Praying is Conversation

No one learns to speak without others. Praying is conversation. The first meaning of the word "pray" in English is not worship. It simply means to address earnestly. But most especially to earnestly address God.

Someone must teach us to pray in at least a rudimentary way. When we address or ask someone, we hope for a response. We are engaging in conversation. We pray to others in the old English phrase "pray, tell". We pray to or address earnestly the saints and angels. To the holy souls in Purgatory. Even, as is tradition from the ancient Church, to those we have loved in life and are confident they will hear and respond. All as members of the Body of Christ- remembering Jesus' answer to the Sadducees about the resurrection - He is the God of the living, not of the dead (Mark 12:24-27).

Prayer is sacred conversation. What is important in good conversation? Listening attentively and speaking sincerely. Good conversation has more listening than speaking since God has given us two ears and only one mouth. Remember the gospel story of Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42). Putting all else aside, Mary listens to Jesus. Our Lord says this is the best "portion". Does God listen to us? Does our Blessed Mother Mary listen to us? The saints and angels? When as babbling children we run to them, they listen. Even the souls in Purgatory, are they not learning to listen better? Think of someone who stops what they are doing and listens intently to a child.

We are lifted up in prayer. God begins our desire to pray and sustains us in prayer. And as a child lifts his hands to be picked up, when we lift our hands in prayer we are lifted up. We may realize that actually God has lifted our hands and picked us up. Our cooperation with grace in prayer is to hold on. When we are lifted up, God speaks to us. Have you never heard God speak to you? Did you compose the Our Father and the Hail Mary? The Bible? Does not the Holy Spirit give us the original urge to pray? And as we pray, poorly, tearfully, in anger and sorrow and joy, does not God deign to sustain us in existence? Even when we just cry "God help me", it is God who originates this movement in our minds.

Prayer Life

Praying and a prayer life are distinct. As one healthful meal is distinct from following a healthful diet. Thank God, all of us sinners can go to our Father and pray for ourselves and others. We can address the angels, saints and holy souls in Purgatory with faith. However a "life" denotes a continuous living growth. To have the continuous growth in a prayer life in response to grace requires the same kind of self-discipline that any aspect of life needs - physical, social, intellectual, work, and family life. They must be part of our lives in an orderly, regular and consistent manner.

Often we do not do the most obvious and simple things that are good for us because they are so obvious and simple. Or we can have another good reason: what is obvious to another is not to us. Developing a disciplined habit of praying can be one of those things. First, we must make a place for prayer in our daily routine. Do we not ask our Father to give us our daily bread? Religious orders who should seek perfection have a Rule. We can voluntarily make our own rule and adjust it to ourselves and adjust our lives to it. Begin by writing down an outline of the most basic, regular and customary things you do each day of the week. Start with Sunday and note the broad schedule of what you do. After you make yourself write down what may seem unnecessary and unimportant, you will receive wonderful benefits. You will have greater focus and control of your life. You will be empowered to achieve much more in your living. Do you have time each morning to greet God? To make a morning offering before you leave the side of your bed? Do you have time at midday to close your eyes and pray a Hail Mary? Do you have time after dinner or at the end of your work day to pray? Are there one or two days a week you can schedule fifteen minutes of spiritual reading? You have scheduled Sunday Eucharist? You do go to Confession on a regular basis? Take the empowering step of actually writing this down. Again, you are the author of your Rule of Life and can make future changes carefully. But write it down.

What is on your Rule of work, duties, prayer and rest? May I suggest that the place of honor for devotional prayer go to the Rosary? There are those who think people can outgrow the Rosary. The Rosary is our meditation with our Blessed Mother Mary on the life, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Exactly how does a Christian stop pondering these things in their heart with Mary? Read the Forty-Eighth Rose in St. Louis De Montfort's book The Secret of the Rosary. He warns us against many subtle ways some may persuade us to lessen our Rosary devotion. Providentially it is a help toward keeping not just the Rosary but all our devotional life.

One of the fruits that some great saints experience in prayer is rapture -an interior transport or going out of themselves to be close to our Lord in Heaven. We can all have a slight taste of this in a consoling feeling God may occasionally grant us. Yet, who is in Heaven with God? Our Blessed Mother Mary, the angels and the saints. Simply sitting somewhere quietly and praying to Mary and some of our favorite angels and saints gradually can leave us with a sense that we have been in their heavenly presence.

The Cross

A life of prayer will weaken without embracing the Cross. The self-discipline already described can give our prayer life a strong start but it can only bring us so far. To develop an everlasting life of prayer requires more. Now let me remind us of truths that I have always neglected. At best I have given them a complacent nod or, most often, let them in one ear and out the other. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." (Mark 4 :9)

Jesus said "If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me". (Mark 8:34) We must remember penance for our sins and mortification to avoid sin. Self-discipline and even self-denial, yes. But what happens with a cross? You are crucified. We will be tempted to throw down the cross and flee when faced with crucifixion - if in our heart we have not embraced suffering for Christ.

Suffering for Christ? Is it not Christ who suffered to redeem us? Why embrace suffering? St Paul says in Philippians 1 :29: "For you have been given the favor on Christ's behalf- not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him". Later in chapter 3 St. Paul repeats these sentiments in speaking about the "power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings". He goes on to warn against those who are the enemies of the cross. Yes, we must not only humbly accept the suffering that comes into every life, we should actively seek the Cross in acts of self-sacrifice especially acts of charity.

Embracing the Cross is why the Divine Liturgy or the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the true source and summit of prayer. This is Jesus Christ lifting us up in His holy Life, Passion, Death, Resurrection, Ascension and His Second Glorious Coming in Holy Communion.

Fall and Get Up

There are difficulties in praying. Our infirm hearts and minds want to do something else. We find our own prayers to be dry and mechanical. We are distracted by stress, worries or the attractions of this stage of life. St. Teresa of Avila in her life story sees our souls as having three active functions - willing, understanding and imagining. She says that while "understanding" and "imagination" are good, they must be under the will. We should focus on our intention to pray, our wanting to pray and to gently push aside attempts by our imagination or understanding to take over. I was startled recently to see a quote in my Sunday church bulletin that expresses it well. St. Evagrius of Pontus wrote: "Prayer means rejecting pleasures and banishing anger ... During your prayer, try to keep your mind deaf and dumb. Only so will you be able to pray."

