A theology of disclosure

THE GOD OF FAITH AND REASON: FOUNDATIONS OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY. By Robert Sokolowski (The Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C. 20017, 1997), 172 pp. PB $14.00.

The central problem of any Christian philosophy has to do with faith and reason, with how we can use the word philosophy with Christianity, and with how what is Christian can add or improve on something that is in fact properly philosophical. We want to know what reason can know of reality—of God, man, and the universe—and what, if anything, has been revealed to man by any existing God. In the light of these two examinations, of the validity of reason and its conclusions and of the input of revelation and its own intelligibility, we want to know if reason is somehow undermined or jeopardized by revelation. Likewise, we want to know if revelation is, as such, simply “irrational” or contradictory to reason. The basic Thomist position from which Sokolowski writes maintains, of course, that reason does not contradict revelation and that revelation incites reason to be more reasonable.

The God of Faith and Reason is Msgr. Sokolowski’s masterful, incisive presentation of these issues. This new paperback edition contains Sokolowski’s new Introduction to this welcome softbound edition of this excellent text, originally published by the University of Notre Dame Press in 1982. The text is both profound and readable. It contains a defense of both faith and reason and an explication of their inter-relationships. The book is a profound reflection on the proofs for the existence of God as seen in Anselm’s famous “ontological proof” and in Aquinas. What is unique in Sokolowski’s discussion is his rejoining of realism and phenomenology in a way that enables him to make use of what he calls a “theology of disclosure,” that is, of the ways in which God has revealed himself to us.

In a basic sense, this book is a reflection on the meaning of the classic doctrine of creation and of what it reveals about the world, basically, that the world is not necessary, that God did not need to create anything to be God. As he remarks in his new Introduction, Sokolowski thinks that this new content, as it were, this revelational explication of God, puts into context the classical philosophical discussions about God as the first being within the world or its cause. “Human reason when left to itself,” Sokolowski writes, will always tend to see the divine as the ultimate principle in the world, whether it expresses that divinity in myths, in scientific theories about the laws of nature and evolution, or in more philosophic formulations of the transcendent. The biblical word of God, the biblical and Christian understanding of God, always has to resist the natural impulse to see the divine as the best part of the world (p. xi).

God thus does not “need” the world to be God. He would be all that God is if there were no world at all. On the other hand, the philosophic enterprise to know all that it can by its own powers is not a futile one. The revelation of God is not a denial of creation. The philosophic proofs for the existence of God do arrive at a point where the world cannot explain itself in its own terms.

One of the remarkable things about this book is its treatment of the relation of the natural and the supernatural virtues, something that we find in St. Thomas. It is a much neglected area. Sokolowski’s book is designed, as its title implies, to defend or explain both faith and reason as if both have legitimate claims and are, for us at least, necessary to each other.

Sokolowski distinguishes between what he calls a theology of things and a theology of disclosure. What he intends by this distinction is to point out the difference between understanding what “things” are in revelation, that is, created from nothing, and what God’s communicating to man, a rational being, might entail if it is to respect both what God and man are in the sort of beings that we know them to be. What he is driving at of course is the consequences of understanding the world, and hence, mankind, as not necessary to complete God. The “proofs” for the existence of God do not conclude to the necessity of God creating a world because of some necessity in himself. They do argue that if the world exists, as it does, it did not cause itself. Moreover, if the world is not necessary, a whole new understanding of being will be necessary. The world is radically contingent.

If God is to create it must be from some motive or purpose that is not necessary on God’s part. Thus, the world is filled with a “word” or a purpose that results from freedom or gift. What follows from this, then, is that if God is going subsequently to reveal something further about himself to any creature within the world capable of receiving a further understanding of him, the new information or revelation cannot go against the sort of being that man is in the first place. Hence the “disclosure” must be after the manner of the way personal and rational beings act and deal with one another. It is thus in the spelling out of how the various natural and supernatural virtues work with one another that this book achieves its remarkable clarity and interest.

As might be expected, the very need of this book arises from the influence of modern philosophy on theology and on our understanding of virtue and grace. Revelation must be seen in the light not only of pagan philosophy, but also of modern philosophy that has often made it more difficult, if not impossible, for many to understand what is at stake in revelation. Sokolowski is likewise able to speak of Christian experience, the sacraments, and Scripture as evidence that cannot be ignored but whose implications must be put in the light of the natural virtues and of metaphysics itself.

