Jesus Forsaken, teacher of freedom

2564 words, 13 min read

[The following is the text of a talk given at Regenerate 2016.]

Yesterday morning we looked at a sketch of the breadth of freedom, ranging from the individual to the social, from the theoretical to the practical, from the protective to the enabling, and from the ephemeral to the sustainable. The journey we shared took us past three milestones, three paradoxes, which I’d like to recap at the start of this morning’s reflection.

The first paradox was, that an excess of freedom can bring us to its opposite, to slavery, either because it is used in an unsustainable way that leads to choices which limit freedom, or because one person’s freedom is used to limit that of another. The second paradox introduced the idea of obedience having the potential to lead to freedom, rather than to its opposite. By freely obeying my conscience, the voice of reason, the advice and guidance of others, my freedom can grow instead of being diminished. Finally, the third paradox spoke about freedom being possible in spite of external circumstances. When I direct the little of it that I have left towards the good of others, my freedom to love them grows, in spite of having few “freedoms to” and “freedoms from” left.

Taking a step back, these paradoxes show how freedom is a rather peculiar thing. When I take your freedom away, I am diminishing my own. When you infringe my freedom in one way, I still have other ways to make my own freedom grow and I can help you grow your freedom too. When I choose to direct my freedom towards your good, our freedom grows and persists.

Looking at this tree of freedom, with its rich network of branches extending far and wide, I would this morning like to change perspective and examine its roots. What is the source of this freedom, that is so universally attractive and for which so many are willing even to risk their own lives?

Here, as we have already seen yesterday morning, Jesus presents himself as the answer by pointing to truth as the source of freedom and by identifying himself with truth. In fact, Jesus only speaks three times about freedom in the Gospels. The first time is right at the beginning of his public life, where he goes to a synagogue in Nazareth and presents himself as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy that the oppressed will go free (cf. Luke 4:16-30). The second is when he stops a mob from stoning a woman accused of cheating on her husband, after which he says that famous “the truth will set you free” (cf. John 8:1-59).

It is the third, and final time when Jesus speaks about freedom in the Gospels that I would like to focus on though. Here he is dealing with the aftermath of having restored the sight of a blind man, who is subsequently harassed by some Pharisees who don’t believe him, who question him - and his parents - twice, and who in the end throw him out of the synagogue. When Jesus hears about this, he seeks out the formerly blind man to see whether the ordeal had shaken his faith. The man tells him: “I do believe, Lord” and worships him (cf. John 9:1-38). Jesus then takes a swipe at the Pharisees by declaring:

“I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.” (John 9:39)

This definitely rubs the Pharisees up the wrong way, who snap back: “Surely we are not also blind, are we?” (John 9:40), which gives Jesus the opening for launching into one of his landmark speeches, in which he presents himself as the Good Shepherd and where he foretells his death on the cross and his resurrection. Jesus says:

“I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for my sheep. […] The Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me; I lay it down of my own free will, and as I have power to lay it down, so I have power to take it up again; and this is the command I have received from my Father.” (John 10:14-15,17-18)

And how does this go down? Badly. “Many of them said, “He is possessed and out of his mind; why listen to him?”” (John 10:20). But, let’s look more closely at what Jesus said here about freedom. First of all he situates himself in a relationship with the Father and with us, his sheep. Second, he tells us that the basis of this relationship is self-giving and a self-giving that demands everything, that goes to the point of him giving his life for us. Third, Jesus tells us that this self-giving is not directed towards death, towards nothing, but that it passes through them so that life and the Father’s love may follow. And, finally, Jesus tells us that all of this love-motivated self-giving is done freely by him. No one is forcing his hand, taking his life from him. It is Jesus who chooses to do so freely, for us and out of love for the Father.

Here we see yesterday’s paradoxes at play: Jesus freely obeys the Father’s will and directs his freedom towards our good so that we may receive freedom as a result.

Let’s follow this root deeper though. The last time Jesus speaks about freedom, he points us to his upcoming death, his ultimate, self-giving act of love towards us. But what is it that he tells us about freedom by how he lived that extreme suffering? Here Chiara points us to the specific moment in which Jesus’ suffering, and therefore self-giving love for us, is at its most extreme.

During the Second World War, in her home town of Trent in Italy, Chiara and her companions have made the discovery of God-Love as the ideal of their lives and have dedicated themselves to putting his Word, the Gospel, into practice. This lead them to helping the poor, those who have lost their loved ones, their health and all their possessions during the bombing of the city. Their desire for responding to God’s love was so strong that they gave everything for those in need, not sparing even their own health.

At the beginning of 1944 this resulted in one of Chiara’s companions, Dori Zamboni, catching an infection that left her covered in sores. A priest was asked to bring her the Eucharist and on one occasion, when Dori was in prayer after communion, he spoke to Chiara about when Jesus had suffered most during his passion. The priest suggested that it was at the moment when Jesus cried out: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)

But what does this moment of Jesus’ most extreme suffering have to do with freedom? To understand how it is here that he teaches us what freedom is, Chiara unpacks what Jesus’ cry of forsakenness means:

“He had given everything.

First, a life lived beside Mary in hardship and obedience.

Then, three years of mission, revealing the Truth, giving witness to the Father, promising the Holy Spirit, and working all kinds of miracles of love.

Finally, three hours on the cross, from which he gave forgiveness to his executioners, opened paradise to the thief, gave his mother to us, and ultimately gave his body and blood, after having given them mystically in the Eucharist.

He had nothing left but his divinity.

His union with the Father, that sweet and ineffable union with the One who had made him so powerful on earth as the Son of God and so regal on the cross, that feeling of God’s presence had to disappear into the depths of his soul and no longer make itself felt, separating him somehow from the One with whom he had said to be one: “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30). In him love was annihilated, the light extinguished, wisdom silenced.”

By not only giving his humanity, his body and blood, but also his divinity, his union with the Father, Jesus becomes nothing in the moment of being forsaken on the cross. He holds nothing back. Any safety net he may have had is gone. All sense of certainty is gone, and even his words in this moment are empty. The Word, through whom the universe was spoken into being, no longer announces. All it can do is ask a question. The most basic question. "Why?"

We are witnesses of an event that manifests total self-giving and displays absolute nothingness. And it is here that the deepest root of freedom lies. Jesus Forsaken has nothing, is nothing, and nothing can therefore condition his next move. No expectations, no obligations, no pressure, no rules, no traditions, no restrictions can act on him, who is nothing. And what does Jesus do?

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)

In his moment of greatest suffering, having emptied himself, Jesus directs his absolute freedom towards the God by whom he feels abandoned.

Let us return to Dori and Chiara though, to see what this gift of having Jesus’ moment of greatest suffering revealed to them does in their lives. After the priest who pointed them to Jesus Forsaken left, Chiara turned to Dori and said:

“If Jesus’ greatest pain was His abandonment by His Father, we will choose Him as our Ideal and that is the way we will follow Him.”

