Tag: Relationships

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Human Rights (Hobbes & Hunger Games)

In Pope Leo’s encyclical on human dignity and artificial intelligence (Magnifica Humanitas), he appeals to three truths that serve as a foundation for any attempts to build a more just society: (1) the human person created in the image of the Trinity; (2) the equal dignity of each human being; and (3) the supreme value of human rights. You can read my previous posts to learn more about truth #1 and truth #2. Today I conclude this three-part series with a reflection on human rights. In the months ahead, time permitting, we can continue with Leo’s five principles of social justice that build upon this foundation.

Some might object that all this talk about “human rights” is newer in human history and newer in the teachings of the Church. It’s true that you won’t find that exact phrase in Scripture or in many centuries of Christian theology. The concept is there from the beginning, like an acorn waiting to sprout and grow. It’s taken ongoing reflection to deepen our understanding of just how much dignity every human being has and all the implications that stem from that dignity—such as recognizing how violating it is to coerce consciences, to force religion upon people, or to traffic human beings. Recent centuries have increased our awareness of these principles. Yet somehow those evils are as pervasive as ever.

Human rights and human dignity are inseparably linked. Pope Leo reminds us that “human rights are not an external addition to the person, but an expression of intrinsic human dignity, which the international community is called to protect and promote” (n. 54). When a culture respects the dignity of each human person, it will also protect and promote human rights. When a culture views some humans as valuable and others as expendable, human rights quickly dissipate.

Philosophy really matters here—especially in a pluralistic culture in which religious appeals can be dismissed. I certainly believe that the proclamation of the Gospel transforms hearts in a way that philosophy cannot. But not everyone is ready to receive the Gospel, and you don’t have to believe in God to believe in human dignity and human rights.

One of my side jobs is serving as an adjunct philosophy professor in our deacon formation program. You could even say that I’m the entire department—but they only have one course. I do my best to introduce a few important themes, and to spark a lively conversation.

This fall, we will no doubt be talking about the ways in which modern philosophy in the West (starting about 500 years ago) set us on our current trajectory, with AI now serving as rocket fuel. Not a few are fearing what kind of crash may be coming, if we do not reclaim our sanity.

I’ve reflected already on the influence of Francis Bacon and René Descartes. Today I want to consider Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). His political philosophy views human rights as an “add-on,” rather than something intrinsically connected to human dignity. In Leviathan and elsewhere, he sees human civilization as a social contract that we’ve all entered into out of a desperation to survive the harshness of our nature. Unless we agree to give up some or most of our rights, human existence is bound to be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (the famous quote from Leviathon).

The philosophy of Hobbes is brilliantly and chillingly represented in The Hunger Games. In those novels and films, some citizens live amidst privilege and luxury in “the Capital,” while the other districts subserviently provide for their luxurious appetites. Every year, the other districts are compelled to hold a lottery in which they send children as “tributes” to fight to the death in “The Hunger Games.” In Songbirds and Snakes, we learn the backstory of the dictator Corialanus Snow. We meet the creepy character of Dr. Volumnia Gaul, an early pioneer of the Hunger Games. She slowly warps the mind and heart of a young Cornelius with her insinuation that we need to have powerful leaders who rule ruthlessly. We need to sacrifice some people’s rights because—if we don’t—everyone’s existence will be like the Hunger Games. That is Hobbes’ political philosophy in a nutshell!

In ways that can only be rightly named as grooming and abuse, Dr. Gaul intentionally exposes young Cornelius to violent settings, slowly seducing him to embrace her way of being. As he feels increasingly complicit with the violence, she provides a steady drip of her Hobbesian interpretation. Consider these quotes:

“What happened in there? That’s humanity undressed. Filled with the terror of becoming prey. See how quickly we become predator? See how quickly civilization disappears?”

“Oh your fine manners, education, background, stripped away in the blink of an eye. Leaving a boy with a club who beats another boy to death to stay alive.”

Needless to say, this view of human nature is incompatible with the Christian view, in which God has chosen to create each of us in his own image and likeness, and to invest us with infinite dignity. The core of human nature is not isolation, poverty, violence, and death.  Those are conditions that emerge when human dignity is violated. They are conditions that become intensified and perpetuated when Hobbesian dictators seize power over others under the pretense of showing benevolence. From the beginning, it was not so. We were always meant to be in healthy, trusting relationships, to live in stable and healthy communion with one another, and to bear abundant fruit.