Finally, persevering in prayer means everything. St. Teresa says " ... what great blessings God grants to a soul when He prepares it to love the practice of prayer, though it may not be as well prepared already as it should be; and how, if that soul perseveres, notwithstanding the sins, temptations and falls of a thousand kinds into which the devil leads it, the Lord, I am certain, will bring it to the harbour of salvation, just as, so far as can at present be told, He has brought me. May His Majesty grant that I may never again be lost." (The Life of Teresa of Jesus, p. 110; Trans. By E. Allison Peers)

FRIDAY, MARCH 26, 2010

Exploring Our Understanding of the Resurrected Life

The “our” in the title refers to two themes in this article: the Church's understanding and our own personal comprehension. As the Church meditates on the Word of God, Jesus Christ, and develops a deeper understanding of the mysteries, we in turn listen to this developed doctrine and deepen our spiritual life.

Christology and Eschatology

You can have an intimate knowledge of the heart and mind of a person you love but still find it difficult to describe him to someone else. The Church during the first centuries would struggle to find the words to describe Jesus, especially to refute false statements about her Beloved. Today this is called "development of doctrine". Not that doctrine "evolves" into something different but rather the Church's understanding grows as a seed grows with genetic integrity. We see a summary of this growth in understanding in the ancient Apostle's Creed and the Christian-defining Nicene Creed. Jesus is true God and true Man. It is of first importance that we accept true doctrine about Christ, Christology. There is also no reason I know that our understanding of true doctrine about the last things, Eschatology, cannot grow as well.

Early Christians were instinctively moved by faith to reject opinions about Christ that belittled or impinged his true humanity or divinity. A similar theological situation in my opinion may exist today concerning our Christian belief in the nature of the resurrected life. We know that the people of God under the Old Testament grew in their understanding of life after death – from a vague image of a shadow in Sheol (hell) to the resurrection of the flesh. This later understanding is especially made clear in the scene of Jesus with Martha and Mary at the raising of Lazarus. We also see from St. Paul's letters to his churches that people were caught up in imagining what the resurrected life would be like. We Christians have continued to meditate on this life. The struggle is between exaggerating either the physical or spiritual condition of the resurrected ones.

Yet, today, while there is a great body of Sacred Tradition and Scripture concerning the resurrection, most Christians must rely on the creedal formulae “I believe in...the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.” (Apostle's) and “I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” (Nicene). Again, in my personal opinion the Church would benefit today from a definitive expression on the true physical condition of the resurrected body and the true dominion of the resurrected soul. Real human flesh under the power of a real human soul in heavenly union with God. Aside from this Catholic development I also think our personal spiritual progress is indicated by our idea of the “life of the world to come”.

Heaven

First, and above all, heaven is the result of God's love. We are in heaven when every stain of selfish sin is removed and we are completely in love with God and all his holy ones. Pope John Paul II affirmed this when he issued a very short ( a few small paragraphs) teaching about “heaven”. He stated simply that heaven is not a place but a state of being. It is the state of being in complete union with God. We, of course, should fully assent to this teaching. When a pope teaches that there is no salvation outside of the Church, we should also fully assent to that teaching as well. But both teachings must be received in the full context of all of Sacred Tradition and Scripture. True, to be “in heaven” is to be in union with God. However, our notion of a “state of being”, pardon the pun, can be amorphous. Being alive, being human, being Christian are states of being but ones that take place and need moment. It is not that the Holy Spirit, providing for the indefectibility of the Church, did not prevent an erroneous teaching by these Popes. It is that these statements can only be understood correctly surrounded by all of Catholic Tradition. In other words, they would be perhaps inadequate and misleading if taken out of that context. If I were there with Pope John Paul II, I might simply have remarked to him, “And the Resurrection?”.

Turning to John Paul II's great project, “Catechism of the Catholic Church”, we learn that it is essential that Man has a body and the dignity of the body (#364 – 366). We learn of the reality of Christ's risen body (#643 – 647). But we also learn that the risen body is “not limited by space and time” (645) and “beyond time and space” (646). The risen share, though as creatures always, the sovereignty of God over the world or universe. This clearly is shown in #645 when declaring that our Lord may appear at any time and in any guise. The point is that any state of being for a creature with a dimensional body will always require “place” even when that time and place is at the will of the gloriously risen one. We will not rise from the dead and our bodies evaporate or “ghostify” as we enter a catatonic ecstatic eternal state of being. Jesus did not ascend to the Father never to appear again. We not only believe in his resurrection and ascension but in “his coming again in glory”.

The Resurrection of Body and Soul

Do you think the Holy Spirit inspired the gospel words of Jesus in Luke 24:36-43 only as a teaching story? Jesus demonstrated that he was not just a spirit. Even earlier than this post-Resurrection appearance our Lord gave the starting knowledge of what the resurrected life would be like. The synoptic accounts in Mt. 22:23-33, Mark 12:18-27 and Luke 20:27-36 detail his response to the Sadducees' rejection of resurrection of the body.

We can picture the Sadducee group. Barely able to suppress their grins, they approach this country “rabbi” with a delicious satire of the popular belief in the resurrection of the flesh. Surely he will make us laugh at his bumbling attempt to reconcile the ridiculous!

With calm authority Jesus wipes the smirk from their faces. You err, he tells them. Your very question is an error because you know neither the power of God nor the Scripture. God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of the living. Those who rise will not marry because they live like the angels.
Their life is founded on the abilities or law of the Spirit and is not dependent on the physical. They will not die, they are sons of the resurrection.

If we think about this passage carefully we will hear our Lord not only rebuke the Sadducees' sophisicated increduality about the resurrection of the dead but also his rebuttal of a naïve literalism about the event. We also err if we believe that the resurrection is simply a glorious resuscitation of the life in the Garden of Eden. We will not be running around sorting out spouses and third cousins.