Dori later spoke about her experience as follows:

“At that moment, in my mind, in my imagination, the conviction impressed itself that for us our ideal was the Jesus of the contorted face crying out to the Father. And my poor facial sores, which I saw as shadows of His pain, were a joy to me, because they made me resemble Him a little. From that day on, Chiara spoke to me often, in fact constantly, of Jesus Forsaken. He was the living personality in our lives.”

Discovering Jesus Forsaken was a life-changing experience for Chiara and her first companions, and has been a life-changing experience for many who have followed them since. It is a discovery that Chiara described in these words:

“He fascinated us, and perhaps we fell in love with him because, from the very beginning, we started seeing him everywhere. He presented himself to us with the most different faces in all the painful aspects of life. They were nothing but him, only him. Though new every time, they were simply him. […]

By living Jesus Forsaken we had come to understand that He had made Himself nothing and that in this nothingness was our life. To be like Him out of love for Him, that nothingness that we really are. We nothing, He all.”

Realizing that Jesus Forsaken is present in every suffering, in every despair, doubt, anxiety, fear, failing, loss, in every moment of difficulty I experience, in every suffering person I meet, means that I can always direct my freedom towards him and be in relationship with him. No matter how great my suffering or the suffering of another, I can always recognize the face of Jesus Forsaken in that suffering and love him in that moment.

Five years after her first encounter with Jesus Forsaken, and after an intense life of seeking and loving him in all whom she and the first focolarine and focolarini met, Chiara experienced a series of mystical visions in which she was shown Paradise. One such vision presented an image of the freedom that Jesus taught us in his forsakenness on the cross, which Chiara described as follows:

“We have been created in the image of God.

We are like fires jetting out from the Fire,
distinct from the Fire and therefore free.

In order to unite ourselves to the Fire,
and to be one with Him,
we must freely return there through pure love,
because we are if we are as we should be,
that is, pure love.”

This image sheds great light onto freedom, by pointing to its dynamic, reciprocal nature of being a gift. We receive freedom - “fires jetting out from the Fire, distinct and therefore free” - but the only way for us to keep being free, and even for our very existence to persist in the long run, is by freely making ourselves a gift in turn. God sets us free and we remain free by freely giving ourselves back to him. Then we are as we should be - pure love, created in the image of God, as taught to us by Jesus Forsaken.

Not only is this what Chiara understood about freedom in her visions of Paradise, but the end of that brief period in her life was a call for exercising freedom too. Chiara describes that moment as follows:

“Our experience was so powerful, it made us think life would always be like that: light and heaven. But what followed instead was the reality of everyday life.

It was a rude awakening, so to speak, to find ourselves back on earth. Only Jesus forsaken gave us the strength to carry on living: Jesus forsaken, whom we found present in the world we had to love – a world which is what it is – namely, not heaven.”

This meant that Chiara had to make a second, even more deliberate choice of loving Jesus Forsaken, who asked her to return to him in the world. He was waiting for her in the many sufferings of the world and hers was a free choice to make. At this moment, Chiara wrote a poem to Jesus Forsaken, which I would like to share with you now and with which I will conclude this talk. It is entitled “I have only one Spouse”:

“I have only one Spouse on earth:

Jesus forsaken.

I have no God but him.

In him is the whole of paradise with the Trinity
and the whole of the earth with humanity.
Therefore what is his is mine and nothing else.
And his is universal suffering, and therefore mine.
I will go through the world seeking it in every instant of my life.

What hurts me is mine.

Mine the suffering that grazes me in the present.
Mine the suffering of the souls beside me

(that is my Jesus).

Mine all that is not peace, not joy, not beautiful, not lovable, not serene,

in a word, what is not paradise.

Because I too have my paradise,

but it is that in my Spouse’s heart.

I know no other.

So it will be for the years I have left:

athirst for suffering, anguish, despair,
sorrow, exile, forsakenness, torment –
for all that is him,
and he is sin, hell.

In this way

I will dry up the waters of tribulation
in many hearts nearby
and, through communion
with my almighty Spouse,
in many faraway.

I shall pass as a fire
that consumes all that must fall

and leaves standing only the truth.

But it is necessary to be like him:

to be him in the present moment of life.”

The paradoxes of freedom

3070 words, 15 min read

[The following is the text of a talk given at Regenerate 2016.]

This morning I would like to share with you some thoughts about freedom, which is the theme of our weekend. To begin with, it is worth noticing that freedom is something everybody values and wants. In fact, we’d be hard pressed to find anyone in this world who would answer the question of whether freedom is important to them with a ‘no’.

The first, obvious reason for such universal acclaim is that freedom can be understood simply as my ability to do whatever I choose to do. And who wouldn’t want that? Already Aristotle recognized this, when he wrote:

“A man should live as he likes. This, they say, is the privilege of a free man, since, on the other hand, not to live as a man likes is the mark of a slave.”

If I want to go to Regenerate, being free means that no one stops me from going. If I don’t want to go, freedom means that no one is making me go. The point is not about whether I go or not, but about which of the two I want and whether I get it or not. Even without exerting our minds too much, we get to two basic forms of freedom: the freedom to do as I please, and freedom from being made to do what I don’t want.

Now, if you were a single, all-powerful being, freedom would indeed seem absolute and would be the full realization of its first aspect: being in a position to do whatever you please. Since none of us are such a single, all-powerful being, a first, apparent limit on our freedom are the laws of nature that constrain us. Gravity stops me from flying and my inability to breathe under water or my body not withstanding high pressure stop me from diving to great depths. While this is obvious, it introduces constraints into the picture. At the very least, therefore, freedom is about doing as I please, so far as that is possible.

If I want to climb Mt. Everest, freedom means that there are no obstacles in my way, other than ones that are a consequence of what I can physically and mentally do and of what climbing Mt. Everest entails. But, there is another source of constraints: other people. What if I want to do something that they don’t want me to do and that they stop me from doing by using their own freedom. If I use my freedom to play drums in the middle of the night, my neighbor can use their freedom to try and stop me and the result is one free person and one slave, depending on which one of us is stronger.

This is the first paradox of freedom, which Plato put as follows:

“Excess of freedom, whether it lies in state or individuals, 
seems only to pass into excess of slavery.”

Left to its own devices, and used as the only basis for making decisions, freedom turns to slavery and becomes an excuse for the powerful to oppress the weak, for the many to oppress the few. If I don’t like what you are doing and if all I care about is what I want, then freedom leads me to stopping you being free. Your freedom and my freedom are enemies and we arrive at the Latin proverb made famous by the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes: “Homo homini lupus” ("Man is wolf to man”).

At this point we pass from a somewhat hypothetical line of thought to the very real state of the world we live in, where exploitation, discrimination, marginalization and even outright exclusion are the result of the freedom of some cancelling out the freedom of others.

In some countries such infringements of freedom are state policy and ruling elites exercise their freedom at the expense of whole populations. Until the age of 15 I myself lived in a country like that. At the time, Czechoslovakia was ruled by an oppressive, totalitarian regime, where it was illegal to meet in larger groups, to say anything critical about the government, to openly practice one’s religion, or to travel abroad; where large parts of the population were spying on the rest of it and where transgression was punished by being sidelined in society, by imprisonment or, during the early years of the regime, even by being put to death.

