Edward Feser's Blog, page 12

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.

On Vallier, Vermeule, and straw men (Updated)

Over at hisSubstack, KevinVallier responds to my recent reviewat The Josias of his book Allthe Kingdoms of the World . Vallier claims that I “mislead the reader” vis-à-vis hischaracterization of the views of Adrian Vermeule.  In particular, says Vallier, “Feser… makesseveral claims that make it sound as if I think Vermeule endorses violence andauthoritarianism.  Feser does note at onepoint that I say Vermeule does not want coercion.  But that leaves the impression that I only saythis in passing.”  He then cites fiveremarks from his book that he says show that he clearly acknowledges thatVermeule does not endorse violence.

So, have Igiven a misleading impression of Vallier’s treatment of Vermeule?  Not in the least.  Note, first, that I explicitly said in myreview that Vallier acknowledges that Vermeule does not advocate violence.  I wrote:

Vallier tells us [that]… whether they like it or not, in orderto bring their desired regime about, integralists “must use violence in waysthat the Catholic Church rejects” (p. 137)…

Vallier admits that infact “Vermeule wants to avoid coercion” and “says little about how hard integralists should fight for the ideal”(pp. 134-35).

Most of what Vallier describes is not anything Vermeule himself actually says, but onlywhat Vallier claims would have to bedone in order to realize Vermeule’s vision .

End quote.  The problem, as I show, is that Vallier also says things that give theimpression that Vermeule advocates a radically revolutionary political programthat manifestly could not be realized without violence.  And material of this latter sort greatlyoutweighs the qualifying statements Vallier makes here and there, and which hecites in his response to me.

Hence, as Inoted in my review, we have page after harrowing page in Vallier’s bookdescribing how the political program he attributes to Vermeule “probablyrequires abolishing democracy” (p. 136) and would entail “mass surveillance… [to]suppress dissent” (p. 150), “Chinese-level tactics” (p. 148), “modern heresytrials” (p. 149), “pressure to segregate religiously diverse populations” (p.154), “ultra-loyal troops [to] subdue career military officials. (Hitler’s SSsprings to mind)” and “youth programs to increase loyalty to their leader.(Hitler Youth springs to mind)” (p. 146), “human rights violations” and “secretpolice” (pp. 151-52), and “leadership purges, replete with execution, torture,and show trials. A one-party state” (p. 147). Vallier warns that to uphold the regime Vermeule would set up,“Protestants could face heresy charges” (p. 153); that “according tointegralism, Black Protestant churches have no right to exist” and “the statemust decide whether to declare Black Protestant churches criminalorganizations” (ibid.); and that “we should not assume that an integralistregime will treat Jews well” (ibid.). 

And soon.  Vallier concludes that “Vermeule’sintegration from within requires massive violence” (p. 239).  Indeed, the political program he attributesto Vermeule is so extreme andunhinged that it is hard to see how anyone could fail to perceive that it wouldrequire massive violence.  And again,though Vallier makes a few disclaimers here and there, they are nowhere near asnumerous or prominent as the detailed descriptions he gives of the coerciveregime he says Vermeule’s views would entail. When an author briefly notes here and there that Vermeule doesn’t advocate violence, but also goes on at greatlength about how Vermeule’s extremepolitical program would manifestly require massive violence, it is hardlyunfair to judge that he has given his readers a misleading impression ofVermeule’s views.

Then thereis the fact that Vallier’s qualifying statements are hardly full-throated.  For example, as Vallier notes in his reply tome, he concedes that “Vermeule would not suppress liberalism with violence” (p.134).  But here is the longer passage inVallier’s book from which that line is taken:

Vermeule wants to protect the Churchfrom malignant states.  His method: trainstrong Christian leaders who will take power and defend the church.  When Ihave spoken with Vermeule’s defenders, often young people, they characterizehis strategy as concerned chiefly with defense rather than offense.  I do not think Vermeule’stheory of liberalism allows for any such distinction.   Vermeule would not suppressliberalism with violence.  Liberalismwill destroy itself.  But liberals andthe liberal state can still do significant damage in the meanwhile.  Further, once liberalism dies, it couldrevive.

As Vermeule so evocativelyclaims, we must “sear the liberal faith with hot irons.”  It must not rise again.  Only a strong state combined with a strongchurch can complete this urgent task. Vermeulean protectors must become conquerors.  They must then rule with an iron rod.  And so, however much Vermeulewants to avoid coercion, he is stuck with it. Integralists must exercise hard power. (p. 134)

Endquote.  The impression given here is thatwhile Vermeule does not endorse violence and even eschews it, he does endorse a radical political programthat would clearly requireviolence.  But as I showed in my review,the problem is not just that Vermeule does not endorse violence itself.  The problem is that Vermeule does not in the first place actually endorse the extremepolitical program Vallier attributes to him.

