Today's episode brought to you by Racism, and the letters "P" & "K".
I've seen this image come up several times on Facebook, but when I saw it today on /r/CatholicMemes, I just couldn't get past it. I despise Planned Parenthood as much as the next guy, but this is just... wrong.
As I begin this post on humility, allow me to say that I called it. That is, from almost the beginning, I had a sense that Pope Francis would be very challenging to us Catholics, to all of us Catholics. Challenging in a good way, calling us out into greater holiness and spiritual maturity, but nonetheless challenging.
I was right.
Somehow I don't think that our lord was referring to the revolver when he said Blessed are the peacemakers...
Still, it is interesting that a device used to project slugs of metal at high velocity, usually with the intent of ripping holes in the human body so as to make it inoperable, should bear the title "Peacemaker."
The flippant answer is that gun manufacturers are merchants of death, and that it is simply clever marketing to instill a false sense of security for owners of their product, and a feeling of vulnerability in their target customer base. Perhaps there is even some truth to this.
However, I think it speaks to a sad but nonetheless true reality about this fallen world of ours. It is sometimes hard to remember that there is simultaneously room and a need for both Gandhi and Patton. Our Lord is typified as both the Lamb of God, and the Lion of Judah. To put it more eloquently, I turn to Chesterton:
The world did not lose the last charge of Sir James Douglas or the banner of Joan the Maid. And sometimes this pure gentleness and this pure fierceness met and justified their juncture; the paradox of all the prophets was fulfilled, and, in the soul of St. Louis, the lion lay down with the lamb. But remember that this text is too lightly interpreted. It is constantly assured, especially in our Tolstoyan tendencies, that when the lion lies down with the lamb the lion becomes lamb-like. But that is brutal annexation and imperialism on the part of the lamb. That is simply the lamb absorbing the lion instead of the lion eating the lamb. The real problem is--Can the lion lie down with the lamb and still retain his royal ferocity? THAT is the problem the Church attempted; THAT is the miracle she achieved.
There is a reason that Holy Mother Church has a doctrine of just self defense, and of just defense of others. There is a reason why She has a just war doctrine, which says that ultimately war should be avoided as much as is prudent, but sometimes the prudential solution is in fact to engage in bloodshed, for the betterment of mankind.
It has been said that fighting for peace is like fornicating for virginity, but I find myself dissatisfied by the sentiment. It sounds nice, rings well (especially among college students and the internet, where another term is often used in place of "fornicating"), but it is, I think, dissatisfying. Insert Godwin's-Law-Fulfilling comment about the U.S.A. stopping the Nazi war & death machine in World War II here.
I think that's about enough of the Nazis for one blog post, don't you?
I've taken a bit of a divergence, and would like to return to the scripture we started with:
Beati pacifici, quoniam filii Dei vocabuntur.
Blessed the peace makers (pax + facio: I make, arrange peace), for sons of God they will be called.
It is not the peaceful who are blessed, it is those who bring about peace. Our Lord does not specify how. I have another scripture which strikes me at the moment, John 2:14ff:
And he found in the temple them that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting. And when he had made, as it were, a scourge of little cords, he drove them all out of the temple, the sheep also and the oxen, and the money of the changers he poured out, and the tables he overthrew.
An account of this event occurs in all four of the Gospels, in one form or another. Yes, it even occurs in the selfsame Gospel in which Our Lord delvers the 8 Beatitudes. The Son of God, who would himself be scourged and crucified, offering no resistance to those who sought His life, gets physically violent with those who are turning the temple into a marketplace.
To put it even a little more bluntly, read Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
All things have their season, and in their times all things pass under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.
A time to kill, and a time to heal.
A time to destroy, and a time to build.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh.
A time to mourn, and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather.
A time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces.
A time to get, and a time to lose.
A time to keep, and a time to cast away.
A time to rend, and a time to sew.
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak.
A time of love, and a time of hatred.