The abuse of freedom can also take on more indirect forms, where the consequences of the actions of some inhibit the freedom of others. A particularly stark example here is that of access to water, highlighted by Pope Francis in his encyclical, Laudato Si’, where he wrote:

“One particularly serious problem is the quality of water available to the poor. Every day, unsafe water results in many deaths and the spread of water-related diseases [...]. Dysentery and cholera, linked to inadequate hygiene and water supplies, are a significant cause of suffering and of infant mortality. Underground water sources in many places are threatened by the pollution produced in certain mining, farming and industrial activities [...]. It is not only a question of industrial waste. Detergents and chemical products, commonly used in many places of the world, continue to pour into our rivers, lakes and seas.” (§29)

The freedoms of economic interests can result in the ultimate loss of freedom for the poor, which is death.

Does freedom still sound like such a good thing? Should we even want freedom if it just means that it can be weaponized and turned against others?

Clearly the answer here is not to give up on freedom and opt for slavery, but to recognize another dimension of freedom, which is its persistence. Instead of thinking only about how freedom lets me do what I want and how it protects me from having to do what I don’t want, let’s add sustainability to the mix. By also considering the consequences of what we can freely choose to do and subjecting them to evaluation by reason, we’ll discover that certain free actions lead to a reduction of freedom, while others lead to its preservation or even increase. If I want to lock myself in a room and throw away the key, doing so would be a free act, but one that would lead to a reduction in future freedom. Instead, constraining my own freedom in that moment (which, by the way, can be a free act too!) results in a freedom that continues instead of ceasing.

This is the second paradox of freedom, which Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare Movement, expressed as follows:

“Obedience is not aimed at taking away your freedom but at making you free.”

But, even with sustainable freedom, we are missing an important element, which is that of the content of what we choose. Simply making free choices sustainable can still leave our freedom be the freedom of an oppressor, exploiter and discriminator - only one who can keep that up for longer.

What we are missing is love!

In fact, Chiara adds another dimension to freedom by expressing a preference for those free choices that are directed towards the good, when she says:

“Freedom is usually defined in this way: it is the choice between good and evil. But I prefer another definition. Freedom is going closer and closer towards good. The closer we go towards good, the freer we are. Jesus said something important with regard to freedom. He said: "The truth will make you free" (Jn. 8:32)”

Notice an important aspect of what Chiara is saying here: The pursuit of the good is a way of making freedom sustainable. The more we direct our actions towards the good, the freer we are. In other words, the pursuit of the good is not a complication or a narrowing down of freedom, but an answer to the question of how to preserve it and make it grow.

What does it mean to say that the truth makes us free? This is a rather curious claim. The truth may seem like a remote and practically unreachable concept. If that is what it takes to be free then we may as well give up!

This is not what Jesus had in mind though when he pointed to truth as the source of freedom. Instead, he explained to his disciples what he meant, when answering the apostle Thomas’ panicked question at the end of the Last Supper: “Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” (Jn. 14:5) Jesus’ response was simply: “I am the way and the truth and the life.” (14:6) The truth therefore isn’t some set of rules or teachings or some insight reserved for the brainy, it is Jesus himself. The Jesus who is also life and way, and therefore someone who is inviting us to live and walk with him.

On another occasion, Chiara returned to these words of Jesus and explained them further:

“The truth makes us free because in those who live it, Christ lives, the “new man”; and consequently, the “old man” is dead: we are no longer slaves to our old selves (see Ephesians 4:22-24; Colosians 3:9). We are free from ourselves.

But the word of God frees us also because we are no longer slaves of human conditioning. We love Christ in everyone and, with the grace of God, we do not expect anything from anyone. In addition, the word frees us from being oppressed by circumstances. In fact, nothing happens by chance or merely because it is willed by human beings. The Father is always present in our lives either because he wills something to happen or because he permits it to happen.”

The key to living and walking with Jesus, who is the truth that sets us free, therefore, is to make love the goal of our freedom. And, what’s more, love for all, no matter what. Chiara spoke about this too with great clarity and radicality:

“The first idea that can already revolutionize our souls [... is] universal brotherhood, which frees us from all forms of slavery, because we are slaves of the divisions between rich and poor, between father and children; between black and white, between races; between nationalities, even between different [regions] of the same nation. We are slaves, we criticize one another, and there are many obstacles and barriers.

No, the first idea is to free ourselves from all these forms of slavery and to see [brothers and sisters] in everyone, in everyone... [...] “Even in that woman who talks too much? Even in that elderly man who doesn’t make any sense? Even in that poor person? [...] But is it possible?" Yes, in everyone [...]. We must see them all as possible candidates for unity with God and for unity with one another. We must open our hearts and tear down all the barriers. We must put into our hearts universal brotherhood: I live for universal brotherhood!

So then, if we are all brothers and sisters, we must love everyone. [...] Look, these are just a few words, but they bring a revolution! We must love everyone.”

Far from being a vehicle for discord, for one person being wolf to another, for one person's freedom being in conflict with that of another, freedom directed at the good becomes not only a “freedom to” and a “freedom from” but also a “freedom with” and a “freedom for”.

The great Lutheran thinker and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it as follows:

“[F]reedom is not a quality which can be revealed - it is not a possession, a presence, an object, nor is it a form of existence - but a relationship and nothing else. In truth, freedom is a relationship between two persons. Being free means "being free for the other," because the other has bound me to him. Only in relationship with the other am I free.”

That a freedom directed towards the good is necessarily about the good of others follows very clearly from the Christian understanding of God, who is the unity of three persons, where each freely gives themselves to an other. It is therefore no surprise to see this insistence on using my freedom for the good of others also in the thought of great Christian advocates and defenders of freedom. Rosa Parks, who fought for racial equality and civil rights at the time of segregation in the 1950s, thought of her own freedom merely a means for gaining freedom for others. She also spoke clearly about the importance of the choices that are presented to us in the following way:

“We may choose order and peace, or confusion and chaos. If we choose the former, we may cultivate and share our talents with others. If we choose the latter, we will isolate and segregate others. We can also expand our vision to include the universe and the diversity of its people, or we can remain narrow and shallow and isolate those who are unfamiliar. [...] I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free... so other people would be also free.”

Thinking of the desire for a freedom directed towards the good of others as being only a Christian concern would be a mistake though, and would in fact go both against the Christian insight that all - without exception! - are children of God and against the very need for freedom to be universal, so that it may be sustainable and lasting, as Rosa Parks put so clearly.

In fact, the importance of a freedom that is linked to the good of others is also present in atheist thought. A good example here is the contemporary philosopher, Slavoj Žižek, who sees our freedom threatened particularly by the interests of corporations whose aim is to develop in us habits of consumption that lead to dependence. While being an atheist, Žižek nonetheless aligns himself with aspects of the Christian understanding of freedom. Most notably he did so when speaking at an Occupy Wall Street gathering in New York five years ago, where he said:

“What is Christianity? It’s the Holy Spirit. What is the Holy Spirit? It’s an egalitarian community of believers who are linked by love for each other and who only have their own freedom and responsibility to do it. In this sense the Holy Spirit is here now, and down there on Wall Street there are pagans who are worshiping blasphemous idols. So all we need is patience.”