Hence, in “Integrationfrom Within” (from which the “hot irons” remark is quoted), Vermeuleis not talking about Catholicintegralism, but “nonliberal” politics more generally.  Indeed, he explicitly says that “there can be no return to the integratedregime of the thirteenth century, whatever its attractions.”  Nor does he advocate any positive concretepolitical program of any other kind for replacing liberalism, and indeedexplicitly says that the “postliberal future [is] of uncertain shape.”  Vermeule says that “for the foreseeablefuture, the problem will be to mitigate the spasmodic, but compulsive andrepetitive, aggression of the decaying liberal state” rather than promote analternative.  Indeed, he says thatnonliberals who follow his advice will:

mainly attempt to ensure the survivalof their faith communities in an interim age of exile and dispossession.  They donot evangelize or preach with a view to bringing about the birth of an entirelynew regime, from within the old.  They mitigate the long defeat for thosewho become targets of the regime in liberalism’s twilight era, and this will surely have to be the main aimfor some time to come.

Endquote.  Similarly, in “AChristian Strategy,” far from endorsing the “party capture” approach thatVallier attributes to him, Vermeule says that “the Church… must stand detached from all subsidiary political commitments, willingto enter into flexible alliances of convenience with any of the parties.”  Rather than calling for going on offense witha revolutionary political program, he says that “the main proximate short-rungoal must be largely one of survival.” Rather than pushing some doctrinaire integralist vision, he emphasizesflexibility: “Christians will always have many different options for politicalengagement.  In some or othercircumstances, one or another of them will prove best in the light ofprudential judgment; none has any logical or theological priority.”

In short, Vallieris saying, “I didn’t accuse Vermeule of advocating B!  I accused him ofadvocating A, which will inevitably lead to B!”  And the problem is that Vermeule not onlydoes not advocate B, he doesn’t advocate A either.

Or consider Vallier’sremark that “Vermeule has publicly declaimed all such [violent] tactics.”  Here is the passage in Valler’s book in whichthat remark appears:

Vermeule has publicly declaimed allsuch tactics.  Indeed, even in“Integration from Within” he indicates hesitancy about coercion, though what hesays is curious: “It would be wrong to conclude that integration from within isa matter of coercion, as opposed to persuasion and conversion, for thedistinction is so fragile as to be nearly useless.”  On the one hand, integration from within isnot “a matter of coercion.”  But thedistinction between coercion and noncoercion is “nearly useless” – which leavesone to wonder which tactics Vermeule has in mind. (p. 147)

End quote.  One problem here is that Vallier is misusingthe word “declaim,” which literally means “to speak in an eloquent orimpassioned way.”  So, the literalmeaning of what Vallier says in the first line here is “Vermeule has publicly spokenin an eloquent way of all such [violent] tactics”!  Obviously, that is not what Vallier means,which is why I didn’t bother quoting this particular line. 

The moreimportant point here, though, is this.  Onthe one hand, Vallier here acknowledges that Vermeule shows “hesitancy aboutcoercion.”  But on the other hand,Vallier says that it is “curious” that Vermeule says that the distinction betweencoercion and persuasion is “nearly useless,” so that one “wonder[s] whichtactics Vermeule has in mind.”  Since thelarger context is a discussion of the violent means Vermeule’s program wouldallegedly require, some readers might get the impression that Vermeule mightnot be entirely committed to eschewing violence after all.

But here isthe longer passage from Vermeule’s article “Integration from Within” where hemakes the remark in question:

It would be wrong to conclude thatintegration from within is a matter of coercion, as opposed to persuasion andconversion, for the distinction is so fragile as to be nearly useless.  As J. F. Stephen noted, there is a type ofintellectual and rhetorical “warfare” in which “the weaker opinion – the lessrobust and deeply seated feeling – is rooted out to the last fiber, the placewhere it grew being seared as with a hot iron.”  In a more recent register, we have learnedfrom behavioral economics that agents with administrative control over defaultrules may nudge whole populations in desirable directions, in an exercise of“soft paternalism.”  It is a uselessexercise to debate whether or not this shaping from above is best understood ascoercive, or rather as an appeal to the “true” underlying preferences of thegoverned.

Endquote.  Seen in this context, there isnothing at all “curious” about Vermeule’s remark, or remotely suggestive ofviolence.  On the contrary, as I noted inmy review of Vallier’s book, it is clear from this passage that when Vermeule speaksof cases where the distinction between coercion and persuasion is unclear, whathe actually had in mind were soft incentives of the kind liberals like RichardThaler and Cass Sunstein describe in their book Nudge:Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness.

Here is anotherexample where Vallier’s reading of Vermeule is careless to such an extent thathe ends up attributing to Vermeule the opposite of what he actually said.  As I noted my review, Vallier comparesVermeule’s program to that of a Marxist revolutionary party.  Hence, in his book, Vallier writes: “Vermeuleanalogizes his view [of liberalism] with Karl Marx’s claims about capitalism: ‘Liberalismis inherently unstable and is structurally disposed to generate the very forcesthat destroy it’” (p. 127).  The remarkfrom Vermeule is quoted from “A Christian Strategy.”  But here is the larger passage in thatarticle in which it appears:

There are two ways of understanding[the liberal] dynamic.  One is that inthe long run, liberalism undermines itself by transforming tolerance intoincreasingly radical intolerance of the “intolerant” – meaning those who holdilliberal views.  On this view, militantprogressivism is distinct from liberalism, indeed a betrayal of it.  Such anaccount would make liberalism analogous to Marx’s claim about capitalism:Liberalism is inherently unstable and is structurally disposed to generate thevery forces that destroy it.

