Edward Feser's Blog, page 12

The heresy with a thousand faces

In anew article at Postliberal Order,I discuss the disturbing parallels between the woke phenomenon and the medievalCatharist or Albigensian heresy, a movement so fanatical and virulent that thepreaching of the Dominicans could not entirely eliminate it and Church andstate judged military action to be necessary.

Immortal souls at West Point

Had a greattime visiting the United States Military Academy at West Point this week for aThomistic Institute talk on the theme “Do You Have an Immortal Soul?” Thank youTI and cadets!

Voluntarism in The Vanishing

Thereputation of 1993’s The Vanishing has suffered because critics judge it inferior to the 1988 Dutch movie of whichit was a remake.  But considered on itsown terms, it is a solid enough little thriller.  Jeff Bridges is effectively creepy as theoddball family-man-cum-kidnapper Barney Cousins.  I had reason to re-watch the flick the otherday, and was struck by what I take to be an underlying theme of the contrastbetween voluntarist and intellectualist conceptions of humanaction.

Tooversimplify, intellectualism in the sense in question is the view that theintellect is prior to the will, whereas voluntarism holds that he will is priorto the intellect.  That is to say, forthe intellectualist, the will only ever wills what the intellect first judgesto be in some way good; whereas for the voluntarist, the will wills what it doesindependently of the intellect, and the intellect follows along for the ride.  The dispute is thus over whether it is ultimatelythe intellect or the will that is “in the driver’s seat” of human action.  Naturally, things are more complicated thanthat, but this characterization will do for present purposes.

Applied tothe issues of free will and moral responsibility, the dispute betweenvoluntarism and intellectualism cashes out in the difference between what theologianServais Pinckaers calls the “freedom of indifference” and “freedom forexcellence.”  On the former conception offree will, associated with Ockham, the will is of its nature indifferent towardthe various ends it might pursue, and thus is freer to the extent that it is atany moment equally capable of choosing anything.  The implication is that a will that isstrongly inclined to choose what is good rather than what is evil is less freethan a will that is not inclined in either direction.  By contrast, on the conception of free willas “freedom for excellence,” which is associated with Aquinas, the will isinherently directed toward the good in the sense that pursuit of the good isits final cause.  The implication is thatthe will is more free to the extent that it finds it easy to choose what isgood and less free to the extent that it does not.

How is thisrelevant to The Vanishing?  Let’s start with a brief summary of theplot.  (I’ll leave out the most crucialspoilers, for any readers who haven’t seen it.) The movie begins with Barney elaborately planning a kidnapping, forreasons that are only revealed later and made especially hard to fathom giventhat he otherwise seems like an ordinary, middle class loving father andhusband.  Meanwhile, we’re introduced to writerJeff Harriman and his girlfriend Diane (played by Kiefer Sutherland and SandraBullock, respectively) who are on vacation and stop at a large and busy gasstation, where Diane goes into the snack shop to pick up supplies.  After waiting in the car for an unusuallylong time, Jeff goes to look for Diane but can find her nowhere.  The employees, customers, and police all proveto be of no help in finding her, and she has vanished without a trace.

The moviethen flashes forward three years, and we find that Jeff has during that wholetime been looking for Diane without success. He has posted fliers with Diane’s picture all over the vicinity of thegas station, appeared on television to discuss the case, followed any lead hecan find, and repeatedly badgered the police, all to no avail.  The search has become an obsession, and hasexhausted him.  When he starts a newrelationship with a waitress named Rita (played by Nancy Travis) it seems hemay finally abandon the search.  But thenBarney, who has been following the case during this time, decides to contactJeff and reveal that he is the one who abducted Diane.  He promises Jeff that he can at long lastfind out exactly what happened to her, but only if he agrees to experience whatshe did – beginning with allowing Barney to drug Jeff with chloroform to knockhim out, just as he had drugged Diane. 

I’ll leaveit to the interested reader to watch the movie and find out what happens.  The relevance to voluntarism is this.  When explaining to Jeff why he did what hedid, Barney begins by describing actions he had performed through the course ofhis life despite their being dangerous. One of them involved saving a drowning girl, which had made Barney ahero in the eyes of his daughter.  Butrather than gratifying Barney, his daughter’s admiration troubled him.  He worried that he could not be worthy ofbeing thought by her to be a good man unless he was just as capable of doinggreat evil as he was of doing good.  And so he decided that he would prove tohimself that he was capable of such evil by doing the worst thing he couldthink of to another person – which turned out to be Diane (and where we findout exactly what he did to her by the end of the movie).

Barney’stale reveals, first, a fixation on the power of the will.  He recounts jumping off a roof as a boy eventhough he knew it was dangerous, and indeed resulted in him breaking his arm.  Throughout the movie he is almost alwaysunflappable even in moments of distress, as when he suffers a serious beatingwith equanimity.  But the truly voluntaristelement is his apparent belief that a praiseworthy action could only flow from somethinglike what Pinckaers calls the “freedom of indifference” – that is to say, from awill that was not in any way aimed at the good more than at anything else, butopted for it anyway.  This, it seems tome, is the best way to make sense of Barney’s claim that he could only beworthy of praise for his good action of saving the girl if he was no lesscapable of an evil action like what he does to Diane.  The kidnapping was, in effect, his way ofproving to himself that he did indeed possess the “freedom of indifference.”

Had he not been able to bring himself to dosuch an evil thing, and had he saved the little girl because of an inclination towardbenevolence, this would have been perfectly consistent with what Pinckaerscalls the “freedom for excellence,” and would have been morally praiseworthy onthat conception of freedom.  Barney’sdissatisfaction with himself evinces an implicit rejection of this conception andof its implications concerning what makes a person praiseworthy.  But neither do his actions flow from any positiveinclination towards sadism, nor from a rejection of moral norms.  He is portrayed as, in general, a pleasantenough person.  And he acknowledges thatit is just for Jeff to want Barney harmed for what he has done.  He never evinces the slightest enjoyment ofcausing others pain.  All his actions areperformed in the bloodless manner of a scientific experiment (and indeed, it isrevealed that Barney is a chemistry professor). He simply wants to make of his will something capable of anything. 

