The Awesome Power of the Five-Step "Lectio Divina" Method to Scripture

James Tissot, Jesus Teaches in the Synagogues (1886)

In his 2010 encyclical Verbum Domini (“The Word of the Lord”), Pope Benedict XVI advocated a particular approach to Scripture as a key, both to our personal sanctification, and to Christian ecumenism:

Listening together to the word of God, engaging in biblical lectio divina, letting ourselves be struck by the inexhaustible freshness of God’s word which never grows old, overcoming our deafness to those words that do not fit our own opinions or prejudices, listening and studying within the communion of the believers of every age: all these things represent a way of coming to unity in faith as a response to hearing the word of God.

In particular, Benedict called upon us seminarians to develop this relationship with Scripture, via lectio divina, as preparation for the priesthood:

Those aspiring to the ministerial priesthood are called to a profound personal relationship with God’s word, particularly in lectio divina, so that this relationship will in turn nurture their vocation: it is in the light and strength of God’s word that one’s specific vocation can be discerned and appreciated, loved and followed, and one’s proper mission carried out, by nourishing the heart with thoughts of God, so that faith, as our response to the word, may become a new criterion for judging and evaluating persons and things, events and issues.

So what is lectio divina? Literally, it means “Divine Reading,” and it refers to the way that monks have been ruminating on Scripture for centuries. There are five basic steps, in which we answer four questions, and then resolve to act upon those answers:

Step 1: Lectio (What does the biblical text say in itself?)

It opens with the reading (lectio) of a text, which leads to a desire to understand its true content: what does the biblical text say in itself? Without this, there is always a risk that the text will become a pretext for never moving beyond our own ideas.

Often, we're in such a hurry to get to the second step, determining what the passage means for us (or what it means to us), that we don't take enough time to focus on what the passage actually means in itself.

Herein lies the problem with proof-texting passages: some issue is at the forefront of our minds, and we mine the Scriptures looking for support. This approach risks reducing the word of God to a tool in our arsenal for our personal agendas, elevating us at the expense of Divine revelation.

So first things first: what is the initial meaning of the passage? It's only once we've answered this, that we're ready for the next step:

Step 2: Meditatio (What does the biblical text say to us?)

Next comes meditation (meditatio), which asks: what does the biblical text say to us? Here, each person, individually but also as a member of the community, must let himself or herself be moved and challenged.

Heinrich Hofmann, Christ Among the Teachers (1897)

The word of God isn't a dead letter, some ancient text to be read simply for its historical importance. Rather, it is “living and active” (Heb 4:12), one of the ways that Our Lord continues to reveal Himself to us, and to guide us. When lives are transformed by an encounter with Scripture, it's because people realized that God was speaking speaking to them through the Bible. He is still speaking to you and to me. Are we taking the trouble to listen to what He has to say?

Bear in mind, when God speaks to each of us through Scripture, He doesn't treat us atomistically. The Body of Christ “does not consist of one member but of many” (1 Cor. 12:14), and if “one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Cor 12:26). So God comes to us through His word as members of the Church, the Body of Christ, which Benedict reminds us is “the home of the word.”

This has implications for how we approach the Liturgy. Benedict reminds us that “the liturgy is the privileged setting in which God speaks to us in the midst of our lives; he speaks today to his people, who hear and respond. Every liturgical action is by its very nature steeped in sacred Scripture.” For the Christian, then, “A faith-filled understanding of sacred Scripture must always refer back to the liturgy, in which the word of God is celebrated as a timely and living word: 'In the liturgy the Church faithfully adheres to the way Christ himself read and explained the sacred Scriptures, beginning with his coming forth in the synagogue and urging all to search the Scriptures'.”

Step 3: Oratio (What do we say to the Lord in response to his word?)

Following this comes prayer (oratio), which asks the question: what do we say to the Lord in response to his word? Prayer, as petition, intercession, thanksgiving and praise, is the primary way by which the word transforms us.

The word of God requires a response, and that response begins with prayer. In paragraph 86, Benedict quotes this line from St. Augustine's Exposition on the Psalms: “Your prayer is the word you speak to God. When you read the Bible, God speaks to you; when you pray, you speak to God.”

Step 4: Contemplatio (What conversion of mind, heart and life is the Lord asking of us?)

Finally, lectio divina concludes with contemplation (contemplatio), during which we take up, as a gift from God, his own way of seeing and judging reality, and ask ourselves what conversion of mind, heart and life is the Lord asking of us? In the Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul tells us: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (12:2). Contemplation aims at creating within us a truly wise and discerning vision of reality, as God sees it, and at forming within us “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16). The word of God appears here as a criterion for discernment: it is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb 4:12).

Alphonse Legros, The Calling of Saint Francis (1861)

Here again, we meet Scripture as alive, but now, we're looking for something more specific. Before, in meditatio, we were made aware that God was speaking to us through His word. But now, we're learning what that means, most concretely.

St. Francis of Assisi was inspired to begin his mendicant lifestyle, and eventually the Franciscan Order, after hearing a homily on Matthew 10:7-19.  Likewise, St. Augustine recounted the radical conversion he underwent after reading Romans 13:13-14, while St. Antony was converted after reading Matthew 19:21.

