Edward Feser's Blog, page 21

Plato on democracy and tyranny

Over at Twitter, I posted a long thread of passages from Plato’s Republic setting out his account of how a democratic society’s fixation on liberty and equality yields the tyrannical soul.  You can read the thread here.  The relevance to the current situation in the West will be obvious, but it is a theme I explored in an American Mind article from a couple of years ago.

Countering disinformation about Critical Race Theory

Critical Race Theory (CRT) has over the last two years been a topic of enormous controversy.  But what is it, exactly?  Chapter 4 of my book All One in Christ: A Catholic Critique of Racism and Critical Race Theory is devoted to answering that question at length.  I go on in chapters 5, 6, and 7 to spell out the many philosophical, social scientific, and theological problems with the view.  (As this breadth of issues indicates, there is much in the book that will be of interest and value to non-Catholics.)  But chapter 4 is entirely expository, and quotes extensively from CRT writers themselves, so that there can be no mistake about how extreme and dangerous are the views that the subsequent chapters go on to criticize.

Some advocates of CRT have responded to the exposure of its extremism with what can fairly be described as a program of disinformation.  We are told that CRT is merely an abstruse legal theory of little interest to anyone outside the university, and certainly irrelevant to anything being taught to children; or that insofar as it does have influence outside the academy, it is concerned with nothing more than teaching about the history of racism; or that in any event it has nothing to do with the ideas peddled in bestsellers like Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist or Robin DiAngelos’s White Fragility.  These claims are so easily refuted that it is hard not to see in them a cynical tactic of deliberate obfuscation.

Is CRT just an abstract legal theory?

Start with the first claim, about the nature and influence of CRT.  Law professors Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic are not only critical race theorists themselves, but the authors of Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, a well-known primer on the subject.  They write:

Although CRT began as a movement in the law, it has rapidly spread beyond that discipline.  Today, many scholars in the field of education consider themselves critical race theorists who use CRT’s ideas to understand issues of school discipline and hierarchy, tracking, affirmative action, high-stakes testing, controversies over curriculum and history, bilingual and multilingual education, and alternative and charter schools. (p. 7)

They then go on to cite “political scientists,” “women’s studies professors,” “ethnic studies,” “American studies,” “philosophers,” “sociologists, theologians, and health care specialists” as among the scholars, professionals, and fields influenced by, and applying ideas drawn from, CRT (pp. 7-8).  Similarly, law professor Angela Harris’s foreword to Delgado and Stefancic’s book notes that:

Critical race theory has exploded from a narrow sub-specialty of jurisprudence chiefly of interest to academic lawyers into a literature read in departments of education, cultural studies, English, sociology, comparative literature, political science, history, and anthropology around the country. (p. xvi)

Delgado and Stefancic also note that though CRT began as a movement in the law, the influences on its development extend well beyond that field, and include “radical feminism,” the Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci, and the postmodernists Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida (p. 5).  And they emphasize that “unlike some academic disciplines, critical race theory contains an activist dimension.  It tries not only to understand our social situation but to change it” and indeed “transform it” (p. 8).  They cite the push for “reconstructing the criminal justice system” and the “‘Black Lives Matter’ movement” as among the practical applications of ideas associated with CRT (p. 124).

Another representative CRT work is the anthology Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement, edited by Kimberlé Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller, and Kendall Thomas.  In their introduction to the volume, they note that the Critical Legal Studies movement “organized by a collection of neo-Marxist intellectuals, former New Left activists, ex-counter-culturalists” and the like “played a central role in the genesis of Critical Race Theory” (p. xvii).  They write that:

By legitimizing the use of race as a theoretical fulcrum and focus in legal scholarship, so-called racialist accounts of racism and the law grounded the subsequent development of Critical Race Theory in much the same way that Marxism’s introduction of class structure and struggle into classical political economy grounded subsequent critiques of hierarchy and social power. (p. xxv)

And in another obvious echo of Marxism, they emphasize that CRT is an activist movement devoted to “liberation,” whose theorists “desire not merely to understand the vexed bond between law and racial power but to change it” (p. xiii).

Hence, when CRT’s critics portray it as far more than a mere academic legal theory and indeed as a wide-ranging revolutionary political program with Marxist and postmodernist influences, which has swept through academia and seeks radically to transform society through the educational and criminal justice systems, they are not manufacturing a bogeyman.  They are simply repeating what CRT advocates themselves have explicitly said.

Is CRT merely about teaching history?

Again, another claim often made is that to the extent that CRT has any influence in schools and other contexts outside the university, it is concerned merely with teaching about the history of racism.  When people uninformed about CRT hear this, they are likely to think that what it involves is teaching about slavery in the American south, Jim Crow laws, the Ku Klux Klan, and so on.  But that is far from the truth.  These are examples of what Delgado and Stefancic label “outright racism,” and as they emphasize, this is to be sharply distinguished from the far more subtle “white privilege” that CRT claims to identify and seeks to extirpate (p. 90).

This purported “white privilege” is sosubtle that even if “outright racism” of the familiar sorts is entirely eliminated, white privilege would allegedly remain “intact” so that the “system of white over black/brown will remain virtually unchanged” and “we remain roughly as we were before” (p. 91).  This unnoticed racism is nevertheless claimed to be “ordinary, not aberrational… the usual way society does business” (p. 8) and indeed is “pervasive, systemic, and deeply ingrained” to such an extent that “no white member of society seems quite so innocent” (p. 91).  The purported “white privilege” of these members of society involves a “myriad of social advantages, benefits, and courtesies that come with being a member of the dominant race” (p. 89).  The hostility of whites against non-whites is claimed to manifest itself in “implicit bias” or negative attitudes that are so elusive that whites are unconscious of harboring them (p. 143-44), and in “microaggressions” or racist acts so subtle that whites are unaware they are committing them.

Racism is held by CRT to be so “embedded in our thought processes and social structures” that it is not only conservatism that CRT opposes, but liberalism too (p. 26-27).  Like Marxism, CRT stakes out a position far to the left of traditional Democratic Party politics.  In place of liberalism’s commitment to “color blindness and neutral principles of constitutional law,” CRT writers advocate “aggressive, color-conscious efforts to change the way things are” (ibid.).  CRT calls for “programs that assure equality of results,” even if this conflicts with liberalism’s emphasis on the “moral and legal rights” of the individual (p. 29).  One CRT proposal, report Delgado and Stefancic, would be to have “admissions officers discount, or penalize, the scores of candidates” of a “white, suburban” background because of their “white privilege” (p. 134).  Some CRT writers even wonder whether “whites [should] be welcome in the movement and at its workshops and conferences” (p. 105).  Indeed, a central theme of CRT is the malign influence of “whiteness” itself, a “quality pertaining to Euro-American or Caucasian people or traditions” (p. 186).  “Critical White Studies,” Delgado and Stefancic tell us, is a subfield of CRT devoted to “the study of the white race,” which has “put whiteness under the lens” (p. 85).

In place of liberalism’s traditional emphasis on freedom of expression, some CRT writers call for “campus speech codes” and “tort remedies for racist speech” (p. 25), or even the “criminalization” of such speech (p. 125) – which, given the amorphous notions of “implicit bias” and “microaggressions,” could cover anything a CRT advocate finds objectionable.  At the same time, in light of the systemic racism they claim afflicts criminal justice, CRT writers advocate lighter sentences or even “jury nullification” for offenses “such as shoplifting or possession of a small amount of drugs” (pp. 122-23).  Delgado and Stefancic blandly note that one CRT writer proposes that “the values of hip-hop music and culture could serve as a basis for reconstructing the criminal justice system” (p. 124).

CRT also rejects “traditional civil rights discourse, which stresses incrementalism and step-by-step progress” and instead “questions the very foundations of the liberal order” including ideas such as “equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism,” and “equal treatment for all persons, regardless of their different histories or current situations” (pp. 3 and 26).  Accordingly, CRT holds that the change it advocates may have to be “convulsive and cataclysmic” rather than involving a “peaceful transition,” and “if so, critical theorists and activists will need to provide criminal defense for resistance movements and activists and to articulate theories and strategies for that resistance” (pp. 154-55).

This is just the tip of the iceberg, for according to the CRT notion of “intersectionality,” many individuals “experience multiple forms of oppression” involving not just race but “sex, class, national origin, and sexual orientation” (pp. 58-59).  Hence the CRT analysis of and remedies for “systemic racism” must be applied to an analysis of and extirpation of these other alleged forms of oppression as well.