Only a goodaction that flows from this kind ofwill is, he thinks, praiseworthy, and the reason seems to be that he thinksonly this kind of action would flow from the sheer arbitrary freedom of the will alone rather than from anynatural sentiment of benevolence or from a respect for rational criteria.  This is, to be sure, a curious conception offreedom and moral praiseworthiness, and quite perverse (indeed, depraved) fromthe point of view of an intellectualist like Aquinas.  But reading Barney as implicitly committed toa conception of freedom as the “freedom of indifference” makes intelligiblewhat might otherwise seem a simply bizarre and incoherent character motivation.

If Barneytakes the voluntarist emphasis on the will to an extreme, there is also a sensein which the other main character, Jeff, can be said to take theintellectualist emphasis on the intellect to an extreme.  His new girlfriend Rita grows increasinglyfrustrated with his inability to overcome his obsession with findingDiane.  She is, more than anything,jealous of this lost former girlfriend she has to compete with.  Jeff explains that Rita is the one he loves,and that romantic longing no longer has anything to do with his obsession withfinding Diane.  It is not knowing that bothers him.  He admits that if he had a choice between twoscenarios, one in which Diane is alive somewhere and happy but he never findsout what happened, and one in which he does find out but she is dead, he wouldprefer the latter.  Whereas Barney hasmade himself into a blind will divorced from intellect and its standards oftruth and goodness, Jeff has made himself into an intellect obsessed withattaining a certain piece of knowledge to the exclusion of willing what is infact good. 

Related posts:

Popculture roundup [where you’ll find other pretentious philosophical analysesof movies, music, comics, and the like]

Voluntarismand PSR

Thevoluntarist personality

Avicenna’s flying man

PeterAdamson’s new book IbnSīnā (Avicenna): A Very Short Introduction is an excellentprimer on the great medieval Islamic philosopher.  After a biographical chapter, it treatsAvicenna’s views on logic and epistemology, philosophical anthropology,science, and natural theology, and closes with a discussion of his influence onlater philosophy and theology.  Among thethings readers will find useful is the book’s discussion of Avicenna’s famous“flying man” argument.  Let’s take alook.

The flyingman thought experiment is one of the means (not the only one) by which Avicennaaims to establish the incorporeality of the human soul.  He presents it at the end of the firstchapter of his treatment of the topic of the soul in his work The Cure.  One place you can find the relevant passageis Jon McGinnis and David C. Reisman’s anthology ClassicalArabic Philosophy, which translates it as follows:

For the purposes of establishing theexistence of the soul… [I]t has to be imagined as though one of us were createdwhole in an instant but his sight is veiled from directly observing the thingsof the external world.  He is created asthough floating in air or in a void but without the air supporting him in sucha way that he would have to feel it, and the limbs of his body are stretchedout and away from one another, so they do not come into contact or touch.  Then he considers whether he can assert theexistence of his self.  He has no doubtsabout asserting his self as something that exists without also [having to]assert the existence of any of his exterior or interior parts, his heart, hisbrain, or anything external.  He will, infact, be asserting the existence of his self without asserting that it haslength, breadth, or depth, and, if it were even possible for him in such a stateto imagine a hand or some other extremity, he would not imagine it as a part ofhis self or as a necessary condition of his self...  Thus, the self whose existence he asserted ishis unique characteristic...  Thus, what[the reader] has been alerted to is a way to be made alert to the existence ofthe soul as something that is not the body – nor in fact any body. (pp. 178-79)

The basicidea of the thought experiment is as follows. A man who comes into existence in the bizarre circumstances Avicennadescribes would have no sensory experiences. For one thing, he has from the start somehow been suspended in midair, ina manner that does not involve even the air pushing against him – perhaps bymiraculous divine action.  Hence he hasnever experienced external physical objects exerting any pressure on hisskin.  Because his arms, legs, fingers,etc. are all spread out away from one another, he also has not felt even hisown body parts pressing against him. Because he is veiled (presumably in a manner that does not involve aveil making contact with his body) he has never seen anything.  Presumably his ears, nose, and tongue aresimilarly prevented from being affected by any stimuli.  Hence he has no awareness of any physicalobject, not even his own body.  AsAdamson notes, while some might object that such a man would still have proprioceptiveexperiences of his limbs, it is not difficult to extend the thought experimentin a way that would prevent that.  Wecould imagine, for example, that the miraculous suspension of the normal operationof the relevant nerves is a further part of the situation. 

Now, the manwould, Avicenna claims, nevertheless have awareness of himself.  He would know that he exists, even though he would not know that his body exists, and indeed would not know that any physical world atall exists.  In that case, though, hemust be distinct from his body andfrom anything corporeal.  For if he werecorporeal, how could he know he exists without knowing that anything corporealexists?

Parallels to Avicenna?

I’ll comeback to some of the remarks Adamson makes about the argument, but first let memake some observations of my own.  Avicenna’sargument might seem similar to arguments later developed in the Cartesiandualist tradition.  For example, in hisSixth Meditation, Descartesargues that he could in principle exist without his body existing, if Godwilled to create him that way.  And in hisbook Engines of the Soul, W.D. Hart argues that it is possible in principle for a person to have visualexperiences while lacking a body, in which case it is possible for a person toexist without a body.

However,Avicenna’s argument is importantly different, in several respects.  First, Avicenna emphasizes that the man inhis thought experiment has had no sensoryexperiences at all.  By contrast,Hart’s argument involves a disembodied person who does have such experiences. And at least earlier in the Meditations,in Meditation One, Descartes suggests that it is possible for someone to havesensory experiences even in the absence of the existence of his body or of anymaterial world at all, if a Cartesian demon caused a disembodied mind to hallucinate. 

Second, the keypremise of Avicenna’s argument is epistemic,whereas the key premises of the Cartesian arguments mentioned are ontological.  Descartes and Hart start with the idea thatit is possible for the self to existwithout the body, and conclude from that that the self is distinct from thebody.  Avicenna starts with the idea thatone can know the self without knowing the body, and concludes fromthat that the self is distinct from the body.

