically, “Eat Me.
Drink Me. Get Me inside of you.”
Rohr insists that faith isn’t a head thing, as opposed to doubt, but is a trust thing, as opposed to anxiety. Jesus doesn’t worry about the hot sins – like premarital sex – but worries about power, prestige, illusion, and the other things that blind us. Jesus came to say it’s radically OK, that life is great simplicity and comfort. We don’t have to control it all.
If Jesus takes away the sin of the world – and Rohr stresses the Biblical use of the singular “sin” (John 1:29) – what is “the sin”? Rohr answers that Jesus didn’t go to a brothel or to a bar but to a place of execution, a place where people try to “destroy evil” and then feel good that they’ve done away with the impure and are themselves superior. That behavior, says Rohr, is the sin of the world Jesus will take away.
There is much more in this vein. Managed religion – or institutional religion, Rohr explains – makes the law complex to keep us safe (e.g. no premarital sex). Jesus, on the other hand, wastes no time on the shadow but focuses on the ego, respecting the infinite complexity of people – honoring that people break the rules in very unique ways – but keeps his law very simple: Love one another.
One is at a loss to see how this brings JustFaith participants into any deeper understanding of the Church’s social teachings. Rather, it seems designed to reinforce within them a qualified relationship with the Church – the liberationists’ view of “church” – that either bends to the will of the social activist or is dismissed as merely “institutional” and “immature.”
Hopefully this is enough to persuade anyone who was uncertain about this program. The program's books are written by New Age and dissenting priests who preach a Christianity unlike that which the Church has taught for 2,000 years.
Hopefully this is enough to persuade anyone who was uncertain about this program. The program's books are written by New Age and dissenting priests who preach a Christianity unlike that which the Church has taught for 2,000 years.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Obscure Saints: St. Lambert of Maestricht
St. Lambert of Maestricht (633-700) may not be a familiar name, but the details of his life and martyrdom are extremely relevant to the current condition of the world. St. Lambert was of the local nobility and had a very pious upbringing. His devout parents entrusted his education into the care of two other saints, St. Landoaldus and St. Theodardus, Bishop of Maestricht in modern day Switzerland.
In 670, Lambert became Bishop of Maestricht. During this time, the Mayors of the Palace were beginning to eclipse the power of the Merovingian kings and a struggle for supremacy was raging throughout the Merovingian court. St. Lambert sided with the weak King Childeric and was forced to flee Maestricht when the cause of Childeric went awry. Lambert spent the next seven years in exile (674-671), living as a simple monk in the Abbey of Stavenlot. When Pepin of Heristal became the new Mayor of the Palace in 681, St. Lambert was invited back to his see. For the next few years he assisted in various missionary journeys of other saints, at one time working with St. Willibrord, the mentor of the famous St. Boniface.Later in life, he was also the spiritual director of St. Hubert, the worldly young nobleman who dedicated his life to God after seeing a stag in the woods with a cross between its antlers and hearing the voice of Christ warning him to repent.
According to immemorial tradition, St. Lambert died as a martyr in the defense of the sanctity of marriage, though this claim is disputed by some. Pepin of Heristal, the power behind the Merovingian throne, had lived for many years in faithful wedlock to his wife, Plectrude. Later, however, he had a very open affair with a woman named Alpais, to the scandal of the Merovingian court. When Lambert saw that no one else was willing to rebuke the Mayor for his behavior, he himself went to Pepin's court and openly admonished the Mayor to put away his mistress. Alpais, fearing a loss of influence, convinced her brother (humorously named Dodo), to murder the saintly bishop. Shortly thereafter, while St. Lambert was praying the the chapel, assassins entered and plunged a javelin through his heart while he was kneeling. He died at the altar, a martyr to marital fidelity.
Interestingly enough, Pepin ended up having a son by Alpais his mistress who was none other than the famous Charles Martel, savior of Europe and patriarch of the Carolingians.
The Feast of St. Lambert is celebrated on September 17th. His remains, originally interred in the cemetery of St. Peter in Maestricht, were removed to the cathedral of Liege by St. Hubert in 723.
According to immemorial tradition, St. Lambert died as a martyr in the defense of the sanctity of marriage, though this claim is disputed by some. Pepin of Heristal, the power behind the Merovingian throne, had lived for many years in faithful wedlock to his wife, Plectrude. Later, however, he had a very open affair with a woman named Alpais, to the scandal of the Merovingian court. When Lambert saw that no one else was willing to rebuke the Mayor for his behavior, he himself went to Pepin's court and openly admonished the Mayor to put away his mistress. Alpais, fearing a loss of influence, convinced her brother (humorously named Dodo), to murder the saintly bishop. Shortly thereafter, while St. Lambert was praying the the chapel, assassins entered and plunged a javelin through his heart while he was kneeling. He died at the altar, a martyr to marital fidelity.
Interestingly enough, Pepin ended up having a son by Alpais his mistress who was none other than the famous Charles Martel, savior of Europe and patriarch of the Carolingians.
The Feast of St. Lambert is celebrated on September 17th. His remains, originally interred in the cemetery of St. Peter in Maestricht, were removed to the cathedral of Liege by St. Hubert in 723.
Sunday, May 06, 2012
Transplanting Tradition
So where did this liturgical custom come from? Does it mean anything to Catholics?
I have been reflecting lately on why certain customs flourish in one religious setting but those same customs utterly fail to produce fruit when transplanted to another. By custom I mean those outward expressions of religious faith common to humankind - certain types of song and musical instruments, manner of prayer, bodily gestures, architectural and artistic creations, and every other expression of culture that usually accompanies religious belief. Religious setting in the broadest sense could mean different religions, but in the context of this discussion, I mean it more with reference to different ecclesial traditions within Christianity itself (Lutheranism, Baptist, Calvinist, and of course, Catholic).
A very large assumption we find in the mindset of the post-Conciliar Church is that a custom one one religious setting can be transplanted into the Catholic Church. It was assumed that because a style of music, or vestment or dance had proved vibrant in one religious setting that it would be equally vibrant and "fruit-bearing" within the Catholic Church. An easy example is the style of hymn known as the "Negro Spiritual," a sort of song composed by enslaved African Americans in the South and associated with varieties of the Baptist tradition. Modern Catholic hymnals typically feature many of these Negro Spirituals; the Spiritual has been "transplanted" from the Baptist to the Catholic tradition.
There are several aspects of this idea of "transplanting" of custom that need to be examined:
(A) The true vitality of these customs within their original religious setting
(B) The assumption of "transplanting" the custom into another tradition
(C) Explanation for the failure of such efforts
First, it is necessary to assert the vitality of a custom within the context of its own tradition. A Negro Spiritual is extremely edifying to African Americans or anyone else raised in that tradition. The dull, austere architecture of a Mennonite gathering hall is pleasing to the sensibilities of Mennonites. Certain types of high-tempo Christian rock music are edifying to Pentecostal Christians, for whom that sort of music is an integral part of their tradition. These customs are all truly vital within their own religious setting.
Now, please note than when I speak of the vitality of these customs, I am not speaking of any supernatural ordering or any merit before God, and this is a rather important point in this discussion. I say not that bare Mennonite gathering halls are pleasing to God, only that they are pleasing to Mennonites. We could have a great discussion about whether God likes Pentecostal rock music; it is undeniable that Pentecostals like Pentecostal rock music. Every individual is edified on a natural level by those elements native to their own tradition. People like that which comes naturally.
But beyond "liking" these customs, we could go further to say that, because these customs have sprung up organically out of these religious communities, there is a certain naturalness to them from a cultural standpoint. It is natural for a black Protestant congregation in rural Mississippi to sing Negro Spirituals just as it is natural for Muslims to pray in Arabic or Catholics to genuflect. Because these customs are natural to these traditions, they form a positive link between the believer and those who have come before him; they serve to build a bond rooting that person to his tradition, edifying him within the context of that tradition. They keep the tradition alive. Thus, on a strictly natural level, we can rightly say that a custom has a true vitality within its own religious setting.
The next part of this discussion is looking at the assumption that these customs can be transplanted into another religious setting other than that of their origin. In the Catholic Church, this is where Negro Spirituals are put into liturgical hymnals, or Protestant praise and worship music is performed at Mass, or Protestant architectural principles are incorporated into parish design, or Eastern meditation is incorporated into Catholic spirituality. The assumption is that these customs will bear fruit in a Catholic setting because they have borne fruit in their natural setting; that the Catholic's experience of the Faith will be enriched by these customs that have enriched other cultures. This implies several problematic things.
For one, it implies that the Faith is somehow lacking and must be enriched by elements brought into it from the outside; I have already written about this elsewhere in the context of the Charismatic Renewal.
But more relevant to this discussion is that it is often forgotten that these customs possess vitality not by virtue of the customs themselves, but because of the context in which they occur, and that this vitality is of a natural, not supernatural, character. There is nothing meritorious before God about clapping hands during a song; it is a purely natural act that the worshiper finds edifying because it is organically part of the tradition to which he belongs. To the degree that, say, Protestant worshipers obtain some grace through their worship, it is because their hearts are more properly disposed towards God, not because there is anything better about clapping hands or singing a Negro Spiritual. If the worshiper does experience more grace through these acts, it is because participating in worship according to their own tradition is what puts them in that disposition.
This is not like the liturgy of the Mass, where the ritual comes from the Apostles and is intrinsically pleasing to God because in the Mass the Son of God is offered to the Father (this is why the Mass is still objectively pleasing to God even if the priest is sinful or the Mass is said privately without a congregation). The problem is that we assume that these other customs (Negro Spirituals) that have vitality within their own religious setting will produce the same results when transferred to Catholic worship. This ignores the fact that the inner vitality of these customs within their own tradition is due to their cultural context, not the merit of the act itself. It also presumes that the Mass, which has a supernatural origin and is ordered towards God, needs the inclusion of these foreign customs that have only a natural goodness, even within their own tradition. These are the problems with transplanting customs from one religious setting to another.
