Paging Professor Feser

Benedict XVI: Reason’s Revolutionary

By Samuel Gregg

February 11, 2013 12:15 P.M.

Ever since I started writing about Joseph Ratzinger in the late 1990s, two qualities about the man impressed me. The first was his quiet but clear love of Christ as a living Person rather than the vague abstraction of liberal, often atheist theologians.

The second was Ratzinger’s genuine humility. Intellectually, Ratzinger far surpassed the usual suspects who want to turn Catholicism into something between the disaster otherwise known as the Church of England, and the rather sad leftist-activism of aging nuns stuck in 1968. But against the increasingly-absurd rants of a Hans Kung or Leonardo Boff, Ratzinger simply continued defending and explaining orthodox Christianity’s essential rationality with a modesty lacking in his opponents.

Which brings me to what I think will be this great Pope’s last legacy. In forthcoming weeks, there will be many commentaries on what this Pope has achieved in a relatively short time. This ranges from his efforts to root out what Ratzinger once called the “filth” of sexual deviancy that has inflicted such damage on the priesthood, his successful outreach to Catholicism’s Eastern Orthodox brothers, his generally excellent bishop appointments, to his reforms of the liturgy.

But we need to remember that Benedict XVI is arguably the most intellectual pope to sit in Peter’s Chair for centuries—even more so than his saintly predecessor, who was certainly no slouch in the world of ideas. And if there is one single thing that stands out in Benedict’s papacy, it’s this: his laser-like focus on the root-cause of the intellectual crisis that explains not only Western culture’s present wallowing in facile relativism that’s on full display in the content-free rhetoric of your average EU politician, but also the trauma that explains the violence and rage that continues to shake the Islamic world and which Islam seems incapable of resolving on its own terms.

And that problem is one of reason. As Benedict spelt out in four key addresses that repay careful re-reading—the famous 2006 Regensburg lecture, his 2008 address to the French intellectual world, his speech to the Bundestag in 2011, and his remarks to the world of British politics in 2010 in Westminster Hall (the site, not coincidentally, of St Thomas More’s show-trial in 1535)—man, especially Western man, has lost confidence in reason’s power to know more-than-empirical truth.

And what’s the result? It means very basic discussions in the realms of politics and universities are no longer conducted along the lines identified long ago by figures such as Aristotle and Aquinas. Instead it’s all about power, who is stronger, and who can evoke the highest degree of sentimental humanitarianism from people looking for guidance in increasingly incoherent societies.

In the religious world, the crisis of reason means two things. First, God is reduced to the status of a cuddly Teddy Bear incapable of distinguishing between good and evil and who, as Benedict once wrote, “no longer does anything but affirm us.” Or, conversely, God becomes a creature who demands that we behave unreasonably—be it by driving trucks full of explosives into Catholic churches in Nigeria, beheading teenage Indonesian Christian schoolgirls, or other unmentionables that professional inter-faith dialoguers never want to talk about.

Much of the world hasn’t been interested in listening to Benedict’s constant underscoring of this point. Why? Not because it’s a hard argument to understand. Rather it’s because some religions do understand God either as an amiable but ultimately pathetic Teddy Bear, or as the undiluted ruthlessness of Pure Will. To abandon these positions would mean fundamentally changing their very nature as religions.

In other cases, embracing Benedict’s argument translates into changes in lifestyles that many people simply don’t want to make. But a pope’s job isn’t to tell people what they want to hear. Instead it’s to teach them that Jesus Christ who is Caritas is also the God who is Logos: the divine reason who loves us so much that he wants to save us from our hubris, and who has imprinted his reason upon our very nature to help us know and freely choose the true and the good.

Unlike those who we’re inclined to think are great people today, Joseph Ratzinger won’t be hitting the global-lecture circuit, garnering appointments to yet-another meaningless U.N. commission, participating in syncretistic Parliaments of Religion, or trying to retrospectively recover his reputation by writing Clintonesque memoirs. Instead, he’ll likely live out his days in a monastery, writing, thinking, but above all praying to the One who Benedict knows will one day call him home to the Father’s house.

