Matt Fradd's Blog, page 19

Do You Have to Love Everyone the Same?

Sometimes we find ourselves in a bind. We feel like we’re being selfish when we spend more time with certain friends and ignore others we don’t like as much.

Christ calls us to love everyone, even our enemies and those who irk us. But does that mean you need to love everyone to the same degree?

No. Here’s why.

There is an ordo amoris.
Ordo amoris (“order of love”) means there is a ranking among those who have a claim on your heart. This order is as old as creation itself.

It is based on likeness and union. A principle of love is likeness. In order to love a thing, you have to recognize it as somehow like you, pertaining to you, or applying to you. If it’s not like you in any way, it wouldn’t attract you.

St. Thomas Aquinas explains it as a recognition of a good that fits you. It’s something that builds up and makes us who we are meant to be.

As a result, our loves are sorted based on what is most intimate to us or what we share the most in common with.

Union is another principle of this order of love. The basis of unity between you and another person is the degree to which that thing can inhabit the same space or live the same life.

We start with God. God is more intimate to you than you are to yourself! That’s why He claims the top spot in the order of love.

What should we love next after God?
This one may surprise you. Many Christians would say that the order of love is God, others, self. But St. Thomas and St. Augustine say that self comes after God. That’s because you are more like yourself than you are like those around you.

It’s on the basis of your union with God and yourself that you then reach out to others.

How do we sort out our love of others?
Following the principles above, we rank our love of others based on likeness and union. You are more responsible for your family than your co-workers. You should love your countrymen more than people in a nation you have no connection with.

Consider this: There are two children drowning in a lake in front of you. One is your child; the other is a child who may grow up to cure cancer. You can only save one.

Who do you save? Your child! You were brought into this world to love your child. He or she has more of a claim on your life than a random stranger.

Your relationships are not an accident. God willed you to be born into your family and meet the various people you encounter in life. Your embrace of that is an abandonment to His divine will. You become holy by responding in love to these “limitations” on your freedom.

You should love everyone. But if you love everyone vaguely and equally, you’ll miss out on loving those appointed to you as deeply as you should.

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How to Win the War Against Transgender Ideology

Transgenderism is one of the most contentious issues of our time. As Catholics, we firmly believe that God gives us our biological sex and that our gender identity should match that. God creates each of us as male and female for a reason.

But there is a lot of pressure on us to conform to the world. Some believe we’re losing the battle. We need more people to stand up for the truth to turn the tide.

Here are a few ways to win the war against transgender ideology.

1. Learn to take the crosses as they come.
Suffering is part of life. Jesus commanded each of us to take up our crosses and follow Him. If you join the fight against transgender ideology, you’ll get a TON of blowback and hatred.

You’ve probably seen stories of people losing their jobs for not jumping on the transgender bandwagon. Many transgender activists think that by questioning their ideology, you’re denying their existence. Some may even call you genocidal because you believe that men are men and women are women.

Don’t let their hate get to you. Maintain a strong prayer and sacramental life to unite yourself more perfectly with Christ. This will empower you to handle any persecution that comes your way. Remember, Christ will not give you any cross you can’t carry.

2. Refute the activists, but show compassion for the suffering.
Should you argue against transgenderism aggressively or gently? It depends on the situation. Often, you need to boldly refute the arguments of the activists.

However, there are many transgender people who are suffering in the shadows. They’re simply confused or reacting to some deep hurt from their past.

While you still need to share the truth with them, do so gently. Affirm their human dignity and emphasize God’s love for them.

3. Keep preaching to the choir.
Many churches don’t think they should be preaching to the choir. They want to focus their message on people outside their walls.

But the people in the pews need to constantly be reminded of the truth. After all, they’re facing cultural pressures to give in to transgender ideology. It’s important to rally and embolden them.

Ultimately, the battle against transgender ideology will be won with truth and charity. These go hand-in-hand. We need to proclaim the truth with love. And, remember, even if we lose the cultural battles, Christ has already won the war. Let’s stay on the winning side!

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Are Protestants Their Own Pope?