Third, andrelatedly, the thought experiments Descartes and Hart appeal to presuppose thatthe self could in fact exist apart from the body, whereas Avicenna’s thoughtexperiment does not.  That is not to saythat Avicenna doesn’t think the self could survive without the body, but onlythat that would be a further conclusionof the argument rather than a presuppositionof the argument. 

The reasonthese differences are important is that they make Avicenna’s argument immune tocertain objections that might be raised against Descartes and Hart.  First, one might question the assumption thatsensory experience really is possible without a body.  If that assumption is wrong, then Hart’sargument will fail (though whether Descartes’s argument would fail will dependon how seriously Descartes wants us to take the Cartesian demon scenario).  But Avicenna’s argument makes no suchassumption. 

Second, becausethey presuppose that it is possible for the self to exist apart from the body,Descartes and Hart might be accused of begging the question.  They are trying to get from the possibility of the self existing apartfrom the body to the real distinctionbetween self and body.  But a critic canobject that the claim that it is possible for the self to exist apart from thebody presupposes that there is adistinction between self and body, and thus can hardly cogently be appealed toin order to establish such adistinction.  Avicenna is not open tosuch an objection.

If we arelooking for arguments from the tradition that are similar to Avicenna’s, itseems to me that a more plausible parallel is to be found in some arguments earlier than his, which were developedby St. Augustine in On the Trinity.  Augustineheld that the mind can know its own essence with certainty, but does notknow with certainty that corporeality is part of its essence.  Hence, he concludes, corporeality is not partof the mind’s essence.  He also held thatthe mind can know itself without the mediation of any imagery, but cannot knowmaterial things that way, and concluded that the mind must not be material.

Augustine’sand Avicenna’s arguments are similar, then, in starting with what the mind knows or doesn’t know about itself andabout material things, and from this epistemic premise drawing a conclusionabout the distinction between the mind and anything material.  The key difference is that Avicenna appealsto a novel thought experiment in order to make his point about what the mindknows.

Some objections

As Adamsonnotes, one objection that can be raised against Avicenna’s argument would be todeny that the flying man really would or could know of his own existence.  One could hold that it is only after the mind has had some perceptualexperiences that it comes to know itself, by way of reflecting on thoseexperiences.  Note that one can hold thison the basis of the moderate empiricism of Aristotle and Aquinas, withoutcommitting oneself to the more extreme modern empiricism of Locke and hissuccessors.  And as that indicates, onecould hold this without rejecting Avicenna’s conclusion that the mind isincorporeal, but only the flying man argument’s particular way of arriving atthat conclusion.

Adamson alsonotes that Avicenna’s argument has to be understood in light of his broaderepistemological commitments, which include the thesis that the self is alwaysat least tacitly aware of itself.  I findthese broader commitments dubious, but for present purposes will simply notethat the need to defend them in order to get the flying man argument off theground at the very least makes it a considerably less punchy argument than itmight appear to be at first glance.

Anotherobjection noted by Adamson is that to know one’s self without knowing one’sbody does not by itself entail thatthe self is different from the body, any more than the fact that Lois Laneknows that Clark Kent is at the DailyPlanet without knowing that Superman is there entails that Clark Kent isdifferent from Superman.  Adamsonsuggests that one way Avicenna could reply to this would be to argue that toknow a thing’s essence, specifically,requires knowing its essential constituents. If we say that the flying man knows his essence while not knowinganything about his body, then the body cannot be among the self’s essentialconstituents.

Thisinterpretation of the argument underlines its parallels with Augustine’sarguments.  I refer the reader to mydiscussion of those arguments, which is not unsympathetic even though theyare not my own preferred way of establishing the mind’s immateriality. 

Related reading:

Avicenna’sargument from contingency, Part I

Avicenna’sargument from contingency, Part II

Avicennaon non-contradiction

Progress report

My friends, it exists. More news later.

Jesuit Britain?

My review ofthe anthology Projectionsof Spanish Jesuit Scholasticism on British Thought: New Horizons in Politics,Law, and Rights , edited by Leopoldo Prieto López and José Luis CendejasBueno, appears in the Winter2023 issue of Religion and Liberty.

New Year’s open thread

Let’s openthe New Year with an open thread.  Now’sthe time at last to bring up that otherwise off-topic comment that keepsgetting deleted, or anything else you like. From Art Nouveau to Art Blakey, from presidents to presentism, fromsci-fi to Wi-Fi to hi-fis, everything is on topic.  Just keep it civil and classy.  Previous open threads collected here.

What is a “couple”?

In myrecent article on the controversy over FiduciaSupplicans , I noted three problems with the document’s qualifiedpermission of blessings for “couples” of a same-sex or other “irregular”kind.  First, the document is not consistentwith theVatican’s 2021 statement on the subject, which prohibited suchblessings, nor consistent even with itself. Second, its incoherence makes abuses of its permission inevitable,despite the qualifications.  Third, theimplicature carried by the act of issuing this permission “sends the message”that the Church in some way approves of such couples, even if this message was notintended.  In aninterview with The Pillar,Cardinal Fernández addressesthe controversy, but unfortunately, his remarks exacerbate rather than resolvethe problems.

Cardinal Fernández’s answer

Somedefenders of Fiducia Supplicans havesuggested that the document intends “couple” to be understood merely as a pairof individuals, without reference to any special relationship betweenthem.  I explained in my earlier articlewhy that simply is not plausible, and the cardinal’s remarks in the interviewnow decisively rule this interpretation out. Consider these passages from the interview:

Sometimes they are two very close friends who share goodthings, sometimes they had sexualrelations in the past and now what remains is a strong sense of belonging andmutual help. As a parish priest, I have often met such couples…

[In] a simple blessing, it is stillasked that this friendship bepurified, matured and lived in fidelity to the Gospel.  And even if there was some kind of sexual relationship, known or not, the blessingmade in this way does not validate or justify anything.

Actually the same thinghappens whenever individuals are blessed , because thatindividual who asks for a blessing… may be a great sinner, but we do not deny ablessing to him…

When it is a matter of a couple well-known in the place or incases where there could be some scandal, the blessing should be given in private,in a discreet place.