But, like another Benedict who spent most of his life in a monastery but nevertheless managed to save Western civilization, Joseph Ratzinger knows that, in the long run, there’s something else that the world needs besides a renewal of reason in all its fullness. And that’s sanctity: the sanctity of a Thomas More, Thérèse of Lisieux, or John Paul IIwhich produces that vision of fearless and indestructible goodness that truly changes history. Never did Benedict make this point so well as when he spoke these words during a prayer vigil for thousands of young Catholics at World Youth Day in Cologne in 2005:

The saints are . . . the true reformers. . . . Only from the saints, only from God does true revolution come. . . . It is not ideologies that save the world, but only a return to the living God, our Creator, the guarantor of our freedom, the guarantor of what is really good and true. True revolution consists in simply turning to God who is the measure of what is right and who at the same time is everlasting love. And what could ever save us apart from love?

— Samuel Gregg is research director at the Acton Institute, and the author of Becoming Europe and The Modern Papacy [from NRO's "The Corner"]

Dear Ed,

I’m going to write a couple of open letters to you, because I finally picked up your magisterial defense of the thought of Aristotle and Aquinas in The Last Superstition that Mr. Gregg laments is no longer taking place in our colleges and universities. As Gregg describes in this little blog post, your book could almost be considered a summary and defense of the “the divine…[which] has imprinted his reason upon our very nature to help us know and freely choose the true and the good.” I probably should have read this book before I tackled your slightly more technical and difficult book, Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide, but I’m finding they work well together and serve as an excellent foundation into basic Thomistic metaphysics and thought.

Looking forward to sharing some additional thoughts and questions soon!

Great to read others are still fisking…

Dear Sonic Charmer Crimson Reach,

My last letter (almost two months ago and read by thousands no one) was a brilliant fisking, if I must say so myself. I’m glad to see you are keeping the art form alive. I’m also glad to read you on the topic of the housing bubble, as you and I have traded private correspondance on this same subject and you gave me the same explanation with respect to the important issue of “contributed some nonzero amount”, as you explain in the linked fisking (also detailed nicely in this post on your blog).

Anyway, keep up the fisking and so will I (and I promise to blog more in 2013…but not as much as you!)

Time to Pretend I’m a Future Republican Strategist

Dear Mr. Puritan Descendant,

Thanks so much for your letter to me, a “future Republican strategist”. Actually, it is not too far-fetched to think of me as a future political strategist as I have often thought of running for office myself as a Republican (in a very blue state) and/or supporting Republican candidates for office with my time and money. So I’m always eager to hear from folks who want to help the party succeed in winning over voters to a conservative message and who might be open to our ideas but haven’t been receptive for one reason or another in the past. Helpfully, you provide those reasons — so without further ado, let’s go through your analysis, shall we?

1) You say the following about the Republicans and science:

We are really quite unimpressed with Congressional representatives such as Todd Akin and Paul Broun who actually serve on the House science committee and who believe, respectively, that rape does not cause pregnancy and that evolution and astrophysics are lies straight from Satan’s butt cheeks. These are, sadly, only two of innumerable assaults that the Republican Party has made against hard science – with nothing to say of logic in general. Please understand the unbearable tension this might create between us and your candidates.

Now, I always thought that one of the first things a good scientists wants to do is get his facts straight. So let’s start with your summary of Akin’s beliefs — you say he believes that “rape does not cause pregnancy.” Hmm, as an observant social scientist, I’d say the first thing we know about you, Mr. Puritan Man, is that you are a liar. No need to sugar-coat or use any euphamisms to describe the calumny you just used against Rep. Akin. You flat out lied. Let’s review the facts, shall we? Infamously, Akin at one point said the following in response to a question about whether or not women who are raped should be allowed to have an abortion:

Well you know, people always want to try to make that as one of those things, well how do you, how do you slice this particularly tough sort of ethical question. It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.

O.K., so Akin believes a couple of things, neither of which is “rape does not cause pregnancy.” He obviously believes that rape rarely causes pregnancy and he also believes that “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down [meaning pregnancy]” from rape. As a scientific matter, is he correct? Well, there is actually conflicting research on the subject, but here is at least one paper that agrees with Rep. Akin. There is other research that disagrees, but at best we can only fault Rep. Akin for overselling his side in what is really an unsettled scientific question.

Rep. Broun is an easier case to deal with as you basically got his position correct, allowing for a bit of colorful exaggeration (“the pit of hell” is not really “Satan’s butt cheeks”, but whatever):

“All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell,” Broun said. “And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior.”

O.K., so now that we have our facts straight, let’s get to the heart of your complaint with these two Representatives — somehow these two quotes prove that the Republicans Party has made two of “innumerable assaults…against hard science — with nothing to say of logic in general.”