It will be important to return frequently, however, to the Luke 24 passage I mentioned briefly at the start of this section. Jesus ate food. ( And perhaps also in John 21 though that is not perfectly clear – he certainly is protrayed by the inspired evangelist as cooking!) Jesus, risen and no longer dependent on food, eats. Is this done just to prove his bodily resurrection or is it an action that hints at the life of the resurrected? We will return again to this subject.

Our Spiritual Stage of Growth

A person's concept of life after our mortal death seems to be indicative of their spiritual development. Let me give two real descriptions of “heaven” I've heard from two people who may represent opposite ends of the spectrum. One good fellow is very religious in his conversation and is constantly available to others for concrete advice and prayer. When he speaks about heaven he describes becoming so united to God that we become God. He imagines a total union of love that we never achieve with God or neighbor in this life. When asked about our Catholic faith in the resurrection he is really not interested. For this person, body and place are simply besides the point. We will be united to God, the source of all good. Nothing else has value. Toward the other end of the spectrum, another friend describes a lovely cottage in a cozy country setting. In that cottage he can be a master carpenter building beautiful furniture. He is imagining the peace, personal serenity and skill that we want in this life but, again, never achieve.

Both pictures of heaven ssek the fulfillment of the heart. So, is the spiritual focus on the Beatific Vision much closer to the mark? Perhaps – but the second one includes the created universe and the neighbor that the furniture is being built for. What happens to our Lord's risen Body in the first vision? To our blessed Mother and the angels and saints? To the “new heavens” and “new earth” spoken of in Revelation? As it is necessary to keep in balance our Christological beliefs in the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ, such a balance is necessary for our view of the resurrected life. We must acknowledge, in our idea of this life to come, God as center and also the real goodness of creation and the dignity of our intellect, free will and body. Again, it is vital to remember that Jesus Christ is True God and True Man. We must also keep in mind both the spiritual and physical victory of the Resurrection. Personally I go along with another friend who says every time he imagines our heavenly life, his ideas soon deflate or “go squish”. We simply do not have the ability to see the resurrected life.

A Suggested Comparison

An effective way to proportion the relationship between our lives now and our resurrected life is to compare the unborn child to the adult man or woman. Look at the developing of the unborn but especially at the point where soon they will be born into the world. They are comfortable and seemingly secure in their mother's womb. Yet they are unseeing in an environment of extreme limits. While warmly enveloped they may feel the satisfaction of sucking their thumb. We may imagine them knowing something of “the other than self” by awareness of the bodily processes of the mother – heart beat, blood circulation, digestion, outside sounds and bumps and voices.

Yet what do these unborn children really know of the “born” world? Compare a healthy unborn baby to the fully grown healthy adult. The adult lives in a world that is almost literally infinitely larger. The adult has light versus constant shadow. He has the vision of others. His movement is again infinitely greater – just think of the vast difference between a young athlete and the same person in the womb. Beyond the physical, an adult has a mental and emotional world that defies the comparison. From others he has learned language, community, skills, love. Further, as adults we “sense” the spiritual mysteries as an unborn child would have a vague, undefined perception of the greater outside world. We who believe in the life that comes after the death of this body should realize that we are like an unborn child. The resurrected world will indeed be seeded from this one but more gloriously expanded. As St. Paul remeinds us, faith does not hope in what is seen. Again, we truly have no adequate idea of the glory of our risen life.

While it is true that we cannot know the glory of the risen world, something of the full growth can really be seen in the seed just as we relate the newly conceived baby to the born adult. We can catch perhaps a glimpse of our resurrected life in the Alpha of our Lord's resurrection – Jesus rose from the dead in a glorified body and ascended to the Father in that glorified body. But that body did not then evaporate. Remember that the Church teaches that even in his natural span of life Jesus had what we call the beatific vision. Yet the Scripture clearly shows us that Jesus lived like us in all things except sin. The Godly vision of the risen Just will not make the redeemed physical universe disappear – our world will end by transformation as, caterpiller to butterfly, the child is transformed into the adult, as Mary's body was transformed at the Assumption. We will not be left lying down on a blank planetary sphere in a physical catatonic state while our spirits enjoy a solely spiritual communion of the angels and saints. We will move, see, communicate and love God and neighbor in a way beyond what we can now. When we strain to imagine it, we use our limited womb-like experience and fail. But this unborn baby expecting merely a larger womb-world of warm comfortable bath water will be wonderfully surprised.

St. Thomas Aquinas in Summa Contra Gentiles

In the last book, book 4, of the Summa Contra Gentiles, St. Thomas Aquinas examines questions concerning the resurrection. In chapter 83 he denies eating and sexual union for the resurrected life. As far as I personally can understand the subject, I find his explanation of our Lord's statement about marriage and the resurrection to be reasonable. On the other hand, Thomas has an “awkward” (the way Aquinas himself describes ideas that are incomplete, inadequate or self-contradictory) stance on why Christ ate after the Resurrection. St. Thomas starts with the premise: “For, when the corruptible life is taken away, those things must be taken away which serve the corruptible life.” (SCG 83:2) Eating and marriage serve only to preserve human life. Since we will be immortal, no such activity would be necessary. St. Thomas says that even in their innocence the first humans, “Adam” and “Eve”, were imperfect because the human race was not yet multiplied as God commanded. Aquinas certainly seems to imply that God intended a specific number of people – when achieved marriage ceases to have any point. I think it is spiritually wise to accept our Lord's words and see that a union of two people, that ends in death, with the purpose of producing the fruit of increased charity and, hopefully, children will pass away as obsolete. But eating? Why “must” all the seemingly unnecessary disappear? Will conversation disappear? Will play disappear? Will art disapear? Music? And how about my friend who wants to make beautiful tables and chairs at which to share this “unnecessary” physical act of communal eating?