A time of war, and a time of peace.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I think the peacemaker was named correctly. Sometimes we must be both lion and lamb. In this fallen world, some are called to have the capacity for violence as a means for the imposition of justice, tempered by virtue and a true love of God an neighbor, such that we will only use it as a last resort.
Much like war is not the answer, neither is violence, though it may be necessary to curb the violence of those who will not listen to reason. If I may be so bold, there is even a place for the warrior in the Body of Christ.
Axiomatically, my dear Watson!
Time for my own version of shock and awe: I agree wholeheartedly and without reservation with the title of the post.
...though probably not for the reasons you are expecting.
Yep, I said it, war is awful. I hate it, it is an abomination, and is quite simply not the answer.
And that's the problem.
Bumper stickers are great for sloganeering, but not so much on actual thought, and this particularly popular bumper sticker suffers from that lack. Specifically, no rational person disagrees with this statement!
Whoa whoa whoa, Jeremiah, are you saying that the Pope was not rational in calling the first Crusade to defend Christians in the Holy Land? Are you saying that the U.S. had no rational minds involved in the prosecution of World War II and the defeat of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperialist Japan?
No. Because most of them didn't think war was the answer either.
Pretty much...
Okay, enough beating around the bush, let me talk plainly as bumper stickers cannot.
The problem:
∫Log(7)*7x dx1≤x≤2
The answer:
42
The solution:
Yes, Jeremiah, we all know you're brilliant and an engineer and had to take Calculus I, II, & III, as well as Differential Equations, we're all awfully impressed.
Good, you should be.
But my point is if I was assigned that as homework and all I turned in was "42" (unless by some miracle the professor forgot to write "show all work" on the assignment... HA!), I would get precisely 0 on the assignment, because I gave an answer, but what was required was a solution.
The answer is like the goal, or the destination, while the solution is the map that tells us how to get there. Which is of course why only the foolish think that war is the answer, because only the foolish and evil desire war for its own sake.
What is not addressed in the bumper sticker philosophy is quite simply that sometimes that map leads through a dark valley, even the valley of the shadow of death, if you will. Because of our fallen nature, there are times when the only way to reach peace is by waging war against those who will not allow it. There are times when the only solution that does more good than harm involves incapacitating the belligerents, and someone has to do that pacifying.
This is why the Church in her wisdom gives us the Just War Doctrine. Catholic Answers has a writeup up that goes to some depth both in scripture and catechism to explain what the Church teaches, why, and how it is to be applied. It is a good read, and frank if brief regarding America's failures.
It's kind of a hard read when you realize how often our nation has violated those tenants, going to war without good reason, or persecuting the war in an evil manner. Even when our cause is just, there are still many many ways in which we betray justice in the war. If America really wants that place as the shining city on a hill, if she really wants to say that her way is better than Nazism, Socialism, Fascism, Communism, Imperialism, and Terrorism, then she better be acting like it. That our foes have been more vile in war does not justify our injustice.
The long and short of it is that whether it is an accurate quotation or not, war is indeed hell. It should be avoided at great cost, and all other legitimate options exhausted. However, peace is our aim, and not just peace which is the absence of violence, but peace with is the presence of justice. Sometimes the only way to achieve that peace is to remove the ability to wage war from those who would do evil.
War. Never the answer. Unfortunately, sometimes a part of the solution.
There are three descriptors of God typically used, especially when one is about to bring up the argument against God from evil. While I argue that the list is non-exhaustive, it is widely accepted that these are sine qua non for the traditionally understood "god":
All knowing gets flack as being apparently opposed to free will (which is is not), and all powerful gets thrown the sophomoric questions such as, "could God create a rock so heavy He couldn't lift it?" But that is nothing compared to the confusion that surrounds the nature of Good.
There is an (incorrect) notion floating around that good and evil are just words, just terms. They are not absolute indicators, but relative statements of opinion, conditioned by society et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam. There are a number of problems with this, but for the time being I want to instead state a positive case in support of the traditional Catholic understanding of evil as a privation of good.