Let me repeat this just so we are all clear — two Republican Representatives made infamous remarks. One of those remarks had a controversial statement about a scientific question and the other remark consisted of a theological interpretation of some widely supported scientific theories. Based on those two remarks, which you take to be some sort of “assault” on “hard science”, and taking your word on the fact that there are other “innumerable assaults” out there against “hard science” made by other Republicans, this demonstrates why Republicans create “unbearable tension” between you and your wife (as a couple) and the Republican party. Am I right?

Who did you say is assaulting logic again?

2) I’ll quote the following in its entirety related to “Climate”:

Within just the past 18 months the following events have come to our attention: a record-breaking drought that sent temperatures over 100 degrees for weeks, killing half the corn in the Midwest and half the TREES on our suburban property – AND – a hurricane that drowned not New Orleans or Tampa or North Carolina but my native state of VERMONT. As an encore, a second hurricane drowned lower Manhattan, New Jersey and Long Island. The shouted views of decrepit mental fossil Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma that this is a fraud perpetrated on the American people by evil, conspiring climate scientists is belied by such events and is looking irresponsible to even the most skeptical.

Now, I assume that when you refer to “that this is a fraud” you are giving the good Senator from Oklahoma the benefit of the doubt and referring to his views on so-called global warming. I Googled the Senator’s remarks and while he certainly thinks the idea of global warming is a hoax, it is unclear if he thinks climate scientists are indeed “evil”. But that’s neither here nor there, because to “even the most skeptical”, one or two droughts or hurricanes or crazy weather events do not equate to a coherent theory of global warming. And get this, even if I were to accept at face value the best science we have today on global warming, I’d still be opposed to having the government do anything beyond some basic research on how we might tackle the problem in the far future, because the cost/benefit analysis favors little action. For a “job creator and small businessman”, you don’t know much about economics, do you?

3) You then say the following about Republicans and health care:

“Your party’s insistence on declaring the private U.S. healthcare system “the best in the world” fails nearly every factual measure available to any curious mind. We watch our country piss away 60% more expenditures than the next most expensive system (Switzerland) for health outcomes that rival former Soviet bloc nations. On a personal scale, my wife watches poor WORKING people show up in emergency rooms with fourth-stage cancer because they were unable to afford primary care visits. I have watched countless small businesses unable to attract talented workers because of the outrageous and climbing cost of private insurance. And I watch European and Asian businesses outpace American companies because they can attract that talent without asking people to risk bankruptcy and death. That you think this state of affairs is somehow preferable to “Obamacare,” which you compared ludicrously to Trotskyite Russian communism, is a sign of deficient minds unfit to guide health policy in America.”

Apparently, you’ve now shifted from lying about real Republicans to making stuff up about Republicans that don’t exist. Most conservative Republicans who I’m familiar with and have an interest in health care want to reform our current system of health care delivery, which as you know even before Obamacare was not a simple free-market in goods and services like the market for business consulting or books about “megatrends”. I could link you to all sorts of conservative policy websites and individual Republican members of the House and Senate who have proposed bills to reform our health care system. What most of these ideas share, however, is the desire to put more power in consumers hands and let the price mechanism and the power of free markets bring down costs and drive innovation. The fact that we spend more than other countries on health care is probably an indication that we invest more in high tech, innovative and unique treatments for those who are sick, including preemies — I wouldn’t call all that expensive care we lavish on preemies “pissing away” health care dollars. And why don’t we get better “health outcomes”? Again, as I’m sure you are aware, lots of factors go into making up a country’s health statistics that have nothing to do with our health care system (e.g. more crime and shootings in the U.S. generally means less healthy people). I mean, when I read your ‘thoughts’ on health care, I wondered where such ill-informed and confused ideas come from…maybe the Devil’s hind quarters?

4) You next take the time to criticize the Republicans for doing a bad job of running the Iraq War. Fair enough, although no credit to Bush for the surge and subsequent stabilization of a really bad situation in Iraq? And how about the Democrats — how has President Obama done since taking over? You think he’s done a bang-up job of getting us out of Iraq, winding down the war in Afghanistan, waging a limited war in Libya, and executing drone strikes around the world? I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this topic, but I can certainly appreciate your overall frustration with Republican foreign policy, which I myself think became too messianic in its goals under Bush 43 while at the same time too restrained in its tactics. Not a good combination.