This book is worth attentive study. It is clearly written and deals with the most profound of issues. It is one of those books that make us realize the depth of Christian intelligence and a reminder both of how little Christian intelligence is known and how strong it really is in the hands of a scholar of Sokolowski’s intellectual skill. I might add, in conclusion, that Sokolowski’s little sixpage appendix on “Reason and Political Philosophy,” focusing on the works of Leo Strauss, is a remarkably astute statement of the peculiar place of political philosophy in the relation of reason and revelation.

James V. Schall, S.J.
Georgetown University
Washington, D.C.

True Catholic morality

THE MORAL DIGNITY OF MAN. By Father Peter E. Bristow (Four Courts Press, 55 Prussia Street, Dublin 7, Ireland, 1997), 206 pp. PB. 9.95 Pounds.

    Sub-titled “An exposition of Catholic moral doctrine with particular reference to family and medical ethics in the light of contemporary developments,” Father Bristow’s book lucidly and thoroughly presents the traditional, perennial teaching of the Church as it confronts the various heresies and secular ideologies of the late twentieth century. As the title implies, all of the Catholic Church’s moral teachings are based on a conception of man as created in the image of God. As a spiritual creature of intelligence and will with an eternal destiny, the human person possesses inherent moral dignity and inestimable value. He is not “an advanced animal, or a complicated machine.”

    Using this Christian view of man as his touchstone, Father Bristow exposes the fallacies of moral theories, popular ideologies, and medical practices that reject this fundamental truth about human nature. The book is remarkably lucid in its precise, lucid exposition of Catholic moral principles and most complete in its application of the criterion of moral dignity to the controversial moral issues of modern life.

    As Father Bristow cogently demonstrates, the permissive moralities, the utilitarian ethics, and the medical technologies of the late twentieth century all undermine or deny the inherent dignity of man by denying the existence of absolute norms, the reality of the natural law, and the unequivocal nature of intrinsic evil. Whereas Catholic teaching equates the dignity of man with “a spark of the divinity within him” and “the voice of God in us”—a reflection of God’s eternal law in man’s reason—the Enlightenment notion of conscience derived from Kant “dictates norms to itself” which reflect “subjective decisions based on feelings, utilitarian principles, self-interest, etc.” So-called freedom of conscience with disregard for the truth violates man’s dignity as a rational being in possession of the knowledge of good and evil.

    As Father Bristow also aptly illustrates, man’s dignity also consists in honoring and practicing the highest moral ideals: living according to the noble ideals of sacramental marriage which require indissolubility, fidelity, and generosity with life; spousal love that reflects self-giving, sacrifice, and purity; unconditional giving and self-surrender in conjugal acts which are always open to the transmission of new human life. The evil of contraception, then, is that “the fully human and personal nature of married love is damaged, and the dignity of the spouses as whole and unified persons is not respected” once the procreative and unitive aspects of sexuality are separated. All of the bitter fruits of the sexual revolution—pre-marital sexuality, cohabitation, homosexuality—are predicated upon a hedonistic view of the body as “an object or machine” rather than a view of persons as the union of body and soul. As Father Bristow precisely explains, the body is “part of a person’s dignity, and there are ways of acting according to that dignity or against it. To use the body exclusively as an object of sexual pleasure and gratification is not worthy of man or woman.”

    In the area of medical ethics, however, the assault against human dignity most wantonly violates Catholic teaching on the sacredness of human life. In Christianity’s unwavering defense of the sanctity of human life from the first century to the present, from the Didache to Evangelium Vitae, Father Bristow reminds us that the Church has always acknowledged the inestimable worth of each and every human being. Whereas “the culture of death” is committed to abortion on demand and the desecrating of human life, the Church has always taught that “Authority over human life belongs in its fullness to God who alone can give it and take it away.” In the areas of in vitro fertilization, genetic engineering, surrogate motherhood, and fetal experimentation, Father Bristow pronounces the Church’s constant teaching that procreation must not be separated from the personal act of love in marriage and the inalienable right of the child “to be conceived in a womb and not in a laboratory.” A child born as the result of technology instead of through the intimate union of parents reduces persons to “an object of biology and laboratory experiments, something more akin to a thing than a human being.”

    Because Catholic teaching “bases her stance on the transcendent value of man over technology,” the Church can never condone the freezing of embryos, sperm banks, or cloning lest the nightmare of Huxley’s Brave New World acquire moral credibility.