Here I have been quoting from just a single representative text, for purposes of illustration.  As the reader of All One in Christ will discover, other CRT writers have other, even more extreme things to say.  Whatever one thinks of these ideas, they give the lie to the claim that CRT is merely about teaching the history of racism.  It is about promoting a sweeping, revolutionary social and political ideology that even many liberals and Democratic voters would find disturbing if they knew about it.

Kendi, DiAngelo, and CRT

The books by Kendi and DiAngelo mentioned above are by far the most influential works promoting the ideas of CRT.  Yet some have claimed that their work has nothing to do with Critical Race Theory.  This claim too is easily refuted.  Kendi himself has acknowledged the influence of CRT on his work:

I’ve certainly been inspired by critical race theory and critical race theorists.  The ways in which I’ve formulated definitions of racism and racist and anti-racism and anti-racist have not only been based on historical evidence, but also Kimberlé Crenshaw’s intersectional theory.  She’s one of the founding and pioneering critical race theorists who in the late 1980s and early 1990s said, “You know what?  Black women aren’t just facing racism, they’re not just facing sexism, they’re facing the intersection of racism and sexism.”  It’s important for us to understand that and that’s foundational to my work.

To be sure, in another context, Kendi has said:

I admire critical race theory, but I don’t identify as a critical race theorist.  I’m not a legal scholar.  So I wasn’t trained on critical race theory.  I’m a historian... I didn’t attend law school, which is where critical race theory is taught.

But there are two problems with this.  First, what matters is whether Kendi is promoting ideas derived from CRT, not whether he is himself a “critical race theorist” in the narrow sense of a legal scholar of a certain kind.  And again, he himself has admitted that his work is “inspired” by CRT, indeed that one brand of CRT is “foundational” to his work.  Second, as we have seen, CRT writers like Harris, Delgado, and Stefancic admit that CRT is not confined to legal scholarship but has extended far into other parts of the academy, including history, Kendi’s field.  So it is disingenuous for him to pretend that the fact that he didn’t go to law school shows that he can’t count as a critical race theorist.  If you go just by the actual content of his books and compare it to what is said in works that everyone acknowledges to be works of CRT, it is obvious that he is a critical race theorist.

The same thing goes for DiAngelo.  Her academic field is education rather than law, but Delgado and Stefancic themselves put special emphasis on education as a field on which CRT has had dramatic influence.  So it would be quite silly to pretend that the fact that she, like Kendi, is not a law professor somehow suffices to show that she is not a critical race theorist.  More importantly, she is manifestly a promoter of ideas drawn from CRT, whether or not one wants to classify her as a “critical race theorist” in some narrow sense.  The central ideas of White Fragility are the CRT themes of “systemic racism,” “white privilege,” the analysis and critique of “whiteness,” and the insufficiently radical nature of liberalism.  In her book Nice Racism, DiAngelo explicitly cites the prominent critical race theorists Kimberlé Crenshaw, Derrick Bell, and Cheryl Harris as among the influences on her work.

Some may nevertheless object that, even if it is admitted that Kendi and DiAngelo are promoters of CRT, it is inappropriate to put as much emphasis on their work as critics of CRT have, since their books are popularizations.  But there are two problems with this objection.  First, Kendi and DiAngelo are not mere popularizers, but academics in their own right.  They can be presumed to know what they are talking about.  Second, though some CRT adepts might wish that it was Derrick Bell’s or Kimberlé Crenshaw’s books rather than How to Be an Antiracist and White Fragility that became bestsellers, that is not what has happened.  It is Kendi’s and DiAngelo’sbooks that have in fact had the widest readership and influence, and thus their presentation of CRT ideas that has molded public perception of the movement.  It is only natural, then, for critics of CRT to give them a proportionate amount of attention in response.

As readers of my book All One in Christ will find, the content of CRT is even more disturbing than this brief summary indicates – and it is also riddled with blatant logical fallacies, crude social scientific errors, and assumptions and policy recommendations that are utterly contrary to the natural moral law and the Catholic faith.  It is unsurprising that advocates of CRT would like to disguise its true nature, but also imperative that they not be allowed to do so.

Aquinas on St. Paul’s correction of St. Peter

A pope speaks ex cathedra when he presents some teaching in a formal and definitive manner that is intended infallibly to settle debate about it once and for all.  This is an exercise of what is called the “extraordinary magisterium,” and Catholics are obligated to give such declarations their unreserved assent.  The ordinary magisterium of the Church can also teach infallibly under certain circumstances (which I have discussed elsewhere), and here too such teaching is owed unreserved assent.  Even when the pope or the Church teach about a matter of faith or morals in a manner that is not infallible, Catholics normally owe such teaching what is called “religious assent,” an adherence that is not absolute but nevertheless firm. 

There can nevertheless be very rare exceptions where those learned in some matter of faith or morals who detect difficulties in a magisterial statement are permitted respectfully to raise objections to it and ask the Church for clarification.  This was explicitly acknowledged in the instruction Donum Veritatis issued by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger under Pope St. John Paul II.  The clearest sort of case where this would be permitted would involve a magisterial statement that appears to conflict with the previous settled teaching of the Church, and Donum Veritatis explicitly distinguishes respectful criticism of the kind in question from “dissent” from the Church’s traditional teaching.

I have in another place discussed this matter in detail, and as I show there, the teaching of Donum Veritatis is by no means a novelty, but has deep roots in the tradition of the Church.  Among the most important precedents is the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas about St. Paul’s correction of St. Peter, and how that episode illustrates how Catholics can in rare cases have the right and even the duty to correct their prelates.  I discussed Aquinas’s teaching in that earlier article, but here I want to examine it in greater detail.

The first thing to note is that Aquinas’s position in no way reflects a weaker conception of papal authority than the one that prevailed in later centuries.  On the contrary, in the Summa Theologiae St. Thomas writes:

[T]he promulgation of a creed belongs to the authority of the one who has the authority to fix, in the form of sentences, the things that belong to the Faith (ea quae sunt fidei), so that they might be held by everyone with an unshakable faith. 

Now this belongs to the authority of the Supreme Pontiff, “to whom,” as Decretals, dist. 17 says, “the greater and more difficult questions in the Church are referred.”  Hence, in Luke 22:32 our Lord said to Peter, whom He set up as Supreme Pontiff, “I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith might not fail; and when you have been converted, strengthen your brothers.”

And the reason for this is that the Faith ought to be one for the whole Church – this according to 1 Corinthians 1:10 (“... that you should all profess the same thing, and that there not be schisms among you”).  But this condition could not be preserved unless a question about the Faith that arises from the Faith were determined by someone who presides over the whole Church in such a way that his decision (sententia) is held firmly by the whole Church.

And so the new promulgation of a creed belongs solely to the authority of the Supreme Pontiff, just like all the other things that pertain to the Church as a whole, such as convening a general council and other things of this sort. (Summa Theologiae II-II.1.10, Freddoso translation)

Note that Aquinas here characterizes the Supreme Pontiff or pope as having authority to settle doctrinal disputes in such a way that his decisions must be “held firmly” and indeed with “unshakable faith” by Catholics.  And he describes Peter as Supreme Pontiff.  Yet he also elsewhere goes on to approve of Paul’s correction of Peter, and to see in it an example for later Catholics to follow.  How can both of these things be true?  The answer, obviously, is that Aquinas, like the Church today, recognizes a distinction between ex cathedra papal teaching and papal teaching of a less definitive nature.  And like the Church today, he recognizes that under certain circumstances, the latter can not only be in error but even open to criticism by the faithful. 

What circumstances would those be?  Let’s take a look at what Aquinas says.  The relevant texts are to be found in Summa Theologiae II-II.33.4and in Aquinas’s Commentary on Saint Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, in Chapter 2, Lecture 3.  The commentary discusses in some detail the famous incident when Paul publicly rebuked Peter.  To give some context, here is how the Catholic Encyclopedia’s article on St. Peter summarizes what happened:

While Paul was dwelling in Antioch… St. Peter came thither and mingled freely with the non-Jewish Christians of the community, frequenting their houses and sharing their meals.  But when the Christianized Jews arrived in Jerusalem, Peter, fearing lest these rigid observers of the Jewish ceremonial law should be scandalized thereat, and his influence with the Jewish Christians be imperiled, avoided thenceforth eating with the uncircumcised.

His conduct made a great impression on the other Jewish Christians at Antioch, so that even Barnabas, St. Paul's companion, now avoided eating with the Christianized pagans.  As this action was entirely opposed to the principles and practice of Paul, and might lead to confusion among the converted pagans, this Apostle addressed a public reproach to St. Peter, because his conduct seemed to indicate a wish to compel the pagan converts to become Jews and accept circumcision and the Jewish law.

