Does Fear Exist?
I am a new subscriber and thoroughly enjoyed the October 2004 issue of This Rock from cover to cover. I would like to comment on James Kidd’s review of the book The Impossibility of God. In it, Kidd refutes David Blumenfeld’s assertions that God’s “omniscience and omnipotence are incompatible” and that an all-powerful being cannot logically know fear. Kidd argues that fear is a “privation of courage and . . . does not exist.”
I disagree with Kidd and submit that fear, far from being a privation of courage, exists and inspires courage. Paraphrasing an individual whose name I cannot recall, courage can be considered a willingness to act in the face of and despite fear. Webster’s Dictionary defines fear as an “awareness of danger” and as such, a recognition of our own mortality. Blumenfeld no doubt understood this definition as he may have wrestled with reconciling Webster’s words with God’s immortality. He attempted, though, to limit God to human finitude by asserting that “some things require direct experience in order to be known.”
Consider that Blumenfeld’s faulty reasoning stems from his lack of faith. While we, Blumenfeld included, may not be able to comprehend God’s simultaneous omniscience and omnipotence, in the absence of Blumenfeld’s company, we have faith that it is so.
Is it so impossible for us to understand that by reason alone we cannot understand some things? This logic may not help convert an atheist or even open his eyes in a specific instance, but that too is only a defense of the fact that we are not omnipotent.
Let us pray that the Holy Spirit will help Blumenfeld understand, and in the meantime we may be at peace with this issue until Augustine’s words are realized and the reward of our faith will be to see what we believe.
Lou Camardo
Iwakuni, Japan
James Kidd replies: I thank Mr. Camardo for his insightful comments, but they do deserve a response.
First, the ellipsis in his quotation of me is crucial: It omits “strictly speaking.” Strictly speaking, fear does not exist, since it is a privation of a good. But we normally do not say that there is no such thing as fear, because we live in a world in which actuality and potentiality are mixed. In the same way, we speak of blindness as an existing thing, even though it is not a thing in itself but the absence of something, namely, sight.
Second, dismissing Blumenfeld’s objection as due to a lack of faith tends dangerously toward fideism. Obviously, all atheists lack religious faith, but that in itself does not make their arguments invalid. (They’re invalid for other reasons, but that’s beside the point.) God’s nature is such that we cannot fully comprehend it in this life, but the apparent contradictions raised by atheists can be answered by our natural reason. So while I agree that we should pray that atheists turn to Christ, the “God of the gaps” fallacy is an easy way of sidestepping the issue.
Greeley’s Book a Waste of Time
We enjoy reading the magazine. Most of the time we try to read it cover to cover. Can’t believe you wasted your time on Andrew Greeley’s The Priestly Sins (Reviews, October 2004).
With all the good Christian books currently being written, why choose a book by Andrew Greeley? One book by someone like Greeley can do more damage to our Catholic Church than any ten books written by honest atheists.
Just as The Da Vinci Code was read by many unlearned Catholics and anti-Catholics who took what they read in it as money in the bank, now a priest writes this novel, and those same folks will have a grand old time with the “facts” they find in Fr. Greeley’s book.
Disappointed!
Patrick and Gloria Roberts
Chicago, Illinois
Don’t Change a Thing
In response to John Farr’s note (“Word from the Average Lay Catholic,” Letters, October 2004), I ask you not to change a thing. Your magazine is exactly what the average lay Catholic needs—intelligent, thought provoking articles that make one think and learn about the faith. Thank you for your magazine.
Steven Schultz
San Antonio, Texas
Hierarchy of Abdicators
I very much respect and admire Joanna Bogle, the author of the featured article in your September 2004 issue, “Pollyanna Wins.” Bogle and her husband provide an excellent educational series on EWTN, Catholicism: The Heartbeat of History. I thank God for them and their show. As for the Pollyanna article, Mrs. Bogle makes a good point: No matter how discouraged we become due to the modern erosion of the orthodox (i.e., true and correct) Catholic faith, we must pray on, strive to be good Catholics, assist the Church, keep the faith, and look for positive things to build on.
I would like to add one minor but important observation: Bogle’s one sentence “Being an optimist in today’s Church is being a realist” must have more emphasis. No wound can heal unless the source of the infection is sought out and cleansed. We sinners cannot grow closer to God unless we first rid ourselves of our sins not just by seeking forgiveness but by repentance—i.e., an honest effort to identify the proximate cause of our sinfulness and fix whatever is wrong.
In other words, we must not misconstrue Bogle’s article as a directive to “put on a happy face” and forget about identifying the causes of the failures that our Church is experiencing (be these failures in our local parishes or in Rome) and working to correct them.
Bogle’s intelligence and accurate historical perspective, in the secular and spiritual realms, allows her the insight to know that the post-Vatican II report card of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church contains many more failing grades than it does passing. Statistics alone show this: the decline in the priesthood, the erosion in the belief in the Real Presence, the increase in the belief in the heresy of universal salvation, the increase in the acceptance of cafeteria Catholicism. I am a mere “amateur” pessimist, yet I could go on and on. I’ll stop only so as not to fall victim to the despair warned against by Bogle’s article!
