# My university, and what I think of Moral Theology



## Homeskooled (Aug 10, 2004)

So I've recently transferred to the Franciscan University of Steubenville, to take some part time classes. I like it.....to an extent. The college students are filled with joy, people hug on campus when they meet people they know, and there are plenty of homeschoolers. BUT, and this is a big but, I still have a problem with some of the Catholic Church's stances on moral theology. Mostly the idea that salvation is treadmill of ups and downs, of watching over your actions like a hawk so that you dont fall into hell. Of going to confession, etc....I'm not sure if I'm really allowed to be questioning these things (either I'm quite forward thinking or I'm falling into schism, one of the two). In any event, I see where I am distinct from Protestantism. I dont see God's presence within all of us as predicated on whether you've accepted Christ, and once you have, all the work is done. Thats the easy way out. Even the Catholic Church admits that pagans, non-Christians, the unbaptised, go to heaven through cooperating with goodness and divine grace throughout their lives.

I agree with Church doctrine. Christ. God's omnipotence. The Trinity. Christ's presence in the Eucharist. The usefulness of marriage. The priesthood. The "universal" or "Catholic" (this is what catholic means) nature of the church. I even see the usefulness of confession. But I disagree with how these things are applied. The Church divides sins into mortal sins (according to the Gospel of John "those that kill") and venial sins, the less important of the two. I dont even have a problem with this. But I do have a problem with the classification of what is mortal and what is not. How did masturbation and impure thoughts get on this list? I've seen so many people in psych hospitals ( I just visited a group home yesterday - I try to do this every now and again) worried about whether they are getting to heaven. If we all are only an impure thought away from hell, then what is the good news? What use is Christ's coming if people are still bound to the law? The branch of theology that deals with these problems is moral theology. There are very specific branches for all kinds of things - christology, demonology, etc.....

The Catholic Church was the bastion of learning in the Dark Ages (generally considered to be the 9th to the 12th centuries). Monks hand-copied Greek and Latin manuscripts and classics. The first European university was Catholic. So much of the growth of moral theology is intertwined with the growth of rationalism and scientific thought. St. Thomas Aquinas drew on Aristotle and Plato for his applications of moral theology. But in trying to define the spiritual, in trying to split so many hairs, the Thomists destroyed the sense of freedom from this sort of inquiry that I beleive Christ wished for. Yes, I think it is good to watch one's actions. St. Paul says do not steal, fornicate, lie, cheat, etc...because people who do not will not be "inheritors of the kingdom of heaven". What does that mean? Is it a clear indictment of Hell? A warning that you are harming the fire of God within you? A message that it will inhibit the spread of his kingdom on earth? I have no idea. But do we have to ask this question? Do we have to figure out what sin kills and what does not, so that future Catholics can writhe in more guilt? If you have to ask how evil is too evil, arent you looking at your actions and your relationship with God in the wrong light?

Aquinas took St. Paul one step further. He proposed that fornication was on St. Paul's short list because it took something natural (procreation) and did so in the improper context, making it what is called "illicit". Extrapolating on his intution in the matter, he gave the same distinction to impure thoughts. Natural, but only good when married (the proper context). I have to disagree. Everyone on here knows me as something akin to a biological reductionist. The adolescent and adult mind cannot partition off thoughts of sex, nor do I think they should. Freud had something correct when he surmised that this would lead to neurosis. The male's brain is wired with millions of testosterone receptors. What occurs between the legs in a man occurs first between the ears. As I've pointed out many time before, although we may feel that we are in control of our thoughts, I beleive we ( and our thoughts) are more of a product of our brain, than the brain is of "us". Now back to Tom. On St. Thomas's scale, sin becomes more deviant, more "grave" as it becomes more unnatural. Thus, killing one's father (patricide) is more grave than killing a stranger in hot blood. Having impure thoughts about animals is worse than looking at Playboy (or the 12th century equivalent). If you define sex's purpose as simply procreation, then deviating from this form is incredibly unnatural. So on St. Thomas's scale, masturbating became worse than sleeping with a prostitute. Is this a supremely logical train of thought? Somehow it strikes me as not so.....and yet on paper, his moral addition problem (because this is how I view some of moral theology's meanderings) looks alot like 2+2=4. Where has Thomas gone wrong? I can think of a couple of places off the top of my head. First of all, the use of logic as a supreme tool. How useful is it? It is not reality, no more than binary math calculations are reality. Why does two equal two and how do we prove it? You cannot. But it is useful in approximating reality. Sometimes reality, such as quantum physics, contradicts it. Logic is an imperfect human tool at approximating something that objectively exists. If logic seems to contradict something that is self-evident (such as the fact that masturbating is slightly less problematic than sleeping with a prostitute), then re-examine the tools you are using. Perhaps prayer, common sense, knowledge in several disciplines like human anatomy and biology, and intuition are much more useful in ascertaining such a truth.