End quote.  Note that though it was Peter’s actions rather than his words that caused the problem, the controversy was nevertheless doctrinal in nature.  For it was “principles” as well as sound practice that Paul sought to uphold in the face of Peter’s bad example, and in particular he wished to prevent others from being led into the doctrinal error of supposing that “pagan converts [were obligated] to become Jews and accept circumcision and the Jewish law.”

This is exactly how Aquinas saw the situation.  In the Galatians commentary, he says that what Peter had done posed “danger to the Gospel teaching,” and that Peter and those who followed his example “walked not uprightly unto the truth of the Gospel, because its truth was being undone” (emphasis added).  Peter failed to do his duty insofar as “the truth must be preached openly and the opposite never condoned through fear of scandalizing others” (emphasis added).  Clearly, then, in Aquinas’s view the problem was not merely that Peter acted badly, but that he seemed to condone doctrinal error and risked leading others to do the same. 

A second point Aquinas makes in the Galatians commentary is that Paul rebuked Peter “openly,” “not in secret… but publicly.”  And he says that “the manner of the rebuke was fitting, i.e. public and plain” because Peter’s “dissimulation posed a danger to all.” 

A third point Aquinas makes here is that this rebuke nevertheless was not a matter of usurping Peter’s authority.  Aquinas says that “the Apostle opposed Peter in the exerciseof authority, not in his authority of ruling” (emphasis added).  For Aquinas, it’s not that Peter did not have papal authority, but rather that in this instance his exercise of it amounted to an abuse.  What Paul was doing was reminding Peter to do his duty.  In this way, says Aquinas, Paul “benefitted” Peter and “shows how he helped Peter by correcting him.”

Finally, Aquinas proposes the following as the lesson of this episode:

Therefore from the foregoing we have an example: prelates, indeed, an example of humility, that they not disdain corrections from those who are lower and subject to them; subjects have an example of zeal and freedom, that they fear not to correct their prelates, particularly if their crime is public and verges upon danger to the multitude.

End quote.  Since the pope is a prelate, and the example involved no less than Peter, the first pope, it is obvious that Aquinas intends this lesson to apply to popes and not merely to lesser prelates.

In the Summa, Aquinas makes similar remarks, but also adds some crucial further points.  The passage is worth quoting from at length:

[F]raternal correction is a work of mercy.  Therefore even prelates ought to be corrected...

A subject is not competent to administer to his prelate the correction which is an act of justice through the coercive nature of punishment: but the fraternal correction which is an act of charity is within the competency of everyone in respect of any person towards whom he is bound by charity, provided there be something in that person which requires correction…

Since, however, a virtuous act needs to be moderated by due circumstances, it follows that when a subject corrects his prelate, he ought to do so in a becoming manner, not with impudence and harshness, but with gentleness and respect…

It would seem that a subject touches his prelate inordinately when he upbraids him with insolence, as also when he speaks ill of him...

To withstand anyone in public exceeds the mode of fraternal correction, and so Paul would not have withstood Peter then, unless he were in some way his equal as regards the defense of the faith.  But one who is not an equal can reprove privately and respectfully… It must be observed, however, that if the faith were endangered, a subject ought to rebuke his prelate even publicly.   Hence Paul, who was Peter's subject, rebuked him in public, on account of the imminent danger of scandal concerning faith, and, as the gloss of Augustine says on Galatians 2:11, “Peter gave an example to superiors, that if at any time they should happen to stray from the straight path, they should not disdain to be reproved by their subjects.”

To presume oneself to be simply better than one's prelate, would seem to savor of presumptuous pride; but there is no presumption in thinking oneself better in some respect, because, in this life, no man is without some fault.  We must also remember that when a man reproves his prelate charitably, it does not follow that he thinks himself any better, but merely that he offers his help to one who, “being in the higher position among you, is therefore in greater danger,” as Augustine observes in his Rule quoted above.

End quote.  Here too, Aquinas teaches that prelates can sometimes err in a way that threatens the faith; that when this occurs they can be corrected by their subjects; that this correction can take place publicly; that this is a matter of helping a prelate, and that the prelate should be open to accepting such help; and (since his example is once again Paul’s correction of Peter) that all of this applies even to popes.  But he makes the further important point that it is wrong to object either that subjects who correct prelates thereby exceed their authority, or that such subjects are guilty of a sin of pride.

In response to the first objection, Aquinas says that what subjects lack is the right to carry out a certain kind of correction, namely the kind “which is an act of justice through the coercive nature of punishment.”  In other words, a prelate who abuses his authority in the ways Aquinas has in view does not thereby losehis authority.  His is still a prelate with all the authority that that entails, and the one who corrects him is still subject to him.  Hence the subject cannot punish a prelate for his errors, remove him from office, or the like.  But that does not entail that he cannot simply point out to the prelate that he is in error.  There is no usurpation of authority in that, says Aquinas, but rather an “act of charity” of a “fraternal” nature.  In response to the second objection, Aquinas points out that it is simply not the case that the correction of a prelate must be motivated by the sin of pride.  It can instead be motivated by charity and a desire to help.

But this brings us to a further, and absolutely crucial, point added by the discussion in the Summa.  Since a subject remains a subject, even his justifiable correction of a prelate must not be carried out with “insolence,” “impudence,” or “harshness,” but rather “in a becoming manner,” “charitably” and “with gentleness and respect.”  And as Aquinas says in another place, it is irrelevant whether the prelate who needs correction is an evil man.  For the office he holds belongs to Christ, and that office therefore deserves honor whether or not the man who holds it does.

Applied to the case of a pope, Aquinas’s teaching on the correction of prelates by their subjects can be summed up in the following points:

1. When a pope is not making an ex cathedradefinition, it is possible for him to fail to do his duty to uphold orthodox doctrine, even in a manner that seems to condone its opposite.

2. When this occurs, it is permissible for the faithful to correct him, and to do so publicly if his error is public and threatens to mislead many.

3. This is in no way a challenge to the pope’s authority or a manifestation of pride, but on the contrary constitutes charitable assistance to the pope in properly exercising his authority.

4. However, such correction must only ever be carried out in a humble and respectful manner, and never with insolence or harshness.

5. When such respectful criticism is offered, a pope should respond to it with humility.

As I noted in the article referred to above, Aquinas’s position is by no means unique in the tradition.  Similar teaching is to be found in the writings of St. Robert Bellarmine, St. John Henry Newman, and other eminent theologians in Catholic history.  St. Francis de Sales wrote:

Thus, we do not say that the Pope cannot err in his private opinions, as did John XXII, or be altogether a heretic, as perhaps Honorius was… When he errs in his private opinion he must be instructed, advised, convinced; as happened with John XXII…  So everything the Pope says is not canon law or of legal obligation; he must mean to define and to lay down the law for the sheep, and he must keep the due order and form… And again we must not think that in everything and everywhere his judgment is infallible, but then only when he gives judgment on a matter of faith in questions necessary to the whole Church; for in particular cases which depend on human fact he can err, there is no doubt, though it is not for us to control him in these cases save with all reverence, submission, and discretion. (The Catholic Controversy, pp. 225-26)

Naturally, such statements raise further questions and call for qualifications of various kinds.  Donum Veritatis addresses some of them, as do other statements made by Cardinal Ratzinger during John Paul II’s pontificate.  Again, see the article referred to above.  And again, as the teaching of Aquinas and the other saints and theologians cited here shows, Donum Veritatis does not add some novelty to the tradition, but builds on what was already long there.

Related posts:

The Church permits criticism of popes under certain circumstances

Aquinas on bad prelates

Papal fallibility

Denial flows into the Tiber

Popes, heresy, and papal heresy

Two popes and idolatry

The strange case of Pope Vigilius

Pope Victor redux?

All One in Christ

My new book All One in Christ: A Catholic Critique of Racism and Critical Race Theory is out this month from Ignatius Press.  If you are someone who prefers to order directly from the publisher, you can now do so.  You can also order via Amazonand Barnes and Noble.  In September, a German translation of the book will be published by Editiones Scholasticae.

