Posted on 12/28/2007 9:19:39 AM PST by Huber
In both of my careers as a Catholic thinker—my former one as a professor, and my current one as a blogger—I have found it a real challenge to get across to people what is meant by saying that some acts are "intrinsically evil." The phrase from traditional moral theology so translated is intrinsece malum, which is often used in magisterial documents. As we contemplate the Holy Family this Christmas season, it occurs to me that misunderstanding about the concept of the intrinsically evil (IE) is especially rampant in the area of sexual morality. Today I want to contribute to a correct understanding by excluding two equal and opposite misapplications of the concept to the specific question of contraception.
But first, the concept itself. In his landmark encyclical Veritatis Splendor, Pope John Paul the Great explicated IE thus:
Reason attests that there are objects of the human act which are by their nature "incapable of being ordered" to God, because they radically contradict the good of the person made in his image. These are the acts which, in the Church's moral tradition, have been termed "intrinsically evil" (intrinsece malum): they are such always and per se, in other words, on account of their very object, and quite apart from the ulterior intentions of the one acting and the circumstances.
Now, VS was the first document of its level of authority to actually give a magisterial explication, as distinct from application, of the concept of IE. A short time before that, CCC §1761 had made a start: "...there are certain specific kinds of behaviour that are always wrong to choose, because choosing them involves a disorder of the will, that is, a moral evil." That was important because it made clearer to people that intrinsically evil acts are those of kinds that it's "always wrong to choose," irrespective of any further feature of the particular act or of any further consideration about the act. In that respect, VS was an advance. Yet perforce, its explication of intrinsice malum comes after a quite interesting explication of various associated concepts that must be understood if that of IE itself is to be understood. I highly recommend them to the reader. But further interpretation and clarification is obviously needed and ongoing.
One important clarification must begin with stressing that distinctively "moral evil" is a "disorder" precisely of "the will." Hence, to will something that is intrinsically evil is a moral evil because so willing disorders precisely the will of the agent itself. But given as much, one cannot specify what, if anything, is intrinsically evil about a physical act merely by describing its physical features. And that's because one cannot say what makes the act distinctively human, an actus humanus, merely by describing what happens when somebody initiates a chain of physical events. Rather, the "object of the human act" that makes the act intrinsically evil has to be something done intentionally by the agent, in such a way that the physical feature of the act that makes the act morally significant is precisely that which "embodies the agent's intention"—a phrase first coined by Catholic philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe in her now-classic book Intention. That is the sense in which JP2 speaks of "objects of the human act" as subject to moral evaluation. Such an object is not so much what occurs in virtue of a freely chosen act; if it were, then there could be no morally significant distinction between the foreseen and the intended consequences of acts. That in turn would rule out any principle of double effect (PDE); but PDE is regularly invoked and applied in orthodox moral theology, as it should be, even though it's not yet fully clear how to formulate PDE in such a way as to minimize its misapplication. No, the "object of the human act" is what embodies the intention of the agent, even if some of what the agent foresees as flowing from what he does is not what he intends. If and when such an object is intrinsically evil, that is because what is willed and intended is an act of a kind that disorders the will of the agent. Why is that so important?
Consider the Church's teaching that contraception is "intrinsically evil." What does that mean? Citing Humanae Vitae §14, CCC §2370 says: "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil. The Vademecum for Confessors even says that "[t]his teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable," which leaves confessors with no excuse for excusing contraception. Now the phrase 'whether as an end or as a means' tips us off that what's subject to moral evaluation here is what one "proposes" and thus intends to do regarding something very specific. If one has sexual intercourse that one has intentionally acted so to make sterile, then whether or not the act of intercourse (a) is or would have been sterile in fact and regardless, or (b) is wrong for some other reason, the act embodying the intention to make it sterile it is itself intrinsically evil. In that sense, contraception is the "object" of that sort of "human act," and it is that object the willing of which is a disorder of the will, regardless of what otherwise ends up happening. On the other hand, periodic continence for the purpose of avoiding conception, although can sometimes be wrong for a number of reasons, is not said to be intrinsically wrong, because it is not the sort of act which, just in itself, embodies an intention to do something which it is a disorder of the will to do intentionally. Hence, under certain conditions discussed in magisterial documents, "natural family planning" (NFP) for purposes of avoiding conception can be morally acceptable. Since one is not doing anything to make procreation impossible when it might otherwise be possible, there is no "object of the human act" that is intrinsically evil as contraception is said to be.