As mentioned, Thomas likes to speak of concepts as “awkward”. While Thomas acknowledges that Jesus ate after his Resurrection (Luke 24), he goes on to say that Christ was only doing this to prove the reality of his resurrection: “Hence, that food of His was not changed into flesh, but returned to the prior material state. But there will be no such reason for eating in the general resurrection.” (SCG 83:19)

Yes, The One who can enter a locked room and offer his wounds to the Apostle Thomas demonstrates that the Risen body is in control of the physical. Yes, and we will not have to prove to others that we are truly risen. What is not mentioned, however, is communion. Both meals and the marital act have a supreme value for humans above “the brutes” of being the occasion of possible growth in community. (The difference is that many can share in a meal for mutual physical, social and even spiritual nourishment while the marital act specificly joins husband and wife for a limited union directed at the possible fruit of that union – emotional and spiritual growth and children.) St. Thomas Aquinas states “only the occupation of the contemplative life will persist in the resurrection”. (SCG 83:24) As I have opined, Aquinas' vision of the heavenly or resurrected life relects his own spiritual life – granted, a very advanced spiritual condition. Yet I must ask, does the risen contemplative have a mouth and talk? Have legs and walk with his brothers and sisters? Does he have eyes and admire the awe-inspiring beauty of the redeemed and now transformed universe? No marriage, no eating, only contemplation – a super monastery? I liken such a view of our risen relationship to God to those who realize the sun is the center of the planets and the fuel of life yet would await the consumption of all in a super-nova. Like Jesus showing his Wounds and eating, it was all a pretense.

Here is the basic question. The soul is perfected in heavenly union with God, the ultimate act of contemplation. But why have a risen, glorified body? As a mere static platform for that contemplation floating in a pre-Copernican ether? In defense of Aquinas his following chapter 84 is a strong confirmation of the reality of the risen body and our Lord's words in Luke 24: 39 - “...for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see me to have”.

It is clear from Genesis, from our Lord's Baptism in the Jordan, and from the groaning of creation cited by St. Paul (Rom 8:18-25) that the physical universe is good, made sacred by the Incarnation and awaiting final transformation. Think again about our Catholic teaching not only on the Resurrection of Christ but also the Assumption body and soul of Mary. Ultimately, the greatest case against an excessively spiritualistic view of our experience of the heavenly life is simply love of neighbor. “...one who has no love for the brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen.” (1 John 4:20) Jesus is clear that the love of neighbor and self are simultaneous with the love of God. But, someone may object, in heaven we will have direct spiritual communion between God, our self and our neighbor. I repeat the response, why have a risen body? No, in the risen life the “planets” will not be absorbed into the sun. Again to be fair to Aquinas, his subsequent chapters declare that the body will be perfected by the blessed soul and share in the sovereignty of God. To repeat myself, as was said in the comparison to the unborn child, we cannot imagine our resurrected life but we can live in hope.

In the end, the greatest weight must be given this consideration: the Flesh of Christ that suffered scourging and crucifixion must in justice share in his Victory.

Suggested Readings in Scripture about the Resurrected Life

All Scripture and Tradition can only be understood within the Church, the Body of Christ.

Psalm 16:10-11
Daniel 12
Mt. 22:23-33
Mark !2: 18-27
Luke 20:27-38; 24:36-43
John 20:19-29; 21: 1-14
Rom. 8:18-25
1 Cor. 15:35-58 (Body transformed: “Not all of us shall fall asleep, but all of us are to be changed...”
1 Thess. 4:13-18 (Unlike Protestant rapture fantasies, this re-affirms 1 Cor. 15)
Phil. 3:17-21
Rev. 21:1-3

Re-inventing the Wheel in Philosophy

Mind,  Language and Society by John R. Searle

The “Background”

The study of philosophy, like any science, requires an accurate knowledge of reality. The practice of philosophy, like any art, requires skill. In this way philosophy can be compared to medicine: both a body of knowledge and a discriminating art.

Yet does it not chafe the modern ear to have philosophy and medicine spoken of as equals? Medicine now has the reputation of success while philosophy is seen, as in Aristophanes' play The Frogs, as a theatre of sophists. How has this different evaluation come to pass? I venture to say that a good sense of medicine's history would aid a doctor in his or her practice. With philosophy, it is even more important. Like Art, it can only be understood and appreciated with a thorough knowledge of the subject's history.

John R. Searle's Mind, Language and Society in the hands of a good professor of philosophy could be used to introduce students to the present state of popular Western academic attempts at philosophy.

He begins by listing and upholding “default positions” or what he calls the “Background” of our thinking: the real world exists independently of us; we have access to that world through our senses; words can be used to refer to and talk about real objects; our statements are true or false as they correspond to the facts in the real world; causation really causes the effect.

Searle writes about how: “Much of the history of philosophy consists in attacks on default positions”.(p. 10, Basic Books edition) While Searle says that this work is not intended as a history of philosophy, he does say “much”. The realistic view typified by Searle's Background has been most strongly attacked and the attacks most widely accepted in “modern” times. Searle concerns himself with what is labeled in the history of philosophy as “Modern Philosophy” - he examines the time from Descartes to the latest academic “antirealists”.

He rejects the antirealist view that we cannot really know the real world and supports the realistic epistemology of the Background:  “...contemporary...attacks on realism are not driven by arguments, because the arguments are...feeble...Rather...the motivation for denying realism is a kind of will to power, and it manifests itself in a number of ways. In universities, most notably in various humanities disciplines, it is assumed that, if there is no real world, then science is on the same footing as the humanities. They both deal with social constructs, not with independent realities...having been turned loose from the tiresome moorings and constraints of having to confront the real world – a social construct designed to oppress the marginalized elements of society – then lets get rid of the real world and construct the world we want. That, I think, is the real driving psychological force behind antirealism at the end of the twentieth century.” (pp.19-20) Although he says that this opinion about the psychological source does not invalidate antirealism, he also dismisses their “feeble' arguments.

Personally, I would summarize the argument for realism as follows. The “givens” of reality are such that no proof is necessary. If you think that there is a real question about the reality of you now reading this, you reject the possibility of knowing the real, you reject the foundation of thought.