When St. Antony heard the line “Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me,” he didn't just take it as generally directed towards him. Rather, he grasped it as a specific call, to go live out a monastic life in the desert. Likely, you won't get that prompting in lectio divina (although it's surely possible). But to know what God has in store for you, you should listen to Him carefully, with an ear towards what changes need to be made in your life.

Step 5: Actio (Living out the Lectio Divina)

We do well also to remember that the process of lectio divina is not concluded until it arrives at action (actio), which moves the believer to make his or her life a gift for others in charity.

Once you know what it is that God is calling on you to do, the next step is straightforward: do it.

Conclusion

If all Christians would undertake the prayerful reading of Scripture in this way, the wounds of the Reformation would almost certainly begin to heal. There are a few reasons for this.

• First, disputes over Scripture would be grounded in the original meaning of the text. The first step, lectio, ensures this. Of course, this limits the potential for textual perversion or proof-texting.
  
  
• Second, because Scripture would no longer be viewed as something somehow contrary to the Church or the Liturgy. Scripture assumes the norm that it will be read liturgically (Revelation 1:3). Jesus is the exemplar of approach, exegeting Scripture in a liturgical context in the synagogue (e.g., Luke 4:16-21).
  
  
• Finally, because there would be more Saints. As we draw closer to Christ, we cannot help but draw closer to one another, just as spokes draw closer together as they come nearer to the hub.

Can Objective Morality Exist Without God? (Round 3)

Yesterday marked the conclusion of my debate with Steven Dillion on objective morality and the existence of God. Here's everything, in case you missed any of it:

Monday (11/4) - Joe's opening statement (affirmative)
Tuesday (11/5) - Steven's opening statement (negative)
Wednesday (11/6) - Joe's rebuttal (affirmative)
Thursday (11/7) - Steven's rebuttal (negative)
Friday (11/8) - Questions exchanged (three questions each)
Saturday (11/9) - Answers (Joe and Steven answer each other's questions)
Sunday (11/10) - Joe's closing statement (affirmative)
Monday (11/11) - Steven's closing statement (negative)

From my closing statement:

In affirming the resolution, “Does objective morality depend upon God?” I’ve argued two things: (a) that objective morality can be grounded in God; and (b) that objective morality cannot be grounded in anything other than God. Steven challenged (b), claiming that moral truths like “suffering is inherently bad” are simply and intuitively true, and do not rely upon God.

In my rebuttal, I asked, “what does it mean to call agony ‘intrinsically bad,’ exactly?” If we mean that agony is inherently painful, that’s a tautology, not a moral claim. As Peter Geach explained in Good and Evil:

"[I]f I call a man a good burglar or a good cut-throat I am certainly not commending him myself; one can imagine circumstances in which these descriptions would serve to guide another man's choice (e.g. if a commando leader were choosing burglars and cut-throats for a special job), but such circumstances are rare and cannot give the primary sense of the descriptions. It ought to be clear that calling a thing a good A does not influence choice unless the one who is choosing happens to want an A; and this influence on action is not the logically primary force of the word “good”."

So, to turn “agony is intrinsically bad (painful)” into an objective moral claim, you would have to have an objective moral system (e.g., that we should always pursue pleasure and avoid painful or unpleasant things). But the terms don't carry that system within themselves, and there's no objective, non-theistic way to construct this or any other moral system.

On the other hand, if we mean that agony is an intrinsic evil, that’s false. Steven has yet to define his term, but his answer to Question 1 suggests that this is his meaning. I’ll proceed under that assumption.

To say that an act is intrinsically evil is to say that it may never be done. By “evil,” we mean that sort of thing that ought not be done; by “intrinsically,” we mean that it ought not be done of itself, without consideration of any consequences. We ought not rape, murder, etc., regardless of the good or bad consequences of an individual act of rape or murder.

But that’s not what Steven argues at all. He says that suffering can be inflicted if it is the “lesser of two evils.” I asked about the case of a woman intentionally getting pregnant, given the pains of childbirth. He says that “if a woman has to endure the excruciating pain of child-birth so that the child may be born, we should permit the suffering, otherwise a child dies.” That's telling, but not my question: if a woman chooses to get pregnant, the alternative isn’t that a child dies. It’s that a child is never conceived. So the “lesser of two evils” principle doesn’t apply. By Steven’s initial analysis, it would seem that every instance of intentional conception is evil. But now, it seems that he’ll permit agony not only to avoid greater evils, but also to achieve greater goods (like procreation).

If it is okay to inflict agony in some cases, then agony is not intrinsically evil. This refutes the claim that “agony is intrinsically bad (evil).”

At this point, Steven seems to have shifted to utilitarianism, a moral system which I rejected in my opinion statement, in a passage left unrebutted:

"[U]tilitarianism leads to unconscionable results. No action—slavery, rape, genocide, torture, etc.—could ever be described as objectively evil. We’d have to determine how much pleasure the slavemaster, rapist, genocidaire, and torturer derive (along with the pleasure or displeasure of the general public). Only after we’ve weighed all of those factors, could we determine whether the action is right or wrong."

Steven hasn’t, and can’t, show this moral framework to be true, or binding upon anyone.