Pope Leo is inviting not only Christians, but all humans, to reflect on human dignity and human purpose. You need not be a Christian to desire flourishing for the human race as a whole and for each individual. If you read the Ethics or the Politics of the Greek philosopher Aristotle, you hear a much healthier view of human nature and civilization. It is our nature to relate and be social, to enter into profound friendship, and to seek flourishing together. That doesn’t mean it is guaranteed to happen. Rather, it is a desire and purposefulness we will all find if we look deeply within ourselves. It is an ultimate fulfillment that we can all seek both individually and collectively. The sharing involved in civilization is for the sake of abundance, not because we are otherwise inherently dark and depraved. In the end, the political philosophy of Hobbes or Machiavelli allows dictators to rationalize their seizing of power over others. There was plenty to rationalize in the 1500s and 1600s.

By no means am I suggesting that all modern Western philosophy is bad. Indeed, by providing an increasingly subjective approach to philosophy, it has allowed us to reflect more deeply on these very truths of human dignity, human freedom, and human rights. There is great value in asking subjective questions (“What is it like to _______________?”), just as there is great value to seeking after objective reality (“What IS ____________?”). Curious philosophers do both!

Even though the AI landscape is changing faster than Taylor Swift at a concert, I suggest that artificial intelligence is not so much a radical new thing. Rather, it is a powerful amplification and acceleration of what is already there. The AI models still rely on programs and algorithms, and are data-driven and language based. In my understanding (someone tell me if I’m wrong!) that means they can still ultimately be reduced to ones and zeroes. They are neither human nor relational. They can only take what is already there and move it forward at an incredibly fast pace – and (if we don’t heed Pope Leo’s pleas) without the intervention of human compassion and wisdom.

Ideas have consequences – all the more so when those ideas are programmed into powerful machines. Leo asks for greater transparency about who is creating algorithms and for what purposes. He invites us to renounce ideologies that are willing to disregard the human rights of some. Throughout human history, minorities tend to be marginalized, while women and children and immigrants tend to be exploited for the sake of sex and power and greed. The biblical prophets spoke dozens of times in defense of the rights of the widow, the orphan, and the resident alien. Every pope for the last 135 years has done the same.

Our current pope is warning us—if we do not have a transparent dialogue about the values and priorities of AI models and how they are being trained, those age-old trends of exploitation are likely to accelerate exponentially. In the words of Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Leo describes it to be a shared responsibility. Safeguarding human dignity and human rights is not just something “those people” have to do. It’s something we all do, both individually and together.

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Equal Human Dignity

In his new encyclical letter (Magnifica Humanitas), Pope Leo articulates three truths that serve as a foundation for any attempts to build a just society: (1) the human person created in the image of the Trinity; (2) the equal dignity of each human being; and (3) the supreme value of human rights.  Last time I reflected on foundational truth #1; today we move on to truth #2.

All humans have “equal” dignity because every human being has an infinite dignity. At this point, the math nerds in the room may point out that some infinities are larger than others. We are not speaking of “infinity” in any mathematical sense. Human dignity cannot be quantified, period.

You may remember a year ago, when I wrote about Francis Bacon and René Descartes. In the early 1600’s, their thought heralded a seismic shift in the West. Knowledge and scientific inquiry became increasingly focused on quantitative analysis. Bacon boldly declared, “Knowledge is power,” and Descartes insisted that we can only know things if we have clear and distinct ideas.

There is nothing inherently wrong with quantitative analysis. It’s just that not everyone and everything is quantifiable. As amazing as some of the “progress” of modern science is, there is an increasing risk of dehumanization. Can you see the connection to AI here?  At its core, artificial intelligence operates exclusively in the realm of the quantitative.

Quantification can get humans to the moon. It can split the atom. Maybe it can even cure cancer. But there are so many things that transcend the quantitative – including all the qualities Leo lists that set humans apart from artificial intelligence: undergoing lived experiences, embodied joy and pain, maturity, relationships, love, meaningful work, friendship, responsibility, moral conscience, judging good and evil, empathy, understanding, affectivity, spiritual perspective, and growth in wisdom (n. 99). We human beings, bearing infinite dignity, are capable of all these things. Trained AI models are not, no matter how powerful they become. Their power comes from the massive amounts of data utilized in their ongoing training, which allows predicting the “right” answer with an increasing amount of accuracy. The learning remains data-driven and not qualitative.

This may seem shocking to say, but I do not see anything truly “new” in AI. It’s an accelerant on ideas and trends that have been smoldering for four centuries. But AI is far faster and therefore much more powerful.

AI may be able to simulate empathy, but in truth it doesn’t care one bit about human dignity. It can’t. It’s simply not a relational being capable of mutual intimacy.

