“Do not judge, lest ye be called judgmental.” In a world that has lost a sense of sin, there remains one unforgivable sin—being judgmental. Many who are biblically illiterate can readily quote Jesus’ admonition “Stop judging, that you may not be judged” (Mt 7:1). According to the mainstream media, even Pope Francis is on board, citing his famous five word answer to a reporter’s question about gay priests—“Who am I to judge?” Of course the Pope was deflecting a question that the reporter already knew the Church’s response to especially since he has repeatedly reaffirmed the perennial understanding of the Church that we are to “hate the sin, but love the sinner.” Still the fear of being perceived as judgmental is real and causes many people to merely keep to themselves. Is it possible to judge without being judgmental?
An important clarification is necessary at the outset. When we examine the moral quality of any action, it must always be done from two perspectives. First there is the object itself. This is the objective act itself and it is what the action “looks like” from the outside. Then there is the subjective intention of the act or the end the person has in mind when choosing a particular action.
The object itself can and should always be judged according to reason, using the criteria of whether it can be ordered to the good or not. The subjective intention on the other hand cannot always be judged. And when it can’t, the judgment must left to God. In other words we may objectively label an act as good or evil, but we cannot judge the subjective guilt of the person who performed the act. But to be clear, while a good intention may lessen the moral gravity of an evil act, nevertheless a good motive cannot make the act itself good. A bad motive however can make lessen the good of an otherwise good action.
An example might help us to see how this applies. Suppose a young girl becomes pregnant and her parents “force” her to abort the child. She decides that rather than being abandoned by her parents (with a baby) she will abide by their wishes. The object, an abortion, is always a gravely evil action regardless of the circumstances. There is never a good reason to justify getting an abortion. However if we are to look at the subjective guilt it becomes obvious that judgment is difficult, if not impossible. Certainly she was being coerced, but maybe she really wanted to abort the child anyway. Or perhaps she didn’t want to but lacked the moral courage to stand up to her parents. We can see that in both these scenarios there is some level of subjective culpability, but in truth there is no way to know by simply looking at the action. She is guilty of something that is wrong, but she may not be fully guilty of the abortion. And in truth, only God can really know the full extent of her guilt. But again, even if somehow she were to have no culpability, the abortion would still be an objectively wrong act.
If we turn to St. Thomas’ Summa Theologiae (ST II-II, q.60) we can glean some practical principles to live by with respect to judging others. He begins by defining judgment as nothing more than a determination of what is just . In other words it is related to the virtue of justice. One of the requisite conditions for a judgment to be truly just is that it must be pronounced according to the right ruling of prudence and not proceed rashly from a judgment on some doubtful or hidden matter. Herein lies the problem with making a judgment regarding the subjective intention—it is hidden from us (unless we are somehow told) and therefore we are guilty of making a rash judgment. St. Thomas says that it is precisely rash judgment that Jesus condemns in the oft-quoted text “Judge not…”
It is not just that the other’s intention remains hidden that causes us to judge rashly. In explaining why Jesus says one should remove the plank in one’s own eye before pointing out the one in your neighbor’s, St. Thomas says that only those who have a virtuous habit can justly judge whether a given act is good or bad. Only one who knows truly what chastity “looks and feels like” can detect it in someone else. And because they know the struggle in obtaining chastity, they can offer both understanding and encouragement to those who struggle with it. So too with all the other virtues meaning that only a truly virtuous person can render a just judgment on the virtue of others.
The point St. Thomas is trying to make is that we will always judge according to our own way of looking at things. We fall prey to what Pope St. John Paul II called the “Hermeneutic of Suspicion.” One who lies, will tend to distrust everyone else and always think they are lying. One who is disloyal, will look upon every disappointment by someone else as a deliberate betrayal. As Ecclesiastes says “Even when walking in the street the fool, lacking understanding, calls everyone a fool” (Eccl 10:3). We also are more readily apt to judge someone rashly whom we don’t particularly care for. We are simply looking for validation as to why we shouldn’t like them. The point though is that whenever we judge someone rashly (even if in the end we turn out right), we do harm to them.
Of course as a spiritual practice we can learn a lot about our predominant fault by simply watching what we accuse others of. With this in mind, St. Thomas also has another practical suggestion for us regarding the habit of thinking well of others. Because we do harm to a person by judging him rashly, “we ought to deem him good by interpreting for the best whatever is doubtful in him.” While this may mean that we are deceived more often, it is still better to err in the direction of thinking well of a wicked man than to err by having an evil opinion of a good man. In other words the cost of a false negative is greater than a false positive—both of us are harmed when I judge a good man wicked, but only I am harmed when judging a wicked man good. In one case I am the perpetrator of evil, in the other I am more like Our Lord and the victim.
It goes without saying that everything Our Lord was teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and St. Thomas’ explanation pertains to making rash judgment. But despite the world’s obsession with judgmentalism, there is a hidden truth there. If we are willing to examine ourselves carefully we really are prone to be judgmental. This is not a call to abandon judgment, but to participate in the Church’s mission that the Holy Father so clearly articulates in The Name of God is Mercy:
“The Church condemns sin because it has to relay the truth: ‘This is a sin.’ But at the same time, it embraces the sinner who recognizes himself as such, it welcomes him, it speaks to him of the infinite mercy of God.”