Underlying all of the accounts of freedom that I have shared with you this morning is an important aspect that is worth spelling out, namely that of choices. All three variants of freedom that we have looked at: “freedom to”, “freedom from” and “freedom with and for” focus on conditions being suitable for me to do what I want, initially by only considering my own self and eventually in a way where I seek the good, which is necessarily the good of others. However, even when conditions are favorable for me to act freely, there is an instant of choice in which I can decide to pursue my own selfish ends or the good of another. This important moment is described with great clarity by the Austrian psychiatrists and Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl, who wrote the following about his time at Auschwitz and in other concentration camps:

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom.”

Frankl’s experience of seeing his fellow prisoners use their freedom for the good of others even under the most extreme of barbaric, inhumane and unfree circumstances is both a great sign of hope and a challenge to us. No matter where I am, no matter what others are subjecting me to, I am still presented with choices where I can opt for a freedom with and for others.

The final example I would like to share with you is that of the Vietnamese Cardinal Francis Nguyễn Văn Thuận, who was kept prisoner in a communist “re-education” camp for 13 years and who spoke about his experience of freedom during that time in the following way, giving us an insight into his soul at a time when he faced the choices Frankl wrote about:

“When I was placed under solitary confinement, five guards were assigned to me who took it in turns to watch me, two at a time. Their leaders had told them: ‘We will replace you every two weeks with another group, so that you do not become ‘contaminated’ by this dangerous bishop.’ Soon they changed their minds though and decided: ‘We won’t replace you anymore: otherwise this bishop will contaminate all the guards!’

At first, the guards would not speak with me. They would only answer yes and no. It was really sad (...). They avoided talking to me.

One night I had a thought: ‘Francis, you are still very rich, you have the love of Christ in your heart; love them as Jesus loved you.’

The next day I began to love them even more, to love Jesus in them, smiling, exchanging kind words with them. I began to tell them stories about my travels abroad (...). They wanted to learn foreign languages: French, English ... My guards became my students!”

And so we arrive at the third paradox of freedom, expressed beautifully by St. Augustine:

“He that is kind is free, though he is a slave;
he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.”

Finally, I would like to make a suggestion. Let’s take this weekend, where we can put into practice the ideals of living for the good of the other, as an opportunity to experience the reality of what freedom is for each one of us.

Conscientious objection

1611 words, 8 min read

The supremacy of conscience in determining the actions of an individual is a key principle of the current Catechism of the Catholic Church, which, in no uncertain terms, presents it as the ultimate criterion: “A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself.” (CCC, §1790). Regardless of whether it is “right” or not - and it can certainly also be wrong! - “[i]n all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience in order that he may come to God, the end and purpose of life. It follows that he is not to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his conscience. Nor, on the other hand, is he to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience.” (Dignitatis Humanae, §3).

This is, indeed, not only the teaching of the Catholic Church, but also enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ articles 1 and 18:

“Article 1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 18. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

In practice, the picture is far from clear though, in that external forces - but internal ones too - often push in directions opposed to a person’s conscience and going against them can come with significant risks, to the point of putting one’s own life on the line. The United Nations themselves recognize this clearly and in their guidance about conscientious objection with regard to military service, give the following example of probably the earliest recorded conscientious objector:

“In the year 295, on reaching the age of 21, Maximilianus, as the son of a Roman army veteran, was called up to the legions. However, he reportedly told the Proconsul in Numidia that because of his religious convictions he could not serve as a soldier. He persisted in his refusal and was executed. He was subsequently canonized as Saint Maximilian.”

It may not always be a matter of life and death though, at least for the person whose conscience can come in conflict with external forces, such as a state’s laws, and the qualifier “certain” used in the Catechism as well as the knowledge that one's own conscience may be erroneous can both put a question mark over one's conscience. The principle of following it can therefore be less than unambiguous in practice and arguments for its bending and dulling can easily creep in. This may, in part be what has resulted in the, to my mind, disgraceful positions taken by some politicians and representatives of the Catholic Church in Central Europe with regard to the refugee crisis (and the opposite of what has thankfully lead many citizens as well as clergy and lay persons to do the right thing).

Against the above background, I would here like to translate parts of an interview that Cardinal Walter Kasper gave yesterday, in which he addressed the question of conscience in the context of the refugee crisis and with reference to the laws of individual states. Here Kasper starts his argument from the position of mercy:

“To welcome someone is a work of mercy and justice that goes beyond state laws. The Holy Year of Mercy reminds us about what the Old and New Testament teach: we must welcome as brothers and sisters those who arrive to us from oppressions and persecutions. And even before we understand whether or not they are to be considered refugees, we must remember that they are human beings and as such have the right to live in a healthy and free environment. It is clear that immigrants must respect the rules of the society that welcomes them, but we must be open because that is what Christian mercy asks of us.”

Next, he goes on to directly address how mercy and the laws of states relate:

“State laws are to be observed, but they are not the ultimate criterion of being a Christian. Mercy goes further. The state cannot give orders to mercy. In this sense, the laws stipulate a minimum level for the rules of coexistence, while mercy goes beyond. And it is only mercy that gives a certain warmth to our society, without it and without compassion we would live in a very cold society. [...] There is a question of conscience. One has to wonder if a man who has no documents can be returned to a country where he was persecuted. It is clear that a state has the right to ask for the documents of immigrants, but there is always room for individual conscience.”

In fact, Pope Francis took this same argument even beyond the confines of the Church, by emphasizing the inviolability of a person's conscience also in the case of non-believers (in one of his first acts as Pope - the letter to the atheist Eugenio Scalfari):

“[T]he mercy of God is limitless for those who turn to him with a sincere and contrite heart, the issue for the unbeliever lies in obeying his or her conscience. There is sin, even for those who have no faith, when conscience is not followed. Listening to and obeying conscience means deciding in the face of what is understood to be good or evil. It is on the basis of this choice that the goodness or evil of our actions is determined.”

And, some months earlier, in his remarks before the Angelus prayer, he explained what he means by conscience, in clearly Christian terms:

“[T]he importance, even for Jesus, of conscience [was this]: listening in his heart to the Father's voice, and following it. Jesus, in his earthly life, was not, so to speak, “remote-controlled”: He was the Word made flesh, the Son of God made man, and at one point he made a firm decision to go up to Jerusalem for the last time - a decision taken in His conscience, but not on His own: ​​with the Father, in full union with Him! He decided in obedience to the Father, in profound intimate attunement to the Father’s will. For this reason, then, the decision was steadfast: because it was taken together with the Father. In the Father, then, Jesus found the strength and the light for His journey. Jesus was free. His decision was a free one. Jesus wants us Christians to be free as he is: with that liberty, which comes from this dialogue with the Father, this dialogue with God. Jesus wants neither selfish Christians, who follow their egos and do not speak with God, nor weak Christians, without will: “remote-controlled” Christians, incapable of creativity, who seek ever to connect with the will of another, and are not free. Jesus wants us free, and this freedom – where is it found? It is to be found in the inner dialogue with God in conscience. If a Christian does not know how to talk with God, does not know how to listen to God, in his own conscience, then he is not free – he is not free.

