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We can’t create heaven on earth: more from #ActonU

We can’t create heaven on earth: more from #ActonU

Last updated on: August 5, 2015 at 1:35 pm by Edwin Woodruff Tait

We can’t create heaven on earth: more from #ActonU 2015-08-05T13:35:34-05:00 Edwin Woodruff Tait

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On the second point, Gregg argued that secularism, for all its talk about reason, doesn’t take reason seriously enough. Secularists believe human beings have reason, but the reason they recognize is purely empirical and pragmatic–ratio rather than intellectus. In particular, secularists often see science as the sole or primary expression of reason. But science is all about means–it can’t tell us which ends are worth pursuing. Science can tell us that penicillin kills germs. But the reason we want to kill germs is that we think human life ought to be preserved, and science can’t tell us whether that goal is worthwhile. In other words, true rationality depends on some kind of framework that transcends the physical world.

The opposite of the Christian view of the will is secularist determinism, in which everything we do results from genetics and environment. In the Christian view these things influence but don’t determine our actions. The will does. Some secularists do agree that we have a will, but it’s just a neutral faculty of choice. Gregg blames this view on William Ockham, who defined the will as the capacity to choose between opposites rather than as a faculty that is naturally shaped and ordered toward the good by the reason.

For Ockham, in Gregg’s interpretation, it doesn’t matter what we choose as long as we choose, and Gregg sees this view as self-refuting (since you need reason in order to prove it in the first place, but such a view of the will makes reason irrelevant). This is, I think, a caricature of Ockham. Ockham defined the will as neutral in and of itself. But just because he thought a non-virtuous choice could be free doesn’t mean that he thought virtue didn’t matter. Gregg is overly biased toward the Thomist perspective here, but his larger point is that in a traditional Christian understanding freedom is by definition something ordered by reason toward the good. From this it follows that sinful choices can’t be fully free.

Gregg’s fourth principle is that human beings are creative. There are infinite ways in which we can participate in the goodness of creation, and we can choose which of these to pursue. This is the source of the idea of vocation. A vocation is a call to reflect God’s goodness in a particular way. Humans have dominion over creation, but they are to exercise that dominion in ways that glorify God and make creation flourish.

The fifth principle, the Fall, means that there is a radical disorder running through the core of every person’s existence. That rules out any attempt to create a heaven on earth–a dream that invariably leads to a nightmare. According to Gregg, secularism either embraces this kind of unrealistic and destructive utopianism or embraces outright cynicism about the possibility of justice and moral order. Once again, Christianity provides the “golden mean” between these false extremes.

Finally, Gregg argues that on Christian principles human beings are both individual and social. We are from the beginning totally dependent on others, but as we grow older we gain the ability to choose how (not whether) we are to be in relationship with others. We have freedom of choice within, not outside, a network of relationships. In secularism, Gregg suggests, the only real alternatives are individualism or collectivism.

In closing, Gregg asks three questions:

Does our society reflect these convictions?
What would a society that reflects this anthropology look like?
How do we respect other people’s freedom while still insisting on a voice for the Christian view of human nature?

Some of my Protestant fellow-participants have commented to me that they find Gregg’s approach too rationalistic and abstract. One of them pointed out that Gregg (especially in last night’s plenary) speaks little specifically about Christ or about an incarnational form of witness to the faith. Rather, he seems to think that we bear witness primarily through rational argument. Is this an authentically Christian approach? Also, is it likely to succeed?

I think these criticisms are valid, and possibly Gregg’s approach appeals to me more than it should. I am a naturally argumentative person and tend to overestimate the extent to which I can persuade other people. That being said, I found Gregg’s appeal to natural law and reason to be a powerful and refreshing way to begin the conference. His approach is incomplete, to be sure, but it is badly needed in a world where both Christians and non-Christians often seem to have lost confidence in reason, and where most people see reason as a dry, humdrum, cold thing instead of the radiant, vibrant participation in the mind of God that Aquinas and other classic Christian theologians believed it to be.

My own disagreements with Gregg pertain more to the way he applies his ideas to social issues.