Are these transplants successful? I think anyone who objectively evaluates this question will unequivocally say that these cultural transplants have been a miserable failure. Our worst parishes are the ones where this cross-cultural pollination happens most. By the way, since these cultural transplants are such failures, those who support them can only claim they are successful by changing the definition of success. Instead of success as measured by holiness, increased participation in the sacraments, growth in knowledge, private devotions, etc., the proponent of this ideal has to make the transplant itself a kind of measure of success. Thus, the success of incorporating Negro Spirituals is the simple fact that Catholics are now singing Negro Spirituals. The cultural cross-pollination goes from being a means to an end in and of itself; a "mutual enrichment" as Cardinal Dulles used to call it.
But to anybody who cares about sanctity, love of the truth, or knowledge of the faith, these attempts to inject foreign customs into Catholicism are utter failures. Why is this? Because of the basic premise enunciated above - a custom has vitality within its tradition only because of its cultural context. Remember, the custom builds a bond between a worshiper and his own tradition. But what sort of bond can be established by Catholics singing a Negro Spiritual? How does a lay person taking classes in yoga thereby become more firmly rooted in Catholic spirituality? What does a person clapping hands to Pentecostal rock music at Mass learn about the Catholic liturgy?
We would not expect a Negro Spiritual to mean anything in a Catholic liturgy any more than we would expect the Salve Regina to mean anything in a black church is rural Mississippi. We understand this when we talk about other traditions or religions; anyone would acknowledge that Gregorian chant would be out of place in a Mennonite gathering hall or that a genuflection inside a Mosque would be highly improper; why are Catholics alone not able to exercise this same sort of reasoning when it comes to foreign customs transplanted into our own tradition?
Traditions cannot be transplanted. Just because a Protestant church finds great vibrancy and edification in Pentecostal rock music does not mean that a Catholic parish will likewise be edified. A salt water fish can't live in fresh water. The crops that thrive in Cuba wither in Norway because the environment is different. The only difference between these examples and what we have today in the Catholic Church is that it only takes the green-thumb farmer one trial and one error to realize that tropical crops cannot flourish in cold climates; how many decades will it take for our liturgists to learn the same simple lesson?
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Confirmation Retreats
Confirmation retreats. They are an interesting phenomenon, perhaps the one venue where all of the issues that have arisen within the Church over the last generation come together. When I was a DRE, myself and two other DREs put a lot of effort into putting together a proposed revamping of the entire diocesan approach to Confirmation. We put a lot of research into it and were going to propose it to the bishop in a formal meeting; my part of the project was to research the history of Confirmation in the Church in order to develop historical and theological arguments for administering it earlier. For various reasons this project was never completed and the issue faded from my mind.
This weekend I attended a Confirmation retreat for a boy I am sponsoring, and all these questions about how Confirmation can be better administered and prepared for came rushing back to my mind. But there is no room here for a full-blown review of the problems with Confirmation prep as a whole and what would be needed to rectify (though I am working on a such a proposal for the new website). It will be sufficient here to give an example of the kind of thing we are dealing with by describing my experience this weekend.
Allow to begin with a disclaimer - the boy I am sponsoring is a very intelligent and well-formed homeschooler, probably one of the best formed and most knowledgeable kids in the entire program. I am proud of him and happy to be his sponsor, so my post here on Confirmation retreats has nothing to do with him or his personal preparedness. Rather, I guess it is a lament that such a well-formed kid had to endure the sort of program I am about to describe (which, by the way, was not at my parish but at another one in the same diocese).
Our retreat was billed as a Confirmation Sponsor Retreat. It was supposed to be a time when sponsors shared a day with their confirmands and shared their faith with them apparently. The retreat was scheduled to take eight hours, from 12-8pm. For almost the entirety of this time, we were confined to the parish center and had very little opportunity to move around, except for some small breaks every two hours. We began the day with an "ice breaker" to "warm up"; we were each given a Gift of the Spirit and had to come up with as many words as we could out of that word (so, I had "Knowledge" and I had to see how many ways I could rearrange the letters to form other words - I came up with 66 other words). It had nothing to do with Confirmation but, whatever, it was just an ice breaker.
Then we came to the introduction and the first talk, which was all about Hands. We were given a set of directions and asked to do things with our hands and evaluate how they "felt." For example: "High five your partner. Shake your partner's hand. Put your arm on your partners shoulder." After each direction, we were asked to write down how it "felt" to do this action (for the hand shake, I wrote "moist"). Everybody at each table was asked to share their answers, which they did reluctantly because the whole thing was so weird. Then there was a very weak talk on the importance of "hands" in the Confirmation rite (nobody, neither any students nor the facilitators, mentioned that laying on of hands sacramentally imparted the Holy Spirit. I had to volunteer that information).
Then we had a session entitled "Called." We were given a sheet of paper and asked to come up with a list of all the titles we go by - Father, Son, Brother, etc. I had an unfair advantage here; since I am an elected official, I had a ton of titles that no one else could use...heh heh. At any rate, after this exercise, we had a talk by a deacon aspirant on the importance of Confirmation saint names. He went around the room asking what people's saint names were, and while some were decent, a lot of the explanations were awful - "I chose Joan because it is my grandma's name." "I picked Michael because I always wished that was my name." "I wanted Christopher because my parents said that was another name they almost called me and I have always liked that name." Having done Confirmation prep myself for several years, I can say that such rationales for choosing a saint name are woefully common.
Then (still sitting at the same tables in the parish center and now several hours into this) we had a session called Sealed, in which we were to look at several objects in a bag and brainstorm on how they related to sealing. We had class rings and a roll of electrical tape. Basically the same thing as talk one - asking all the kids to share their answers followed by a very theologically weak talk on what it means to be sealed with the Spirit. Then we did another activity with the gifts of the spirit, in which kids were all asked to describe how other objects (scales, road signs, books, etc) related to a certain gift. By the way, "Fear of the Lord" was changed to be "Wonder and Awe of the Lord." There was also some comments about how "before Vatican II" Catholics talked too much about sin and judgment and now it is different.
Meanwhile the kids were getting called back for Confirmation interviews by the priest. Each interview took about one minute. He asked them two questions - "What do you get out of being Catholic?" and "Imagine you are in college and it is Sunday and all the other students are sleeping in; why should you get up and go to Mass?" Good questions, I suppose, but hardly sufficient to determine the worthiness of a candidate for Confirmation. A better question would have been something like, oh, I don't know, "Explain the sacrament of Confirmation" or "Who is the Holy Spirit", or, as my pastor always asks ever since a kid got this one wrong, "Is the holy Spirit God?" Such wimpy questions as "what do you get out of being Catholic" do not in any way help determine that a person understands the sacrament or has been properly formed. They are practically meaningless. But, as one guy at my table said with a laugh as the students all returned from their interviews, "Father likes to get everybody through quickly." By the way, the priest was not wearing clerical garb, just a flannel shirt and blue jeans.
Then we went over to the Church for Confessions, which was a welcome change of scenery. The priest stood out in the vestibule, however, and the talking was so loud that I had to go outside the Church because I could hear the kids making their confessions and hear what he was saying back to them. Then we had to do some mandatory "Faith Sharing." I had to go sit somewhere privately with my confirmand and talk to him about my own Confirmation and things I had learned since then, which wasn't exactly a bad thing, although it was a little awkward because it was forced (Go spend five minutes and talk about your faith - very unorganic and unlike how faith-sharing happens in the real world).
Then we had Mass and then a dinner, but my kid and I cut out early; we had been there all day and it was evening, so we were ready to go.
There is so much that can be said here, but I don't have it in me. The retreat wasn't bad, just lame. Extremely lame. Limp. Weak. Lifeless. Certainly not anything that would excite a young person, and that is an huge problem in the Church as a whole - a pervasive spirit of lameness that makes the Faith into something just kind of ho-hum. Sometimes, I see things going on, and all I can do is pray to God and wonder, "How will we ever make it?" All I can say is that if we want our kids to take our Faith seriously, we need to treat it like it is something serious. When we are telling them to high-five each other and talk about what it feels like, many start to wonder, "Why am I here?" Is this the truth that God became man to impart to us? I wondered how many of these kids would still be practicing their faith in two years. How many would endure and run the race to the end? We are not preparing our kids well, intellectually or spiritually, and it grieves my heart,
Then we had Mass and then a dinner, but my kid and I cut out early; we had been there all day and it was evening, so we were ready to go.
There is so much that can be said here, but I don't have it in me. The retreat wasn't bad, just lame. Extremely lame. Limp. Weak. Lifeless. Certainly not anything that would excite a young person, and that is an huge problem in the Church as a whole - a pervasive spirit of lameness that makes the Faith into something just kind of ho-hum. Sometimes, I see things going on, and all I can do is pray to God and wonder, "How will we ever make it?" All I can say is that if we want our kids to take our Faith seriously, we need to treat it like it is something serious. When we are telling them to high-five each other and talk about what it feels like, many start to wonder, "Why am I here?" Is this the truth that God became man to impart to us? I wondered how many of these kids would still be practicing their faith in two years. How many would endure and run the race to the end? We are not preparing our kids well, intellectually or spiritually, and it grieves my heart,
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Comparing Trad and Liberal "Dissent"
In the May-June 2012 issue of Catholic Answers Magazine (formerly This Rock), there is an interesting article by Kenneth Whitehead entitled "Dissent of a Traditionalist Stripe: How Vatican II Resulted in Revolt from the Right as Well as the Left." The article is the second in a two-part series on errant interpretations of Vatican II, this one obviously dealing with dissent "from the right."
