The Baby Jesus and Modernity

The implicit goal of all modernity’s struggles for freedom is to be at last like a god who depends on nothing and no none, and whose own freedom is not restricted by that of another. Once we glimpse this hidden theological core of the radical will to freedom, we can also discern the fundamental error which still spreads its influence wherever such radical conclusions are not directly willed or are even rejected.

“Truth and Freedom,” Communio 23 (Spring, 1996), 28

Reflection – We had a major blizzard here last night, along with (apparently) a significant swath of North America, which of course knocked power out and generally wrought chaos of various winter-themed varieties. In consequence, this post will be a bit on the short side—we are all a bit boulversé at the moment.

Here, though, we see another Christmas-themed reflection from Ratzinger. Eh? What’s that, you say? You don’t quite get the connection with this abstract philosophical statement about freedom and modernity and the baby Jesus? Haven’t you been paying attention here?

The whole thing is our human idea, not just modern, but human, that freedom means being unbound by any restriction, unfettered, uncontrolled, unconstrained whatsoever. This is our great grand idea of what it means to be free.

We don’t know what we’re talking about. God shows us what true freedom is, and he shows us that by being bound in swaddling bands, being carried around by Mary like a package (a beloved, cherished package, but still!), being nailed to a cross and immobilized, lying dead in the tomb, and even now in his risen ascended flesh handing himself to us in the Sacred Host, placing himself at our disposal.

Not a lot of ‘unfetteredness’ there, eh? Fetters as far as the eye can see. And this is God, and this is the perfect man.

Freedom means being unfettered in one thing and one thing only, and that is the unbound freedom to love and to pour oneself out in a constant gift of love, in truth and in justice. Every other freedom—all the freedoms we rightly cherish and wish to preserve as members of a free society—are only fully good, only fully realized if they are at the service of love and of truth.

This, by the way, is why we are such dire straits in our society today. Some value our ‘freedoms’ more, some less, but few indeed understand that true freedom and true human life only is secured by the gift of love and a passion for justice which is truth. Because there is precious little of this happening in the modern world, society is falling apart, and this is why there is so much violence, killing, madness, evil. Sorry to be so blunt and plain spoken, but there it is. The blizzard made me do it.

The baby Jesus has a deep secret, a deep truth to tell us about all these matters. What is it to be free, what is it to be human, what is it to have a good life, what is it to fulfill our destiny? Look at the little one lying on the straw, the baby at the breast, the man on the cross, the host in the tabernacle. The answer lies there, and until we find that answer and make it our own, we will lurch from one abortive effort at freedom to another which truly make us less and less free all the time.

 

Happy Christmas to you all—let’s all make sure we come to the manger and stay there, so He can give us the Christmas present we most deeply need at this time and in our world. Love, and from love, freedom, peace, and joy.

Truth and Freedom II

[For Sartre,] man has no nature, but is sheer freedom. His life must take some direction or other, but in the end it comes to nothing. This absurd freedom is man’s hell. What is unsettling about this approach is that it is a way through the separation of freedom from truth to its most radical conclusion: there is no truth at all. Freedom has no direction and no measure.

“Truth and Freedom,” Communio 23 (Spring, 1996), 25

Reflection – Well, I seem to be having an unintentional theme this week on the blog, around the whole business of ‘truth’. It is, actually, unintentional – I have a sort of random process by which I normally select passages from Ratzinger’s writings, and these last few days the process is coughing up one truth-related quote after another.

Well, maybe it’s because so much of the media focus, at least for my largely American readership is focused so intensely on the last week of the interminable US presidential election campaign season. In a time of half-truths, no-truth, and endlessly accelerating political spin (aka BS, if you don't mind my language), it is good perhaps to ponder the utter centrality and necessity of truth and the knowledge of the truth in our lives.

So here we have a reflection on Sartre’s absurd philosophy of freedom. For Sartre, any kind of ‘reality’, any solid and unyielding fact is an outrage against freedom. Freedom is sheer unfettered action; anything that impedes our action is an assault on our liberty.