So we also must learn to listen more to our conscience. Be careful, however: this does not mean we ought to follow our ego, do whatever interests us, whatever suits us, whatever pleases us. That is not conscience. Conscience is the interior space in which we can listen to and hear the truth, the good, the voice of God. It is the inner place of our relationship with Him, who speaks to our heart and helps us to discern, to understand the path we ought to take, and once the decision is made, to move forward, to remain faithful.”

During the press conference after his visit to the USA, Francis also explicitly applied this same principle to the scenario of a conflict between individual conscience and state law:

“[C]onscientious objection is a right, and enters into every human right. It is a right, and if a person does now allow for conscientious objection, he or she is denying a right. Every legal system should provide for conscientious objection because it is a right, a human right. Otherwise, we would end up selecting between rights: “this right is good, this one less so”. It is a human right. I am always moved when I read, and I have read it many times, when I read the “Chanson de Roland”, when there were all these Moors lined up before the baptismal font, and they had to choose between baptism and the sword. They had to choose. They weren’t permitted conscientious objection. It’s a right and if we want to have peace, we have to respect all rights.”

While its prominence has recently been heightened, conscience has been given great respect throughout the history of Christianity, which can also be seen in the following guidance given by St. Francis of Assisi to the leaders of his own order:

“If a superior give any order to one who is under him which is against that man's conscience, although he do not obey it yet he shall not be dismissed.”

At a time when obedience to hierarchy was unquestionable, Francis underlined the importance of placing conscience above obedience even in a context where authority may be exercised with the best of motives and by the best and most holy of people.

Enter darkness, make your closeness felt

1532 words, 8 min read

A book-length interview with Pope Francis, by the Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli and entitled “The Name of God is Mercy”, has been published today and I would here like to share some of my favorite passages with you (and encourage you to read it in full!).

First, there is Francis’ rooting of mercy in Ezekiel’s account of the foundation of Jerusalem:

“[M]ercy is God’s identity card. God of Mercy, merciful God. For me, this really is the Lord’s identity. I was always impressed by the story of Jerusalem as it is told in chapter 16 of the Book of Ezekiel. The story compares Jerusalem to a little girl whose umbilical cord wasn’t cut, who was left in blood and cast out. God saw her wallowing in blood, he washed the blood from her, he anointed her, he dressed her, and when she grew up he adorned her with silk and jewels. But she, infatuated with her own beauty, became a harlot, taking lovers not for money but paying them herself. God, however, will never forget his covenant and he will place her above her sisters so that Jerusalem will remember and be ashamed (Ezekiel 16:63), when she is forgiven for what she has done.

For me this is one of the most important revelations: you will continue to be the chosen people and all your sins will be forgiven. So mercy is deeply connected to God’s faithfulness. The Lord is faithful because he cannot deny himself. This is explained well by Saint Paul in the Second Letter to Timothy: “If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.” You can deny God, you can sin against him, but God cannot deny himself. He remains faithful.”

Second, Francis exalts the goodness of starting again over that of an (impossible) never failing:

“The most important thing in the life of every man and every woman is not that they should never fall along the way. The important thing is always to get back up, not to stay on the ground licking your wounds. The Lord of mercy always forgives me; he always offers me the possibility of starting over. He loves me for what I am, he wants to raise me up, and he extends his hand to me.”

In fact, earlier in the book, Francis is explicit about the impossibility of not sinning and follows it up with a great quote by St. Francis de Sales:

“We must take this sad reality of ours into account: no one can avoid sin, small or great, for very long. ‘But,’ as Saint Francis de Sales said, ‘if you have a little donkey and along the road it falls onto the cobblestones, what should you do?’ You certainly don’t go there with a stick to beat it, poor little thing; it’s already unfortunate enough. You must take it by the halter and say: ‘Up, let’s take to the road again . . . Now we will get back on the road, and we will pay more attention next time.’”

Third, there is a good number of personal experiences that Pope Francis shares in the book, to give his answers to Tornielli’s questions a fresh sense of concreteness and specificity. Of these one of my favorites is the following:

“Back when I was rector of the Collegio Massimo of Jesuits and a parish priest in Argentina, I remember a mother with young children, whose husband had left her. She did not have a steady job and only managed to find temporary work a couple of months out of the year. When there was no work, she had to prostitute herself to provide her children with food. She was humble, she came to the parish church, and we tried to help her with our charity, Caritas. I remember one day—it was during the Christmas holidays—she came with her children to the College and asked for me. They called me and I went to greet her. She had come to thank me. I thought it was for the package of food from Caritas that we had sent to her. “Did you receive it?” I asked. “Yes, yes, thank you for that, too. But I came here today to thank you because you never stopped calling me Señora.” Experiences like this teach you how important it is to welcome people delicately and not wound their dignity. For her, the fact that the parish priest continued to call her Señora, even though he probably knew how she led her life during the months when she could not work, was as—or perhaps even more—important than the concrete help that we gave her.”

Fourth, in response to being asked to clarify what he meant when he said that famous “who am I to judge” soon after being elected pope, Francis said:

“I am glad that we are talking about “homosexual people” because before all else comes the individual person, in his wholeness and dignity. And people should not be defined only by their sexual tendencies: let us not forget that God loves all his creatures and we are destined to receive his infinite love. I prefer that homosexuals come to confession, that they stay close to the Lord, and that we pray all together.”

Fifth, in the context of being asked about the “scholars of the law” whom Francis frequently lambasts in his homilies, he recalled a great quote from St. Ambrose’s De Abraham:

“When it comes to bestowing grace, Christ is present; when it comes to exercising rigor, only the ministers of the Church are present, but Christ is absent.”

Sixth, Francis addresses the important question put to him by Tornielli of whether there is a risk of “infection” when dealing with those who live in sin:

“We need to enter the darkness, the night in which so many of our brethren live. We need to be able to make contact with them and let them feel our closeness, without letting ourselves be wrapped up in that darkness and influenced by it. Caring for outcasts and sinners does not mean letting the wolves attack the flock. It means trying to reach everyone by sharing the experience of mercy, which we ourselves have experienced, without ever caving in to the temptation of feeling that we are just or perfect. The more conscious we are of our wretchedness and our sins, the more we experience the love and infinite mercy of God among us, and the more capable we are of looking upon the many “wounded” we meet along the way with acceptance and mercy. So we must avoid the attitude of someone who judges and condemns from the lofty heights of his own certainty, looking for the splinter in his brother’s eye while remaining unaware of the beam in his own. Let us always remember that God rejoices more when one sinner returns to the fold than when ninety-nine righteous people have no need of repentance.”

