Whatever Happened to Sin? A hidden heresy?
Nicolas Bellord
A debate
on sin arose in the October edition of the Catholic Herald;
Melanie McDonagh interviewed John Finnis describing him as a
celebrated exponent of natural law. She reports that he has recently
written “A Radical Critique of Catholic Social Teaching”
about which she wrote “the gist of that much of what we
understand by Catholic Social Teaching is tendentious, and bishops
would do better to focus on teaching fundamental Catholic moral
principles instead, leaving their application to laypeople who know
what they're talking about … He is especially critical of bishops'
conferences that issue lengthy guidelines on, for instance, migration
or global warming, which are matters of legitimate debate”.
The
following month Professor Philip Allot responded in a letter in
response to the approach of Finnis: “We should speak out if we
see evil in rampant capitalism, in perversions of humanising liberal
democracy, and in the rise of of new forms of dehumanising
absolutism, or in the human use of the natural world. These are
moral judgements, not political opinions.”
Later in
the same issue Thomas Storck laments that “There is a certain
group of Catholics … who reject the entire notion of Catholic
social teaching … To limit the Church's teaching to matters of
private morality is to acquiesce in the effort to privatise religion
and drive the Church from the public square.”
Now
all three are considerable people. Wikipedia tells us that among
other achievements John Finnis was
Professor of Law & Legal Philosophy at Oxford
from
1989 to 2010, where he is now professor emeritus. His most important
work is Natural
Law and Natural Rights the
study of which I found very enlightening. Unfortunately much of his
other work, as Melanie McDonagh mentions, is in books which are
beyond the purse of most people.
I
knew Philip Allott at school but was unaware of his subsequent career
until now when I have read about him on the internet. His roles,
publications and achievements are so numerous that it would be
foolish of me to sum them up in a few words. Something of his
distinguished career can be gleaned from his speech at his 80th
Birthday Dinner at Trinity College Cambridge. 8 June 2017
“REMEMBERING EIGHTY YEARS OF THINGS PAST”
Allott
was for many years in the Foreign Office subsequently returning to
Cambridge as Professor (now Emeritus) of International Law. “I
have spent much of the rest of my life trying to help International
Law to become a more sensible system.”
Evidently
he has been someone who wanted to change the world and was in a
position to do so although he is very modest about whether he
succeeded in any way.
Thomas
Storck has a website
“that
is dedicated to Catholic Social Teaching in its full breadth and
depth.”
As a keen reader of the Chesterton Review I have read his
contributions and his book “An
Economics of Justice & Charity”
is one I have noted as something I must read one day.
Now
it is fundamental to Catholicism that we not only have to have faith
but we also have to perform good works if we are to get to heaven.
This is where we differ from those Protestants who believe that one
can be justified by faith alone. Good works can extend from
making someone a cup of tea to promoting or implementing some grand
political programme for the relief of poverty in a third-world
country.
Expanding
Thomas Storck's first sentence in full he wrote: “There is a
certain group of Catholics, doubtless more often found in the US than
in the UK, who reject he entire notion of Catholic social teaching”.
I have no idea about the situation in the US but I have never come
across such a group in the UK. Professor Finnis is not rejecting a
Catholic response to social problems nor is he complacent about the
ills described by Philip Allott e.g. rampant capitalism etc. What he
is saying is that the solution to these problems are a matter of
prudence and there will be honest differences of opinion as to how to
solve them; Bishops should be wary of saying that there is one
'Catholic' solution to such problems.
However
I as a Catholic layman, and I suspect I am not alone, are fed to the
back teeth of being lectured by priests and particularly religious
about structural sin and how wrong it is for many people to be poor
and some rich. The reason for being fed up is that there is very
little the ordinary Catholic can do about these problems except to
feel guilty about some situation in which we had no detectable hand
in creating. Yes I can contribute to some charity which alleviates
poverty and I suspect they want me to vote for some political party
on the left. But what else can I do? Not much other than being made
to feel guilty. Obviously there are people who can do more: Thomas
Storck can write books suggesting what can be done; Philip Allott
has roamed the corridors of power and has been in a position to make
some changes. But they are exceptional people.
