Monday, March 23, 2015
How To Think About Things
James V. Schall, S.J. writes at "The Catholic Thing" about the phrase "Who am I to judge?":
My wife worries about me constantly. Often to the point where I get annoyed. "Drive carefully." -- "Don't fall," she says as I stumble with my bad knees. As much as I bristle at how childish I feel as she admonishes me as if I were a child, they are expression of her deep love for me. Love wishes to save its object from harm.
"Ah," you may counter, "Where's the harm in, say, homosexual practice?" There is a deep theological answer that has to do with the fact that simple disobedience of God's command harms us on levels unimaginable. (God does after all declare such behavior as an "abomination.") I also believe that the difference in sex drives between men and women will lead, should homosexual behavior become readily acceptable, to demographic disaster. Men always in search of easy sex will choose the easiest place to get it - other men. And women, always in search of bonding will turn to other women who bond so much more readily than men do. But many choose not to believe in God, or refuse to look that far over the horizon. "Where's the harm tonight?"
I have no ready answers. Thus if the society at large chooses to legitimize completely homosexual practice, I am without argument. But when God's church does so it blesses abomination. It places its imprimatur upon that which God has specifically declared wrong. It is, theologically, no different than if we had a thief come into church with his loot and prayed with him a prayer of blessing on the bounty that had befallen him. The church simply is no longer a credible moral agent.
It makes me weep.
acceptance love morality religion thought
The glorious run of “Who am I to judge?” has often become a tool to reverse the moral order. It can confuse the liberation that comes from acting rationally within metaphysical and moral order with acting “freely,” wherein nothing exists but what “I judge,” whatever I choose.It saddens me what a confused age we live in, where unconditional love = unconditional acceptance. That means we, in the name of love, are supposed to passively accept it when someone engages in behavior that harms themselves and/or harms others. That makes no sense if you think about it.
My wife worries about me constantly. Often to the point where I get annoyed. "Drive carefully." -- "Don't fall," she says as I stumble with my bad knees. As much as I bristle at how childish I feel as she admonishes me as if I were a child, they are expression of her deep love for me. Love wishes to save its object from harm.
"Ah," you may counter, "Where's the harm in, say, homosexual practice?" There is a deep theological answer that has to do with the fact that simple disobedience of God's command harms us on levels unimaginable. (God does after all declare such behavior as an "abomination.") I also believe that the difference in sex drives between men and women will lead, should homosexual behavior become readily acceptable, to demographic disaster. Men always in search of easy sex will choose the easiest place to get it - other men. And women, always in search of bonding will turn to other women who bond so much more readily than men do. But many choose not to believe in God, or refuse to look that far over the horizon. "Where's the harm tonight?"
I have no ready answers. Thus if the society at large chooses to legitimize completely homosexual practice, I am without argument. But when God's church does so it blesses abomination. It places its imprimatur upon that which God has specifically declared wrong. It is, theologically, no different than if we had a thief come into church with his loot and prayed with him a prayer of blessing on the bounty that had befallen him. The church simply is no longer a credible moral agent.
It makes me weep.
acceptance love morality religion thought