Nonetheless, there are two equal and opposite errors about this teaching among Catholics. The more common one, which is common for all-too-obvious reasons, is an objection to the teaching itself: it is held that given the ultimate intention involved, there is no morally significant difference between contraception and NFP. That objection is registered by progs and trads for very different reasons; if it were sound, then the Church's developed teaching would be incoherent and thus not a fit object for assent.
But the objection simply misses what is meant by saying that contraception, or indeed any other sort of act, is "intrinsically evil." To call a given sort of act intrinsically evil is not to say that the further intention with which one does it, beyond the intention it actually embodies, is unacceptable. There can be all sorts of laudable further intentions with which one does something intrinsically evil. One can, for instance, intentionally kill innocent human beings with the purpose of preventing even more deaths; that, indeed, was the precise rationale for the atom-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But that didn't make the tactic morally acceptable according to Church teaching; quite the contrary. In Evangelium Vitae §57, the same pope who wrote VS condemned any and all "direct, voluntary killing of an innocent human being" as "gravely immoral" regardless of any further intention one might have for doing such a thing. Similarly, what's intrinsically evil about contraception is not the further intention to avoid conception—which can, according to the 20th-century popes, be morally responsible—but rather the intention actually embodied in the act of contraception itself, i.e., to "render procreation impossible." Now, just why that is supposed to be intrinsically evil, apart from any further intention-with-which it is done, is unclear to a great many Catholics; and that lacuna in understanding is what accounts for the inability of some to see the moral difference between contraception and NFP. I've addressed that issue before, citing mostly JP2's "theology of the body," and shall not dilate on it here; the immediate point is that the issue is separate from that of just what sort of intentional act is said to be intrinsically evil in the first place. Only when one is clear on just what is being so condemned can one then go on to learn why it is condemned, and also why a different pattern of action with the same further intention as contraception is not intrinsically evil, even though it can sometimes be evil all the same.
The opposite error is not an objection to the teaching itself, but rather an over-rigorous interpretation of one of its premises. On this showing, the relevant "object" of the human act can be characterized as intrinsically evil not only apart from the agent's further intention in doing what he does, but apart from his immediate intention as well. For instance, if a married couple one of whose members is HIV-positive use a condom purely for prophylactic purposes, their sexual act is of a sort that is known to anti-procreative in effect even if not by intent. That's because what condoms do, when they are non-defective and used as directed, is prevent semen from being deposited in the vagina. From that, it is thought to follow that the object of the couple's sexual act, for purposes of moral evaluation, is morally unacceptable for the same sort of reason that, say, anal intercourse is unacceptable. The pattern of action is thought to be such that the sexual act in question cannot be said to have procreative significance, because it cannot bear the intrinsic relationship to procreation that HV says the conjugal act must bear. Accordingly, condomistic sex even for purely prophylactic purposes cannot qualify as a conjugal act at all, and is intrinsically evil for the same reason that sodomy is: it's an inherently non-procreative sort of act. That is held to be so even supposing that the couple would be happy to conceive if they could block HIV transmission without blocking sperm too, and even supposing that the blocking of sperm is not a means to the blocking of HIV transmission. A good example of such reasoning is this paper from Luke Gormally, a man I know personally, and one with whom I've debated this very question before on this blog.
