Two problems with Dignitas Infinita

This weekthe Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) published the Declaration DignitasInfinita , on the topic of human dignity.  I am as weary as anyone of the circumstancethat it has now become common for new documents issued by the Vatican to be metwith fault-finding.  But if the faultsreally are there, then we oughtn’t to blame the messenger.  And this latest document exhibits two seriousproblems: one with its basic premise, and the other with some of theconclusions it draws from it.

Capital punishment

To beginwith the latter, I hasten to add that mostof the conclusions are unobjectionable. They are simply reiterations of longstanding Catholic teaching onabortion, euthanasia, our obligations to the poor and to migrants, and soon.  The document is especially helpfuland courageous in strongly condemning surrogacy and gender theory, which willwin it no praise from the progressives the pope is often accused of being tooready to placate. 

There areother passages that are more problematic but perhaps best interpreted asimprecise rather than novel.  Forexample, it is stated that “it is very difficult nowadays to invoke therational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibilityof a ‘just war.’”  That might seem tomark the beginnings of a reversal of traditional teaching that has beenreiterated as recently as the current Catechism.  However, DignitasInfinita also “reaffirm[s] the inalienable right to self-defense and theresponsibility to protect those whose lives are threatened,” which are themesthat recent statements of just war doctrine have already emphasized.

The oneundeniably gravely problematic conclusion DignitasInfinita draws from its key premise concerns the death penalty.  Pope Francis already came extremely close todeclaring capital punishment intrinsically immoral when he changed theCatechism in 2018, so that it now says that “the death penalty is inadmissiblebecause it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”  But that left open the possibility that whatwas meant is that it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the personunless certain circumstances hold,such as the practical impossibility of protecting others from the offenderwithout executing him (even if this reading is a bit strained).  The new DDF document goes further and flatlydeclares that “the death penalty… violates the inalienable dignity of everyperson, regardless of the circumstances”(emphasis added). 

This simplycannot be reconciled with scripture and the consistent teaching of all popeswho have spoken on the matter prior to Pope Francis.  That includes Pope St. John Paul II, despitehis well-known opposition to capital punishment.  In EvangeliumVitae, even John Paul taught only:

Punishment… ought not go to theextreme of executing the offender exceptin cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possibleotherwise to defend society.  Todayhowever, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penalsystem, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent.

And theoriginal version of the Catechism promulgated by John Paul II stated:

The traditional teaching of theChurch has acknowledged as well-founded the right and duty of the legitimatepublic authority to punish malefactors by means of penalties commensurate withthe gravity of the crime, not excluding,in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty. (2266)

In short, JohnPaul II (like scripture and like every previous pope who spoke on the matter)held that some circumstances can justifycapital punishment, whereas Pope Francis now teaches that no circumstances can ever justify capitalpunishment.  That is a directcontradiction.  Now, Joseph Bessette andI, in our book ByMan Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment,have shown that the legitimacy in principle of the death penalty has in factbeen taught infallibly by scripture and the tradition of the Church.  I’ve also made the case for this claim onother occasions, such as in thisarticle.  Hence, if PopeFrancis is indeed teaching that capital punishment is intrinsically wrong, itis clear that it is he who is in thewrong, rather than scripture and previous popes. 

If defendersof Pope Francis deny this, then they are logically committed to holding thatthose previous popes erred.  Either way, some pope or other has erred, so that itwill make no sense for defenders of Pope Francis to pretend that they aresimply upholding papal magisterial authority. To defend Pope Francis is to reject the teaching of the previous popes;to defend those previous popes is to reject the teaching of Pope Francis.  There is no way to defend all of them atonce. 

This is inno way inconsistent with the doctrine of papal infallibility, because thatdoctrine concerns ex cathedradefinitions, and nothing Pope Francis has said amounts to such adefinition (as Cardinal Fernández, Prefect of the DDF, hasexplicitly acknowledged).  Butit refutes thosewho claim that all papalteaching on faith and morals is infallible, and those who hold that, even ifnot all such teaching is infallible, no pope has actually taught error.  For that reason alone, Dignitas Infinita is a document of historic significance, albeitnot for the reasons Pope Francis or Cardinal Fernández would have intended.

Dignity and the death penalty

The otherproblem with the document, I have said, concerns the premise with which itbegins.  That premise is referred to inits title, and it is stated in its opening lines as follows:

Every human person possesses aninfinite dignity, inalienably grounded in his or her very being, which prevailsin and beyond every circumstance, state, or situation the person may everencounter.  This principle, which isfully recognizable even by reason alone, underlies the primacy of the humanperson and the protection of human rights… [Thus] theChurch… always insist[s] on “the primacy of the human person and the defense ofhis or her dignity beyond every circumstance.”

