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L e t t e r s
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This Rock
Volume 11, Number 2
 February 2000 
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Editor’s note:
We received a flood of letters and e-mail in response to Robert Sungenis’s letter to the editor, "Thomas Aquinas, Computer Nerd?" (November/December 1999), which itself was a response to an excerpt on human happiness from Summa Contra Gentiles ("Classic Apologetics," October 1999). Since Thomistic philosophy is not an art practiced with a minimum of words, all letters had to be edited significantly. They still make, I hope, their particular points. But any unevenness in tone or thoroughness is likely due to the editing rather than the writing.
Like Blaming Marriage For High Divorce Rate
From reading Mr. Sungenis’ letter, one thinks that perhaps his exposure to Thomas Aquinas is limited to two pages reprinted in This Rock. Giving Thomas a share in the blame for sexual aberrations is a bit like blaming marriage for a high divorce rate. This is misdirected on two counts: Thomas’s teaching and his life.
First, in Summa Theologica, (Supp. q. 49, a. 2), it is clear that Thomas believes that sex is more than a mere biological function. He says that sex is a means to an end but sexual aberrations are caused by treating sex as an end in itself. Thomas teaches that the marital act is directed to three goods: offspring, faith, and the sacrament. He does not maintain that the begetting of children is the sole purpose of sex. Yet even if this were so, it does not mean that Thomas removes love, joy, emotion, or pleasure from sex or the raising of children (see, ST, I-II, q. 34.) Since the aforementioned aberrations interfere with one or more of these goods, they are condemned.
Second, Thomas’ own embracing of chastity for the sake of the Kingdom, as Mr. Sungenis should know, is an affirmation of the goodness of sex, since one takes a public vow to forgo only what is truly good.
From reading Aquinas the phenomenologist will learn that the will and the reason are two different natural appetites in man; that the will is inclined to choose the good and this does not compromise its freedom nor does it make the will calculating or mechanistic; that nature is ordered to an end and from this is revealed the Natural Law; that nature and grace are different; that premises differ from conclusions; and that means are not ends.
Nick Cammarota
Carmichael, California
Grace, Sexuality, And Happiness Intertwined
Robert Sungenis’s assertions stem from a simplistic and inaccurate understanding of Aquinas. Sungenis correctly states that Thomas does not identify human happiness as such with certain "animal" pleasures as those associated with food, drink, and sex, or with such emotions as joy or love. However, it does not follow that such experiences are to be set aside as needless distractions when seeking the true end of human life.
For Aquinas, the opposite is true. The largest treatise in the entire Summa Theologica is that on the human emotions (ST I–II, qq. 22–48). Thomas insists that "virtue cannot exist without the emotions" (ST I-II, q. 59, a. 5). In other words, the virtues require the lower animal drives for their very exercise: without fear, one can perform no courage; without the pleasures afforded by sex, there can be no practice of chastity; et cetera. Thomas even goes so far as to hold that sensual desires participate actively in the practice of virtue, and that the emotions may increase the goodness of our actions (ST I-II, q. 24, aa. 3–4 ; and q. 56, a. 4).
Sungenis’s comments also do injustice the fact that Thomas recognizes that the human being is composed of an inseparable union between body and soul, whereby no bodily experience leaves the soul untouched, nor vice versa. "Since human nature is a composite of body and soul and of intellectual and animal parts, it pertains to man’s good that the whole of human nature should be involved in the practice of virtue, i.e., that virtue should include the intellectual part, the affective part, and the body" (De malo, q. 12, a. 1). Thomas’s inclusion of "the body," which envelops sexuality, in the work of virtue suffices to respond to the charge that Aquinas looks upon sexuality as a "mere biological function."
The following passage from the Summa indicates that there is a great deal more to the thought of Aquinas on human sexuality than what might at first sight appear as nothing more than biological functionality: "[in the state of original innocence that Adam and Eve enjoyed] the sensual pleasure [resulting from sexual intercourse] was greater in proportion to the greater purity of nature and the greater sensitivity of the body that they owned" (ST I, q. 98, a. 2 ad 3). This statement is incomprehensible if Thomas does not see the life of grace, human sexuality, and the pursuit of genuine human happiness as inherently intertwined.
Paul Gondreau
Providence College Department of Theology
Providence, Rhode Island
Distorted View Of Thomistic Philisophy
How ironic that in the same issue Robert Sungenis criticizes Aquinas for his insistence on procreation being the primary end of sex, "The Fathers Know Best" section details the many Fathers of the Church who make it clear that this is the primary purpose of marriage, along with mutual support and the remedium concupiscientiae.