Endquote.  So, the “couples” that Fiducia Supplicans has in view include“friendships” and “two very close friends,” who may have “had sexual relationsin the past” or “some kind of sexual relationship” in the past, who retain “astrong sense of belonging and mutual help” and may be “well-known in [some]place” to be a couple.  And blessing suchcouples is explicitly contrasted with blessing “individuals.”  All of this makes it undeniable that what Fiducia Supplicans is referring to bythe word “couple” is not merely twoindividuals qua individuals, but two individuals considered as having a close personal relationship of some sort.  In other words, the Declaration is using theterm in just the way most people use it when discussing a romantic relationship,not in some broader sense and not in some technical sense either.

Now, thecardinal also goes on to say: “Couples are blessed.  The union is not blessed.”  This confirms that he intends to distinguish “couples” from “unions,” as many defendersof the Declaration have tried to do. However, the cardinal says nothing to explain how there can be such a distinction – that is to say, he does notexplain how this distinction is notmerely verbal, a distinction without a difference like the distinction between“bachelors” and “unmarried men.” 

There arethree problems here.  First, and again, CardinalFernández’s remarks confirm that by “couple,” what Fiducia Supplicans is referring to are two people considered ashaving some close personal relationship, and indeed one that may have had asexual component of some sort at least in the past.  But that is also just what the term “union”is typically used to refer to!  So, howcan one possibly bless a “couple” without blessing the “union”?  It is not enough simply to assert or assume that one can do so. We still need an explanation of exactlywhat it means to bless the one and not the other.

Second, thecardinal says that in the blessings that FiduciaSupplicans has in view, “it is… askedthat this friendship be purified,matured and lived in fidelity to the Gospel.”  In other words, the blessing is not merely onthe individuals who make up thecouple, but on their friendship itself. And how can that possibly fail to be a blessing on the “union”?  True, it doesn’t follow that it is a blessingon the sexual aspect of the union,but that is irrelevant to the point at issue. It still amounts to a blessing onthe union itself, despite the cardinal’s claim that “the union is notblessed.”

Third, theVatican’s 2021 document on the matter says that while “individual persons” inirregular relationships can be blessed, it “declares illicit any form of blessing that tends toacknowledge their unions as such.”  Hence,the older statement says that irregular unions not only cannot be blessed, they cannot so much as be acknowledged.  But as Cardinal Fernández’s remarks makeclear, Fiducia Supplicans does permit acknowledgement of suchunions.  For how can you bless “theirfriendship” without acknowledgingit?  How can you bless a “couple”considered as “two very close friends” who may have had “some kind of sexualrelationship” in the past and retain “a strong sense of belonging and mutualhelp,” without “acknowledging their union as such”?

Hence, thecardinal’s remarks in the interview donot refute, but rather reinforce, the judgment that the 2023 Declarationcontradicts the 2021 statement.

There is yetanother problem.  Again, the interviewwith Cardinal Fernández confirms that FiduciaSupplicans uses the word “couple” in the ordinary sense that entails notmerely two individuals, but two individuals consideredas having a personal relationship of a romantic kind, or at least of a kindthat once had a romantic component.  Now,in the past, the Church has explicitly repudiated the contemporary tendency toexpand this ordinary notion of a “couple” so that it includes same-sex andother irregular relationships.  Forexample, in Ecclesiain Europa, Pope St. John Paul II criticized “attempts… to accepta definition of the couple in whichdifference of sex is not considered essential.” In a2008 address, Pope Benedict XVI lamented that “so-called ‘de factocouples’ are proliferating.”  Insofar as Fiducia Supplicans uses “couples” torefer to same-sex and other irregular relationships, then, it accommodates theusage that these previous popes condemned. In this way too, the new Declaration conflicts with past teaching.

Mike Lewis’s answer

In arecent article at Where PeterIs, Mike Lewis complained that “countless papal critics are acting as ifthey can’t understand the difference between a couple and a union” and mockstheir “sudden inability to grasp the difference” as “a case of mass lexicalamnesia.”  Oddly, though, his article does not tell us what thisdifference is, which should have been easy enough if the distinction reallywere, as he insists it is, obvious and long-standing.

It seemsthat even some Where Peter Is readerswere unimpressed, which has now led Lewis to try to explain the difference in afollow-up article.  Much ofwhat he writes essentially just reiterates, at length, that the new Declarationclearly says that it authorizes onlyblessings for couples and not for unions, and that “most reasonably intelligentCatholics should be able to understand the difference if they read the documentwith a spirit of receptivity and an open heart.”  Of course, this does not address the questionat all.  Everybody already knows what theDeclaration says.  The question is how any coherent sense can be made of what it says.  In particular, exactly what is the difference between a “couple” and a“union”?  Naturally, to accuse those whocontinue to ask this question of lacking “a spirit of receptivity and an openheart” is not to answer the question.

Lewis doestake a stab at answering it, though.  Hewrites:

I don’t understand why this is adifficult concept, obviously a “couple” is two people who are pairedtogether.  A couple might be married,engaged, or involved in another type of relationship.  A union is a type of arrangement or agreementbetween two people… The Church can bless two people who are a couple withoutsanctioning everything that they do, nor recognizing every agreement they make.

Endquote.  I trust that most reasonablyintelligent Catholics who read Lewis with a spirit of receptivity and an openheart will see that this utterly fails to solve the problem.  Start with the last sentence.  Yes, one can certainly “bless two people whoare a couple without sanctioning everything that they do, nor recognizing everyagreement they make.”  But one can alsobless a union without sanctioningeverything the people in it do or recognizing every agreement they make.  So, this does exactly nothing to explain thedifference between blessing a couple and blessing a union.