The more I’ve accompanied survivors of grooming and abuse, the more I’ve come to realize that these trained AI models can behave like abusers – attuning quite skillfully to the emotional state of the participant and exploiting that vulnerability for someone else’s gain at the person’s expense. If those training the models are willing to exploit emotional vulnerability, AI will learn from those biases and amplify the exploitation.

In the early years of social media, we began seeing this trend with “nudges” offered at moments in which a person showed a state of emotional vulnerability – and therefore greater susceptibility to clicking on a link that seemed to offer a solution. Today, a typical social media user is exposed to AI-generated clickbait dozens of times a day. There are also millions who are finding an AI chatbot to be a better emotional companion than any of the humans in their lives – even though the “relationship” and the emotional connection is entirely simulated.

In discussing equal human dignity, Pope Leo is especially concerned about some humans getting treated as having less dignity than others – especially if high-powered AI models increasingly replace human decision-making. Leo calls for transparency regarding the algorithms and the motives behind the humans involved in training those models.

There are many troubling ideologies that do not respect humans as image bearers, nor as bearing a dignity that is beyond calculation. In the words of Leo, “Among these ideologies, I consider particularly insidious the one that suggests that every person must earn or justify his or her own worth, to the point of attributing greater value to those who are more efficient or effective” (n. 51). There are nearly five centuries of a modern western bias that prioritizes doing over being, producing over relating, and profitability over love. Given that AI-training algorithms and data sets tend to be applied with corporate interests, these biases are bound to be reflected in the operating model that emerges and whatever “solutions” it “decides.” The thing is, humans like Ebenezer Scrooge still have a conscience and the capacity to experience moral and spiritual conversion. Machine learning does not.

Leo points out that “dignity” has various meanings when it comes to human beings. We can speak of moral dignity depending on whether human choices are directed towards goodness or evil. We can speak of social dignity by considering people’s living conditions and what level or respect they are receiving from the rest of society. We can speak of existential dignity in terms of how much meaning or purpose each person feels or what their quality of life is like. At the foundational level, however, every human being bears an ontological dignity.  As Leo explains it, “This is the dignity that belongs to every human being simply by virtue of existing, of having been willed, created, and loved by God” (n. 52).

Every human person has an ontological dignity that cannot be quantified or calculated. This inherent dignity runs deeper than any strength, talents, power, or productivity. None of those are the source of our human worth. But the ontological dignity of each human runs yet deeper: “No sin, failure, humiliation or exclusion can diminish the profound value of a human life that God has willed and called into being” (n. 52).

This is the same truth that I heard in person 24 years ago from an aging John Paul II. I stood with 800,000 pilgrims at Downsview Park in Toronto for World Youth Day. Most of us had camped out the night before, endured the morning rains, and now joined him for an outdoor Mass. As the sun burst forth, he boldly proclaimed one of his most-repeated truths: “We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures, we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of His Son Jesus.”

What a contrast from the local radio broadcast I had overheard the day before, cynically mocking him – including his age and frailty, his struggles in walking and his drooling. In one sense it was true – gone was the vigorous youth of one who loved to hike, ski, swim, or act on stage. He was nearing the end of his earthly life. It was then, more than ever, that he witnessed to human dignity.

The modern West has increasingly exalted those who show a capacity to be strong, to succeed, to produce, or to stay youthful in appearance. Those who don’t measure up are viewed with contempt, as are those who dare to break the mold and live differently. These tendencies have become so normalized that we no longer notice them as the ocean we have been swimming in. They are, unfortunately, the values with which most AI models have been trained.

Pope Leo is inviting us all to step back and notice our biases. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can show respect to the inestimable dignity of every human person—beginning with ourselves, whom we often hold in contempt more than anyone else. We can extend that same respect to everyone around us. We can demand transparency and accountability for any training of AI models, collaborating at every level to ensure that they align with an unshakable respect for human dignity.

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Descartes’ Demand for Clarity

“I think, therefore I am.”

This is another quote we all heard as children. René Descartes (1597-1650), like Francis Bacon, represents a new era in the West, one which winds up exalting mathematical precision and technological dominance over receptivity, relationships, and human integration.

Many a college philosophy class begins by reading Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy. “First philosophy” was, at the time, another term for metaphysics – not in the contemporary sense of pursuing occult knowledge, but in the classical and medieval sense of pondering existence itself; what does “to be” really mean?