It is the teaching of the Church that procreation is the primary end of marriage. After all, when you think of the glory and the beauty of an act—yes, like the animals in some ways—but that leads to the creation, God willing, of a new and immortal human being, is this not a testimony to the true greatness of the act? This is far more wonderful than the passing pleasures of the sexual climax.
As for Thomas’ treatment of emotions and passions, where does Mr. Sungenis come up with the idea that Thomas thought of such things as "merely products of the human gene pool"? Mr. Sungenis shows a distorted view of the very basis of Thomistic philosophy, that the soul and body are so totally one that we are incomplete, even in heaven, until the resurrection. For the head of an apologetics organization such as Mr. Sungenis to accuse Thomas of being anything but a defender of the unity and dignity of the human person is an insult to the saint and does a great disservice to the Church, which relies so heavily on his teachings.
This is an all too common problem: People read one section of Thomas and take things he says out of context. Thomas is actually the defender of the common man. If we followed more closely his whole theology, we would not be subject to the problems Mr. Sungenis traces back to the Common Doctor.
Rev. Lawrence M. Violette
Our Lady of Angels Catholic Church
Woodbridge, Virginia
Phenomenologists Too Quickly Dismiss Thomas
Rather than asserting that there is a "growing realization" in Catholic phenomenological philosophy that Thomas Aquinas’s treatise on human happiness is a little off the mark ("Letters," November/December 1999), Robert Sungenis should say rather that this is a growing "belief" among proponents of Catholic phenomenology. The magisterium of the Church has proposed the teaching of Thomas as the philosophical foundation for Catholic doctrine. The Church has not yet done this for phenomenology.
It should be clear on reflection that happiness is a state of mind, not a state of physical pleasure. We share the latter with brute animals. For the martyrs, rejoicing in the imminent sacrifice of their lives, happiness clearly consisted in their contemplation of the Truth, as Thomas insists.
It has been said that Aquinas teaches more truth in those matters in which his conclusions are mistaken than virtually any other teacher whose conclusions are correct. This is not an idle statement. In my experience, leading Catholic phenomenologists too quickly dismiss Thomas on the basis of their misunderstandings of his teaching. They have learned not to respect his philosophy, despite Church teaching that he is the preeminent philosopher, and therefore do not take the time and effort to follow his arguments.
E. William Sockey, III
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Don’t Confuse Happiness With Pleasure
Mr. Sungenis goes a little far when he claims that Thomas incorrectly defines happiness; that he misunderstands the goodness of sex and the table, and that he is the indirect cause of the widespread sexual problems in this and previous generations.
Speaking generally, Thomas would say that man is happy when he does what he is made to do. God made man to be united with him in heaven. Thus union with God produces ultimate happiness. True union with God, or the Beatific Vision, is the contemplation of God. Man’s ultimate happiness, therefore, consists solely in the contemplation of God, and this is an activity of the intellect. Thus ultimate happiness is contemplation, and a particular kind of contemplation.
Many people—and Mr. Sungenis seems to be among them—think this is a poor account of man’s happiness because they confuse ultimate happiness with the so-called happiness of this life, which is really pleasure. Thus they think that happiness is an emotion or some sort of state of being; but ultimate happiness, as the previous definition indicates, is an activity. It should not be confused with feelings, like the tingly sensation on the back of the neck that comes from doing a good deed, or the general feeling of satisfaction brought about by eating fresh, home-baked apple pie.
It is easy to confuse happiness and pleasure, especially since they are closely related. In fact, happiness is always accompanied by pleasure. Pleasure, however, is not always accompanied by happiness. Those who indulge in the pleasures of sex and the table to excess soon become unhappy, even in this life.
St. Thomas was aware of the lure of pleasures—that is one of the reasons why he wrote so extensively about them. They contain an.aspect of goodness, and their draw is so powerful that many people mistake the creature for the Creator (Wis. 13:1–9). Is Thomas a thirteenth-century Puritan? Hardly. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reiterates his teaching: "True happiness is not found in riches or . . . in any creature, but in God alone, the source of every good and of all love" (CCC 1723).
Finally, would an adequate philosophy of sex solve the widespread perversion and corruption today? It might help, but in the example of his life Thomas left us something even more valuable than any philosophical treatise. He showed us how to live so that we do not need a philosophy of sex. One who is centered on the Lord has a real prayer life, and a profound love for Christ in the Eucharist needs no written works. When God asks such a man what he desires, he will be able to respond as Thomas did: "Only you, Lord."