5) On deficits and the debt, I think you offer excellent advice:

“The only problem with your claim [that Republicans will cut spending and reduce the deficit] is that Republican governments throughout my entire 38 year life (Reagan, Bush 41, Bush 43) have failed to cut spending and deficit and debt EVEN ONCE. I hope you understand that your credibility suffers every time you promise one thing for three decades and do the EXACT OPPOSITE.”

Now, as you know, we have really only had a “Republican government” for six years under Bush 43 — the rest of the time we have had divided government, with the Republicans controlling the Presidency and the Democrats controlling one or both chambers of Congress. Likewise with Democratic President Clinton, although he had two years of total control. You also realize that as bad as Bush 43 was, President Obama and the Democratic Congress (and to a lesser extent, the divided Congress of the past two years) have been much, much worse. Indeed, I hope Republicans take your advice and wind up nominating a strong Governor in 2016 who has a track record (better than Romney’s) of cutting spending in his or her State and laying out a plan to the American people to tackle our insane levels of debt. I’d say that I’m sure you agree, but earlier it seems like you support Obamacare, which we know will only contribute to the deficit and debt problem, so who knows what you think.

6) On the subjct of gay marriage, you seem to once again conjure up an imaginary Republican who says something that you imagine such a person might say, all while making a good point about the destructive power of divorce in American life. I certainly agree that Republicans should think seriously about how we make divorce more difficult/less desirable as an option for too many couples. However, I’m not sure what the heck you mean by this:

The Republican perseveration on homosexuals as any sort of threat consigns them to history’s trough of intellectual pig dung.

The Republican party I’m familiar with wants to keep the traditional understanding and definition of marriage intact — under law and in our common discourse. We believe marriage “is a union that is necessarily and by its very nature heterosexual”, and we want our laws to reflect this truth. Nothing more and nothing less.

____________________

The rest of your letter takes issue with the tone of some Republican leaders — while I wouldn’t characterize their comments as “mean”, I certainly agree with you that at times our tone needs to change and you’ll be glad to know one of my favorite Republican Governors also agrees.

So we are at an impass. I don’t see the need, based on your “policy positions” (did you even present policies or just object to Republican ideas — you think Obamacare is a good solution to controlling costs and helping people pay for healthcare? You think we should implement some sort of carbon tax to deal with global warming? What exactly are your “policy positions”, that you supposedly laid out in your letter to me?) to change my conservative ideals or policy prescriptions to this country’s problems.

The interesting question is whether or not conservative Republicans can be successful if we do a better job of selling our policies (which for the most part don’t need to change)? Who knows, but I do know that the country cannot keep enacting liberal policies without slower growth, more unemployment, lower family incomes, more restrictions on our liberties, etc., etc. In short, on our current path, we will fail to “promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

Thanks anyway for trying.

P.S. I’m a big fan of Puritan culture and early American literature — John Winthrop is the bomb!

Trade War (Rhetorical Only)!

Dear Dan, Scott, and Vox Day,

Dan Griswold, you are one of the libertarian movement’s leading intellectual forces behind the idea that globalization is good for the U.S. economy and free trade (including the free movement of peoples, i.e. lots of immigration) enhances the common good.

Likewise, Scott Lincicome, you are also a CATO Institute scholar who writes about free trade, globalization, and immigration and you support all three as good for the U.S.

I think you are both wrong about immigration already, but I’m increasing becoming skeptical about the case for unrestricted free trade as well. The guy who is making me a skeptic is all-around internet super-genius Vox Day. You can check out his blog posts on the subject here.

I have a simple request. I want to see/read you debate the subject of free trade. I’d be happy to moderate and consider myself a pretty good debate judge, having debated in high school and then judged debate for many years afterwards (I was a better judge than I was a debater). We can agree on the format once we agree on the specific topic (e.g. Resolved: Free trade has increased the economic well-being for the average U.S. citizen over the past 200 years). I would recommend Vox host the debate at his website as he has a large readership and his readers would be open to good arguments from the other side.

Any interest gentlemen?

I’m Baaack…

Dear Friends, Family, and the Occassional Reader Who Stumbles on This Blog Devoted Readers,

For the past couple of months I took a break from this wonderful blog so I could devote my energies elsewhere. But because the silence was deafening and driving me crazy you were all clamoring for my return, I’ve decided to get back into the swing of things.

