One of the
not-so-amazing things we’ve discovered while trying to get some “serious”
writing done — free plug alert: Easter
Witness: From Broken Dream to a New Vision for Ireland (2016) — is that
you can’t read much (or at all) for fun when you’re struggling to track down a
key fact or untangle events from nineteenth century newspaper accounts. Every page of Louis Lamour, Robert Heinlein,
or Rex Stout you turn makes you think, “Yeah, I really ought to be doing some
work . . . could have written a paragraph . . . done a little research . . .
okay, just another fifteen minutes . . . or fifty pages . . .”
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| John C. Wright, one of the newer fellows (at least to us) |
So, even though
we have a rather large number of SF&F tomes in our library (that’s “Science
Fiction and Fantasy” to you Muggles and Mundanes), we haven’t read much coming
from “new” writers (or used writers, for that matter) recently. That’s why we were a little startled to come
across a quote from John C. Wright, one of “the newer fellows” (meaning he
entered the lists after 1970. . . .) to the effect that if Vulcans had a
church, they’d be Catholics.
Now, we didn’t
take the time to verify that Wright did, in fact, say that, or say something to
that effect. It could potentially take
more time to track it down then could be justified for a quickie blog
posting. It served its purpose by giving
us a chance to reiterate our stance on the compatibility of the Just Third Way
with any philosophical or religious system based on an Aristotelian-Thomist
understanding of the natural law, viz.,
there is a universal moral code of behavior that can be discerned by observing
human nature and applying reason, illuminated by faith, if necessary (and, if
you believe Aquinas, it generally is).
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| "Don't leave me hanging, Dude, gimme three!" |
Do we mean that
we agree that supposedly supremely rational beings like fictional Vulcans would
find the Just Third Way logical?
Sure — you don't think the triad of that "Vulcan salute" is a coincidence, do you? Reason, after all, is the
basis of the whole thing. As was
declared by the First Vatican Council in the 1870s and paraphrased by Pope Pius
XII in the 1950s, “[A]bsolutely
speaking, human reason by its own natural force and light can arrive at a true
and certain knowledge of the one personal God, Who by His providence watches
over and governs the world, and also of the natural law, which the Creator has
written in our hearts.” (Humani Generis,
§ 2.)
Translation: people can
(that’s “can” not “necessarily will”) know that there is a God, and the
difference between right and wrong just by being, er, logical. That’s pretty much the basis of CESJ’s Core
Values and Code
of Ethics.
Don’t worry. We’re not going to get into Aquinas’s
empirical proofs of God’s existence, or even Anselm’s ontological argument —
although the combination is pretty powerful.
What we’re after is a demonstration of the falsity of the moral relativism
that has virtually taken over modern culture, especially in the West.
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| Rommen, solidarist, jurist, escapee from Nazis. |
According to the solidarist
jurist Heinrich Rommen, a student of the great Heinrich Pesch, S.J., the shift
from reason to faith (or from the Intellect to the Will) in understanding the
natural law, is the basis for totalitarianism as well as pure moral
relativism. Mortimer Adler and Pope St.
John Paul II concurred. This was also
the opinion of Fulton Sheen, G.K. Chesterton, and Msgr. Ronald Knox.
This is a matter of
opinion, but it seems that all the arguments advanced for accepting
redefinitions of traditional morality, institutions, or anything else, always
start with the demand that those who uphold the old order prove that the old
way is not wrong. There may be
exceptions, but the demand for tolerance pretty much boils down to a demand
that anyone who objects to a new definition of, say, marriage prove that they are not guilty of
intolerance, bigotry, racism, or anything else for standing by the old
definition.
And there’s the rub — and
what drove Fulton Sheen bananas (in a manner of speaking, so to speak). Do you see the trick? It’s a demand that anyone who objects to
moral relativism or deviancy prove they are not guilty of some offense, rather
than that those who want to change definitions prove that their innovation is
consistent with human nature.
What happened to “innocent
until proven guilty”? — for which a very good reason exists, by the way. As Fulton Sheen explained at great length in
his first two books, God and Intelligence
in Modern Philosophy (1925) and Religion
Without God (1928), you cannot prove the existence of non-existence. It’s a logical impossibility, utterly
contrary to reason.
Thus, if someone says to
you, prove you are not a bigot for opposing my new definition of marriage,
money, private property, or Ruben Sandwiches, that individual is demanding that
you prove, that is, provide evidence and a sound argument, that you are not
something.
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| "A contradiction violates the first principle of reason and is therefore illogical." |
Obviously (as every Vulcan
can tell you), you can only prove that something “is,” not that something, “is
not.” I can’t prove I am not a bigot,
nor do I have to. You have to prove that
I am — and it can’t be a circular argument, either, e.g., “Only bigots oppose my definition of private property. You oppose my definition of private
property. You are therefore a
bigot.” A circular argument starts with
the conclusion stated as a premise, and simply restates it as the conclusion, ergo, “circular reasoning”; there is no
evidence in the premise distinct from the conclusion.
Think about it: where do
you get existing evidence that does not exist?
You can’t — that would be the same as saying that non-existence exists,
which is a contradiction, and therefore nonsense.
So, would Vulcans, if they
had a church (and if they existed), be Catholics? That’s a matter of opinion, obviously, but
they would certainly be Aristotelian-Thomists — and thus supporters of the Just
Third Way.
It’s only logical. . . .
#30#