Br. Michael Hurley
Br. John Mellein
Saint Albert’s Priory
Oakland, California
Pure Demagoguery
As a practicing Catholic scientist, I take the strongest exception to your incomplete account of our Church’s stand regarding Galileo Galilei ("Twisting the Knife," November/December 1999). The omissions are so obvious that the self-fulfilling intent of the writer can hardly be doubted. Nowhere is it mentioned that Galileo was subjected to the Inquisition, which was certainly one of the darkest chapters of Una Sancta Catholica. Most irritating is the complete omission of the recent papal inquiry into the matter. I quote from the World Book CD Encyclopedia:
"In 1979, Pope John Paul II declared that the Roman Catholic Church may have been mistaken in condemning Galileo. He instructed a church commission to study Galileo’s case. In 1983, the commission concluded that Galileo should not have been condemned. In 1984, at the commission’s recommendation, the church published all documents related to Galileo’s trial. In 1992, Pope John Paul II publicly endorsed the commission’s finding that the church had made a mistake in condemning Galileo."
Omitting this conclusion of the Galileo case is not only bad journalism, it is pure demagoguery. Your readers deserve an honest addendum.
Arno Laesecke
Lousiville, Colorado
Editor’s reply: The purpose of the article was not to argue in favor of the Church’s condemnation of Galileo but to show that, however unjust the condemnation may have been, the astronomer brought it on himself by his proud and uncharitable actions. For a refutation of that argument, see the following letter.
The Key Is In The Book Of Joshua
From Wil Milan’s article "Twisting the Knife" (November/December 1999), one may be led to conclude that Pope Urban VIII excommunicated Galileo because Galileo incurred the wrath of the Church by ridiculing the Pope in his Dialogue. Unfortunately, this overlooks the crux of the matter.
The Congregation of the Holy Office condemned Galileo in 1616, under Pope Paul V, and again in 1633 under Pope Urban VIII. Contrary to modern belief, the excommunication was unrelated to Galileo’s theory that the earth moved around the sun, a discovery made in 1543 by a Catholic priest from Poland named Copernicus. Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa held this same view, and neither he nor Fr. Copernicus encountered any opposition from the Holy See. The Holy See does not comment on theories of science unless they are presented as scientific truths that contradict revealed truth, in which case these scientific theories become theological pronouncements.
Mr. Milan writes, "After careful study of the matter and of Galileo’s evidence, Cardinal [Robert] Bellarmine . . . concluded that Galileo did not contradict Scripture." This assertion must be qualified by the following passage from letter the Cardinal wrote to a Mr. Foscarini, a close friend of Galileo: "There would be no objection on the part of the Congregation to putting forward the system of Copernicus as the best explanation of the celestial phenomena provided no reference was made to the apparent conflict with the Bible" (emphasis added).
The Congregation took issue not with the movement of the celestial bodies around the sun but with Galileo’s statement that the sun did not move. Why is that? The key is in the book of Joshua: "Then spoke Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the men of Israel; and he said in the sight of Israel, ‘Sun, stand thou still at Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Ajalon.’ And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the book of Jashar? The sun stayed in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day" (Josh. 10:12–14, emphasis added).
If the sun does not move, as Galileo affirmed, how could the Lord have commanded it to stand still? The Church had not made an infallible pronouncement on the proper interpretation of these verses. Galileo, on the other hand, was making one: The sun does not move, meaning either Scripture is in error or the Church has to infallibly declare that the meaning of these verses is not literal.
The Church, to protect the faithful and to call Galileo to repentance, issued her condemnation. Pope John Paul II has removed the bull of excommunication against Galileo in part because the astronomer’s teaching no longer constitutes a danger to the faithful (just as Paul’s stern warning against circumcision in Galatians 5:2–4 was binding for his time but is not binding today).
The irony is that, factually, the seventeenth-century Church was on the side of science, which has shown that the sun does move and is not fixed, as Galileo would have had it.
Naji Mouawad
San Marcos, California
Innumerable Criticisms
I am always discouraged when I find egregious grammatical errors in a publication that I respect and admire. The November/December issue of This Rock arrived yesterday and, as usual, I am reading it nearly cover to cover.
You have outdone yourself on page seven, where in one sentence we read, "Due to the amount of numerals in a phone number . . ." Surely you meant to write "because of"—there is nothing "due" here at all. And the use of "amount" in this context is erroneous. There is a real difference in the proper use of "amount" (an innumerable quantity) and "number" (a quantity that is countable). Your sentence should grammatically read, "Because of the number of numerals in a phone number."
But I must admit, if all I can find wrong with This Rock is grammatical imprecision, you’re really doing a great job.