The difficulty with that view is rather similar to one that prog theologians have often raised against what they considered the standard neo-scholastic explanation for the wrongfulness of both contraception and sodomy. That standard explanation, according to some prog apologists and theologians, was that contraception and sodomy are immoral because "unnatural," meaning that they run counter to the "natural" purpose of sexual activity: procreation. Sex that is unnatural in that sort of way was held, or thought to have been held, to be an evil object of action, irrespective of any subjective disposition of the agent, and hence irrespective of intention. Unnatural acts were thus accounted intrinsically evil. Now if that really had been the explanation, I would agree with the prog critique. What's wrong with the explanation, such as it is, is that it doesn't tell us why it is unacceptable to interrupt or depart from the course of nature in this sort of case but perfectly acceptable to do so in many others, such medicine, animal husbandry, or even cosmetology. In order to tell us that, it would have to specify how interrupting or departing from the course of nature in the case of sex embodies an intention that makes the act an intrinsically evil sort of act, i.e. an act of a sort that disorders the will when intended.
Of course I'm not at all convinced that the ancient and medieval understanding about the wrongfulness of contraception and sodomy was as ill-informed as the prog critique often makes out. It was understood better among them than among us that lust, with all its attendant disorders, increases in direct proportion to the deliberate unmooring of sex from procreation. And that should tell us something. For my immediate purpose, it tells us something that both Paul VI and John Paul II were keen to stress. What makes contraception and sodomy wrong is that they sunder a connection which is essential to our inner spiritual health, to the proper "order" of the will, thus causing us to a greater or lesser extent to treat our sexual partners as objects with which to satisfy ourselves. I've had enough experience with both licit and illicit sex to verify that for myself. But if the VS account of the objects of the "human act," is correct, then there is an intrinsically evil act here only if and when one actually intends the sundering, such that the sexual act in question embodies one's intention to break the intrinsic relationship between sex and procreation. I am not in the least convinced that condom use by married couples for the purpose of preventing infection by a lethal virus, and only for that purpose, embodies such an intention. Such activity might be wrong for other reasons, and I believe it is wrong for at least one other reason. But it is not wrong just because it is foreseeably non-procreative in effect, just as a given war is not wrong because, like all wars, it foreseeably results in the death of innocents.
To say that an action of a certain sort, such as contraception, is "intrinsically evil" is to say that it embodies an intention which it is a disorder of the will to have. Just how to identify embodied intentions and disorders of the will is the subject-matter of moral psychology. We have more than enough psychologists and moralists, but we don't have enough moral psychologists. That's because we don't have enough saints, enough lovers of God and neighbor, in the here and now. John Paul the Great was one of them. Let us learn from him.
I always received visits from the lactation specialists (who I came to refer to as the “breast nazis”)
Finally, after visiting real breast specialists (who knew more about the anatomy and disorders of the breast) they told me I become internally inflamed - so it was either tough it out or bottle feed.
I decided it was better for both of us not to be a basket case during feeding.
putting #7 to bed now. Good night!
I’m sorry.
And my bedtime, too. My mother is visiting tomorrow.
Thanks for the help.
What is your training in Greek? Classical or Koine? And how difficult was it to pick up?
(I’d like to pick up Greek and Latin, but I’m afraid scheduling doesn’t permit anything too formal right now.)
I was up visiting him a couple of months ago, and noticed that his towels had the same funky smell that mine had had. I had to be kind of tactful, even thought my dil was out of town at a funeral, I still wanted to be a good mother-in-law LOL!
As far as I know, my son's washer has given him zero problems, and he's had it a year. Mine is a Kenmore, and it quit working one day just flashed lights at me. (I think that might have had something to do with my granddaughter sneaking in there and pushing all the buttons at once.) It took them 3 weeks to fix it because of where I live, but it runs great now.
If you’d like to learn Koine Greek from zero, try “Hey Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek!” from the Greek N Stuff company. I’d suggest an adult beginner start with Level 3.
What’s my Greek training? I pasted the Greek word into a Yahoo search bar and posted the answer. (I’m a management consultant - we can’t possibly know all the answers to questions that our clients ask, but we know how to find answers quickly!)
Appreciate the information. The salesguys said a funky smell could be a problem. We’ve had that from time to time with our current machines.
Thanks for the tip.
