Apologetics and Dispensationalists

<b>This post represents the clarification promised in my previous post concerning my views on our Apologetics priorities. I have now received Carl Olson's book Will Catholics be Left Behind and will begin reading it tonight. I believe, based on my first observation, that the book is a proper response to the problems discussed below, ie., it is aimed at presenting the truth of these issues to Catholics who may well be innocent of them.


The Catholic Church teaches that, since her founding, coincident with the descent of the Holy Spirit on the waiting Apostles at Pentecost, she has possessed the fullness of truth. She believes that this fullness of truth is guaranteed to her by the continuing presence of the Holy Spirit in her midst.

Since her founding two millennia ago the Church has faced two great challenges to the fullness of truth which she possesses. One came with the Protestant Reformation and it's elevation of the judgment of the individual over that of the Magisterium of the Church. The other finds its roots in the Enlightenment. The present day heritage of the Enlightenment is the predominantly secular-materialist worldview that we live with today.

There is a qualitative difference between these two challenges faced by the Catholic Church. The difference is that the children of the Reformation, while challenging the teaching authority and unity of the Church do not deny Christ, nor do they deny the necessity, for the most part, of obeying the two Great Commandments Jesus gave us, love of God with heart, mind and strength, and love of neighbor as one loves oneself. While they may not possess the fullness of truth they do possess elements of the truth and share in communion with the Church, albeit an imperfect one.

Those who subscribe to the predominant secular-materialist worldview of today’s society, however, deny absolutely even the possibility of the existence of not only a Supreme Being but of the existence of objective truth and the possibility of moral absolutes that govern human behavior as well. This worldview that is so evident in our universities, our media and our courts is inimical to the interests of the Church. It allows no possibility of communion with the Church and many of its proponents would be just as happy if the Church were eliminated from any presence in society.

There are numerous examples of this already occurring. For example, a student in Washington State who won a scholarship had it withdrawn when it was learned he planned to major in Pastoral studies. An abortion protester was sued under RICO statutes by pro-abortion foes when his protests began to have an effect. Christmas displays in city parks that had been set up for years have suddenly become horrible violations of the "separation of church and state" clause. (By the way, has anyone ever actually found that clause of the Constitution?) One party in the 2002 US elections attempted to portray Christians as religious bigots and/or zealots, indistinguishable from the Islamic Fundamentalists who killed 3,000 people at the World Trade Center. Many people unquestioningly accept the idea that if Christian believers are not blood-thirsty, baby-killing terrorists, in league with Al-Queda, then they are intellectual and emotion simpletons, who must be excluded from any role in society.

This hostility is not, however, directed only against Catholic Christians. It is directed against Christians of every stripe; there is no particular discrimination between Catholics and Protestants. It results in the situation we have in society today where abortion has become a "right" and moral limits on personal conduct are denied.

I would say that all Christians share a common bond because they all understand that God created us as human beings for a purpose, there is a supreme goal set for each of our lives. The goal is to spend eternity with God in heaven. Anything that keeps us from reaching that goal must be overcome; there is nothing more important in our lives. Outright rejection of Christ and God’s law written in our hearts will keep us from reaching that goal. I believe the modern, secular-materialist worldview present in society today represents, with its rejection of both God and his Commandments, a huge threat to our ability to practice and profess our Christian faith and achieve our final destiny. Failing to resist it may well mean eternal separation from God.

While we wish to bring our separated brothers and sisters in Christ to the fullness of truth, it is just as important to present the truth of Christ to society in general. Our Protestant brothers and sisters, however lacking in the fullness of truth they may be, remain, nevertheless, brothers and sisters in Christ -- separation is not divorce and estrangement.

My original post questioned the fact that so many Catholics seem to spend a lot of time getting worked up over the very visible presence of Dispensationalist theology in the literary market place today. It seems to me that dispensationalists, while they may be in error in regards to the truth as we understand it are still Christians. They do not deny Christ. They may even be anti-Catholic, but they do not represent the danger to Catholics that the secular-materialist worldview so prevalent in society today does.

It may also be that views about society and culture that come out of dispensationalist theology may be questionable, or even goofy. I don't know about this and will have to read Carl Olson's book to gain some insight into this question. Where they are in error they should be confronted with the truth. But judging from the Doctrinal Statement published by one of the preeminent dispensationalist seminaries in the country, I don't see a completely anti-Christian worldview contained therein. It seems not greatly different from that of many Protestant statements of faith.

The point of my post, then, is that it seems, in terms of our apologetics effort, we should consider our priorities.

Christopher Dawson writes that the problem facing Catholics today is not that of being a minority in a predominately Christian culture, the problem facing Catholics is confronting an increasingly secular-materialistic culture. The culture today has made great headway in divorcing religion from nearly all other aspects of human life. One of the reasons this is so is that many Catholics are so poorly catechized in the truth of the faith that they easily fall prey to the pressures of society all around them. They have no way to resist because they don’t even realize there is anything to resist. Their lives are virtually indistinguishable from those of their pagan neighbors, when they should be quite different. They may also be falling prey to the overtures of Evangelicals or Fundamentalists, again from ignorance of the differences in Christian belief between Protestants and Catholics. However, I believe this is our fault, not theirs.

It seems to me all of this places a very high priority on teaching Catholics the basics of the faith so as to more effectively challenge the secular-materialist worldview of society. A second priority is presenting the fullness of truth to our separated brothers and sisters in Christ. I think at times these priorities are reversed. We find it easier to argue with our Protestant brothers and sisters for the very reason that we speak different dialects of the same language. But the generally accepted attitude present in society today is that religion is to be removed from every corner of society; unless this view is challenged and a return made to the Christian traditions of Western society, it will make little difference whether we agree with our Protestant brothers and sisters or not. As Benjamin Franklin said, we should all hang together or we may well all hang separately.

We may well be fiddling while Rome burns.

Left Behind


I would like to post an email I received from Carl Olson in response to an email I sent him in response to his comment on my Left Behind post. I thnk he misunderstands my intent in the post and I will do a further explanation by early next week.