Are Protestants an authority unto themselves? It sure appears so to many Catholics. Many Protestants claim to follow Scripture, but the thousands of denominations disagree over fundamental doctrines, including salvation and the nature of sacraments.

There’s a tension between private judgment and Church authority. Both Protestants and Catholics experience it, though not always in the same way.

Let’s look a bit more at this tension through the lens of both Catholics and Protestants.

Catholics—at the end of the day, we all use private judgment.
As humans, we constantly have data flowing into our minds — both the true and the false. You may be walking through the woods and see a fuzzy image that looks like an animal, but upon closer inspection, you see it’s just a clump of branches with brown leaves on it.

We need to be careful about overemphasizing how much Protestants use private judgment. Because we do too. We have data coming in, and we have to figure out what’s true.

The Church doesn’t spell every single thing out for us in detail. But it does issue clear doctrinal statements that are binding on us. That’s much easier than having to personally decipher the most important Biblical doctrines from the pages of Scripture.

Protestants—you may be relying on the church leaders more than you think.
Let’s be honest — many people simply don’t have the time or knowledge to find out all the necessary doctrines that Scripture teaches. That’s why they have preachers. You’ll see Protestant leaders excommunicate people from their communities for going against the denomination’s official creed.

As much as their denomination may claim to support private interpretation, ultimately, the people in the pews are having to take their pastor’s word as gospel. Thankfully, some Protestants are more honest about this ecclesiastical influence on their thinking. But others are in denial.

The Bible is a book of inspired writings from many different centuries. The canon of Scripture wasn’t officially determined until well after the start of Christianity.

We need an authoritative Church to guide us in the knowledge of God. Otherwise, we each become our own pope.

 

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Did God Intend for Predators to Exist?

The problem of evil becomes even more troublesome when applied to predators in the natural world, whether lions, alligators, eagles, or sharks. We’re appalled by human evil, but we see a reason for it. God wanted to give us free will in order to love Him. But that means we also have the capacity to choose evil.

It’s different with animals. They don’t have free will and are not moral agents like us. So what good could there possibly be in animal suffering?

We could go for the easy answers: God is all-knowing, so He knows what He’s doing (which is of course true). Or we could say that God didn’t want carnivores and that they came about as the result of the Fall at the beginning of the world.

But let’s explore some possible reasons why God may have intended predators to exist.

Animal suffering is a natural consequence of creating a material world.
That’s St. Thomas Aquinas’ answer. The lion needs to eat the zebra to maintain itself and reach the perfection proper to it. And, of course, it has cubs who need the meat to survive.

Animals without pain would not really be animals.
Many things we observe in the natural world are the result of animals watching out for, and responding to, danger. Without suffering, how would an animal know to eat when it’s hungry or run away from a fire?

If God programmed their brains to always act in a survival manner, but not in response to stimuli, they’d be more like furry, scaly, and feathered robots. Would you enjoy a furry robot dog?

Animals don’t seem to have conscious awareness of their own pain.
They physically feel pain, but they don’t have spiritual souls like us to consciously experience the suffering. We have a tendency to anthropomorphize the pain of animals, acting like they go through the psychological turmoil we do when we suffer.

But what if animals do have conscious awareness of their pain? Then we can only assume that God will compensate them in some way, perhaps by resurrecting them in the next life.

These are just some possibilities. There is no clear Church teaching on this topic. But whatever the case, we know that predators commit no evil when pursuing their prey. Whether God originally intended predators to exist or not, He brings out good by using them to keep ecosystems healthy, so that life can thrive.

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Wokeism Will NOT Destroy Us

Bad news and good news. First, the bad: Wokeism is getting way out of control. You see it in the news and on social media every day. And it will probably get worse.

The good news: Society has a lot of self-correcting measures. At some point, things WILL get better.

Here are a few reasons why wokeism will not have the last word.

Evolution is on our side.
Dr. Michael Bloom, an evolutionary biologist, said that evolution selects in favor of religious people because they have more children. Atheists or non-religious people tend to have fewer children. And a great book called “Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?” predicts that in a hundred years, most people will still be Christian or Muslim.