Stepping back from the particulars of the claim “agony is intrinsically bad,” is the broader problem of moral intuitionism, which I raised in my rebuttal: namely, that it's not an objective moral code, since intuitions differ from person to person; that it provides no basis for rational decision-making, because there's no mechanism for resolving competing values; and that all true moral intuition relies upon God.

Rockefeller Center

Steven gives an intriguing illustration of the moral system he's defending:

"Think of a tall skyscraper. What grounds it? Well, you might say its foundation. And what grounds its foundation? You could say the land in which it is built in or upon. And what grounds the land? You could continue asking of each proposed grounding structure what grounds it. Assuming this cannot continue on indefinitely, you’ll reach a point where there simply is no deeper grounding structure: you’ve struck rock bottom. I’m saying that moral facts are grounded by other moral facts, and so on until we reach moral facts so foundational there’s just no further to go. This is radically different from saying that there is no rock bottom, and moral facts just sort of...free-float."

I largely agree with this view. In fact, it's virtually identical to the first three of Thomas' Five Ways. But Steven stops too soon in his digging into the foundation: you can't logically conclude that there are several rock bottoms. Even the moral claims he's arguing that are irreducibly fundamental aren't. If they were, he couldn't say that they are permissible in some cases. To say that a certain truth is foundational, if it means anything, means that it's not just true in certain situations.

This is why moral intuitionism provides no capacity for rational moral decision-making: if both equitable distribution of goods and respect for private property are irreducibly foundational moral principles, what do we do when they clash? It's an irresistible force and an unmovable object: a contradiction that exposes the incoherence of the intuitionist worldview. Likewise, in saying that agony is sometimes permissible, Steven shows that it's not a foundational principle that agony is inherently evil.

Still, I agree with his impulse, to dig further and further into the metaphysical foundations. And the solution is to dig deeper, to the First Cause. There must be a single First Cause, or you can't get this moral system off the ground. This First Cause can't be anyone other than God (as we've seen, all other alternatives fail to create an objective moral system). That's what I meant in the rebuttal about all forms of intuitionism relying upon God.

Steven objects that it doesn't make sense to claim that objective morality depends upon God because we don't have anything literal to say about God. Here, I must raise an objection: Steven complains that God isn't reducible to the unaided human intellect. But a being that could be comprehended by the unaided human intellect would be, in some way, smaller than the intellect, and therefore, not God.

Read the whole thing, and Steven's closing statement. Thanks to everyone who's participated in any way in this debate, and your continued prayers for the success of the endeavor are much appreciated.

Of Thick Trees and Morality: An Analogy.

Envision in your mind an enormous tree containing many limbs, which branch off into smaller branches, which branch off into twigs, which sprout leaves. The branches and foliage are so thick that you can't see the  trunk of the tree at all.

Alexandre Calame, Landscape with Oak (1859)

Although you can't see the trunk, you can see the leaves. And you can see that they depend (for their existence and for their sustenance) upon the twigs, and that the twigs depend in turn upon the branches, which depend upon the limbs. From this, it seems to me that there are three basic conclusions you could draw: (a) the limbs are ultimately dependent upon something self-sustaining to sustain them; (b) the limbs are suspended in midair, relying upon nothing else; or (c) the limbs are dependent upon an infinite regress of other limbs, branches, etc., and that there's no bottom to this series.

Of these three, (b) seems to just wave away the phenomena, treating levitating branches as a brute fact, and (c) violates the rules of logic.So it seems to me that the best explanation would be to conclude to the existence of a trunk, or something like it. And this is so even though the trunk isn't directly observed. You can demonstrate its existence from its effects.

This is roughly analogous to the situation with the moral law. We see certain things that are morally true because of other, more fundamental truths; these truths are grounded in yet more fundamental truths, etc. Either this chain terminates in maximal truth (which we call God), or it arbitrarily stops, or it regresses infinitely.

This also works as an analogy to teleology: all moral actions are for the sake of some purpose (and "end"), or our action is pointless. But we can drive down deeper: we pursue this end for the sake of some further purpose, or it's a pointless end to pursue. And this goes on, until we either (a) arrive at a single final end; (b) arbitrarily stop [in which case, the whole chain is pointless], or (c) infinitely regress [which is logically impossible].

If (a) is true, we're grounding morality in a single final end, which we call God. If (b) is true, then morality is ultimately pointless.

Can Objective Morality Exist Without God? (Round 2)

My debate with Steven Dillon on whether objective morality can exist without God  continues on Strange Notions. On Wednesday, they posted my rebuttal to Steven's opening statement, and today, they posted Steven's rebuttal to my opening statement.

From my rebuttal:

Is Agony Intrinsically Evil?

In my opening statement, I suggested that non-theistic moral systems cannot be the source of objective moral claims. In his opening statement, Steven proposed what he described as an “exceptionally good” candidate for a necessarily true moral proposition: that “agony is intrinsically bad.”

He defines “agony” as “an intense and extreme amount of pain.” But instead of defining what it means to call agony “intrinsically bad,” he simply gives “some paradigmatic examples of bad things.” For example: “It’s bad when parents have to live their lives in worry and stress because of inopportunity and an unfair society.”

So what does it mean to call agony “intrinsically bad,” exactly? Do we mean simply that agony is extremely unpleasant or, in some way, painful? If so, that seems tautological, like saying “extremely painful things are painful.” Besides being uninformative, that’s not even a moral claim. [....]

