Trying to Understand: the Catholic Answer

Summary: Overreaction and over-correction have led us from one intellectual dead-end to another. Truth has slowly slipped through our fingers. Now we are stuck with an intelligentsia that enjoys entertaining thoughts that they don't really exist, and with a culture that enjoys playing fast and furious with truth in the name of "toleration," "feminism," and "modernism." The sad irony is that the very truth avoided by each of the philosophies that have led to post-modernism is the answer each philosophy was groping for. It may sound egotistical coming from a Catholic, but Catholicism holds the balance of Truth, offering each philosophy of the modern world what it seeks without falling prey to the excesses that have increasingly obscured the truth and trampled on reality.

Modernism and post-modernism formed as philosophies because we were unable to reconcile the human ability to know ideals such as justice, order, truth, and beauty and the human inability to realize those ideals. Modernism’s response was to get rid of the ideals. Postmodernism got rid of everything else. The Enlightenment did not take into account human weakness in its dreams of the perfect society. Between these two extremes lies the tension of Truth held by the Catholic Church. The Church supremely believes in the ideals of the Enlightenment. These transcendent goods come from God, who made human beings to enjoy all goods including the ideals. However, because of fallen human nature our ability to fulfill these ideals has been damaged. We are still called to strive for these ideals, but we must realize that we will never fully realize them. Life for a Catholic is a constant process of reconciliation and growth. We grow toward perfection in the ideals. But when we fail to meet them we seek forgiveness, make plans to grow in our efforts and try again. We don’t have to fall into the disillusionment that ideals don’t exist just because we struggle to meet them. We have the assurance that ideals exist because they are an expression of God’s truth and perfection, He who is the rock and anchor, the way, the truth, and the life. Ideals are not dependent on human frailty. They are grounded in Truth.

The Enlightenment sought to exercise human intellect and free will in order to create a society of justice. However, in their hubris the Philosophes forsook the very source of all truth - God. How can we study Creation without acknowledging the first cause of Creation? The Philosophes' assumption that religion and faith are contrary to enlightened thought was not a reaction to Catholicism. It was a reaction to Nominalism and superstition. The Catholic intellectual tradition has always embraced rationality, science, philosophy, and intellectual rigor. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Albert the Great, and Saint Dominic are just three of the revered saints who saw great value and had great skill in the natural sciences and in philosophy. Catholicism gave rise to universities, rediscovered the works of the ancient Greeks, and gave birth to the liberal arts education. Today, the Catholic intellectual tradition is among the only havens for reasoning and logic. Many believe that the Church is against science. They cite Galileo; stem cell research, and cloning as evidence. However, the Church is a true champion of science because it realizes that science is at the service of true human growth. True science must never be allowed to denigrate human nature or to enslave us to our base desires.

Finally, the beginning of it all was when Protestants broke away from the Catholic Church in response to the abuses and theological error found within Her people. The abuses and errors that Martin Luther and other Reformers reacted against were not actually Catholicism. They were rather erroneous and sinful manipulations of Catholicism that needed to be rooted out. The problem was not the theological beliefs in indulgences or works righteousness, but the sin of Simony - a sin that the official teaching authority of the Catholic Church has always decried. Neither was the problem the hierarchy, established by Christ Himself through the apostles. Rather, the problem was clericalism - ignoring Christ's injunction that His priests were not to lord it over their followers. The problem was not that Sacred Tradition was leading people away from Scriptural truth - the Scriptures came to us through Tradition, Tradition always serves the Scriptures, and both Tradition and Scripture are guided by the Holy Spirit as Christ promised. Rather, the problem was the error of Nominalism allowing ignorant believers to fall into superstition in the name of false “traditions.” Not one of these problems was true Catholicism. They were all errors of a sinful world that got a foothold in the Church due to moral laxity. This happened again in the recent sex scandals when our seminaries became morally lax, encouraging seminarians to explore their sexuality and to embrace homosexual tendencies. Just as human inability to meet the ideals does not mean that they don’t exist, because they are grounded in God, so the sinfulness of the Church's members does not detract from the legitimacy or the holiness of the Church. The Church's holiness and legitimacy comes from Christ and the Holy Spirit, not from any human members. Through the Church, Christ continues to offer His grace to sinners.

Throughout history, the Catholic Church has been the steward of the Truth that humanity seeks. While her members are sinners, and many of them led people astray, the Church is grounded in the Truth and Goodness of Christ. For example, it amazes me that with all of the corrupt and sinful popes in the Church’s history not one of them used the teaching authority of the Church to teach error. Amazing!

Today most people assume that the Church is old fashioned and out of touch with the reality of modern life. However, science is slowly and quietly proving the Church right on her teachings on contraception and abortion. Modernism and Post-Modernism consider Catholicism barbarous. Is love barbarous? Is reason barbarous? These are the things that Modernists and Post-Modernists have sacrificed. In their place they have put power and tolerance. Power defines all relationships in the Post-Modern world. Tolerance blindly accepts all differences, even the criminal and disordered. So I ask you –which philosophy is really barbarous? Isn’t it time we took another look at what we believe?