A different view, andmy own, is that liberal intolerance represents not the self-undermining ofliberalism, but a fulfillment of its essential nature.  When a chrysalis shelters aninsect that later bursts forth from it and leaves it shattered, the chrysalishas in fact fulfilled its true and predetermined end.  Liberalism of the purportedly tolerant sort isto militant progressivism as the chrysalis is to the hideous insect.

End quote.  As the reader can clearly see, in the lineVallier quotes, Vermeule is notstating his own view, but on the contrary, a view he explicitly says is “different [from his] own.”

More couldbe said, but that suffices to make the point. Vallier is for the most part admirably fair-minded, and I don’t thinkfor a moment that he intentionallymisrepresents Vermeule.  But that he doesin fact give a misleading characterization of Vermeule’s views, however inadvertently,there can be no doubt.  (Vallieraddresses some other issues too, and says that he will address yet others in a futurepost.  I may return to those in a futurereply.)

UPDATE 12/15:Vallier responds overat Substack.  Here’s the reply Iposted atTwitter:

Sorry, but thecase remains unmade. When @Vermeullarmine offers us specific models for a Christianpolitics to look to, he gives biblical examples like Joseph in Egypt, Esther andMordecai, and St. Paul. Are these models of the integralist “state capture”envisaged by @kvallier? No, they involve using state power defensively, toprotect a faithful minority (in the first two cases) and seeding the ground fora centuries-long change in the culture (in the case of Paul). Any “statecapture” that such models could lead to are so very far down the line (perhaps centuries) that the relevant concretecultural circumstances are impossible to predict, giving Vallier’s imagined Catholicintegralist state capture scenarios no purchase. And as I keep saying, Vermeule himself does not, in any event,actually propose any such scenario. In order to attribute it to him, Vallier’slatest response has to rely in part on what otherpeople have said, and on extrapolationfrom a tweet from Vermeule (despite conceding, at p. 123 of his book, thattweets and other off-the-cuff social media ephemera are not a good basis onwhich reconstruct someone’s considered views).

On Vallier, Vermeule, and straw men

Over at hisSubstack, KevinVallier responds to my recent reviewat The Josias of his book Allthe Kingdoms of the World . Vallier claims that I “mislead the reader” vis-à-vis hischaracterization of the views of Adrian Vermeule.  In particular, says Vallier, “Feser… makesseveral claims that make it sound as if I think Vermeule endorses violence andauthoritarianism.  Feser does note at onepoint that I say Vermeule does not want coercion.  But that leaves the impression that I only saythis in passing.”  He then cites fiveremarks from his book that he says show that he clearly acknowledges thatVermeule does not endorse violence.

So, have Igiven a misleading impression of Vallier’s treatment of Vermeule?  Not in the least.  Note, first, that I explicitly said in myreview that Vallier acknowledges that Vermeule does not advocate violence.  I wrote:

Vallier tells us [that]… whether they like it or not, in orderto bring their desired regime about, integralists “must use violence in waysthat the Catholic Church rejects” (p. 137)…

Vallier admits that infact “Vermeule wants to avoid coercion” and “says little about how hard integralists should fight for the ideal”(pp. 134-35).

Most of what Vallier describes is not anything Vermeule himself actually says, but onlywhat Vallier claims would have to bedone in order to realize Vermeule’s vision .

End quote.  The problem, as I show, is that Vallier also says things that give theimpression that Vermeule advocates a radically revolutionary political programthat manifestly could not be realized without violence.  And material of this latter sort greatlyoutweighs the qualifying statements Vallier makes here and there, and which hecites in his response to me.

Hence, as Inoted in my review, we have page after harrowing page in Vallier’s bookdescribing how the political program he attributes to Vermeule “probablyrequires abolishing democracy” (p. 136) and would entail “mass surveillance… [to]suppress dissent” (p. 150), “Chinese-level tactics” (p. 148), “modern heresytrials” (p. 149), “pressure to segregate religiously diverse populations” (p.154), “ultra-loyal troops [to] subdue career military officials. (Hitler’s SSsprings to mind)” and “youth programs to increase loyalty to their leader.(Hitler Youth springs to mind)” (p. 146), “human rights violations” and “secretpolice” (pp. 151-52), and “leadership purges, replete with execution, torture,and show trials. A one-party state” (p. 147). Vallier warns that to uphold the regime Vermeule would set up,“Protestants could face heresy charges” (p. 153); that “according tointegralism, Black Protestant churches have no right to exist” and “the statemust decide whether to declare Black Protestant churches criminalorganizations” (ibid.); and that “we should not assume that an integralistregime will treat Jews well” (ibid.). 

And soon.  Vallier concludes that “Vermeule’sintegration from within requires massive violence” (p. 239).  Indeed, the political program he attributesto Vermeule is so extreme andunhinged that it is hard to see how anyone could fail to perceive that it wouldrequire massive violence.  And again,though Vallier makes a few disclaimers here and there, they are nowhere near asnumerous or prominent as the detailed descriptions he gives of the coerciveregime he says Vermeule’s views would entail. When an author briefly notes here and there that Vermeule doesn’t advocate violence, but also goes on at greatlength about how Vermeule’s extremepolitical program would manifestly require massive violence, it is hardlyunfair to judge that he has given his readers a misleading impression ofVermeule’s views.

