Beauty, Eh?

 

I tried to explain recently to a friend who describes herself as “spiritual, but not religious,” and a “cafeteria Catholic,” why I take my Catholicism seriously.

I know where she is coming from. The speaker at a recent Life in the Spirit seminar argued that original sin is passed on through bad parenting. That is, we project our experience with our own parents onto God, and this makes us mistrust him. “Daddy issues.”

That seems to me spot on, and just what the Bible itself suggests. All the families in the Old Testament are dysfunctional, as if to make this point. The sins of the father are passed on to the sons unti the fourth generation.

In the immoral words of Philip Larkin:

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   
    They may not mean to, but they do.   
They fill you with the faults they had
    And add some extra, just for you. 

But they were fucked up in their turn
    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   
Who half the time were soppy-stern
    And half at one another’s throats. 

Man hands on misery to man.
    It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
    And don’t have any kids yourself.

The last two lines of course defeat the purpose of creation. And “soppy-stern” and “at one another’s throats” are not the only dysfunctional options. There is neglect, abuse, scapegoating, deliberate or mistaken bad advice and bad example, causing a child to stumble, and pampering.

But the only protection against false authority is true authority. 

As Mr. Robert Dylan put it, you’re gonna have to serve somebody. “It may be the Devil, or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” 

“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other. So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” – Revelation 3: 14

Neutrality is not an option. If you leave the God-seat vacant, a demon will come in and take it. 

And the instant you are aware of God, this requires immediate submission. As the ground of being, of all that is, the perfect good, truth, and beauty, he deserves absolute reverence. You must, in conscience, love him with all your heart, all your mind, and all your energy. Not to do so is intrinsically an act of rebellion. A rebellion we are all guilty of to some extent, but never creditable.

if we do not submit entirely to his authority, we are repeating the error of Eve. 

You will say, but all those religious people are hypocrites. That’s the usual excuse. Of course they are. We are all sinners. But that is not a valid argument; it is the “ad hominem” fallacy. If a thing is true, it does not matter who said it. 

All right, so how do we do the will of God? What does God want from us anyway?

Jesus told us. “If you love me, keep my commandments.” That means we have to get in harness. We can’t just go on fulfilling our own will.

Okay, so how do we know which religion represents his wishes?

To my mind this is an entirely secondary consideration. So long as we are acting in good faith, it does not matter. And so long aas we are acting in bad faith, it does not matter.

God is Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. If we seek Truth, Justice, and Beauty with every fibre of our being, with our whole heart,  mind, and energy, despite the possible consequences to us, we are worshipping God and following his commandments. If we do not, we are not.

I trust the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I trust them because they contain the distilled wisdom of the ages; one must have a pretty high opinion of one’s own intellect to question them, rather than your own assumptions, when they differ. I trust tradition unless I have a strong argument against it.

But then ultimately I only trust them because they seem confirmed by my own reason and conscience. If they were obviously wrong, I’d leave the church.

One warrant that the Catholic Church is the truest path is Jesus’s repeated injunction, “by their fruits you shall know them.” What path has produced the most visible knowledge, the most just societies, and the most artistic beauty?

I think it is clear that “Western civilization” has. In other words, Christendom. Christendom has brought us science, and democracy, and human rights, and Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, da Vinci, Michelangelo, and the rest. The Catholic Church in particular has always been intimate with the beautiful and has always fostered beauty. To become a practicing Catholic is to make your life a work of art.

Do you fear submitting yourself to the authority of priests? The Protestants and the Muslims will say so.

I do too. I too do not trust priests, or bishops, or even, sadly the present pope.

Humility before men can easily be, and usually is, idolatry. How humble was Jesus himself? Declaring himself the Messiah, which is to say, the rightful king of the world, then actually declaring himself God? Surely that sounds a bit cheeky to the casual observer.

How humble were the prophets, to their fellow man, denouncing the king, their countrymen, and the government relentlessly?

I like William Blake’s slogan: “humble before God, not before men.”