Like Bacon before him, Descartes spurns the previous approaches. Rather than taking existence as a given and then reflecting more deeply upon it, he begins philosophy with doubt. He insists upon clear and distinct ideas – the kind brought by mathematics. He opens his musings as a solitary “I.” Can I really trust my five senses? How can I be certain I am not deceived? I seem to perceive the warm fireplace before me or the soft chair beneath me, but those perceptions are not clear and distinct like the truth that 2+2=4.

After doubting that the universe around me, other beings, or God exist, I realize that there is one thing I cannot doubt – that I doubt.  If I doubt, that means there is an “I” who is doubting. Therefore, I exist.  From there, I can reason to clear and distinct ideas about God and the world around me. So goes the reasoning of Descartes.

In his demand for clear and distinct ideas, Descartes prioritizes quantitative analysis over our awareness of what he calls “secondary” qualities – which include the perceptions of our five senses, but also things like goodness and beauty and love.

In the spirit of Francis Bacon one generation before, Descartes seeks power. He expresses his hope that this technical and tactical shift of knowledge will allow humans to become “like masters and possessors of nature.” Perhaps, he suggested in his Discourse on Method, it will even free us from illness and aging.

Can you see the connection with our contemporary culture and our obsession with looking forever youthful, or our exaltation of doing and performing over being and relating? Today, the transhumanist movement seductively offers us the dream of Descartes: we can seize the power to transcend our very mortality by means of technological modifications to our humanity. Terrifying.

I began studying philosophy thirty years ago, and am grateful for many wise professors, not so much for the information they communicated as the shared pursuit of wisdom in a respectful and playful environment. For most of them, philosophy was a way of being, not a collection of ideas.

In 1998, just as I was beginning my graduate courses in philosophy, John Paul II published his encyclical letter Fides et Ratio (“Faith and Reason”). He called for a renewal of philosophy as a shared quest for wisdom and meaning. Human beings, he said, are philosophers (“lovers of wisdom”) by our very nature. We are curious. We desire to seek and to find, only to discover that there is still more to discover.

Genuine pursuit of wisdom, John Paul says, begins not with doubt but with childlike wonder. Nor is it an isolated “I” who thinks, but a “we.” The quest for wisdom is always a communal experience. Socrates did not seclude himself in a dark room; he walked the streets of Athens with other wisdom seekers and engaged in meaningful dialogue. Their pursuit of wisdom was a shared effort, trusting in the complementary gifts offered by community, in which the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts.

I remember feeling frustrated reading the Dialogues of Plato (which always feature his mentor Socrates dialoguing with others on a particular theme). Just when I thought I was getting the point, Socrates would disprove it, and begin exploring a new line of inquiry. Over time, he and his students would gain some real insights, but the conversation would result more questions than answers. I found that frustrating. In my own way, I was much like Descartes, harboring a felt need for clear and distinct ideas. I didn’t like the uncomfortable feeling of not knowing, the patient waiting for wisdom to emerge.

I even felt a clenching inside when I read John Paul II’s insistence on “the primacy of the inquiry” – that it is more important to keep seeking wisdom that to feel like you have arrived. At the time, I was keenly interested in apologetics. I felt a certain satisfaction in having clear and distinct answers to those who would dare attack my Catholic faith. I was only beginning to realize the reality that God is always greater, that he is always infinitely beyond my limited insight. Life provided plenty of painful opportunities to keep learning humility.

In the last decade, I’ve become much more trauma-informed. I still see the 1500’s and 1600’s through the lens of revolutionary philosophical ideas, many of which caused harm. But now I appreciate how much Europe was experiencing a collective trauma response. It was an era that boiled with contempt and violence – from the polemical divisions of Protestants and Catholics to the ongoing wars with the Turks to the resurgence of slavery and human exploitation in newly discovered lands. When we feel threatened, we gravitate to black-and-white thinking. Then, like Bacon and Descartes, we demand clear and distinct ideas. We are not okay with abiding in a messy in-between. Like Bacon and Descartes, we seize strategies that allow us to feel in control. We refuse to tolerate any experience of powerlessness. In those centuries, many Europeans (by no means all) felt entitled to power and privilege at expense of slaves or indigenous peoples. These days, many Americans (by no means all) feel entitled to live in “the greatest nation on earth,” with little regard for the status of immigrants or impoverished regions of the earth that serve our interests. Deep down, we know that our comfortable and privileged lives come at a cost to others, but we choose to ignore the signs.

Sadly, there are many Christians who style themselves as “conservative” or “traditional” without realizing how very modern their political and philosophical views are. Such is the rotten fruit of fear-mongering and the seduction of worldly power. It becomes black-and-white and “us versus them.” Too many times, such attitudes have allowed the rise of dictators.

