What is it to be Human?

One might ask for a biological definition. I propose a spiritual one.

To be human is to orient oneself - to take an attitude towards - the infinite. One might reject its existence. One might embrace it. One might align oneself with it. One might rebel. But no matter what one does, one does something, and this something serves to fix what at bottom one is. Those who are good align with it; those who are evil rebel. But no matter if it is a pole from which we flee or a pole to which we flee, it is the pole around with our lives revolve.

This gets to the root of my objection to materialism. It makes us out to be much smaller than we in fact are. It would seek to reduce us to just a bit of matter. It would seek to say that our existence is circumscribed by a tiny little bit of space-time.

But we are more than this. We can know - indeed we can some into fundamental accord with - the infinite, and this shows that there's something of the infinite in us. (For as the Greeks knew, only like can know like.)

Yes, we are embodied. Yes, we carve out a path through space-time (both the individual and the species). But our boundaries are greater than that. We can reach out in thought and in emotion to the infinite source of our being, and there we can find rest.

The Highest Good

We pursue many perceived goods. (Whether what will call "goods" are really so I will not consider.) But we do not think that all the goods we pursue are of equal worth. A full belly is, in times of want, more important than a glass of wine. The happiness of my children is more important to me than my own. Aristotle thought the contemplation of eternal verities more important than any other intellectual act.

But though we rank goods, must we place one above all others? There are two ways that we might attempt to avoid this. (i) We might rank a number of goods the same, and place their set above all others. Each will be surpassed by none, but will be equaled by some. (ii) We might make each of our goods so time- and place-relative that they will forever change places in the rank-order. One might be highest for a time, but if it is, it will not remain so.

I contend that neither is acceptable. The first renders moral action either impossible or a matter of arbitrary decision. For it is quite possible that two or more of the goods we place above all others - the "super set" we might all it - will come into conflict with one another, and if they do, then since there exists no good outside the super set to guide us, we will be without guide. Without guide, we will either not act, or we will arbitrarily choose to act in one way instead of another.

The second - the claim that no good can forever remain at the top of the rank-order - seems to imply that moral judgment has no place in the determination of the rank-order of goods. For if moral judgment did have such a place, it would derive its judgments from commitment to some vision of the good; and that vision of the good would then itself constitute a fixed highest good.

So it seems, then, that at least insofar as our moral house is in good order, we must posit a highest good. The highest good will be that which, if it does not guide us at a particular moment, at least holds veto power over anything we do. If, on reflection, you can find in yourself no commitment to a highest good, I contend that, at least at times, you act arbitrarily and without guide.

What for me is the highest good? The community of all sentient beings bound together by a perfect love of one another and a perfect love of God. Though I often fall short of the ideal implied is this good, I still project it as a guide (or at least a veto) to all that I do. My continual prayer is that I should be made fit for life in such a community.

Anscombe on the Purpose and Value of Life

"G. E. M. Anscombe" is a near-legendary name in analytic philosophy. But unlike most analytics, she is Christian; and unlike most Christian analytics, she is Catholic. In an article on birth control titled Contraception and Chastity, she says this about the purpose of life:

What people are for is, we believe, like guided missiles, to home in on God, God who is the one truth it is infinitely worth knowing, the possession of which you could never get tired of, like the water which if you have you can never thirst again, because your thirst is slaked forever and always. It's this potentiality, this incredible possibility, of the knowledge of God of such a kind as even to be sharing in his nature, which Christianity holds out to people; and because of this potentiality every life, right up to the last, must be treated as precious. Its potentialities in all things the world cares about may be slight; but there is always the possibility of what it's for. We can't ever know that the time of possibility of gaining eternal life is over, however old, wretched, "useless" someone has become.

In the middle we find this claim: every life (and Anscombe of course means "every human life") is precious because of its ability to know God. Thus for Anscombe our purpose and our value are intimately linked. Our purpose is to know God, and our value lies in our ability to achieve this purpose.

Note as well what Anscombe says about the ability to know God: it is present at every moment of life. Thus at every moment life is precious; it is precious at its start, at its end and at every point in between.

This consequence is of course to be embraced. Life is in fact precious at every moment. But that the consequence is true does not imply that the view is true; false views do sometimes have true consequences.

(If you doubt this, consider this little argument:

God, though not eternal, is the creator of all things distinct from himself.
Thus God is the creator of humanity.