The moststriking part of this passage – indeed, I would say the most shocking part ofit – is the assertion that human dignity is infinite.  I will come back to that.  But first note the other aspects of itsteaching.  The Declaration implies thatthis dignity follows from human natureitself, rather than from grace.  Thatis implied by its being fully knowable by reason alone (as opposed to specialdivine revelation).  It is ontological rather than acquired innature, reflecting what a human being israther than what he or she does.  Forthis reason, it cannot be lost no matter what one does, in “every circumstance,state, or situation the person may ever encounter.”  And again, the dignity human beings are saidin this way to possess is also claimed to be infinite in nature.

It is nosurprise, then, that the Declaration should later go on to say what it does aboutthe death penalty.  According to PopeFrancis’s revision of the Catechism, the death penalty is “an attack on theinviolability and dignity of the person.” But Dignitas Infinita saysthis dignity exists in “everycircumstance, state, or situation the person may ever encounter.”  Thatimplies that it is retained no matter what evil the person has committed, andno matter how dangerous he is to others. Thus, if we must “always insist on…the primacy of the human person and the defense of his or her dignity beyond every circumstance,” it wouldfollow that the death penalty would be impermissible in every circumstance.

This aloneentails that there is something wrong with the Declaration’s premises.  For it is, again, the infallible teaching ofscripture and all previous popes that the death penalty can under somecircumstances be justifiable.  Hence, ifthe Declaration’s teaching on human dignity implies otherwise, it is that teachingthat is flawed, not scripture and not two millennia of consistent papal teaching.

There isalso the problem that, in defense of its conception of human dignity, theDeclaration appeals to scriptural passages from, among other places, Genesis,Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Romans.  But allfour of these books contain explicit endorsements of capital punishment!  (See ByMan Shall His Blood Be Shed for detailed discussion.)  Hence, their conception of human dignity isclearly not the same as that of theDeclaration.  Perhaps the defender of theDeclaration will suggest that these scriptural texts erred on the specifictopic of capital punishment.  One problemwith that is that the Church holds that scripture cannot teach error on amatter of faith or morals.  So, thisattempt to get around the difficulty would be heterodox.  But another problem is that this move wouldundermine the Declaration’s own use of these scriptural texts.  For if Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, andRomans are wrong about something as serious the death penalty, why should we believethey are right about anything else, such as human dignity?

At thispoint the defender of the Declaration might suggest that we aremisunderstanding these scriptural passages if we think they support capitalpunishment.  One problem with this suggestionis that it is asinine on its face. Jewish and Christian theologians alike have for millennia consistentlyunderstood the Old Testament to sanction capital punishment, and the Church hasalways understood both the Old Testament passages and Romans to sanctionit.  To pretend that it is only now thatwe finally understand them accurately defies common sense (and rests on utterlyimplausible arguments, as Bessette and I show in our book).  But it also contradicts what the Church hassaid about its own understanding of scripture. The Church claims that on matters of scriptural interpretation, no oneis free to contradict the unanimous opinion of the Fathers or the consistentunderstanding of the Church over millennia. And the Fathers and consistent tradition of the Church hold that scripture teaches that the death penaltycan under some circumstances be licit. (See the book for more about this subject too.)

Infinite dignity?

But evenputting all of that aside, attributing “infinitedignity” to human beings is highly problematic. If we are speaking strictly, it is obvious that only God can be said to have infinitedignity.  Dignitas conveys “worth,” “worthiness,” “merit,” “excellence,”“honor.”  Try replacing “dignity” withthese words in the phrase “infinite dignity,” and ask whether the result can beapplied to human beings.  Do human beingshave “infinite merit,” “infinite excellence,” “infinite worthiness”?  The very idea seems blasphemous.  Only God can have any of these things.

Or considerthe attributes that impart special dignity to people, such as authority,goodness, or wisdom, where the more perfectly they manifest these attributes,the greater is their dignity.  Can humanbeings be said to possess “infinite authority,” “infinite goodness,” or“infinite wisdom”?  Obviously not, andobviously it is only God to whom these things can be attributed.  So, how could human beings have infinitedignity?

Aquinas makesseveral relevant remarks.  He tells usthat “the equality of distributive justice consists in allotting various thingsto various persons in proportion to their personal dignity” (Summa Theologiae II-II.63.1).  Naturally, that implies that some people havemore dignity than others.  So, how could all human beings have infinitedignity (which would imply that none has more than any other)?  He also says that “by sinning man departsfrom the order of reason, and consequently falls away from the dignity of hismanhood” (Summa Theologiae II-II.64.2).  But if a person can lose his dignity, how canall people have infinite dignity?