Second of all, how do we know that the purpose of sexuality is procreation? What if it is multifunctional? I agree that the subconscious reason for its existence, and ONE of the main reasons for its existence, is to pass on one's DNA. But take away a human's sexuality, and you take away much, much more than that. Because it is bound of so integrally with the brain, a man without testosterone is more likely to commit suicide. Testosterone is a natural antidepressant. A man without testosterone feels sleepy after eating his dinner(you'll find this question on most testosterone self-questionarres). He has no energy. What would happen to all of the things that make the world go round, the engineers working long nights, the construction workers who have to maintain their stamina, the computer programmers staying up 24/7 to finish a project for Microsoft, the comedians who need to laugh (remember, its an antidepressant), and the artists who need their muse? When you take away sex, you take away whole dimensions of humanity. Why do we have to choose one, and only one reason for sex's existence? Is it really necessary? Because God has bound up so much of the human person in it, I find it difficult, actually nigh unto impossible, defining which aspect of it is the "reason" for its existence. Like most things in existence, it seems to be a feedback loop affecting many facets of being human. Its a tapestry with many brilliant colors. It needs to be respected, but if you give it many primary purposes, it changes the definition of what is "natural" to use it for. Perhaps sexuality is just as important in creating novels as it is in creating babies. In other words, I'm proposing, using Catholic theology, that having sexual thoughts feeds many human achievements, and is not some sort of unGodly imposition on humanity.

I am of the opinion that the Good News, the reason for Christ's coming, was, is this - he restored a connection to God that was lost when man took it upon himself eons ago to do things our way. When we began calculating and tabulating what we could get away with in that mythical garden of Eden ( I beleive the Genesis account is an allegory of something that actually occurred, not a literal rendering. I beleive that the literal history of our beginnings is lost to the mysts of time). Christ came to remind us of the love which God has for all of us, the love that burns in each human being, so that every beggar, every person who thirsts, every person who is sick, or in prison, or even a pagan, is another Christ, and should be treated as such. The fire that allows us to love God, and be loved in return, is, I beleive, what the Church calls sanctifying grace. In admitting in an encyclical published in the 1970s, that God could allow people to enter heaven who were not baptised or Christian, the Church admitted what I beleive was true all along - heaven is the default place that people tend to go when they die. I've met too many people to think that all who receive the sacraments, or make sure they dont commit "mortal" sins, truly have a fire of divine love in their hearts. There are some things you cant quantify. Dante placed the Pope who abdicated the papacy(the only one to ever do so) in something like the 4th circle of hell for what he termed "the divine refusal". I beleive that not finding one's vocation can be a mortal sin, in that you will be as unfulfilled in the next life as you are here. Heaven and hell start here. I dont think the afterlife is really a big surprise for anyone. Goodness on this earth begets goodness, evil begets evil. You shall know a tree by its fruit. Your eternal life is just a continuation of your earthly one. And the reason I question these teachings, these "reflections of the truth" is because I see much ill fruit from them in my life and in others. There is a reason that the Catholic Church loses so many adolescents and 20 somethings, and it is not because these people are going to hell. I've talked to many. They love God deeply, but they could not reconcile their human nature, their imperfections, their sexuality, with Catholicism. As St. Paul said, none of us can measure up to the law. Not one. So maybe, as Catholics, as the body of the Church, we should stop trying to quantify it. Christs work is already done. I beleive that everyone born, baptised or not, has the fire of God's love within them. As you grow older, it takes years of brutal evil to quench it - the end effect of many, many years of saying no, is "mortal", in other words, it kills. The fire goes out. I was speaking with a woman at the group home yesterday, and I tried to put this into words. She was worried that through one transgression she would go to hell, and I told her that just because she was worried, it showed me she would not. When you no longer care, nay, when you no longer care to care - that is when you are in trouble. And I'd say thats maybe 1 percent of people alive on this earth. I cant quantify when they cross that line - Catholics are always trying to and Protestants dont want the line to exist - but they eventually do.