I have ordered his book and hope that you all will too, as I think it should be an interesting discussion of trends in society that he sees resulting from the dispensationalist movement.

I hope you all have a blessed Easter.

Paz y bien



Dear Ron,

Thanks for the response and for the additional explanation. I'm glad you contacted me, for it gives me a chance to apologize and to explain myself a bit better. I apologize first because my note was rather brusque and even a bit antagonistic. I did not take your post to be critical, but I did overreact a bit to it, and I apologize for my harshness.

My book was written not to merely critique the Left Behind series, but to provide a thorough explanation and refutation of premillennial dispensationalism, especially (and I emphasize this) in the context of history and Catholic teaching. In addition, my book provides a great deal of catechetical material. In fact, it is meant to be very catechetical. As a former parish catechist, one of my lifelong goals is to catechize and teach the Catholic Faith as best I can.

The main reason for the catechetical content of my book is because the vital issue in all of this is NOT end times events as much as Christology and ecclesiology. The real disagreement between dispensationalists and other Christians, especially Catholics, is not over the identity of the Antichrist or the place of America in end times events, but rather the nature and mission of the Church and her relationship to the Kingdom. To that end, I don't spend time tracing all of the various dispensationalist ideas regarding Iraq, China, the U.S., Russia, etc. (however, you can read my article on that topic here: http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=200)

I think you'll agree that the topics of the Church and the Kingdom are very significant, and not to be taken lightly. In my book, I actually spend very little time talking about the Left Behind stories, but show how those books are simply another form of propagating a view of history, God, Christ, the Church, the Kingdom, and the Bible that is seriously flawed, but incredibly influential. The dispensationalist method of reading the Bible has influenced Americans, including Catholics, in ways most people cannot even fathom. It's not a matter of conspiracy, but simply the power of this belief system and how it appears to interpret Scripture. Many of it's individual tenets have been adopted, often unwittingly, by many folks, skewing their perspective on issues as varied as the Middle East, the Bible, salvation, the Catholic Church, and so much more.

Paul Boyer, a non-Catholic historian and author of the excellent book, When Time Shall Be No More, has written the following:

"I advance two related arguments: first, that prophecy belief is far more central in American thought than intellectual and cultural historians have recognized, and second, that in the years since World War II the popularizers of a specific belief system­­dispensational premillennialism­­have played an important role in shaping public attitudes on a wide range of topics from the Soviet Union, the Common Market, and the Mideast to the computer and the environmental crisis" (When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), p. ix.)

I have found, in my personal experience, that many Catholics are being sucked into dispensationalist ideas and tendencies, often without knowing it. My book seeks to provide them with sound Church teaching, backed by the Catechism, numerous Church documents, and the writings of sound theologians. The table of contents to be my book is as follows:

Will Catholics Be "Left Behind"? An Introduction

PART ONE: The Story of the Rapture . . . and So Much More
1. The Parousia, the Rapture, and the End Times
2. Catholics and the Left Behind Phenomenon
3. Book of Confusion or Revelation?
4. The Millennium: How Long is a Thousand Years?
5. Millenarianism: Early Church to John Nelson Darby
6. Dispensationalism and the Rapture in America

PART TWO: A Catholic Critique of Dispensationalism
7. The Kingdom, the Church, and Israel
8. "Bible Prophecy" and Interpreting Scripture
9. Unwrapping the Rapture

CONCLUSION
10. The Catholic Vision

List of Key Terms
List of Key Persons
Selected Bibliography

---------

As you can see, I do "fry" many big fish. :-) I spend an entire chapter examining the book of Revelation; another address the issue of the millennium. Another is devoted to the Church, the Kingdom, and Israel. An entire chapter, the final one, provides readers with a Catholic vision of history, salvation, and end times events.

My book should not only help Catholics, but provides the thoughtful dispensationalist with a great deal of material that will be hard to refute or ignore. It also presents the Catholic Church and her beliefs in a way that I think it is compelling, educational, and even inspiring. In short (and I am running long), this is the book I wish I could have read about ten years ago.

Anyhow, I hope this explanation is helpful. Thank you for your interest in my book. I would welcome your comments once you have read it. And you are free to pass along this info to anyone you know, or post it on your blog. Thank you and God bless!

Pax Christi,

Carl Olson
Editor, Envoy
carl@envoymagazine.com

Cowboys

I've had a thought crossing my mind in the last few days and had even done a first draft of this post when, low and behold, President Bush echoed something of the same theme in his speech in St. Louis today. So, since it appears that great minds do indeed think alike, it is time to do another post.

I began thinking about the topic for this post after buying the first Country & Western album I have ever acquired. The album is Toby Keith's Unleashed with his song The Angry American. I couldn't resist. I began to wonder why I bought it when it occurred to me the reason is that it portrays something of America that we haven't seen much of since the Viet Nam war. The song is by an American who is not ashamed to be an American. It is a song about a proud nation that is willing to stand and fight for its principles. The guy who wrote it is pretty clear what those basic principles are, too. He believes in honesty, fairness, justice and truth. This is what America has been about since the day the Pilgrims landed in the east coast of this continent. The country has been about sincerely and honestly following one's well-formed conscience and doing the right thing, loving God and neighbor, defending the weak and seeing that everyone is treated fairly. We have lost sight of this in the last several years in an orgy of self-indulgence, but perhaps times are changing.

We haven't always done a perfect job of living up to our ideals, but the ideals have been there none the less. These ideals are the reasons that immigrants from other countries, my father and mother included, have come here and been proud to be Americans, forsaking their own nationalities and heritage.

There is a unique aspect of the American character that has been on display for all the world to see in the last month or so. This unique characteristic comes, clearly, from America's Christian heritage and it is as beautiful as it is simple. President Bush today described it when he talked about American soldiers who, one minute were engaged in fierce combat with their enemies and the next were caring for and treating enemy wounded and burying enemy dead.

