Tag Archives: Sin

On Divine Judgement and the Coronavirus

Culture of Life, Suffering, , , , , ,

As punishment for their idolatrous worship of the Golden Calf, God sent a plague among the Israelites (c.f. Ex 32:30-35).  Serving as a bookend to this event, St. John tells us that the fourth rider of the Apocalypse brings with him plague “by means of the beasts of the earth” to punish mankind.  And between these two instances, Scripture is replete with many cases in which mankind suffers a plague in punishment for sin.  The point is that it is a common means that God uses in order to punish wayward mankind and, we ought not be surprised that in our age of decadence that we are once again witnessing the rise of a new plague.

At the outset it must be admitted that the notion that anything that happens is associated with Divine retribution is hardly ever discussed.  It is usually embarrassingly glossed over so that only those “fire and brimstone preachers” animated with a punitive view of God that speak of it.  Nevertheless true Christians must see it and call it what it is. 

Calling it what it is

It is helpful first to examine why we are so hesitant to call something like the Coronavirus a tool of Divine punishment.  This reticence is rooted in a grave misunderstanding of punishment in general and God’s punishment in particular.  For us, punishment is always viewed as an evil, a lack of some good that becomes a penal act inflicted on us when someone in authority is fed up.  For God punishment is only a relative evil deprivation of some good. 

For men, good comes in three forms—external goods, the good of the body and the good of the soul—that form a hierarchy in which a lesser good may be sacrificed for a higher good.  The evil of punishment then is always relative because it contains a medicinal value.  A man may give up his money (external good) in order to feed his body (a good of the body).  That same man may later fast and deprive himself of food so as to grow in virtue (a good of the soul).  Whenever God punishes then he will allow the deprivation of some lower good for the good of the soul.

Here again we bump into a profound conflict with the spirit of the world.  All of this only makes sense if you believe in the hierarchy of the manifold goods of man such that every punishment has a specific meaning.  It is never inflicted haphazardly or indiscriminately but always with some good in mind.  Justice and mercy are never separated.  The good includes not only a repayment of the debt to justice, but also contributes, when willingly accepted, to the healing of the person. 

For each sin not only offends God, but also warps our souls in some way by turning us away from what we were made to be.  Each time we sin, we do so by abusing some good, by taking pleasure in something the wrong way.  To fix the damage that is done, we have to submit to the deprivation of some pleasure that would result from the correct use of some good.  By accepting punishment as a means of repaying that stolen pleasure, it actually heals us as well.

In short if we do not call it what it is, then the only other option is to conclude that it is completely meaningless.  If plagues like the Coronavirus are not punishment then they are just accidental occurrences without any real meaning.  This ultimately makes life itself meaningless and thus suffering becomes an absolute, rather than a relative, evil.  By not calling it a punishment we are depriving the world of its meaning and it becomes in a very real sense useless suffering.

Admittedly we are also reluctant to call it a punishment because it feels like we are being judgmental.  And this is the unforgivable sin of our age.  But again it is Christ who judges the living and the dead that is being judgmental.  And His judgment is not definitive but instead a call to repentance and healing, a call to peace and joy.  His judgment is that “you are going to wrong way, turn around now because you are headed into an abyss.”  Or, using His own words, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mt 10:28).  If no one echoes that call, then many souls will be lost, including those whom He has called to speak His truth.

What It Means

We should be slow to say how the punishment applies to each individual man, but quick to point out how it applies to mankind as a whole.  It seems that the meaning of the Coronavirus as a punishment for all of mankind is relatively clear.  For Rome, the Coronavirus appears to be a Divine Judgment upon the sin of the idolatrous attachment to Pachamama.  They must receive their deprivation of the Eucharist and offer it in reparation for the sin of idolatry.  Setting that unique situation aside, the Coronavirus also offers an opportunity of reparation for our treatment of the most vulnerable among us.

The full effect of the virus is still unknown, but what is clear is that it is particularly deadly for the most vulnerable among us.  In this way, the Coronavirus is not much different than the sins of abortion and euthanasia which attack those same people.  It is because of the most vulnerable that all of the rest of us must now suffer.  This suffering may be as simple as remaining in isolation for a fortnight or as devastating as losing a fortune.  The point is that we are being made to make sacrifices in order to keep those same people we want to throw away safe.  All of us can accept those sufferings and offer them in reparation for those grave sins.