Here’s the table of contents:

1. Church Teaching against Racism

2. Late Scholastics and Early Modern Popes against Slavery

3. The Rights and Duties of Nations and Immigrants

4. What is Critical Race Theory?

5. Philosophical Problems with Critical Race Theory

6. Social Scientific Objections to Critical Race Theory

7. Catholicism versus Critical Race Theory

Advance reviews:

“This is the best book I've read on the topic.  Ed Feser writes in accessible yet nuanced ways to demonstrate the philosophical and theological errors of both racism and Critical Race Theory.” Ryan T. Anderson, President, Ethics and Public Policy Center

“There is not a better book on the subject from a Catholic perspective.  All One in Christ should be required reading for any Catholic prelate, parent, principal, or college president.” Francis J. Beckwith, Professor of Philosophy and Church-State Studies, Baylor University

“Feser's account of the Church's opposition to slavery is authoritative, but it is his devastating takedown of Critical Race Theory that makes this book so special.”  Bill Donohue, President, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights

“Dr. Feser shows the consistent magisterial emphasis on the dignity of every human person and brilliantly articulates the Church's clear and unambiguous teaching against racism.  An absolute must-have for all Catholics who want to be well informed about racism and Critical Race Theory.”  Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, Author, Behold the Man: A Catholic Vision of Male Spirituality

“Edward Feser reveals that Critical Race Theory, by its own definition, embraces partiality, thus making it clear that this theory is in no way an answer to racism, but is, in fact, a covert form of racism.”  Rev. Walter B. Hoye, Founder, Issues4Life Foundation

“A careful examination of Critical Race Theory that goes beyond the political and journalistic squabbles to fundamental questions of truth and justice.  Ed Feser maintains steadiness and balance as he brings faith and reason to bear on the most heated public controversies.”  Robert Royal, Author, A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century

“Edward Feser offers an analysis that helps Catholics better understand the Church's stance on racism and uphold the inherent dignity of each human Being.”  Fr. John M. McKenzie, National Shrine of the Little Flower Basilica

Benedict contra Benevacantism

I’ve been reading the second volume of Peter Seewald’s Benedict XVI: A Life.  There is much of interest in it, including a new interview with Benedict at the very end.  Some of what he says is relevant to the controversy over Benevacantism (also called “Beneplenism” and the “Benedict is pope (BiP)” thesis), which holds that Benedict never validly resigned and that Francis is an antipope.  I’ve addressed this topic a couple of times before and the debate is, in my view, essentially played out.  But since a small but significant number of Catholics remain attracted to this foolish thesis, it seems worthwhile calling attention to how Benedict’s remarks throw further cold water on it.

Who is the current pope?

Seewald reports that in a 2018 exchange, Benedict refused to answer certain questions about the current situation in the Church, on the grounds that this would “inevitably be interfering in the work of the present pope.  I must avoid and want to avoid anything in that direction” (p. 533, emphasis added).  That remark by itself demonstrates that Benedict does not regard himself as still pope.  For if he were, then he could hardly be interfering with himself by speaking out.  Benedict also explicitly rejects “any idea of there being two popes at the same time,” since “a bishopric can have only one incumbent” (p. 537).  Who does he think is the one current pope, then?  The answer is obvious from the fact that Benedict explicitly refers to Francis as “Pope Francis” three times in the interview (at pp. 537 and 539).  He also refers to Francis as “my successor” (p. 539), and speaks of “the new pope” (p. 520).

Clearly, then, Benedict himself thinks that he is not the pope and that Francis is the pope.  Now, Benevacantists claim to submit loyally to the authority of the true pope, who, they say, is still Benedict.  They also think that Francis’s alleged status as an antipope explains his predilection for doctrinally problematic statements.  But then, if Benevacantists submit to Benedict’s authority, shouldn’t they accept his judgment that Francis is the pope and he is not?  Of course, that would be an incoherent position.  Benevacantists must, accordingly, judge that Benedict is simply mistaken. 

But that just leads them out of one incoherent position and into another.  For if Benedict’s understanding of the nature of the papal office is so deficient that he does not even realize that he is himself pope, and instead embraces an antipope, how is he any more reliable as a teacher of doctrine than Francis?  Wouldn’t this grave doctrinal error indicate that he is an antipope?  Wouldn’t his being in communion with an antipope entail that he is also a schismatic, and indeed that he is in schism with himself?  Wouldn’t his failure to appoint cardinals validly to elect his successor (instead leaving it to the alleged antipope Francis invalidly to make such appointments) entail that he has essentially destroyed the papal office for all time, by making it impossible ever again to have a valid papal election?  How, given all of this, can Benevacantists still regard Benedict as a hero any more than they regard Francis as such?  How can they avoid going full sedevacantist?

Emeritus schmeritus

Benevacantists make much fuss about Benedict’s adoption of the “Pope Emeritus” title, taking it to be evidence that he intended to retain some aspect of the papal office.  I have explained elsewhere why the title indicates no such thing, and Benedict’s remarks in the interview confirm this.  Commenting on the use of “emeritus” to refer to a retired bishop, Benedict says that “the word ‘emeritus’ said that he had totally given up his office,” and retained only a “spiritual link to his formerdiocese” as its “former bishop” (p. 536, emphasis added).  In taking the “Pope Emeritus” title, he was simply extending this preexisting usage to the specific case of the bishop of Rome.

That entails, though, that Benedict understands himself to have “totally given up” the papal office, and takes Rome to be his “formerdiocese.”  This undermines claims to the effect that his resignation was invalid, on the grounds that he wrongly supposed that he could give up one aspect of the office (the “ministerium”) while retaining another (the “munus”).  He was supposing no such thing – again, if he had been, he could not think of Rome as his former diocese, the bishopric of which he had totallygiven up.

Speaking of the disappointment that his resignation caused, Benedict says that, nevertheless, “I was clear that I had to do it and that this was the right moment.  Otherwise, I would just wait to die to end my papacy” (p. 520).  Notice that he takes his resignation to have ended his pontificate no less decisively than his death would have ended it.  Needless to say, had he died, there would be no talk of him holding on to the “munus” while giving up the “ministerium.”  But if he takes his resignation to have ended his papacy just as completely as his death would have, then in that case too he cannot be said to have intended to hold on to the one while renouncing only the other.

Proponents of the munus/ministerium distinction claim that Benedict laid down only the functions of the papacy, while holding on to its ontological status, which they claim he thinks cannot be given up.  But in his interview with Seewald, Benedict explicitly rejects the very idea that these can be separated.  In response to the question whether failing capacity is a good reason to resign the papacy, Benedict says:

Of course, that might cause a misunderstanding about function.  The Petrine succession is not only linked to a function, but also concerns being.  So functioning is not the only criterion.  On the other hand, a pope must also do particular things… [I]f you are no longer capable it is advisable – at least for me, others may see it differently – to vacate the chair. (pp. 524-25)

Clearly, then, he takes the being and the function of the papacy to go hand in hand, so that if one renounces the one – “vacates the chair” – one thereby renounces the other.

It is also sometimes suggested that Benedict’s resignation was done under duress and thus invalidly.  To that he responds:

Of course you can't submit to such demands. That is why I stressed in my speech that I was doing so freely. You can never leave if it means running away, you can never submit to pressure. You can only leave if no one is demanding it. And no one has demanded it in my time.  No one. It was a complete surprise to everyone. (p. 506)

There simply can be no reasonable doubt, then, that Benedict’s resignation met the very simple criteria set out in canon law: “If it happens that the Roman Pontiff resigns his office, it is required for validity that the resignation is made freely and properly manifested but not that it is accepted by anyone” (Can. 332 §2).  He clearly intended to renounce the office entirely, not merely in part.  And he did so freely.  End of story.

Prayer and providence

Benevacantists are extremely dismayed at the state of the Church and the world, and rightly so, because both are in ghastly shape.  It is this, I submit, that helps explain their tenacious attachment to a theory that collapses pretty quickly on close inspection.  Benevacantism seems to provide a solution to the difficulties posed by Francis’s problematic words and actions.  In fact, as I have shown in previous commentary on this subject, it makes things far, far worse.  But it can be emotionally satisfying, because it licenses criticizing Francis in a vituperative and disrespectful manner that would not be justifiable if he really is pope. 

It is worth noting that Benedict too is clearly dismayed at the state of the Church and the world, and for the same reasons.  Asked about corruption in the Curia, the Vatileaks scandal, and the like, he makes it clear that the real problems run much deeper than such things:

However, the actual threat to the church, and so to the papacy, does not come from these things but from the global dictatorship of ostensibly humanist ideologies.  Contradicting them means being excludedfrom the basic social consensus.  A hundred years ago anyone would have found it absurd to speak of homosexual marriage.  Today anyone opposing it is socially excommunicated.  The same goes for abortion and creating human beings in a laboratory.  Modern society is formulating an anti-Christian creed and opposing it is punished with social excommunication.  It is only natural to fear this spiritual power of Antichrist and it really needs help from the prayers of a whole diocese and the world church to resist it. (pp. 534-35)

Clearly, Benedict does not agree with those supporters of Pope Francis who pretend that concern about these matters is nothing more than a reflection of American right-wing culture war politics.  On the contrary, these issues concern fundamental Christian morality and an opposition to it that derives from nothing less than the “power of Antichrist.” 