Then thereis the fact that Vallier’s qualifying statements are hardly full-throated.  For example, as Vallier notes in his reply tome, he concedes that “Vermeule would not suppress liberalism with violence” (p.134).  But here is the longer passage inVallier’s book from which that line is taken:

Vermeule wants to protect the Churchfrom malignant states.  His method: trainstrong Christian leaders who will take power and defend the church.  When Ihave spoken with Vermeule’s defenders, often young people, they characterizehis strategy as concerned chiefly with defense rather than offense.  I do not think Vermeule’stheory of liberalism allows for any such distinction.   Vermeule would not suppressliberalism with violence.  Liberalismwill destroy itself.  But liberals andthe liberal state can still do significant damage in the meanwhile.  Further, once liberalism dies, it couldrevive.

As Vermeule so evocativelyclaims, we must “sear the liberal faith with hot irons.”  It must not rise again.  Only a strong state combined with a strongchurch can complete this urgent task. Vermeulean protectors must become conquerors.  They must then rule with an iron rod.  And so, however much Vermeulewants to avoid coercion, he is stuck with it. Integralists must exercise hard power. (p. 134)

Endquote.  The impression given here is thatwhile Vermeule does not endorse violence and even eschews it, he does endorse a radical political programthat would clearly requireviolence.  But as I showed in my review,the problem is not just that Vermeule does not endorse violence itself.  The problem is that Vermeule does not in the first place actually endorse the extremepolitical program Vallier attributes to him.

Hence, in “Integrationfrom Within” (from which the “hot irons” remark is quoted), Vermeuleis not talking about Catholicintegralism, but “nonliberal” politics more generally.  Indeed, he explicitly says that “there can be no return to the integratedregime of the thirteenth century, whatever its attractions.”  Nor does he advocate any positive concretepolitical program of any other kind for replacing liberalism, and indeedexplicitly says that the “postliberal future [is] of uncertain shape.”  Vermeule says that “for the foreseeablefuture, the problem will be to mitigate the spasmodic, but compulsive andrepetitive, aggression of the decaying liberal state” rather than promote analternative.  Indeed, he says thatnonliberals who follow his advice will:

mainly attempt to ensure the survivalof their faith communities in an interim age of exile and dispossession.  They donot evangelize or preach with a view to bringing about the birth of an entirelynew regime, from within the old.  They mitigate the long defeat for thosewho become targets of the regime in liberalism’s twilight era, and this will surely have to be the main aimfor some time to come.

Endquote.  Similarly, in “AChristian Strategy,” far from endorsing the “party capture” approach thatVallier attributes to him, Vermeule says that “the Church… must stand detached from all subsidiary political commitments, willingto enter into flexible alliances of convenience with any of the parties.”  Rather than calling for going on offense witha revolutionary political program, he says that “the main proximate short-rungoal must be largely one of survival.” Rather than pushing some doctrinaire integralist vision, he emphasizesflexibility: “Christians will always have many different options for politicalengagement.  In some or othercircumstances, one or another of them will prove best in the light ofprudential judgment; none has any logical or theological priority.”

In short, Vallieris saying, “I didn’t accuse Vermeule of advocating B!  I accused him ofadvocating A, which will inevitably lead to B!”  And the problem is that Vermeule not onlydoes not advocate B, he doesn’t advocate A either.

Or consider Vallier’sremark that “Vermeule has publicly declaimed all such [violent] tactics.”  Here is the passage in Valler’s book in whichthat remark appears:

Vermeule has publicly declaimed allsuch tactics.  Indeed, even in“Integration from Within” he indicates hesitancy about coercion, though what hesays is curious: “It would be wrong to conclude that integration from within isa matter of coercion, as opposed to persuasion and conversion, for thedistinction is so fragile as to be nearly useless.”  On the one hand, integration from within isnot “a matter of coercion.”  But thedistinction between coercion and noncoercion is “nearly useless” – which leavesone to wonder which tactics Vermeule has in mind. (p. 147)

End quote.  One problem here is that Vallier is misusingthe word “declaim,” which literally means “to speak in an eloquent orimpassioned way.”  So, the literalmeaning of what Vallier says in the first line here is “Vermeule has publicly spokenin an eloquent way of all such [violent] tactics”!  Obviously, that is not what Vallier means,which is why I didn’t bother quoting this particular line. 

The moreimportant point here, though, is this.  Onthe one hand, Vallier here acknowledges that Vermeule shows “hesitancy aboutcoercion.”  But on the other hand,Vallier says that it is “curious” that Vermeule says that the distinction betweencoercion and persuasion is “nearly useless,” so that one “wonder[s] whichtactics Vermeule has in mind.”  Since thelarger context is a discussion of the violent means Vermeule’s program wouldallegedly require, some readers might get the impression that Vermeule mightnot be entirely committed to eschewing violence after all.

But here isthe longer passage from Vermeule’s article “Integration from Within” where hemakes the remark in question:

It would be wrong to conclude thatintegration from within is a matter of coercion, as opposed to persuasion andconversion, for the distinction is so fragile as to be nearly useless.  As J. F. Stephen noted, there is a type ofintellectual and rhetorical “warfare” in which “the weaker opinion – the lessrobust and deeply seated feeling – is rooted out to the last fiber, the placewhere it grew being seared as with a hot iron.”  In a more recent register, we have learnedfrom behavioral economics that agents with administrative control over defaultrules may nudge whole populations in desirable directions, in an exercise of“soft paternalism.”  It is a uselessexercise to debate whether or not this shaping from above is best understood ascoercive, or rather as an appeal to the “true” underlying preferences of thegoverned.