The very physical universe in its solidity is a source of nausea, and other people in their pursuit of freedom are hell for us—l’enfer-c’est les autres.

I’ve always found it hard to know what to say about Sartre’s philosophy. Little of it is argued by Sartre—he is big on the sweeping assertion and the unsubstantiated claim. His freedom seems to be a curse and his world an essentially tragic one. We are free, but there is nothing worth doing with this freedom. We are unfettered, the chains of our degrading servitude have been broken, but it turns out there is no point to life anyhow. His notion of freedom casts mankind into a prison, ironically, of utter solitude and impotent paralysis. There is literally nothing for us and nothing really worth doing in this life.

Well, if this is true, and I don’t see any great reason to think it is, then to hell with it. If that is where philosophy and careful thought about life leads us (and again, there is no reason to think they do) then to hell with them, too! And that seems to be where Sartre ended up too—I don’t think it’s any vagary of fate that he became a Stalinist Communist in his later years. If freedom leads us to such an empty tragic abyss, who needs it anyhow?

But freedom does not lead us to an empty tragic abyss, really. Freedom is essentially part of a dialogue for human beings. Reality is from God, made by God, and comes to us both externally (the created world around us) and internally (our own human being) as a given, as structured and ordered by the Other who is God. And that, basically, is what we mean by the word 'truth'.

Our freedom is our response to this given. And the response is to receive it in love and care for it in love, and to come to know that the One who gave it to us is Himself love. Freedom is our entry into this dialogue of love, this reception and return of love that is the whole purpose and joyful fulfillment of the human person. Far from l’enfer, c’est les autres, we Christians say, le paradis, c’est l’Autre. Heaven is this Other, this God, this Father who made us, who loves us, and who beckons us into a free return of love.

Like I say, I have never understood Sartre, and he always seems to me to be a tragic pitiable figure. Nietzsche, I understand and even sympathize with, but Sartre, no. So my response to him is undoubtedly inadequate, but there it is. Our Christian faith, and it seems to me that it is borne out by experience, calls us into an adventure of love and freedom that asks everything of us and promises everything to us, that plunges us into a world of risk, arduous labor, and pain, but also a life of beauty and joy beyond imagining. How Sartre’s pinched, nauseous, dark, tragic and ultimately self-defeating notions of freedom could ever be seen as better or even worth a hearing is beyond me. Meanwhile, the call of the Gospel and of love beckons me today. Goodbye, Sartre; hello, Jesus!

401 Frogger

Are the foundations of the European Enlightenment, upon which the historical development of freedom rests, false, or at least deficient? The question ‘what is freedom? is in the end no less complicated than the question ‘what is truth?’ The dilemma of the Enlightenment, into which we have undeniably fallen, constrains us to repose these two questions as well as to renew our search for the connection between them.

“Truth and Freedom.” Communio 23 (Spring, 1996), 19

Reflection – A great deal of over-simplification surrounds the questions of freedom today. For example, ‘freedom means no one gets to tell me what to do!’ By that standard, none of us are free. The government’s regulating presence in our lives increases every year.

Or, ‘freedom means I can decide for myself what is right and wrong!’ This seems reasonable, and there is a measure of truth to it (after all, we do have to decide), but clearly the matter is not that simple. The fellow making news in Canada these days, the Internet cannibal killer, undoubtedly decided for himself what is right and wrong. I don’t see him becoming a poster boy for Freedom Now.

Or, ‘freedom means I do what I please, as much as I can.’ OK, there’s again there’s some validity to this – a measure of personal autonomy is a necessary element of freedom. But this hardly exhausts the subject of ‘what is freedom.’ If what I please to do is go and play a real life version of Frogger on the 401 (for non-Canadians, this is one of our major highways), I will in short order be free at best to lie staring at the ceiling of my hospital room.