It is dismaying (but not surprising given Searle's great devotion to his Oxford hero, Bertrand Russell) then to read later: ”Matters of religion are like matters of sexual preference...even the abstract questions are only discussed by bores.” (p. 34) Yes, biological reproductive reality is a good example to use. We dismiss that reality as we dismiss any “abstract” question about God's existence. Simply apply Searle's own analysis of “antirealist” humanities academics to his pages on God (and religion, since he confuses the two subjects by treating them interchangeably). His stamping as “bores” those he forbids to ask questions is the same “will to power”. I remember as a Philosophy major in 1974 taking a course in Alfred North Whitehead (Bertrand Russell's co-author of Principia Mathematica). After a while I asked the young professor how Whitehead accounted for the existence of the universe and was told that “we don't ask those kinds of questions in philosophy any more”. I will have more to note about this later.

Consciousness and Thinking

Beginning in chapter two, subtitled “The Mind as a Biological phenomenon”, Searle writes against both what he defines as a mind-body dualism and a materialist denial of the reality of consciousness. He clearly declares “Consciousness is, above all, a biological phenomenon. Conscious processes are biological processes.” (p. 53)

But there is a vast difference between consciousness (my cat is conscious) and thinking. We are not only conscious but self-conscious. And our self-consciousness is not a void. We reflect on our experience, we understand ideas, we do what we do, hopefully, now as we write and read this. Searle would be surprised to learn that both Aristotle (De Anima, Bk. 1 : Ch. 1) and Thomas Aquinas (SCG, book 2) agree that the human mind depends upon the biological reality of the body to operate. Both philosophers reject a “ghost-in-the-machine” view of the human life. The line of philosophy from Aristotle to Aquinas still living and strong today is that there is a human intellect that depends on the biological to both sense and cogitate. Yet that intellect abstracts (yes, abstraction) from sense data to arrive at ideas. Such ideas as truth, justice, and value, which Searle himself mentions, can be iconically represented but are in themselves immaterial.

In chapter three, Searle reiterates that he is neither a dualist or a materialist. He is at pains to recommend that the categories used by these types of views should be seen as obsolete. He seems sincerely convinced that he has bypassed the problem of mind/body dualism and materialistic reductionism. “Once we see that consciousness is a biological phenomenon like any other...On the other hand, consciousness is not reducible to any process that consists of physical phenomena describable exclusively in third-person physical terms...The solution is not to deny any of the obvious facts, but to shift the categories around so we recognize that consciousness is at one and the same time completely material and irreducibly mental. And that means we should simply abandon the traditional categories of 'material' and 'mental' as they have been used in the Cartesian tradition.” [Note the limits of Searle's philosophical world. Abandoning a “Cartesian” way of thinking is exactly what Aristotle and Aquinas would recommend to us.] How is “mental” distinguished from “completely material”? He says that our consciousness is real but subjective. Actually it is difficult to be fair to his description of consciousness because he simply wants “to have his cake and eat it”. He uses synonyms for the categories he rejects but ends up with the same categories.

Before the above quoted passage Searle tells us that we find it difficult to describe consciousness. When we are first asked we usually begin by describing awareness of objects and feelings. But as Searle continues to discuss consciousness, he studiously avoids abstract ideas such as universals, meaning, idea, truth, justice, etc.

Re-inventing the Wheel

Someone properly trained in the tradition of philosophy will have a realistic epistemology. That simply means that we accept that our senses can give us data about reality. “Properly trained in the tradition of philosophy”? Most in popular academic circles today would rebel at these words. As I mentioned, there continues to be a school of philosophy from Aristotle to Aquinas which is fruitful in the understanding of the reality we encounter. Because of threats to his life, Aristotle was forced to flee Athens thus leaving the Platonic Academy to dominate the intellectual field. The ancient Greek world slipped from the sharp intellectual tools of Aristotle to a popular neoplatonism. The modern world has undergone a similar degradation. 

Searle himself begins with a Background which is a realistic epistemology. He declares the value of natural science and berates those who put their creative views on the same footing as such science. Yet we should remember that Searle is living in a "social reality" that gives us a life-long conditioning in the "opposition" of science and religion. Any thought that sounds religious must be rejected a priori. He was deprived, as most mainstream scholars are, of a solid education in real philosophy. How could it be otherwise? His own history of modern philosophy shows a parade of famous attempts at re-inventing the wheel of philosophy every few decades. Much to his credit, Searle is one of many who recognize this problem. The following will reveal how he fails to overcome it.

Creating a Social Reality

Chapter five is subtitled “How the Mind Creates an Objective Social Reality”. To explain how we make social reality he uses the examples of money, property and marriage. Lets examine his analysis of money. “For something to be money there has to be more than just a set of attitudes, even though the attitudes are partly constitutive, and essentially constitutive of a type of phenomenon being money.” (p. 112) He uses “type” because he acknowledges that a particular piece of currency might be counterfeit. Yet he emphasizes “...a type of thing is money over the long haul only if it is accepted as money. And what goes for money, goes for social and institutional reality generally.”

Some time ago, we withdrew four hundred dollars from one bank. Several days later when my wife and I went to the deposit the four one hundred dollar bills in another bank we were told one of the bills was counterfeit. Of course the first bank had no record of the individual bill and simply would not accept our “social' word about it. But what if we innocently had spent that bill in a store? It is not just a social faux pas that the store clerk and we treated the bill as genuine. The reality is that we have both been duped by a dishonest document and in that small way all money has been “shortchanged” by the transaction – yes, even if the bill stayed permanently in circulation. Nowhere does Searle admit that monetary value depends on the objective reality of natural resources and human labor and intellect. The same applies to his ready dismissal of the human reproductive biological reality behind lifelong marriage between man and woman. The mere fact that when we remind people of the structure of the genitals, conception, etc. they are now trained to re-act as if we are not just "bores" but moral monsters shows how damaging such social make-believe can be.