Where have I been these past three months with no posts? Well, in another one of my identities, I have been successfully blogging; but I want to keep the two personae separate, so I need to stay mysterious about the other blog. However, you can find Fake Herzog popping up in the comment section of this crazy leftist American expatriate who now lives in Paris. There is something about him I find fascinating, although his political and moral views are such a caricature of a left-wing professor that if I made him up you wouldn’t believe me.

I also have been enjoying reding and commenting at this new group blog, which is sort of about American culture and politics.

I’ll be adding more posts soon, so be on the lookout for the return of your favorite fake literary character.

Some Thoughts On The Constitution

Twisting a statute is better than twisting the Constitution

Today’s decision is a dark cloud with some silver linings.

Beginning with the first silver lining, a majority of the Court rejected the position that Congress could utilize its authority to regulate interstate commerce to compel individuals whose defining characteristic is that they have not engaged in commerce to purchase a product. To uphold such a claim of authority would have pushed the Court’s Commerce Clause interpretation into heretofore unknown territory. In rejecting the government’s claim, both the Roberts decision and Scalia’s — which together garnered five votes — acknowledged that Wickard v. Filburn marked the outer reaches of federal power under the Commerce Clause, and that the mandate exceeded those limits. While this does not create anything new in the way of law, it maintains some limitation on Congress’s commerce power. Had the Court ruled otherwise, it would have been difficult to conceive of any limitation on Congress’s power. Indeed, it is for this reason that the government struggled so mightily in answering questions concerning limiting principles — ultimately throwing up their hands to say that health care is “unique” — a principle that inevitably would hold until the next “unique” issue arose.

The next positive result is that there were seven votes recognizing some limitation on Congress’s spending power. This was a position that few observers thought would garner more than a single vote (which may help explain the relative lack of commentary on this point in the immediate aftermath of the decision). While the contours of this limitation are murky, it is clear that the coercion limitation on Congress’s spending powers is alive and well.
The dark cloud in the decision is the majority’s handling of the actual statute before the Court. Treating the penalty for failing to purchase insurance as a tax literally flips the statutory scheme on its head, to make it so that the cart (penalty—er, I mean tax) is the driving constitutional justification for the horse (mandate). Indeed, it is difficult to use that tax to constitutionally authorize the mandate, when the mandate applies to individuals who are not subject to the tax. Roberts concludes that “[o]ur precedent demonstrates that Congress had the power to impose the exaction in §5000A under the taxing power, and that §5000A need not be read to do more than impose a tax. That is sufficient to sustain it.” In other words: good enough for government work.

Such reasoning flies in the face of the guiding principle in Printz v. United States, [521 U.S. 898 (1997)] in which the Court struck down provisions of a law where Congress employed unconstitutional means to an end that it could have constitutionally accomplished in another manner. Yes, under well-established precedent, Congress could have devised a tax to support universal health care. But they didn’t, and the Court engaged in feats of statutory contortion to make it look remotely like it was so.

- Robert Alt on SCOTUSblog, June 28, 2012

Dear Mr. Alt,

I’m not a Constitutional lawyer, but it is obvious to any fair-minded reader that the Constitution says X, Y, and Z and not A, B, and C. So for example, no where in the Constitution do we find the phrase “a right to privacy”; likewise, relevant to this case, no where in the Constitution do we find words to the effect that Congress can mandate the purchase of a product or service and/or exact penalties for failing to purchase said product or service.

On its face, the ruling it a plain power grab, end of story. (Do click on that link — it is ‘Sonic Charmer’ at his angry best).

However, one thing does bother me about your astute analysis, and I’ve seen it said by other Constitutional scholars I respect. You suggest that it would be Constitutional to enact a single-payer health care system if Congress used their taxing power. My question is how? Where in Article 1, Section 8 does it say Congress has this power? In the list of enumerated powers there is nothing about providing health care for the citizens of the U.S. What the heck is going on here! When did the Supreme Court decide Congress could ignore the enumerated powers? How far back does the rot go?

Great Newspaper Headline, Although Maybe It Could Have Teased The Reader A Bit…

…as it is this sort of tells the reader just about everything he’ll want to know:

“Woman crashes car, gets naked and stops off for ice cream in Texas”

Driver Stephanie Dillard, after colliding with a Houston city bus, wandered to a nearby CVS where she peeled off her clothes and scarfed down some ice cream, a local television station reported.

- from the New York Daily News, June 21, 2012

Dear Stephanie Dillard,

I hope you straighten out your life, espeically for the sake of your three kids, the ones you left in your car when you decided to go get some ice cream in the nude. One can only pray for America…