    Another aspect of modern life that undermines the moral dignity of man is the ecological fanaticism that ignores the biblical truth that man was given mastery over the natural world but that Adam and Eve were not given dominion over other human beings. Population control ideologues and animal rights activists who identify human beings as sources of pollution or as greedy predators falsely romanticize nature in the form of a primitivism that recalls Rousseau’s idealization of an unfallen, pristine world ruined by man and progress and society—a naive view which, as Father Bristow carefully explains, ignores the reality of original sin. The Fall affected not only man’s relationship with God and man’s relationship with his fellow man but also man’s relationship with nature. To make a god of nature or to value animals more than human beings fails to honor man’s special place in God’s creation. Father Bristow’s chapter on “Man and the Environment: The Moral Basis of Ecology” offers a balanced Catholic perspective on a highly politicized subject infused with exaggeration, hysteria, and doomsday prophecies: “We do not cease to grow wheat simply because weeds grow with it.”

    The evils of euthanasia and fetal experimentation also reflect a disrespect for the sanctity of human life. Father Bristow soundly argues that the movement for physician-assisted suicide comprises “one of the great ‘heresies’ of our time, namely, that pain and suffering are the worst of evils”— a form of utilitarian thinking that overlooks that “The greatest of evils is sin.” Defending the Catholic teaching that human beings die with dignity, Father Bristow carefully distinguishes between “ordinary” and “extraordinary” means to sustain dying human life: “There is a difference between taking a life and allowing those dying to continue the process of death when it would be unreasonable to extend it.” Removing life support systems that only prolong the anguish of dying is not tantamount to killing the patient but “letting the patient die the death he is already dying.” The Church’s defense of the dignity of the person also prohibits medical research and fetal experimentation that disregard embryos as human life, that freeze superfluous embryos or destroy them after fourteen days: “ . . . the manipulation of life by human beings in this way is in itself wrong.”

    Thus    The Moral Dignity of Man perfectly illustrates the reasonableness, coherence, and consistency of the Church’s moral teachings on the sanctity of human life in all the complex ethical and medical issues of modernity. Father Bristow cogently proves that the Catholic Church is not unscientific, lacking compassion, unsympathetic to human suffering, or reactionary. Rather she insists on “the inviolable dignity of the human being”—an irrefutable, God-given truth. Thus a person can never be a means to an end, an object of pleasure, or an animal subject to experimentation. Regardless of the state of technology, “a human person can never be a means of benefit to others at the expense of his or her own life.” This book verifies again the consummate wisdom and the profound love of the Catholic Church in defending the personal, the human, and the precious in a secular age that dehumanizes and desecrates the gift of life.

Mitchell Kalpakgian, Ph.D.
Simpson College
Indianola, Iowa

On the present persecution of Christians

THEIR BLOOD CRIES OUT: THE WORLDWIDE TRAGEDY OF MODERN CHRISTIANS WHO ARE DYING FOR THEIR FAITH. By Paul Marshall and Lela Gilbert (Word Publishing, 1501 LBJ Freeway, Suite 650, Dallas, Tex. 75234, 1997), 335 pp. PB $12.99.

    This book is essentially an account of the fact that there is widespread persecution of Christians, Protestant and Catholic, throughout the world, a persecution that is largely ignored in the press and by Christians themselves. It is a calm, sober, yes, agonizing account of something we evidently do not wish to acknowledge or do much about. But there is no doubt of its substantial truth.

    Paul Marshall is a professor of political theory at the Institute of Christian Studies in Toronto. He comes to this study both from his own Protestant background and from his interest in political theory. His interest in rights led him, as he tells us, to wonder what the actual situation was throughout the world. Thus, this book is a survey of the nature and degree of persecution and bias against Christians in every country or area of the world, together with a very perceptive analysis of why the churches have been so reluctant to see how their brothers and sisters in the faith have been killed, tortured, discriminated against in country after country, not back in the last century but all through this century including right now. As Marshall points out, we, none of us, go to sleep at night without fellow Christians somewhere in the world being persecuted, Christians who are almost certain in their own hearts that other Christians will not come to their aid, will often not believe that there is a problem or who will compromise any effort for political reasons.

    Though this book is largely an account of Protestant bodies who are persecuted, it includes many accounts of persecution against Catholics. The other side of the worldwide ecumenical movement, a side that simply cannot be neglected, is the worldwide persecution of Christians simply because they are Christians. Indeed, this is one of the points that Marshall makes with persistent attention—not just that Christians are persecuted because they are poor or women or black, but because they are Christians. Marshall carefully studies why the press, academia, the World Council of Churches, and governments will not face the fact that it is often, by a strict definition, a persecution of Christians because of their faith.

