Tag Archives: Summa Contra Gentiles

A Healthy Sense of Sin?

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In a 1946 Radio Address, Pope Pius XII said that “perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin.”  There has been no great moral awakening since he uttered those words so that what was begun has found its completion in our age.  The widespread loss of a sense of sin has led to a great spiritual malaise in which any semblance of shame has been lost and sins are demanded as rights.  The soul of our culture is dead, which is not surprising because its natural soul, the members of the Church, have also lost their sense of sin.  Communion lines grow longer while Confession lines grow shorter and even public sinners are given Communion as a right. 

A Great Spiritual Awakening

Pope St. John Paul II thought that the only way to stimulate a Great Awakening was to restore this sense of sin:

“The restoration of a proper sense of sin is the first way of facing the grave spiritual crisis looming over man today. But the sense of sin can only be restored through a clear reminder of the unchangeable principles of reason and faith which the moral teaching of the church has always upheld.  There are good grounds for hoping that a healthy sense of sin will once again flourish, especially in the Christian world and in the Church. This will be aided by sound catechetics, illuminated by the biblical theology of the covenant, by an attentive listening and trustful openness to the magisterium of the church, which; never ceases to enlighten consciences, and by an ever more careful practice of the Sacrament of Penance.”  

Reconciliation and Penance, 18

The Holy Father was reminding the Church that one of her essential tasks in to preach the bad news of sin.  In fact, the Church has no mission if there is no sin, or at least if there is no sin to be forgiven. Just as the Father sent the Son into the world for the forgiveness of sins, so the Son sends the Apostles and their successors (c.f. John 20:21-23).  To omit the reality of sin from the Gospel renders the Good News utterly senseless. 

The Pontiff did not just say that a sense of sin was necessary, but a healthy sense of sin.  Sin and guilt, at least according to spirit of the world, are things to be explained away because it is unhealthy.  That we can develop a healthy sense of sin is itself Good News because it frees us from not only rationalization but also scrupulosity.  Both of these ensnare us because they leave us closed to the reality of God’s mercy.  What then would a healthy sense of sin consist in?

Elements of a Healthy Sense of Sin

We must first see sin for what it really is.  First and foremost it is an offense against God, but not God as Divine Rulemaker, but God as Father.  In fact, JPII says that all sin is ultimately a rejection of God’s fatherhood.  God gave to us the gift of freedom, but not so that we choose whatever we want, but so that we can choose Him.  He is at every moment providing (e.g. Providence) the means for us to do that.  We only need to orient our freedom towards this reality.  Sin then is disorientation, setting our eyes off in the wrong direction and away from God.  And this is why one of St. Thomas’ thought that “God is offended by us only because we act contrary to our own good” (SCG, 3.122).

A healthy sense of sin then begins by orienting our freedom with acts that are truly good.  When we see sin as ultimately harmful to us and enslaving us, we lose the desire to rationalize and self-forgive.  Now we desire to flush our sin and move forward in freedom.

But it also consists in seeing sin through the lens of God’s Providence.  God only permits our sin if He can turn it to our good.  The obvious example is the “happy fault’ of Adam that won for us the Redeemer.  But this principle applies to each and every sin that we commit.  Ultimately, we are permitted to commit certain sins and not others because those certain sins ultimately can be oriented by God towards our sanctification.

This sense of sin is unfathomable unless we drop the God strictly as Rulemaker paradigm.  He is not sitting in Heaven with His Divine Gotcha Button waiting for us to mess up.  From all eternity He plotted how He was to redeem me and you and that would include using those sins we commit as a means to that sanctification.  This is not to trivialize our sin, but to see them from God’s perspective.  We are permitted to commit certain actual sins because those are the sins that, when repented of, will draw down upon us the grace of a true and deeper conversion.  So that when we sin, the grace of repentance follows right behind it, causing us to run back harder and faster than when we fell.  This healthy sense of sin then takes the focus off of our actions and shines it upon Divine Mercy.  In other words, a healthy sense of sin sees all personal sin as a means that Providence uses to glorify God’s Mercy and save our souls.  Only a healthy sense of sin rooted in this reality protects us from falling into scrupulosity.    

The Art of Apologizing

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The Early Church was well practiced in the art of apologizing, not because they were sorry for their beliefs, but because they were sorry that everyone else had not come to accept the truth.  The most famous of apologies came from the pen of St. Justin Martyr, a philosopher saint, who wrote two famous defenses of the Catholic faith to the Roman Emperors.  Ever since then, the field of apologetics has proven invaluable to the spreading of the Faith.  With the re-emergence of Paganism and the stark division within Christianity between Catholics and Protestants, the need is especially acute in our time.   But in order for it to be effective, there is a need to properly understand how it should be applied.

The battle between the Sexual Revolution and the Church has dealt a blow that, if not for Divine protection, would have been fatal for the Church.  The attack came from both without and within, but was successful mainly because the Church lost the battle of public opinion.  In other words, it was a failure of apologetics.  This failure came about not because of silence, at least initially, but because she was speaking another language. 