When we find ourselves demanding certainty and clarity, we might become curious and ask why it must be so. There are so many different kinds of certainty: the clarity offered by mathematics, yes, but also the certainty of feeling loved and cherished, the security of belonging to a stable community in which everyone matters, or the shared delight in amazing art or music. Perhaps you have experienced what the poet T.S. Eliot describes: “…music heard so deeply / that it is not heard at all, / but you are the music / while the music lasts.”

The human experience is so amazing when we open ourselves to it – all the more so when we learn to trust each other and open ourselves to the mysteries of life with childlike wonder. It can be tempting to grasp at power and control during times of duress. Then it becomes easy to loathe “those people” and view them with suspicion and contempt. The cost of that kind of “freedom” is perpetual hypervigilance. No, thank you.

I refuse to succumb to that seduction. Jesus is the great “I AM.” Therefore, our restless and racing thoughts can be at peace. He holds us all securely in the Father’s love. He delights in every human being, image bearers that we are. He is grieved by all our contempt for each other, but not worried. He is the unconquerable Lamb, once slain, and forever risen. The peace of Christ is not a clear and distinct idea. It’s the fruit of an abiding relationship.

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Learning from Joseph

I have to…I have to…I have to… Those words are intimately familiar to me, whether in my workaholism, my perfectionism, my aggressive driving, my people-pleasing, or my shame at “failing.”

For me, it’s not so much the words as the intense sensations in my body – the pulsing energy in my chest, the tension in my shoulders, and the drivenness that pushes forward and pushes through. Even in those many moments when I am a calm haven for others amidst the storm, if I pay attention, I am sometimes holding an enormous tension within.

Saint Joseph has shown up often this past year, teaching me a different way – a way of trust and surrender, a way of poverty and depending, a way of obedience and peace.

This January, I was back in Florida to assist as one of the chaplains at the John Paul II Healing Center for the “Holy Desire” priest retreat. Each day, Bob Schuchts and Kim Glass invited us into a human sculpting exercise. It’s an improvisational group experience in which the participants interact to embody a scene. We begin with familiar stories from Scripture, such as the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem or the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. Then we shift the scene: instead of the Holy Family, we see a dysfunctional family with a strained marriage; instead of Jesus as the beloved Son of God in the waters, we see a struggling sinner buried beneath the burdens of shame and fear and confusion. The many different characters attune to their own intuition and to what the others are doing as they interact to form a human sculpture. Characters include the Father, the Holy Spirit, various humans, angels, evil spirits, Mary, and Joseph. You never know what will happen – each sculpt is unique, and it’s surprising how the Lord shows up.

Each day, Kim invited me to be Saint Joseph. Having a devotion to Joseph is one thing. Imagining being him in a living scene is another!

As typically happens in these human sculpts, we all felt a sweet connectedness when Mary and I arranged ourselves along with the Trinity and the angels at the birth of Jesus. As Joseph, I felt both a poverty and a fullness at one and the same time. In terms of skill or power or capacity. I had nothing to offer. Yet I felt how much I mattered in God’s design. I was very much a father, even though all my fatherhood was from the Father. It felt easy because it got to receive from a Father so close at hand. It seemed silly to try to make anything happen on my own, when such abundant resources were right there. I felt a warmth, a calm, and an inner peace.

We shifted to scenes later in Jesus’ life, and to the scenes involving other human characters. I became a heavenly protector, no longer living my earthly life as a carpenter, but still intimately connected with Jesus and with all who are one with Jesus. For those of you less familiar with Catholic devotion, Joseph is the patron and protector of the whole Body of Christ. Just as he was chosen by the Father to be a father and steward in Jesus’ life, he continues to play that role for the entire household of the Church, and for all God’s children in Christ.

As the scenes shifted, my inner peace remained. There was enormous agony in the room as the human characters became cut off and suffered in torment. For many, it felt like those struggling would never be free from the increasing torment by the evil spirits.

Meanwhile, I continued feeling poverty and peace simultaneously. I empathized deeply with the human suffering in front of me, and remained as close as I could, while fully honoring their freedom. The Father never barges in or coerces, and neither would I.

I felt powerlessness and power both at the same time. I was doubly powerless – from within and from without. From within, I humbly acknowledged my poverty, my radical dependence on and obedience to the good Father who was always sustaining me and ready to work through me. From without, I felt powerless so long as and to the extent that the other human characters didn’t desire God’s help.