The conclusion is, by my lights, true; but, say I, God is eternal and thus the premise from which the conclusion is derived is false. False claims do sometimes have true consequences.)

I do worry that Anscombe's view - that the value of life lies in a certain ability of ours, an ability that is not realized at present - is false. On Anscombe's views, our life at present seems to have its value in virtue of a certain future possibility - the possibility that we will come to know God. The value that life has at present seems parasitic upon that future possibility. Does it then not follow that, if we consider only our present state and ignore that future possibility, we find little or nothing of value? I find that I can't rest content with that conclusion. As I've heard said (though I can't now remember the source), we love children not because of what they will become but because of what they are. Are they - indeed are not we - precious as we now are? Surely we are not like a plain vase whose only value lies in its ability to be filled with a substance of value? Plain we may be in comparison to God, but are we not precious as we are? God loved the world, Scripture tells us; it does not tell us that God loved what the world might become.

Some will be tempted to say that I ignore here the corrosive effects of sin. Sin, they will say, has made us plain, perhaps even ugly, and whatever value we had before the Fall has, now that live under the rule of sin, been erased. If one accepts this, it seems quite natural to say that, though we have little or no value at present, yet the possibility remains that we will come to know God and that our value at present lies solely in that possibility.

Note a consequence of this view of our present value. If at present we have little or no value, anything may be done to us so long as the possibility of the beatific vision is not thereby attenuated. I take it that this is absurd. Not anything may be done to us. We may not be mercilessly tortured, for instance. (If you say that we may, my only reply is that I part company with you. Embrace your moral absurdity if you like, but do not expect me to do likewise.)

Last point. I do not doubt that the purpose of our lives lies in the beatific vision. But I do doubt that our value at present lies, wholly or mainly, in the ability to achieve it (or have it imparted). This of course leaves us with the question of the ground of our value at present. At present I do not know what to say to this.

Divorce

We in the West (and it seems as well part of the East too) have arrived at a strange view of marriage. It is this: the love that binds husband to wife is of a weaker and less valuable sort than the love that binds parent to child. We see evidence of this continually. Husband and wife divorce and no longer longer care about the good of the other (or perhaps care no more than they do about a mere acquaintance), and yet they still care about the children. Though they no longer feel responsibility for the other, they still feel responsibility for the children. (I know that there are exceptions to this. I mean to speak only in generalities, but they strike me as true generalities.)

Thus it seems as if divorce betrays a certain ugly truth about marriage in the West: the love of children is unconditional, but the love of a spouse is quite conditional (or at least the former is much closer to unconditional than is the latter).

Wherever this view is taken, it is a perversion. Within a family, there must be no distinction made as regards the strength of the bonds of love. Wife and husband should love another as much as they loves their children. Even when children are not present, the bond between husband and wife should be no less strong that the bond of parent to child.

Though parents do sometimes take this view, children do not. They love all in their family equally, and would be just as devastated by the loss of one as the loss of another. This I believe explains why divorce exacts such a heavy toll on children. For themselves, they would never choose to have their family split up. But it is chosen for them, and at the hands of another they suffer a loss of that which they value most. Moreover, since to a child the natural view is that family love - whether between parent and parent or parent and child - knows no condition, once that love has shown itself conditional in divorce, the child will inevitably wonder whether it will show itself conditional in the love the parents have for her. A bond that breaks once can be broken again, and a parent's reassurance to the contrary will ring hollow.

I do realize, of course, the divorce is in come cases a necessity. But we ought to recognize it for the great evil it is. It implies a profound lack of love by at least one spouse.

Since I've talked almost exclusively about the evil of divorce, perhaps I should end with a word or two about the good of marriage. As I've said many times at The Philosophical Midwife, I believe that we are for one another. This is our purpose. We are to seek our good, and the good of others, in the company of others, and we are to delight in their presence. We are to bind ourselves to others absolutely and unconditionally, and in this way and this way alone is our true felicity found. Marriage is thus a vehicle - indeed I would say the primary vehicle - through which the human good (at least on this Earth) is realized. So then let husband and wife make between them a bond unshakable, and let them thereby show that they are capable of the highest of goods.

The Chief End of Man

For God so wished to righteously judge the world that he sent his only begotten son? No!

For God so wished for his own glorification that he sent his only begotten son? No!

For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son!

What then is the chief end of man? Is he the material on which God's judgment is exercised? Was he made so that he might glorify God? No! The chief end of man is to love, and to be loved by, God.