What
does the average layman do? Well he can follow the teachings of the
Church: the “fundamental
Catholic moral principles”
of which Professor Finnis writes. But when do we ever hear a sermon
on such matters? What has happened to these fundamental Catholic
moral principles? Thomas Storck writes “To
limit the Church's teaching to matters of private morality is to
acquiesce in the effort to privatise
religion
and drive the Church from the public square.”
I would query the logic of that statement but the truth of the
matter is that the clergy does no such thing. They simply no longer
teach “matters of private morality” but frequently limit
themselves to teaching what it perceives to be solutions to social
problems. Of course not all sermons are about social problems but
those that are not are often trite and innocuous. For example only
recently I watched a mass where the first reading was from Genesis
and the gospel was Mark 7:14-23 which finishes with the words: And
he said, “What comes out of a man is what defiles a man. For from
within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication,
theft, murder, adultery,coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness,
envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from
within, and they defile a man.”
The sermon was
just some remarks on the reading from Genesis. The list of sins in
the Gospel was a bit too much for the celebrant.
The
idea that some social problems arise from a failure to follow
fundamental moral teachings seems to escape the clergy. When I watch
the TV and some example is produced of child poverty it is almost
always the case that a single mother is the example. Obviously it is
desirable to provide her with economic assistance but where is the
father of the children? Why are there so many single mothers? Is it
not the case that the Churches have utterly failed to teach about
marriage and the 'private morality' involved and have allowed the
traditional family to be undermined? Why is proselytism or any
missionary effort in the third world now decried? Has this not had
some effect on the proliferation of corrupt regimes which keep the
third world in poverty?
And
it is not just the failure to teach fundamental morality by our
pastors but also the undermining of morality by our pastors on such
matters as contraception, homosexual acts, same-sex marriage and sex
education programmes for the young. Do I need to give examples of
such failures by our pastors? The list is endless. I wonder how
many priests giving a homily on the second Sunday in Ordinary Time
based on the readings mentioned the second reading which condemned
fornication?
I
used to think that one of the causes of all this was the dilemma
faced by members of the clergy who lose their faith. To declare such
a loss publicly is very difficult; not many are going to be able to
find a remunerative alternative career. Better to keep quiet. You
may no longer believe in the truths of the faith but you can see that
the Church does some useful social work – so why not concentrate on
that and ignore the rest? Keep in with your contracepting
parishioners and do not frighten them.
The
loss of faith has been further demonstrated in the liturgy. Why not
waffle about how merciful God is rather than reciting the Confiteor?
“We believe ...” which means the simple people around me may do
so but I am above that sort of thing; fortunately now corrected to “I
believe...” “Look not upon my sins …” say the celebrant has
become “Look not upon our sins ...”. The beatitudes are about
happiness rather than being blessed. “And with you” has
fortunately being changed back to “And with your spirit”. “What
does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but suffers the loss
of his own life” becomes meaningless if you have translated “anima”
and “psyche” as “life” rather than “soul”. The previous
frequent use of the word 'soul' in Masses of the Dead has virtually
disappeared in the new rite. Completely in the German Mass of the
Dead. It is a whole series of things that spring to my attention and
cause me concern. Let us call them 'poisoned signs'.
But
is it too simple that one can attribute all this, as I have done, to
priests who have lost the faith? Recently I read Elio Guerriero's
“Benedict XVI His Life and Thought” (Ignatius Press 2018). A
curious feature of this book is that it describes what the author
sees as the thinking of Benedict but never has any substantial quote
from Benedict's enormous oeuvre. However I was astonished to read
the following paragraph on page 230:
'In
the preface to the first edition of his volume dedicated to
eschatology, Ratzinger recalled that twenty years had passed since
1957, when at the age of thirty he had given the course on
eschatology for the first time. Since then he had not only addressed
over and over again the topics that emerged from it, but had made a
true retractatio, an abrupt reversal with respect to the question of
the soul. In his early years of teaching, indeed, he had adopted the
program of so-called de-Platonized eschatology that entirely denied
the idea of the soul, which was considered to be of Platonic origin
and foreign to the world of the Bible. Later on, however, he had
changed his mind, rediscovering “the inner logic of the Church's
tradition”.'