The article is emblematic of how the traditionalist issue is typically misunderstood by many in the mainstream Church who consider themselves orthodox but would not necessarily call themselves traditionalists.
In the first place, condemnations of traditionalist "dissent" are straw men arguments here because of the ambiguous way in which the term "traditionalist" is used. The title of the article accuses "traditionalists" of dissent. So now what is a traditionalist? Whitehead identifies traditionalists primarily with the SSPX. He states:
"The radical traditionalist position...held that nothing in the Church's tradition was subject to change. The most prominent of this latter position is the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), an organization founded in Switzerland in 1969 by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in reaction to what he considered to be the "errors" of Vatican II. There are a few other radical splinter groups that also reject the Council, but the SSPX is the principal and best organized of them " (pg. 34).
Notice what the author has done here. The title of the article claims to be about "dissent of a traditionalist stripe." He then will change this statement to "radical traditionalists." Later in the article, the followers of Lefebvre are simply referred to as "traditionalists" (pg. 35).
But since "traditionalist dissent" is the focus of the article, are we to assume that traditionalists and radical traditionalists are the same thing? The straw man argument comes in when traditionalists are basically lumped together under the phrase "SSPX" along with "other radical splinter groups that also reject the Council." Apparently, all, or at least most, traditionalists are SSPX, or those whose one common belief is rejection of the Council. While purporting to answer "traditionalism", the article makes the equivocation Traditionalist = SSPX and then goes on to deal exclusively with the SSPX. Patrick Madrid, one of my favorite mainstream apologists, regrettably does the same thing in his book More Catholic Than the Pope. In either case, there seems to be no thought of answering the objections of traditionalists who accept the Council, are in union with the Church, and are not part of the SSPX. The ambiguous way in which the article uses the term "traditionalist", the straw man tactic of associating all trads with SSPX, takes quite a bit of precision out of Whitehead's argument.
Another difficulty is that the position of the Church with reference to the two "extremes" of liberalism and traditionalism (whatever the latter term means) is misrepresented. Whitehead mentions liberalism and traditionalism as "two post-conciliar trends from opposite ends of the ecclesiastical spectrum" (pg. 33), as if there were these two extreme fringe groups on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum with the mainline Church sitting comfortable and immovably in the center, condemning each from an equidistant position. If we were to depict this visually, it would look something like this (I put a question mark after Trads because of the ambiguity in the term, as explained above):
(Click to enlarge these pictures if they are too small)
The mainline Church is presented as a solid center, equidistant from two equally dangerous extremes, liberal "spirit of Vatican II" Catholicism on the left radical Traditionalism on the right. The mainline Church maintains the balance between these two extremes.
However, there are two major problems with this paradigm (1) the equidistance the mainline Church is assumed to have between the two extremes and (2) the real "threat" of each extreme position relative to the mainline Church.
Remember, Whitehead's opinion assumes that liberalism and extreme traditionalism are "two post conciliar trends at opposite ends of the ecclesiastical spectrum." This statement tells us only that the two extremes are opposites of one another, but it tells us nothing about the position of the mainline Church relative to them. Without further clarification, the assumption of such a statement is that the mainline Church is situated centrally between the two positions, condemning the errors of liberalism from the same comfortable distance from which it rebukes the errors of the radical traditionalists.
This is not accurate, I think, because radical traditionalism (as represented by the SSPX, per the article) and liberalism are two different sorts of things. The SSPX is an organization that exists within a canonical framework and with whom the Church can reach out to, negotiate, dialogue with, make concessions to, demand concessions from, and ultimately reconcile with. It is more easy identify; they are not in union with the Church in a formal manner, and because of that, they can be formally approached and reconciled with. The Church considers them an external problem.
Liberalism, on the other hand, is not something that is related to the Church in any canonical way, either for good or for ill. Whereas the SSPX are something we can identify as distinct from the mainline Church, liberalism is a philosophy that infects large segments of the Church itself. It is not distinct from the Church in the sense that we can dialogue with it, negotiate, or make or demand concessions. It is something like a cancer that has rendered large parts of the body unwholesome. Because of this, it is not something the Church can "stand off" from and approach strategically. The Church cannot approach liberalism from the same distance that it approaches the SSPX from because liberalism is something the Church struggles with internally whereas the SSPX are an external issue.
In addition to this, we must note the overlap between liberalism and the Church. Some of the biggest and most problematic liberals in the Church are members of her hierarchy in good canonical standing. The SSPX bishops, by contrast, were excommunicates until recently. Some of the liberal bastions within the Church are legitimately established dioceses. In many parts of the world, the liberals are the Church. The Church does not stand off distantly and condemn liberalism from a central position because liberalism is in the very heart of the Church. This cannot realistically be said about groups such as the SSPX, who are organizations canonically distinct from the Church.
Furthermore, the "threat" posed to the Catholic Church from these two extremes is far from equal. While Whitehead's article states that "Vatican II resulted in revolt from the right as well as the left," the revolt from the "right" pales in comparison to that posed by the left. For example, the SSPX, our stereotypical "radical traditionalists", number only around 600,000 world wide. That is miniscule. To put it in perspective, there are 1.4 million Catholics in the Archdiocese of Detroit alone. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has 4.3 million. With the average Catholic diocese having Catholic populations at least in the hundreds of thousands, and with entire dioceses, and even the hierarchies of entire countries being mired in modernism (United Kingdom, Switzerland), is it really realistic to portray a sect of 600,000 worldwide as an equal threat to the liberal scourge that claims millions and millions of adherents? According to polls, 85% of Catholics deny the Real Presence and a similar amount use contraception. Given the massively destructive influence of liberalism which are behind these stats, is it really legitimate to speak of radical traditionalism as an "equal" threat to the Church?
The article is emblematic of how the traditionalist issue is typically misunderstood by many in the mainstream Church who consider themselves orthodox but would not necessarily call themselves traditionalists.
In the first place, condemnations of traditionalist "dissent" are straw men arguments here because of the ambiguous way in which the term "traditionalist" is used. The title of the article accuses "traditionalists" of dissent. So now what is a traditionalist? Whitehead identifies traditionalists primarily with the SSPX. He states:
"The radical traditionalist position...held that nothing in the Church's tradition was subject to change. The most prominent of this latter position is the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), an organization founded in Switzerland in 1969 by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in reaction to what he considered to be the "errors" of Vatican II. There are a few other radical splinter groups that also reject the Council, but the SSPX is the principal and best organized of them " (pg. 34).
Notice what the author has done here. The title of the article claims to be about "dissent of a traditionalist stripe." He then will change this statement to "radical traditionalists." Later in the article, the followers of Lefebvre are simply referred to as "traditionalists" (pg. 35).
But since "traditionalist dissent" is the focus of the article, are we to assume that traditionalists and radical traditionalists are the same thing? The straw man argument comes in when traditionalists are basically lumped together under the phrase "SSPX" along with "other radical splinter groups that also reject the Council." Apparently, all, or at least most, traditionalists are SSPX, or those whose one common belief is rejection of the Council. While purporting to answer "traditionalism", the article makes the equivocation Traditionalist = SSPX and then goes on to deal exclusively with the SSPX. Patrick Madrid, one of my favorite mainstream apologists, regrettably does the same thing in his book More Catholic Than the Pope. In either case, there seems to be no thought of answering the objections of traditionalists who accept the Council, are in union with the Church, and are not part of the SSPX. The ambiguous way in which the article uses the term "traditionalist", the straw man tactic of associating all trads with SSPX, takes quite a bit of precision out of Whitehead's argument.
Another difficulty is that the position of the Church with reference to the two "extremes" of liberalism and traditionalism (whatever the latter term means) is misrepresented. Whitehead mentions liberalism and traditionalism as "two post-conciliar trends from opposite ends of the ecclesiastical spectrum" (pg. 33), as if there were these two extreme fringe groups on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum with the mainline Church sitting comfortable and immovably in the center, condemning each from an equidistant position. If we were to depict this visually, it would look something like this (I put a question mark after Trads because of the ambiguity in the term, as explained above):
The mainline Church is presented as a solid center, equidistant from two equally dangerous extremes, liberal "spirit of Vatican II" Catholicism on the left radical Traditionalism on the right. The mainline Church maintains the balance between these two extremes.
However, there are two major problems with this paradigm (1) the equidistance the mainline Church is assumed to have between the two extremes and (2) the real "threat" of each extreme position relative to the mainline Church.
Remember, Whitehead's opinion assumes that liberalism and extreme traditionalism are "two post conciliar trends at opposite ends of the ecclesiastical spectrum." This statement tells us only that the two extremes are opposites of one another, but it tells us nothing about the position of the mainline Church relative to them. Without further clarification, the assumption of such a statement is that the mainline Church is situated centrally between the two positions, condemning the errors of liberalism from the same comfortable distance from which it rebukes the errors of the radical traditionalists.
This is not accurate, I think, because radical traditionalism (as represented by the SSPX, per the article) and liberalism are two different sorts of things. The SSPX is an organization that exists within a canonical framework and with whom the Church can reach out to, negotiate, dialogue with, make concessions to, demand concessions from, and ultimately reconcile with. It is more easy identify; they are not in union with the Church in a formal manner, and because of that, they can be formally approached and reconciled with. The Church considers them an external problem.