Seventh, there is also a great deal that made me smile in this book, like the following passage that, while clearly communicating a profound truth, does so with humor:

“At times I have surprised myself by thinking that a few very rigid people would do well to slip a little, so that they could remember that they are sinners and thus meet Jesus. I think back to the words of God’s servant John Paul I, who during a Wednesday audience said, “The Lord loves humility so much that sometimes he permits serious sins. Why? In order that those who committed these sins may, after repenting, remain humble. One does not feel inclined to think oneself half a saint, half an angel, when one knows that one has committed serious faults.””

Eighth, Pope Francis speaks beautifully about how compassion relates to mercy, using Jesus himself as the example:

“Let us reflect on the beautiful pages that describe the raising from the dead of the widow’s son. When Jesus arrived in the village of Nain in Galilee, he was moved by the tears of the widow, who was devastated by the loss of her only son. He says to her, “Woman, do not weep.” As Luke writes in the Gospel: “When the Lord saw her, he felt compassion for her” (7:13). God Incarnate let himself be moved by human wretchedness, by our need, by our suffering. The Greek verb that indicates this compassion is σπλαγχνίζομαι [splanchnízomai, ed.], which derives from the word that indicates internal organs or the mother’s womb. It is similar to the love of a father and mother who are profoundly moved by their own son; it is a visceral love. God loves us in this way, with compassion and mercy. Jesus does not look at reality from the outside, without letting himself be moved, as if he were taking a picture. He lets himself get involved. This kind of compassion is needed today to conquer the globalization of indifference. This kind of gaze is needed when we find ourselves in front of a poor person, an outcast, or a sinner. This is the compassion that nourishes the awareness that we, too, are sinners.”

Reason in Faith: God’s exile of love in the world

1592 words, 8 min read

The questions of how faith and reason relate to each other and to reality are of central importance in contemporary dialogue, and while I have previously focused on this topic with the desire to either make religious thought accessible to a non-religious reader or vice versa, I would here like to share a view “from inside”, a view that is deeply embedded in Christianity. I will do this by providing an English translation of a few passages from a book I have just read, in which the great Christian philosopher, Giuseppe Maria Zanghí, gives an account of his personal journey through philosophy. It is an account that is profoundly internal to its author, whose roots as a poet give the narrative both a mesmerizing beauty and, at times, call for his words to be be wrestled with repeatedly, putting us in the position of Jacob’s encounter with the angel (Genesis 32:22-33). Even if the result is defeat, and a hip injury, I believe that Zanghí’s words will leave us with an inner conviction that then allows for free, universal dialogue with all.

Zanghí, who in his youth met and then throughout his life followed Chiara Lubich, recounts this foundational piece of advice early on in the book:

“It was Chiara who [...] made me pay attention to all expressions of human enquiry, because, she told me, each of them had been, is in love with the truth and in one way or another had, has touched it. In all there is a patrimony of suffering, invocation, anticipation, which must be respected with humble attention and strong participation. “You have to learn from everyone,” she said, “so that you may draw near to all with love.””

It is with this conviction, that behind all human enquiry there is a desire for truth and that all human enquiry also arrives at some truth, that its various forms can be approached with humility and be candidates for participation.

In this context, Zanghí understands our engaging with reality as:

“a unitary discourse set in a reality that is wholly given as God-Love’s word of love. An intuitive discourse, in which a face of reality, infinite in its original source that is the Word of God, opens itself up rationally and thereby offers itself to our weakness, to be reached in its entirety by the unity of knowledge that is wisdom.”

Since the above is a highly concentrated expression of what engaging with reality consists in, Zanghí proceeds to spell out what he means and anchors thought in Jesus’ forsakenness on the cross (pp. 26-27):

“The philosopher’s¹ approach to reality does not presuppose a previous mathematical approach (as Plato wanted): it captures, in one go, an aspect of reality in which reality speaks-gives itself all-in-a-piece. To the philosopher (like the mathematician, physicist, artist), in their “innocence”, reality gives herself wholly, without mediation through other kinds of knowledge, but she presents herself with a face that expresses all of her concealed in her entirety.

Every field of knowledge grasps all that is real, but reality is given to it in a way that hides while revealing.

And here the fulfillment of Jesus’ question - the commandment of mutual love (John 15:12-17) - opens itself to the thinker (and the artist). Because it is in the actuality of this that the one reality can be approached by a perichoresis of different kinds of knowledge, in a circular dance of knowledge, that is light and in tune with the profound harmony of God. Each kind of knowledge is custodian of its approach to reality; reality that unfolds fully in the mutual embrace of the different kinds of knowledge, an embrace in which individual thinkers will be lead to stripping themselves of their own approaches, making them gifts for the others. To receive as a gift the real in its entirety, that transcends individual kinds of knowledge.

Jesus forsaken is always the teacher: being and non-being. Knowing how to face the “emptiness” that follows the true gift, “losing” one’s own knowledge out of love in the attentive listening to the other, joined in their knowledge by my knowledge, mine and no longer mine, and waiting for their gift of a response in which I find again my knowledge made more complete by theirs. Without making their knowledge pass through the maze, the grating of my knowledge, that would result in me being joined by none other than myself.

In this communion one can, in some way, catch, in the faces of reality through which it is reached by our knowledge, the one face that it speaks and does not speak, to reveal itself to our reciprocal love. Catching the face of the triune God, of Trinitarian perichoresis, that speaks itself while hiding in realities and opens itself in their communion.”

What Zanghí presents here in highly dense and poetic language is an understanding of reality, knowledge and God that is unlocked by what Jesus revealed about the Trinity, and therefore love, in his abandonment on the cross. Since love is about loving in a way that requires a total self-giving, to the point of becoming empty, and about being loved, where my emptiness is filled by the other’s total gift, and since the God whose very life is such love is the source of reality, it too can only be grasped in that same dynamic of love, and knowledge too follows the logic of self-giving to an empty recipient. As a result, reality (spoken by God) makes itself known to our mutual self-giving. Knowledge is received when we empty ourselves and offer ourselves as gifts to each other. In such a world, dialogue is fundamental, since it is the space where knowledge is received as gift. It becomes the privileged locus of understanding and participating in reality and the lives of others, rather than being a mere PR exercise or an attempt at influencing others and changing their minds.

With the above world-view, let’s finally turn to Zanghí’s reflection on faith and reason (pp. 38-39):

“Faith and reason are not two ways of knowing. Faith without reason would remain blind, suspended in emptiness. Reason without faith would remain unfulfilled desire. They would remain one outside the other, one foreign to the other, ripping man apart.

And reason could never offer its light, out of love, to penetrating in faith the mystery of God and as far as possible to opening his riches to a creature, allowing itself to be lead to the pinnacle of its power, and immersing in those riches the created realities. Reason, without faith, would remain folded in mortifying impotence.

And faith could not let penetrate to the heart of man the light of God who is God in his loving self-offering to the efforts of the creature - efforts which, moreover, are provoked by that very light. The promise of knowing in the way in which it is known (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:12) would remain unfulfilled, the order of created things would not be illuminated by the divine Order, by the Trinity, but would have to give itself a poor and unsatisfactory foundation and unfolding.

