Ramblings with coffee on a Sunday

In logical argument, it is a fallacy to confuse correlation with causation. Great philosophers even argue about whether causes are real. In day-to-day life, which is neither a classroom nor a laboratory, it's not so much of an argument. Circumstantial evidence, when strong, can be sufficient for a conviction. We live in the world of doxa, not of Parmenidean absolutes. Survival depends on adapting to what is real in our actual level of existence, not some Platonic empyrean. At the sub-atomic level, there are vast realms of emptiness between particles. But if you try walking through a wall, all you'll get for your trouble is a bloody nose. Sikhs may believe that their God has no enemies, but their history tells them that they certainly do.

Very few things are universally true, that is, without exception. Many things are generally true, most of the time, more often than not, regularly or commonly. To ignore these or dismiss them, especially when they touch on dangerous or taboo subjects is the folly of moral and cognitive perfectionism, sometimes leading to disaster.


During my studies of Gnosticism, I discovered the typical three-fold anthropology some of them used: the human race was divided into hylics, psychics and pneumatics. Hylics (those made of matter) lived by the laws of biology. Psychics (those possessed of a soul as well) lived by the laws of morality. Gnostics come from the class of pneumatics (those possessing the divine spirit) lived by the divine consciousness which transcends both biology and morality. Gnostics were not egalitarians.

But modern Gnostics usually are. For them I developed another type, the pseudo-Gnostic who mistakes the values of morality for divine consciousness: the Angelics. Actual Gnostics are aware of their true identity AND the true identity of the irremediably fallen world in which they find themselves. The Angelics believe that because they imagine themselves divine, that the world is once again a garden paradise. This is a flight into spirituality, rather like the flight into health you find in early stages of therapy. This hubristic mistake actually makes them more closely allied to the Demiurge, a second-order being who deludedly thinks that he is the only God and the controller of the universe. In political terms, these are called Liberals.



What do you think are the strongest societal taboos for us?  I suggest two: pedophilia and racial discrimination (by Whites). Interestingly, racial miscegenation (by Whites) was once the strongest taboo...



Catholic sexual morality is determined by a single fundamental attitude and a single fundamental law. The attitude is the primacy, protection and promotion of marriage-and-family, that is, of the Seventh Sacrament, Matrimony. What protects and promotes marriage-and-family will be protected and promoted by the Church. Whatever detracts from it or threatens it or damages it will be rejected by the Church, even if it seems unconnected. It's the Catholic version of the rabbinic theme, Building a fence around the Torah. You could call it Building a fence around the Sacrament. This attitude is, I suspect, prior to any explicit rules or theories.

It explains why something seemingly as trivial as masturbation is considered seriously sinful. Like homosexuality, it is "intrinsically and gravely disordered." (Catechism 2352).

The fundamental law, which expresses this deep conviction, is the Catholic sexual axiom, the one sentence on which all of its sexual morality is built: The only legitimate (non-sinful) form of sexual intercourse is that between a married man and woman, and open to the creation of a child. As the new Catechism makes clear (2351), any sexual pleasure sought outside its unitive (man and wife) and procreative (open to child)  purposes is simply lust. Legitimating anything else implodes the axiom and threatens or detracts from what the Seventh Sacrament sanctifies: marriage-and-family.

Keeping these two things in mind both explains and predicts Church responses to any phenomenon which touches on matrimony.

The exaltation of celibacy for monks and priests, btw, actually proves this point because one sacrifices something fundamentally good for the sake of God. It's not giving up a sin, but offering a sacrifice. And you never offer God anything as a sacrifice which is not valuable.

I used to complain that the Catholic Church unrealistically acted as if there should be only two kinds of people in the world: married couples and celibates. Well, compassion for human failing aside [1], it really has no other choice if it's to do its job. Otherwise the axiom falls and the Seventh Sacrament follows. And I really don't know of societies where the (heterosexual, of course) marriage institution crumbles (regardless of its form) and good things result.

[1] It can have compassion on a failing but will call it a failing and not transform it into an option.

Having said that, Ex Cathedra's experience of the world leads him to believe that no system of any kind, moral or otherwise, can account successfully for all human behavior. Moral systems there must be. But reality will always outstrip them in unexpected ways. The Church must act as if there are only marrieds and celibates, but that does not make it so.