Let’s consider an alternative interpretation of the proposition “agony is intrinsically bad.” Since Steven tells us that this is a moral proposition, he may mean that agony is a moral evil, never to be intentionally committed. If so, is that true?

At first glance, it certainly seems like good advice. But is it morally evil to intentionally suffer? Put more concretely, do we consider it morally evil for a woman to intentionally get pregnant, given the pain of childbirth? Or what about the surgeon who performs an agonizing (but life-saving) operation? Are high-stress jobs immoral? If so, what makes these things evil? Again, we’re left hunting for some sort of objective and binding moral code or system.

So, understood in either sense, then, “agony is intrinsically bad” fails as an objective moral claim. It’s either a non-moral tautology, or a false (and non-objective) moral claim.

The Problem of Intuitionism

In the last section, we saw that under either interpretation of the proposition “agony is intrinsically bad,” we were left looking for some sort of moral code or system. Instead, Steven advocates something akin to what the utilitarian R.M. Hare described as “pluralistic intuitionism”: namely, belief in “a plurality of moral principles, each established by intuition, and not related to one another in an ordered structure, but only weighed relatively to each other (also by intuition) when they conflict.” There are several problems with this pluralistic intuitionism.

Dred Scott

First, it’s not an objective moral code. Intuitions differ. Steven takes it as self-evident that “Racism, animal cruelty, human trafficking, all of these things are bad.” For centuries, Europeans and white Americans assumed the opposite, at least about racism. As the Supreme Court noted in the notorious Dred Scott v. Sandford case:

"They [racist colonial laws] show that a perpetual and impassable barrier was intended to be erected between the white race and the one which they had reduced to slavery, and governed as subjects with absolute and despotic power, and which they then looked upon as so far below them in the scale of created beings, that intermarriages between white persons and negroes or mulattoes were regarded as unnatural and immoral, and punished as crimes, not only in the parties, but in the person who joined them in marriage. And no distinction in this respect was made between the free negro or mulatto and the slave, but this stigma, of the deepest degradation, was fixed upon the whole race."

So the ordinary American today views racial equality as self-evident and racism as a morally intuitive evil. The ordinary (white) American of yesteryear viewed racial inequality as self-evident, believing it immoral to treat black and white people as equals. Upon what basis can we say that their moral intuition and judgment was wrong? Our own intuition? Or something more substantive?

Second, pluralistic intuitionism provides no basis for rational moral decision-making. Russ Shafer-Landau, as Steven notes, says, “It seems to me self-evident that, other things equal, it is wrong to take pleasure in another’s pain,” etc. In saying that it “seems to me” self-evident, Shafer-Landau seems to be conceding the subjectivity of intuitionism. But in saying “other things equal,” Shafer-Landau is revealing a second problem: what do we do when we have a clash of values?

Moral reasoning is simple when all other things are equal. What makes it so vexing is that this is rarely the case. Often, moral reasoning involves apparently-competing values, like justice v. mercy, private property v. equitable distribution of goods, etc. If your moral code is a hodgepodge of unsorted feelings, you have no tools other than gut feeling to decide these questions. As Hare said, these values are “only weighed relatively to each other (also by intuition) when they conflict.”

Third, all forms of intuitionism point to (and rely upon) God. Mind you, I don’t doubt that moral intuitions exist. But as we’ve seen, they’re incoherent without reference to God. If these really are objective and binding laws of human behavior, where is the law-giver? Given that these laws exist, why do they exist? Steven quotes Erik Wielenberg, who treats these laws as an effect without a cause:

"Such facts are the foundation of (the rest of) objective morality and rest on no foundation themselves. To ask of such facts, “where do they come from?” or “on what foundation do they rest?” is misguided in much the way that, according to many theists, it is misguided to ask of God, “where does He come from?” or “on what foundation does He rest”? The answer is the same in both cases: They come from nowhere, and nothing external to themselves grounds their existence; rather, they are fundamental features of the universe that ground other truths."

This is not an answer. It’s a shrug of the shoulders and a “Just because.”

That's not the case in the Christian answer that God is uncaused. We argue that God mustexist, since you cannot just have an infinite series of conditional and created beings. For example, St. Thomas Aquinas’ Third Way proves the existence of a Being (who we call God) who must exist necessarily, and who relies only upon Himself for His Being. Without Him, there couldn’t be a universe. We don’t assumethat God must exist: we show that He must.

Further, this conclusion makes sense. After all, God is Subsistent Being (ipsum esse subsistens). Being could no more not-be than non-being could be. Asking who caused the Uncaused Cause is contradictory, and it makes sense to say that a necessarily-existing Being necessarily exists.

That's quite different when we're dealing with moral principles: there's no apparent reason or explanation why we would assume that they're uncaused (other than the alternative requires God).

And asking who or what causes these truths isn't contradictory. On the contrary, it’s a question that anyone who insists on the existence of objective morality should be able to answer. Do these various moral truths exist apart from us? Or did we bring them into existence somehow? It doesn’t make sense to simply assert the existence of myriad uncaused and unrelated moral truths, and claim that these are each necessarily-existing, particularly when no two intuitionist philosophers seem to agree on what these principles are.