Endquote.  Seen in this context, there isnothing at all “curious” about Vermeule’s remark, or remotely suggestive ofviolence.  On the contrary, as I noted inmy review of Vallier’s book, it is clear from this passage that when Vermeule speaksof cases where the distinction between coercion and persuasion is unclear, whathe actually had in mind were soft incentives of the kind liberals like RichardThaler and Cass Sunstein describe in their book Nudge:Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness.

Here is anotherexample where Vallier’s reading of Vermeule is careless to such an extent thathe ends up attributing to Vermeule the opposite of what he actually said.  As I noted my review, Vallier comparesVermeule’s program to that of a Marxist revolutionary party.  Hence, in his book, Vallier writes: “Vermeuleanalogizes his view [of liberalism] with Karl Marx’s claims about capitalism: ‘Liberalismis inherently unstable and is structurally disposed to generate the very forcesthat destroy it’” (p. 127).  The remarkfrom Vermeule is quoted from “A Christian Strategy.”  But here is the larger passage in thatarticle in which it appears:

There are two ways of understanding[the liberal] dynamic.  One is that inthe long run, liberalism undermines itself by transforming tolerance intoincreasingly radical intolerance of the “intolerant” – meaning those who holdilliberal views.  On this view, militantprogressivism is distinct from liberalism, indeed a betrayal of it.  Such anaccount would make liberalism analogous to Marx’s claim about capitalism:Liberalism is inherently unstable and is structurally disposed to generate thevery forces that destroy it.

A different view, andmy own, is that liberal intolerance represents not the self-undermining ofliberalism, but a fulfillment of its essential nature.  When a chrysalis shelters aninsect that later bursts forth from it and leaves it shattered, the chrysalishas in fact fulfilled its true and predetermined end.  Liberalism of the purportedly tolerant sort isto militant progressivism as the chrysalis is to the hideous insect.

End quote.  As the reader can clearly see, in the lineVallier quotes, Vermeule is notstating his own view, but on the contrary, a view he explicitly says is “different [from his] own.”

More couldbe said, but that suffices to make the point. Vallier is for the most part admirably fair-minded, and I don’t thinkfor a moment that he intentionallymisrepresents Vermeule.  But that he doesin fact give a misleading characterization of Vermeule’s views, however inadvertently,there can be no doubt.  (Vallieraddresses some other issues too, and says that he will address yet others in a futurepost.  I may return to those in a futurereply.)

Contra Vallier on integralism

Over at The Josias, I critique Kevin Vallier’snew book Allthe Kingdoms of the World: On Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism .

Ryle on microphysics and the everyday world

Science,we’re often told, gives us a description of the world radically at odds withcommon sense.  Physicist Arthur Eddington’sfamous “two tables” example illustrates the theme.  There is, on the one hand, the table familiarfrom everyday experience – the extended, colored, solid, stable thing you mightbe sitting at as you read this.  Thenthere’s the scientific table – a vast aggregate of colorless particles infields of force, mostly empty space rather a single continuous object, andrevealed by theory rather than sensory perception.  What is the relationship between them?  Should we say, as is often done, that thefirst table is an illusion and only the second real?

As philosopherGilbert Ryle showed in chapter 5 of his classic book Dilemmas,the real illusion is not the table of common sense, but rather the notion thatscience gives us any reason to doubt it. In fact, science is not even addressing the sorts of question commonsense might ask about the table, much less giving an answer that conflicts withthe one common sense would give.  And itis only conceptual confusion that makes some suppose otherwise.

Ryle’s reminders

Ryleidentifies two main sources of this confusion concerning what science tells usabout the world.  The first has to dowith the word “science” and the second with the word “world.”  For one thing, there is not even a primafacie conflict between our common sense conception of the world and the vastbulk of what falls under the label “science.” No one thinks philology casts the slightest doubt on the reality ofwords, or that botany, geology, and meteorology cast any doubt on the realityof plants, earth, or weather.  Thefindings of such areas of research are not taken to undermine our confidence inthe reality of everyday objects.  Nor aretelescopes and microscopes taken to give any reason for doubting it, despiterevealing objects vastly larger or vastly smaller than the ones we encounter ineveryday life.  Nor is what physics tellsus about middle-sized objects (pendulums, water pumps, etc.) regarded aschallenging our belief in tables and the like.

In fact,Ryle suggests, it is only two special areas of scientific study that peoplesuppose somehow casts doubt on such belief: the microstructure of materialobjects, and the physiology of perception. But even here, it is not, strictly speaking, the findings of modernscience that are the source of the problem. Similar claims about the unreality of ordinary objects were mademillennia ago on the basis of the speculations of the ancient atomists.