Borrowing a metaphor from Gregory the Great, Benedict speaks of “the little ship of the church running into heavy storms” and proposes it as “an image of the church today, whose basic truth can hardly be disputed” (p. 537).  He also says, in response to a question about the condition of the Church:

St Augustine said of Jesus’ parables about the church that, on the one hand, many people in it are only apparently so, but are really against the church… [T]here are times in history in which God’s victory over the powers of evil is comfortingly visible, and times when the power of evil darkens everything (p. 539)

Asked about whether Pope Francis should have answered the dubia submitted by four cardinals in the wake of Amoris Laetitia, Benedict declines to answer on the grounds that the question “goes into too much detail about the government of the church,” but also says:

In the church among all humanity's troubles and the bewildering power of the evil spirit, the gentle power of God's goodness can still be recognized.  Although the darkness of successive eras will never simply leave the joy of being a Christian unalloyed [...] in the church and in the lives of individual Christians again and again there are moments in which we are deeply aware that the Lord loves us and that love means joy, is ‘happiness’. (p. 538)

It is hard not to see in this an attempt to offer encouragement to those disheartened by Amoris and its aftermath – and also an insinuation that the confusion that the controversy has caused in the Church reflects an attack by “the bewildering power of the evil spirit,” and the “darkness” of the present era.

If, as Benevacantists claim, Benedict really did think of himself as still possessing the munusof the papacy, it is inconceivable that he would not say and do more than he has done in the face of what he himself describes as the “heavy storms” currently facing the Church due to “the bewildering power of the evil spirit,” indeed the “spiritual power of Antichrist” which today “darkens everything.”  The only plausible explanation for why he has not done so is that he believes that Francis and Francis alone is pope and that any stronger words or actions on his part would threaten schism.  He obviously believes that weathering this storm requires prayer and trust in divine providence, rather than resort to crackpot theories.  It is ironic that many Benevacantists mock their critics for taking precisely this attitude which Benedict himself recommends.

Related reading:

Benevacantism is scandalous and pointless

Benedict is not the pope: A reply to some critics

The Church permits criticism of popes under certain circumstances

Pope Francis’s scarlet letter

Popes, heresy, and papal heresy

Papal fallibility

Confucian hylemorphism

The Neo-Confucian Chinese philosopher Zhu Xi or Chu Hsi (1130-1200) famously posited two metaphysical principles often compared to Aristotle’s notions of form and matter.  James Dominic Rooney defends the interpretation of Zhu Xi as a hylemorphist in his new book Material Objects in Confucian and Aristotelian Metaphysics .  Into the bargain, he does so in conversation with contemporary analytic metaphysics and neo-Aristotelian philosophy.  It’s an excellent and important book.

What follows is a summary of some of the key ideas.  Zhu Xi’s fundamental notion is the distinction between li and qi.  Li can be translated as “pattern” or “structure.”  It is to be understood as that which gives something what Zhu Xi characterizes as its “nature,” and thus defines the “norm” for things of its kind.  Qi, by contrast, is that which receives said pattern or structure and thereby affords li an anchor in the concrete world.  Lithus has a kind of priority relative to qi.  For Zhu Xi, “li is one, the instances many,” and by itself is “without physical form.”  Qi, meanwhile, “is unrefined and has impurities.”  Liis the “reason” by which things are as they are, and thereby makes them intelligible.

Needless to say, from this much it is clear that li corresponds pretty closely to form, and qi to matter.  However, there is much more to be said, because the phrases quoted so far are compatible with either an Aristotelian or a Platonist reading of Zhu Xi.  To put the issue in terms familiar from contemporary analytic metaphysics, Rooney asks whether we should read Zhu Xi as offering a “constituent ontology” or a “relational ontology.”  For the Aristotelian, form and matter are each themselves parts or constituents of an individual physical object.  For the Platonist, by contrast, though individual physical objects are what they are by virtue of their relations to the Forms, the Forms themselves are not parts or constituents of the objects.  The question, then, is whether li is itself a part or constituent of a physical object, as form is for the Aristotelian, or is instead to be conceived of along the lines of a Platonic Form.

Rooney argues for reading Zhu Xi as a constituent ontologist, and thus in a manner that parallels Aristotelian hylemorphism. (Rooney himself prefers the spelling “hylomorphism.”  But nothing of substance rides on that, if you’ll pardon the pun.)

Here the exegesis of the relevant texts gets complicated, but Rooney marshals evidence for a hylemorphist reading, which includes the following.  Despite li’s priority, ultimately for Zhu Xi the li and qi of a thing exist together. “Under heaven there is no li without qi or no qi without li.”  He holds that “if there were no qi, then li would have no place in which to inhere.”  Zhu Xi also says things that imply that qi is purely potential in the absence of li, as prime matter is for Aristotelians like Aquinas.

A complicating factor here is that “li” is used ambiguously, and has both a general sense and a particular sense.  Rooney argues that it is sometimes used with reference to the “material nature” of a particular individual physical object, and sometimes instead with reference to the “fundamental nature” shared by all things.  In the former sense, he holds, it is comparable to the Aristotelian notion of the substantial form of a thing of some specific natural kind, where this form is understood as a constituent of that thing. 

Where li is instead understood in a more general way as the fundamental nature in which all things share, Rooney proposes that this can be interpreted as analogous to Aquinas’s notion that all things participate in God conceived of as their exemplar cause.  In this way, there is in Zhu Xi’s metaphysics not only an Aristotelian element, but also something comparable to the Neo-Platonic element that Aquinas grafts onto his own Aristotelianism.  However, though we arguably can interpret Zhu Xi’s “Heavenly Li” something analogous to Aquinas’s notion of God as subsistent being and source of all other reality, there is no attribution to it of intellect and will (as there is for Aquinas).

These are, again, just some general themes, and don’t convey the richness of Rooney’s discussion of the relevant classic texts and scholarly literature on them, not to mention his broader defense of hylemorphism and treatment of issues in contemporary analytic metaphysics.  This kind of high-level engagement of Western with non-Western traditions is much needed, and by carrying it out at book-length, Fr. Rooney has made a major contribution. 

Related posts:

Confucius on our times

Lao Tzu’s negative theology

Anti-reductionism in Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika atomism

Mullins strikes out

My new Philosophy Compass article “The Neo-Classical Challenge to Classical Theism” responds to several criticisms of classical theism and the doctrine of divine simplicity that have been raised by Ryan Mullins.  At Joseph Schmid’s Majesty of Reason blog, Mullins has replied to the article.  What follows is a rejoinder. 

Mullins’ reply can be found in the first part of the post (titled “Mullins Strikes Back”).  The second part is a reply by Schmid.  Because my article was directed at Mullins rather than Schmid, and because Mullins’ reply (and this rejoinder of mine) are already quite long as it is, I am in the present post going to confine my attention to Mullins’ remarks.  I intend no disrespect to Schmid.  But I have been meaning anyway to write up a reply to his recent article on my Neo-Platonic argument for God’s existence (to which he refers in this latest piece).  So I will put off commenting on Schmid until I am able to get to that.

The neo-classical tradition

Regrettably, Mullins is needlessly aggressive right out of the gate, and begins with a gross mischaracterization of an earlier exchange between us.  Rather than take the bait, I will simply direct the interested reader to the response I gave at the time to the false accusations that he repeats in this latest piece.

Mullins starts his reply to my Philosophy Compassarticle with a section devoted to arguing that the neo-classical position is more prevalent in the theistic tradition than its critics acknowledge – though “arguing” is a generous way of putting it.  In fact, the section is little more than a long string of tendentious and undefended assertions about what the Old Testament and various Islamic thinkers allegedly say about issues like divine timelessness and divine simplicity.

For example, Mullins claims that elements of classical theism like its commitment to divine simplicity are “anti-biblical,” and cites several scholars who make similar assertions.  This is meant to establish that the neo-classical position is as old as the Pentateuch.  But of course, classical theists would not agree that their position is anti-biblical, and can also cite scholars in support.  Moreover, Mullins doesn’t offer even a single example of a purported contradiction between classical theism and the Bible.  (The closest he comes is to refer to Exodus 3:14 as a text that he thinks is incompatible with simplicity and immutability, but he doesn’t explain howit is.)  Nor does he refer to, much less answer, the arguments from scripture that have been given in defense of classical theism.