So
for some period of up to 20 years Ratzinger had been teaching that there was
no such thing as the soul – a period that included Vatican II on
which he had substantial influence. Now I have never formally
studied theology but I learnt the Penny Catechism
at my mother's knee and the first chapter of eight questions is all
about the soul. And I learnt them by heart and can still recite them
nearly 80 years later:
1.
Who made you? God made me.
2.
Why did God make you? God made me to know Him, love Him and
serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him forever in the next.
3.
To whose image and likeness did God make you? God made me to
his own image and likeness.
4.
Is this likeness to God in your body, or in your soul? This
likeness to God is chiefly in my soul.
5.
How is your soul like to God? My soul is like to God because
it is a spirit, and is immortal.
6.
What do you mean when you say that your soul is immortal? When
I say that my soul is immortal, I mean that my soul can never die.
7.
Of which must you take most care, of your body or of your soul? I
must take most care of my soul; for Christ has said, “What doth it
profit a man if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his
own soul?” (Matt, 16:26).
8.
What must you do to save your soul? To save my soul I must
worship God by Faith, Hope, and Charity; that is I must believe in
Him, I must hope in Him, and I must love Him with my whole heart.
Those
eight questions and answers are for me, the fundamental starting
point for the religious life. But it now seems, according to a
German school of theology, to which Pope Benedict adhered at one
time, they are just so much nonsense in that there is no such thing
as the soul. I was duly astonished. Indeed I was so incredulous
that I bought Joseph Ratzinger's book: “Eschatology Death and
Eternal Life”.
It is not an easy read for those like myself unversed in reading
theology. It is an examination of the errors of many theologians; an
examination which leads to a reassertion of the traditional teaching
of the Church that we have a spiritual soul; that when we die we may
go straight to Hell or Heaven but more likely we will go through a
purifying process in Purgatory and on the last day we will be
reunited with our bodies in a glorified form.
Reading
Ratzinger's book there are constant echoes of the 'poisoned signs'
which have caused me so much concern and cause so much confusion
generally. Are we not dealing with a heresy? Contrariwise these
German theologians in rejecting the orthodox teaching believed that
'The history of eschatology is nothing less than the history of an
apostasy'
Ratzinger wrote in 1977 that his support of the traditional view
of Eschatology which deals with the four last things “runs
contrary to the contrary prevailing opinion”.
The Bible is not conclusive on eschatology – the orthodox view is
based on tradition. Luther's rejection of tradition therefore
rejects the orthodox view. Marxism offers an alternative – the
possibility of a utopia in this world. The orthodox view reduced
Christianity 'to the level of individual persons' ...rather
than 'the confident, corporate hope for the imminent salvation of
all the world'
Does this not reflect the words of Thomas Storck above?
This
'contrary prevailing opinion' which sees salvation as just
some future utopia on earth 'blazed up soon enough. It became
Political Theology, the Theology of Revolution, Liberation Theology,
Black Theology'.
Ratzinger's response is to say 'The Kingdom of God, not being
itself a political concept, cannot serve as a political criterion by
which to construct in direct fashion a program of political action
and to to criticize the political efforts of other people'.
Our Bishops could well take note of that before pontificating upon
what they regard as the 'common good'. At the beginning of the
Covid-19 pandemic the Government were not minded to close the
churches. However the Conference of Bishops for England & Wales,
using a pro-LGBT and pro abortion activist, persuaded the Government
to close the churches citing the 'common good' and ignoring the
spiritual life of the soul. An act of almost unforgivable
wickedness.
Ratzinger
goes on to say 'The Kingdom of God is not a political
norm of political activity, but is a moral norm
of that activity.'
Thus political activity must be governed by morality rather than
being derived from eschatology. We have seen plenty of examples of
political activity where morality is ignored from the time of the
Enlightenment onwards. Liberation Theology is just one example where
it has been used to justify violence as a means to create a supposed
Kingdom of God on earth. Ratzinger insists that political activity
must be sundered from eschatology less it become a 'Gulag
Archipelago'.
Utopia – the non-place – the fantasy that takes no account of
man's fallen nature which makes it impossible.
When
Ratzinger moves on to the Theology of Death, he notes how
contemporary society hides death away. Death becomes a technological
issue to be handled by the appropriate institution rather than in a
human situation such as the family home. Death is pushed away and
trivialised. It is a banal event which does not happen to me but
is merely a technological event carried out by technicians (e.g. as
in abortion and euthanasia) and there are no metaphysical problems.