We must unite the divine that is offered in faith immersed as “form” in reason, and the human that is open in reason, pulled to himself by God, in faith for being filled with light. Without confusion and without separation.

For me it has been a beautiful experience to follow the rush of reason unfettered by cultural blocks, to the point of feeling it welcomed by God, who responds to it in faith, in a perichoresis, still on a journey, of the divine and the human.

Faith, due to one of its aspects, is, in some way, reason itself being led by God, in the ecstasy of cognitive love, outside itself, remaining itself but permeated by Christ.

Reason in faith is, in some way, the voice of God in its exile of love in the world.

Reason is the material offered to God who gives it human-divine form in faith.

Reason as the seal of divine love that participates in man, as a creature, his Logos.

Faith as the tenderness of God-Love for his creature, whom He does not want to burn with His divine power but lead, respecting it in its creaturely weakness, in a consuming embrace in which the creature, while entering the searing heart-mind of God, must remain herself.

Faith, in short, as a moment of mediation between that which I can here, as a man, know of God through the Revelation of God, and that which I will then know of God in God’s own way, no longer mediated through faith. Remaining man, like Jesus at the right hand of the Father is always the man of Nazareth.”

What strikes me as I re-read these passages for at least the tenth time is that clear both-and instead of an either-or that Zanghí establishes between faith and reason. On the one hand, the picture he presents can be seen as showing reason as supreme, since faith only plays a temporary role, as tender protection against the overwhelming power of God and therefore as a means for preserving our identity in the face of God. On the other hand, his words can also be heard as exalting faith above reason, since faith is reason transfigured, Christified, an expression of God’s love.

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¹ I will render Zanghí’s “metafisico” as “philosopher” even though it might be more correct - but arguably more cumbersome - to say “metaphysician”.

Aquinas’ rational analysis of mercy

1665 words, 8 min read

During this Year of Mercy, I would like to get a deeper and richer understanding of what mercy means and how it has been understood differently by a verity of thinkers. Looking back at the Synod on the Family, an obvious place to start is with St. Thomas Aquinas, who has been referred to there on several occasions as a benchmark and on whom Pope Francis too has relied when speaking about this subject. Among St. Thomas's works too there is a clear front-runner for getting a sense of how he understood mercy, which is his monumental Summa Theologiæ.

In the Introduction to the first part of the Summa, which runs to a total of 2.8 million words (!), St. Thomas presents his aims as follows:

“We purpose in this book to treat of whatever belongs to the Christian Religion, in such a way as may tend to the instruction of beginners. [... W]e shall try, by God's help, to set forth whatever is included in this Sacred Science as briefly and clearly as the matter itself may allow.”

While sophisticated arguments for the Summa's brevity could be constructed, it is clearly not a work you'd find in the “for dummies” section, and clarity too could be contested with the contemporary reader in mind. What still makes the Summa highly attractive, to my mind, is its deeply rational approach, whose frame of reference may be dated but whose principles and method are decidedly current.

Just by way of a sample, before we proceed to mercy, here is what St. Thomas has to say about discussing faith with those who don't have it:

“If our opponent believes nothing of divine revelation, there is no longer any means of proving the articles of faith by reasoning, but only of answering his objections—if he has any—against faith. Since faith rests upon infallible truth, and since the contrary of a truth can never be demonstrated, it is clear that the arguments brought against faith cannot be demonstrations, but are difficulties that can be answered.” [I, Q. 1, Art. 8, co.]

Taking the text at first sight, there are definitely things to get hung up about today - referring to one’s partner in dialogue as an opponent, making claims about infallibility - but, with even just a sprinkling of the Principle of Charity, there is also a lot here that is accessible: understanding the limits of how far a person of faith can take one who is without it by reason alone, positioning reason as an unlimited ally of faith and posing a challenge to those who have faith, including the author of the above paragraph himself, to be prepared to present their faith on the level playing field of reason and to do so with confidence. It is not hard to see how the above is an invitation to humble, yet confident, dialogue and how such an attitude is echoed also in one of Benedict XVI’s most impactful exhortations made only three years ago almost to this day: “[T]he Christian can afford to be supremely confident, yes, fundamentally certain that he can venture freely into the open sea of the truth, without having to fear for his Christian identity.”

Turning to mercy now, and looking at the vast expanse of the Summa, we find that St. Thomas speaks about it 471 times there. First, he starts of by thinking about whether it is even possible for God to be merciful and he comes to the initial conclusion that the answer here, strictly speaking, has to be a resounding “no” [when air first read this, I liked his confidence in going wherever the inescapable train of logic leads him :)]:

“[A] person is said to be merciful [misericors], as being, so to speak, sorrowful at heart [miserum cor]; being affected with sorrow at the misery of another as though it were his own. Hence it follows that he endeavors to dispel the misery of this other, as if it were his; and this is the effect of mercy. To sorrow, therefore, over the misery of others belongs not to God.” [I, Q. 21, Art. 3, co.]

To understand why St. Thomas dismisses the possibility of sorrow impelling God to act, let's go back to an earlier part of the Summa, where he presents his argument for God's immutability:

“God is altogether immutable [... because] there is some first being, whom we call God; and that this first being must be pure act, without the admixture of any potentiality, for the reason that, absolutely, potentiality is posterior to act. Now everything which is in any way changed, is in some way in potentiality. Hence it is evident that it is impossible for God to be in any way changeable.” [I, Q. 9, Art. 1, co.]

Whoa! What's with the potentiality versus act business? Let's backtrack a bit further to get to the bottom of this, key point:

“For although in any single thing that passes from potentiality to actuality, the potentiality is prior in time to the actuality; nevertheless, absolutely speaking, actuality is prior to potentiality; for whatever is in potentiality can be reduced into actuality only by some being in actuality. Now it has been already proved that God is the First Being. It is therefore impossible that in God there should be any potentiality.” [I, Q. 3, Art. 1, co.]

To get to the starting point then, we need to see how St. Thomas arrives at God being the First Being:

“But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot; but it is simultaneously potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.” [I, Q. 2, Art. 3, co.]

Let's bring this all together and attempt an ultra-synthetic reconstruction of St. Thomas' argument from first principles: Because potentiality and actuality are mutually exclusive concepts, there is a need for a causal chain, which in turn necessitates a starting point. This starting point is God - a God who by being the first act cannot contain potentiality but only actuality. This also precludes him from sorrow and the desire to alleviate it, and therefore from mercy.

Rather than picking holes into the above (of which I see plenty, including a misunderstanding of infinity [see 19th century mathematicians such as Georg Kantor] and of causality [see David Hume]), I'd like to underline the rational rigor of St. Thomas’ method where he proceeds from the best available understanding of basic concepts and follows their consequences through with aplomb.