Liberalism, on the other hand, is not something that is related to the Church in any canonical way, either for good or for ill. Whereas the SSPX are something we can identify as distinct from the mainline Church, liberalism is a philosophy that infects large segments of the Church itself. It is not distinct from the Church in the sense that we can dialogue with it, negotiate, or make or demand concessions. It is something like a cancer that has rendered large parts of the body unwholesome. Because of this, it is not something the Church can "stand off" from and approach strategically. The Church cannot approach liberalism from the same distance that it approaches the SSPX from because liberalism is something the Church struggles with internally whereas the SSPX are an external issue.
In addition to this, we must note the overlap between liberalism and the Church. Some of the biggest and most problematic liberals in the Church are members of her hierarchy in good canonical standing. The SSPX bishops, by contrast, were excommunicates until recently. Some of the liberal bastions within the Church are legitimately established dioceses. In many parts of the world, the liberals are the Church. The Church does not stand off distantly and condemn liberalism from a central position because liberalism is in the very heart of the Church. This cannot realistically be said about groups such as the SSPX, who are organizations canonically distinct from the Church.
Furthermore, the "threat" posed to the Catholic Church from these two extremes is far from equal. While Whitehead's article states that "Vatican II resulted in revolt from the right as well as the left," the revolt from the "right" pales in comparison to that posed by the left. For example, the SSPX, our stereotypical "radical traditionalists", number only around 600,000 world wide. That is miniscule. To put it in perspective, there are 1.4 million Catholics in the Archdiocese of Detroit alone. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has 4.3 million. With the average Catholic diocese having Catholic populations at least in the hundreds of thousands, and with entire dioceses, and even the hierarchies of entire countries being mired in modernism (United Kingdom, Switzerland), is it really realistic to portray a sect of 600,000 worldwide as an equal threat to the liberal scourge that claims millions and millions of adherents? According to polls, 85% of Catholics deny the Real Presence and a similar amount use contraception. Given the massively destructive influence of liberalism which are behind these stats, is it really legitimate to speak of radical traditionalism as an "equal" threat to the Church?
Earlier in this post I presented a graph that depicted what I think is the incorrect assessment I have just critiqued. If I were to present the real situation graphically as well, it would look like this:
In this depiction, the threats of liberalism and extreme traditionalism are portrayed more accurately, the extreme trads representing an infinitesimally small amount of individuals while the liberal circle is composed of millions upon millions worldwide. Perhaps I am being pessimistic, but in my depiction, the mass of liberal Catholics is three times larger than orthodox mainline Catholics. Furthermore, as I mentioned above, the "overlap" between the the mainline Church and the canker of liberalism. The canonical "distance" between the institutional Church and the SSPX is also depicted.
All disunity, whether canonical or ideological, is bad. But to present the existence of an extremely small minority who are in an irregular canonical situation as an equally grave threat as the ubiquitous presence of liberalism in almost every corner of the Church, even in the hierarchy, is just not accurate. Ironically, the Whitehead article will go on to imply that Benedict XVI is wasting his time in dialoguing with the SSPX. Commenting on the historic motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, Whitehead remarks that "the pope was obviously listening to the traditionalist complaints," (pg. 36) as if the pope's motivation in the motu proprio had nothing to do with wanting to restore liturgical sanity in the Church and was simply to appease some rad trads. Regarding other efforts to reconcile with the SSPX, he says, "Pope Benedict paid a steep price for trying to bring the SSPX back into the Church" (pg. 37) and downplays the negotiations up until now as "quibbles" (ibid).
Whitehead seems to think these talks are fruitless and that the pope is wasting his time with them. I say this is ironic because, since this magazine went to print, it has come to light that the SSPX-Vatican discussions have intensified in recent weeks, that all signs are encouraging, and that there may be a real reconciliation. The pope is expected to issue a judgment in May, according to Rorate.
Liberalism and expressions of traditionalism that deny the validity of the Second Vatican Council are both errors. But they are not errors of an equal sort, nor does the Church stand with equal distance from each, nor are the threats from each equivalent, nor can all traditionalists be lumped together as SSPX. It's these same of canards that have kept traditionalists in the margins for too long.
All disunity, whether canonical or ideological, is bad. But to present the existence of an extremely small minority who are in an irregular canonical situation as an equally grave threat as the ubiquitous presence of liberalism in almost every corner of the Church, even in the hierarchy, is just not accurate. Ironically, the Whitehead article will go on to imply that Benedict XVI is wasting his time in dialoguing with the SSPX. Commenting on the historic motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, Whitehead remarks that "the pope was obviously listening to the traditionalist complaints," (pg. 36) as if the pope's motivation in the motu proprio had nothing to do with wanting to restore liturgical sanity in the Church and was simply to appease some rad trads. Regarding other efforts to reconcile with the SSPX, he says, "Pope Benedict paid a steep price for trying to bring the SSPX back into the Church" (pg. 37) and downplays the negotiations up until now as "quibbles" (ibid).
Whitehead seems to think these talks are fruitless and that the pope is wasting his time with them. I say this is ironic because, since this magazine went to print, it has come to light that the SSPX-Vatican discussions have intensified in recent weeks, that all signs are encouraging, and that there may be a real reconciliation. The pope is expected to issue a judgment in May, according to Rorate.
Liberalism and expressions of traditionalism that deny the validity of the Second Vatican Council are both errors. But they are not errors of an equal sort, nor does the Church stand with equal distance from each, nor are the threats from each equivalent, nor can all traditionalists be lumped together as SSPX. It's these same of canards that have kept traditionalists in the margins for too long.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Balthasar, Christ and the Beatific Vision
Despite his eminence, many have raised concerns about his teaching, notably his thesis that Catholics may reasonably and with sincere hopefulness postulate that hell may be empty. This is the most often criticized doctrine of Balthasar's, if for no other reason than it is the most easy to understand. Yet it is not the most troubling of his teachings. Among other things, Balthasar attributes to Christ ignorance and positive error, denies the Traditional understanding of the "Harrowing of Hell", suggests that Christ suffered the pains of the damned, says the blessed in heaven have faith, states that the Incarnation can be "suspended", suggests the theoretical possibility of the blessed in heaven still turning their back on God and losing their salvation, posits more than one Divine Will in the Godhead, calls God the "Super-Feminine" and "Super-Death", and denies that Jesus Christ experienced the Beatific Vision.
Though in my uneducated, arm-chair theologian opinion, an assertion of any one of these points would make Balthasar a heretic, in this article I wish to tackle on the last mentioned assertion: that Jesus Christ, while on this earth, did not possess the Beatific Vision. In this article, we will (1) explain Balthasar's theory of the visio immediata, (2) explain Balthasar's reasoning, and (3) demonstrate how they are at variance with traditional Catholic theology. All quotes will be cited; sources are at the bottom of the post. Unless otherwise stated, all works are by Balthasar.
The Teaching of Balthasar
Traditional Catholic Christology states that Christ, from the first moment of His conception and uninterrupted throughout His earthly life, possessed the Beatific Vision by virtue of the Hypostatic Union between the human nature of Jesus and the Word of God. Actually, this vision is actually greater than the Beatific Vision experienced by the saints, because the attachment of a normal human soul to God through grace is accidental - we receive the grace of God gratuitously through adoption; but the attachment of Christ's soul to God is substantial, proceeding from a union of natures. Therefore, Christ not only has the Beatific Vision, but experiences it in a unique way that surpasses the experience of even the saints.
Note that the possession of the Beatific Vision by Christ has also traditionally been offered as an explanation as to why He is free from sin.
Balthasar denies that Christ possesses this vision, as we have defined it above. Instead, he posits something that he calls the visio immediata Dei in anima Christi, or "immediate vision of God in the soul of Christ"(1). This terminology in and of itself is not problematic; the phrase visio immediata Dei has sometimes been used interchangeably with visio beatifica in Catholic Tradition (see, for example, Dr. Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals, pg. 162). But, as we shall see, Balthasar here uses traditional vocabulary but drastically redefines what is meant by the term. The visio immediata of Balthasar has nothing in common with the Beatific Vision of Tradition.
In the first place, Balthasar states that it is necessary for Christ's mission that His human knowledge may not possess "supratemporal contents, nor contents from another period of time" (2). Christ has no infused knowledge of the past or the future.
Secondly, though this visio immediata reveals God's will to Christ, it is not constant, but rather moment to moment:
"[the visio immediata Dei] at the very least...may fluctuate between the mode of manifestness (which befits the Son as his "glory") and the mode of "concealment" which befits the Servant of Yahweh in his Passion...The second mode here is derived from the first: a living faith is content to stand before the face of God who sees, whether or not one sees himself" (3)
Notice that the visio immediata 'may fluctuate' depending on whether God wants to glorify Christ or conceal Himself from Him at any given time. In other places, Balthasar will states that what Christ knows about Himself and His mission is "successively revealed" (4) and changes over time (5); it is manifest to Him "step by step", sometimes clearly, other times obscurely (6).|
Also note the phrase "whether or not one sees himself." This alludes to Balthasar's assertion that Christ does not see God in His human soul but appropriates Him through faith, just like every other believer:
"It is an indispensable axiom that the Son, even in His human form, must know that He is the eternal Son of the Father. He must be aware of the unnbreakable continuity of His procession and His mission...nonetheless the Son, insofar as He is man, must also be able to experience faith" (7).
Christ experiences this "faith" precisely because He does not have an immediate vision of God. If He did, He would not need faith, as faith does not pertain to those who see, since seeing pertains to knowledge, the end of faith. The vision of the Father is obscured from Christ, especially on the cross. Nevertheless, as Balthasar says, "His obedience remains intact, and to that extent we must also say that Christ has a real 'faith'" (8). So for Balthasar, Christ does not suffer the Passion in full knowledge that this is the will of God and that He is carrying out God's plan, but He does this in ignorance of God's ultimate design, an act of "faith."