I must admit, though, if I were to use something called “Hey Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek!” from “Greek N Stuff” my friends who are taking Greek in formal classes with professors would have a good laugh.
How hard have you found learning Greek?
Goodnight, y'all.
I do believe in Just War. I also believe in capital-E Evil.
As for forgiveness, I truly believe that God is perfect and cannot render imperfect justice. In that hope, I hold that He will not allow those who love Him to roast forever in Hell for the crime of doing their duty to defend their homelands against the aggressor, even if in so doing they killed innocent people.
I’m not sure what you are driving at here, friend Kolokotronis. If your goal is to pick at the wound that lies between the Eastern and Western halves of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, mission accomplished. I fail to see the benefit it will produce.
We must all go beyond our limits. Jesus did. We can, with His help.
I’m finding Greek easy enough so far, but then I’m learning with a boy who just turned 6, with a text oriented to elementary-school children :-). It reminds me of Spanish, which I studied in high school and college, in many ways; some of the words are very close cognates.
There are higher-level Greek programs, of course! Here’s a link to the “Institute of Biblical Greek,” with book suggestions:
http://www.biblicalgreek.org/books/
I can only encourage you to have faith. I cannot possibly fathom everything that you are going through right now, but I believe that TC and some others here on FR might.
Here are the Propers for Morning Prayer from our Book of Common Prayer (Anglican 1928) for Today, Dec 29:
The Psalter
Psalm 27
The Twenty-Seventh Psalm
Dominus illuminatio.
THE LORD is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? * the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?
When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, * they stumbled and fell.
Though an host of men were laid against me, yet shall not my heart be afraid; * and though there rose up war against me, yet will I put my trust in him.
One thing have I desired of the LORD, which I will require; * even that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the fair beauty of the LORD, and to visit his temple.
For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his tabernacle; * yea, in the secret place of his dwelling shall he hide me, and set me up upon a rock of stone.
And now shall he lift up mine head * above mine enemies round about me.
Therefore will I offer in his dwelling an oblation, with great gladness: * I will sing and speak praises unto the LORD.
Hearken unto my voice, O LORD, when I cry unto thee; * have mercy upon me, and hear me.
My heart hath talked of thee, Seek ye my face: * Thy face, LORD, will I seek.
O hide not thou thy face from me, * nor cast thy servant away in displeasure.
Thou hast been my succour; * leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation.
When my father and my mother forsake me, * the LORD taketh me up.
Teach me thy way, O LORD, * and lead me in the right way, because of mine enemies.
Deliver me not over into the will of mine adversaries: * for there are false witnesses risen up against me, and such as speak wrong.
I should utterly have fainted, * but that I believe verily to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
O tarry thou the LORD'S leisure; * be strong, and he shall comfort thine heart; and put thou thy trust in the LORD.
The First Lesson
Isaiah 56:1-8
Thus saith the Lord, Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil. Neither let the son of the stranger, that hath joined himself to the Lord, speak, saying, The Lord hath utterly separated me from his people: neither let the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant; Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off. Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people. The Lord God which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him, beside those that are gathered unto him.
The Second Lesson I John 1:1-10
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
The Collect Christmas Day
ALMIGHTY God, who hast given us thy only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin; Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit ever, one God, world without end. Amen.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic Ping List:
Please ping me to all note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of interest.
“What’s the translation of the Greek, please?”
It means “missing the mark”, the mark being Christ, thus, sin.
“Objections to the points the author of this article makes tend to suggest that the teaching is wrong because it is difficult. I sympathize - there are points of morality where I’m a total failure! - but it’s not a rational objection; truth doesn’t become falsehood because the truth makes difficult demands of us.”
Really nicely put. Some of the demands are almost impossible for some people and they give in time and time again (me too). Will we then call the Law evil because it highlights the nature of the person to failure in a particular area? Certainly not it is in fact the knowlege of one’s sin and sinful nature that drives one to repentance. When we call evil good and good evil, as is promintent in our modern culture, we remove the form of grace needed to drive us to repent. Is it any wonder people nowadays rejoice in their sinfullness. Their consciousness of sin has been removed and so they cast of the restraint of the Law and the guilt associated with breaking it. ( I think the Simpsons “church” jokingly called it the miracle of shame)
For myself I ask God to search my heart that I may know what is not His good and perfect will that resides within me!