On a larger scale, I believe it is nearly unique in the history of man that a nation would invade another nation with no intention of colonization or conquest. America engaged in the war in Iraq for two purposes, one was self-defense, the other was ridding Iraq country of an evil, abusive government. When this adventure is over it is the sincere hope of the United States Government and its people that Iraq stands as a free, self-governing nation. This may be idealistic, but it is typically American. I think there is a good chance that this idealistic enterprise will succeed. Iraqis are already protesting in the street and that is a remarkable thing; it shows that they feel safe to do so with Americans temporarily in control of the country.

The reason I say this comes from our Christian heritage is that it displays an inherent recognition that all men are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights". When an American soldier treats the wounds of a man who was, only minutes before trying to kill him, is that not forgiveness acted out seventy times seven? The former enemy has the same right to be treated with dignity and respect as any American soldier; Americans would not brutalize an enemy soldier just for the sake of seeing him suffer.

President Bush has been called a "cowboy" by some of our erstwhile European allies. When I was growing up this was not a label for someone who was wild and uncontrolled, but someone who was capable, reverent, hard working, independent, and confident. I think it is not a bad thing to be a "cowboy", because a cowboy is the proto-typical American. To refresh our memories of exactly what a "cowboy" has stood for in this country I quote below "The Lone Ranger Creed".

The Lone Ranger Creed!
By: Fran Striker

"I believe that to have a friend,
a man must be one.

That all men are created equal
and that everyone has within himself
the power to make this a better world.

That God put the firewood there
but that every man
must gather and light it himself.

In being prepared
physically, mentally, and morally
to fight when necessary
for that which is right.

That a man should make the most
of what equipment he has.

That 'This government,
of the people, by the people
and for the people'
shall live always.

That men should live by
the rule of what is best
for the greatest number.

That sooner or later...
somewhere...somehow...
we must settle with the world
and make payment for what we have taken.

That all things change but truth, and that truth alone, lives on forever. In my Creator, my country, my fellow man."


Not too bad, for a cowboy.

Truth

Mark, at Minute Particulars, (commenting on a post by Steven at Flos Carmeli) makes two statements that I would like to take at least minor exeception to.

The first is a statement that he actually (properly) refutes in the rest of his post. The only reason I call attention to the statement is that I make a plea for care in the use of terms, especially the word truth. The reason I am concerned about this is that I think we are all affected by the perception abroad in the world today that truth is relative, the "your truth is not my truth" syndrome. The part of his post that I take exception to is as follows:

"But even if his suggestion really does boil down to a double-truth claim: a truth revealed by faith contradicting a truth from reason alone, or vice versa. . ."

I hope it is evident to everyone that truth 1) cannot be "double-truth", and 2) cannot be contradicted. If something is true, it is true. A truth revealed by faith may not seem to correspond to anything we know by reason or science, but if it is true it will never be contradicted by reason or science, it is true.

The second statement is as follows:

"When folks say that they will continue to believe in something that reason has demonstrated to be impossible, they are being foolish, or rather, they aren't really saying anything intelligible because they are in essence saying "A is A and A is not A at the same time in the same respect." They might as well say 'blambo forstine inblims abadaba.'"

Here is another case in which some care might be exercised. It seems to me that if I say I believe in the Resurrection I am saying I believe in something that my reason tells me is certainly out of the ordinary, if not impossible. If I say that I believe that Jesus ascended physically into Heaven, I am saying I believe in something my reason tells me no one could ever do. If I say I believe that Jesus is present in the Eucharist, body, blood, soul and divinity, I am saying that I believe in something that my reason tells me is impossible. My reason has demonstrated to me that a person who was crucified 2,000 years ago could not possibly be entirely present in every Host in every Tabernacle in every Church everywhere in the world, at the same time no less.

We do believe in things that our reason tells us are impossible, but not unreasonable, and these things are called miracles.

I guess my point is that our reason, being finite, does not serve as the ultimate arbiter of what is true or not true, what we are to believe or not believe, at least not when it is used in the scientific way. In fact, I might go so far as to say that it would be very hard for us to know any truth solely by reason due to the fact that our minds are so finite when faced with the reality of God.

Back to the main point of Mark's post, which, by the way, is covered in an excellent way in our Holy Father's encyclical Fides et Ratio, truth revealed by faith may be known by us in a different way than one revealed through reason, but it is no less true.

Pacifism

Steven at Flos Carmelli has done another post that got me thinking. I had not planned to write anymore about either the war itself or the justification for it but Steven's post has made me overcome this reticence.

He asks the question, "Is pacifism justified?" When I began to write this post my answer was "perhaps". Having thought through the issue a bit I think it is possible to say simply “no, it is not".

First it might be helpful to define the word pacifism. Pacifism could be defined as a refusal to bear arms or resort to violence to settle disputes (on moral grounds). It means that the person who declares himself a pacifist believes that it is never legitimate to use violence to deter others who are, say, pursuing a morally unacceptable, even lethal, course of action.

I believe that, although those who claim to be pacifists generally seem to think they are taking the high moral ground, they are in fact indulging in a serious moral failure. To understand this we need only to consider the origins and outcome of World War II, i.e., the responsibility of national governments to protect their citizens from external threat.

When national leaders fail in their responsibility we have a situation such as that faced by the Western Allies prior to World War II. In the decade leading up to the war, the 1930’s, the leaders of Britain and France decided to appease Adolph Hitler in order to obtain a short-term peace. The result was that millions of people were killed in a war that could easily have been averted had the leaders of the Allies been willing to demonstrate to Hitler that his aggressive inclinations would not be tolerated. Hitler, as he himself later admitted, would have been easily stopped and probably destroyed by Allied action in 1933 or '34. The Allied leaders did not oppose Hitler when it would have been easy and instead plunged their nations, and the United States into a World War that saw, among other atrocities 6 million Jews go to their deaths. The fact of the matter is appeasement never works.

I believe that the present conflict in Iraq closely follows the parallel with Hitler and World War II. Many people will say that Saddam Hussein is a mere tinhorn dictator who has no capability to inflict harm on "our side." That is exactly what was said of Hitler in the early 1930's. We would do well to remember that the tinhorn dictator Saddam Hussein has already killed over 2 million people; there is little reason to believe that he would stop there.