If this visio immediata is not the Beatific Vision, and if it can "fluctuate" as God wills it, then what is its purpose? According to Balthasar, to purpose of the visio immediata is very simple: it is through this vision, mediated by the Spirit, that Christ becomes aware of His mission, however vaguely:
"Jesus is aware of an element of the divine in His innermost, indivisible self-consciousness...but it is limited and defined by [His] mission-consciousness. It is of this, and of this alone, that he has a visio immediata..." (9).
So the only purpose of the visio immediata is to make Jesus "aware of an element of the divine" within Himself, but how powerfully He becomes aware of this can "fluctuate." This is its sole purpose, as Balthasar makes clear by the phrase "and of this alone" in the above citation. Now we are beginning to see how far the visio immediata is from the Beatific Vision. Lest you think I am drawing connections where there are none, Balthasar himself will go on to explicitly deny any connection between his visio immediata and the Beatific Vision:
"[Awareness of His divinity] only came to Him through His mission, communicated by the Spirit. This would exclude the Beatific Vision of God...Jesus does not see the Father in a visio beatifica but it presented with the Father's commission by the Holy Spirit, that is, His awareness of His mission is only indirect" (10)
He also states that we ought not to presume that Christ enjoyed the Beatific Vision because of His intimacy with the Father. The fact of the Hypostatic Union "need not mean that His spirit must already enjoy a perpetual visio beatifica" (11).
These excerpts should make it abundantly clear that Balthasar denies (or at least seriously calls into question) the belief that Christ enjoyed the Beatific Vision. He is very clear in this denial. What prompts Balthasar to make this denial?
Balthasar offers several explanations, many of them seemingly based on a misunderstanding of what the Beatific Vision is. For example, saying that it is not possible for Jesus to have seen the Father with His physical eyes: "It is not said that Jesus, with His human eyes, saw the Father but only that He saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon Him" (12). Here he seems to be thinking of the Beatific Vision as akin to the orthodox concept of Hesychasm. The classic doctrine of the Beatific Vision of course does not state that it consists in seeing God with one's physical eyes. How Balthasar could have got this wrong I haven't the foggiest.
He also objects on the grounds that the very concept of the Beatific Vision is too static, too much like watching a movie. Here he not only denies that Christ possesses the Beatific Vision, but questions the very nature of the Beatific Vision itself, even among the Blessed in heaven:
"Eternal life cannot simply consist in 'beholding' God. In the first place, God is not an object but a Life that is going on eternally and yet ever new. Second, the creature is meant ultimately to live, not over against God, but in Him. Finally, Scripture promises us even in this life a participation - albeit hidden under the veil of faith - in the internal life of God; we are to be born in and of God, and we are to possess His Holy Spirit" (13).
Again, Balthasar grossly misrepresents or misunderstands the traditional notion of the Beatific Vision, as if the vision were static and not transformative; as if it lacked a vital and intimate communion; as if the Thomistic concept of the Beatific Vision somehow places the creature outside of God; as if the classic concept of the Beatific Vision does not also imply a participation in the life of God. Again, for such an erudite theologian to misconstrue so terribly what the classical theory of the Beatific Vision is constitutes either an appalling ignorance or a willful misrepresentation. Compare, for example, Aquinas' explanation of the Beatific Vision in the Summa Contra Gentiles and note the emphasis on seeing, although the seeing is explained as much more than corporeal sight and presupposes what Aquinas calls 'assimilation':
"If God's essence is to be seen, the intelligence must see it in the divine essence itself, so that in such vision the divine essence shall be at once the object which is seen and that whereby it is seen. This is the immediate vision of God that is promised us in Scripture: 'We see now in a glass darkly, but then face to face' (i Cor. xiii, 2): a text absurd to take in a corporeal sense, as though we could imagine a bodily face in Deity itself, whereas it has been shown that God is incorporeal...Nor again is it possible for us with our bodily face to see God, since the bodily sense of sight, implanted in our face, can be only of bodily things. Thus then shalt we see God face to face, in that we shall have an immediate vision of Him, as of a man whom we see face to face. By this vision we are singularly assimilated to God, and are partakers in His happiness: for this is His happiness, that He essentially understands His own substance. Hence it is said: 'When He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is' (i John iii, 2). And the Lord said: 'I prepare for you as my Father hath prepared for me a kingdom, that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom' (Luke xxii, 29). This cannot be understood of bodily meat and drink, but of that food which is taken at the table of Wisdom, whereof it is said by Wisdom: Eat ye my bread and drink the wine that I have mingled for you (Prov. ix, 5). They therefore eat and drink at the table of God, who enjoy the same happiness wherewith God is happy, seeing Him in the way which He sees Himself" (source).
The biggest problem Balthasar has with Christ possessing the Beatific Vision, however, is that it would presumably detract from His full sharing of human nature and serve to dull or lessen His sufferings during the Passion. He states that Christ's physical death would be rendered "innocuous" if He possessed the Beatific Vision (14). It is necessary that Christ not possess the Beatific Vision if He is to truly experience the penal nature of the Cross:
"Jesus willed out of love to experience only the judicial character [of the redemption], and therefore to renounce everything that would have comforted and strengthened Him" (15).
So, in other words, for Christ to truly bear the full weight of sin, the comfort or strength He could draw from His intimate union with the Father must not be available. The Father must be veiled from Him. Indeed, so veiled is the Father from Christ in the Passion, that Christ Himself believes He is forsaken. In other words, He believes positive error through ignorance. This is not impossible for Balthasar, since he already admits that Christ has faith (which presupposes a condition of at least partial ignorance) and states that Christ can have no knowledge of "supratemporal contents, nor contents from another period of time." He can have no knowledge that His death will result in Resurrection. He must fully despair.
The Teaching of the Church
How does Balthasar's dogma stand up to traditional Catholic Christology? Poorly, I am afraid.
Balthasar states that Christ's human knowledge can have no "supratemporal contents, nor contents from another period of time." Catholic teaching has traditionally affirmed that Jesus knew, through His union with the Word of God, all real things, past, present and future, including people's thoughts and intentions. St. Thomas is in agreement, again, placing the reason for this on the Hypostatic Union. He states that Christ has knowledge of
"[A]ll that in any way whatsoever is, will be, or was done, said, or thought, by whomsoever and at any time. And in this way it must be said that the soul of Christ knows all things in the Word" (STh, III 10, 2).
A reply of the Holy Office in 1918 condemned the following proposition:
"Nor can the opinion be called certain which has established that the soul of Christ was ignorant of nothing, but from the beginning knew all things in the Word, past, present, and future, or all things that God knows by the knowledge of vision" (D 2184)
Note clearly the how condemnation is worded. The condemned proposition is that it cannot be called certain that Christ was ignorant of nothing. Therefore the correct proposition is that it is correct that Christ was ignorant of nothing. It also condemned the opinion that "the limited knowledge of the soul of Christ is to be accepted in Catholic schools no less than the notion of the ancients on universal knowledge" (D 2185).
Christ's "universal knowledge" is traditionally understood to be infused knowledge (scientia infusa), concepts immediately and habitually communicated by God. The argument Christ possesses this infused knowledge is an argument from fittingness - Christ is the head of the angels, and the angels know by virtue of infused knowledge. If the angels have this knowledge, then it is fitting that Christ, as the head of angels, should possess the form of knowing proper to angels. Furthermore, it is appropriate that the human nature assumed by the Word should lack no perfection, and this infused knowledge is such a perfection (STh III, Q. 9, art. 3). St. Thomas says that this infused knowledge extends to all which could be the object of natural human cognition and everything communicated by supernatural revelation from God to man. It does not, however, include the beatific vision, whose object is the essence of God Himself (STh III, Q. 2, art. 1).
St. Thomas affirms the infused knowledge of Christ, which is universal in scope, according to the Holy Office and Aquinas. Thomas also affirms Christ's experience of the Beatific Vision, which is confirmed infallibly by the teaching of Pius XII. Balthasar denies both Christ's universal knowledge and the Beatific Vision.
Balthasar also stated that the visio immediata that Christ experiences instead of the Beatific Vision can "fluctuate" depending on whether God wants to glorify Christ or (as at the Passion), hide Himself from Him. Pope Pius XII teaches otherwise, stating both that Christ enjoyed the Beatific Vision and that it was constant, not fluctuating:
"Also that knowledge which is called vision, He possesses in such fullness that in breadth and clarity it far exceeds the Beatific Vision of all the saints in heaven...For hardly was He conceived in the womb of the Mother of God, when He began to enjoy the Beatific Vision, and in that vision all the members of His Mystical Body were continually and unceasingly present to Him, and He embraced them with His redeeming love. O marvelous condescension of divine love for us! O inestimable dispensation of boundless charity! In the crib, on the Cross, in the unending glory of the Father, Christ has all the members of the Church present before Him and united to Him in a much clearer and more loving manner than that of a mother who clasps her child to her breast, or than that with which a man knows and loves himself" (Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, 48, 75).
Balthasar's comments about the "fluctuating" vision of God were written in 1982, thirty-nine years after Pius XII's Mystici Corporis. Balthasar could hardly have been ignorant of the Holy Father's teaching.
What about Balthasar's belief that Christ had faith? Dr. Ott comments on this point:
"Christ's soul possessed [the Beatific Vision] in this word (in statu viae) and indeed, from the very moment of its union with the Divine Person of the Word, that is, from the Conception. Christ was therefore, as the Schoolmen say, viator simul et comprehensor; that is, at the same time a pilgrim on earth and at the destination of His earthly pilgrimage. It follows from this that He could not possess the theological virtues of faith and hope" (Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, p. 162).