This point comes from symmetry, specifically the symmetry between these three descriptions of God.
First, Power, or Potency. From Latin potens - the ability to do something. The opposite of potency is not anti-potency. It's not like there's some mysterious condition where you perform negative work on a situation such that what happens is in direct opposition to what was intended. This isn't anti-potency, but rather misdirected potency. The opposite of capability is incapability, a lack of potency, impotence.
Second, Knowledge. Again, the opposite of knowing a thing is not to know the wrong thing, but to know nothing. There is no anti-knowledge, but lack of knowledge masquerading as knowledge. You either know or you don't - "knowing" a falsehood means that you don't actually know.
Before I go into good vs. evil, take a look at the thermometer, and keep it in mind as a descriptor while I go into a physical analogy. Temperature is referred to as hot vs. cold, but they're generally considered to be completely relative. However, it is similarly a zero-to-infinity scale - there is such a things as the coldest possible, though the same is not true on the upper end.
So it is with good. Evil is not "anti-good," but a lack of good. It is defect or lack, not something in itself. Tolkien knew this when he wrote the Lord of the Rings - the Orcs were deformed Elves, for evil can create nothing. Evil can only distort and destroy, because it is fundamentally absence.
This set of definitions of course glosses other very important characteristics of which God possesses/is the source of - being, love, presence, mercy, justice, the list could go on and on. There are more and better proofs for why this is a good way to understand reality (some of which will likely show their head on this blog at a later date). I am just struck by the beauty of the symmetry, and the way in which it points to a convergent source - God.
I've been thinking (dangerous, I know), and I have come to the conclusion that much more important than the separation of church and state (which is poorly misunderstood at best anyway), we need the separation of Theology, Philosophy, and Science.
Before you turn me over to the inquisition, here me out. After I've explained myself, if I'm in error, correct me.
Here are three primary disciplines for the acquisition of knowledge and the literal meanings of their root words:
For the sake of clarity, let me plainly state that truth is the goal and end of all three disciplines, and therefore their ends are God, ultimately. Moreover, as Aquinas makes plain, truth is truth, and cannot contradict truth. Therefore, if a truth is discovered via philosophy, it cannot and will not be contradicted by science. Science will not be contradicted by theology, nor by divine revelation, if it has achieved a truth. This understanding is very important.
The problem (and I believe the source of most if not all 'contradictions') is that these three disciplines seek to answer three different questions. 'Contradictions' crop up when we attempt to apply a discipline to a question it was not intended to answer. As a side note, this is why we need to return to a more balanced education system. When all you have is a calculator, the whole world begins to look like a math problem.
So, what questions are being asked? How are they being asked? Why are they being asked?
Exactly.
Let me start with philosophy; everything else has. When we approach a thing, often the first question that comes to mind is, "What on God's green earth is that thing?" I argue that this may be the most important question to be asked. How and why flow from what, and so there we start.
Philsophy, then, is the means by which we determine what a thing is. What is its kind, shape, and measure? There are many theories about the 'what,' what is reality, what are good and evil, what is a human person. But every philosophical theory does seek to answer this question. Ask a deontologist what is right, and he will tell you it is duty. Ask an aristotilean what is reality, and she will tell you form, matter, cause, and end. Ask Kant, he'll tell you it is imperative. Every philosophy starts with what a thing is.
But then, this makes sense, does it not? When in the woods and something approaches, how do you know if you are safe or not? You investigate what type of thing it is. Is it a person, or an animal. If it's an animal, is it a doe, a bear, a wolf? Knowing that it is a doe, one knows that it is proper of a doe to eat plants, not people, and so you are safe, so long as you don't spook it and get trampled.
So from that what, we move to the how, and to the sciences. Some may argue that science answers what, but what it answers is modality, not essence. By that I mean, when we ask what a thing is, intrinsically, what is the heart of the thing, part of the answer is of course what it is made of, its material cause. But while the material causes is indeed a part of the 'what' of a thing, the study of the material is a study of how it is. How does the human body work? That it does we know from observation, but how... That is the purview of science.