I am not blaming Mullins for not getting into the minutiae of biblical scholarship in a blog post mostly devoted to philosophical issues.  One can’t do everything in one article – I understand that.  The problem is that he says so little that his remarks amount to nothing more than question-begging assertion.  Moreover, they are not really relevant in the first place to my article, which explicitly confines itself to philosophical issues and, for its limited purposes, puts the biblical considerations (however obviously important) to one side.

Only slightly less weak is Mullins’ appeal to the Islamic tradition.  He lists several thinkers who he says rejected notions like divine timelessness and simplicity (though he acknowledges that there are, of course, also Islamic thinkers who embrace them).  Mullins makes the remark: “Feser says that if you notice this obvious problem you are engaged in question begging.  How dare these people notice obvious problems!”

I don’t object to sarcastic quips when they are merited, or at the every least intelligible, but this one is neither.  I honestly have no idea what Mullins is referring to here.  In my Philosophy Compass article, I say nothing at all about the Islamic tradition apart from a passing reference to Avicenna.  And while there are a couple of places where I accuse Mullins of begging the question (namely, in his formulations of the Creation and Modal Collapse objections), I do not do so in connection with the topic at issue here.  So, again, I simply don’t know what he is talking about.

The substantive question is whether the particular Islamic thinkers Mullins cites really have the views he attributes to them.  Some of them do, but in any event here too Mullins simply makes assertions rather than offering any specific texts in support.  And judging from Mullins’ habit of misrepresenting the views of other thinkers (examples of which I gave in my Philosophy Compass article), it would be foolish not to take his assertions here with a grain of salt.  But I will leave the question of whether he gets this or that particular Islamic thinker right to those who know their work better than I do.  (Those following this debate on Twitter will have noted that Khalil Andani has criticized Mullins’ claims about the views of Razi and Juwayni, as well as his appeal to Karramism.)

Anyway, if what Mullins intends to establish is simply that views that are now characterized as marks of a “neo-classical” approach can be found in some thinkers well before contemporary philosophy of religion, then I am happy to concede that point, though I never denied it.  (Indeed, I have often cited William Paley as an example of an earlier thinker who departed from classical theism.)  When, in my article, I said that “neo-classical theism in the current usage of that term is a recent arrival,” what I meant is that it is recent as a self-conscious movement or school of thought, going by that particular name, and distinguishing itself from earlier schools critical of classical theism such as process theism, panentheism, and open theism.  I did not mean to deny that neo-classical theists could plausibly find some precursors of their distinctive position earlier in the tradition, and I wish I had made that clearer.

Misrepresenting Aquinas

All of this is, in any event, tangential to my main disagreement with Mullins, which is not about the history or prevalence of neo-classical views, but rather about the core neo-classical objections to classical theism.  Indeed, my article has a much more specific focus even than that, emphasizing that the objections raised by Mullins and others fail when directed at the Thomisticversion of classical theism, specifically.  And part of the problem, as I show in the article, is that Mullins badly misunderstands key aspects of the Thomistic position.  Here is how Mullins begins his response:

You are probably familiar with a particular trope by now. Internet classical theists will respond to all objections by saying, “You have misunderstood Aquinas.”  This is something that we joke about often.  We have made so many memes making fun of this incredibly tired response to any and all objections.

End quote.  Now, I like memes and other hijinks as much as the next guy, as is evident from my use of comic book panels, Photoshopped images, and the like here at the blog.  But there is a time and a place for that sort of thing, and these remarks strike me as a sophomoric way to begin a response to a straightforward, non-vituperative academic article that treats Mullins and his views with respect, even if critically.  They are especially rich given that Mullins starts out his post with the claim that I had misrepresented himin our earlier exchange (which I had not, but that he’s still upset about the matter makes his complaint about alleged Thomist oversensitivity to misrepresentation ring hollow).  Moreover, Mullins goes on to acknowledge: “To be clear, there can be cases of misunderstanding the classical tradition, and it is a good thing to point those out when they arise.”  But then the thing to do, surely, is just to address head-on the claims that he has misrepresented Thomists, and put the trash talk to one side.

Perhaps the reason Mullins does not do so is that the claims are in fact unanswerable.  Consider this passage from my article:

In a series of writings, Mullins has claimed that the doctrine of divine simplicity holds: that God has no properties at all (2013, p. 189; 2020, p. 17; 2021, pp. 88 and 93); that this entails that he does not have even extrinsic or relational properties, sometimes known as Cambridge properties (2013, p. 183; 2021, pp. 87–88 and 93); that we cannot make even conceptual distinctions between parts or aspects of God (2013, p. 185; 2021, p. 90); that God therefore cannot even be said to be Lord or Creator (2013, p. 200; 2020, p. 27); and that when God is said to be “pure act” without potentiality, what this means is that God is an act or action, in the sense of something a person does (2013, p. 201)…

But the trouble with such objections, from the point of view of Thomistic classical theists, is that the claims Mullins makes about the doctrine of divine simplicity are false, or at best extremely misleading. The doctrine seems incoherent only because he is mischaracterizing it. (Emphasis added)

End quote.  Please note carefully that what I say here is that Mullins’ characterization of classical theism does not correspond to what Thomistic classical theists, specifically, would say.  I also repeatedly emphasize in the article that Mullins relies too heavily for his understanding of classical theism on the work of Katherin Rogers, who is a non-Thomist classical theist.  But here is how Mullins responds to my criticism:

I do not claim these things, I report them. I directly quote a bunch of classical theists saying all of this in my publications. I’m not pulling these notions out of thin air…

[A]ll of my explicit quotes from classical theists are completely ignored by Feser, and now he is saying that I am making false claims. That is curious to say the least…

According to Feser, I claim that classical theism says that God does not have properties. Feser says that this is not an accurate portrayal of classical theism (p. 3). I find this really wild since I have repeatedly quoted Katherin Rogers explicitly saying that God does not have properties.

End quote.  I trust the reader will have noticed the sleight of hand.  What is in question is whether Mullins gets Thomist classical theists right.  But what he says in his defense is that he has provided supporting quotes from non-Thomistic classical theists, such as Rogers.  And he claims that I ignore this purported evidence in his favor.  The problem, needless to say, is that quotes from non-Thomists are not evidence for what Thomists think.  But all the same, I did not ignore his citations of non-Thomist classical theists, but indeed called attention to them myself.  For example, I explicitly cite his reliance on Rogers no fewer than five times (in the main text of the article at page 2, and in the endnotes in notes 5, 16, 23, and 27). 

Of his dependence on Rogers, Mullins says:

I will admit that I have relied quite heavily on one of the greatest living classical theists for my own understanding of classical theism.  Rogers is widely regarded as an excellent medieval scholar, and relying on her work is what responsible scholarship demands.

End quote.  Now, I intend no offense at all to Prof. Rogers, who is indeed a fine scholar from whose work I have also profited.  But she is just one scholar, and her views are hardly representative of the classical theist tradition in general.  Moreover, Rogers is an Anselm specialist, but as she herself acknowledges (as I note in my article) it is Aquinas rather than Anselm who has given the clearest expression of the central classical theist doctrine of divine simplicity.  Nor, needless to say, is Rogers infallible.  Mullins himself writes:

I do have various disagreements with her understanding of various topics. For example, Rogers thinks that Anselm affirms an eternalist ontology of time. I disagree. In The End of the Timeless God, I offer an extended exegesis of the classical Christian tradition to argue that thinkers like Anselm affirmed a presentist ontology of time.

End quote.  Here, as it happens, I agree with Mullins rather than Rogers about how to interpret Anselm.  Now, if Rogers can, by Mullins’ own admission, get even Anselm wrong (despite being a specialist on Anselm), then surely it is possible for her to get Aquinas wrong.  Yet Mullins depends on Rogers, in part, for his understanding of Aquinas.  Take, for example, the claim that when Aquinas characterizes God as “pure act,” what he means is that God is an action in the sense of an act a person carries out.  I think it fair to say that any Thomist would regard this as a howler, about as bad a misreading of Aquinas as can be imagined (for reasons I explain in my article).  So, where did Mullins get this misreading?  From Rogers, as I also note in the article.

Mullins makes the ad hominem suggestion that the reason I and other Thomists are less keen than he is on Rogers’ views might be that we think she concedes too much to the Modal Collapse Objection.  Well, I certainly think she concedes too much to it, but what matters for present purposes is that she just gets Aquinas wrong.  In any case, Mullins does not see that the ad hominem can be flung right back at him.  For I would propose that the reason Mullins overemphasizes Rogers’ work is precisely that portraying her views as representative of classical theism in general gives his objections (including the Modal Collapse Objection) greater rhetorical force than they otherwise would have.