Asserting that there are random incommensurable moral rules is no basis for establishing morality as binding. The origin of these laws is “just because.” Why follow these authorless laws? Apparently, just because. Needless to say, that’s hardly a sufficient reason to justify changing one’s lifestyle or moral behavior.

When we describe something as "pointless," we mean that it doesn't have a purpose.It's only in relation to a purpose that we can say whether something succeeds or fails. The most common atheistic cosmology is that the universe is an objectively meaningless accident, and therefore, pointless. But if the entire universe is devoid of inherent meaning, how can we possibly find meaning inherent in our moral behavior (or misbehavior)?

Read on for the whole thing, as well as Steven's rebuttal, in which he argues that objective morality doesn't need to be grounded.

Can Objective Morality Exist Without God? (Round 1)

Can objective morality exist without God? That's the question that Steven Dillon and I are debating over at Strange Notions. The schedule is as follows:

Monday (11/4) - Joe's opening statement (affirmative)

Tuesday (11/5) - Steven's opening statement (negative)

Wednesday (11/6) - Joe's rebuttal (affirmative)

Thursday (11/7) - Steven's rebuttal (negative)

Friday (11/8) - Questions exchanged (three questions each)

Saturday (11/9) - Answers (Joe and Steven answer each other's questions)

Sunday (11/10) - Joe's closing statement (affirmative)

Monday (11/11) - Steven's closing statement (negative)

Here's the first argument from my opening statement:

Argument 1: We Can’t Ground Objective Morality in Anything Other than God.

François-Léon Sicard, The Good Samaritan

 The easiest way to prove this claim is to begin with a simple three-prong test. To whatever extent possible, let's reformulate the moral philosophy in question in this format: “If you want to achieve X, you must do Y.” (Obviously, this works in reverse as well: “if you want to avoid X, you must avoid Y,” etc.). Now, ask three questions.

1. Could there exist a person who doesn’t want to achieve X?
2. Could there be some good other than X that an individual values more than X?
3. Is there another means of achieving X besides Y?

If the answer to any of these three questions is yes, your system is neither objective nor binding. This test should serve as a helpful guide, and will quickly show that the non-theistic moral systems fail. (If you’re going to contest this point in the comments, try to provide an objective, binding moral system in this format that doesn’t require God).

For example, consider the following four ways of accounting for morality without recourse to God:

1. Social: An action is moral or immoral based upon whether society approves or disapproves of it.
2. Personal: An action is moral or immoral based upon whether I feel it to be moral or immoral. (Going against conscience is the only sin.)
3. Biological: Morality is “hardwired into our genes as an evolutionary survival mechanism.”
4. Utilitarian: “Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.” - John Stuart Mill's Greatest Happiness Principle (GHP).

Why am I bound to obey society, or even my own conscience? Why am I obliged to act upon my genetic predispositions, or to act in such a way that it produces the greatest aggregate happiness? At a minimum, the social, biological, and utilitarian bases fail the first prong: we can easily imagine a person who is a social misfit, and who isn’t particularly concerned with survival of the fittest or the GHP.

All four theories fail the second prong of the test. Martin Luther King gives us an example of someone who valued a good (social justice) over the societal morality laid out by the Jim Crow South. Indeed, the entire notion of social progress is based upon the idea that we’re not bound to blindly accept social mores.

As for personal morality, the only reason that conscience is binding is because we believe that it corresponds to something higher than ourselves. If it’s our own creation, we are its master, not its servant. A guilty conscience would be, at most, one factor to be weighed in decision-making. In deciding to cheat on your wife or rob a bank, you’d weigh the amount of guilt you’ll feel compared to the amount of pleasure. If that’s the case, conscience is no more binding than indigestion is “binding” on my decision to eat eight tacos.

And if morality is merely biological, why not treat it as accidental or vestigial, like the coccyx? After all, couples routinely act directly against the propagation of the species by contracepting, choosing careers over marriage, etc.

Finally, utilitarianism. Why pursue the GHP? After all, this isn't how moral decision-making works. If it were, we would stop taking care of our families, and send that money to the world’s neediest people. In practice, even utilitarians like Peter Singer abandon the GHP when they have to make important decisions. Moreover, utilitarianism leads to unconscionable results. No action—slavery, rape, genocide, torture, etc.—could ever be described as objectively evil. We’d have to determine how much pleasure the slavemaster, rapist, genocidaire, and torturer derive (along with the pleasure or displeasure of the general public). Only after we’ve weighed all of those factors, could we determine whether the action is right or wrong.

Read on for the whole thing, and here is Steven's opening statement, in which he suggests that "agony is inherently bad" is a moral proposition that exists apart from God.

So far, there are over 200 comments on my post, and it's only been a day -- most of these comments have been thoughtful and reasonably civil comments from atheists who aren't familiar with classical theism. Your prayers are most welcome!

The HHS Mandate is "Self-Defeating"? A Federal Court of Appeals Weighs In.

The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued an important ruling about the HHS Mandate today. The ruling makes several important points, and frames the HHS Mandate debate in a productive way. It's certainly an exciting moment for those of us against the mandate, even though it doesn't go nearly as far as the news is suggesting.