It should be clear that I believe the primary reason the war in Iraq is being fought is to defend the citizens of the United States from the external threat of terrorism and from the even greater overall threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism. It would be a truly wonderful thing if, in addition to achieving this goal, we also achieve the goal of bringing peace, democracy, and freedom from oppression by a cruel tyrant, to the people of Iraq, but that is not the main goal we should be seeking.

I believe this is a war to protect our most cherished freedoms. We should all be mindful of the tendency for Islam to equate religion with the state and to believe that the only way to evangelize was at the point of the sword. The ideas of the dignity of the human person, human free will, and a loving, personal, merciful God are foreign to Islam. We have seen, up close and personal, the practical effects of this "worldview" and its implications at the World Trade Center in New York City. Those who are afraid that the war in Iraq will bring a wave of terrorism to the United States have very short memories; it has been here since September 11, 2001.

In the end it seems to me that pacifism is a kind of withdrawal from the responsibility to choose good and avoid evil. It is a kind of nihilism that says nothing is any more important than anything else and we should all just "live and let live." As I have said before, if there is nothing worth dying for, there is nothing much worth living for. There are plenty of people in the world who are more than willing for us to die for their beliefs.

In contrast to this attitude, I am reminded of God's instructions to the Israelites as they were about to enter into the Promised Land. In certain towns they were told to destroy every living thing in the town, every man, woman and child -- nothing should be left alive. The reason for this apparently cruel and arbitrary instruction is too often missed. It was not that the enemies of Israel could not be converted, it was the threat posed to the Israelites of being converted to the paganism of their enemies. That danger was so great and the Israelites were so spiritually weak, that the presence of their enemies could not be tolerated; they had to be destroyed. We in the West are in the same or greater spiritual danger today -- we live in a society that is rapidly becoming more pagan than Christian. We should be willing, if necessary, to oppose those who would destroy us with whatever force is necessary to stop them, it is a matter of life and death, both physical and spiritual. We should not tolerate anything that separates us from God.

I do not say that war is good, only that at times it is necessary. It is not something to be sought and it can have terrible consequences for those involved in it, but there are times when the cost of avoiding it is even greater. The United States has fought wars that were not in defense of our national interests, Viet Nam comes immediately to mind, and these must be avoided. But when it becomes necessary to fight a war we should be prepared militarily, psychologically, morally and spiritually, trusting in God that his will be done. As the preacher says:

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to rrefrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.”

The Rapture

Carl Olsen, over at Envoy Encore, has just published a book that looks very interesting. The title is Will Catholics be Left Behind? He has also challenged Tim LaHaye, author of the Left Behind series to a duel, well actually a debate, on the issues raised in LaHaye’s dispensationalist theology. There are many Catholic apologists who are up in arms about the Left Behind series and a great deal of ink has been spilled concerning these books. To be honest, while I do wish to read the book, the arguments over the theology are, I think, much ado about nothing.

First of all, the dispensationalist movement is hardly a major part of Protestant theology even after the success of the Left Behind books. It seems to me this set of ideas, the rapture, and the tribulation, all of that, while becoming more prominent, is not really a major theme in mainstream Protestantism. The fundamentalist and charismatic movements are more prominent these days. When I was still a Presbyterian I had hardly ever heard of these ideas, they were certainly considered a fringe movement. The books have created quite a sensation, but I believe this is much broader than it is deep.

Second, the problem with both the theology behind the books and the drastic, even overblown, response to them, especially from Catholic apologists is that no one, “not even the angels in heaven”, to quote Jesus, really knows what will happen at the end times. Only the Father knows for sure what will happen and when. Furthermore, we are not to be concerned about such things. Jesus says we are to “Watch”. Arguing, debating, writing books, arguing Protestant dispensationalist theology is much like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. How can we ever arrive at a satisfactory conclusion? We can’t.

We should be spending our time in the more profitable activities of growing in personal holiness and spreading God’s Kingdom on earth. There is a great deal of profitable work that can be done here and we take time from them to argue impossible questions. Our concern should be the here and now, on things we can influence, not on something we are specifically told by Jesus not to be concerned with. We know that Jesus will come at a time of the Father's choosing, and we are to be prepared, that's all we can know.

As for the Left Behind books themselves, I think there is a least one thing that can be said for them: they are well written, suspense filled stories. The sheer volume of their sales leads us to conclude these good stories are being read by, not just Christians but many people in society who have never given serious thoughts to what will happen to them at the end of their lives. This is not bad. It may lead many non-believers into a Protestant church, fundamentalist or dispensationalist or whatever, but for all we know that may be the first step for many on their journey into the true Church. To see Catholic apologists attacking the ideas leading these people to belief on the basis of esoteric theological notions can’t be helpful.

I know these Catholic apologists are afraid the books will lead many poorly catechized Catholics out of the Church. The response to this fear is not to attack the books but to improve Catholic catechesis. There is much more productive work to be done here. In fact, for most people in the pews to understand why the Left Behind books are faulty, for them to understand what the Catholic apologists are even talking about, a great deal of catechesis needs to be done. Otherwise the arguments are futile.

I hope to read Carl Olsen’s book, I believe it would be helpful to understand this theology and I’m sure the book will make a contribution towards this goal. But let’s keep things in perspective and concentrate on what needs to be done here and now. Let’s figure out what’s important and concentrate our efforts there, not on subjects we can never present a real answer to.

Your religion is where your love is. - Henry David Thoreau

Real Freedom

In his encyclical letter, Fides et Ratio, John Paul II wrote:

"Moreover, a cursory glance at ancient history shows clearly how in different parts of the world, with their different cultures, there arise at the same time the fundamental questions which pervade human life: Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life? These are the questions which we find in the sacred writings of Israel, as also in the Veda and the Avesta; we find them in the writings of Confucius and Lao-Tze, and in the preaching of Tirthankara and Buddha; they appear in the poetry of Homer and in the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles, as they do in the philosophical writings of Plato and Aristotle. They are questions which have their common source in the quest for meaning which has always compelled the human heart. In fact, the answer given to these questions decides the direction which people seek to give to their lives."