Science deals with the physical realm, with probabilities and inductions. Whereas previously we were concerned with the truth of the essence, we are now concerned with the truth of the cause and the matter. What conditions and events trigger something to happen, and how do we recreate it or stop it. Science opens marvelous vistas into the workings of everything from the smallest sub-atomic particle to the largest super-galactic cluster. It tells us of the intricacy of our biology, vulnerability opposed by resilience. It is the clock-maker instructing us in the mechanisms that drive the time, strike, and chime.
But it doesn't tell us why these things happen.
Theology answers why because theology seeks to know the heart of the maker. Knowing what a thing is, knowing how it is and how it works, can clue us into its purpose and its end. However - especially concerning humanity - all the science and all the philosophy in the world doesn't tell us why we're here. And since all creation is ordered to our good, and through us to God, the same goes for everything else.
It is theology which tells us of a God who, for no reason but that he willed it, created us that we might be happy with him. Our purpose and finality are God, to love him and be happy with him forever in heaven, and that is a truth we only discover when we listen to what God tells us of himself.
The fullness of theology - recall, Words, Sayings, and Reasonings about God - comes when we are in touch with the Word of God, the only-begotten second person of the trinity. Jesus doesn't tell us about the complexities of sub-atomic structure, but he is praised by it. The Word Made Flesh never explained to us how the Trinity is the prime mover, but he is glorified in Aristotle and Aquinas.
It seems that all good things come in threes. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; Mother, Father, Baby Within; Past, Present, and Future; Scripture, Tradition, and Faith; Philosophy, Science, and Theology. The most stable platform is the tripod, and when we forget that and ignore a leg, we find ourselves destabilized, unbalanced.
All three are important. All three are necessary. All three must be understood and used for what they are, insofar as they are what they are - tools for the acquisition of the truth, modalities of knowledge.
I saw the Atheists & Agnostics Society set up outside the Hub the other day, and it sparked me. I understand questioning the veracity of various religions, being turned off by televangelists and "faith healers" and psychics, and even doubting the existence of God. However, I have come to the opinion that in this society where we have replaced worship of God with the worship of Man and Science, we have become pseudo-philosophical at best when it comes to the issue of God.
In deifying reason, we have ceased to become adequately familiar with it, and with it, wisdom.
So I invite you to walk a little while with me, let me pose some mental pictures for you, see what you think.
Supposition 1: The two vitally human acts are knowing and loving.
Allow me to clarify some terms so that we're clear as to exactly what I'm saying here.
First, Aristotle identified three "levels" of life: Plant, Animal, Human. Things like digestion, respiration in the lungs, sleeping, these are things we share with plants. Movement, instincts, direct sensory faculties (the 5 sense), these we share with animalia. There is a 3rd level, something which sets us apart from plantae & animalia, which is our humanity, our human vitality.
Second, by knowing, I mean acts of intellection, reasoning, cognitive processes which go beyond even what we see in the animal world. Humans, not animals, built the Model T and the World Wide Web.
Third, by loving, I don't mean the mere emotion of love (powerful as it may be), but rather the act of will which is a choice, decision, or act. It is not mere intellect, and not merely following through from the fruit of reason, but rather the way in which a human is able to take the input of intellect, memory, and instinct, and make a choice. As an example, take amusement parks. Roller coasters are thrilling because against reason & instinct, we make an act of will to conquer the height (and our fear) for the sake of conquering it.
So, then, what I mean in supposition 1 is simply that what sets us apart from the rest of life, what makes us human, or is at least specially human, is our capacity to know, intellect and reason, and our capacity to love, choose, and decide.
For the duration of this post I will refer to the intellect and will, the mind and heart, or knowing and loving as faculties, and the degree to which we have formed our faculties as our capability. Our current capability is not necessarily indicative of what our actual capacity for these acts of intellection and will are.