But I felt doubly powerful, and a deep and peaceful sense that “all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well.” I continued feeling the strength and tenderness of God the Father, flowing in and through me as an inexhaustible supply. I felt a sense of something powerful about to happen, any moment, in the life of the child of God who was agonizing in front of Mary and me. Michael the Archangel was near at hand. In a split second, both he and I could step in with the power of God, and all would shift. With the smallest sliver of desire or the tiniest opening of receptivity, the victory would be claimed.

Joseph has many beautiful titles in Catholic devotion. My favorite has always been “Terror of Demons.” Joseph’s way of living in the present moment, trusting, receiving, and surrendering leaves nothing for the evil spirits to take hold of in a wrestling match. His willing embrace of poverty opens up space for divine strength and power.

I began feeling the meaning of that title (“Terror of Demons”) as I watched and waited – not in anxious hypervigilance but in the swelling anticipation of Advent. Any moment, I knew, the archangel Michael and I would burst onto the scene.

Bob paused our sculpt, checking in with the different characters to see what we were experiencing. As it turns out, the demons and I were experiencing the same sense of divine victory being immanent, with Joseph playing a role. The person playing the spirit of confusion was indeed terrified and declared, “Dude, I don’t wanna be anywhere near Saint Joseph right now!!” He sensed his time was short.

The whole experience was a gentle invitation for me to set down any sense of “I have to” and allow myself to wait amidst the mess with poverty and trust. Victory is already assured, and I don’t have to make it happen. I just get to rejoice in being part of it.

Joseph’s poverty is so different from the sense of scarcity that tends to terrify me. I have a deep-seated fear of abandonment and a sense that it’s all up to me to make something happen. I try so hard to be capable and powerful – often fooling others and myself. But I don’t have to do anything. I get to be loved securely by the Father, and allow his love to flow through me to others.

Becoming like Joseph requires a further repentance on my part – precisely from that idolatrous seduction into a false sense of power. Letting go of “I have to…” means letting go of the very power that helped me survive some really powerless moments in life. I learned to survive – even thrive – amidst the chaos, earning privilege and admiration – neither of which are the same as the love I actually desire.

Those who know me know that I don’t shy away from intense or chaotic situations. I’m often drawn towards them, like the paramedic who runs towards the gunshots. Being the strong and calm one amidst the storm is a familiar role in my story. And I can be a great gift in those situations. The question is, do I do it from a sense of “I have to” or from a place of freedom and peace? Do I do it alone, or in connection with others and with God, welcoming and celebrating the complementary gifts that the others bring?

I’ve been on path of healing for several years. I’m not nearly so much a slave of “I have to…” as I used to be. But that reaction still shows up, and (I imagine) will continue showing up. It’s part of my story. With Joseph as father and teacher, I’m learning that I can engage my daily labors in a much different fashion. I can notice that drivenness and then remember who the Father is and who I am. I can then welcome connection with others. I can be okay amidst the unresolved tension and wait in poverty and trust for the inevitable inbreaking of the Kingdom of God.

What is your experience of work, rest, and play? Do you have any of your own familiar roles – ways of showing up in relationships that may have served you once, but now tend to hinder your freedom? May Joseph be both a model and a mentor for you as you learn to abide In love and truth.

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Certainty ≠ Truth

Certainty can be one of the greatest obstacles to Truth.

That claim may shock many Christians, who feel like they are clutching tenaciously to what little certainty remains in our tumultuous times. But certainty and Truth are not the same thing. When we demand or cling to certainty, our quest for Truth gets abandoned, and the Truth gets lost or distorted.

Have you ever had a moment of reckoning – a moment in which your tightly-held certainty was shattered upon the rock of reality?

My older sister never tires of reminding me of my own six-year-old clinging to certainty. My favorite show at the time was The Price is Right – only I insisted quite emphatically that it was called “Win a Car.” No amount of argumentation on her part could sway me. I had often viewed the latter half of the show at my grandparents’ house after kindergarten. I watched contestant after contestant win a car – or be foiled in the attempt.

And then came my reckoning. I passed by the television one summer morning, saw the flashing lights, and heard the familiar voice of Rod Roddy: “Here it comes! Television’s most exciting hour of fantastic prizes! The fabulous, sixty-minute PRICE IS RIGHT!”

Rod called down the first four contestants, and informed them that they were the first contestants on The Price is Right. And those same words appeared on the screen, tiny at first, but swelling until they filled the screen. I stood agape, stunned at my error. I had been so certain – so very certain.

Reality changes us – if we allow it to. Hopefully reality changes us not just once, but day after day. With childlike wonder, we discover new depths of the mystery. The more we know, the more we desire to know. Authentic growth in wisdom actually yields more wonder and more desire, not less. Those who are wise recognize how little they know and understand.