Some willsay that what Aquinas is talking about in such passages is only acquireddignity rather than ontological dignity – that is to say, dignity that reflectswhat we do or some special status we contingently come to have (which canchange), rather than dignity that reflects what we are by nature.  But that will not work as an interpretationof other things Aquinas says.  Forinstance, he notes that “the dignity of the divine nature excels every otherdignity” (Summa Theologiae I.29.3).  Obviously, he is talking about God’sontological dignity here.  And naturally,God has infinite dignity if anything does. So if his ontological dignity excels ours, how could we possibly haveinfinite ontological dignity? 

Aquinas alsowrites:

Now it is more dignified for a thingto exist in something more dignified than itself than to exist in its ownright.  And so by this very fact thehuman nature is more dignified in Christ than in us, since in us it has its ownpersonhood in the sense that it exists in its own right, whereas in Christ itexists in the person of the Word.  (Summa Theologiae III.2.2,Freddoso translation)

Now, if thedignity of human nature is increased by virtue of its being united to Christ inthe Incarnation, how could it already be infinite by nature?  Then there is the fact that Aquinas explicitly denies that human dignity isinfinite:

But no mere man has the infinitedignity required to satisfy justly an offence against God. Therefore there hadto be a man of infinite dignity who would undergo the penalty for all so as tosatisfy fully for the sins of the whole world.  Therefore the only-begotten Word of God, trueGod and Son of God, assumed a human nature and willed to suffer death in it soas to purify the whole human race indebted by sin. (De Rationibis Fidei, Chapter7)

To be sure,Aquinas also allows that there is a sensein which some things other than God can have infinite dignity, when he writes:

From the fact that (a) Christ’s humannature is united to God, and that (b) created happiness is the enjoyment ofGod, and that (c) the Blessed Virgin is the mother of God, it follows that theyhave a certain infinite dignity that stems from the infinite goodness which isGod. (Summa Theologiae I.25.6,Freddoso translation)

But notethat the infinite dignity in question derives from a certain special relation to God’s infinite dignity– involving the Incarnation, the beatific vision, and Mary’s divine motherhoodrespectively – and not from humannature as such.

Relevant tooare Aquinas’s remarks on the topic of infinity. He says that “besides God nothing can be infinite,” for “it is againstthe nature of a made thing to be absolutely infinite” so that “He cannot makeanything to be absolutely infinite” (SummaTheologiae I.7.2).  How, then, could human beings by nature haveinfinite dignity?

Some mightrespond by saying that Aquinas is not infallible, but that would miss thepoint.  For it is not just that Aquinas’stheology has tremendous authority within Catholicism (though it does have that,and that is hardly unimportant here).  Itis that he is making points from Catholic teaching itself about the nature ofdignity, the nature of human beings, and the nature of God that make it highlyproblematic to speak of human beings as having “infinite dignity.”  It is no good just to say that he is wrong.  Thedefender of the Declaration owes us an argument showing that he is wrong, or showing that talk of “infinitedignity” can be reconciled with what he says.

Possible defenses?

Onesuggestion some have made on Twitter is that further remarks Aquinas makesabout infinity can resolve the conflict. For in the passage just quoted, he also writes:

Things other than God can berelatively infinite, but not absolutely infinite.  For with regard to infinite as applied tomatter, it is manifest that everything actually existing possesses a form; andthus its matter is determined by form. But because matter, considered as existing under some substantial form,remains in potentiality to many accidental forms, which is absolutely finitecan be relatively infinite; as, for example, wood is finite according to itsown form, but still it is relatively infinite, inasmuch as it is inpotentiality to an infinite number of shapes.  But if we speak of the infinite in referenceto form, it is manifest that those things, the forms of which are in matter,are absolutely finite, and in no way infinite.  If, however, any created forms are notreceived into matter, but are self-subsisting, as some think is the case withangels, these will be relatively infinite, inasmuch as such kinds of forms arenot terminated, nor contracted by any matter.  But because a created form thus subsisting hasbeing, and yet is not its own being, it follows that its being is received andcontracted to a determinate nature.  Henceit cannot be absolutely infinite. (Summa TheologiaeI.7.2)

What Aquinasis saying here is that there is a sense in which matter is relatively infinite, and a sense in which an angel is relatively infinite.  The sense in which matter is relativelyinfinite is that it can at least in principle take on, successively, one formafter another ad infinitum.  The sense in which an angel is relativelyinfinite is that it is not limited by matter. 