Considernext Lewis’s claim that “a ‘couple’ is two people who are paired together.”  What does being “paired together” amountto?  Is Lewis saying that just any two individuals, even perfectstrangers, who happen to be standing next to one another counts as a “couple”in the sense Fiducia Supplicans hasin view?  I’ve already explained in myprevious article why that can’t be right, and we just saw above that theinterview with Cardinal Fernández confirms that it is not right.  “Couple” in this context means more thanmerely two individuals, and connotes a special relationship between them.  And Lewis may well acknowledge this, since hegoes on to say that “a couple might be married, engaged, or involved in anothertype of relationship.”

But then, wemust ask yet again, how does this differ from a union?  Lewis says, first,that a union “is a type of arrangement.” I hardly need point out that that is so vague that it is obviously trueof couples no less than ofunions.  Couples, such as the married andengaged couples Lewis gives as examples, are obviously in a kind of“arrangement.”  So, this too does exactlynothing to clarify the difference between a “couple” and a “union.”

What, then,of Lewis’s further suggestion that a union involves an “agreement” of somekind?  This is slightly less vague than“arrangement,” but not enough to help. Consider two people who decide to go steady, or to become engaged, or toshare bed and board.  Any of thesesuffices to make them a “couple.”  Butthese all involve agreements of sometype (as well as arrangements).  Hence, by Lewis’s criteria, this also sufficesto make them a “union.”  Once again,then, Lewis has utterly failed to explain the difference between a “couple” anda “union.”

Later in thearticle, Lewis suggests that the blessings the Declaration has in view “aremeant for each of the persons in thecouple, not an attempt to legitimize a union” (emphasis in the original).  But what does this mean, exactly?  Does it mean that what the Declaration has inview are blessings on the persons considered only as individuals, rather than asa couple?  But we already saw above,and at greater length in my previous article, why that is not what the Declaration is saying.

Following asuggestion from another defender of FiduciaSupplicans, Lewis suggests:

FiduciaSupplicans studiously avoids explicitlyfocusing on the dichotomy between individuals and relationships... “It does notso much discuss who or what gets blessed, but what blessings are and for whatpurpose.”  This suggests that thefixation of the document’s critics on the word “couple” is entirely misplaced,and we should turn our attention to why we bless.

Endquote.  The problem with this is that itis simply not true that the Declaration “does not so much discuss who or whatgets blessed.”  On the contrary, the whole point of the Declaration is togo beyond what was already said in the 2021 document and assert that blessingscan now be given to “couples” quacouples (and not merely to the individuals in the couple, as the 2021 documentallowed).  Hence for critics to focus onthe word “couple” is not only not misplaced,it is precisely to do what the newDeclaration itself does.

In a closingsection so absurd that the unwary reader might wonder whether his article is,after all, meant merely as a parodyof desperate defenders of FiduciaSupplicans, Lewis tells us that he consulted ChatGPT to see how it mightexplain the difference between “couples” and “unions”!  The part of the AI software’s response thatis actually relevant to this question reads as follows:

The Church may view the blessing of individuals in a same-sex relationship as a recognitionof their inherent dignity and worth as persons… Therefore, the Churchmight differentiate between blessing a couple (as individuals) and blessingtheir union. (Emphasis added)

Endquote.  So, the only way ChatGPT is ableto make sense of the difference between blessing a “couple” and blessing a “union”is to suggest that the individuals in the couple are blessed as individuals, rather than as acouple.  The problem with this, ofcourse, is that the 2021 document already allowed for that, and that the wholepoint of the new Declaration is to authorize the blessing of couples as couples.  Once again, I explained at length in myprevious article how that is the case, and Cardinal Fernández has confirmed itin the Pillar interview. 

Explainingthe difference between “couples” and “unions” thus eludes the best efforts ofman and machine alike. 

The scandal of Fiducia Supplicans

By now manyreaders of this blog will likely have heard about FiduciaSupplicans and the worldwide controversy it has generated, whichmay end up being even more bitter and momentous than the many othercontroversies sparked over the last decade by the words and actions of PopeFrancis.  The Declaration, issued by theDicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) under its new Prefect CardinalVíctor Manuel Fernández, for the first time allows for “the possibility ofblessings for couples in irregular situations and for couples of the samesex.”  This revises the statementon the matter issued in 2021 under Fernández’s predecessor CardinalLadaria, which reaffirmed the Church’s traditional teaching that “it is notlicit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, thatinvolve sexual activity outside of marriage… as is the case of the unionsbetween persons of the same sex.”

The good

I have alreadyhad a lot to say about the subject on Twitter, but an article summarizing the mainpoints might be useful.  The first thingto note is that at the Declaration emphasizes that there is no change to therelevant doctrinal principles, which it explicitly reaffirms.  It also emphasizes that no blessing orliturgical rite that might imply such a change can be approved.  Here are the relevant passages:

This Declaration remains firm on thetraditional doctrine of the Church about marriage, not allowing any type ofliturgical rite or blessing similar to a liturgical rite that can createconfusion…

Therefore, rites and prayers thatcould create confusion between what constitutes marriage – which is the“exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturallyopen to the generation of children” – and what contradicts it areinadmissible.  This conviction isgrounded in the perennial Catholic doctrine of marriage; it is only in thiscontext that sexual relations find their natural, proper, and fully humanmeaning. The Church’s doctrine on this point remains firm.

This is also the understanding ofmarriage that is offered by the Gospel.  Forthis reason, when it comes to blessings, the Church has the right and the dutyto avoid any rite that might contradict this conviction or lead to confusion…[T]he Church does not have the power to impart blessings on unions of personsof the same sex…

The Church does not have the power toconfer its liturgical blessing when that would somehow offer a form of morallegitimacy to a union that presumes to be a marriage or to an extra-maritalsexual practice.