And here we touch on the key point. We are free, in a limited sense, to do as we please. But each free action we take either increases our real freedom or limits it. If I use my freedom to choose to drink myself into a stupor each night or snort cocaine, to lie and cheat and steal or to abuse my sexuality in various ways, or to simply be a lazy slug, then I am indeed ‘acting freely’, but at what cost?

If I do all these things, I will not be free to love. I will not be free to commit my life to another person or to some great cause. I will not be free to do anything that is deeply worth doing, because I will have dissipated my human powers in excess and sloth.

Freedom exists not simply in the immediate action, the immediate choice. Freedom relates to the whole of life, to the kind of person I am becoming as I make each free disposition of myself. Is this choice making me stronger, more generous, less selfish, more free? Or is this choice binding me in soft chains of self-indulgence or rough chains of indulged anger and violence, or tight constricting chains of fear and paralysis?

In other words, as Ratzinger says, the question ‘what is freedom’ ends up being the same as ‘what is truth’. I cannot play Frogger on the 401 because the human body is not agile enough to dodge around eight lanes of traffic moving at 120 km/h. That is truth. And any action taken that violates the truth of my humanity and how I am configured to live, the kind of being I am meant to become, eventually leads to my becoming one more road kill on the great highway of life.

In other words, the life of freedom is identical with the life of virtue. Virtue is strength, and each virtue, all tending to and ordered by the great virtue of caritas, love, strengthens me to truly free action, to a life unbound by any external or internal hindrance. If I am brave and self-disciplined, just and prudent, I am free. Otherwise my freedom is a sham, an illusion, at best a moment of self-indulgence or self-will.

Over-simplifying the question, insisting on keeping it at a superficial level of ‘I do what I want, so leave me alone, you!’ is simply a dodge (another version of Frogger, if you will). Sooner or later we splat against the reality that doing what we want does not make us happy or free. We can reject the guidance of the Church or any other source of traditional moral wisdom, but doing that does not eliminate the question.

What is freedom? What is truth? Where do we find those answers? And how are we to live so as to truly free? Catholic Christianity provides one set of answers for that question, which you may or may not agree with. But whether or not you agree with it, the question remains, and cannot be avoided.

Who Wants to Be Free?

Freedom [is seen] as the right and the opportunity to do just what we wish and not to have to do anything which we do not wish to do. Said in other terms: freedom would mean that our own will is the sole norm of our action and that the will not only can desire anything but also has the chance to carry out its own desire. At this point, however, questions begin to arise: how free is the will after all? And how reasonable is it?