Last Remarks

Please re-read Searle's earlier quote criticizing some people in humanities departments and honestly apply it to his own social constructing. He truly fails to apply his realistic epistemic starting principles to his own thinking. But we all make mistakes. What is most disappointing in Mind, Language and Society is a social attitude: even to question the Bertrand Russell – Searle analysis of God, marriage, money, etc is disparaged.

Socrates, we don't ask those kind of questions.

Thinking

There are quite a few authors and researchers today who say that our self-awareness is an illusion. They say that a critical mass of advanced human brain neurons and cultural mental tools such as language and mathematics co-evolved to produce a sense of self.

I thought it might be helpful to share a kind of intellectual “selfie” about my mistakes in thinking about consciousness and the immaterial or spiritual. Fr. Conrad Dietz, a professor of Metaphysics and Epistemology, once told his students that it is most difficult to think abstractly. In other words, not just to use images but to think. Ironically, most, if not all, my mistakes in thinking about consciousness and the immaterial was a failure to think abstractly.

When I was teaching high school religion in the 1980's I wanted to give some “proof” to my students of a non-material or spiritual aspect to human life. They were asked to imagine a picture. Then I declared that no chemical or surgical process could “find” that picture in their brain. I was wrong. 

The image we call to mind is as physical as the object imagined. If you dissect a computer's memory storage you will not see the images stored. If you have the right connection to a display monitor you will see the image. Research with brain imaging techniques such as MRIs detail how certain areas of the brain become active in correspondence to an image. As an aside, with this type of investigation, they have discovered that so-called vegetative patients can communicate by thinking of an image.

Having realized what St. Thomas Aquinas already taught in the 1200's (memory is physical), I tried to refine my example. Confidently admitting my earlier teaching error, I proposed a new comparison. On one hand, here is a computer and a monitor that is displaying an image. On the other hand, once more call to mind a picture. Different equipment but a comparable result. Then I delivered the mental “punch line”: Who is looking at the image on the monitor or who is looking at the picture in your brain? A subject must be viewing the images.

I mentioned my new improved image to Charles DeCelles, a retired professor from Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania. His response was basically that yes, we call something to mind AND THEN WE THINK ABOUT IT. Slowly, I realized that he had freed me from an illusion.

Do not animals see images displayed by the optic nerve? (I am reminded of another foolish forgetting of basic Catholic wisdom, again back in my 1980's teaching. A young student said animals have souls. I defensively jumped to the conclusion that she was elevating animals to the moral level of human life – which some people do – and I quickly answered that they did not. Yet Catholic theologians have held that animals do have souls – a mortal physical soul that ceases by death.) Professor DeCelles threw me back to my earliest training by Professor Dietz – we must think abstractly.

As humans we experience with our senses but we think about the universe with our intellect. Cats and humans can both be physically awake or conscious. Consciousness is not the same as thinking. Self-consciousness or self-awareness differs from merely being awake. And self-awareness is necessary for the process that you are now engaged in – reflection. And self-reflection is necessary for what I hope we are now engaged in – thinking. Thinking is not calling images to mind or even the review of past experience. Thinking occurs when we abstract from experience to arrive at a principle. If someone says that there is no intellect and free will in Man then they are using that intellect to abstract a principle.

Our spiritual intellect and free will depends on the body for information and mental tools. But as spiritual we can make a judgment about reality and a resolution to act according to that judgment. In City of God, book XI, #26 (italics mine) St. Augustine not only dismisses doubt about our existence but affirms our individual soul: “But, without any delusive representation of images or phantasms, I am most certain that I am, and that I know and (I) delight in this. In respect of these truths, I am not at all afraid of the arguments of the Academicians who say, What if you are deceived? For if I am deceived, I am... And, consequently, neither am I deceived in knowing that I know. For, as I know that I am, so I know this also, that I know. And when I love these two things, I add to them a certain third thing, namely, my love which is of equal moment.”

A Context for the Family Synod Discussion

Elizabeth Dias wrote in Time Magazine on 10/13/14: “The style that Pope Francis lives is one

that starts with a spirit of embrace, of mercy, and not with sin. It begins with figuring out at what points embrace is possible before determining the points at which it is not.”

Jesus in St. John 8:3-11 puts mercy first. He does not go along with the religious crowd and condemn the woman caught in adultery. He begins by rescuing her from the mob. But he remains Just: “Go thy way, and from now on sin no more.” He does not judge the person and condemn but loves and gives moral correction.

But what of a more modern complicated family situation? Jesus in St. John 4:16-18 gives the Samaritan woman no excuses about her relationship: “Jesus said to her, 'Thou hast said well, 'I have no husband,' for thou hast had five husbands and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband. In this thou hast spoken truly.”

The wonderful context that Jesus gives us for thinking about family is St. Matthew 19:4-6. The ending of man-made divorce passes away with a merciful renewal of Creation: “Have you not read that the Creator, from the beginning, made them male and female, and said, For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? Therefore now they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder.”

When I was in St. Joseph's Seminary we received a thorough course in the Sacrament of Matrimony from the late Monsignor Daniel J. Flynn. Perhaps most instructive was his personal story concerning himself, the birth control pill and Humanae Vitae. Before the encyclical was published in July, 1968 he admitted that he was in favor of the new hormonal pill seeing its contraceptive aspect as part of a regulation of a woman's menstrual cycle. But Blessed Pope Paul VI saw through the moral problem and courageously and prophetically declared the chemical pill taken for contraception to be just that – artificial contraception: something always forbidden by the Church's moral instruction. Did Msgr. Flynn complain and dissent? No, he studied the pronouncement as a faithful member of the Church, accepted it and taught it. But the Church had gone through a dangerous time. Between the close of the Second Vatican Council in 1965 and Humanae Vitae in 1968 there were those who wanted to remake the Church according to anything they desired. They could not accept this reaffirmation and explanation of constant Church teaching but with the connivance of too many bishops publicly justified their dissent. The local churches throughout the world have never fully recovered from this pastoral disaster.

