D
DL82
Guest
One of the themes which appears to divide some Traditionalists regarding the authenticity and interpretation of Vatican II appears to be the issue that the Council reframed Catholic moral teaching in terms of ‘human rights’ in place of the ‘rights of God’.
This has been exercising my thinking for some time, and I wanted to put forward an idea, and see what you think of its’ merits:
For most of the Church’s history, the problem of the world/worldliness was framed in terms of resisting the passions of disordered or irrational self-love, in other words the love of material comforts for their own sake. It was taken as a given of the human condition that every man loves life, comfort and license.
This begins to change with an anti-humanism which finds its expression in the ideas of Fascism and Communism, and its intellectual foundations in existentialism. For the first time in history, human beings start to ask the question ‘why love life?’ - not ‘why love THIS life over some other?’ which is a perfectly legitimate question, but why love life itself? Why not love a machine, or a race, or an idea, more than life?
If we take Our Lord’s saying in John 12:25 ‘whoever loves his life will lose it, but whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life’, this hard teaching already presupposes a level of self-love. If there wasn’t an irreplacable self-love at the root of this renunciation, it would make no sense, for without such a rational self-love, why would a man want to keep his life for eternal life? Without self-love, the story of the Fall makes no sense either - without rational self-love, there would be no reason for Adam and Eve to avoid the fruit (because it wouldn’t matter if they die), without rational self-love, the tempter’s words would have no power (because the thought of being free from God, who can decide when they live and die, would have no appeal).
If this rational self-love is pre-Fall, it could be termed a natural virtue. In Catholic teaching, grace builds upon nature, and in Christ’s words above, he turns this natural virtue into a supernatural one. By renouncing our comfort in this life, we gain a true life of fulfillment that does not end at death.
This natural virtue seems so utterly foundational, so impossible to imagine functioning without, that it is, in a sense pre-theological and pre-philosophical. It is one of the things the Fathers of the Church take to be self-evident before their scholarly studies begin.
Such a comprehensive anti-humanism as is seen in the words of one of the Al Qaeda terrorists responsible for the London tube bombings: ‘we love death like you love life’ represents a grotesque perversion of Christ’s teaching of renunciation, it represents some fundamental attack on the foundations of what it means to be human. This is the new threat of the existentialist, finding expression in Fascism as well as in self-annihilationist Marxist groups such as the Baader-Meinhoff Group and the Red Army Faction. It is also, arguably, present in the rationality of the Cold War nuclear arms race and mutually assured destruction. Until the 20th century, no-one had seriously questioned this foundation, so it was unnecessary until Vatican II for the Church to condemn this heresy.
Similar anxieties exist among some evangelical Protestants - how do I know whether I really chose to give my life to Jesus, really chose to hate my life for His sake, and not just for the sake of saving my life, for the sake of selfishly making it into Heaven? If humans are utterly unable to have any merit of their own, if grace is opposed to nature, then the prognosis for this is indeed grim, leading down Calvin’s path to double-predestination. To succeed in making such a complete renunciation of our very nature would be to love death, instead of loving life.
Anti-humanism, loving death instead of life, can seem like a legitimate way to solve the ‘problem’ of concupiscence. If we didn’t love our own lives, there would have been no Fall, but equally, no love. In his encyclical ‘Deus Caritas Est’, the Holy Father addresses precisely this relationship between Agape, renunciative and supernatural love for the sake of God, and eros, or natural love. Christian love builds agape into eros, grace builds on nature. If we destroy our nature, there is nothing for grace to build upon.
Because of the threat of anti-humanism, because for the first time in the 20th century it would be possible to build a mechanistic and terrifying simulacrum of Christianity based on the observance of the ‘rights of God’ in the absence of concern for human good, it was necessary for the Council to frame its teaching in terms of ‘human rights’.
Anyway, this is still a raw idea, and something I would appreciate some feedback on.
This has been exercising my thinking for some time, and I wanted to put forward an idea, and see what you think of its’ merits:
For most of the Church’s history, the problem of the world/worldliness was framed in terms of resisting the passions of disordered or irrational self-love, in other words the love of material comforts for their own sake. It was taken as a given of the human condition that every man loves life, comfort and license.
This begins to change with an anti-humanism which finds its expression in the ideas of Fascism and Communism, and its intellectual foundations in existentialism. For the first time in history, human beings start to ask the question ‘why love life?’ - not ‘why love THIS life over some other?’ which is a perfectly legitimate question, but why love life itself? Why not love a machine, or a race, or an idea, more than life?
If we take Our Lord’s saying in John 12:25 ‘whoever loves his life will lose it, but whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life’, this hard teaching already presupposes a level of self-love. If there wasn’t an irreplacable self-love at the root of this renunciation, it would make no sense, for without such a rational self-love, why would a man want to keep his life for eternal life? Without self-love, the story of the Fall makes no sense either - without rational self-love, there would be no reason for Adam and Eve to avoid the fruit (because it wouldn’t matter if they die), without rational self-love, the tempter’s words would have no power (because the thought of being free from God, who can decide when they live and die, would have no appeal).
If this rational self-love is pre-Fall, it could be termed a natural virtue. In Catholic teaching, grace builds upon nature, and in Christ’s words above, he turns this natural virtue into a supernatural one. By renouncing our comfort in this life, we gain a true life of fulfillment that does not end at death.
This natural virtue seems so utterly foundational, so impossible to imagine functioning without, that it is, in a sense pre-theological and pre-philosophical. It is one of the things the Fathers of the Church take to be self-evident before their scholarly studies begin.
Such a comprehensive anti-humanism as is seen in the words of one of the Al Qaeda terrorists responsible for the London tube bombings: ‘we love death like you love life’ represents a grotesque perversion of Christ’s teaching of renunciation, it represents some fundamental attack on the foundations of what it means to be human. This is the new threat of the existentialist, finding expression in Fascism as well as in self-annihilationist Marxist groups such as the Baader-Meinhoff Group and the Red Army Faction. It is also, arguably, present in the rationality of the Cold War nuclear arms race and mutually assured destruction. Until the 20th century, no-one had seriously questioned this foundation, so it was unnecessary until Vatican II for the Church to condemn this heresy.
Similar anxieties exist among some evangelical Protestants - how do I know whether I really chose to give my life to Jesus, really chose to hate my life for His sake, and not just for the sake of saving my life, for the sake of selfishly making it into Heaven? If humans are utterly unable to have any merit of their own, if grace is opposed to nature, then the prognosis for this is indeed grim, leading down Calvin’s path to double-predestination. To succeed in making such a complete renunciation of our very nature would be to love death, instead of loving life.
Anti-humanism, loving death instead of life, can seem like a legitimate way to solve the ‘problem’ of concupiscence. If we didn’t love our own lives, there would have been no Fall, but equally, no love. In his encyclical ‘Deus Caritas Est’, the Holy Father addresses precisely this relationship between Agape, renunciative and supernatural love for the sake of God, and eros, or natural love. Christian love builds agape into eros, grace builds on nature. If we destroy our nature, there is nothing for grace to build upon.
Because of the threat of anti-humanism, because for the first time in the 20th century it would be possible to build a mechanistic and terrifying simulacrum of Christianity based on the observance of the ‘rights of God’ in the absence of concern for human good, it was necessary for the Council to frame its teaching in terms of ‘human rights’.
Anyway, this is still a raw idea, and something I would appreciate some feedback on.