    Marshall divides his book into a world-wide survey of reports of persecution against Christians in the Muslim world, in Asia, in Latin America, in Africa; then he analyzes why this evidence makes so little impact in the free and Christian world. He does not ignore or downplay the fact that Christians themselves are sometimes engaged in persecuting other Christians. Nor does he fail to mention that Muslims persecute other Muslims, or that Hindus and Muslims fight to the death, or that there are problems between Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims. Likewise, he points out that there is a persecution of Christians in some Buddhist countries, likewise, in India, in the Middle East, especially in Africa. Estimates as high as one hundred and fifty thousand Christians are killed every year by persecutions. The worst is probably in the Sudan. Indeed, Marshall devoted his attention to several worst-case situations, including the infamous slitting of the throats of seven Trappist monks in Algeria three years ago.

    John Paul II has recently paid considerable attention to the issue of martyrdom in this century. Indeed, he hopes to update the Roman Martyrology to include those killed in this century, Protestant and Catholic. I have noticed that whenever the Pope meets an Ambassador from a country where there is persecution, he points out the legal and moral norms that should govern religious freedom everywhere.

    It is interesting that several prominent Jewish writers have recently become concerned by the evident lack of interest that Christians of our time show in the face of terrible persecution, discrimination, legal prejudice against Christians in many parts of the world. A. M. Rosenthal wrote in the New York Times (2/11/1997): “The shocking untold truth of our time is that more Christians have died in this century for being Christians than in the first nineteen centuries after the birth of Christ. They have been persecuted and martyred before an unknowing, indifferent world and a largely silent Christian community.” Marshall’s book is perhaps the clearest way to begin to fathom the truth of what Rosenthal has observed. If Christians do not show concern when they themselves are persecuted, why should anyone expect them to show concern when others are the objects of persecution?

    At the end of the book, Marshall gives a list of organizations that in one way or another have tried to bring this issue to worldwide and national attention—Freedom House, Puebla, Institute for Religion and Democracy, and others. Only one identifiably Catholic body is mentioned, though several of the leading students of this problem are Catholics. What seems significant is that the fact of Christians being persecuted for being Christians is rarely brought to the attention of congregations in sermons. Rarely is it discussed as an issue by the bishops’ conferences or by the universities. Indeed, it seems quite clear that we need a central clearing house that details particularly persecution against Catholics. Marshall makes a very good case about why such an organization in general is needed and several Protestant bodies do this good work. As he says, it is not a question of turning the other cheek, something the persecuted themselves do. For those of us who are not yet directly persecuted, it is our duty to know what countries and what laws discriminate against Christians, where there is active persecution and by whom. As far as I know, no university with a Catholic name has any institute specifically directed to this question and to its meaning.
    When I finished this book, I thought to myself that we all read about persecution in Scripture. We think that when it comes, we will notice it, though Scripture itself implies that we will not. We will not, we think, let it happen to others. Yet, as Marshall shows, Christians are today sold into slavery, killed, made second-class citizens, given the worst jobs, and suffer a hundred other biases against them without our much paying attention. Marshall does not spare Christians who themselves are the past or present cause of these troubles.

    Likewise, Marshall insists that we can and must talk to other religions and governments who do not acknowledge the religious and civil freedoms of Christians. Often Christians, such as the Copts in Egypt or the Syrian Orthodox in Turkey, have been there for almost two thousand years. One of the excuses for discrimination against Christians is that they are “foreign” even when they are not. Culture is used to prevent changes of religion or honest worship. Churches are not given permission to build or are destroyed by mobs when they are. There are laws against proselytism and conversion that are clearly odious and against natural reason. Even to speak of Christianity becomes the violation of law.

    In any case, we must realize that many Christians of our time are killed with impunity in this world. No one will take up their cause or even remember them. The fact that our life is for the Lord is very real to them. Each day they must live in fear, often for their own lives. Questions of social justice or liberty are simply never of any concern to them as they have never known any nor will they receive any in this world. It makes the faith much more real. Indeed, Marshall points out in a touching remark, that the faith is much more real when the believers know that they may be killed or persecuted any day of their lives. Most of the Christians in the world are not in Europe or America, most are not white. There are more church-goers on Sunday in China, Marshall thinks, than in all of Western Europe. And China, as he shows, is a place of great and continuing persecution of Christians of every sort.

    Clearly this book is worth a careful reading. Marshall is not “sensationalist.” He does not have to be. The facts speak for themselves. Christians as Christians, because they are Christians, are persecuted, tortured, legally discriminated against, terrorized in many countries in the world, not fifty years ago, but now. Our press, with few exceptions, does not take religious persecution seriously. It is rarely mentioned in universities. We see few TV documentaries of slavery in Africa or the persecution in Algeria or China. But such things exist and on a wide scale. Marshall’s book, I think, is a very good way to begin to see the dimensions of what we are facing and the reasons, which are often products of our own culture, of why we ignore it.