Cheers
Mel
Here’s what +John Chrysostomos makes of the verse. His take is a bit different from yours. Quite clearly servants fight in a fallen world, like this one but there is no need for that in the kingdom of God. This of course is consistent with The Church’s teaching of theosis, the process of becoming like God. Unless one adheres to the “other” Western notion of a vengeful God whose wrath was slaked only by the shedding of innocent blood, fighting/war are antithetical to becoming like God.
” “My Kingdom is not of this world.”
He leadeth upwards Pilate who was not a very wicked man, nor after their fashion, and desireth to show that He is not a mere man, but God and the Son of God. And what saith He?
“If My Kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews but now in My kingdom not from hence,” N.T.
He undoeth that which Pilate for a while had feared, namely, the suspicion of seizing kingly power, “Is then His kingdom not of this world also? Certainly it is. How then saith He it ‘is not’? Not because He doth not rule here, but because He hath his empire from above, and because it is not human, but far greater than this and more splendid. “If then it be greater, how was He made captive by the other?” By consenting, and giving Himself up. But He doth not at present reveal this, but what saith He? “If I had been of this world, ‘My servants would fight, that I should not be delivered.’” Here He showeth the weakness of kingship among us, that its strength lies in servants; but that which is above is sufficient for itself, needing nothing. From this the heretics taking occasion say, that He is different from the Creator. What then, when it saith, “He came to His own”? What, when Himself saith, “They are not of this world, as I am not of this world”? So also He saith that His kingdom is not from hence, not depriving the world of His providence and superintendence, but showing, as I said, that His power was not human or perishable. What then said Pilate?.... “My Kingdom is not of this world.”
He leadeth upwards Pilate who was not a very wicked man, nor after their fashion, and desireth to show that He is not a mere man, but God and the Son of God. And what saith He?
“If My Kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews.”24282428 “to the Jews; but now in My kingdom not from hence,” N.T.
He undoeth that which Pilate for a while had feared, namely, the suspicion of seizing kingly power, “Is then His kingdom not of this world also?”24292429 Ben. omits “also.” Certainly it is. “How then saith He it ‘is not’?” Not because He doth not rule here, but because He hath his empire from above, and because it is not human, but far greater than this and more splendid. “If then it be greater, how was He made captive by the other?” By consenting, and giving Himself up. But He doth not at present reveal24302430 al. “hide.” this, but what saith He? “If I had been of this world, ‘My servants would fight, that I should not be delivered.’” Here He showeth the weakness of kingship among us, that its strength lies in servants; but that which is above is sufficient for itself, needing nothing. From this the heretics taking occasion say, that He is different from the Creator. What then, when it saith, “He came to His own”? ( c. i. 11 .) What, when Himself saith, “They are not of this world, as I am not of this world”? ( c. xvii. 14.) So also He saith that His kingdom is not from hence, not depriving the world of His providence and superintendence, but showing, as I said, that His power was not human or perishable. What then said Pilate?...”
“How funny, from the descendant of O Turkophagos.”
Well, I could argue that eating Turks is a sacrament, but that also would be a sin!
TC, Orthodoxy has always condemned war and has always recognized it as something that happens in this fallen world, sometimes it even has to happen among men, but that doesn’t make it any less sinful. Orthodoxy doesn’t give communion to soldiers engaged in battle but provides confession to them freely which they partake of. For us, TC, the fact that men often are, in their own minds, compelled to war does not make war any less sinful. The Church and Orthodox society deal with that. The West pretends it is no sin and thus doesn’t need to deal with the reality of the sin of war. Of late the Anglican Communion has been dealing with the same operative concept, namely sin not being sin; its a very slippery slope, TC.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.