The way in which we answer the basic questions concerning the meaning of our existence affects the entire direction of our lives. The answers to these questions determine how we interact with the reality of our world. They affect every decision we make, every action of our daily lives. In the United States we are free to make those decisions according to the determination of our individual consciences. This freedom is founded in the Christian heritage of Western Civilization, which recognizes the dignity of the human person -- a creature created in the image and likeness of God. This is a profoundly Christian idea, as can be seen in the pages of Fides et Ratio.

At the heart of the Christian view of life is the idea that the human person is capable, and desirous, of knowing the truth about himself and the world around him. In the universal human pursuit of truth, the human person becomes more fully human through the exercise of human freedom.

Other cultures and religions answer these questions differently. They either deny that there is any answer to the deeper questions of our being, and view the human being as simply part of nature, little different from a stone or a fish, as in the case of Eastern mysticism. Or, in the case of Islam, they deny that the individual is free to answer these questions on his own. Both of these approaches to life are reactions against human freedom.

This is where most heresies fall into error, they are reactions against something or a negation of something. John Paul II writes in Fides et Ratio:

"Put differently, freedom is not realized in decisions made against God. For how could it be an exercise of true freedom to refuse to be open to the very reality which enables our self-realization? Men and women can accomplish no more important act in their lives than the act of faith; it is here that freedom reaches the certainty of truth and chooses to live in that truth."

I think our Holy Father is saying here that freedom is not exercised as a decision against God, or really against anything, but is a decision for. Freedom is not a negative, it is a positive choice to follow the truth. Society today views freedom as license, freedom from restraint in any area of our lives. It is a denial of any absolute moral value or obligation on the part of the individual. This has lead to the virtual destruction of the family in the West, with rampant abortion, adultery, homosexuality, and drug use.

It has lead to another even more insidious failure -- an unwillingness to admit that there are truths worth struggling for. It views peace as the absence of conflict of any kind, and it views that absence as worth paying any price to obtain. The problem is that this is a seeking of a negation, a seeking not for a positive goal but a negative goal; in a sense it is seeking after nothing.

The Meaning of Lent

I am finally close to being back to my regular routine after last weekend's visit of old friends from Austin. I was able to travel around Colorado a bit during their visit since they have 11-year-old twin boys who wanted very badly to see some snow. There's lots of snow in Breckenridge (and a large snowstorm is forecast for "the Springs" early next week) if you are a ski buff.

I was reading a bit from Craig B.'s Page Fault Interrupt and, as usual, he has some interesting things to say from the perspective of one who, I think, is well on his way on the journey into the Church. I would like to offer a lengthy quote from a post in the last day or so:

"It is clear from reading the early church fathers that they viewed sacraments such as baptism and communion as ordinances prescribed by Jesus that, by their observance, deliver a measure of His grace to the participants. (In other words, they're not merely symbolic.) Now this view doesn't imply that He cannot or will not bestow grace through other means, only that He specifically sanctioned these for ordinary use. Some analogies frequently used are those of Jesus using mud to heal the blind, and Elisha ordering the Syrian leper to wash in the Jordan.
Why would this be? I don't know. I'm struggling with this question. While I don't think we can work our way into heaven, I don't think we can will our way into heaven either. Maybe the physical world is supposed to teach us something. We read in James' letter that faith without works is dead; maybe sacraments are tools to remind us of that fact."

Craig is right on several points here. First, the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, are not just symbolic. I was thinking just today that we can gather some idea of the importance of the Eucharist to Jesus from the fact that he instituted the Eucharist in what was virtually the last act of his earthly ministry, just hours before his arrest. Would he have done something that he considered unimportant, or merely symbolic, at just that moment? It hardly seems likely.

The fact is, God created us and knows how we function. We do not just operate on a spiritual or intellectual level, we are incarnated souls and when we are resurrected it will be both soul and body. This is why we have the sacraments, to give us both a taste of the physical and spiritual realities of our existence and God's grace in our lives. So, in a sense, Craig is also correct when he says that God gave us the sacraments for our benefit.

Now, as to Craig's question why the Church has viewed the Sacraments as coming at Jesus direction. You see, to a Protestant, salvation is gained by faith alone, there is no need for sacraments or Tradition, or anything other than the act of the individual in professing faith in Jesus Christ. Taken to the extreme it means that the reality of sin is denied and overcome by a single individual decision to "accept Jesus Christ as one's Lord and Savior."

Now, accepting Jesus into our lives is something each of us must do, but there is more. It seems nearly impossible to read very deeply in Holy Scripture without understanding that what we do is important to God. The details of our daily lives are of tremendous importance to God our Father. Just read the books of Leviticus and Numbers, the history books of the Bible, Jesus Sermon on the Mount, these books are not about what we believe, they are about what we do and what we are. Jesus was asked point blank by the rich young man what he must do to be “have eternal life.” It is interesting what he did not say. He did not say, "You must accept me as your personal Lord and Savior." He did say, "Obey the Commandments", and then, "Sell all your possessions." It seems hard to deny that Jesus was concentrating on what the rich young man did throughout his life, not what he believed at one particular moment.

All of this does not mean that we earn our passage to heaven, it is equally clear from Scripture that this is not the case. But the Sacraments, the Church, the liturgical seasons, are meant to help us to repent, to "change our minds", as it says in the Greek. These things are given to us as a foretaste of what is to come and to help us, to give us the grace, to achieve it. They are all part of our preparation to spend eternity with God, as part of his family.

This is part of the reason we have the penitential season of Lent, to reinforce practices in our lives that bring us closer to God. We don't succeed or fail at this practice, this is not the objective. The objective is to change, to become something better, more pleasing and more conformed, to God. We will never know here on earth the eternal consequences, and benefits, of a Lent that we believed to be a spiritual dud. The fact is, it’s not up to us anyway, all we are supposed to do is try.

The following is an AP story on the widow of Columbia astronaut Rick Husband and illustrates the faith of someone who has endured what might be considered the unendurable. I think this is a reminder of our total, daily, dependence on God's providence in our lives.


Widow of Shuttle Commander Supports Probe
March 13, 2003 03:52 PM EST

NEW YORK - The widow of the space shuttle Columbia's commander said Thursday that she strongly supports continued space exploration and believes investigators will find the cause of the accident.