I beleive that the job of a Christian is to feel joy that Christ has saved humanity. That we are all born with this divine love within us, and that because of Christ's death, grace flows freely to this earth. Christianity gives us the tools to live a better life here and a supremely happy one afterwards. The Good News is that Christ accomplished the work. "Christian", non-Christian (I dont actually think a distinction exists - it is Humanity which Christ came for) all have the ability to nurture the divine love which exists in them or to quench it. As a Christian, having access to the teaching makes nurturing it easier and more fruitful. The seed is falling on fertile ground. Without Christ's teaching, it can still be nurtured, but you are like a man wandering in the dark. Nevertheless, heaven is still not closed to you if you are seeking Love. Christ opened it wide for all of humanity. What I am saying doesnt negate Christianity or Catholicism's tenets - go to Confession, but dont go out of fear - go out of love. One transgression will not tip the scale. Go to Mass. Receive Christ in the Eucharist. Spend time in contemplation and prayer. Love human beings, try not to use them as objects of lust because it contradicts the true spirit of Chrstianity - to Love. Dont fornicate. But dont be ashamed of your sexuality either. If you have a problem masturbating, so what? I think that imperfections like this (which is different than a sin) burn up in insignificance in the fire of God's love. Welcome sexual thoughts as a manifestation of the divine in humanity and thank God for them. These are radical departures from the way that Christianity and the Catholic Church present, apply, and filter truth - but they do not negate the core truths. Rather, I think this way of viewing them amplifies their significance and brings them into line with common sense, and dare I say it, logic. As a wise man once said, all you need is love. And for your information, his name was John, not St. Paul.

Peace
Homeskooled

PS- These are links to my school, showing the amazing things about the campus , and the not-so-amazing, ulraconservative things about it :

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9024945/site/newsweek

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9024914/site/newsweek/

Incidentally, I see alot of myself in panentheism, the idea that God is manifested in everything, but is still a seperate and distinct entity.


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## terri* (Aug 17, 2004)

Homeskooled...

Your thoughts/beliefs run very closely to my own.

Do you feel like the Catholic Church would have a "hissy fit" for your thinking somewhat outside of their box?

Whether one agrees/believes with you or not, it is still a very well written piece.

Build a church, they will come. 

Peace to you,
terri


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## Homeskooled (Aug 10, 2004)

Dear Terri, 
Yes and no. What I said isnt really an "anti-Catholicism" rant. I think if I was trying to marry priests or prove that Mary should not be prayed to, I'd be excommunicated. What I said above is close to what Martin Luther said in his 95 points that began the Protestant Reformation, but with one exception - I've used the Church's own theology to prove my point, without invalidating the papacy or the sacraments. I despise people who try to tear down existing institutions (I think they exist in the way they've evolved for a reason) and I also despise people who embrace them without qualification. Because I am of the system and willing to work within it to change it, I stand a good chance of effecting some sort of permanent changes. For instance, my stances on politics, while embracing neo-conservatism, as Martin likes to point out, also depart drastically from modern political norms, conventions, and ethics. I understand diplomacy and legislative politics, but I do not entirely agree with the way they are practiced. The same goes for my take on medicine. I understand the system, I can speak "doctorese", but I still think almost all doctors fall short of offering their patients what they need. I approach the Catholic Church the same way.

Deep down, I experience alot of angst about life questions. But I think it is this that has made me fearless. I know that I always have two options. I can bury the question inside of myself and cower in my fear, or I can face it head on. I usually choose the latter. I just dont want to throw the baby out with the bath water. I think the priest I ask these questions sees me as a bit of a powder keg, but thats probably true.

Peace
Homeskooled


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## Rozanne (Feb 24, 2006)

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