Endquote.  So far so good.  Why the controversy, then?  And exactly what has changed?  To understand that, consider next that theDeclaration holds that what has been said so far cannot be the end of thestory, given the nature of the act of asking for a blessing.  It says:

In order to help us understand thevalue of a more pastoral approach to blessings, Pope Francis urges us tocontemplate, with an attitude of faith and fatherly mercy, the fact that “whenone asks for a blessing, one is expressing a petition for God’s assistance, aplea to live better, and confidence in a Father who can help us livebetter.”  This request should, in everyway, be valued, accompanied, and received with gratitude.  People who come spontaneously to ask for ablessing show by this request their sincere openness to transcendence, theconfidence of their hearts that they do not trust in their own strength alone,their need for God, and their desire to break out of the narrow confines ofthis world, enclosed in its limitations…

When people ask for a blessing, anexhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferringit.   For, those seeking a blessing should not berequired to have prior moral perfection…

God never turns away anyone whoapproaches him!  Ultimately, a blessingoffers people a means to increase their trust in God.  The request for a blessing, thus, expressesand nurtures openness to the transcendence, mercy, and closeness to God in athousand concrete circumstances of life, which is no small thing in the worldin which we live.  It is a seed of theHoly Spirit that must be nurtured, not hindered.

Endquote.  Let’s leave aside the middleparagraph, which attacks a straw man.  Noone holds that either moral perfection or exhaustive moral analysis ought to beprerequisites to blessing someone.  The keyprinciple here is that the act of asking for a blessing evinces “a petition forGod’s assistance, a plea to live better, and confidence in a Father who canhelp us live better” etc.  Again, so far,so good.  I don’t know of anyone whodenies that this is the case, at least in general.

The bad

The problemcomes from the Declaration’s claim that this principle is such an “innovativecontribution to the pastoral meaning of blessings” that it calls for “a realdevelopment from what has been said about blessings in the Magisterium and theofficial texts of the Church.”  Inparticular, claims Fiducia Supplicans,it entails “the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations andsame-sex couples.”  Later on theDeclaration repeats that what is in view is “the possibility of blessingsfor couples in irregular situations and for couples of the same sex.”  And again, the Declaration speaks of cases wherea “prayer of blessing is requested by a couple in an irregular situation”or “the blessing is requested by a same-sex couple,” and where therequest can be granted given that certain conditions are met. (Emphasis addedin each case)

To be sure, Fiducia Supplicans makes clearqualifications regarding the spirit and manner in which such blessings can begiven.  It says that a blessing for sucha couple can be permitted “without officially validating their status orchanging in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage.”  It acknowledges that such couples may be in “situationsthat are morally unacceptable from an objective point of view.”  It envisages cases where such couples, inrequesting a blessing, “do not claim a legitimation of their own status.”  And in any event, says the Declaration, inallowing such a blessing, “there is no intention to legitimize anything.”  Moreover, there is no authorization ofanything more than an informal blessing, and it must not be construed as ablessing on a civil union or a purported marriage.  The Declaration says:

The form of [these blessings] shouldnot be fixed ritually by ecclesial authorities to avoid producing confusionwith the blessing proper to the Sacrament of Marriage…

Precisely to avoid any form ofconfusion or scandal, when the prayer of blessing is requested by a couple inan irregular situation, even though it is expressed outside the ritesprescribed by the liturgical books, this blessing should never be imparted inconcurrence with the ceremonies of a civil union, and not even in connectionwith them.  Nor can it be performed withany clothing, gestures, or words that are proper to a wedding.  The same applies when the blessing isrequested by a same-sex couple.

Endquote.  These qualifications reinforcethe Declaration’s insistence that there is no change at the level of doctrineand thus no approval of any sexually immoral arrangements.  What is in view is simply acknowledging thatto ask a blessing involves a recognition of the need for God’s assistance, aswell as a plea “that all that is true, good, and humanly valid in their livesand their relationships be enriched, healed, and elevated by the presence ofthe Holy Spirit,” on the part of those “whose guilt or responsibility may beattenuated by various factors affecting subjective imputability.”  And as far as I have seen, no one has anyquarrel with giving a blessing to any individualwho asks for it in this spirit.  Indeed,the 2021 Vatican statement issued under Cardinal Ladaria explicitly said thatto forbid the blessing of couples “does not preclude the blessings given to individual persons with homosexualinclinations, who manifest the will to live in fidelity to the revealed plansof God as proposed by Church teaching” (emphasis added).

What has generatedcontroversy are the words I have put in bold italics above.  Indeed, “controversy” is much too mild aword.  At the time I write this, thebishops of Poland,Ukraine,Nigeria,Malawiand Zambia have indicated that they will not implement theDeclaration.  Cardinal Ambongo,Archbishop of Kinshasa, hascalled for a united African response to the problematic newpolicy.  The Declaration has beencriticized by CardinalMüller, ArchbishopChaput, ArchbishopPeta and Bishop Schneider, and theBritish Confraternity of Catholic Clergy.  Among priests and theologians, criticismshave been raised by Fr.Thomas Weinandy, Fr. DwightLongenecker, Prof.Larry Chapp, and others.

The problemswith Fiducia Supplicans can be summedup in three words: incoherence, abuse, and implicature.  Let’s considereach in turn.

Theincoherence stems from the fact that, as Dan Hitchens haspointed out at First Things,the Declaration contradicts the 2021 Vatican document.  The contradiction is clear when we comparethe following two statements:

2021: “It isnot licit to impart a blessing onrelationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activityoutside of marriage… as is the case of the unions between persons of the samesex”

2023:“Within the horizon outlined here appears the possibility of blessings for couples in irregular situations and forcouples of the same sex”

I trust thatthe contradiction is obvious to anyone who reads the two statementsdispassionately, but in case it is not, here’s an explanation.  A “couple” is just the same thing as twopeople in a “relationship” or “partnership.” “Irregular situations” is a common euphemism in contemporary Catholicdiscourse for relationships that involve fornication, an invalid marriage,same-sex sexual activity, or the like. The 2021 document clearly peremptorily rules out any blessing for acouple in this sort of situation, whereas the 2023 document clearly allows itunder certain circumstances.   Sincethese are contradictory, the new Declaration entails a clear reversal of the2021 document. 

On Twitter, I’veseen several odd, tortuous, and utterly unconvincing attempts to get aroundthis problem.  Some say that the newdocument authorizes blessing “couples” but not “unions.”  The problem, of course, is that thedistinction is merely verbal.  Both the2021 and 2023 documents are addressing romantic relationships.  And in that context, to be a “couple” entailshaving a “union” of some kind (an emotional bond, going steady, sharing bed andboard, or whatever).  To say that onemight bless couples but not unions is like saying that one could blessbachelors without blessing unmarried men. 