In a Twitter post a couple of days ago, Conservative pundit Ann Coulter said that Americans were being manipulated by stories of the deaths in Italy.  She made a point to say that the average age of the victims was 81.  In essence she was saying “you shouldn’t be scared because it is just a bunch of old people dying.”  Now most people wouldn’t so callously say that, but many people are thinking along the same lines.  We shouldn’t fear because it only attacks the vulnerable.  This survival of the fittest mentality is exactly why we need to Coronavirus right now—as an opportunity to make reparation for so savagely treating the very ones we should be protecting as mere useless beings.  Fear not the one who gives you the Coronavirus, but instead fear the one who can destroy both body and soul.

Confronting the Problem of Evil

Atheism, , , , , , ,

The Greek philosopher Epicurus may have been the first to articulate it, but he was most definitely not the last.  For the past 2400 years, believers have been haunted by his trilemma: “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.  Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”  Epicurus is putting forth the “Problem of Evil” which remains the most repeated argument against the existence of God.  Dressed in various forms, the conditions are always the same—the incompatibility of omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and the existence of evil.  Because of its longstanding quality, believers of every age, our own included, must be prepared to answer this challenge.

Navigating the gauntlet begins by defining our terms, the first of which is evil.  In our time there is a tendency to see evil as some positive force in the universe locked in a cosmic battle with good.  Viewed as something, it seems to have a power all its own.  But evil is no more of a thing than blindness is a thing.  It is not a something but a nothing.  Just as blindness is a lack of sight, evil is a lack of a good that should otherwise be there.  Both exist, but neither has any being of its own.  Instead it exists in the form of a deprivation.  In fact, blindness in the philosophical sense of the term is an evil; a lack of sight in a being that should otherwise see.  Evil only exists as a parasite to some good and has no existence of its own.

Whence cometh Evil?

This philosophical hair splitting is necessary because it addresses Epicurus’ question “whence cometh evil?” and demonstrates how God can be all good and there still be evil.  God, as Creator, gives being to all things.  He is, in an absolute sense, the cause of being.  God cannot create non-being, not because He isn’t omnipotent, but because “create non-being” is nonsense.  To create is to give being and to create something with no being is a contradiction.  God’s omnipotence does not suddenly make the intrinsically impossible, possible.  God could no more create evil than He can make a square with three sides, omnipotent or not.

If we are to take the world as it is, that is a material world with a multitude of creatures, we could see why a certain amount of evil might be logically necessary.  We call these evils physical evils or evils suffered.  These types of evils are not privations per se, even though they can be causes of privations.  They are simply incidences where two goods collide.  When the good of the lion’s preservation meets the good of the lamb’s, the lamb tends to get the short end of the stick.  Physical evils are always connected to a good directly.  The lion’s self-preservation is a good thing, even if the lamb’s demise is not. For God to remove such evils is not simply to make our world better, but to make an entirely different kind of world.  Whether that world would be better or not can be debated, but the presence of physical evil is no argument against God’s omnipotence or omnibenevolence because one could readily imagine that same God guiding all interactions such that they work out for the good of the whole.

Moral evils, that is, evils done by rational creatures, are by far the more difficult to explain.  There are no goods in conflict, only a failure to do what is good.  The moral agent deliberately introduces disorder into what should otherwise be good.  Exonerating God from responsibility for these evils is a bit more challenging. 

God is not just the Creator, but the sustainer of creation.  That means nothing happens without His somehow being a cause.  He is not only the cause of a man, but a cause of His free will activity.  Related to the topic at hand, God is not the cause of the man’s choice, only his power of choosing.  The man cannot choose without God, but what he chooses is up to him. 

Recall that God, through His omnipotence, can do anything that does not imply a logical contradiction.  God could have made a world in which a man might choose freely but always choose good because there is no contradiction.  But He did not.  Instead the world we inhabit allows for free choice that can include evil.  This is allowed because God’s will in creating is to create a world such that His goodness is most fully made manifest through the goods of His creatures.  One can readily see that there are a multitude of goods that would never be made known were it not for the ability to choose what is evil: courage, forgiveness, mercy, justice to name just a few.  If through the designs of divine Providence God wanted to make His creatures participate in these real goods, there must be some evil present; not just physical evil, but moral as well.  Eliminate all evil, and you drag goods with it.