He asserts that 'For Christian faith there is no such thing as a
life not worth living'.
And yet in cases such as that of Alfie Evans some of our Bishops
have preferred to support the National Health Service as if it was an
almost sacred institution rather than plead for the life of a child.
Denying
the existence of the soul has led to a host of different theories.
Ratzinger sets about showing how many of them basically just do not
add up and are illogical.
But
on the question of whether 'salvation' is merely the implementation
of God's Kingdom on earth at some distant date Ratzinger comments:
“The
biblical representation of the End rejects the expectation of a
definitive state of salvation within history.”
Further “A
planned salvation would be the salvation proper to a concentration
camp and so the end of humanity”
- one thinks of present day China and its attempt to create a Utopia
about which Msgr.
Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of
Sciences,
has said "Right
now, those who are best implementing the social doctrine of the
Church are the Chinese"
But for Ratzinger what is important is 'that
faith in Christ's return is also the certitude that the world will,
indeed come to its perfection, not through rational planning but
through that indestructible love which triumphed in the risen
Christ.'
Ratzinger's
book was published in 1977 and shortly afterwards the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, on 17th May 1979, published
a 'Letter on Certain Questions on Eschatology' which is basically in
accord with Ratzinger's views. He therefore added an Appendix I to
the second edition of his book on Eschatology entitled 'Between
Death and Resurrection: Some Supplementary Reflections' commenting on
the Congregation's Letter.
If one does not have the time to read the whole book this Appendix
is a very useful summary of his views.
The
position which Ratzinger opposed in his book is the denial of the
existence of something called the soul – a denial principally by
German theologians. For them the concept of a soul is merely an idea
imported from Platonism; it reflects the deplorable dualism found in
Descartes etc etc. The alternatives to having a soul have been
worked out in various forms such as the immediate resurrection of the
body on death, a complete denial of resurrection at all etc etc all
of which he shows to have no basis in scripture and is logically
implausible. But perhaps the most important idea behind the denial
of the soul is that of the Kingdom of God being something that will
be created on earth at some future date as a result of political
action and planning enacted by human beings.
In
the Appendix Ratzinger points out that such views deny the last
sentences of the Creed viz: 'I
believe
in … the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to
come'.
That denial effectively denies the whole of the Creed he says.
He quotes the very strong statement in the CDF's Letter: 'The
importance of this final article of the baptismal Creed is obvious:
it expresses the goal and purpose of God's plan, the unfolding of
which is described in the Creed. If there is no resurrection, the
whole structure of faith collapses, as Saint Paul states so
forcefully (cf. 1 Cor 15). If the content of the words "life
everlasting" is uncertain for Christians, the promises contained
in the Gospel and the meaning of creation and Redemption disappear,
and even earthly life itself must be said to be deprived of all hope
(cf. Heb 11:1). '
The Letter
draws attention to the dangers of these idle speculations: 'But
one cannot ignore the unease and disquiet troubling many with regard
to this question. It is obvious that doubt is gradually insinuating
itself deeply into people's minds. Even though, generally speaking,
the Christian is fortunately not yet at the point of positive doubt,
he often refrains from thinking about his destiny after death,
because he is beginning to encounter questions in his mind to which
he is afraid of having to reply, questions such as: Is there really
anything after death? Does anything remain of us after we die? Is it
nothingness that is before us?'
Perhaps Hans Kung sees immortality merely in the statue he has of
himself in his garden.Unfortunately
matters have moved on since 1979 and the confusion amongst the
faithful is even greater particularly as it is very rare that any
priests preach on the four last things.
Ratzinger
talks of the irresponsibility of certain theologians: 'Because
the “fundamental truths of faith” belong to all believers, and
are, as a matter of fact, the concrete content of the Church's unity,
the fundamental language of faith cannot be regarded as something for
experts to work out. And for the same reason, that
language
which is the bearer of unity cannot be manipulated at will.'
Just
how widespread are the erroneous ideas that Ratzinger attacks? 'The
crisis became manifest after the Second Vatican Council … The
impression arose that Christianity in all its aspects was to be
sketched out anew.'