Why don’tthe scientific findings, any more than the speculations, cast doubt on theworld of common sense?  This brings us tothe word “world.”  When we hear tell of the world as described by microphysics,we are, says Ryle, too quick to suppose that “world” should in this context beunderstood the way it is understood by theologians when they talk about theworld’s creation, or that it should interpreted as a synonym for “cosmos.”  But we should think of it instead on themodel of phrases like “the world of poultry” as a farmer or butcher might meanit, or “the entertainment world” as a newspaper reporting on what is going onin the field of entertainment would use it. “World” in such contexts means something like “sphere of interest” or“the collection of matters pertaining to a certain subject” (such as poultry orentertainment). 

Now, no onethinks there is some conflict between “the world of poultry” or “theentertainment world” on the one hand, and the world of everyday physicalobjects on the other.  But neither isthere any conflict between the latter world and the world of facts which arethe sphere of interest of the scientist who studies the microstructure ofmatter or the physiology of perception. As with poultry or entertainment, the “world” of the latter is reallyjust a relatively small subset of all the facts that make up reality.  It is not a comprehensive description ofreality that competes with the description taken for granted by common sense.

Ryle offersa couple of analogies to illustrate the point. When economics characterizes human behavior by way of considerations ofprofit and loss, supply and demand, and so on, it is not putting forward anexhaustive characterization of the nature of human beings or of any particularhuman being.  Nor is it mischaracterizingthem.  It is simply noting what peoplewill tend to do if they are in circumstances of a certain specific sort, andare attentive to considerations of a certain specific sort.  That’s all. Similarly, when microphysics characterizes matter in the way it does, itis not to be understood as offering an exhaustive characterization of tables andother everyday physical objects, but simply calling attention to certain featuresthat are manifest under certain circumstances. That’s all.

Ryle speaksas if the average reader at the time he was writing (the early 1950s) would readilygrant that it would be a crude mistake to think that the economist’sdescription captured the entirety of human nature.  It may be doubted whether all readers todaywould be immune to such economic reductionism, but in any case, Ryle alsooffers another analogy.  He asks us toimagine an accountant who has put together an exhaustive description of thefinancial operations of a certain college – tuition, salaries, rents, costs forutilities and groundskeeping, expenditures on library books, food services,sports, special events, and so on. Suppose the description covers all the activities and assets of theinstitution and is extremely precise and useful. 

Theobjectivity, precision, comprehensiveness, and utility of this descriptionwould hardly justify the accountant in claiming that he has captured all there is to the college.  Even though there is no part of the collegethat is not referred to in his ledger, the ledger obviously doesn’t capture allthere is to those parts or to the whole they make up.  For example, even if the price of everylibrary book can be found there, the sorts of things that, say, a book reviewerwould want to know about a book will not be captured.  But neither would it be correct to say thatthe description of the college that the accountant gives is in competition withthe description that might be given by, say, a student.  Nor would it be correct to say that theaccountant’s description is mistaken.  Itis correct as far as it goes, but itis simply not meant in the first place to capture everything.

Obviously, itwould be silly so speak of there being two colleges, the way that Eddingtonspeaks of there being two tables.  Thereis just the one college, and certain features of it are focused on by thestudent for his purposes, whereas others are focused on by the accountant forhis own, different purposes.  But thesame thing is true of tables and other physical objects as common senseunderstands them and as the physicist approaches them.  There is just the one table, and the ordinaryperson in everyday life focuses on certain aspects of it, whereas physics focuseson different aspects.  That’s all.  Physics, rightly understood, no more competeswith or refutes the ordinary person’s understanding of the table than theaccountant competes with or refutes the student’s understanding of the college.

Ryle notesthat it is tempting to say that common sense and microphysics give differentbut complementary “descriptions” or “pictures” of the same reality, but heargues that even this is misleading, insofar as it implicitly attributes a fargreater commonality of purpose that actually exists between the two.  For there is no reason to think ofmicrophysics as attempting in the first place to “picture” the reality of atable or any other ordinary physical object (as opposed to explaining certainfeatures of it, or predicting its behavior under such-and-such circumstances,or figuring out how to manipulate it in certain ways – none of which entails orrequires a “picture” of its full reality).

Ryle alsonotes that nothing in what he says implies or is intended to imply any contributionto, or criticism of, scientific practice or scientific results.  It is merely a point about the fallaciousnessof certain kinds of claims made about the everyday world on the basis ofscience.

Hossenfelder and Goff

Regrettably,even seventy years after Ryle wrote, too many philosophers and scientists alikestill need a reminder of these observations, simple and obvious though theyought to be.  Physicist Brian Greeneprovided a good example nottoo long ago.  Another case in pointis a recentTwitter exchange between philosopher Philip Goff and physicistSabine Hossenfelder, and the debate on Twitter that it engendered.  To be sure, neither Hossenfelder nor Goffwould say that physics provides an exhaustive description of physicalreality.  In that way their views alignwith Ryle’s main point (albeit neither brings up Ryle).  However, they miss some of its otherimplications.