What if“unions” are understood as “civilunions,” in the legal sense?  This doesindeed have a different meaning than “couples,” since not all couples are incivil unions.  But this does not solvethe problem, because the 2021 document rules out blessing any unions of a same-sex or otherwise irregular kind, not merelycivil unions in the legal sense.  Indeed,Fiducia Supplicans is doubly incoherent, because it reiterates the teaching of the 2021document that “the Church does not have the power to impart blessings on unionsof persons of the same sex.”  Thisstatement contradicts the statement that couplescan be blessed, because a “couple” and a “union” are the same thing.  The newDeclaration thus not only contradicts the 2021 document, it contradicts itself.

Some haveclaimed that couples and unions are notthe same thing, on the grounds that “couple” can refer to simply a pair ofindividual things, as when one speaks of drinking “a couple of beers” or havingslept for “a couple of hours.”  But theproblem is that the context concerns, again, couples in the romantic sense.  And a couple in that sense is more thanmerely a pair of individuals.  It is,again, a pair who have some emotional bond or the like.  It would be absurd to pretend that Fiducia Supplicans is speaking of“couples” in a thin sense that might include two complete strangers who simplyhappen to be standing next to each other as each asks the same priest for ablessing!

Some haveclaimed that Fiducia Supplicans merelyauthorizes blessing the individualswho make up the couple, not the couple itself.  But the document explicitly and repeatedlyspeaks of blessing couples, notmerely the individuals in the couple. Moreover, the 2021 document already explicitly said that individualscould be blessed.  So there would be noneed for the new document, and in particular nothing in it that counts as“innovative” or as “a real development,” without the reference to “couples,”specifically.

Some haveclaimed that there is crucial significance in the phrase “blessing for couples,” as if the “for” somehowentailed that the couple itself is not being blessed.  One problem with this is that we need someexplanation of how a “blessing for couples”amounts to anything different from “blessing couples.”  Another problem is that the Declaration alsodoes in fact speak of “blessing couples,”and not merely of “blessings for couples.”

Some haveclaimed there is no contradiction between the 2021 and 2023 documents insofaras one can, they say, bless a “couple” without blessing the “relationship”between the individuals who make up the couple. But again, the document speaks of blessing couples, not merely the individualsin the couple.  The blessing is impartedto a couple qua couple, not merelyqua individuals.  That is, as I havesaid, why the document can claim to be “innovative” and “a realdevelopment.”  But how can one bless acouple qua couple without blessingthe relationship that makes it the case that they are a couple?    

The 2021document also explicitly says that while individualsin unions can be blessed, it “declares illicit any form of blessing that tends to acknowledge their unions as such.”  But to bless couples qua couples and notmerely qua individuals is precisely “toacknowledge their unions as such.”  So,even if one could make sense of the idea of blessing a couple without blessingthe relationship, there would stillbe a contradiction between the 2021 and 2023 documents.  Even acknowledgingthe union while blessing it, no less than the blessing itself, is forbidden bythe 2021 document but allowed by the 2023 document.

The bottomline is that blessing “couples” in the 2023 document amounts to “blessingpeople qua in a relationship.”  And the2021 document’s prohibition on blessing “relationships” is obviously just a wayof prohibiting “blessing people qua in a relationship.”  The differences in phraseology between thedocuments are merely verbal.  Perhaps thenew document uses the words it does in the hopeof avoiding a contradiction.  Thepoint, though, is that it does not infact avoid a contradiction, given the way terms like “couple,”“relationship,” and the like are actually used when describing romantic andsexual situations.  Nor are there anyspecial theological usages in play here, for the relevant terms have none. 

So, it is,in my judgement, sheer sophistry to deny that Fiducia Supplicans permits the blessing of couples insame-sex and other irregular relationships, and to deny that this contradictsthe 2021 document.  On Twitter, Fr. JamesMartin triumphantlydeclared:

Re: Vatican declaration on same-sexblessings. Be wary of the "Nothing has changed" response to today'snews. It's a significant change. In short, yesterday, as a priest, I was forbiddento bless same-sex couples at all. Today, with some limitations, I can.

One can andshould lament that Fr. Martin isright, but one cannot reasonably denyit – Fiducia Supplicans does indeedmark a significant change, and precisely because it permits what was previouslyforbidden.

The ugly

Now, Fr.Martin immediatelywent on to bless a same-sex couple in a manner that even somedefenders of Fiducia Supplicans havesaid is an abuse of the Declaration. This brings us to the second problem with the Declaration, which is thatsuch abuse was inevitable.  For, again, the new document makes theChurch’s current policy incoherent.  Onthe one hand, the Document insists that there is no doctrinal change at all,and that there is no change entails that the Church can no more acknowledge theacceptability of same-sex and other irregular “couples” today than it has inthe past.  On the other hand, to bless such couples as couples (and not merely as individuals) implies that their beinga couple is in some way acceptable (and not merely that they are accepted asindividuals).  It “tends to acknowledgetheir unions as such,” which the 2021 document forbade.

Hence, manyare bound to judge that the Church now in some way accepts same-sex and otherirregular “couples” – again, as couplesand not merely as individuals – and will naturally draw the conclusion that sheno longer takes very seriously the immoral sexual behavior that defines suchrelationships.  To be sure, Fiducia Supplicans explicitly rejectsany approval of such behavior.  But thatis bound to be lost on the average man in the pew.  If one has to have special theologicalexpertise even to try to makecoherent sense of Fiducia Supplicans– and is likely to fail even then – it can hardly be surprising if people drawfrom it precisely the heterodox conclusions the document claims toforestall. 