If Christ possesses the Beatific Vision, as Pius XII clearly teaches, then He cannot experience faith. The Beatific Vision is simply the consummation of sanctifying grace, which ends in a participation in the very life of God. It is the end to which Faith tends. Therefore, if Christ in His human soul is already at that terminus, He cannot possess Faith, a virtue which is proper only to those who do not yet see God. But Christ does see God. For this reason, too, He does not have hope. "For we are saved by hope. But hope that is seen, is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth he hope for?" (Rom. 8:24).
In His faith, Balthasar has Christ believing positive error in thinking that His mission would be futile and that He is forsaken by God. Based on the condemnations by the Holy Office of the propositions that Christ's knowledge was incomplete, this is impossible. How could one who "in whom are all treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col. 2:3) be in positive error about something so fundamental as the efficacy of His mission?
Finally, what of Balthasar's contention that Christ cannot have the Beatific Vision if He is to truly experience the suffering that the Cross entails? Does the Beatific Vision render the suffering of the cross "innocuous", as Balthasar asserts?
St. Thomas easily explains how the bodily suffering of Christ can be reconciled with the Beatific Vision, since bodily pain is felt with the lower powers of the soul and the joy Christ experiences through the Beatific Vision is limited to His spiritual soul. Thomas says:
"As was said above, by the power of the Godhead of Christ the beatitude was economically kept in the soul, so as not to overflow into the body, lest His passibility and mortality should be taken away; and for the same reason the delight of contemplation was so kept in the mind as not to overflow into the sensitive powers, lest sensible pain should thereby be prevented' (III, Q. 15, art. 5).
This follows from the nature of the Incarnation, in which Christ, because of His union to the eternal Word, should experience the Beatific Vision, but as true man should still suffer the conditions natural to man (sensible pain, hunger, etc).
A larger problem is how Christ could experience the spiritual joy of the visio beatifica and at the same time experience the interior, spiritual sorrow necessitated by the Passion. There have been various theories on this, but St. Thomas teaches, in the words of Dr. Ott, "that he bliss proceeding from the immediate vision of God did not overflow from the ratio superior (=the higher spiritual knowledge and will directed to the bonum increatum) to the ratio inferior (=human knowledge and will directed at the bonum creatum) nor from the soul to the body." Thus, Christ experiences sorrow and sadness in His soul insofar as His truly human soul is directed towards things of earth; but insofar as Christ's soul, reason and will are fixed on God, He experiences joy. This joy of the higher reason (ratio superior) does not overflow into Christ's ratio inferior (STh III, Q. 46, art. 8).
This is an admittedly complex answer, but unraveling the mystery of the Incarnation is not simple. The important point is that Thomas, and the Church, begins with the fact of Christ's experience of the Beatific Vision and interprets Christ's sufferings in light of this fact; Balthasar, on the other hand, begins with certain novel assumptions about the nature of Christ's sufferings and than proceeds from there to eliminate the Beatific Vision.
In conclusion, we see a clear disconnect between Balthasar's Christology and that of Pius XII, Aquinas and the Church's theological tradition. I know there was a lot of theology here, and I apologize if it was a bit much. But, when we come down to it, here is the essential dilemma. Balthasar, when explaining the nature of Christ's sufferings states:
"This would exclude the Beatific Vision of God...Jesus does not see the Father in a visio beatifica" (10).
Pope Pius XII, on the other hand, states very clearly:
"[H]ardly was He conceived in the womb of the Mother of God, when He began to enjoy the Beatific Vision, and in that vision all the members of His Mystical Body were continually and unceasingly present to Him" (Mystici Corporis, 75).
Does Christ have a continuous and direct vision of God the Father throughout His earthly life, a vision that endures and is constant (as constant as the Hypostatic Union) even in His Passion, or does He have a fluctuating sort of inner hunch about His own mission that is not identified as the Beatific Vision and leaves Him at certain times, especially at His Passion, allowing Him to even doubt the success of His mission? Balthasar says one thing and the Church says another, and this ought to be problematic for any Catholic.
References
1) Explorations in Theology, "Some Points on Eschatology" (Ignatius Press, 1989), pg. 264
2) Mysterium Paschale, pg. 122
3) The Glory of the Lord, Vol. 1, p. 329
4) The Theo-Drama, Vol. 3, p. 166
4) The Theo-Drama, Vol. 3, p. 166
5) Ibid., 522
6) Ibid., 171
7) The Theo-Drama, Vol. 4, pg. 194
8) Ibid., 124
9) The Theo-Drama, Vol. 3, pg. 166
10) Ibid., pp. 195, 200
11) The Glory of the Lord, Vol. 7, pg. 216
12) The Theo-Drama, Vol. 3, pg. 195
13) The Theo-Drama, Vol. 5, pg. 425
14) Mysterium Paschale, pg. 122
15) The Glory of the Lord, Vol. 7, pg. 223
8) Ibid., 124
9) The Theo-Drama, Vol. 3, pg. 166
10) Ibid., pp. 195, 200
11) The Glory of the Lord, Vol. 7, pg. 216
12) The Theo-Drama, Vol. 3, pg. 195
13) The Theo-Drama, Vol. 5, pg. 425
14) Mysterium Paschale, pg. 122
15) The Glory of the Lord, Vol. 7, pg. 223
Sunday, April 08, 2012
Sunday, April 01, 2012
Balthasar in Hell?
I know I said I wasn't going to post for awhile, but I couldn't resist once I saw this article. Apparently, some nun in England claims to have had some kind of vision in which she saw Hans Urs von Balthasar! It's only a private revelation, of course, but it might have some implications for how his doctrine is received in the future. Please click here to read the entire article from the Telegraph.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Taking a Break
It pains me to say that I am afraid I will have to take a short hiatus from blogging on this site for the next couple of weeks. There is simply too much going on in my life at the moment and I am in desperate need of some free time to catch up on some projects that have been dogging me for months. Here's what has been going on in my life:
For one thing, as you know, I am now an elected official, in charge of a city with an operating budget of $7 million dollars and a population close to 10,000. This is a very busy time of year for the local government (we have some big summer festivals we are preparing for and we are also trying to get out budget together for the next fiscal year, which will begin July 1st). I am really consumed with this sort of stuff for the time being.
Second, I am in the process of wrapping up a DVD project for Homeschool Connections. Some of you are familiar with the videos I have been making for them over the past few months (if you haven't seen them, you check out one of them here). Over the past six months, a friend and I have produced several of these videos which we have compiled into a single DVD, approximately 35 minutes long with an additional ten minutes of special features. The DVD has just been completed and we are entering the production and marketing phase of the project, so you'll here some more about this in the coming weeks.
Third, I have been laboriously pecking away at the upcoming Unam Sanctam Catholicam website for the past six months and have built it up considerably. It has 50+ articles on it at the moment, but the layout is still kind of screwy and I really need to get a few more contributors and a bunch more stuff up there before it is worth revealing. I'd like to take some time to devote to that specifically. Special thanks to my friends Noah, Amanda and Blake who have helped me on this project - all of whom, I should mention, I have no relationship with in "real life" outside of blogging and the Internet.
Second, I am in the process of wrapping up a DVD project for Homeschool Connections. Some of you are familiar with the videos I have been making for them over the past few months (if you haven't seen them, you check out one of them here). Over the past six months, a friend and I have produced several of these videos which we have compiled into a single DVD, approximately 35 minutes long with an additional ten minutes of special features. The DVD has just been completed and we are entering the production and marketing phase of the project, so you'll here some more about this in the coming weeks.
Third, I have been laboriously pecking away at the upcoming Unam Sanctam Catholicam website for the past six months and have built it up considerably. It has 50+ articles on it at the moment, but the layout is still kind of screwy and I really need to get a few more contributors and a bunch more stuff up there before it is worth revealing. I'd like to take some time to devote to that specifically. Special thanks to my friends Noah, Amanda and Blake who have helped me on this project - all of whom, I should mention, I have no relationship with in "real life" outside of blogging and the Internet.
Fourth, I have been working on a book on St. Cyprian for over a year that is extremely close to being done but that I never quite have time to finish. It is tentatively scheduled to be published through Arx Publishing (Lord willing), but I really need to put the finishing touches on it.
So, those are some things I have going on. I will probably be out for a few weeks. But I will still be maintaining the Facebook page (here) but will primarily be posting links to older articles and other items of interest I run across.
Finally, I would like to ask that if you have any ideas or suggestions for articles, please let me know! I am always looking for ideas and I know that, despite five years of blogging and 839 posts, there is still a lot of stuff I have not touched on yet. Please post your ideas or suggestions in the combox!
Thanks again for your patronage of this site. Lord willing, we will be back sooner rather than later.
Finally, I would like to ask that if you have any ideas or suggestions for articles, please let me know! I am always looking for ideas and I know that, despite five years of blogging and 839 posts, there is still a lot of stuff I have not touched on yet. Please post your ideas or suggestions in the combox!
Thanks again for your patronage of this site. Lord willing, we will be back sooner rather than later.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
The "sojourner" and the "foreigner"
"Secularists and liberals, both political and religious, are typically loath to consult the Bible when it comes to matters of public policy. So it is somewhat surprising that in the current debate about the status of illegal immigrants, the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible is regularly cited in defense of the illegal. Debra Haffner, a Unitarian Universalist minister — a denomination not known for taking Scripture seriously — offered a recent critique of the Arizona illegal immigration law in the Washington Post online (May 25, 2010), saying “It’s as if the 70 percent of Arizonans who support the law have forgotten the Biblical injunction to ‘love the stranger for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.’” This verse and others like it are frequently quoted in the name of “justice” for the illegal immigrant. A left-wing Christian advocacy group Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, which is affiliated with Sojourners, had this passage on its website: “When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the stranger. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you.” (Leviticus 19:33)
A second area where advocates for illegal immigrants rely on the Bible (whether they know it or not) is the “sanctuary city movement” that defies the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Cities like New York, New Haven, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Denver have declared themselves to be “sanctuary cities” and will not cooperate with federal authorities in matters related to illegal immigrants. Some
churches have even permitted their facilities to be so-called sanctuaries for illegals.