"I think space travel is incredibly important to our country. There are certain risks and Rick accepted it, and so do I," said Evelyn Husband, wife of Rick Husband, who piloted Columbia on its final flight.

She's grateful her spouse, one of seven astronauts killed when the shuttle broke up Feb. 1, was able to fulfill the dream of being an astronaut he had harbored since age 4.

On the search for the disaster's cause, Husband said, government experts "are incredibly thorough and determined to find what went wrong...I feel strongly that it was not negligence. It's not a perfect world."

Husband, 44, a stay-at-home mother, has declined most media requests to concentrate on helping the couple's children, 12-year-old Laura and Matthew, 7, cope with the loss of their father. But she did several interviews in New York on Thursday.

She said her grief would have been unbearable the past six weeks without faith in God, along with support from friends at NASA and Houston's Grace Community Church, where the Husbands and the family of Columbia crew mate Michael Anderson attend services.

The spouses and children of the Columbia astronauts meet at least once a week to socialize and, occasionally, pray together, she said.

Husband said she doesn't follow the day-to-day developments in the investigation and hasn't watched television since the news broke, apart from fleeting glimpses while working out at a gym.

Rick Husband was a devoted father, she said, who prepared separate videos for each of his children just before the Columbia flight. The tapes had segments for each day he was away, following Bible readings and prayers in their devotional guidebooks. The Feb. 1 segment closed with a greeting that he'd be seeing them soon.

The last time Evelyn saw Rick, the night before liftoff, he led a brief devotional for the crew and spouses and recited Joshua 1:5-9 from memory. The biblical passage contains the words "I will be with you. I will not fail you or forsake you. Be strong and of good courage."

Husband said NASA saw to it that officers were posted to control crowds at the family home in Texas even before the family flew back from Florida.

Astronaut Steve Lindsey, a veteran of two space flights, was assigned full-time to help the family. A couple from her church who run a ministry offering free financial counseling, Richard and Janetta Curtis, calmly took charge of things like financial details, fielding telephone calls and poring through "buckets of mail" each day.

In the end, Husband said, her religious faith has been strengthened, not weakened, by the experience. "God is so close to me it's impossible to doubt," she said.

[This was a post I originally prepared for Ash Wednesday. As I reviewed it, however, I came to see that it needed considerable editing and revision (perhaps still does) which I was not able to accomplish until now due to a heavy work schedule and the arrival of old friends from Austin, Texas for the weekend. I thought it might be better to post this – better late than never.]

Lenten Reflections

As a convert Ash Wednesday, and the liturgical season of Lent, is still a bit of a culture shock to me. Growing up a Protestant meant the liturgical calendar was never significant to my religious experience. The idea of fasting for Lent wasn't to be taken seriously. As you may know, most Protestants view the Lenten fast as part of an exaggerated Catholic effort to earn one's way to Heaven, and I rather unthinkingly accepted that point of view.

It has taken me a few years but now I am actually beginning to develop an appreciation for the season of Lent. Fr. Steve aptly described the reason for this in his Ash Wednesday homily. He talked about the scientific principle of entropy -- the tendency of everything in the universe to become disordered. When a system move in the direction of disorder, chaos, it takes energy to restore order to it. Fr. Steve made the point that this was true in many areas of our lives. The desk in my study is a good example. It seems that as soon as I get it cleaned up and everything put away, within a day or so it's a mess. The solution is to add energy to the system in order to restore order, to clean it up. This is true for our spiritual lives, as well. We go through the Lenten season reintroducing prayer, fasting and almsgiving into our lives. However, if we don't maintain these disciplines in the weeks and months after Easter, entropy sets in and our spiritual lives tend to degenerate. We need the disciplines of another Lent to restore order to our spiritual systems. Lent is a time to restore order to our spiritual lives.

In light of this, I have been debating the effect that the season should have on this blog. My original thought was based on meditating on our Lord's words in the Ash Wednesday Gospel reading:

"When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

I thought that perhaps it would be appropriate to take Jesus words literally when he suggests that, at least to the outside world, there should be no apparent difference in our countenance when we are fasting and praying. After all, we should be constantly at prayer, not just during the season of Lent. It seemed to me that if the purpose of this blog is attempt to show how our Catholic faith influences our daily lives in a practical way, then, perhaps it would be appropriate for there to be little apparent change in outward appearances here, in the days and weeks leading up to Easter.

However, on further reflection, I realize that Lent is a time for prayer, fasting, and almsgiving -- a time for recharging the spiritual batteries, so to speak, and the fact of the matter is, I feel the need to recharge those batteries. So it is likely that I will either reduce the posts here, or shift their focus, in order to allow you the reader and myself a little more time for where our focus should be right now, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

I belatedly wish all of you a very blessed Lenten season, looking forward to the coming of the Light of the world on Easter morning.

The Law of Posts

There seems to be some sort of law of posts working in my blogging life. For the last two or three weeks I have struggled to come up with something worthwhile to write about, and I had time to write several posts if I had been able to. Now, I have several posts I wish to write and hardly have time to do one. Bear with me, I have begun drafting several and they are on their way.

The Man with the Knife

Tom, over at Disputations, has done a post against the war with Iraq quoting Cardinal McCarrick. The argument is that it is immoral to kill a man with a knife in his pocket.

Now, it is hard to argue with this line of reasoning. A man walking down the street with a knife in his pocket has a useful tool available to him. Depending on his talents and natural proclivities he can use that knife as an implement to whittle a stick of wood. He can use it to skin a deer if he is a hunter. He can use it to trim a piece of rope or the branch of a tree. As a last resort he can use it to defend himself, or, if his intent is evil, he can use it as an offensive weapon. The reason it is immoral to kill the man carrying a knife is that, unless he does, in fact, use it as an offensive weapon, there is no reason to think that his intentions in carrying it are evil.

The analogy is a poor one, however, when used in the case of Saddam Hussein for a very simple reason. Nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons have only one use, which is to kill people. There are no peaceful, innocent uses, for these weapons; there is no reason to have them unless you either intend them to be a threat or you intend to use them for the purpose for which they were designed.