This bringsme to the last problem with the Declaration, which is the implicature it involves.  Animplicature is a communicative act which, by virtue of its context or manner,relays a meaning that goes beyond the literal meaning of the actual words thatmay be used.  To take an example I’veused before, suppose you go out on a blind date and a friend asksyou how it went.  You pause and thenanswer flatly, with a slight smirk: “Well, I liked the restaurant.”  There is nothing in the literal meaning ofthis sentence, considered all by itself, that states or implies anythingnegative about the person you went out with, or indeed anything at all aboutthe person.  Still, given the context,you’ve said something insulting.  You’ve“sent the message” that you liked the restaurant but not the person.  Or suppose someone shows you a painting hehas just completed, and when asked what you think, you respond: “I like theframe.”  The sentence by itself doesn’timply that the painting is bad, but the overall speech act certainly conveysthat message all the same. 

In thesecases, the speaker intends the insult, but the implicature can exist evenwithout the intention.  Suppose you said“Well, I liked the restaurant” or “I like the frame” without wanting to insult anyone, and indeed with the intention ofavoiding the insult that would follow from saying directly what you reallythink.  You still would have sent aninsulting message, however inadvertently, because these statements would in fact be insulting, given thecontext.  That you meant no insult is irrelevant.  And it would be disingenuous or at leastnaïve of you to protest your innocence on the grounds that the literal meaningof your words is in no way insulting. For the literal meaning is not all that is relevant to the message sentby an utterance.  Even if you wereinnocent of intending to insult, youare guilty of carelessness or at least naïveté.

Implicatureshave always been important to the Church when evaluating theologicalpropositions (even if churchmen and theologians don’t usually use the word “implicature,” which is a technicalterm from linguistics and philosophy).  Evenstatements that are not strictly heretical, or even erroneous, havenevertheless been condemned as problematic in some other way.  For example, they might be badly expressed; or ambiguous; or prone to causescandal; or “savor of heresy”even if not being strictly heretical; or “offensiveto pious ears.”  These are among the “theologicalcensures” well-known to Catholic theologians of past generations,even if they are not always familiar to contemporary writers.  A moral or theological proposition whoseliteral meaning is not necessarily heretical or even false might still be“badly expressed” or “prone to cause scandal” or the like insofar as, given thecontext in which it is asserted, it involves a heretical or false implicature.

Now, here isthe context relevant to FiduciaSupplicans: The secular world hates the Church’s teaching on sexualmorality perhaps more than any other of her doctrines.  It constantly urges her to abandon it, manysupposing that it is simply a matter of time until she does abandon it.  Most churchmen rarely discuss it, and on the occasionswhen they do, the tendency is to give a vague and perfunctory acknowledgementfollowing by an impassioned plea for acceptance of those who do not obeyit.  The current pope tends to favor and promotechurchmen who deemphasize traditional teaching on the subject, and strongly todisfavor churchmen who happen to have a reputation for upholding it.  He is also widely perceived as being inclinedto soften Church teaching in other areas. Those who have most loudly favored the blessing of same-sex and other“irregular” couples are precisely those who reject the Church’s traditionalteaching on sexual morality, whereas those who have most loudly opposed suchblessings are those most keen to uphold that teaching.  Meanwhile, no one could fail to realize inadvance of issuing a document like FiduciaSupplicans that the qualifications it makes would be known to few who wouldhear about it and understood by fewer – that, to most laymen who would learn ofthese qualifications, they would sound confusing and legalistic and make farless of an impression than the new policy itself.

It cannotreasonably be denied that, given all of thiscontext, the Declaration has the implicature that the Church is now atleast in part conceding the criticisms of those who reject her teaching, andthat she now in some way approves of certainsame-sex and other “irregular” arrangements (such as those involvingfornication and invalid marriages).  Itcannot fail to send that message whetheror not it was the message intended. And it does so regardless ofall the silly wrangling over the meaning of “couple,” and whether or not one could somehow cobble together a strained readingthat reconciles the new document with the 2021 document.  Even if the Declaration is not strictlyheretical, it is manifestly “prone to cause scandal,” “badly expressed,” and “ambiguous.”

It is worthadding that we are only seeing the beginning of the implications of thisdevelopment.  There is nothing specialabout “couples,” after all.  Hence thereis no reason in principle why the logic of the Declaration should rule outblessings for “throuples” or even larger polyamorous “unions,” or fororganizations like the pro-abortion Catholics for Choice.  How could it? Members of such groups would also claim that there is much “that istrue, good, and humanly valid in their lives and their relationships,” and thatby the very act of asking for a blessing, they are “expressing a petition forGod’s assistance, a plea to live better, and confidence in a Father who canhelp us live better.”  Why should they bedenied, if same-sex and other “irregular” “couples” are not to be denied?

Cardinal Müllerjudges the new Declaration “self-contradictory.”  Archbishop Chaput describes it as “doubleminded.”  Fr. Weinandy says it “wreaks havoc.”  Prof. Chapp pronounces it a “disaster.”  Prof. Roberto de Mattei, though a reliablymeasured commentator on the controversies surrounding Pope Francis, neverthelesswrites: “It pains me to say, that a very grave sin was committed by thosewho promulgated and signed this scandalous statement.”  These conclusions all seem to me exactlyright.

It is extremely rare that such things couldjustly be said of the highest doctrinal authorities in the Church, but it canhappen when a pope does not speak excathedra, and it is not unprecedented. The most spectacular case is that of Pope Honorius, whose ambiguous teachinggave aid and comfort to the Monothelite heresy. For this he was condemned by three Church councils and by hissuccessors.  Pope St. Leo II declared:“We anathematize the inventors of the new error… and also Honorius, who did notattempt to sanctify this Apostolic Church with the teaching of Apostolictradition, but by profane treachery permitted its purity to be polluted.”  Historian Fr. John Chapman, in his book The Condemnation of Pope Honorius, notesthat “the formula for the oath taken by every new Pope from the 8th centurytill the 11th adds these words to the list of Monothelites condemned: ‘Togetherwith Honorius, who added fuel to their wicked assertions’” (pp. 115-16).  I have discussed the case in detail hereand here.

The case of PopeHonorius should be studied carefully by theologians and churchmen – and by PopeFrancis especially.

The Aristotelian proof on Within Reason

Some time back,Alex O’Connor and I recorded a discussion of the Aristotelian argument frommotion for the existence of God, for his WithinReason podcast.  The episode is now available on YouTube.