Also, for the time being, I don't care where these faculties come from. For all I care, they could simply be advanced brain chemistry. Their mechanism is not important to this foray.
Supposition 2: To comprehend a thing fully, one's intellectual capacity must be greater than the thing being thought of.
What is 2 + 2? 4, of course. There is no doubt in your mind as to the truth of the statement, "2 + 2 = 4." If you had to describe why this were the case, you could explain that you understand the concepts of 2, 4, addition, and equality. What I am positing is that your intellect is greater than any of those concepts, and is therefore able to fully encompass them.
In a sense, one could say that your intellect is capable of arithmetic, certainly has a capacity for intellect. Your intellect is greater than arithmetic, encompasses it, is able to see it for what it is.
How about calculus? What is the integral with respect to x of 3x^2 dx, from 0 to 5? It's 125 of course. However, while at one point in my life (i.e. at the end of AP Calculus, when I scored a 5/5 on the AP test), I could have rattled that off. Now, I had to look it up (though I was able to understand why it was 125).
So, the intellect can be formed, can grow, and can mature. My capability may or may not be indicative of my capacity. I have a capacity for calculus, but I have been lazy in my mathematics, and am no longer fully capable of it as I was. However, since I have the capacity, I am capable of understanding calculus, encompassing it with my intellect.
Supposition 3: Humans, insofar as they are physical, are finite beings.
This should pretty much go without saying. We are born at a particular time, and we die at another particular time. Observationally, therefore, there is a finite span of time within which we live. We live in a finite material universe, essentially a part of it. We grow - sometimes by steps, and sometimes by leaps and bounds - but always it is a finite progression. We are not infinite.
Supposition 4: If God exists as he is typically understood philosophically - omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent - then he is "bigger" than us.
Of course, by bigger than us, I also mean bigger than our intellects. A truly infinite God - for that matter anything truly infinite - must by necessity be beyond the capacity (not just the capability) of any finite intellect. That must therefore mean that he is truly beyond our total comprehension. We can know things about him, but full understanding is not possible, not by our own power.
Conclusion: We've got it all wrong about God.
It's truth time. We need to be honest. I'm not just looking at atheists and agnostics here, I'm looking at Christians, Jews, Muslims, and everyone else who is talking about God in the sense presented above.
Too often we are looking for a God we can understand. We are looking for a concept that fits in a nice little box in our heads, that we can "wrap our heads around."
We don't want to be shocked.
We don't want to be challenged.
We don't want to be anything less than the highest thing in the universe.
If our criteria for rejection of God is that we cannot understand Him, then we have misunderstood the essential truth of Who it is we are looking for.
I think that one of the greatest poverties of our modern education is that we have taught ourselves that what is new is better than what is old, simply because it is new. And yet, one of the best ways to understand reality was expounded upon over 2000 years ago, by a Greek man named Αριστοτλε (Aristotle). Specifically, today, I am speaking of the "four causes" of Aristotle.
These four causes are:
We're going to work through these today as a sort of groundwork for some other thoughts coming up. Let us begin, shall we?
It is important to keep in mind that we're not thinking of "cause" the way we normally would in English. We will brush the English definitions, but with the exception of the efficient cause, we're in somewhat foreign territory. As we go through these, it may be helpful to think of these causes as answers to questions about the nature of a thing.
The formal cause answers the question, "What form does it follow?" or, "What type of thing is it?" For example, let's take your grandpa's rocking chair. Let's say it's a Lay-Z-Boy, or equivalent. Well then, the formal cause is "furniture," or "chair," or perhaps, "rocking chair."
The material cause answers the question: "What is it made of?" Keeping with the example from the last section, one could say that the material causes of this chair could be considered to be wood, metal, fabric, padding, the components of the chair.
This cause is the one most cognate with the English word. The efficient cause is that which brings about the object, the chain of events which caused it to be. The efficient causes of this chair might include the laborer or machine which crafted it, the order for it from the showroom, things of that nature.