He even goes so far as to use the word 'necrophilia'.
In Appendix II 'Afterword
to the English edition'
he recounts that in 1977 'I
took up a position which was sharply opposed to the post-conciliar
consensus of a seeming majority of Catholic theologians'.
Thus
we have a set of views which deviates from the fundamental truths of
the faith and is widespread amongst Catholic theologians. We have a
major heresy that has seeped its way into the Church. Ratzinger
quotes G.Nachtwei, a theologian sympathetic to his views: 'He
calls attention to the fact that the most “up-to-date”
eschatological theses were in many cases turned straight into
preaching and catechesis, without any intervening interval to allow a
suitable pause for reflection.”
It is a heresy which is seemingly widespread in the clergy and has
been fed to the laity, lacks coherence and comes in many forms. Like
many ideologies people just get part of the heresy rather than the
full picture. Ratzinger complains of 'a
lack of philosophical seriousness' 'simplemindedness' 'absence of
awareness'
and a 'noticeable
paucity of reflection.'
For
me the prevalence of this heresy explains the 'poisoned signs' which
I have mentioned above. Perhaps only a few explicitly deny the
existence of the soul but there is a tendency to emphasise the
importance of the material world at the expense of the spiritual.
So
how has this affected sin? If all I can look forward is some future
worldly utopia then in listening to the news it does not sound very
likely to happen in my lifetime. If I am dead and no more, then what
sort of hope is that? We are constantly told that God loves us. The
incorrect translation of the Beatitudes insist that we are 'Happy'
when we patently are not. There is a pretence world “Happy are
those who mourn” etc. How do we deal with suffering if we have no
soul and there is no afterlife? Why should I bother about some
future utopia in which I will not share? Why should I avoid sin if I
have no soul to lose? What does it profit a man to gain the whole
world? Well quite a lot it seems if I have no soul to lose. We do
not need to worry about our sins as God is merciful and one day there
will be a utopia for all: Universalism. Indeed we need to follow the
spirit of the age as the German Bishops are proposing in abandoning
the teachings of the Church on sexual morality.
So
sin has lost its importance in the eyes of many. God will forgive
you whatever. The sacrament of Confession is largely ignored and
indeed is often not available. Any talk of sin is ridiculed as being
just Catholic guilt which we should have grown up out of. The
problem that arises when the clergy no longer teaches about sin is
that many still sense that some things are wrong. If the Church does
not deal with this and we become an increasingly atheistic culture
we turn to legislation to deal with matters for which the Church
previously catered. Thus we have the idea that legislation can make
people good. Hate crime is invented and legislated against. We have
political correctness and then the woke culture. We must not say
certain things. Talking about coloured people instead of people of
colour can lead to the end of a person's career. We are moving
towards a new morality enforced by legislation reminiscent of the
worst excesses of Puritanism; free speech is no longer acceptable if
what we say is deemed hateful in anybody's view. There is certainly
no forgiveness.
A chance remark made decades ago will be brought up and condemned
regardless of context or any change in the person's views
subsequently. A job or a career will be terminated. This is the
path to the Gulag that Ratzinger feared.
A
concentration camp survivor and future Bishop, Johannes Neuhausler,
wrote in 1946 wrote about the Nazis' attack on Catholicism: 'Attack
on the papacy, attack on the bishops, attack on all the clergy,
attack on religious instruction, attack on prayers and the crucifix
in schools, attack on all Catholic groups, constraints on church
services, constraints on Catholic religious orders, tendentious
portrayals and misrepresentations; diatribes against Christianity,
goodbye to the Old God … rage against “worthless lives”'.
Does that at least not ring a bell?; the removal of crucifixes
in Catholic hospitals, religious orders deemed unfit to teach the
young, adoption societies closed down because they would not accept
'same-sex' parenting, the closing of churches, failures and
compromises in religious instruction particularly as regards sexual
morality, lukewarm response to attacks on human life?
The
big difference is that much of this is self-inflicted rather than, so
far at least, the result of the imposition of a pagan ideology.
However due to the negligence in teaching the fundamental Catholic
moral principles and observing them this is beginning to happen and
we may well find matters getting worse under a pagan ideology. We
need to fight against this and as Cardinal Sarah has said we need to
find God once again.