For an ideology to survive, those holding it need to reproduce in abundance. Since this is less the case among non-religious people, they need lots of converts.

Religious people trust the Left and atheists less now.
You may say, “The Left seems pretty successful in converting kids.” True, but less so than in the 1990s. The woke crowd has become much more polarizing, so much so that even some people who identify themselves as liberal have had enough of their virtue signaling (Bill Maher being one example).

Many parents are more attuned to the threat of secularism and the need to protect their kids. Recently, parents have stormed school board meetings to protest the indoctrination of their kids. You also see more parents encouraging their kids to attend trade schools or religious colleges rather than woke public universities.

The “authorities” are no longer just religious people.
In the second half of the 20th century, many young people made rebellion against the “man in authority” a virtue. Since Christianity was the culture back then, that meant rebelling against Christianity. The counterculture was non-Christian.

Today, the tables have flipped. Christianity is the new counterculture. It’s still cool to rebel against the “man,” but now that man is wokeism, especially in academia, politics, and the entertainment industry. Culture has self-correcting measures and we see them at work now.

Jesus is still king.
History shows that things will get better. If you look back through time, you’ll find many people saying their age was the worst and that the end was nigh. But things got better. Few events in Church history are as harrowing as the persecution of Christians by the Roman empire. Yet, those persecutions ended.

Christ is the king of history. While He allows us to go our own ways and suffer the consequences, He continually draws us back with His grace. And you’ll notice that each time history goes through these cycles of good and bad, Christianity grows a little more. As Tertullian said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”

Find peace in your heart no matter what the world brings. As God says in Holy Scripture, “Be still, and know that I am God. I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth” (Psalm 46:10).

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Is It Possible God Doesn’t Exist?

Maybe you believe that God exists. But is it hypothetically possible for Him not to exist? After all, there are many things in existence that — strictly speaking — don’t have to be here. (By the way, that includes you and me! God created us not because He needs us, but because He loves us so much that He wanted us to share in His divine life.)

The good news is that it is impossible for God not to exist. Here’s why.

God is logically necessary.
Therefore, there is no possible world where He doesn’t exist. It is similar to the case of a married bachelor. It is not logically possible for a married bachelor to exist because it’s a contradiction. No other world could overcome this contradiction.

The best arguments for the existence of God, such as the argument from contingency, demonstrate His necessity. And these principles would apply in other universes as well. Contingent beings require the existence of a necessary being.

Some argue that everything in our universe came from nothing. But it’s impossible for there to have been a state of absolute nothingness.

Can you actually imagine nothingness? Whenever people say they can conceive of “nothing,” likely they are thinking of blackness or a blank screen. Technically, these are something. And they are contingent beings, so they depend on others for their existence.

There is a difference between an epistemic possibility and a metaphysical possibility.
Just because you can conceive of something (epistemic possibility), it doesn’t follow that it could be obtained in reality (metaphysical possibility).

For example, there are unsolved problems in mathematics that can be true or false. You can imagine them being true and you can imagine them being false, but they can’t be metaphysically true and false at the same time. It has to be one or the other in reality.

While you may be able to epistemically imagine God not existing, given that things do exist, metaphysically imagining God not existing is metaphysically impossible.

Thank God for that!

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Even Atheists Don’t Want Science to Explain Everything

Religion versus science — one of the biggest showdowns of our time! Actually, many religious people are scientists, and vice versa. Yet, popular atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Ricky Gervais, Sam Harris, and Bill Maher shine a spotlight on the supposed conflict between faith and reason.

For many atheists, science can ultimately explain everything. If given enough time, we’ll see all of reality through the lens of a test tube.

But do atheists really want science to be the ultimate explanation for everything? Here’s why they need to be careful what they wish for.

Atheists depend on faith sometimes.
As much as they boast about being people of evidence, atheists constantly make acts of faith in their lives. We simply can’t verify everything we come across each day. Some former atheists have even mentioned that there were times when their atheistic beliefs seemed unlikely, and they had to make an act of faith to continue being atheists!