Using the Arms of the Adversary

As an example, take the battle over gay marriage.  The best public defense that many Christians could offer was based on the Bible.  It failed miserably, not because it wasn’t true, but because it wasn’t believable.  Even the Church says things like “the Church teaches…” rather than “it is true because …”  These arguments from authority, even if they are true, are the weakest of all arguments.  That is because they only work when the two parties accept the same authority.  Contrast this approach with that of St. Justin Martyr.  In his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, he limited his discussion only to non-disputed books of what would become the Old Testament.  Most Jews did not accept certain books that the Christians did and, so, St. Justin did not use those books in his argument. 

The awareness that successful apologetics rests upon shared authority prompted St. Thomas in the first question of the Summa Theologiae to formulate a rule of discourse:

Hence Sacred Scripture, since it has no science above itself, can dispute with one who denies its principles only if the opponent admits some at least of the truths obtained through divine revelation; thus we can argue with heretics from texts in Holy Writ, and against those who deny one article of faith, we can argue from another. If our opponent believes nothing of divine revelation, there is no longer any means of proving the articles of faith by reasoning, but only of answering his objections — if he has any — against faith. Since faith rests upon infallible truth, and since the contrary of a truth can never be demonstrated, it is clear that the arguments brought against faith cannot be demonstrations, but are difficulties that can be answered.

(ST I, q.1 art.8)

For non-Catholic Christians, we can use Sacred Scripture, but only the books they accept.  Likewise, because of the unity of the Faith, we can argue from one accepted article of faith to another.  But for those who do not accept divine revelation, we cannot simply use the Bible as many are apt to do.  Instead we must limit ourselves to using either reason alone to either answer their arguments or to prove those truths which, although revealed, are also discoverable through human reason (like God’s existence and attributes and most of the moral law). 

From Common Authority

It is important to also emphasize that just because we limit ourselves to the arms of the adversary does not mean that the Bible is not true nor that we don’t believe it.  Instead it is an admission that the person we are dialoguing with does not accept the same authority structure that we do.  To obstinately cling to using that authority is to fail in the goal of leading the person to the truth.  In fact, by arguing from their accepted authority you can often lend credibility to the truth of Divine revelation by showing how it leads to the same conclusion.  Truth cannot contradict truth and so we should not be surprised that when we argue from true premises we often come to the same conclusion.

What also cannot be forgotten, although it often is, is the fact that faith in divine revelation is a gift that cannot be obtained via argument or discussion.  The best that can be hoped for is to lend motives of credibility for the truth, that is, to remove the impediments that keep them from receiving that gift. 

If reason cannot demonstrate faith and truth cannot contradict truth then there is a flip side as well.  Any proof that claims to disprove the Faith is a mere sophistry.  There is at least one error in the logic of the argument.  We may not be able to prove the truth of the Faith, but because the truth cannot be divided, we can answer every objection using reason alone.  This principle is what motivated St. Thomas to write the Summa Contra Gentiles.

This principle is well-known by the spirit of the world.  That is why Nietzsche said that one should not attack Christianity based on its truth, but based on it livability.  A moment’s reflection leads one to see that this is the way in which the Faith is most often attacked today.  This is why we must be prepared to demonstrate its livability by our actions as well as through our words.  In a culture obsessed with license masquerading as freedom, we must be prepared to show what true freedom looks like.  True apologetics, then, will include both argument and demonstration, appealing to both intellect and will. 

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Motives of Credibility

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If it is possible to describe a book that has survived for nearly eight centuries as a “hidden gem” then St. Thomas’ other Summa, the Summa Contra Gentiles, qualifies.  As the name suggests, St. Thomas wrote it as a response to the re-emergence of non-Christian philosophy and the rise of Islam.  It is by far his greatest work of apologetics for the Christian faith and in that regard,  it remains a preeminent work and an untapped resource for the Church.  In the first book, he sets out to show both the existence and nature of the Christian God.  In his usual thorough-going manner, he begins by showing how reasonable belief in the Christian God actually is.

Catholics, even down to our own day, are often accused of fideism.  Fideism is the view that religious beliefs are settled only by faith and unsupported by reason.  To be clear, faith deals with claims that transcend human reason.  But they must still be grasped by human reason without doing violence to the human mind and way of thinking.  They cannot be “proven” in the scientific sense, but this does not mean there are no objective reasons why we should believe them to be true.  In an important early question, St. Thomas declares “that to give assent to the truths of Faith is not foolishness even though they are above reason”.

Objective vs Subjective Reasons

St. Thomas uncovers the objective motivations for belief, that is, why someone should believe, and not so much why an individual does believe.  This distinction is rather important because Christianity is often attacked on the basis of subjective motivations for belief.  Whether it is Freud’s father longing or Marx’s opium of the masses, St. Thomas has little interest in uncovering why someone believes (as an aside, you will be hard pressed to find another author, who is as prolific as St. Thomas, that uses personal pronouns less).  Instead he gives four motives for belief in the truth of Christianity.