    We have become somewhat used to the notion of the “culture of death” in which we live. John Paul II poignantly asked, “How can we fail to recognize that our age is unfortunately witnessing an unprecedented and almost unimaginable massacre of innocent human beings, which many States have legally endorsed?” (L’Osservatore Romano, February 26, 1997, English, p. 2). If we add euthanasia and the persecution of Christians and many other people to this list, we cannot but recognize what the Lord is asking us—first to be faithful even in the midst of these horrors and secondly to become aware of what dire things happen outside our own narrow vision.

    Marshall has a devastating chapter on the notion that our preaching and teaching are primarily on contentment, peace, and success, on ourselves, and not on what is happening to our fellow believers. In short, this is a very sobering book that makes us realize that, by the examples of the lives of those persecuted for their faith in our time, few of the things we think are important really are.

James V. Schall, S.J.
Georgetown University
Washington, D.C.

Not made by human hands

A HANDBOOK ON GUADALUPE. By The Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate (Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, P.O. Box 3003, New Bedford, Mass. 02741, 1996), 244 pp. PB $12.50.

    Our Blessed Mother is truly present in her miraculous image at the shrine of Guadalupe in Mexico City. Her timeless message and comforting words echo throughout the world, “Am I not here who am your Mother?” Millions of pilgrims flock to her each year placing their worries, illnesses, fears and anxieties at her feet as she requested. They have come for centuries because they believe she is present and they have great confidence in her words:

Let nothing discourage you, nothing depress you;

Let nothing alter your heart or countenance.

Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain.

AM I NOT HERE WHO AM YOUR MOTHER?

Are you not under my shadow and protection?

Are you not in the folds of my mantle, In the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else you need?

    For the first time complete and accurate information on the apparitions of Our Lady in 1531 to an Aztec Indian, Juan Diego, is compiled into one book. A Handbook on Guadalupe is a must for everyone who loves Our Lady and enjoys mystery, miracles, history, science and Catholic tradition. The book is divided into twelve parts each containing several short in-depth articles by top authorities from Mexico and the United States. The attractive and informative illustrations add life, reality and meaning to the varied subjects regarding Our Lady’s apparition and the ongoing miracle of her miraculous image.

    This beautiful book compiled by the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate begins with an “Introduction to America’s Mother.” Articles written by Fr. Christopher Rengers, O.F.M. Cap. and Msgr. Angel Garibay tell the amazing story of the apparitions of Our Lady who came as a loving mother and claimed us as her children. She appeared in the center of the Americas when there were no national boundaries saying, “I am the mother of all who live united in this land.” She is “America’s Mother” and the mother of everyone in the United States.

    Br. Francis Mary, F.F.I. explores the historical roots of Guadalupe in Catholic Spain and the evangelization of the New World. Dr. Charles Wahlig gives a detailed account of the Aztec empire, giving the reader a great appreciation for the courage and faith of Cortez and the Spaniards upon their arrival in 1519.
    Juan Diego and Bishop Juan de Zumaraga played important roles in the apparitions of Our Lady in 1531. Each cooperated with heaven’s plan which brought tremendous graces to the world. These two main characters are delightfully portrayed as “The Ambassador of The Queen of Heaven” and “The Defender of the Indians” respectively.

    The apparitions of Our Lady were indeed miraculous but it was her image that converted approximately nine million Indians over eight years. This was the greatest conversion ever in the history of mankind! What did the Indians see? The image is actually an Aztec pictograph that spoke to them in their written language. They immediately understood that she was the Mother of God and the queen of heaven and earth.

    The ongoing miracle is the image. There is no scientific explanation for its production or existence! It defies laws of nature and science: The pigments are not elements of this world; it maintains a constant temperature of 98.6; the eyes reflect light in the same manner as human eyes . . . etc.

    The book covers important topics such as “What does the Church say about Guadalupe?” And “What about the Name?” No apparitions of Our Lady have the approval of so many Popes as Guadalupe! Twenty-five out of the forty-four Popes who have reigned since the apparition have made special declarations regarding Our Lady. In 1979, Pope John Paul II made his first trip outside the Vatican to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

    “Am I Not Here Who Am Your Mother?” This is the only place that Our Blessed Mother has left her image. How fortunate and blessed we are to have a treasure from heaven not made by human hands.

Mary Therese Helmueller
St. Paul, Minn.

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