“Truth and Freedom,” in Communio Spring 1996, 17

Reflection – Ah, the perennial question of freedom! A favorite of Ratzinger’s, a favorite on this blog. The above idea of freedom is exactly what most modern people would unhesitatingly say, if you pressed them for a definition. ‘Being able to do what I want to do!’ – it sounds so very reasonable. What else could freedom be, anyhow?
But, as Ratzinger says, ‘questions begin to arise.’ If that is the only measure of freedom, the only meaning of freedom, then how free is it? How valuable is it? How real is it?
‘I am free. I do what I want.’ But where do your desires come from? Are they just the animal drives of your passions: “Og want food now! Og want sleep! Og want pretty cave woman! Urg!’ If that’s the whole source of your desires, then you are not free in the slightest. You are the slave of your desires, being borne along irresistibly by whatever sensible object is placed before you that you like. The greyhounds chasing the rabbit around the race track may be having a good time, but one would not call them free.
Or are our desires informed by something outside us? But then the question is, by what? Society, the world we live in, places all sorts of ‘things’ in front of us as things to be desired: home ownership, a successful career, a stock portfolio, marriage, children (two or three, maximum, or else you’re irresponsible!), etc. But if we simply sign on to whatever society decrees the good life to be and go chasing after it… well, how free is that? When everything you want is simply everything society has told you from day one of your life that you’re supposed to want, you may be many things, but free is not one of them.
Maybe you’re an idealist of some sort, and your freedom consists in having decided to live by certain ideals. Well, we’re getting warmer here, but again… what ideals? Where are they from? What are their origins? Have you examined them? Are they true? Because to embrace a bunch of ideals that are not really true is just another form of slavery to desires or soical conventions.
Again, society and the larger culture (whatever that means) have a whole set of ideals they present in every age to their more idealistically inclined citizens. Right now tolerance is a prime ideal, and environmental stewardship. These are not bad things, of course, but if you uncritically accept the current slate of ideas and intellectual fads… well, again, you may be many things, but free is not among them.
Ah, freedom! It is elusive… and people, seeing the difficulty of its demands, can sometimes decide it’s just too much bother. Isn’t it easier just to chase the objects of desires, sign on to society’s norms of the good life, and console oneself with the fashionable ideologies of the day? Is freedom such a great thing, after all, since it seems to be so much bloody work?
But… we are made for freedom. And we all know that, somehow. It’s not so easy to just say, ‘well, forget about freedom – I’ll be a society drone sating myself on bread and circuses.’ Something in us resists that – we are made for freedom.
So we know it’s not slavery to passions, or to social expectation, or to fashions of thought. What is freedom, then? It is, as Ratzinger develops magnificently in this article, a response in love to the demands of truth. Freedom, once we accept its yoke, makes us into pilgrims seeking the truth, the goodness, and the beauty of all things, and demands of us a responsible attitude towards this truth, which is the embrace of love.
This pilgrimage becomes a very deep matter indeed. It is not just the truth that ‘chocolate is yummy’ – so let’s embrace it with love and enthusiasm! It is the deeper truth – what is the world for? Where is it from? What is the point of it all? If we are to be free, and remain free, these deep questions emerge inevitably. How can I live in truth, if the horizons of truth are reduced to the immediate and the obvious? If truth is smaller than me, how can it be the framework in which I live?
There is much more to be said here, and I will return to the subject on this blog, as I have many times already – but that’s enough for now. The questions insistent upon all of us, though, are ‘what is freedom? Is it real? Is it valuable? Am I free?’

The Child in the Womb of the World

 I must accept the limits of my freedom, or rather, I must live my freedom not out of competition but in a spirit of mutual support. If we open our eyes, we see that this, in turn, is true not only of the child, but that the child in the mother’s womb is simply a very graphic depiction of the essence of human existence in general. Even the adult can only exist with and from another, and is thus continually thrown back on that being-for which is the very thing he would like to shut out.

"Truth and Freedom," in Communio Spring 1996

Reflection - In this passage Ratzinger is actually talking about abortion and its implications. Besides the destruction of a human life, and the implicit overthrowing of the sanctity of human life that abortion signifies in our modern world, he points out this perhaps even deeper implication here.

So often on the pro-abortion-rights side of the debate it is heard that because of the unborn child's lack of viability, its inability to function as an autonomous individual, he or she does not qualify as a fully human person. Underneath that, though, is a view of humanity and dignity that identifies it with autonomy, with freedom from dependence on anyone or anything.

But really, how many of us are actually 'viable' by that standard? If you dropped me in the woods with nothing but the clothes on my back, I'm not sure I'd fare too well. Am I 'viable'? Does my life proceed without any assistance from anyone? And is 'survivoman' who can make his way in the wilderness just fine therefore more worthy of life than me or you?

And of course even survivoman learned his skills from someone else, and all of us rest in a true dependence on a whole web of reality that we did not create and do not maintain in existence. We who are Christians recognize that underneath and all around that web of supporting reality lies our Creator God who holds us all in his care moment by moment.

And so the unborn baby is an icon, if you will, of the deep truth of our humanity. We are all in that state of received life, received existence, being held in life by Another. Each of us is the child in the womb of the world, so to speak.

When we, as a society, say 'no' to that - say that this is inhuman and not worthy of our care and protection, we radically cut ourselves off from the deep truth of our own being.