Fr. Joseph P. Browne, CSC
Portland, Oregon
Editor’s reply: Thanks for the final, kind words, Father. But in the Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary on my desk, the second definition of the phrase "due to" is "because of." Your criticism of the use of the word "amount" is more on the mark, though not for the reason you give. "Amount" refers to something that can’t be quantified in numbers, such as the amount of flour in a recipe (you might say "two cups of flour" but not "two flours"). But if this is what you mean by "innumerable" (which, again according to Webster’s, means "too numerous to be counted; very many; countless"), then perhaps we can agree on one thing: The English language is a tricky but delightful business.
It Does Not Seem Right
As a This Rock subscriber of well over ten years, I looked forward this morning to finally opening my latest issue when I happened to notice it was the "November/December" issue. This is the first time I remember this.
In fact, I looked at the masthead within this very issue, and sure enough, only the July/August issue is listed as a combined one, just as I had remembered.
It does not seem, well, right to suddenly and unilaterally decide to combine issues, and pretend that it is really two. As well, Mr. Keating makes no mention of it in his "Up Front" column.
Can you please explain what is going on? Will you also as a result extend my subscription by one real issue?
Editor’s reply: The mistake you found in the masthead was corrected in the January issue. In a shaded box on page nine of your November/December issue there was an explanation of the change to ten issues a year. After more consideration and feedback from our readers, we have altered our plan a little: In 2000, our combined issues will be May/June and July/August (rather than May/June and November/December). This gives the frequency of the magazine more continuity in the months of the year other than the summer, when many readers are busy anyway with vacation activities. Of course, we should have mentioned that all current yearly subscriptions will be extended an extra issue.
Faithful Are The Wounds Of A Friend
Let me pose a hypothetical situation. Suppose you were to run across a magazine that evidently had as its primary mission the defense of Evangelical Protestantism against Catholicism. (We’ll call it Solid Rock.) At least one article was devoted to debunking Catholicism, and critical remarks about Catholicism were sprinkled throughout its pages. In fact, usually there was an article from a former Catholic explaining why he had left the Catholic Church to embrace an Evangelical Protestant faith.
Now, suppose that in Solid Rock Catholics were routinely referred to as "papists" or "Romanists," rather than with their own preferred term "Catholics." And suppose, instead of quoting from official Catholic sources or from respected Catholic theologians, Solid Rock offered primarily anecdotal evidence from private conversations and similar sources to document what Catholics believed. Furthermore, the opinions attributed to Catholics were typically as extreme and reactionary as possible, with the arguments they offered easily shot down. What would you think of such a magazine?
I am afraid, my brothers, that this is essentially what I find This Rock to be in reverse (cf. Matt. 7:12). All Evangelical Protestants are usually lumped together under the pejorative term "Fundamentalists." Rare is the reference to the Protestant confessions, the Reformers, or recognized Evangelical Protestant theologians. Instead you often attribute doctrines or arguments to Fundamentalists without any documentation, or you offer anecdotal evidence, often from ex-Protestants who have converted to the Catholic Church, as to what "Fundamentalists" believe and why. Often I find that neither I nor the Evangelical Protestant heritage as a whole is accurately represented in the description.
Since extreme, superficial forms of Fundamentalism do exist, I do not deny that in many cases the ideas you are criticizing exist and deserve criticism. But if you were even-handed in your polemic, you would have to admit that most Evangelical theologians and biblical scholars also opposed those ideas.
Remember: Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Meditate on those words, because they have a double-edged meaning.
Robert M. Bowman, Jr.
Hoover, AL
Editor’s reply: We carry a significant number of articles rebutting certain Protestant ideas, but we are much broader than that. We also carry articles dealing with New Agers, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, atheists, and what have you. We even run articles dealing with problems within the Catholic fold.
We want to defend the faith from all attacks, regardless of the source. If, in this country, the largest share of those attacks come from Protestants, then Protestantism will receive the largest amount of our attention. That doesn't mean we're "devoted to debunking" any particular faith. We're devoted to defending one faith--the Catholic one. If you can get Protestants to stop attacking Catholicism disproportionately compared to other groups, our attention will be less focused on Protestantism.
On the subject names, we make an effort to call each group by its preferred term. There are people who prefer to be called "Fundamentalists," and when we use this term we mean it to refer to those people. We do not mean Evangelical Protestants or Main-Line Protestants or liberal Protestants. When we refer to those groups, we call them by their preferred terms.
It so happens that those Protestants who call themselves "Fundamentalist" are the most militantly anti-Catholic, so we tend to talk about them most. Main-Line and liberal Protestants attack Catholicism less, so we talk about them less.
Please don't think that we're implying something by our terms that we're not. We use them very precisely.
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