The bottom line is that the buck has to stop somewhere, and Christ placed that buck squarely on the desk of the bishops (and, in general, the priesthood). The post-Vatican II Catholic hierarchy, from pope to parish priest—although there are a few good ones (even great ones)—has for the most part failed to learn, embrace, teach, or perpetuate the truths of Catholicism.
Any false beliefs we hold, along with the sins and painful consequences that stem therefrom, are traceable directly or indirectly to these failures. Please note that I didn’t say that all sins stem therefrom. Some of our sins are completely our own fault. But the Church teaches that a person will have a better chance not to fall into sin if he at least knows/believes the truths of the Catholic faith rather than if he exists apart from them.
A certain percentage of us Catholics, if not all of us, must assume the difficult role of stepping up and identifying which of our Catholic priests and bishops are flunking. We must then work, in love and charity, to hold them accountable and precipitate a change. In a different time—in a better time—the Church hierarchy took care of this function. Today, sadly, in the “spirit of Vatican II,” the hierarchy has abdicated this function and it is left to the laity. I wish we all had the luxury of looking the other way and embracing the hakuna matata (that’s “no worries” in Lion King lingo) way of life.
There is a necessary role in today’s Catholic Church for the pessimist, and his unpopularity on earth may be his reward in heaven.
Bill Tschirhart, Jr.
Castroville, Texas
Fruit of the Holy Spirit
Thank you for publishing Joanna Bogle’s article “Pollyanna Wins” (September 2004), which points to a wonderful fruit of the Holy Spirit: joy. So often in this “vale of tears” do we find mournful events that distract faithful Catholics who live “in the world” from this much-needed virtue. Certainly, Bogle realizes this out when realistically examining what is “of the world.” Yet, there is just too much that is of Christ to maintain, as Bogle puts it, a gloom-and-doom attitude, an attitude completely foreign to an authentic Christian attitude. While Bogle makes a list of a few current events that we ought to be joyful about, I wish to add on to that list the Paschal Mystery, which we still (joyfully) participate in today.
Melanio Puzon, III
Stockton, California
Baptism Clarification
Regarding the question about infants who die before baptism (Quick Questions, September 2004), you leave yourself open to the interpretation that if parents are not practicing Catholics, the infant need not be baptized.
Ministers of the sacrament may not deny it to anyone but can postpone it for pastoral reasons. The faith of the parents can be a reason for postponing the sacrament, perhaps even indefinitely. But if there is danger of death, I believe that the minister would have to take into account the life expectancy of the infant and perhaps not postpone the ministry of the sacrament.
You state that the context of baptism is the Christian community in the person of the parents and the parish. This means, of course, the Church. Thus, for example, the baptism of a dying baby in a hospital by a nurse as the mother lies unconscious and the father is rushing to the hospital would not be the norm, but it still could be a true baptism and could be considered heroic.
You also state that the womb has never been the context for baptizing an infant. Perhaps a simpler answer would be that baptism involves the direct application of water.
I hope you understand that I am not criticizing your answer, but I hope that these comments would help in this particular case to “flesh out” the answer to a question that has, over time, had a direct impact on many people.
Fr. Joe Mróz, S.J.
Winnipeg, Canada
New Age Hijacks Legitimate Therapies
I find it very difficult to believe that there is a Church document that links such things as chiropractics, acupuncture, biofeedback, massage, nutritional therapies, and herbal medicine with “the New Age” (Quick Questions, September 2004). These are all respected methods of attaining and maintaining one’s health and have nothing to do with the New Age. This sounds like something that was either written at the beginning of the last century or, in our age, by the American Medical Association.
Georgia Montana
Stickney, Illinois
Editor’s reply: The document was referenced in the answer to the question. Again, it is called, Jesus Christ, The Bearer of Water and Life. It can be found at www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/interelg/documents/rc_pc_interelg_doc_20030203_new-age_en.html.
This quote comes from section 2.2.3:
“Advertising connected with New Age covers a wide range of practices as acupuncture, biofeedback, chiropractics, kinesiology, homeopathy, iridology, massage and various kinds of ‘bodywork’ (such as orgonomy, Feldenkrais, reflexology, Rolfing, polarity massage, therapeutic touch, etc.), meditation and visualization, nutritional therapies, psychic healing, various kinds of herbal medicine, healing by crystals, metals, music or colors, reincarnation therapies and, finally, twelve-step programs and self-help groups. The source of healing is said to be within ourselves, something we reach when we are in touch with our inner energy or cosmic energy.”
We qualified our answer by stating, “There is, of course, nothing wrong with a real therapeutic massage. Some people need massages as a way of relieving muscle tension and pain.” We could extend that to say, “There is, of course, nothing wrong with real therapeutic chiropractics, acupuncture, biofeedback, nutritional therapies, and herbal medicines.”
Problems emerge when a legitimate therapy that has a scientific explanation for its effectiveness is hijacked by New Agers who attribute the source of healing to some supernatural energy.