Our hope is based on the Word of God. The teaching of Christ in His Church consoles us and strengthens us to follow Him. The light of Casti Connubii, the doctrinal reaffirmation of Vatican II, the works of Pope John Paul II and the Catholic Catechism will in Divine Providence not be extinguished. Yet from now to October 2015 or whenever there is clear moral guidance from the Papacy, we are again in a time of great danger. We have faith in God – the boat of Peter will not sink.  

The Contradiction of Jesus

In philosophy there is the approach to the mystery of God called the “via negativa”. We come closer to “understanding” God by denying what He is not. God is not created, not material, not a body, not limited. In Hindu writings there is a way to wisdom that uses the expression “neti, neti”. It translates as “not this, not that”.

Jesus does not engage in either method. He is not here to simply enlighten. He comes to save us from ourselves.

“Behold, this child is destined for the fall and for the rise of many in Israel, and for a sign that shall be contradicted.” (St. Luke 2:34)

Jesus' whole Divine presence as Man among us is a contradiction. His vertical intersects and uplifts our horizontal view.

When his human life flowers into his public ministry he openly contradicts us:

“Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” (St. Matthew 4:17)

“The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.” (St. Mark 1:15)

Repent – you “fall” first in sorrow for sins and then you “rise” to a new life.

As he continues his ministry he speaks in ways that are so contrary to our ways that his words seem immediately contradictory in themselves. Jesus says

“Even so let your light shine before men, in order that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Mt. 5:16)

and then

“Take heed not to do your good before men, in order to be seen by them; otherwise you shall have no reward with your Father in heaven.” (Mt. 6:1)

But here is the heart of all of our Lord's statements that appear on the first glance to be at odds with themselves: “...in order to be seen by them...”. It is not just the appearance of what we do but the intention underlying our acts, our reason for doing them that can make the difference between doing lasting good and being a whitewashed sepulchre. St. Matthew 5 and 6 come together and tell us not to hesitate to do good before men, not for our glory but for the praise of God. I quickly mentioned above the Hindu saying, “not this, not that”. While Jesus does not use this approach, personally I envision Him using the “on the one hand, and on the other” method of instruction. There is a real left-right symmetry in much of our Lord's teaching. On the one hand, do good openly and unashamedly for the glory of the Father. On the other hand do not do good publicly for your own glory.

Another example is St. Mark 9:39 (and St. Luke 9:50) where our Lord says

“For he who is not against you is for you”.

Yet in Lk. 11:23 he states

“He who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather with me scatters” (and Mt. 12:30).

It is the context that brings out the meaning. The first words are spoken to the apostle John when John tells Jesus that they forbade a man casting out devils in our Lord's name. Here is a man not formally with the group but doing the work of the group – casting out evil. The second quote is in reference to those who blaspheme Jesus and who smear his casting out demons. They oppose the work of the Lord.

If different people with varying personalities hear the same speech and later report a particular thought from that speech, you know it made a great impression. All four gospels give this contra-diction of our Lord:

Mt. 10:39 “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake, will find it.”

Mk. 8:35 “For he who would save his life will lose it; but he who loses his life for my sake and for the gospel's sake will save it.”

Lk. 9:24 “For he who would save his life will lose it; but he who loses his life for my sake will save it.”

St. John 12: 25 “...He who loves his life, loses it; and he who hates his life in this world, keeps it unto life everlasting.”

Once more it is our purpose not only for single acts but for our entire life that can make it worthy.

All of Jesus' teaching is understood in context. In that context it will not be self-contradictory but it will still always contradict us. The early Church (and so does the Church today) had an immediate knowledge of Christ. When a Christian (St. Paul) said that Jesus was a man like us in all things but sin, we know he was not denying Christ's divinity. When a Christian (St. John) said the Word was God, we know he was not denying his true humanity. What very many of us Christians today do not fully appreciate – and I speak about scholars, clergy and laymen – is that any part of Scripture must be understood in relation to all of Scripture. And all of Scripture must be understood together with all of Sacred Tradition (Ecumenical Councils, Creeds, etc.). And in turn all of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition must be received from the teaching office (the magisterium) of the Body of Christ, the Church. So when we listen to the words of Jesus spoken by His spotless Bride, this is how we will be delivered from error and hear the truth about His love for us.

Finally, a note of caution concerning listening to preaching today. There are times I wonder why a preacher seems compelled to try to recap the entire catechism in a single sermon. Perhaps it is simply that he does not want what he says to be seen out of context. Yet shouldn't we take the attitude suggested above and grant with good will the other times a preacher has spoken as giving the full context to what is said? This would apply to both Popes and pastors.

Recent Historical Pressure on the Family: Damage and Hope

An individual can go along in life for a time without many apparent temptations. A change in life can increase the number and pressure of temptation. So too with times in social history. This article is simply intended to review some recent historical changes that have made family formation more difficult. Yet we should not forget that human family life was first disrupted by our first parents who gave in to the original tempter. Evil is boring because it is the deprivation of good – no new sins have been invented, only the rags they wear.

Marriage is a public act and institution. When a man and woman publicly vow fidelity for life they create a new society called family. Even if the couple cannot bear the obvious physical fruit of children they are already a family. Child-rearing or other contributions to the society as a whole was seen as a desired or natural consequence of family. In recent times we are subjected to thinking that would make a divorce between marriage and family, reducing marriage to a mere going public with a private friendship or relationship.

The Industrial Revolution

The history of civilization is largely in the context of agriculture. During historical times most humans have farmed. When a couple married it was with the ready-made family business of attempting to grow crops. The Industrial Revolution began in England with the disruption of traditional farming. As it increased it furthered the decline of farming. But it was not the invention of technology in itself that pressured the family. The way the modern industrial system developed was injurious. Instead of families, clans, monasteries, or villages owning the capital necessary to efficiently use the new technology, private individuals were able to hire those they had no personal connection with or responsibility for in order to do the work of their “private enterprise”. Human beings were on their way to being sexless replaceable parts.