Finally we come to the final cause, also know as the teleological cause (from the Greek Τελοσ - end). This answers the question, "What is it meant for?" In the case of our grandfather's rocking chair, the simple answer would be "for sitting," a more complex answer might be, "for providing a place to rest." Any final cause of a thing, however, is its purpose, what it is meant for.
As another example, let's take me. My formal causes include "human" and "male." My material cause is an embodied soul or an ensouled body, so a soul, flesh, bone, blood, et cetera. My efficient causes are my parents, and their parents, and their parents. Lastly, my final cause is God, that is to say, since we know that we were created to live in union with God, and that God is our end, God is our final cause, our finality, our purpose.
Now, I did say that the word "cause" here is not being used in the sense we normally associate with it; however, these usages do share a certain sense with their common cousin. Specifically, there is a sense of contingency - that the caused (that which is under investigation) depends upon the cause(s) for its existence. That is to say, the caused is contingent on the cause.
But what does that mean?
Basically, if you take a cause away, you take the thing away. Let's say there's no such thing as flesh and blood, no such thing as a soul. What am I then made of? I cannot exist because what I'm made of doesn't exist.
Take away my parents meeting, marrying and having me, I don't exist.
Take away such a thing as humanity, then I can't even be human, I am formless.
Take away my end, and while I may exist, I exist to no end. I am pointless.
We may begin to see here the dangerous game we play when we attempt to remove God from the equation. He is our proper (and only true & fruitful) end. Our lives are literally meaningless if not for him.
We will discuss more of the ramifications of this worldview in later posts, and will also be coming back to these ideas.
I seem to be seeing more and more things recently which point me to the conclusion that we are losing touch with reality.
As I sit here composing my dirge to reality, I am playing Angry Birds HD Free on my iPad. Now, if I were to actually set up such a situation where I truly launched birds of varying colors at helpless pigs poised over their destruction, I would most certainly leave me daughter without a father for a protracted period of time. And yet, this little arcade game of Avian-Procine Bellicosity is one of the most popular - and most well known - apps for the various i-devices.
But it's not real, so it's okay. Problem, Angry Birds playing PETAns?
Even as I write this post, I am not actually writing. I am hitting keys laid out in an arbitrary pattern; little bits of plastic which trigger electrical impulses that are sent through a myriad of busses and buffers (and even through the air via Bluetooth), to cause little variations of the brightness of pixels in my screen. The thoughts are real, and the light shining in my face is real, but are the words real?
How real is virtual reality?
Don't get me wrong, I love computers. Well, more accurately I have a love-hate relationship with the blasted machines. Suffice it to say that at present, my livelihood - and by extension my family's - is dependent on my facility with them, and the programming thereof.
Still, doesn't it frighten you at least a little bit how much of our lives, our civilization, is dependent on electrical representations of 1s and 0s whizzing through wires (and the air)? Just sayin'
But in all seriousness, I pose the following question: In a world with increasing dependence on computers and other electronic technology, do we know what is real? Do we know how to interact with reality? How real is virtual reality?
Some of you may be wondering what bee got in my bonnet, what the efficient cause of this thought chain is.
To put it briefly, I fear that we are being trained to reason in the wrong direction.
For a culture which prides itself on being scientific - that is, observing reality and then deriving theories to explain it - we seem to thing that we can somehow start from the theories, to learn all there is to know from books, and then to develop our theories of society and governance without actually looking at reality.
I see by the glazed look in your eyes that I'm getting a little hypothetical. Let me exemplify.
So what's with this love affair with experience? Des Cartes put that to bed, didn't he? Cogito ergo sum and all that - I think, (and a thing that thinks exists), therefore I am. He claims that he was able to develop everything from there, but... Things fall apart.
The Cartesian essays which are often fodder for introductory philosophy classes follow his rejection of all things he's ever know to have fooled him as unreliable. He therefore relies solely on reason and seeks to build himself back up from there.
The thing is, reason still remains unproven. He trusts it because it has never failed him, but his memory has, and maybe it is now? How does he know that he is remembering correctly? Perhaps he has simply forgotten all of the times when reason failed?