But thereare several problems with the suggestion that this passage can help us to makesense of the notion that human beings have “infinite dignity.”  First, Aquinas explicitly says that things “theforms of which are in matter, are absolutelyfinite, and in no way infinite.”  For example, while the matter that makes up a particular tree is relatively infiniteinsofar as it can take on different forms adinfinitum (the form of a desk, the form of a chair, and so on) the tree itself qua having the form of a tree isin no way infinite.  Now, a human beingis, like a tree, a composite of form and matter.  Hence, Aquinas’s remarks here would implythat, even if the matter that makes up the body is relatively infinite insofaras it can successively take on different forms ad infinitum, the human being himself is not in any wayinfinite.  Obviously, then, this wouldtell against taking human nature tobe even relatively infinite in its dignity.

Furthermore,it’s not clear how the specific examples Aquinas gives are supposed to berelevant to the question at hand in the first place.  The sense in which he says matter isrelatively infinite is, again, that it can take on different forms successivelyad infinitum – first one form, then asecond, then a third, and so on.  But ofcourse, at any particular point in time, matter does not have an infinite numberof forms.  So, how would this provide amodel for human beings having “infinite dignity”?  Is the idea that they have only finitedignity at any particular point in time, but will keep having it at laterpoints in time without end?  Surely thatis not what is meant by “infinite dignity.” It would entail that even something with the least dignity possible atany particular point in time would have “infinite dignity” as long as it simplypersisted with that minimal dignity forever!

Nor does theangel example help.  Again, the sense in which angels are relativelyinfinite, Aquinas says, is that they are not limited by matter.  But human beings are limited by matter.  So, thisis no help in explaining how we could be even relatively infinite in dignity.

Another,sillier suggestion some have made on Twitter is that we can make sense of humanbeings having “infinite dignity” in light of set theory, which tells us thatsome infinities can be larger than others. The idea seems to be that while God has infinite dignity, we too canintelligibly be said to have it, so long as God’s dignity has to do with alarger infinity than ours.

The problemwith this is that the “infinity” that is attributed to God and to his dignity(and to human dignity, for that matter) has nothing to do with the infinitiesstudied by set theory.  Set theory isabout collections of objects (such as numbers), which might be infinite insize.  But when we say that God isinfinite, we’re not talking about a collection any kind.  We’re not saying, for example, that God’sinfinite power has something to do with him possessing an infinite collectionof powers.  What is meant is merely thathe has causal power to do or to make whatever is intrinsically possible.  And his infinite dignity too has nothing todo with any sort of collection (such as an infinitely large collection of unitsof dignity, whatever that would mean). Set theory is simply irrelevant.

Anotherdefense that has been suggested is to appeal to Pope St. John Paul II’s havingonce used the phrase “infinite dignity” in anAngelus address in 1980. Indeed, the Declaration itself makes note of this.  But there are several problems here.  First, John Paul II’s remark was merely apassing comment made in the course a little-known informal address of littlemagisterial weight that was devoted to another topic.  It was not a carefully worded formaltheological treatment of the nature of human dignity, specifically.  Nor did John Paul put any special emphasis onthe phrase or draw momentous conclusions from it, the way the new Declarationdoes.  For example, he never concludedthat, since human dignity is “infinite,” the death penalty must be ruled outunder every circumstance.  On thecontrary, despite his strong personal opposition to the death penalty, healways acknowledged that there could be circumstances where it was permissible,and that that was the Church’s traditional teaching.  There is no reason whatsoever to take theAngelus address reference to be anything more than a loosely wordedoff-the-cuff remark.  Moreover, even ifit were more than that, that wouldnot make the problems I’ve been setting out here magically disappear.

Some havesuggested that the Declaration’s remark about the death penalty does not infact amount to saying that capital punishment is intrinsically wrong.  What it entails, they claim, is only that itis always intrinsically contrary to human dignity.  But that, they say, leaves it open that itmay sometimes be permissible to do what is contrary to human dignity.

But thereare two reasons why this cannot be right. First, Dignitas Infinita doesnot say that what violates our dignity is unacceptable except when such-and-such conditions hold.  On the contrary, it says that the Church “always insist[s] on… the defense of [thehuman person’s] dignity beyond everycircumstance.”  It says that man’s“infinite dignity” is “inviolable,”that it “prevails in and beyond everycircumstance, state, or situation the person may ever encounter,” and that our respect for it must be “unconditional.”  It repeatedlyemphasizes that “circumstances” are irrelevant to what a respect fordignity requires of us, and it does so preciselybecause it claims that our dignity is “infinite.”  Asserting that human dignity has such radical“no exceptions” implications is the wholepoint of the Declaration, the whole point of its making a big deal of thephrase “infinite dignity.”