Such was the wisdom of Socrates in the face of his accusers. When he didn’t know something, he at least knew that he didn’t know. He was not puffed up with false certitude. Such was the wisdom of Thomas Aquinas, who stated that “an article of faith is a glimpse of divine Truth tending towards that Truth” (ST II-II, q. 1, a. 6, sc). Catching a glimpse of Truth is different than possessing it with certainty. Those who catch a glimpse of something they truly care about feel an ache to seek more.

In describing faith, Thomas reminds us that our faith does not point to the proposition, but to the reality itself (ST II-II, q. 1, a. 2, ad 2). And perhaps most shocking of all, Thomas asserts that our knowledge of God is a knowledge what he is not, but that what he is remains utterly unknown to us (SCG c. 3, 49, 9).

Thomas Aquinas is not a relativist, and neither am I. But he is even more a mystic than a theologian. He intuitively understands that God is infinite. The closer we get to him, the more painfully we realize the infinite gap between him and us – a gap bridged not by intellectual comprehension or certainty, but only in a communion of love in the new and eternal covenant.

Jesus Christ presents himself as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He invites us to enter into a relationship with him and to follow him as disciples. Through faith, we become fellow members of his Body. We begin an ongoing journey of conversion, in which we become changed more and more into him. He invites us into communion with him and his Father. He prays that all that is his will be ours. He invites us as his bride into a one-flesh union with him. We are invited to grow into that union throughout our life.

Our demand for certainty comes from our insecure hearts. To feel insecure is one of the most difficult human experiences. The solution to not the “certainty” of Christian fundamentalism, but the intimacy of communion, and the security that is received in that relationship.

The Truth is not relative, but it IS relational. I love studying ancient and medieval philosophy, and find enormous wisdom there. That great legacy of Truth-seeking did not happen in a vacuum. It happened within the context of community. It is only within secure relationships, and in respectful dialogue with fellow humans, that we can pursue the Truth – never as isolated individuals, but as fellow children of God.

There are two opposite errors here: relativism and fundamentalism. Each in its own way refuses to surrender to reality. Relativism dogmatically asserts that there is no Truth. Those who cling to relativism ultimately refuse to allow reality to change them. They also ultimately refuse to give themselves over in a loving communion with the living God who holds all the answers to our ultimate questions.

But fundamentalism, too, is an enemy of Truth. It pretends to offer total certainty about “the truth” in a way that kills curiosity and wonder – the gifts of God that truly draw us into his Truth. There is a vulnerability and a playful engagement in the curiosity of a child. The “certainty” of fundamentalism exchanges a vulnerable relationship with the living God for an illusory sense of control.

The obsession with certainty has been particularly strong in the modern era (the last few centuries). It shows up in both Catholic and Protestant circles in some form of fundamentalism. We see this clinging to certainty it in the “once saved always saved” approach of some Protestants. We see it in an exaggerated emphasis on the inerrancy of Scripture or the infallibility of the pope. I believe in both of those doctrines as far as they go – but I find that most Christians seriously misunderstand or misrepresent them! Insofar as they point us to divine Truth, both are at the service of the living and enduring Word of God, who is a person inviting us into covenantal relationship with himself and his Father.

Through faith, we share in the dying and rising of Jesus. We are securely loved as God’s children, and are able to grow into maturity in Christ. With childlike wonder and curiosity, we can humbly acknowledge and keep surrendering to a Truth that is always larger than us. In the words of C.S. Lewis, “The further up and the further in you go, the bigger everything gets. The inside is larger than the outside.” May we never allow the temptation of certainty to hinder us from the great invitation of the eternal Bridegroom: “Come further up! Come further in!”

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“Purity Culture” – Lie #1

Ours is not an age of flourishing relationships, joyful marriages, or healthy sexuality. For decades, Christians have been concerned about the toxic environment of the surrounding culture. So we have fought culture wars, trying to get the world to be more like us.

But what about us? What about our own marriages, our own families, and our own churches? Are we really as “pure” as all that?

Many Christian families and churches have created a “purity culture” in the hope of sheltering our children and keeping them pure. It seems like a valiant fight. But has it really been helpful?

All the latest research shows that church-going Christians struggle every bit as much with abuse, neglect, pornography, addictions, codependency, marital infidelity, and domestic violence – just to name a few. Isn’t it strange to “fight” to make the world just like us when our own house lies in ruins?

Jesus has a word for that: “You hypocrites!” In the Sermon on the Mount, he reminds us to remove the wooden beam from our own eye before we attempt removing the splinter from our brother’s eye (Matthew 7:5).