For example,Hossenfelder not only takes an instrumentalist view of physics, but seems tothink it obvious that physics just is,of its nature, instrumentalist – that when it makes reference to electrons, forexample, there is no implication whatsoever that electrons actually exist, asopposed to being merely a useful fiction for organizing observations and makingpredictions.  But while instrumentalismis certainly defensible, it seems to me a mistake to think it the obviously correct interpretation ofphysics.  This is like saying that theaccountant’s description of the college, in Ryle’s example, is obviously nothing more than a usefulfiction, and that its utility gives us no reason at all to believe that itcaptures anything really there in the college. In fact, of course, the accountant’s description does capture realfeatures of the college, even if only very abstract economic relations and farfrom all, or even the most important, features of the college.  Similarly, the utility of physics gives usreason to think it does capture real features of the world, even if they are highlyabstract structural features and very far from an exhaustive description ofnature.  I defend this epistemic structural realistinterpretation of physics in Aristotle’sRevenge.

Goff, meanwhile,himself accepts this interpretation of physics. However, he falls into another error. Physics captures only very abstract structural features of physicalreality.  But what about the otherfeatures?   What fleshes out thisabstract structure?  Goff is among thegrowing number of writers who argue for panpsychismby proposing that qualia, the characteristic features of conscious experience(the way red looks, the way coffee smells, and the like) provide a model forunderstanding the intrinsic nature of all physical reality.  He presents this as a bold solution to whatwould otherwise be a great mystery.

To see whatis wrong with this, imagine someone who noted that Ryle’s accountant providesonly a very abstract description of the college’s economic structure, and thenargued: “Something must flesh out that abstract structure.  Whatever could it be?  What a mystery!  I postulate that it is qualia that flesh it out, and thus that, strange as it may seem,the college is – from the lecture halls to the library to the cafeteria anddown to every floorboard of the gym – a panpsychist entity pulsating with consciousness!”

The main problemwith this argument is not that it leads to a ludicrous conclusion, though itcertainly does.  The problem is that itis a “solution” to something that isn’t a mystery in the first place.  Certainly, the abstractness of the accountant’sdescription of the college doesn’t pose any mystery whatsoever.  We already know what the intrinsic propertiesof the college are – they are simply those that every student, professor, administratorand janitor already knows about, just by walking around and looking at it fromday to day.  The accountant has simplyignored all this detail that we already know about, and focused instead oncertain abstract economic features.

Similarly,we already know what the intrinsic features are of tables and other ordinary physicalobjects.  They are precisely those wecome across in dealing with these objects every day.  Physics simply ignores these features andfocuses on those of which it can give a precise mathematical treatment.  There is no mystery that needs solving interms of some bizarre metaphysics like panpsychism, but merely a reminder ofwhat we already know from common sense. Ryle (like Aristotle, Aquinas, Wittgenstein, and other critics ofrevisionist metaphysics) offers precisely such a reminder.  (I have criticized Goff’s views along theselines but at greater length before, hereand here.)

Somescientists who commented on the exchange between Hossenfelder and Goff onTwitter opined that it illustrates why many scientists don’t find such discussionsfruitful.  According to one of them, thereason they are unfruitful is that they don’t help us do physics better.  But why on earth should anyone suppose thatthe only reason why a discussion between physicists and philosophers would beworthwhile would be if it helps the former do physics better?  Putting the implicit narcissism to one side,there is another problem.  As Ryle says,the point of his own remarks is not to either criticize or add to science’smethodology or results, but rather to reveal the fallaciousness of certaininferences drawn from its methodologyor results.  A scientist who thinks sucha message not worthwhile is precisely the sort of person most in need ofhearing it.

Relatedposts:

Theparticle collection that fancied itself a physicist

Dupréon the ideologizing of science

Cartwrighton theory and experiment in science

Cartwrighton reductionism in science

Fallaciesphysicists fall for

What is free speech for?

In a new articleat Postliberal Order, I discussthe teleological foundations of, and limitations on, the right to free speech,as these are understood from the perspective of traditional natural law theory’sapproach to questions about natural rights.

All One in Christ at Public Discourse

At Public Discourse, John F. Doherty kindly reviews mybook AllOne in Christ: A Catholic Critique of Racism and Critical Race Theory .  From the review:

In Feser’s book, Catholics, otherChristians, and even non-Christians will find much to help them confront CRTand the perennial challenges of living in a racially diverse society…

Critical race theorists routinely useconfusing, tough-to-pin-down logical fallacies.  Feser does us the service of laying thesefallacies out methodically and succinctly…

For anyone who knows nothing aboutCRT, All One inChrist is an excellent place to start.  It has a decidedly negative perspective on themovement, but Feser takes pains to be fair to his opponents.

The Thomist's middle ground in natural theology

TheAristotelian-Thomistic tradition holds that knowledge must begin with sensoryexperience but that it can nevertheless go well beyond anything that experiencecould directly reveal.  Its empiricism isof a moderate kind consistent with the high ambitions of traditional metaphysics.  For example, beginning a posteriori with the fact that change occurs, it claims to be ableto demonstrate the existence of a divine Prime Unmoved Mover.  Similarly demonstrable, it maintains, are theimmateriality and immortality of the soul.

Two crucialcomponents of this picture of human knowledge are the theses that concepts areirreducible to sensations and mental images, but can nevertheless be abstractedfrom imagery by the intellect.  As I havediscussed before,a key difference between the Aristotelian-Thomistic position on the one handand early modern forms of rationalism and empiricism on the other is that eachof the latter kept one of these Aristotelian-Thomistic theses while rejectingthe other.  Rationalism maintained thethesis that concepts are irreducible to sensations and mental images, butconcluded that many or all concepts therefore could not in any way be derivedfrom them.  Hence, rationalistsconcluded, many or all concepts must be innate. Modern empiricism held on to the thesis that concepts derive from mentalimagery, but concluded that they must not really be distinct from them.  Hence the modern empiricist tendency toward “imagism,”the view that a concept just is an image (or an image together with a generalterm).