First, what you may already know:

What You May Already Know

Francis and Philip Gilardi, co-owners of Freshway Foods and Freshway Logistics, are Catholics who have conscientiously abstained from providing contraceptive and abortificant coverage in their employee health plans. When they HHS Mandate attempted to force them to buy such insurance, they sued, raising both constitutional and statutory claims.

The Ruling Doesn't Say What You May Have Heard

Francis and Philip Gilardi

LifeSiteNews' headline about this ruling reads "Court Rules Obama Admin Can’t Make Catholic Family Business Follow HHS Mandate." Several secular news sites are claiming similar things. But this isn't accurate. This ruling was about a preliminary injunction. The question was whether the HHS could force Catholic business owners

In other words, the question was whether the HHS Mandate should apply to the Gilardis and Freshway while the case is pending. To make that determination, the court has to look at the likelihood of success on the merits (courts don't want you to be able to delay a law's enforcement by raising frivolous lawsuits). But, and this is the important part, the court isn't actually ruling on the merits yet. The case isn't properly before them yet, and the record created in the district court could change the court's view.

In this case, the district court had ruled against giving the Giraldis and Freshway an injunction on a purely legal question. The Court of Appeals found that the district court erred in the case of the Giraldis, and remanded the case "for consideration of the other preliminary-injunction factors." That's a far cry from ruling that the "Obama Admin Can’t Make Catholic Family Business Follow HHS Mandate."

In any case, the case isn't over yet. In fact, it hasn't even made it to the Court of Appeals yet. That's not the only thing people are getting wrong about this decision, either.

This Isn't Necessarily a First Amendment Case

It looks like this case will turn on religious freedom protections under a federal law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), rather than under the First Amendment. RFRA was enacted by Congress after a series of Supreme Court religious freedom cases (involving Native American groups' use of banned substances, like peyote, for religious reasons) took a narrow view of First Amendment protections.

RFRA goes beyond the First Amendment (as interpreted by the Supreme Court) in providing beefed-up protections of religious freedom. This means that it's possible (even fairly likely) that the Court of Appeals will ultimately rule that the HHS Mandate is constitutional, but strike it down as a violation of RFRA. Why is this? Because of the question of companies practicing religion....

The Court of Appeals Held Against Secular Organization's Practice of Religion

Based on the Supreme Court's prior decisions, it's not clear if the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause applies to businesses, or any non-religious organizations or bodies. The Court of Appeals conceeded:

Because the word religion “connotes a community of believers,” the prohibition against the impingement on religious free exercise must be understood to cover the activities of both individuals and religious bodies.

 But this freedom didn't extend beyond religious bodies to include other organizations or institutions. Ultimately, by a 2-1 decision, they decided that:

The free exercise protection—a core bulwark of freedom—should not be expunged by a label. But for now, we have no basis for concluding a secular organization can exercise religion.

Judge Randolph, in his concurring opinion, argued that this holding was premature, because the issue is complex. On the one hand, forcing for-profit corporations to act irreligiously creates troubling precedents:

Senior Judge A. Raymond Randolph

If secular for-profit corporations can never exercise religion, what of profitable activities of organized religions? See Hernandez v. Comm’r, 490 U.S. 680, 709 (1989) (O’Connor, J., dissenting). If only religious for-profit organizations have a free-exercise right, how does one distinguish between religious and non-religious organizations? See Hobby Lobby Stores, 723 F.3d at 1136-37 & n.12; id. at 1170-75 (Briscoe, C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Why limit the free-exercise right to religious organizations when many business corporations adhere to religious dogma? See Mark L. Rienzi, God and the Profits: Is There Religious Liberty for Money-Makers?, 21 GEO. MASON L. REV. (manuscript at 11-24) (forthcoming fall 2013). If non-religious organizations do not have free-exercise rights, why do non-religious natural persons (atheists, for example) possess them? Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488, 495-96 & n.11 (1961).  

On the other hand, he noted that recognizing a corporation's right to practice religion raises potential problems, as well:

If a corporate free-exercise right is recognized, in any form, there are equally challenging secondary questions. How should the beliefs of a religious corporation be determined? Can publicly traded corporations be religious? If so, do they take on the religions of their shareholders as a matter of course? If a religious corporation is sold, does it retain its religious identity? These questions, challenging in themselves, would confront us in different permutations across the diverse entity forms and organizational structures of the American business landscape. 

At the heart of this is an important question that the Court of Appeals doesn't address head-on: can a "for-profit" company pursue a goal other than selfish profit? That is, can a for-profit company have as its goal the betterment of the common good, or some other non-financial goal? Or is that only a right that not-for-profits have?

This about it this way: The HHS Mandate treats all businesses as if they must be amoral and fixated only upon the bottom line:. It obliterates the role of a corporate conscience, simply because it doesn't like the way that corporate conscience is working in this regard. For more on the problems of taking this reductionistic view of the purpose of business, see Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue, or Tracey Roland's chapter on "The Epistemic Authority of 'Experts' and the Ethos of Modern Institutions" in Culture and the Thomist Tradition.

Whether the Constitution provides companies with free exercise rights is an important question. But they should act morally (even religiously) regardless. 

More to the heart of the case, the Court of Appeals made a brilliant point...