Why the Argument Fails?

This is why the argument ultimately fails.  One may readily admit that there are a multitude of evils present in the world, but not without admitting that there are many cases in which goods that would not otherwise be created are made present.  So, the good trailing on evil is proof not of God’s non-existence or His weakness, but of His goodness and power.  As Aquinas puts it, “‘Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil.’ This is part of the infinite goodness of God, that He should allow evil to exist, and out of it produce good” (ST I, q.2, a.2, ad.2). 

Once we define evil for what it is metaphysically, that is a “no-thing”, we realize that it is only God Who is All-Good and All-Powerful that can create good ex nihilio.  The fact that good does come from evil shows that to be the work of God Himself.  So, the Problem of Evil, rather than leading us away from God, actually leads towards Him.   

The Keep Fit Sacrament

Sacraments, , , ,

What do you call the Sacrament by which we confess our sins to a priest and through the power given by Christ to the Church, he offers us absolution?  Very often, you can learn a lot about someone by the answer they give.  Someone who wants to emphasize the positive aspects of the Sacrament will call it “The Sacrament of Reconciliation.”  Those who go regularly tend to call it “The Sacrament of Confession.”  And then those who have more legalistic tendencies call it “The Sacrament of Penance.”  Yet the Church refers to the Sacrament using all three terms and she does so in order to highlight something very important about the effects of sin and the power of the Sacrament.

While sin is first and foremost a transgression against the law of God, its effects always lay in three dimensions.  First it alienates us from God and thus we need the Sacrament of Penance to correct this.  Second it separates us from our neighbor and therefore there is a need for Reconciliation to reunite with the community.  Finally, by sin we ultimately harm ourselves and therefore the need for Confession to accuse ourselves before our conscience.

Interestingly enough, it seems that in today’s climate the emphasis is on calling it Reconciliation even though we often fail to see how our sin hurts the Church.  We’ve all heard that there is no such thing as a private sin, but we do not really understand how this is so.  It might be easy to see how a mortal sin cuts you off from the Church, but what about just a tiny venial sin (if such a thing exists)?   Why is reconciliation necessary?

Looking at what we actually forfeit when we commit a venial sin makes it clearer.  Each time we fall, we deprive ourselves of sanctifying grace.  But this is not just about our own personal holiness.  As members of the Church, we have an obligation towards the other members of the Church to be as holy as possible.  Each grace that we forfeit is a grace that God intended for everyone to benefit from.  By not being as holy as we should be, we deprive others of the grace that we were to be channels of.  In fact not only do we have an obligation, but the other members of the Church have a right to demand we be as holy as we should be.  This is why petty jealousy has no room in the Church—the holier each other member is, the holier I will be.

This is what makes the image of the Church as the Body of Christ so instructive.  When an organ is not as healthy as it should be, then it hurts the whole body.  It even hurts the functioning of some of the other parts as well.  An organ that is healthy adds to the health of the other members.

To remain healthy, organs need continual nourishment.  This comes to the members of the Mystical Body through the Eucharist.  But nourishment is not enough to maintain optimal health.  Our organs also are prone to decay and need tonics in order to remain healthy.  So too the members of the Mystical Body need to regularly receive the tonic of frequent confession in order to remain healthy.  How can we receive this tonic fruitfully?

With this background in mind, Pope Pius XII in his encyclical on the Church, Mystici Corporis Christi, recommended to the faithful the practice of frequent confession.  Speaking specifically against those who said there is no benefit to the frequent Sacramental confession of venial sins he said “[T]o hasten daily progress along the road to virtue we wish the pious practice of frequent confession to be earnestly advocated. Not without inspiration of the Holy Spirit was this practice introduced into the Church…By it genuine self-knowledge is increased — Christian humility grows — bad habits are corrected — spiritual neglect and tepidity are countered — the conscience is purified — the will is strengthened — a salutary self-control is attained — and grace is increased in virtue of the sacrament itself” (Mystici Corporis Christi, 88).

To be clear, if you are conscious of having committed mortal sin (or even if you are questioning whether it is or not) then you should go to Confession immediately.  But what the Pope is advocating is frequent confession as a means to fight venial sins and climb the heights of sanctity quickly.