Thesefateful moves are key to understanding the later trajectories of therationalist and empiricist traditions.  Thenotion of innate ideas gave rationalism confidence that it had the conceptual andepistemic wherewithal to ground an ambitious metaphysics.  But rationalist metaphysical systems can beso bizarre and revisionary that they are open to the objection that their lackof an empirical foundation leads them to float free of objective reality.  Modern empiricism, by contrast, has usuallybeen much more metaphysically modest. But it has also had a tendency to be toomodest, to the point of collapsing into skepticism even about the world ofcommon sense and ordinary experience. Here the critic can charge that collapsing concepts into imagery hasprevented modern empiricism from being able to account for any knowledge beyondthe here and now.

Now, bothapproaches can be and have been modified by various thinkers in ways that seekto avoid problems like those mentioned – though from the Thomistic point ofview, only a return to the broadly Aristotelian conception of knowledge fromwhich they each in their own ways departed can afford a sure remedy. 

But general epistemologyis not my concern here.  What I want todo instead is note two general approaches to natural theology that mightloosely be labeled “rationalist” and “empiricist,” even if their practitionersdon’t necessarily all self-identify as such. They are approaches that are, from the Thomist point of view, deficientin something analogous to the ways in which rationalist and modern empiricistepistemology and metaphysics in general are deficient.  And like those views, they represent oppositevicious extremes between which, naturally, Thomism stands as the sober middleground.

On the onehand we have an approach that aims to establish admirably ambitious traditionalmetaphysical conclusions – such as the existence of God and the immortality ofthe soul – by way of an essentially rationalist methodology.  One example would be Plantinga’sontological argument for God’s existence, and another would be Swinburne’s conceivabilityargument for dualism.  Plantinga’sargument proceeds by considering what might or must be the case in variouspossible worlds, and on that basis aims to establish the existence of God inthe actual world.  Swinburne’s argumentbegins with what we can conceive about the mind, and draws the conclusion thatits essence or nature must be of an immaterial kind.

From theAristotelian-Thomistic point of view, both these arguments get things preciselybackwards.  We don’t start withpossibilities and then reason from them to actualities.  Rather, we start with actual things,determine their essences, and then from there deduce what is or is not possiblefor them.  We don’t start with what wecan conceive and then determine a thing’s essence from that.  Rather, we start with a knowledge of itsessence and then determine, from that, what is actually conceivable withrespect to it, and what merely falsely seemsto be conceivable. 

From theThomist point of view, while the metaphysical conclusions of such arguments are not too ambitious, the method for arriving at them is.  We cannot do so entirely a priori.  To be sure, oncewe do establish the existence of God (through arguments of the kind I’vedefended at length elsewhere),we discover that he is such that, were we fully to know his essence, we wouldsee that his existence follows from it of necessity, just as the ontologicalargument claims.  But what we can’t do isjump directly to such an argument as a standalone proof of his existence.  Similarly, when we first establish that theintellect is by nature immaterial, we will see that it is indeed conceivablefor it to exist independently of the body (topics I’ve dealt with e.g. hereand here).  But in that case the appeal to conceivabilityis rendered otiose as grounds for establishing the intellect’s immateriality.

On the otherhand, we have arguments that proceed aposteriori, but are way too unambitiousin their conclusions.  This wouldinclude, for example, arguments that treat God’s existence as at best the mostprobable “hypothesis”among others that might account for such-and-such empirical evidence, or evenfail to get to God, strictly speaking, as opposed to a “designer” of somepossibly finite sort.  And it wouldinclude arguments for survival of death that put the primary emphasis on out-of-bodyexperiences and other phenomena that can at best render a probabilistic judgment. 

Thomiststend to put little or no stock in such “god of the gaps” and “soul of the gaps”arguments.  At best they are distractionsfrom the more powerful arguments of traditional metaphysics, and thus can makethe grounds for natural theology seem weaker than they really are.  At worst, they can promote seriousmisunderstandings of the nature of the soul, of God, and of his relationship tothe world.  (For example, they can givethe impression that it is at least possible in principle that the world mightexist without God, which entails deism at best rather than theism.  And they can give the impression that the disembodiedsoul is a kind of spatially located or even ghost-like thing.)

For the Thomist,the correct middle ground position is to hold that the soul’s immateriality andimmortality, and the existence and nature of God as understood within classicaltheism, can all be demonstrated viacompelling philosophical arguments, but that the epistemology underlying thesearguments is of the Aristotelian rather than rationalist sort.  (Again, I defend such arguments for theexistence and nature of God in FiveProofs of the Existence of God, and have argued for the immaterialityand immortality of the soul hereand here.  Muchmore on the latter topics to come in the book on the soul that I am currentlyworking on.)

Related reading:

Therationalist/empiricist false choice

IsGod’s existence a “hypothesis”?

Q.E.D.?

Theologyand the analytic a posteriori

Cana Thomist reason to God a priori?