Malthus

His “Essay on the Principles of Population” was published in 1798. He spent his years in the 19^th century retracting or adding to this work. He started with basic premises that he readily admitted were unoriginal: population can rise 2-4-6-8 but agriculture can only rise 1-2-3-4 to a set limit. Therefore the only real check on “overpopulation” is malnutrition. Agreement and opposition to Malthus marked economic thinking for the rest of the 19^th century. Arnold Toynbee (not his nephew Arnold J. Toynbee) in his small but important “Lectures on the Industrial Revolution in England” devotes a whole chapter to Malthus. The Lectures were the pinnacle of Toynbee's thinking, published in 1884, a year after his death. What is of special interest for our topic is the following quote:

“I wish to speak of one more remedy, which Malthus himself repudiated, namely, that of artificial checks on the number of children. It has been said that such questions should only be discussed 'under the decent veil of a dead language.' Reticence on them is necessary to wholesomeness of mind; but we ought to face the problem, for it is a vital one. These preventive checks on births excite our strong moral repugnance. Men may call such repugnance prejudice, but it is perfectly logical, because it is a protest against the gratification of a strong instinct while the duties attaching to it are avoided...It is wrong to consider this question from the point of wealth alone; we cannot overrate the importance of family life as the source of all that is best in national life...Above all, it must be remembered that this is not a purely economic problem, nor is it to be solved by mechanical contrivances. To reach the true solution we must tenaciously hold to a high ideal of spiritual life. What the mechanical contrivances might perchance give us is not what we desire for our country. The true remedies, on the other hand, imply a growth towards that purer and higher condition of society for which alone we care to strive.

{pp 85 – 87; Beacon Press, The Industrial Revolution, Arnold Toynbee, published 1956}

1930

In spite of the very English sentiment expressed by the above quote, the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops removed the ban on artificial contraception in 1930.

Kinsey Report of 1948

The Kinsey report on “male sexual behavior” was published in 1948. This “report” was used for at least the next thirty years to claim unnatural sexual behavior as really not far from the norm. Some historical cultural sense is needed here: what kind of American male in the 1940's would sit and answer 500 personal questions about their sexual acts asked by the Kinsey “researchers”? The problem with the Kinsey reports (a female version was produced in 1953 and the question asked above becomes even more pointed) was not only the culturally abnormal population used for the statistics but the very notion that statistics can be used to argue for unhealthy behavior. What percentage of the population in the United States used tobacco in 1950? Since almost all of us have some unhealthy behaviors in other areas of life perhaps rather than trying to change those behaviors society should accept them or even promote them. Yet the morally anchorless world not only accepted the Kinsey facade of numbers but through the educational system set about to conform social reality to those numbers.

Technology and Medicine

All of the preceding is joined with the general developments in machinery and medicine that make the average life easier and longer. But this has been mostly a 20^th century event. When Queen Victoria died in 1910 the average life expectancy for American men and women was just under 49 and 52. Which was not much more than during the Roman Empire. That meant that at 25 or 26 half your expected life was over. As discussed elsewhere in this blog, this puts off maturing to a later time in life and puts us in greater disconnect with our biological potential.

1960 Hormonal Contraceptive Pill

The FDA approved the first contraceptive pill in 1960 and many women since have been harmed by this “treatment”. It took over twenty years for the profit makers to lower the dosage enough to remove the most obvious side-effects.

Damage

When family formation is no longer seen as the reason for marriage, shifts in society take place. Rather than union and procreation as the meaning of the marital act, the reassurance of companionship and sexual satisfaction are intended. That means, in other words, the marital act becomes merely a private pleasurable experience between companions. The entire biological structure of reproduction is defaced. Why even need public marriage?

Then why should anyone, even “married” men and women, resent or object to homosexual couples who are doing under the temptation of their mental health problem the same as they – engaging in bodily acts solely to produce sexual pleasure and re-enforce the ties of companionship?

In this unnatural view of human sexuality pregnancy becomes an “unwanted outcome”. Those brainwashed by our diseased cultural attitudes then continue to deny the biological reality of the presence of another human being. Shortly after the legalization of hormonal artificial contraception, nation after nation in the 1960's began to legalize abortion.

Casti Connubii and Humanae Vitae – Guidance Now and Hope for the Future

When the Anglican Lambeth Conference approved artificial birth control in 1930 the Catholic Church had an immediate response. Pope Pius XI by the end of that same year issued the encyclical Casti Connubii. In this apostolic letter he re-affirmed the constant Christian teaching that anything that deliberately tried to remove procreation from the act of marriage was immoral. Thirty years later hormonal artificial contraception was embraced by the society that gave us trench warfare, atheistic communism, nazi concentration camps, the conventional and nuclear mass burning of Japanese civilians. Humanae Vitae in July 1968 was issued in the face of much misunderstanding and opposition. Even loyal members of the Church thought the new invention of the hormone pill could be viewed as a “regulation” of the menstrual cycle and not as a direct intervention in the marital act. Pope Paul VI with the help of the Holy Spirit saw clearly through this mistake. His encyclical has provided a guide for all subsequent Church teaching in the medical revolution we have been subjected to.

Throughout the Church's history challenges to faith and morals have been met by true and inspired prophetic teaching. Pius XI's Casti Connubii and Paul VI's Humanae Vitae are in that Tradition. They give us a blueprint and hope for the future. When our present culture is swamped by history these encyclicals will remain. Just as St. Augustine's thought in “The City of God” in the fifth century as the Roman Empire collapsed shaped the culture of Europe in the Middle Ages, so will these and other Church documents help us to survive and flourish as this culture passes away.

Addendum
This article was published April, 2013. On July 11, 2013 The Catholic Light of the Diocese of Scranton published a column by Fr. Tad Pacholczyk, Ph.D in which he highlights the perversion of marriage and the role of contraception. He includes an apropos quote from Sigmund Freud: "The common characteristic of all perversions...is that they have abandoned reproduction as their aim. We term sexual activity perverse when it has renounced the aim of reproduction and follows the pursuit of pleasure as an independent goal."