As an Old Testament scholar I was first intrigued by the fact that the Bible was even being used in the immigration debate, and yet knew that the Bible was not being read seriously. So I decided to do just that. The result of my study was a small book, The Immigration Crisis: Immigrants, Aliens, and the Bible (Crossway, 2009). The observations made in this article summarize briefly some observations reached in that book.
The very positive statements about the treatment of strangers in the Bible, some of which were already quoted, show compassion for the alien in ancient Israel. The defenders of illegal aliens point to these passages as the rationale for rewriting current laws. The problem is that they make a simplistic correlation between the ancient Israelite social law and the modern situation as if the Bible was addressing the same problem. Three important questions must be raised before one attempts to apply Israelite law to the modern situation:
(1) Was there such a thing as territorial sovereignty in the second millennium B.C. when these laws originated;
(2) Within that socio-legal setting, what was a “stranger” or “sojourner”?
(3) How does one obtain this status?
Regarding the first, the answer is unequivocal. Nations small and large had clearly recognizable borders, typically demarcated by natural features such as rivers, valleys, and mountain ranges, much as they are today. Warring Egyptian Pharaohs often claimed that they went on campaigns to widen or extend Egypt’s borders. Wars were fought over where boundary lines would be drawn, and forts were strategically placed on frontiers to defend the territory and to monitor movements of pastoralists. Permits akin to the modern visa were issued to people entering another land. In the tomb of Khnumhotep, governor of central Egypt (from ca. 1865 B.C.), a band of foreign travelers are shown before the governor. An official presents him with a permit or visa, which spells out that there were 37 people from Syria-Canaan. At the key entry points of Egypt, forts would have issued such entry permits. Recent excavations in north Sinai have revealed a pair of such forts at Tell Hebua, located less than two miles east of the Suez Canal. Three miles southeast of the second Hebua fort is Tell el-Borg. Nearby are two forts that guarded the road to Egypt between 1450 and 1200 B.C. The ancient Egyptians were very careful about who they allowed into Egypt.
Secondly, what about the “stranger” or “alien”? The Bible is not “a living breathing document” that can mean whatever you want it to say. This question must be answered contextually and based on what the key words meant when they were written before we apply what that might mean in our own times. The most significant Hebrew word for our discussion is ger, translated variously in English versions, which creates some confusion, as “stranger” (KJV, NASB, JB), “sojourner” (RSV, ESV), “alien” (NEB, NIV, NJB, NRSV), and “foreigner” (TNIV, NLT) [The Latin Vulgate uses the ambiguous term advena, "foreigners", or more literally, "visitors from abroad"-Boniface]. It occurs more than 80 times as a noun and an equal number as a verb (gwr), which typically means “to sojourn” or “live as an alien.” The problem with more recent English translations (e.g. TNIV and NLT) is that they use “foreigner” for ger, which is imprecise and misleading because there are other Hebrew terms for “foreigner,” namely nekhar and zar. The distinction between these two terms and ger is that while all three are foreigners who might enter another country, the ger had obtained legal status.
There are several episodes in the Bible that illustrate how a foreigner became a ger. The individual or party had to receive permission from the appropriate authority in that particular culture. Perhaps the best-known story has to do with the Children of Israel entering Egypt. In the book of Genesis, we are told of how during a time of famine in Canaan, the sons of Jacob did the natural thing under the circumstances — go to Egypt where the Nile kept the land fertile. Even though their brother Joseph was a high-ranking official who had recommended to Pharaoh that they be allowed to settle in the northeast delta of Egypt, they felt compelled to ask Pharaoh for permission:
Here we notice that they declare their intention “to sojourn” (gwr) and deferentially they ask “please let your servant dwell in the land of Goshen.” No less authority than the king of Egypt granted this permission. This means that the Hebrews, though foreigners, were residing in Egypt as legal residents, gers.
A second story illustrates how permission or an invitation to a foreigner to reside in a foreign land resulted in Moses becoming a “sojourner,” “stranger,” or “alien.” After Moses struck and killed an Egyptian taskmaster, he fled Egypt and crossed Sinai, ending up in Midian (most likely in northwestern Arabia). At a well he met the daughters of Jethro, the local priest, who had come to water their flocks. When they were harassed by other shepherds, Moses came to their aid and helped them, so that they were able to return from their chore earlier than normal. So their father asked:
“‘How is it that you have come home so soon today?’ They said, ‘An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds and even drew water for us and watered the flock.’ He said to his daughters, ‘Then where is he? Why have you left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.’ And Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah. She gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, ‘I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.’” (Exodus 2:18-22)
While the details are limited, it is apparent that Moses, after being invited to Jethro’s home (tent?) for a meal, made an arrangement in which Zipporah, the priest’s eldest daughter, was married to Moses who then took on responsibilities caring for Jethro’s flocks (see Exodus 3:1). Moses was thus able to call himself a sojourner (ger), not a foreigner (nekhar), even though he lived in a foreign (nakhiriyah) land. Gershom, his son’s name, contains the word ger, reflecting his change of status.
From the foregoing texts we can conclude that in the ancient biblical world, countries had borders that were protected and respected, and that foreigners who wanted to reside in another country had to obtain some sort of permission in order to be considered an alien with certain rights and privileges. The delineation between the “alien” or “stranger” (ger) and the foreigner (nekhar or zar) in biblical law is stark indeed. The ger in Israelite society, for instance, could receive social benefits such as the right to glean in the fields (Leviticus 19:9-10; Deuteronomy 24:19-22) and they could receive resources from the tithes (Deuteronomy 26:12-13). In legal matters,“there shall be one statute for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you, a statute forever throughout your generations. You and the sojourner shall be alike before the LORD. One law and one rule shall be for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you” (Numbers 15:15-16). In the area of employment, the ger and citizen were to be paid alike (Deuteronomy 24:14-15). In all these cases, no such provision is extended to the nekhar or zar. In a sense, the ger were not just aliens to whom social and legal protections were offered, but were also considered converts, and thus could participate in the religious life of the community, e.g. celebrate Passover (Exodus 12:13) and observe Yom Kippur, the day of atonement (Leviticus 16:29-30). They were, moreover, expected to keep dietary and holiness laws (Leviticus 17:8-9 & 10-12). It is well known that within Israelite society, money was not to be lent with interest, but one could loan at interest to a foreigner (nekhar). These passages from the Law make plain that aliens or strangers received all the benefits and protection of a citizen, whereas the foreigner (nekhar) did not. It is wrong, therefore, to confuse these two categories of foreigners and then to use passages regarding the ger as if they were relevant to illegal immigrants of today.
Finally, a brief word on the biblical practice of sanctuary. This had its origin in the wilderness period in Sinai after the exodus from Egypt. There, the entire community lived with the Tabernacle, Israel’s sanctuary, in the middle of the camp. Exodus 21:12-14 establishes the practice:
“Anyone who strikes a person with a fatal blow is to be put to death. However, if it is not done intentionally… they are to flee to a place I will designate. But if anyone schemes and kills someone deliberately, that person is to be taken from my altar (in the sanctuary) and put to death.”
Cases of involuntary manslaughter or negligent homicide (Exodus 21:33-36) were not capital offenses. So to keep the lex talionis (law of retribution), “eye for eye, tooth for tooth … life for life” (Exodus 21:23-25) from being carried out by family members, the offender was to run to the sanctuary where he would be safe and his case heard. Once the populace spread throughout their new homeland, it was impractical to have just one place of sanctuary. Consequently six cities of refuge were designated, three on either side of the Jordan River (Numbers 35:11-30; Joshua 20:1-6). Once again the conditions for sanctuary protection are plainly stated, “these six towns will be a place of refuge … so that anyone who has killed another accidentally can flee there” (Numbers 35:15 – NIV). Sanctuary, then, is explicitly a place to get a fair hearing in the case of accidental death, but for no other crime. The cities of refuge were not a place to avoid trial or punishment. American cities that use their communities to circumvent the law to help the illegal aliens in the name of justice are doing a gross injustice to the letter and spirit of the biblical law.
The intention of my above-mentioned book and this paper is not to discourage Americans from consulting the Bible or even using it to shape public policy and law, but to call attention to the abuse of Scripture and to urge that it first be read carefully and contextually."
In case the conclusion of the article above was not clear, it is that when the Bible mentions a "sojourner", such as was Ruth or Moses in the land of Midian, it is not referring to the equivalent of our illegal immigrant, but rather to someone who already had obtained permission to be in the land and had some sort of established legal standing - more like our legal immigrants or foreigners with visas. Therefore, invoking Old Testament verses about how to treat the sojourners and the aliens with regard to the current debate about illegal immigration is misleading because these ancient "sojourners" were not the same thing as our illegal immigrants.
Please note, this article makes no argument on immigration policy one way or another, but only attempts to show that the Scriptural evidence often put forward for a pro-illegal immigrant argument is abused.
(1) Was there such a thing as territorial sovereignty in the second millennium B.C. when these laws originated;
(2) Within that socio-legal setting, what was a “stranger” or “sojourner”?
(3) How does one obtain this status?