Reason makes us human. Trust makes us even more human. The best human relationships are those where the two parties don’t need to constantly verify each other’s trustworthiness.

As Pope St. John Paul II says in “Fides et Ratio”:

“In believing, we entrust ourselves to the knowledge acquired by other people. This suggests an important tension. On the one hand, the knowledge acquired through belief can seem an imperfect form of knowledge, to be perfected gradually through personal accumulation of evidence; on the other hand, belief is often humanly richer than mere evidence, because it involves an interpersonal relationship and brings into play not only a person’s capacity to know but also the deeper capacity to entrust oneself to others, to enter into a relationship with them which is intimate and enduring.”

If God exists, should it be any different with our relationship with Him? He does give us evidence of His existence, but to deepen our relationship with Him, He eventually requires a leap of faith.

It takes a lot more faith to think that something came out of nothing than that God created the universe.
Many atheists have heard this argument and probably roll their eyes at it. But it’s true! In our human experience, we always see being coming from being. We never observe something coming from nothing.

Now, sometimes you’ll hear atheists try to describe what the nothingness before the beginning of the universe was like. Richard Dawkins tried this in his debate with the late Cardinal George Pell. Problem is, as soon as you start to ascribe positive attributes to nothingness, then you are no longer talking about nothing, but something. Nothing is just that — nothing!

Atheists may want to reflect on their lived experiences and then compare them to their belief in the supremacy of science. They’ll realize that their lives would actually be impoverished if they took a scientific approach to everything. Faith opens new avenues in our minds and hearts!

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Why The Rings of Power Sucks

Nearly two decades ago, the final installment of Peter Jackson’s adaptation of “The Lord of the Rings” hit theaters. There was a bit of criticism of the trilogy, but overall, it was praised and is still considered a worthy representation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s original masterpiece.

Last year, Amazon Studios dropped the first season of “The Rings of Power,” a very loose adaptation of Tolkien’s works. Although the episodes include many characters and scenes from Tolkien, a lot was added to fill gaps in the story.

Reaction to “The Rings of Power” is much more controversial than “The Lord of the Rings.” Some viewers love it, but many hate it.

Here are two reasons why.

“The Rings of Power” changes too many aspects of Tolkien’s lore.
It’s unreasonable to expect a television or movie adaptation to replicate everything from the book on which it’s based. Jackson made some changes for the movies (and, sadly, omitted Tom Bombadil). Still, the movie versions are widely seen as capturing the essence and spirit of the original works.

“The Rings of Power” takes more liberties. One may argue that it’s because Tolkien only gave us sketches of the period covered by the show. But some changes are inexcusable.

Isildur should NOT be living at the same time as Celebrimbor. He comes much later when the One Ring had already been in existence for a while. And seeing Galadriel as a general in the show just doesn’t feel like the royal Galadriel we meet in the books.

Plus, many viewers have said that the show just doesn’t FEEL like Tolkien, in contrast to Jackson’s adaptation.

It’s not a character-driven narrative.
In the best stories, characters drive the plot. In the worst stories, the plot drives the characters. This doesn’t mean characters can’t react to events. After all, life often forces things upon us and we have little else to do but react. But in a good story, the defining moments are moments of choice.

“The Lord of the Rings” includes important moments of the character driving the story. Frodo leaves the Shire because he loves it and wants it to be kept safe. He later takes the One Ring away from the other members of the fellowship because he wants to protect them.

By contrast, “The Rings of Power” is little more than events happening to characters, who then react to them. For example, Galadriel’s story arc is a litany of reactions, whether to the mutiny of her followers or Gil-galad sending her to the paradise of Valinor. By the way, the elves were not sent to Valinor. They chose whether to go there or remain in Middle Earth. This is a missed opportunity to make Galadriel drive the plot!

There is much more we could say about “The Rings of Power,” but we want to know your thoughts. Do you agree with our assessment? Or do you think the show has positives? Let us know in the comments section of the accompanying Facebook post or YouTube video for this blog. (Please, keep the discussion charitable!)