Our senses tell us that what is attained by reason tends to match what we perceive in the external world. Our reason tells us things and reveals patterns about our observations. They work together, but are not the same thing.
Furthermore, even if we allowed the assumption that reason always works, that only means that reason is self consistent. It is a way that appears to describe the universe, but the maniac says the same thing about his theory that everyone is out to get him, and is able to put forth a quite consistent logic that adequately describes the events that are agreed to happen. To see an example read the chapter, "The Maniac" in G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy.
Now, I know, you're probably saying, "Well of course reason is self consistent, otherwise it wouldn't be very reasonable, would it? And isn't that a point in its favor?" Well, yes, it would be, except that self-consistency is not sufficient to prove a thing, by reason's own standards.
No, this doesn't disprove reason, and I'm not trying to do any such thing. However, reason is itself not sufficient, and even if it were sufficient in itself, it is unable to make the leap between the ego and the external world.
As obvious as it may sound, it takes an experience of the outside world to know that there is an outside world.
I guess the main point I'm trying to make is that we should always favor the real over the virtual, and seek the reality, the real things, the real people. Reality is good, it's a good place to live. There is value in academics and the abstract, in stories and fictional novels, but to paraphrase Morgan Freeman, we are not human doings, we are human beings.
My challenge to you this day is to experience your reality. Experience the air you are breathing. Experience the reality of other people present to you, with you. Touch reality, hold on and don't let go.
I suppose it's about time to wrap this post up. What I hope you take away from this is that while reason is a powerful tool, it is just that, a tool. It is a filter by which we undersand our experiences, but we must have those experiences. Experience reality today, you will be better for it.
So as many of you know, I've got a bit of a background in the martial arts. Specifically, I hold a second degree black belt in Taekwondo, and orange belt in Hapkido, have studied under both the WTF and ATA styles of Taekwondo, and have had exposure to (seminars or integrated into other martial arts training) Judo, Kungfu, Kumdo, and Systema.
I have also had the honor of serving as an instructor at under Masters Hegland & Shilkaitas, from whom I earned my degree, and as a TA for Grandmaster Yong Chin Pak, who truly is a legend. My dad started teaching me Taekwondo when I was 9, so you could say I've basically grown up around the martial arts.
As many of you also know, I have a keen interest in Theology and Philosophy. My dad pointed out to me (some time ago) that one of the things he enjoyed the most about Taekwondo in college was how the tenets taught by Grandmaster Pak, reflected the way of behaving in which we are trained in our Christian faith; Courtesy, Integrity, Self Control, Perseverance, and Indomitable Spirit.
A warning here, there a few major ways in which eastern religions/philosophies tend to fall away from the truth; Contradiction, nihilism, determinism, and "emptying yourself."
In brief, logic - a product of the west - is founded upon the principle of non-contradiction. That is, one cannot say that a statement (the ball is green) and its opposite (the ball is not green) can both be true at the same time. Many eastern philosophies reject this notion, which draws in a great number of mystic-type pseudo-theologians, but really prevents and real progress from ever being made in any direction, philosophically speaking.
Secondly, with regard to nihilism and determinism, a number of philosophies espouse a total negation or destruction of the self, and promote the concept of a re-incarnation cycle in which we live countless lives until we "get it right."
Along with the issue of nihilism, the Zen concept of emptying yourself can be dangerous if one is not careful. While there is nothing wrong with meditation - in can be very healthy for mind, body, and soul - there are many ways it can be perverted. As a contrast, in Christianity, when one empties oneself, it is for the express purpose of being filled by Christ. We decrease that He might increase, as John the Baptist said. If we simply empty ourselves without any intention, we can open ourselves in dangerous ways.
But all that aside, as far as the way of behaving is concerned, the same basic tenets seem to appear between east and west, and there is a strong tradition of mysticism from the east, which we honestly sometimes lose in todays techno-centric world.