First, he speaks of the witness of miracles.  Whenever God has spoken those truths that “exceed natural knowledge, He gives visible manifestation to works that surpass the ability of all nature.”  St. Thomas is simply repeating the Johannine principle that miracles should be seen as signs.  Our Lord and the Apostles would preach a message, and to confirm that message came from God, they manifested a physical sign in the form of some miracle.  Public miracles were a regular occurrence in the Early Church because of the need for their strong testimonial power.  In our age, St. Thomas says, miracles are not as necessary and so therefore are not as commonplace.  Nevertheless, “God does not cease to work miracles through His saints for the confirmation of the faith.”  Think of when the Church was an infant in the New World, and how the miracle of Our Lady of Guadalupe resulted in the conversion of 10 million people in less than a decade.  Or think of the Miracle of the Sun and the promise of protection to Portugal.  Or even the Shroud of Turin, the Eucharistic Miracles or the incorruptibility of some of the saints.  All of these defy scientific explanation (and not from a lack of trying) and yet serve as great signs of the truth of the Catholic faith. 

The second motive of credibility as the Catechism calls them (CCC 156) is the mass conversion to Christianity.  In order to be intellectually honest, you must wrestle with the question of how, despite unbelievably humble beginnings, Christianity spread to such epic proportions.  To chalk it up to good fortune is not only too hasty of a dismissal, but also unhistorical for four reasons.  First, it grew “in the midst of the tyranny of persecutions.”  Christianity was illegal for most of its first two and a half centuries.  Why would anyone sign up for it, unless it were true?  Better yet, why would everyone sign up for it?  Conversions came not just from Jews or slaves, but even from the upper classes—“both the simple and most learned, flocked to the Christian faith” St. Thomas says. 

Human nature being what it is, there is a tendency to spurn truths that surpass the human intellect.  That St. Thomas makes a defense of revelation shows just how true this is.  Men are very quick to dismiss those things that they cannot grasp.  Not only that, but Christianity teaches that “the pleasures of the flesh should be curbed” and “the things of the word should be spurned.”  This is, according to St. Thomas, “the greatest of miracles.” 

In an “enlightened” age such as ours, one dominated by the hubris of chronological snobbery, this is most certainly underappreciated.  There was no worldly advantage whatsoever to accepting the truths of the Faith.  Many men and women gave up everything in order to live as Christians.  Perhaps a few would be gullible enough to believe these things, but the Church grew 40% per decade for its first 300 years.  We must take seriously the “democracy of the dead” and not think ourselves wiser than the men upon whose shoulders we stand.

The Miracle of the Church

St. Thomas says that the third motive of credibility is related to the first and the fact the need for miracles in our age has been diminished.  It has been diminished because the greatest miracle (next to the Resurrection) is the Church herself.  One must wrestle with the historical fact of the enduring presence of the Church.  Or, as St. Thomas says, it is not necessary that the miracles “be further repeated, since they appear most clearly in their effect,” namely the presence of the Church.  Lawrence Feingold makes an argument in the form of a dilemma that further illuminates this point.  He says that either the Church spread by miracles, in which case God has confirmed her mission, or it spread without miracles.  Even if the latter is true, it would be no less miraculous to have lasted 2000 years.  Anyone who immerses themselves in Church history and is unafraid to confront the messy human elements, must quickly conclude that the Church as a merely human institution should have failed long ago.  I fear that our own time may, in hindsight, feed this motive of credibility.

The “longevity” argument is often countered by the example of Islam.  St. Thomas, mostly by way of anticipation, shows how it is precisely in lacking the motives of credibility, that Islam is shown to be a false religion.  Muhammad, St. Thomas says “did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to divine inspiration.”  Secondly, it was spread not by the force of truth, but by the sword.  This is not to whitewash Christian history and say that there weren’t any forced conversions, but that it spread despite being at the wrong end of the sword.  Islam (again even if there are individual Muslims who sincerely choose Islam) has always spread mainly by force which are “signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants.”  Finally, Muhammad lacks the final motive of credibility, prophecy—”Nor do divine pronouncements on the part of preceding prophets offer him any witness.”

The growth of the Church was prophesied both in the New Testament (c.f. Mt 13, 16) and Old Testament (c.f. Dan 2).  But most striking is the fact that the Old Testament, a collection of books written over the course of hundreds of years, predicted the coming of Christ.  This, if we are to be intellectually honest, cannot be easily dismissed.  His arrival was even predicted within a very specific window of time (c.f. Daniel 9).

In closing, we would be remiss if we did not make an important distinction.  These motives of credibility are reasons why we should believe in Christian revelation.  They clear the way for the infusion of divine Faith, by which we assent to everything God has revealed.  Like all of God’s gifts, there is always give and take.  He gives, but we must take, and we take not by grasping but by removing the impediments we have erected to the reception of the gift.  The motives of credibility help to remove those impediments.