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St. Edith Stein’s Beautiful Understanding of Empathy

St. Edith Stein (1891-1942) was a German Jewish theologian and philosopher who became a Catholic nun. She was killed in a Nazi gas chamber and venerated as a martyr by the Church.

Though not as famous as other saints, St. Edith Stein — also known as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross — was arguably one of the most brilliant Catholic minds of the 20th century. Her writings influenced another intellectual giant, Pope St. John Paul II.

She wrote on a wide variety of subjects. Here we want to look at her beautiful description of human empathy, a trait we could use a lot more of today.

Empathy is far more than sharing another person’s pain.
We usually speak of empathy in relation to someone’s pain. When a close friend loses a loved one, you empathize with them, often saying, “I feel your pain.” St. Edith Stein liked to speak of joyful empathy: “I feel your jubilation.”

Empathy is experiencing another’s feelings.
For this great saint, empathy did not proceed from deduction. You may deduce someone is sad from their facial expressions. You may feel for them by remembering the last time you were sad.

For St. Edith Stein, empathy went beyond this. She thought it was the ability to actually FEEL another person’s pain.

For example, you’re at a stadium and see an athlete get hit in the face by the ball. You would probably instantly wince because you’re experiencing the athlete’s experience of the pain.

St. Edith Stein would say that the pain is primordial for the athlete and con-primordial for you. It’s not your pain, but you’re experiencing it in a way. It’s an immediate experience, not a recalled memory.

There are still two different subjects.
If the athlete and you are experiencing the pain — the athlete directly and then you indirectly — does that mean there’s only one subject in pain?

According to St. Edith Stein, there are still two subjects: the spectator and the athlete: “I see you and I experience you experiencing the pain.” You’re related to the athlete as one subject to another. There’s a kind of unity and distinction.

Empathy undergirds the possibility of love.
If you don’t know that the athlete is another personal subject experiencing the world and you think he or she is an object, you love them for yourself. But if you know he or she is another personal subject, you can love them for themselves. Empathy gives you the “vision” to see them as another personal subject.

With no empathy, there’s no personal love. If we want to help love flourish, let’s work harder to see the world not only through our own eyes, but through the experiences of those around us.

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Tips for New Homeschoolers

There are many reasons why parents homeschool their children. They include dissatisfaction with local schools, safety, and the desire to cultivate their children’s talents. For Catholic parents, giving their children a faith-based education counts among the top motivations.

If you’re considering homeschooling your children, here are a few tips to get you started.

Make sure you’re up to the task.
Homeschooling is a beautiful vocation, but it’s a LOT of work! Don’t be deceived by those idyllic photos of a mom and her kids cuddled up on the couch with a book. Homeschooling presents many challenges, with disciplining children, fatigue, and tackling challenging subjects among them.

Do research to understand what you’ll be up against before committing to homeschooling.

It’s okay to hire tutors.
Some parents want to be the sole teachers of their children and that’s fine. But this desire doesn’t always go to plan. It’s perfectly fine to hire tutors for certain subjects. Maybe you’re a pro at literature, but horrible at math. Bringing in a tutor will be beneficial for you and your children.

Of course, hiring a tutor costs money. Thankfully, there are many self-guided resources available to homeschoolers, in all subjects.

Learn to accept the messiness of homeschooling.
By mess, we not only mean school supplies strewn around, but also the differences between your children. They won’t all progress at the same rate and they may have different learning styles. Homeschooling is a great way to think outside the box and find creative ways to meet your children’s educational needs in ways public schools couldn’t.

If you find that a traditional textbook isn’t working for one of your children, find fun hands-on projects, audiobooks, or games instead. Don’t limit yourself to a traditional learning mentality.

Your ultimate goal is to get your kids to heaven.
Make sure your children learn the skills they need to pursue their future careers or vocations, but never lose sight of the most important thing: how to get to heaven. Be sure to incorporate religious study and prayer time into your daily schedule.

At your final judgment, God’s not going to ask about your child’s SAT score or how many algebra problems they could solve. He’ll want to know whether you shared His message of love and salvation and taught them to develop a relationship with their heavenly Father.

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