Second, theDeclaration makes a special point of lumping in the death penalty with evilssuch as “murder, genocide, abortion, [and] euthanasia.”  It says: “Here,one should also mention the death penalty, for this also violates the inalienable dignity of every person, regardless of the circumstances.”  Obviously, if the death penalty really doesviolate human dignity under every circumstance in just the way murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, etc. do,then it is no less absolutely ruled out than they are.  And obviously, the Declaration would notallow us to say that there are cases where murder, genocide, abortion, andeuthanasia might be allowable despite their being affronts to human dignity.

Hyperbole?

The bestdefense that some have made of the Declaration is that the phrase “infinitedignity” is mere hyperbole.  But thoughthis is the best defense, that doesnot make it a good defense.  First of all, magisterial documents shoulduse terms with precision.  This is especially true of a document comingfrom the DDF, whose job is precisely to clarifymatters of doctrine.  It is simplyscandalous for a document intended to clarify a doctrinal matter – especially onethat we are told has been in preparation for years – to deploy a key theological term in a loose and potentiallyhighly misleading way (and, indeed, to put special emphasis on this loosemeaning, even in the very title of the document!)

But second,the idea that the phrase is meant as mere hyperbole is simply not a natural readingof the Declaration.  For it is not justthat special emphasis is put on the phrase itself.  It is also that special emphasis is put onthe radical implications of thephrase.  We are told that it is preciselybecause human dignity is “infinite”that the moral conclusions asserted by the Declaration hold “beyond all circumstances,” “beyond every circumstance,” “in all circumstances,” “regardless of the circumstances,” and soon.  If you don’t take the “infinite”part seriously, then you lose the grounds for taking the “beyond allcircumstances” parts seriously.  They gohand in hand.  Hence, the “hyperbole”reading simply undermines the whole point of the document.

That thisextreme language of man’s “infinitedignity” has now led the pope to condemn the death penalty in an absolute way – and thereby to contradictscripture and all previous papal teaching on the subject – shows just how graveare the consequences of using theological language imprecisely.  And this may not be the end of it.  Asked at a pressconference on the Declaration about the implications of man’s“infinite dignity” for the doctrine of Hell, Cardinal Fernández did not denythe doctrine.  But he also said: “’Withall the limits that our freedom truly has, might it not be that Hell is empty?’This is the question that Pope Francis sometimes asks.”  Asked aboutthe Catechism’s teaching that homosexual desire is “intrinsically disordered,”the cardinal said: “It’s a very strong expression, and it needs to be explaineda great deal.  Perhaps we could find anexpression that is even clearer, to understand what we mean… But it is truethat the expression could find other more suitable words.”  When churchmen put special emphasis on theidea that human dignity is infinite,then there is a wide range of traditional Catholic teaching that they are boundto be tempted to soften or find some way to work around.

High-flownrhetoric about human dignity has, in any event, always been especially prone toabuse.  As Allan Bloom once wrote, “thevery expression dignity of man, evenwhen Pico della Mirandola coined it in the fifteenth century, had a blasphemousring to it” (The Closing of the AmericanMind, p. 180).  Similarly, JacquesBarzun pointed out that “[Pico’s] word dignitycan of course be interpreted as flouting the gospel’s call to humility and denyingthe reality of sin.  Humanism isaccordingly charged with inverting the relation between man and God” (From Dawn to Decadence, p. 60).

Somehistorians would judge this unfair to Pico himself, but my point is not abouthim.  Rather, it is about how modernpeople in general, from the Renaissance onward, have gotten progressively moredrunk on the idea of their own dignity – and, correspondingly, less and lesscognizant of the fact that what is most grave about sin is not that itdishonors us, but that it dishonors God. This, and not their owndignity, is what modern people most needreminding of.  Hence, while it is notwrong to speak of human dignity, one must be cautious and always put the accenton the divine dignity rather than onour dignity.  I submit that sticking aword like “infinite” in front of the latter accomplishes the reverse of this. 

And I submitthat a sure sign that the rhetoric of human dignity has now gone too far isthat it has led the highest authorities in the Church to contradict theteaching of the word of God itself (on the topic of the death penalty).  Such an error is possible whenpopes do not speak ex cathedra.  But it is extremelyrare, and always gravely scandalous.