On my sabbatical this past fall, I engaged in multiple trainings, all of which focused on providing care in the area of trauma, unwanted behaviors, and addictions. Each training operated with this bedrock principle: take the beam out of your own eye first! You cannot be of support to your brothers or sisters (or sons or daughters) if you have not first truthfully faced your own story and your own behaviors.

Two generations of hard fighting from the “purity culture” have yielded struggling parents and struggling grandparents. Far from sheltering and preserving our children, the rigidity has actually plunged many Christians (or former Christians) into toxic shame, dysfunctional relationships, and unwanted behaviors.

That is because the purity culture is more rooted in fear than in love. In the fog of fear, our heart is easily hijacked by lies, or by distortions of sound doctrine. In the weeks ahead, I hope to unmask some of those lies and consider what Scripture and Christian Tradition actually teach about human love and sexuality.

Lie #1: Purity as a Prize to be Lost. Far too often, our Christian churches and families have upheld a standard of “purity” as a prize to be lost. In this view, purity is black or white, on or off. Don’t be impure like those people. Be pure like these people. It’s a damaging and deceptive dichotomy, rooted in self-righteousness, presumption, and pride.

In Catholic life, the false dichotomy of “pure” versus “impure” shows up in a distorted understanding of what Church teaching means by “mortal sin” versus “state of grace.”  Many Catholics struggling with unwanted sexual behaviors feel tormented by fear and shame. They view themselves as spending most of their waking and sleeping hours in a state of sin (cut off / lost / cast out / impure). Then they go to Confession and feel great, thinking themselves “pure” again, holy again, worthy again. Notice the presumption and self-righteousness, and the lack of confidence in God’s unchanging covenantal love.

Yes, Catholic teaching and the Bible (1 John 5:17) talk about mortal sin. But the Catechism of the Catholic Church clarifies that a sin is only mortal if there is full knowledge and deliberate consent (n. 1857). Deliberate consent is not so clear when you consider the impact of trauma, addictions, or compulsive behaviors. If someone is experiencing “unwanted” sexual behaviors, repeatedly, there is likely more going on! Rather than a black or white judgment of “pure” versus “impure,” the Catechism urges us to consider the embodied human beings in front of us: “To form an equitable judgment about the subjects’ moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability” (n. 2352).  In other words, labeling another person (or yourself) as “impure” or “in mortal sin” is a rash judgment, and often missing the mark about what is really going on.

More importantly, the teachings of Jesus focus on organic growth into maturity in him. We abide in him as branches on the vine. We grow and bear fruit in him. We are members of his body, truly holy because he is holy in us. It is much more accurate to look at sin as a disease that needs tender and loving care, rather than an ON/OFF switch. Jesus presents himself as the divine physician, here to heal all of us. He repeatedly, sometimes angrily challenges the scribes and Pharisees for seeing themselves as “pure” and others as “impure.” Pride and self-sufficiency are far more damaging than lust! We are all sick sinners in need of the divine physician – each and every day of our lives. We are all beautiful and beloved children of God, each and every day of our lives.

Even if I have just gone to Confession and received absolution, I still have a lifelong journey of conversion ahead of me. God will keep purifying me, like gold in the furnace (which is none other than the fire of his love). Meanwhile, sinner though I am, God will relentlessly pursue me in love, even if I keep going back to the same sins. Purity is not something I gain or lose. Purity is the flowering that slowly emerges as I learn to receive and give love. It is the fruit of maturity in Christ.

Apart from Jesus we can do nothing. God alone is an eternal communion of pure love, and he deeply desires us to share in his eternal love. That sharing is an “already but not yet,” a gradual growth in discipleship, a lifelong journey. We are already members of Christ’s body. He has truly given us a share in his life and his love. We can grow in maturity throughout our life. One day, we will definitively be pure as God is pure – when we see him face to face and become totally like him (1 John 1:1-3).

Yes, purity is a battle to be fought. But the battleground is not primarily in senate chambers or school boards or courtrooms. The battleground is in the desert and on Mount Calvary. The Victor is Jesus Christ, the new Adam. And we already know who wins!

Lifelong growth in purity happens when we learn to have an unshakable confidence in the victory of Jesus. We bring that victory into our own daily battles – not just with sexual seductions, but with all areas of our life. We consecrate all of it to him, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. We welcome his shed blood and the new and eternal covenant that alone can save us. We let ourselves be loved and let him teach us how to love. Perfect love will cast out all fear!

To be Continued…