There are profound implications to all this, and much to ponder. How we view each other, how we treat each other, the way we measure each other--all of this is bound up in this mystery of need and dependence and where our true dignity lies.

Those of us who identify ourselves as pro-life have to be very careful that we be faithful to our ideals in every area of our life - every human being is of inestimable precious value, and this is especially true of the weak, the poor, the vulnerable, the broken, the burdensome. All of us are held in being and life by others and by the Other; let us be vigilant to hold each of our brothers and sisters in our care as well.

We Are Not Mice

Man’s listening to the message of faith is not the passive registering of otherwise unknown information, but the resuscitation of our choked memory and the opening of the powers of understanding which await the light of the truth in us.

“Truth and Freedom,” in Communio 23, p. 33

Reflection – Sometimes we can miss this, right? We can think of faith as a set of doctrines to be learned, a series of formulas which we have to memorize (somehow!) so that we get the answers right, whether on an exam or on The Great Exam to end all exams.

Certainly, our Catholic faith has content. We have dogmas, there are things revealed to us that are essential to our salvation. But it is this very essentiality of the dogmas of the faith that reveals to us what Ratzinger is referring to in this passage.

We are not Gnostics. God is not some Being up there who has set a series of traps and tricks and puzzles that we have to work our way through, like mice in a maze, to get to Heaven.

God has made us for communion with Him. He has made us to be one with Him, not by nature, but by grace, in at eternal embrace, an eternal dance, an eternal banquet. This is encoded into our very spiritual DNA, our very being, the structure of our humanity.

And something in us has gotten choked, somehow. We have lost our memory. Call it original sin (that’s one of those dogmas, after all) or call it something else—we need revelation, not to get the right answers for the Final Judgment SATs, but to stir up in us the deep truth of who we are and what we are to be and how we are to live to get there, and Who is accompanying us to bring us there.

As I keep saying (and will continue to keep saying) on this blog, it’s all about relationship, communion, love, encounter. And the message of faith, the Creed, the dogmas—all awaken in us the deep remembrance of this, and steer us, if we let them, into that path of love and union.

The Divine Life

“To live the Decalogue means to live the divinity of man, which is the very definition of freedom: the fusion of our being with the divine being and the resulting harmony of all with all.”

“Truth and Freedom,” in Communio 23 (Spring, 1996)

Reflection:  To obey the law, to live by the rules, to keep the commandments—all of this, to the typical modern or post-modern person, sounds like signing up for a restrictive, narrow way of life. You can’t do this, you can’t do that, and you certainly can’t do this, that, and that… and don’t even think of doing such and such (you nasty person)! Ugh – what a horrible way to live! How undignified! How childish!

Ratzinger counters this with a truly stunning alternative vision. To live the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments) is to live the divinity of man. Why is this? Because the Decalogue is truth, and God is Truth. Because only living in truth empowers us to actually move in freedom.

If I, declaring my freedom from all rules and laws, decide to go and do gymnastics on the ridge-line of the roof of MH, I am free to do that… for a very short time. Then I will be free to lie in bed with a dozen broken bones, or worse. Freedom exercised in violation of the law is freedom that quickly destroys itself. The moral law is no different than the laws of gravity – if we choose to violate truth, charity, chastity, etc., then we are choosing to limit our freedom, to limit our being and our ability to live a truly human life.

But this passage goes even further than that. The moral law leads us to live a divine life – this is because the commandments are ultimately from the mind and heart of God. So our entering into the life of the commandments bears us into God’s mind and heart. It’s analogous to the Trinity – the Son is Son because He receives everything from the Father. The Spirit is Spirit because He has no Being except what proceeds from the Father and the Son. And we are drawn into this mysterious life of God by receiving from Him everything—truth, goodness, beauty. And we express this in our human mode of being… by obedience, by accepting the universe as He made it, not as we would have it, and conforming our actions to His perfect will, which is expressed first of all in the Commandments. And this is the path of true freedom, the freedom to live and love as God does.