The point I'm getting at is that I have long admired the warrior monks, albeit their much romanticized film versions. The concept of drawing closer to the truth while honing your body appeals to me though I am not very physical myself. Something with the phrase "mens sana in corpore sano" - a healthy mind in a healthy body.
To that end, I have wondered for some time now about what it would be like to start a Catholic order of warriors. Maybe it's a guy thing, but there is a simple and profound closeness and contentment in struggling against another with nothing but your own wits and skills. And there is a truth that when your mind is the master of your body, it is freed to attain nobler pursuits than before, when it is not always fighting for dominance.
I need to find them again, but I composed a series of prayers related to the 8 elements of the Palgwe and Taegeuk form sets taught in the WTF. They have yet to be reviewed by a priest, but my thought was to have them integrated with the forms, so that the practice of the form becomes itself a prayer, a physical expression of love for God by the utilization and maintenance of His temple.
The training would be... interesting. I'm contemplating making the training itself in Latin, though I lean towards the Korean in which I learned the techniques, or English because the rest will be hard enough already. Students would learn not just the physical, or even the mental and spiritual which is currently taught, but more, training in classical forms, hand to hand self defense, sport sparring, weapons, and of course Theology and Philosophy.
The outcome: The Philosopher Warrior. They are gentle, not because they are weak, but because they withhold their strength. They are humble not because they lack in ability, but because they know their ability is a gift, and a responsibility to be used in the service of others. They seek the truth, in word and in act, purifying thought by the sweat of their brow, bonding with each other over the clash of words and the clash of blows.
Their minds are honed into weapons of truth, seeking out what is right in charity and compassion. Their bodies are healthy, strong, able to defend others, clean temples of the Holy Spirit, contemplating the mystery of Christ's Sacred humanity while they discover their own.
Plus, with the end coming 2012*, wouldn't you rather be roaming the post-apocalyptic plains of the midwest with a band of Catholics survivalists?
* N.B. I don't actually believe the end of the world is in 2012. I don't know when it is.
So, I've been hearing some disturbing thoughts on the Eucharist, so I'm going to do the only thing I know how.
Quote: "I use the tools of the faith, like the Rosary, and the Eucharist."(emphasis added)
I'm just going to assume that this meant the prayers of the Mass, and the beautiful vessels, monstrances and tabernacle with which we reverence Him. Still, without that clarification, there can be confusion, which I don't like very much, and seek to eliminate where I can.
The error that can be gained through lack of explanation is found blatantly in the soundbites from the students who were denied Eucharist by Archbishop Nienstedt; "We were making a statement during the eucharist ... how else to do it than in liturgy?" As if the liturgy, the very act of receiving Our Lord were a perfectly appropriate place to convey their unorthodoxy and stubborn disobedience. Reception of Our Lord is now a medium... a tool.
There are two types of things in reality - means and ends.
Some things may be both a means and an end, for example, the hammer is the end of your expedition to Lowes, but the hammer is in turn a means to hanging the painting your wife made to display how proud you are of her.
Some things are only ever ends. They can draw you to them, but they are in fact always an end, never a means. Namely, people. A person should never, ever, ever ever be used as a means, for it is the nature of a person to be an end, a recipient. You love a person, not for what they can do for you, but because they are.
Jesus Christ, Word of God, Second Person of the Trinity, Incarnated Son of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, is a person. He is THE Person, in many ways, as in his humanity, he showed us what it means to be human. He showed us what He meant our humanity to be.
He is our end. He is our goal. He is our destination, our hope, our home, our reward. He draws us to him, but he is never a means, for he is The Omega. In giving us Himself to us to bring us to Him, He has first given Himself to us, putting us in the presence of our End!!!
The Eucharist is not a tool of the faith, or a place to make a statement, it is the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The danger of these statements and actions is that they hide, and can altogether deny the True Presence. Are we then surprised when 45% of Catholics don't know about the True Presence in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar?
Let us pray for a return to a true devotion to the Eucharist and His Holy Presence.