To return to the analogy of the man with the knife it might be useful to note that a man carrying a knife is generally free to carry it in his pocket wherever he goes. However, there are certain cases in which that knife becomes a threat and has been determined to be illegal, at an airport for example. If he takes that knife into an airport and refuses to either leave or surrender the knife the lawful authorities will use force, even deadly force, if it is necessary to disarm him.

In the case of Saddam Hussein, he has been ordered, by legitimate international authority, to disarm and has substantially refused to do so. Holding the weapons that he has, and given his proven history of having used them, and his threats to use them again, it is legitimate for the international authorities to use force, even deadly force, to disarm him.

Sorry for the lack of posts in the past few days. I've had to work some overtime and feel like I'm trying to catch a cold.

Steven, your comment is correct and when I get back on my feet I will post a clarifying comment. I'm not discouraged about my writing at all and thanks for your encouragement.

Paz y bien to all

Originality

Steven posted a comment (see below) that something I had posted made points similar to that made by deCaussade in Abandonment to Divine Providence. At first I was slightly upset (only slightly) that I might have written something that could be interpreted as plagiarism. As I began to think this over, though, I realized that trying to do an orthodox Catholic blog means that nothing I write will be entirely original.

You see, trying to write from an orthodox Catholic position means that nothing I write will be original. Revelation ceased with the Apostles and it is the task of the Church only to interpret what has already been revealed. Anyone trying to write in accordance with the teaching of the Church cannot be inventive, there is nothing new to invent.

This is the problem for those who wish that the Church to be more "progressive." The notion of progress is a human idea and applies to human activity; it signifies movement toward a goal or objective. If we believe that the Church is a divine institution, the Body of Christ on earth, and if we believe that God is infinite, eternal and perfect in all his attributes, then the Church cannot be "progressive" -- there is nothing to progress towards. The Church is already what God intends it to be. To wish otherwise is an instance of both human error and human pride.

So I, and all who wish to remain in communion with the Church, have to face the fact that the work we do as writers is inevitably going to lack originality, we can do no less.

Wonderful News from Associated Press (and the Supreme Court)

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a federal racketeering law was improperly used to punish aggressive anti-abortion protesters, a major victory for people who regularly block clinic doors.
The court's 8-1 ruling applies to protests of all sorts, not just at clinics.
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, writing for the majority, said that when protesters do not "obtain" property, they cannot be punished for civil disobedience with the federal Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act, an anti-racketeering law.
The court's ruling is a victory for Operation Rescue, anti-abortion leader Joseph Scheidler and others who were ordered to pay damages to abortion clinics and barred from interfering with their businesses for 10 years.
Rehnquist said that their political activity did not qualify as extortion.
That outcome had been sought by activists like actor Martin Sheen, animal rights groups and even some organizations that support abortion rights. They argued that protesters of all types could face harsher penalties for demonstrating, if the court ruled otherwise.

Time Management

Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical Fides et Ratio wrote:

"God's Revelation is therefore immersed in time and history. Jesus Christ took flesh in the “fullness of time” (Gal 4:4); and two thousand years later, I feel bound to restate forcefully “in Christianity time has a fundamental importance”. It is within time that the whole work of creation and salvation comes to light; and it emerges clearly above all that, with the Incarnation of the Son of God, our life is even now a foretaste of the fulfillment of time which is to come (cf. Heb 1:2)."

The phrase “in Christianity time has a fundamental importance” struck me as a remarkable statement. We human beings live in time, we are obsessed with time, we try to manage time, and we worry about wasting time. God, on the other hand is eternal. God does not exist in time even though he created time, God does not have to worry about the passage of time. However, God entered time when Jesus Christ came to live among men, thus, he became a historical figure; we can fix in history, at least within a couple of years, when he was born and when he died. We have the records made by other human beings of the events of his life and his death. We know what happened on earth as a result of his death -- the Church came into existence and spread throughout the world. For a brief period here on earth, eternity and time were commingled.

If time is that important to God, then perhaps we might want to learn how God used time here on earth. We can get some idea from a passage in chapter 5 of the Gospel of Mark:

And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him; and he was beside the sea. Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Ja'irus by name; and seeing him, he fell at his feet, and besought him, saying, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live." And he went with him. (Mark 5:21-24) (RSV)

Now, I don't know about you, but my reaction to Jairus, if I had been in Jesus place, would have been different. I probably would have said something like, "Gee, Jairus, I know your daughter is sick, but can you wait an hour or so. See, I've got this huge crowd here waiting for me to speak and I've got this important lesson I've prepared to teach them. This stuff is going into Scripture, you know. Just give me an hour or so and I'll see what I can do." Or else, I might have said, "Okay Jairus, just go home, I'm busy here, you're daughter is healed. Now, buzz off." That is not what Jesus did in response to Jairus request though, Mark says "And he went with him." That simple. Jesus left the crowd and went with Jairus. Why? We don't know why, we can only assume that somehow this was part of the Father's plan and worked to his glory. That is the way Jesus wanted to use his time here on earth -- to bring glory to his Father. You might say that since Jesus was God that he would naturally use his time differently than any of us regular human beings. But Jesus was human and if there was anyone on earth who had a right to feel pressed for time it was Jesus. He had only three years in which to complete his earthly ministry. And yet there is no hint in Scripture that Jesus ever felt hurried. He is never bothered by interruptions. Jesus lived in time as if it were eternity.

I, on the other hand, seem to be constantly preoccupied with efficiency and planning in order to achieve the best use of my time. And I hate others to interrupt me and spoil my plans. Perhaps there is a better way. Our Lord did not have interruptions, he simply did the next thing that was at hand and he did it for his Father's greater glory. In Matthew 6:34 Jesus said, “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. (RSV) Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.” I think this is the heart of Jesus’ teaching on time management.

Today is The Chair of St. Peter

The Authority of Peter

"What can your piety decree that is more commendable, more religious, than that in the future no one be permitted to attack decrees established not so much through human as through divine decisions? Otherwise, those who dared to have doubts about God's truth may really deserve to lose so great a gift of God.