The Contraceptive Coverage is the Problem, Even if It's Never Used

Fans of the HHS Mandate like to focus on the individual employee's decision whether or not to use contraception, once it's covered. At that point, the employer balking at paying looks like a gross intrusion into the employee's privacy. But this is framing the issue in a misleading way. The violation of the employer's religious freedom happens before anyone decides whether or not to use contraception. Writing for the court, Judge Janice Rogers Brown put it in very clear terms:

Judge Janice Rogers Brown

The only dispute touches on the characterization of the burden. The burden is too remote and too attenuated, the government says, as it arises only when an employee purchases a contraceptive or uses contraceptive services. We disagree with the government’s foundational premise. The burden on religious exercise does not occur at the point of contraceptive purchase; instead, it occurs when a company’s owners fill the basket of goods and services that constitute a healthcare plan. In other words, the Gilardis are burdened when they are pressured to choose between violating their religious beliefs in managing their selected plan or paying onerous penalties. See Thomas, 450 U.S. at 717–18; Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 218 (1972) (“The impact of the compulsory-attendance law on respondents’ practice of the Amish religion is not only severe, but inescapable, for the Wisconsin law affirmatively compels them, under threat of criminal sanction, to perform acts undeniably at odds with fundamental tenets of their religious beliefs.”); Kaemmerling, 553 F.3d at 678. 

Contraception coverage is an economic good. After all, insurance is a product (and a mighty profitable one).

So the question isn't about whether or not employees can buy contraception: they remain free to, regardless of the HHS Mandate. The question is about whether or not the federal government can force companies to purchase a product, contraceptive insurance coverage, to which they're morally opposed.

This point gets lost, in part because those arguing this issue can't grasp why a rational person would be against contraception. If there were a law requiring all companies to include, say, "hitman coverage" (providing, at company expense, murder-for-hire for executives), these same people would immediately recognize the coverage itself is grossly immoral. Forcing a company to buy that sort of coverage would be abhorrent, even if no one ever used it.

This framing turns out to be vitally important, because ...

Framed in this Way, the Violation of Religious Freedom is Clear

Requiring the Giraldis to purchase contraceptive insurance coverage or pay a massive fine creates a "Hobson's choice" infringing the free exercise of their religion. The Court of Appeals put it this way:

The contraceptive mandate demands that owners like the Gilardis meaningfully approve and endorse the inclusion of contraceptive coverage in their companies' employer-provided plans, over whatever objections they may have. Such an endorsement—procured exclusively by regulatory ukase—is a “compel[led] affirmation of a repugnant belief.” See id. That, standing alone, is a cognizable burden on free exercise. And the burden becomes substantial because the government commands compliance by giving the Gilardis a Hobson’s choice. They can either abide by the sacred tenets of their faith, pay a penalty of over $14 million, and cripple the companies they have spent a lifetime building, or they become complicit in a grave moral wrong. If that is not “substantial pressure on an adherent to modify his behavior and to violate his beliefs,” we fail to see how the standard could be met. See Thomas, 450 U.S. at 718. 

That certainly seems clear enough.

The HHS Mandate Is Doomed?

The were two other points that the Court of Appeals made that are exciting and promising. First, that the government's asserted interested in a "right to privacy" makes no sense here:

The government’s invocation of a “woman’s compelling interest in autonomy” is even less robust. The wording is telling. It implies autonomy is not the state’s interest to assert. Nevertheless, the government, quoting Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972), claims the mandate protects a woman’s ability to decide “whether to bear or beget a child.” See id. at 453. 

 

Our difficulty in accepting the government’s rationale stems from looking at the Eisenstadt quote in its entirety: “If the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matter so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision to bear or beget a child.” Id. (emphasis added). Regardless of what this observation means for us today, it is clear the government has failed to demonstrate how such a right—whether described as noninterference, privacy, or autonomy—can extend to the compelled subsidization of a woman’s procreative practices. 

Second, the government has already undermined any claimed compelling interest by carving a number of exceptions:

Moreover, the mandate is self-defeating. When a government regulation “fail[s] to prohibit nonreligious conduct that endangers [its asserted] interests in a similar or greater degree” than the regulated conduct, it is underinclusive by design. See Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 543. And that underinclusiveness can suggest an inability to meet the narrow-tailoring requirement, as it raises serious questions about the efficacy and asserted interests served by the regulation. In this case, small businesses, businesses with grandfathered plans (albeit temporarily), and an array of other employers are exempt either from the mandate itself or from the entire scheme of the Affordable Care Act. Therefore, the mandate is unquestionably underinclusive. 

In other words, the government claims several reasons that are so compelling that they justify trampling upon the conscience rights of businesses and owners. But in the same breath, the government makes countless exemptions, for "small businesses, businesses with grandfathered plans (albeit temporarily), and an array of other employers." This suggests that the pretextual reasons aren't so compelling after all.

That's what the Court of Appeals means when they say that the mandate is self-defeating. Let's just hope other courts (and especially the Supreme Court) see things the same way.

Two More "Reformation Day" Ironies

In addition to being Halloween, October 31st is "Reformation Day," celebrating Martin Luther's defiant act of nailing his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, on this day in 1517 (more on this soon). For the last two years, I've used the day to point out the unintentional ironies of Reformation Day - some funny, some sad. In 2011, I noted that Reformation Day:

(1) is celebrated by making graven images of Reformers who hated images;
(2) is intended to Christianize a “pagan” holiday, yet is celebrated by many of the same Evangelicals who refuse to celebrate Christmas for fear that it’s a Christianized pagan holiday;
(3) avoids celebrating “evil” [Halloween] by celebrating evil [schism].