But why does he come back to mercy 471 times if he dismisses its applicability to God in the first pages of the Summa? Actually, he does not dismiss it at all and only points out that, when defined in human terms, mercy does not fit God 1:1. God's mercy - and therefore the mercy that we are ultimately called to live - is something other:

“To sorrow, therefore, over the misery of others belongs not to God; but it does most properly belong to Him to dispel that misery, whatever be the defect we call by that name. Now defects are not removed, except by the perfection of some kind of goodness; and the primary source of goodness is God, as shown above (Q. 6, A. 4). It must, however, be considered that to bestow perfections appertains not only to the divine goodness, but also to His justice, liberality, and mercy; yet under different aspects. The communicating of perfections, absolutely considered, appertains to goodness, as shown above (Q. 6, AA. 1, 4); in so far as perfections are given to things in proportion, the bestowal of them belongs to justice, as has been already said (A. 1); in so far as God does not bestow them for His own use, but only on account of His goodness, it belongs to liberality; in so far as perfections given to things by God expel defects, it belongs to mercy.” [I, Q. 21, Art. 3, co.]

Human mercy hinges on identifying the other’s suffering with my own and alleviating it as my own. It is applied only to those others in whom I see myself. In some sense human mercy therefore passes through selfishness - I help you, but I do it by alleviating the root cause of my own suffering, which is your suffering. God’s mercy instead is devoid of selfish motives and is the result of goodness and justice given freely. I don't believe St. Thomas is speaking against human mercy here, but that he is pointing to what perfect justice looks like, as arrived at from rational first principles, and that this mercy is effectively a purified form of our own, where the good is done for its own sake and where all are therefore destinataries of mercy.

Comte-Sponville: non-dogmatic, faithful, atheist mysticism

1189 words, 6 min read

Avvenire, the Italian daily affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, has published a very interesting piece yesterday by the French atheist philosopher André Comte-Sponville, entitled “The atheist believes … But does not know whether God exists.” As I started reading it, I was immediately reminded of an enriching exchange with some atheist friends of mine - especially SC - after I wrote a very negative review of Dawkins’ The God Delusion some three years’ ago. SC, at the time, presented a new type of atheism to me, which acknowledges its belief in there being no God, as opposed to the New Atheists’ argument for that position following directly from rationality. Reading Comte-Sponville’s words made me immediately recognize that same position, and I would like to share an English translation of it with you here:

““Religion” and “spirituality” are not synonyms, nor should they be put on the same level. These two concepts function instead like species and genus: religions are a certain species, or several species, of the genus spirituality, but from among the many possible, some of which do very well without any personal God, indeed without any form of transcendence. [... S]pirituality is [simply] the life of the spirit.

Etymology speaks clearly: the two words, “spirit” and “spirituality”, derive from the Latin spiritus, which refers first of all to vital breath and, in second place, to inspiration, genius, wit, esprit. Now, atheists, as far as I know them, have no less spirit than others. Why should they have less spirituality? Why should they care less about spiritual life? As for me, I have always been interested in it. That’s how it was at the time of my youth, when I was a practicing Christian; but since I stopped believing in God, spirituality interests me even more, which might seem paradoxical and leads us to the heart of our subject. Those who have a religion, also have the spirituality that characterizes it. But how about those who do not belong to a religion? They seems devoid of spiritual resources, especially in the West. Even more reason to think about it. I summarize my position in one sentence: I am a non-dogmatic and faithful atheist. Why atheist? This is the simplest question: I do not believe in any God. Let’s not dwell on the reasons for my not believing; doing so would take me far away from the theme of my argument here, which is not metaphysics, but spirituality. Why a non-dogmatic atheist?

Because I obviously recognize that my atheism is not knowledge. How could it be? No one knows, in the true and strong sense of the verb “to know” whether God exists or not. It depends very much on the question that is addressed to me. If I am asked: “Do you believe in God?”, The answer is very simple: “No, I do not believe.” But if someone asks me, “Does God exist?”, the answer is necessarily more complicated, because, for intellectual honesty, I must begin by saying that I know nothing about it. Nobody knows. I say in my book, if anyone says, “I know for certain that God does not exist,” you are not dealing with an atheist, but a fool. The truth is that I do not know. Likewise, if you meet someone who tells you: “I know that God exists,” he is a fool who has faith, and who, foolishly, confuses faith with knowledge. But in the confusion between faith and knowledge I see a double error: a theological error, because in any respectable theology (at least in Christian theology) faith is a grace, while knowledge can not be; and a philosophical error, because it confuses two different concepts, that of belief and that of knowing. In short, I do not know if God exists or not; I believe that he does not.

A non-dogmatic atheism is an atheism that admits its own status as a belief, in this specific case a negative beliefs. Being non-dogmatic atheists is to believe (rather than to know) that God does not exist. But why a non-dogmatic and faithful atheist? A faithful atheist because, as an atheist, I remain bound with every fiber of my being to a number of values - moral, cultural, spiritual - many of which were born in the great religions and, in the case of Europe, the Judeo-Christian one (unless one wants to deny their history). […] Being an atheist doesn’t mean that I have to turn my back on 2000 years of Christian civilization or 3000 years of Judeo-Christian civilization.

Because I no longer believe in God doesn’t mean that I refuse to recognize the greatness, at least human, of the Gospel message. A spirituality without God is a spirituality of loyalty rather than of faith and of love in action rather than of hope. I could stop here, but I would be left with a feeling of not having touched the essentials. I said earlier that spirituality is the life of the spirit. Fine. But if the word is taken in such a broad sense, every human phenomenon ends up falling under the umbrella of spirituality: morality and ethics, of course, but also science and myths, the arts and politics, feelings or dreams. All this belongs to the spiritual life in a broad sense (in its cognitive, mental or emotional dimensions), to the life that, for clarity, you could define as psychological or mental (from the Greek psyche and the Latin mens, two words that can also be translated by the word “spirit”, but in semantic terms very different from those derived from the Latin spiritus). Now, it is not at all these areas that you think of when it comes to spiritual life.

It is better to take the word “spirituality” in a narrower sense (although, paradoxically, a more open one), making it a sort of subset of our mental or psychological life. The definition I propose is the following: spirituality is the life of the spirit, but especially in its relationship with the infinite, eternal, the absolute. This meaning seems to me to conform to its use and tradition. Our spiritual life is our finite relationship with the infinite, our temporal relationship with eternity, our relative relationship with the absolute. Thus defined, spirituality, at its must extreme, culminates in what is usually called mysticism.”

In an earlier interview, Comte-Sponville expands on what he means by “the absolute” as follows:

“This absolute, for them, isn’t a person, but the being or the becoming, the whole or nature, let’s say the immanent totality which contains them and surpasses them. They can ponder it, think about it, it’s what we call metaphysical, but also try it out, live it, and it’s this we call spirituality. We are open in the grand Open, as Rilke says. This opening, it’s the same spirit. Should I, because I am atheist, renounce all experience of eternity, the infinite, and the absolute? Certainly not. Many philosophers – for example Epicurus and Spinoza – have challenged the existence of a transcendental spirit, without renouncing the enjoyment of what Epicurus called ‘immortal rights’. It’s this I call a spirituality of immanence.”