In the first place, his claim that sin rather than inequality is the root of social evil is no doubt true if inequality is seen simply as the fact that some people have more of some things than others. But St. Augustine taught that at the core of human sinfulness is the libido dominandi (the desire to dominate). Human beings set themselves up as false gods instead of reflecting God’s image faithfully, and we do this by trying to be better and more powerful than others. The Christian tradition historically teaches that the desire to acquire more than we need is fundamentally sinful, because it’s rooted in this “libido dominandi,” a never-ending, insatiable hunger. (And yes, I know that this is a difficult and paradoxical idea to apply, because of course one may acquire more in order to share it with the poor and provide opportunity to others. I’m sure I’ll have more occasion to reflect on this as the week progresses!) Clearly condemnations of inequality need to be more nuanced and to be expressed more clearly. But Gregg gives the impression that as long as it’s not associated with Washington D.C., inequality is basically innocuous. And in reality, in a fallen world inhabited by sinful people eaten up by the lust for domination over others, it rarely is. This is part of that truth which Gregg so eloquently calls on us to seek.

Furthermore, last night Gregg insisted that “sentimentalism” leads people to believe that we can have dialogue with everyone, and that this is related to the mistaken view that evil is just the result of circumstance. Certainly it’s hard to argue with his example that there’s nothing to have dialogue with ISIS about. But his apparent contempt for the idea of seeking to have dialogue with everyone and to understand the reasons why our enemies act the way they do seems to me to run counter to his overall emphasis on reason and truth.

If in fact all human beings naturally share in the divine Logos and are created to seek truth, whether they recognize it or not, then it would seem to follow that we can, in principle, have a rational dialogue with everyone. In some cases, such as people fanatically committed to ISIS, this may be next door to impossible. But paradoxically, Gregg’s willingness to write off people who differ from him as “sentimental” and irrational undercuts his own belief in reason. Over and over again I hear people on both sides of the political spectrum simply dismiss those who differ as obviously irrational, and pretty much invariably, such dismissals themselves seem irrational to me. Gregg’s overall emphasis on reason and truth is a wonderful antidote to this tendency. But unfortunately, his dismissive remarks about “liberal sentimentalism” and “dialogue” reinforce that very tendency to write off those who differ instead of seeking truth together with them.

Related to this is Gregg’s tendency (in this morning’s lecture) to present a simple binary choice between “Christianity” and “secularism.” And I know that my secular friends would indignantly reject his presentation of the available options for secularists. I think his critiques of secularism are basically right, and given the ground he was trying to cover and the time he had available I understand that he couldn’t be too nuanced or deal with all objections. But even if this weakness was inevitable, it’s still a weakness to the case he presents, given how strongly he wants to make that case.

A final point: in the second lecture, Gregg ended by calling us to respect the freedom of those who hold other views, while still striving to present the Christian vision of humanity in the public square. But if, as he said earlier, sinful choices aren’t really free, it’s not clear how this works. He caricatures Ockham’s view of freedom as a neutral choice between two possibilities (though Aquinas sometimes uses that language as well), but the Augustinian view of freedom he presents seems to imply that, in traditional Catholic terms, “error has no rights.” Since I find the Augustinian view of freedom to be compelling, this is a problem for me as much as for Gregg. But I would have liked to hear him address it. (I had questions after both lectures, but owing to the size of the crowd and the constraints of time I didn’t get to ask them.)

In summary, Gregg’s two lectures do a great job of presenting an overall picture of historic Christian teaching on human nature, and the reasons why this teaching makes a difference in how we approach social and political issues. I find his applications of these ideas to be overly partisan and his tone overly polemical. But a well-crafted polemic is, in its own severe way, a thing of beauty, and Gregg was enjoyable to listen to from start to finish of both lectures. I did not expect to agree with everything I heard at Acton, and my expectations were fulfilled. I also expected to be challenged and stimulated intellectually, and so far those expectations have been more than fulfilled.

Edwin Woodruff Tait is a freelance writer, farmer, and consulting editor for Christian History magazine. He blogs at Ithilien and tweets as @Amandil3. (Extra points if you get the Tolkien reference.)

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