In 2012, I added two more to the list, describing how Reformation Day:

(4) celebrates a document damning Protestants for rejecting papal authority over Apostolic Pardons.
(5) celebrates a movement that, despite its name and initial, failed as a reform movement of the Catholic Church. [After all, if Protestants thought that it had succeeded, they would be Catholics].

Two more ironies to add this year:

(6) Reformation Day is a Protestant Man-Made Accretion Protesting Man-Made Accretions

One of the major reasons that Reformation Day is popular among Protestants is that it celebrates what they believe is the triumph of Truth over false man-made traditions. So, for example, the Protestant blog The Road to 31 explains: "We celebrate Reformation Day because it represents the reclaiming of the one true gospel that had been lost in the Catholic church and replaced with the traditions and teachings of men."

The problem is, a good chunk of the Reformation Day story seems to be made up. As The Road to 31 notes, Reformation Day is built around a central event: "On October 31, 1517 in Wittenberg, Germany Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five These on the Power of Efficacy of Indulgences to the door of the Castle Church."

This probably never happened.

But as Luther.de notes:

October 31, 1517: Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg with hammer strokes which echoed throughout all of Europe. This act has been portrayed numerous times thoughout the centuries, and until the 21st century it was accepted as fact. It has become a symbol of the Reformation as nothing else has. 

It was like a slap in the face when the [C]atholic Luther researcher, Erwin Iserloh, asserted in 1961 that the nailing of the theses to the door of the Castle Church belonged to the realm of legends. 

The facts are convincing, the first written account of the event comes from Philipp Melanchthon who could not have been an eye-witness to the event since he was not called to Wittenberg University as a professor until 1518. 

Also, this account appeared for the first time after Luther's death and he never commented on 'nailing anything up' in 1517.  [...]

It is also worth noting, that there was no open discussion of the theses in Wittenberg and that no original printing of the theses could be found.

So Reformation Day takes a legendary bit of Lutheran hagiography, along with other false and ahistorical traditions (like Luther's famous "Here I stand" line from his defense at the Diet of Worms, which was also made up), to commemorate the alleged triumph of truth over man-made tradition.

(7) Reformation Day celebrates the supremacy of the Bible by commemorating an event the Bible condemns.

The other, closely-related reason for Reformation Day's popularity is that the Catholic Church allegedly didn't care about the Bible, and refused to let the people know what the Bible said, much less read it for themselves. These claims persists despite the fact that the Church was the one solely responsible for preserving the Bible for centuries, and despite the numerous Biblical commentaries, etc., being produced at this time, or the various German-language Bibles existing decades before Luther was born, like the Mentel Bible. But ignore all that history. The important part is that Luther came along and showed the Bible was really important!

There are several things ironic about this narrative. The popular version of Luther is that he elevated Scripture over the Church. The real Luther elevated his theological opinions over both Scripture and the Church: he was so convinced that sola fide is right that even when he found parts of the Bible that directly contradicted the doctrine, he just cut them out of the Bible. 

And his Bible, which supposedly put the word of God in the hands of the German people for the first time, actually sowed the seeds of doubts about Scripture, as Luther added his own prefaces, denying the canonicity of the Old Testament Deuterocanon, as well as Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation. 

But there's arguably a bigger issue. However compelling you may find the Biblical arguments for the various Protestant doctrines in dispute, Biblical teaching on schism is clearly opposed to the practice. The Bible calls for Christians to be "one in spirit and of one mind" (Phil. 2:2). This is also what Jesus Christ prayed for, for His future followers, in John 17:20-23. St. Paul goes so far as to describe schism, including both dissensions and factions, as the sort of sin that will keep you out of Heaven (Gal. 5:20). And this becomes a real problem for those defending Reformation Day: they're celebrating a set of events that culminate in schism. 

Of course, Biblically-literate Protestants aren't blind to this fact. The Road to 31 defends the celebration of schism this way:

You might ask why is a schism in the Church something to be celebrated? Should we not welcome unity rather than division? 

Unity within the Church is a very good thing and is even commanded (Philippians 2:2), but so is separating out the wheat from the tares (Matthew 13). The Church will always need sifting while we are on this earth. Our pews and even pulpits are full of sinners, some saved by grace and some not. Corruption cannot and will not be tolerated within the Body of Christ.

Look at the wheat and tares parable cited to support schism. It teaches literally the opposite of what Reformation Day teaches (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43)

Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.  

“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ 

“‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. 

“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ 

“‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’” [....]

Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” 

He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. 

“As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

So the Body of Christ, until the end of time, will contain both Saints and sinners. And of course, this has always been true, as anyone familiar with the Apostle Judas should be aware. Christ explicitly forbids us from trying to create a manmade church of just the wheat (and prophesies that it'll never succeed). Yet this is the passage that The Road to 31 uses to defend Reformation Day, since apparently we have arrogated to ourselves the duty of “separating out the wheat from the tares,” a duty Christ entrusts to the angels at the Last Judgment.