Misrepresenting Thomists

Mullins goes on throughout his reply to cite a number of other non-Thomist classical theists whose views he claims correspond to his characterization of classical theism.  Indeed, this makes up the bulk of his reply.  In some cases I would dispute his interpretation of their views, but in any event all of this is irrelevant to the argument of my paper, which, again, focuses on the point that Mullins misrepresents Thomistic classical theism in particular.

Now, Mullins does also make at least a cursory attempt to support his position by citing Thomists.  For example, in defense of his claim that classical theism takes God to lack any properties at all, he writes: “Even on page 4 of Feser’s article he quotes Brian Davies saying that God lacks properties and attributes.”  But here’s what I actually wrote, and what Davies actually says:

Davies refers to “attributes or properties of God” (2021, p. 10).  To be sure, he also says in the same place that God “lacks attributes or properties distinguishable from himself and from each other” and that “God does not, strictly speaking, have distinct attributes or properties” but “is identical with them” (emphasis added).  But again, to say that God and his properties are all identical is very different from saying that he has no properties at all.

End quote.  Note that Mullins conveniently omits the crucial qualifying phrases “distinguishable from himself and from each other” and “distinct,” which dramatically change the meaning of the assertion he attributes to Davies.  Davies, again, does not say that God has no properties, full stop; he says that God has no properties that are distinct, or that are distinguishable from himself and from each other. 

In response to my claim that Thomists allow that God has Cambridge properties, Mullins says:

Aquinas in SCG Book II.12-14… is worried about God changing relationally. There Aquinas says that the relations “are not really in Him, and yet are predicated of Him, it remains that they are ascribed to Him according only to our way of understanding.”  In this section, Aquinas is clear that the relations cannot be accidents in God because God does not have any accidents. In light of this, it makes no sense for Feser to say that classical theists believe that God has accidental relational properties.

End quote.  What Mullins conveniently omits is what Aquinas immediately goes on to say:

And so it is evident, also, that such relations are not said of God in the same way as other things predicated of Him.  For all other things, such as wisdom and will, express His essence; the aforesaid relations by no means do so really, but only as regards our way of understanding.  Nevertheless, our understanding is not fallacious. For, from the very fact that our intellect understands that the relations of the divine effects are terminated in God Himself, it predicates certain things of Him relatively; so also do we understand and express the knowable relatively, from the fact that knowledge is referred to it.

End quote.  Yes, as Mullins points out, Aquinas would not say that the relations between created things and God are “accidents in God.”  But nobody is claiming otherwise.  The claim of those Thomists who maintain that we can predicate Cambridge properties of God is rather that we can truly “predicate certain things of him relatively,” as Aquinas puts it here.

In any event, Mullins goes on to acknowledge after all that some Thomist classical theists do in fact attribute Cambridge properties to God.  He writes:

Here is the thing. I know that Feser, Stump, and Miller love to play the magical card called “Cambridge properties” to solve all of their problems. Following the lead of Brian Leftow, I just don’t understand how this magical card solves anything.

End quote.  Here we have a bait and switch.  The specific question I was addressing was whether Mullins is correct to hold that classical theists maintain that God has no properties at all, not even Cambridge properties.  I showed that this is not true of all classical theists, and in particular not true of Thomist classical theists.  In his reply, Mullins at first gives his readers the impression that I am wrong and that I have ignored the evidence showing that I am wrong.  But here he concedes that I am right, yet then tries to change the subject. 

To be sure, whether the appeal to Cambridge properties really can, at the end of the day, do the work the Thomist claims it does is a fair enough question.  But again, it is not the question that was at issue.  Furthermore, Mullins does little to show that the appeal fails, despite sarcastic remarks like the one just quoted.  Moreover, the Thomist who has developed the appeal to Cambridge properties in the greatest detail is Barry Miller.  And Mullins admits that Miller is someone whose work he has not much engaged with.  But no one who has failed to engage with Miller can seriously claim to have shown that the appeal to Cambridge properties does not do the work Thomists claim it does.

One substantive argument Mullins does give in this connection is the following:

[C]lassical theists like… [Paul] Helm understand something that Feser does not. They understand that only temporal beings with temporal location are capable of undergoing Cambridge changes. This is because Cambridge changes demarcate a before and after in the life of the thing undergoing a mere relational change. A timeless God cannot have a before and after.

End quote.  But once again Mullins has failed to read my paper carefully, because I not only explicitly address Helm’s point (in endnote 19) but agree with it!  In particular, I agree with him that God does not have Cambridge properties of a temporal or spatial sort.  But I also note there that Mullins wrongly attributes to Helm the stronger claim that God lacks Cambridge properties of any sort at all, which does not follow and is not what Helm actually says in the passages Mullins cites.

Mullins says that for Aquinas, “God’s act of creation is intrinsic to God, and identical to God. In which case, that is the exact opposite of a Cambridge property which is an extrinsic relation that is outside of God,” and he offers quotes from Aquinas to back up the claim.  But here he simply ignores the point that Christopher Tomaszewski makes about this sort of argument (and which I refer to in my article), which is that it fails to distinguish God’s creative act (a) considered qua act and (b) considered qua act of creation.  Considered simply qua act, God’s act of creation is intrinsic to him; but considered qua act of creation it is a Cambridge property.

As Mullins’ article progresses, the sarcasm level increases and it finally degenerates into a rant.  We get passages like this:

I have never been particularly interested in critiquing Thomism like Feser wants me to. Why? Because Aquinas’s disciples have created a million different schools of Thomism, and I have never been fussed about trying to sort through them all. This is mainly because these disciples start with an assumption that I cannot accept, and then interpret Aquinas accordingly. This is how disciples of Aquinas work. First, they start with the assumption that Aquinas cannot possibly be wrong about anything, and that he is never inconsistent with himself. Second, from this assumption, they will engage in all sorts of wild interpretative strategies to make Aquinas infallible. I just don’t have enough faith to be a fellow disciple.

End quote.  But no one is asking Mullins to regard Aquinas as infallible or even to agree with him at all, nor does anyone expect him to become an expert on all things Thomist.  What I was urging in my article was something much more modest, indeed so modest that no reasonable person could object to it (which, I suspect, is why Mullins prefers to attack this strawman).  It was just this: If you are going to make bold and sweeping assertions about classical theism in general, as Mullins routinely does, then what you say ought correctly to describe the views of a major classical theist like Aquinas and those who follow him. 

Aquinas is, after all, regarded even by many non-Thomists as the greatest of medieval philosophers, and in Catholic theology his stature is second to none.  In contemporary philosophy and theology, Thomists are at least as prominent among defenders of classical theism as anyone else, if not more prominent.  Rogers herself – on whom, again, Mullins has by his own admission “relied quite heavily” for his understanding of classical theism – says that it is Aquinas, rather than her own favorite classical theist Anselm, who has given the “clearest expression” of the central classical theist doctrine of divine simplicity.  Agree with him or not, and agree with classical theism or not, understanding the views of Aquinas and other Thomists is crucial to understanding what classical theism actually says, and what could be said in favor of it, even if one nevertheless ends up rejecting it all.

Hence, it is simply ludicrous for Mullins confidently to claim to have refuted classical theism in general while at the same time getting Aquinas’s views badly wrong and largely ignoring the work of contemporary Thomists, then glibly dismissing the complaints of those who call him out for this.  It is like boldly claiming to have refuted dualism while misrepresenting the views of Descartes and ignoring contemporary thinkers like Swinburne and Hasker, or claiming to have refuted liberalism while saying little about Rawlsianism.  I would urge Mullins to devote less time to “ma[king] so many memes making fun” of his opponents, and more time to carefully reading and trying to understand what they actually say.

Related reading:

Simply Irresistible

A further reply to Mullins on divine simplicity

Aquinas on creation and necessity

Scotus on divine simplicity and creation

The neo-classical challenge to classical theism

My article “The Neo-Classical Challenge to Classical Theism” has just been published at Philosophy Compass.  The article is a response to the critique of divine simplicity and other aspects of classical theism developed by self-described “neo-classical” theists like Ryan Mullins. Here’s the abstract: The classical theist tradition represented by thinkers like Anselm and Aquinas predicates several remarkable attributes of God, most notably simplicity or lack of parts of any kind.  Neo-classical theists have recently developed several lines of criticism of these attributes.  But these criticisms are not effective against the historically most influential way of spelling out classical theism, which is Thomism.