This obviously requires a paradigm shift.  Many of us (perhaps because of a bad experience or our own hang-ups) look upon Confession as a wholly bad thing, rather than a holy good thing.  We should see the Sacrament of Confession as a positive thing rather than as something to be dreaded.  All Sacraments are encounters with the Risen Christ and therefore we should not fear to encounter Him there.  There is necessarily some shame because sin is always shameful, but that shame is healthy.  It can also be offered to the Sacred Heart for the shame and humiliation of being scourged and crowned with thorns.  We also should experience some nervousness.  Who wouldn’t be nervous coming into the presence of the One Who is Goodness to accuse ourselves of failing in our own pursuit of goodness?  But both these quickly are washed away in the Blood that is poured over us during the words of absolution.

confessional

It is also worthwhile to highlight some of the benefits that Pius XII mentions.  So often we fall into the trap of thinking that the Sacrament is merely about accusing ourselves before God.  But that is truly a small part of it where frequent confession is concerned.  In fact for the Sacrament to be valid we need only confess a single venial sin for which we are sorry.  Instead the focus ought to be to stir up contrition.  Contrition is the sorrow of soul for sin committed and a firm purpose not to commit it again and grow in the virtue of penance.  By the sacrament our wills are strengthened and our purposes of amendment firmer.  This all comes from the grace of the Sacrament.

This is also why we should not grow discouraged when we continually have the same sins to confess.  Each time we confess it, it makes our contrition more perfect.  This is what makes Confession such a beautiful gift.  It is impossible for us not to commit sin in this life (Council of Trent) but it is possible for us to have perfect sorrow for those sins we do commit.  If it is true that “there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than the righteous man who is in no need of repentance” then we know that the God of Mercy takes great pleasure in bestowing the gift of contrition upon us.

It was mentioned that you need only confess a single venial sin (again assuming no mortal sin) in order for the Sacrament to be valid (meaning all our venial sins are absolved, confessed or not).  This leads to another important thing to consider in drawing the optimal fruit from the Sacrament as to what we should confess.  We should not come to the Sacrament with a laundry list of sins, but instead those faults that we are actively trying to conquer.  This is warfare 101.  Our enemies, the world, the devil and the flesh, will never be conquered if we fire scatter shot over their lines.  Instead, like every good soldier in battle, we should take a divide and conquer approach.  Once we have conquered the dominant vice and replaced it with its opposing virtue, we can then move on to the next one.  Included in the things we should confess as well are things that we are particularly sorry for and those things that we had previously conquered and have moved back into our lives.  Even the sins of our past life that have already been confessed but still hold some appeal to us can be material for confession.  Again, if one of the fruits is to stir up contrition then we can more fully express our sorrow for those sins.

This brings up one final point and that is the necessity for a methodical approach to our daily examination.  We should focus on one thing in particular and see how we did for the day.  Then we can look at the rest of our day.  Writing what we discover down in a small notebook will enable us to see our patterns more clearly and also give us the material to make a good confession next time we go.  Unless you have not been in a while or are making a general confession, we should avoid using Examination of Conscience material found in prayer books.  All too often this leads us to examine someone else’s conscience and not our own.  As Pius XII mentioned with the fruit of increased self-knowledge that comes from regular confession we will also be able to examine ourselves better.

In closing, let us all take advantage of this Keep Fit Sacrament and invoke the aid of St. Gemma Galgani for a good confession this weekend:

My crucified God, behold me at Your feet. Do not reject me, a poor sinner, as I appear before You. I have offended You much in the past, my Jesus, but in the future I resolve to sin no more. My God, I put all my sins before You.  I have considered them and realize they do not deserve Your pardon. But I beg of you to cast one glance upon Your sufferings and see how great is the worth of that Precious Blood that flows from your veins. My God, at this hour close Your eyes to my want of merit and open them to Your infinite merits. Since You, dear Jesus, have been pleased to die for my sins, grant me forgiveness for them all, that I may no longer feel their heavy burden, which presses me to the earth. My Jesus, help me, for I desire to become good, no matter what it may cost. Take away, destroy, root out completely all that You find in me that may be contrary to Your holy Will. At the same time I beg You, O Jesus, to enlighten me, that I may be able to walk in Your holy light.