Can Man Create Himself?

From an interview in Traces with philosopher Pietro Barcellona, "Can Man Create Himself?"

Man’s freedom requires the mystery, it requires indetermination. Freedom is associated with pain, with loss; this is why men are afraid of freedom. It intimidates the one who commands and the one who is commanded. Ours is a world that wants to be commanded; the majority of men are undergoing an assault that produces a herd mentality, where what dominates is the consumerism that controls desire and exhausts everything in the instant.

He goes on to argue the absurdity of imagining our life as it is without a Creator.  Can we picture a van Gogh painting as random?  And that while intelligence is an attribute of the species for survival, love is something other.

Defending love

I think this particular portion of the Holy Father's Christmas address to the Roman Curia is deserving of some attention, especially in light of my last post. Let His Holiness' words serve as the positive hypothesis that undergirds my critical comments about the California Attorney General's effort to negate a democratically enacted constitutional amendment. That we have a lot to do with regard to witnessing to the truth can be seen by an exchange that happened as the result of something I posted on Καθολικός διάκονος yesterday:

"Since faith in the Creator is an essential part of the Christian Credo, the Church cannot and should not confine itself to passing on the message of salvation alone. It has a responsibility for the created order and ought to make this responsibility prevail, even in public. And in so doing, it ought to safeguard not only the earth, water, and air as gifts of creation, belonging to everyone. It ought also to protect man against the destruction of himself. What is necessary is a kind of ecology of man, understood in the correct sense. When the Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman and asks that this order of creation be respected, it is not the result of an outdated metaphysic. It is a question here of faith in the Creator and of listening to the language of creation, the devaluation of which leads to the self-destruction of man and therefore to the destruction of the same work of God. That which is often expressed and understood by the term 'gender', results finally in the self-emancipation of man from creation and from the Creator. Man wishes to act alone and to dispose ever and exclusively of that alone which concerns him. But in this way he is living contrary to the truth, he is living contrary to the Spirit Creator. The tropical forests are deserving, yes, of our protection, but man merits no less than the creature, in which there is written a message which does not mean a contradiction of our liberty, but its condition. The great Scholastic theologians have characterised matrimony, the life-long bond between man and woman, as a sacrament of creation, instituted by the Creator himself and which Christ – without modifying the message of creation – has incorporated into the history of his covenant with mankind. This forms part of the message that the Church must recover the witness in favour of the Spirit Creator present in nature in its entirety and in a particular way in the nature of man, created in the image of God. Beginning from this perspective, it would be beneficial to read again the Encyclical Humanae Vitae: the intention of Pope Paul VI was to defend love against sexuality as a consumer entity, the future as opposed to the exclusive pretext of the present, and the nature of man against its manipulation."

A deep diaconal bow to Rocco over at Whispers for the English translation of the Holy Father's remarks and for the photograph.

To Kill for Love

Chris is taking his friend and former colleague Larry on a duck-hunting trip. Larry will need some assistance, because the former college history professor has multiple sclerosis and less than a year to live. They once hunted together often, but this will be their last time, if Chris has his way.

Chris is divorced and in love with Larry's wife, Rachel. Larry, after losing his job, his body and periodically his mind to the illness, has expressed the wish to die. Chris plans to oblige him. This much you know practically from the first chapter of Jon Hassler's book The Love Hunter. Hassler, a Minnesota novelist, died last March of a Parkinson's-like illness.

Chris, a school psychologist, is not a criminal type by any ordinary standard. He can be careless: he nearly shot off his friend's head during their first hunting expedition. He was responsible for his ex-wife's dog getting killed in traffic, though he has a good explanation for it.

Rachel (for the most part) and their son Bruce are devoted to Larry in his illness. Her relationship with Larry's best friend is complicated. Larry needs Chris, but Chris' attentions toward Rachel strain Larry's already fragile mental state. Rachel, an actress, keeps Chris guessing. He figures once Larry is out of the way the problem will be solved.

The book is a dialogue on love, and Chris and Rachel have different theories. Rachel sees a continuity between what her husband was and what he is by now with love as the constant. Chris, who admits to his emptiness, sees love as a blind attraction.

Love, according to Chris, was that heedless dash toward what we believe is the source of our happiness, never mind if the source proves, when we get there, to be nothing but a squawk box.

The details of the story are precious. This is a messy illness, and Larry's grief is harrowing. Chris wants to keep things in hand, but events never go according to plan. And life itself will intervene in a very satisfying manner.

A truly educational response

Missing premise or not, Prof. Lee's response is too narrow, too abstract, and too prone to misinterpretation to be truly educational- I know a thing or two about being too abstract- and is not likely to persuade anyone who does not already agree with him... (from Deacon Scott Dodge's post, Inherent complexity defies reduction)

While it might be argued that Prof Lee's letter to the editor, which appeared in a local newspaper, The Herald Star, only aimed to refute the claim that he and other Catholics are "single-issue" voters, I think that Deacon Scott's point is valid, because at this critical juncture in our history, all that we say or do publicly on the subject of abortion must also attempt to persuade others to the truth.

Our call, as Catholics, is not simply to communicate the truth. We must be concerned with the question of method: How we communicate the truth is much more important than most pro-life activists and apologists realize. Moreover, it is not enough to craft arguments that please and impress those who agree with us. Christ gives us a clear directive when he says, "Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation..." (Mark 16:15).

Let's pay attention! What we are called to communicate is good news! Before we open our mouths, pick up a pen, or sit down to our keyboards, it had better be very clear to us that our first job is to proclaim something new, something tremendously good. If we're not up to this task, we would do better to remain silent.

Our method, then, is to find the good news, wherever it may be located (buried or overlooked), and lift it up. This is the heart of fraternal correction and Christian witness.

I myself am guilty of expressing discouragement and waxing polemical when it comes to political questions. This conversation is a good reminder to me that the very first premise, the one that informs all the others, is that I have been preferred, chosen by God to bear his good news -- and not as a result of any good deed I've done or special talent I possess -- God's preference for me is purely gratuitous. From this recognition flows the awareness of another fact: other persons have also been preferred, chosen by God, as well. This dynamic was beautifully described in a witness, given during a CL Summer vacation, a little over a year ago; it is also summed up by Christ's assertion that all the hairs of our heads are counted; and it was articulated in the film, Greater: Defeating AIDS, by Emmanuel Exitu, when Vicky recounts that Rose asked her, "Vicky don't you know that the value in you is greater than the value of this disease?"

Before we speak or write a single word about abortion, or any other evil we encounter, let's remember the infinite and irreducible value of each person. Those who desire the "freedom" to choose abortion are forgetting their own irreducible value. Before they can begin to appreciate the dignity and value of the lives of the unborn, they will need to discover a much deeper affection for themselves and a much broader understanding about where their own value comes from. They will never discover these things if we shun them, insult them, or even deliver fine logical arguments in their general direction.

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-2).

Have mercy on us, Victor King

I would point readers to two remarkable posts by Suzanne, brimming with life, death, sorrow — and an intense mercy.

April fools!
April fools (continued)