Goff’s gaffes

Philip Goff has kindly replied to my recent post criticizing the panpsychism he defends in his book Galileo’s Error and elsewhere.  Goff begins by reminding the reader that he and I agree that the mathematized conception of nature that Galileo and his successors introduced into modern physics does not capture all there is to the material world.  But beyond that we differ profoundly.  Goff writes:

I agree with Galileo (ironic, given the title of my book) that the qualities aren’t really out there in the world but exist only in consciousness. So I don’t think we need to account for the redness of the rose any more than we need to account for the Loch Ness monster (neither exist!); but we do need to account for the redness in my experience. Following Russell and Eddington I do this by incorporating the qualities of experience into the intrinsic nature of matter, ultimately leading me to a panpsychist theory of reality.

End quote.  Now, as I noted in my earlier post, this combination of views is odd right out of the gate.  It starts out accepting the view that sensory qualities aren’t really there in matter.  But then, noting the problems this raises, it proposes that the solution is to hold that sensory qualities… really arethere in matter after all!  Only, not in the way we thought they were, but instead in some totally bizarre way that creates further problems without solving any (which is indeed what Goff’s view does, as I’ll show below).

This is comparable to thinking about killing someone, and then, noting how problematic this would be, proposing that after the murder we look for some way to resuscitate the corpse, Frankenstein-style.  All despite the fact that this will leave us with a grotesque patchwork of a human being rather than the original person!  How about just not killing him in the first place?  Similarly, if you are going to end up having to put the sensory qualities back into matter after all, why not just refrain from taking them out? 

Goff thinks he has a positive argument for taking them out, which I’ll come to in a moment.  But first let’s note what he says is the problem with not taking them out:

Feser, in contrast, rejects Galileo’s initial move of taking the qualities out of the external world. The redness really is in the rose, the greenness really in the grass, etc., and hence we have a ‘hard problem’ not just about consciousness but also about the qualities in external objects.

End quote.  This is the reverse of the truth, and Goff misses the point that rejecting Galileo’s move leaves us, not with a second “hard problem,” but rather with no “hard problems” at all.  And Goff himself should see this, given his other commitments.  The so-called “hard problem of consciousness” arises only if we assume that higher-level properties must be reducible to lower-level ones – that the qualitative character of a visual experience, for example, must be reducible to neurological properties or the like.  There will be a corresponding “hard problem” of explaining how redness can be a feature of a rose only if we assume that redness must be entirely reducible to properties of the sort described by physics and chemistry.

But these “problems” disappear if we reject this reductionist assumption.  And Goff himself rejects it, as I noted in my earlier post!  He denies that all the higher-level properties of a thing must be reducible to lower-level ones.  So how can he justify the claim that rejecting Galileo’s move would leave us with two “hard problems”?  Indeed, how can he justify the claim that accepting Galileo’s move would leave us with even one “hard problem” that calls for the radical solution of panpsychism?  Goff’s own commitments dissolve the problem, leaving the panpsychist “solution” otiose even if it didn’t have its other defects.

Let’s turn now to the positive argument Goff offers for accepting Galileo’s removal of the sensory qualities from ordinary material objects like the rose.  It is an application of the traditional argument from hallucination for the indirect realist theory of perception.  The character of someone’s experience of looking at a red rose might be the same whether there is really a red rose out there or instead the person is just hallucinating.  Hence, the argument concludes, what the perceiver is directlyaware of in each case is really just something going on in the mind rather than in mind-independent reality (even if it is caused by something really out there in mind-independent reality).

Now, at one time I accepted this sort of argument myself (and, like Goff, was influenced in this connection by Howard Robinson, a philosopher whose work I too have long admired and profited from).  But I later changed my mind.  There’s a lot that can be said about the topic, and I address it in Aristotle’s Revenge (see pp. 106-113 and 340-351).  For present purposes I will simply note that Goff’s conclusion is a non sequitur, as (once again) it seems to me that he ought to realize given other things he holds.  For he seems to think that the argument gives us grounds for denying that anything like the red we see when we look at a rose is really out there in the rose itself.  But this would not follow even if we accepted the argument from hallucination as a proof of indirect realism.  After all, Goff himself allows that the rose itself really is out there.  He doesn’t think that (what he takes to be) the fact that we aren’t directly aware of the rose (but only of the mind’s perceptual representation of the rose) casts any serious doubt on the reality of the rose.  So, why would the claim that we aren’t directly aware of the rose’s redness show that we have reason to doubt that there is something corresponding to it out there in mind-independent reality, in the rose itself?

In short, even if we buy indirect realism, the rose itself (by Goff’s own admission) still exists in a mind-independent way.  And by the same token, for all Goff has shown, even if we buy indirect realism, the redness of the rose, as common sense understands redness, still exists in a mind-independent way.  The argument from hallucination for indirect realism thus turns out to be something of a red herring (pun not intended but happily noted).

Finally, Goff says:

[Feser] doesn’t in fact consider my main argument for panpsychism, which is a simplicity-based argument. I have argued that panpsychism is the most parsimonious theory able to account for both the reality of consciousness and the data of third-person science.

End quote.  But actually, I did address this argument, because part of the point of the criticisms I raised was precisely that Goff’s position is not parsimonious.  For one thing, as I emphasized in my original post and reiterated above, the panpsychist solution is simply unnecessary, because the problem to which it is a purported solution does not arise once we see – as Goff himself emphasizes! – that Galileo’s mathematized conception of nature is a mere abstraction that in the nature of the case cannot capture all of matter’s properties.  As I noted in my original post, if you draw a portrait of someone in pen and ink, no one thinks that the absence from the black and white line drawing of many of the features that exist in the person (color, three-dimensionality, etc.) generates some deep metaphysical problem.  It merely reflects the limitations of the mode of representation, that’s all.  But in the same way, the absence of sensory qualities from physics’ mathematical mode of representation doesn’t pose any deep metaphysical problem either.  It simply reflects the limits of mathematical representation, that’s all.

Hence Goff is like someone who looks at a black and white line drawing, notes that it leaves out many features, and then starts spinning complex metaphysical theories to “explain” the “mystery.”  In both cases, there is no genuine mystery and the problem is completely bogus.  And a theory can hardly be “parsimonious” if the problem it claims to solve is a pseudo-problem.  (Go back to my other analogy from above.  Suppose I say “Let’s kill Bob, but then find a way to bring him back to life!”  And suppose you answer “How about just not killing him?” Whose plan is more parsimonious?)

For another thing, and as I also pointed out in my earlier post, panpsychism creates new problems of its own.  As common sense and Aristotelianism alike emphasize, conscious experience in the uncontroversial cases is closely linked to the presence of specialized sense organs, appetites or inner drives, and consequent locomotion or bodily movement in relation to the things experienced.  It is because human beings, dogs, cats, bears, birds, lizards, etc. possess these features that few people doubt that they are all conscious.  And it is because trees, grass, stones, water, etc. lack these features that few people believe they are conscious.

The point is in part epistemological, but also metaphysical.  Aristotelians argue that there is no point to sentience in entities devoid of appetite and locomotion, so that (since nature does nothing in vain) we can conclude that such entities lack sentience.  Some philosophers (such as Wittgensteinians) would argue that it is not even intelligibleto posit consciousness in the absence of appropriate behavioral criteria.  Naturally, all of this is controversial.  But the point is that a theory that claims that electrons and the like are conscious faces obvious and grave metaphysical and epistemological hurdles, and thus can hardly claim parsimony, of all things, as the chief consideration in its favor!

So, Goff’s defense fails – and again, most of the problems are of Goff’s own making, because they have to do with parts of his position being inadvertently undermined by other parts.  His exposure of the limits of Galileo’s mathematization of nature, his rejection of reductionism, his affirmation of external world realism, his call for parsimony – all of these elements of Goff’s position are admirable and welcome.  But when their implications are consistently worked out, they lead away from panpsychism, not toward it.

Cooperation with sins against prudence and chastity

Here’s another unpublished talk which I’ve posted at my main website.  It’s titled “Cooperation with Sins against Prudence and Chastity,” and I presented it at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. in March of 2018, and at Blackfriars Hall at the University of Oxford in January of 2019.  The lecture discusses Aquinas’s account of the nature of prudence or practical wisdom, and of sexual immorality as more corrosive of prudence than any other sin.  It then applies this account to a critique of the pastoral advice given by some churchmen in the wake of Pope Francis’s Amoris Laetitia.  That advice, I argue, amounts to cooperation with sins against chastity, and against prudence more generally.  You can listen to an audio version of the lecture here.