From the Department of Sentences I Don’t Understand
Posted on July 7th, 2009
by John Schwenkler in religion |
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Can anyone tell me what Michael Novak means by this?
The Catholic tradition—even the wise Pope Benedict—still seems to put too much stress upon caritas, virtue, justice, and good intentions, and not nearly enough on methods for defeating human sin in all its devious and persistent forms [emphasis mine – JS].
What in the world is he referring to? Abortion? Contraception? Bombing the hell out of Asia and the Middle East so that no one has a chance to take a shot at us? And, whatever happened to not immanentizing the eschaton? If George Weigel can declare that the Holy Father’s latest encyclical sounds like “the warbling of an untuned piccolo”, then I get to call B.S. on the Neocon Philosopher-in-Chief.
Filed under: religion
1. I think I detect a little snark (or a lot) in that em-dash–set-off reference to the Holy Father.
2. Is he referring to voting Democratic?
John and Nathan, this seems pretty easy to understand to me. The Catholic “tradition” has really overplayed the whole caritas–you know, love–thing. I mean, where has that got us? Time to rethink the plan. Sin is still around. Heck, the Democratic Party controls Congress and the presidency, and the American Conservative is still in business! I for one anxiously await further elaboration of Mr. Novak’s “methods for defeating human sin in all its devious and persistent forms.” Sounds like he’s spent some time cooking up something really cool down in the ol’ basement! Perhaps he’s got a new tagline for Jesus. Instead of the old cliched “God Is Love” thing, maybe we’ll be running with “God Is Self-Interest Rightly Understood” or better yet, “God is the Creative Search for Dynamic Liberation of the World’s Poor through Entrepeneurialism and the Benevolent Projection of American Power.” That last one is pretty catchy. Much more saleable, too, lemme tell ya.
I’m not a Catholic and I have no insight into what Novak may mean. But when I first read that sentence the “methods” that came to mind where prayer, mortification, etc. I took it to mean that rather than relying on social means to correct for sin we needed more focus on methods that controlling sin occurs at the level of the individual human heart.
So “Faith, Si; Works, No“? That hardly seems an orthodox sentiment. And why wouldn’t prayer and mortification fall under the heading of caritas?
Jeremy, if, as Facebook has, this Weblog had a “Like” button, I’d hit it repeatedly for that last, catch and salable line. Perhaps, though, we can replace the odious “Power” with the more majestic “Exceptionalism”?
Nathan, yes “Power” is off. “Projection of the American Blessing” maybe?
John,
Just stumbled upon your post.
Michael Novak is falling into Pelagianism. That’s what’s going on here. The irony here is that Novak criticizes Pope Benedict XVI, who is an authority on Augustine, because he seemingly forgot what Augustine had to say on structures of government in the city of God. The irony here is that Augustine wrote against the Pelagian heresy and it is that same heresy that Novak seems to fall on to criticize the Pope. In other words, forget about the prophets and what they have to say about justice, forget about that important little passage in 1 John that says that “God is caritas”, forget about the other two theological virtues (faith and hope), because that’s just Christian sentimentality. That will not get us anywhere. And the fact that he is a theologian… is scary.
My husband wrote this excellent post on Weigel (noting how a few years ago Weigel complimented Ratzinger on his precise choice of words) and the implications of Weigel’s slanderous article:
http://evangelicalcatholicism.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/on-the-sheer-implausibility-of-george-weigels-story-part-1/