Regarding the first, the answer is unequivocal. Nations small and large had clearly recognizable borders, typically demarcated by natural features such as rivers, valleys, and mountain ranges, much as they are today. Warring Egyptian Pharaohs often claimed that they went on campaigns to widen or extend Egypt’s borders. Wars were fought over where boundary lines would be drawn, and forts were strategically placed on frontiers to defend the territory and to monitor movements of pastoralists. Permits akin to the modern visa were issued to people entering another land. In the tomb of Khnumhotep, governor of central Egypt (from ca. 1865 B.C.), a band of foreign travelers are shown before the governor. An official presents him with a permit or visa, which spells out that there were 37 people from Syria-Canaan. At the key entry points of Egypt, forts would have issued such entry permits. Recent excavations in north Sinai have revealed a pair of such forts at Tell Hebua, located less than two miles east of the Suez Canal. Three miles southeast of the second Hebua fort is Tell el-Borg. Nearby are two forts that guarded the road to Egypt between 1450 and 1200 B.C. The ancient Egyptians were very careful about who they allowed into Egypt.
The Israelites were well aware of the need to respect territorial sovereignty. After the exodus from Egypt, Moses and the Hebrews lived a nomadic existence for 40 years in Sinai. Since no country, not even Egypt in those days, claimed hegemony over the peninsula, the Hebrews could move freely and required no permission [Not entirely true - Egypt used Sinai for mining purposes, but it was not heavily inhabited - Boniface]. But when they left Sinai, they needed to pass through Edom in southern Jordan, and permission of the host nation was necessary, as Numbers 20:14-21 reports:
“Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom: ‘Thus says your brother Israel … here we are in Kadesh, a city on the edge of your territory. Please let us pass through your land. We will not pass through field or vineyard, or drink water from a well. We will go along the King’s Highway. We will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we have passed through your territory.’ But Edom said to him, ‘You shall not pass through, lest I come out with the sword against you.’ And the people of Israel said to him, ‘We will go up by the highway, and if we drink of your water, I and my livestock, then I will pay for it. Let me only pass through on foot, nothing more.’ But he said, ‘You shall not pass through.’ And Edom came out against them with a large army and with a strong force. Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his territory, so Israel turned away from him.”
Despite politely seeking permission and offering to compensate the Edomites, the Israelites were refused; furthermore, Edom sent out their army to make sure the Israelites did not enter their territory. It is clear: foreigners had to obtain a permit to enter another land.
Secondly, what about the “stranger” or “alien”? The Bible is not “a living breathing document” that can mean whatever you want it to say. This question must be answered contextually and based on what the key words meant when they were written before we apply what that might mean in our own times. The most significant Hebrew word for our discussion is ger, translated variously in English versions, which creates some confusion, as “stranger” (KJV, NASB, JB), “sojourner” (RSV, ESV), “alien” (NEB, NIV, NJB, NRSV), and “foreigner” (TNIV, NLT) [The Latin Vulgate uses the ambiguous term advena, "foreigners", or more literally, "visitors from abroad"-Boniface]. It occurs more than 80 times as a noun and an equal number as a verb (gwr), which typically means “to sojourn” or “live as an alien.” The problem with more recent English translations (e.g. TNIV and NLT) is that they use “foreigner” for ger, which is imprecise and misleading because there are other Hebrew terms for “foreigner,” namely nekhar and zar. The distinction between these two terms and ger is that while all three are foreigners who might enter another country, the ger had obtained legal status.
There are several episodes in the Bible that illustrate how a foreigner became a ger. The individual or party had to receive permission from the appropriate authority in that particular culture. Perhaps the best-known story has to do with the Children of Israel entering Egypt. In the book of Genesis, we are told of how during a time of famine in Canaan, the sons of Jacob did the natural thing under the circumstances — go to Egypt where the Nile kept the land fertile. Even though their brother Joseph was a high-ranking official who had recommended to Pharaoh that they be allowed to settle in the northeast delta of Egypt, they felt compelled to ask Pharaoh for permission:
“And they said to Pharaoh, ‘Your servants are shepherds, as our fathers were.’ They said to Pharaoh, ‘We have come to sojourn in the land, for there is no pasture for your servants’ flocks, for the famine is severe in the land of Canaan. And now, please let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen.’ Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘Your father and your brothers have come to you. The land of Egypt is before you. Settle your father and your brothers in the best of the land. Let them settle in the land of Goshen.’” (Genesis 47:3-6)
Here we notice that they declare their intention “to sojourn” (gwr) and deferentially they ask “please let your servant dwell in the land of Goshen.” No less authority than the king of Egypt granted this permission. This means that the Hebrews, though foreigners, were residing in Egypt as legal residents, gers.
A second story illustrates how permission or an invitation to a foreigner to reside in a foreign land resulted in Moses becoming a “sojourner,” “stranger,” or “alien.” After Moses struck and killed an Egyptian taskmaster, he fled Egypt and crossed Sinai, ending up in Midian (most likely in northwestern Arabia). At a well he met the daughters of Jethro, the local priest, who had come to water their flocks. When they were harassed by other shepherds, Moses came to their aid and helped them, so that they were able to return from their chore earlier than normal. So their father asked:
“‘How is it that you have come home so soon today?’ They said, ‘An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds and even drew water for us and watered the flock.’ He said to his daughters, ‘Then where is he? Why have you left the man? Call him, that he may eat bread.’ And Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah. She gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, ‘I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.’” (Exodus 2:18-22)
While the details are limited, it is apparent that Moses, after being invited to Jethro’s home (tent?) for a meal, made an arrangement in which Zipporah, the priest’s eldest daughter, was married to Moses who then took on responsibilities caring for Jethro’s flocks (see Exodus 3:1). Moses was thus able to call himself a sojourner (ger), not a foreigner (nekhar), even though he lived in a foreign (nakhiriyah) land. Gershom, his son’s name, contains the word ger, reflecting his change of status.
From the foregoing texts we can conclude that in the ancient biblical world, countries had borders that were protected and respected, and that foreigners who wanted to reside in another country had to obtain some sort of permission in order to be considered an alien with certain rights and privileges. The delineation between the “alien” or “stranger” (ger) and the foreigner (nekhar or zar) in biblical law is stark indeed. The ger in Israelite society, for instance, could receive social benefits such as the right to glean in the fields (Leviticus 19:9-10; Deuteronomy 24:19-22) and they could receive resources from the tithes (Deuteronomy 26:12-13). In legal matters,“there shall be one statute for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you, a statute forever throughout your generations. You and the sojourner shall be alike before the LORD. One law and one rule shall be for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you” (Numbers 15:15-16). In the area of employment, the ger and citizen were to be paid alike (Deuteronomy 24:14-15). In all these cases, no such provision is extended to the nekhar or zar. In a sense, the ger were not just aliens to whom social and legal protections were offered, but were also considered converts, and thus could participate in the religious life of the community, e.g. celebrate Passover (Exodus 12:13) and observe Yom Kippur, the day of atonement (Leviticus 16:29-30). They were, moreover, expected to keep dietary and holiness laws (Leviticus 17:8-9 & 10-12). It is well known that within Israelite society, money was not to be lent with interest, but one could loan at interest to a foreigner (nekhar). These passages from the Law make plain that aliens or strangers received all the benefits and protection of a citizen, whereas the foreigner (nekhar) did not. It is wrong, therefore, to confuse these two categories of foreigners and then to use passages regarding the ger as if they were relevant to illegal immigrants of today.
Finally, a brief word on the biblical practice of sanctuary. This had its origin in the wilderness period in Sinai after the exodus from Egypt. There, the entire community lived with the Tabernacle, Israel’s sanctuary, in the middle of the camp. Exodus 21:12-14 establishes the practice:
“Anyone who strikes a person with a fatal blow is to be put to death. However, if it is not done intentionally… they are to flee to a place I will designate. But if anyone schemes and kills someone deliberately, that person is to be taken from my altar (in the sanctuary) and put to death.”
Cases of involuntary manslaughter or negligent homicide (Exodus 21:33-36) were not capital offenses. So to keep the lex talionis (law of retribution), “eye for eye, tooth for tooth … life for life” (Exodus 21:23-25) from being carried out by family members, the offender was to run to the sanctuary where he would be safe and his case heard. Once the populace spread throughout their new homeland, it was impractical to have just one place of sanctuary. Consequently six cities of refuge were designated, three on either side of the Jordan River (Numbers 35:11-30; Joshua 20:1-6). Once again the conditions for sanctuary protection are plainly stated, “these six towns will be a place of refuge … so that anyone who has killed another accidentally can flee there” (Numbers 35:15 – NIV). Sanctuary, then, is explicitly a place to get a fair hearing in the case of accidental death, but for no other crime. The cities of refuge were not a place to avoid trial or punishment. American cities that use their communities to circumvent the law to help the illegal aliens in the name of justice are doing a gross injustice to the letter and spirit of the biblical law.
The intention of my above-mentioned book and this paper is not to discourage Americans from consulting the Bible or even using it to shape public policy and law, but to call attention to the abuse of Scripture and to urge that it first be read carefully and contextually."
In case the conclusion of the article above was not clear, it is that when the Bible mentions a "sojourner", such as was Ruth or Moses in the land of Midian, it is not referring to the equivalent of our illegal immigrant, but rather to someone who already had obtained permission to be in the land and had some sort of established legal standing - more like our legal immigrants or foreigners with visas. Therefore, invoking Old Testament verses about how to treat the sojourners and the aliens with regard to the current debate about illegal immigration is misleading because these ancient "sojourners" were not the same thing as our illegal immigrants.
Please note, this article makes no argument on immigration policy one way or another, but only attempts to show that the Scriptural evidence often put forward for a pro-illegal immigrant argument is abused.
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