The universal Church has become rock through the erection of that original rock, and the first of the apostles, the most blessed Peter, heard the voice of the Lord saying: 'You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church." Hence, who would dare beat against this impregnable solidarity, except either antichrist or the devil? It is he who, persevering unconverted in his malice, seeks to plant lies, using instruments suited to his wrath and falseness, while under the false label of carefulness he feigns to be seeking the truth. His unrestrained fury and blind impiety have deservedly marked out for themselves a reputation to be despised and shunned...

I use the freedom of the Catholic faith and without fear exhort you to be on the side of the apostles and prophets."

Pope St. Leo the Great

This was written eleven hundred years before the Protestant Reformation.

Academia nuts, cont'd

This morning while I was sitting in my phrontistery I came upon an interesting, almost incredible, article by Joe Klein on the Time website. The article is on George Bush's confident approach to the coming war with Iraq.

I find the article interesting because it clearly proves something that many of us have long suspected: those in the "intellectual elite" in this country have no clue what religious faith is about. In this article Klein shows that he thinks that religious faith is little more than an emotional security blanket. To Klein faith is perhaps comforting to some folks but not real, not "scientific" and therefore, not to be taken seriously by intelligent, mature folks. This is bad enough, but Klein goes on to further silliness.

"There are religious traditions — the Jesuits, the Jews, the Shi'ites, certain suffering segments of Protestantism — for which grace is a constant anguish, a goal never quite attained but approached through learning or good works. "The Evangelicals take their marching orders from Paul, who said you have to 'work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,'" Martin E. Marty, the University of Chicago theologian, told me last week. "The implication is that once you've worked it out, once you've been born again, you don't have to be fearful or tremble so much anymore."

To Klein faith should, apparently, lead those who hold to it to doubt, to an ever-present emotional angst. When we come to accept Christian faith we become neurotics, it makes us more thoughtful. Piffle. I would like to present here a description of faith from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

"Faith is certain. It is more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie. To be sure, revealed truths can seem obscure to human reason and experience, but "the certainty that the divine light gives is greater than that which the light of natural reason gives." ‘Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.’ "

"Faith is certain." As I have written in another post, faith differs from knowledge but that does not mean it is not certain. After all, we believe that having faith involves accepting God's word as truth. It seems to me that any Christian who is in a "constant anguish" over grace is not living in faith; he or she has not accepted God at his word. Faith should lead us to a quiet confidence in God's providence in our lives and in his mercy when our days on earth are over, it should not lead us to become emotional wrecks.

I do not mean to say that because President Bush is a Christian that plays any part in his absolute certainty about the war. I do say that the President's faith should inform his decision-making decisions about the war. I would say that if President Bush is not confident that he is taking the right approach to the Iraq situation, then the country is in deep trouble. However, his confidence should not come about because of his faith in God but because of his confidence that he has a clear understanding of the situation and that what he is doing is right. In times like this we do not want a neurotic, angst-ridden President, no matter what his religious belief.

Lord, Liar, Lunatic
There appears to be some discussion going on around blogdom concerning the argument advanced in proof of Jesus's divinity: "If Jesus was not who he claimed to be, he was either a liar or lunatic of the first order." As far as I know this argument has been advanced by many apologists including C. S. Lewis.

On thinking about this line of reasoning it appears to me that it is equivalent to those statements made by many modern, sophisticated, and educated Catholics who are troubled by the idea of miracles. In their concern they make great efforts to explain them away. You have all heard the statement: "Well, when Jesus fed the 5,000, you know, really, they all had fish sandwichs with them (all having just stopped at McDonalds' before the rally.), he didn't really multiply the loaves as it says there."

We desperately want to explain things, to reduce them to terms we can understand.

In Fides et Ratio #9, our Holy Father tells us where the fallacy of this thinking lies:

The First Vatican Council teaches, then, that the truth attained by philosophy and the truth of Revelation are neither identical nor mutually exclusive: “There exists a twofold order of knowledge, distinct not only as regards their source, but also as regards their object. With regard to the source, because we know in one by natural reason, in the other by divine faith. With regard to the object, because besides those things which natural reason can attain, there are proposed for our belief mysteries hidden in God which, unless they are divinely revealed, cannot be known”. Based upon God's testimony and enjoying the supernatural assistance of grace, faith is of an order other than philosophical knowledge which depends upon sense perception and experience and which advances by the light of the intellect alone. Philosophy and the sciences function within the order of natural reason; while faith, enlightened and guided by the Spirit, recognizes in the message of salvation the “fullness of grace and truth” (cf. Jn 1:14) which God has willed to reveal in history and definitively through his Son, Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Jn 5:9; Jn 5:31-32)."

As human beings we have the ability to reason and to love -- to make choices. There are, however, things that cannot be known by human reason. God through Scripture and Tradition has revealed these things to us. To try to conflate the two types of reason, or to try to deny one or the other type, is to reduce our humanity. There comes a point at which we must agree with the sentiment expressed on the old bumper sticker: "God said it, I believe it, that settles it." We have to choose to believe or not to believe.

When we give a very practical explanation as "proof" of something in Scripture we are, in effect, denying the necessity of faith. There are some things that we cannot explain or make sense of. All of Christianity hinges on one miracle, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Try to explain that one in nice, neat, scientific terms. And if we try to deny the "lesser" miracles, how can we accept the "greatest" miracle?

Also, if we say that something in Scripture is not true, say that Jesus did not multiply the loaves and fishes but the crowd brought all that stuff with them, what do we finally accept as true? The Bible says Jesus performed a miracle, it does not say the crowed brought the groceries. The Bible says that Jesus suffered, died, and was buried and that he rose on the third day. Do we question that?

As an apologist it is tempting to try to explain, and reduce, the faith for the uninitiated. We fall into the trap of thinking that we have to tie it up for our brother or sister into a nice neat package and say, "See, it all really makes sense after all." To do this, though, is simply to do a disservice to the one being evangelized. At some point the unexplainable must be faced, the leap of faith must be made, otherwise there will never be faith. Christianity, in that case, becomes another intellectual adventure, pablum for the mind.