What does it mean to be “Spiritual”, Part III

Posted on by

In an extended comment on Part II of this series, Lindsay gives her (I believe it’s “her”; if not, I apologize) understanding of the Intellect, the Will, and organized religion.

It’s immediately clear that Lindsay and I have very different views on the matter, a conclusion supported by a quick survey of her blog. I’ve no intention of giving her comment a righteous fisking; that’s not my way, and anyway it seems inhospitable after I specifically asked for comments of this kind. Nevertheless, she provides considerable fodder for contemplation, and it would be a shame to waste it.

Let’s begin with the low-hanging fruit. Lindsay says, speaking of organized religion:

I think religion teaches you that the body is evil and the person is innately sinful.

Many people think this, but it is certainly not what the Catholic Church teaches. Nothing created by God is innately, that is, naturally evil. It is true that we are sinful, but this is not part of our nature; it is more like a chronic illness that limits both our growth and the growth of those around us. It is the nature of an acorn to grow into a glorious oak tree; but a tree that is blighted cannot do so. It is our nature to grow into union with God as members of the body of Christ Jesus, but sin blights us, and, in a manner of speaking, poisons the soil around us as well. We need Christ’s healing to be free of this.

As for the body in particular being evil: according to John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, the marital act is a sacred image of the love of the Father and the Son in the Holy Trinity, and of Christ’s love for his bride, the Church. (The whole of scripture is shot through with this kind of imagery.) Casual sex is not sinful because sex is sinful, or because the body is evil; it’s sinful because it profanes something holy.

It’s true that scripture occasionally opposes the Spirit and the Flesh, as in “the Spirit is willing, but the Flesh is weak”: we do have a tendency to sin, and to do things we know we should not, and in fact choose not to do. Anyone who has struggled with a besetting sin knows how true St. Paul’s words are, that I do not do what I wish to do, but that which I do not wish to do, I do.

Lindsay also says (I’ve corrected typos),

WILL is not will-power (because that is the intellect rationalizing a desire, the Will is the part of you that instructs in desire and I don’t mean that as anything sinful, but if someone checked into themselves with honesty and no judgment and asked, “what is it that I feel to do right now?” the answer might be, to go for a walk, take a nap, have a drink of water, pray, or even: “I want that piece of chocolate cake.” The Will when intact and functioning properly does not instruct you towards destructive ends. Maybe your body really needs the high magnesium content in the chocolate and by not acquiescing, you are depriving your body of a nutrient it currently needs.

I believe that what Lindsay is here calling the “will” is in fact what St. Thomas Aquinas would call the “appetite”; or, at least, she’s conflating the two. And here we strike a major point of disagreement. Lindsay appears to me to be saying that we only desire that which is good for us, when the will, or appetite, is intact and functioning properly–that our desires are, in fact, a good guide as to what we should do. There are a number of points to be made, here. What is good for us? What does it mean for our will and appetite to be intact and functioning properly?

It is certainly true that we only desire what is good–that is, what we sense to be good (the appetite) or understand to be good (the intellect). No man seeks evil purely for its own sake. But I know from my own experience that this apparent good is often illusory, or, at least, extremely limited. Chocolate cake is good; but too much chocolate cake is bad. My understanding of what is good is also limited; there is much that I don’t know, and some of what I know is wrong. My appetite frequently wants more than is good for me (I’m not speaking solely of food, here). And then, sin darkens the intellect.

If I were in a perfect state, which is to say, if I were Christ, things would be simpler. My appetites would be properly ordered; my understanding of what is good would be correct; and what I willed, that I would do. I’m not him. Christ leads me in this direction, but it is not a speedy process.

Part IV

6 thoughts on “What does it mean to be “Spiritual”, Part III”

  1. I appreciate your not giving me :a righteous fisking” and yes I am female (and thanks for correcting my typos) and I need to clarify a couple things if you’ll let me:

    1)I think you’re absolutely right about my confusing Will for what Aquinas calls Appetite. I need to continuing read him. And it was a very hurried attempt at it to begin with. Like you say:

    “If I were in a perfect state, which is to say, if I were Christ, things would be simpler. My appetites would be properly ordered; my understanding of what is good would be correct; and what I willed, that I would do. I’m not him. Christ leads me in this direction…”

    2) I don’t think “religion” is bad, in any way. And when I say as you quoted “I think it teaches…” I don’t think this is necessarily so, but I find that the very religious (re: evangelical protestants) seem to view themselves as worthless and dirty sinners. This is not to say that I think sin is not a concern, or that a relationship with Christ does not posses salvific quality. And all of “Western Religions” I think Catholicism has the most going so long as you move beyond a 12 year old literal interpretation, which I am learning, well educated, spiritual Adult Catholics to do anyway.

    I really like Thomas Merton and Fr. Thomas Keating, etc.

    So to be honest: I don’t think religion (whose Latin root means UNION)is a bad thing, but it can be used destructively and I think I am reacting to that more than anything else. Further, I really think you hit the nail on the head, that many people believe the worst of, and are just as guilty of lumpy all of Christianity together, which isn’t fair at all.

    The ultimate problem why I haven’t prescribed myself to any one religion is that I have been unable to reconcile certain deep and “religious” mystical experiences, including Marian and Christ visitations, with the interpretation of the lay church goer, read: fundamental protestant.

    I am actually very hungry for a path, hence, why I read your blog regularly.

    Like

  3. You say, “I think Catholicism has the most going so long as you move beyond a 12 year old literal interpretation, which I am learning, well educated, spiritual Adult Catholics to do anyway.”

    It depends here what you mean by a “12 year old literal interpretation.” Certainly, stopping with the understanding one has when one is twelve is a bad idea–faith needs to mature, and faith formation and catechesis should be life-long processes.

    On the other hand, what some Catholics mean by maturing in the faith is that they no longer need to believe what the Church teaches. That, I reject completely. It’s all about truth. The Catholic faith is all of a piece; if I can’t accept that it’s all true, I should be looking elsewhere. This is something I didn’t understand as a young Catholic, but it was very much in view when I came back to the Church in the fall of 2007.

    Have you an example of what you consider mature and immature interpretations of some doctrine?

    You say: “The ultimate problem why I haven’t prescribed myself to any one religion is that I have been unable to reconcile certain deep and “religious” mystical experiences, including Marian and Christ visitations, with the interpretation of the lay church goer, read: fundamental protestant.”

    I’m not sure what you’re getting at, here. Are you saying that the notion of Marian apparitions attracts you, but that the attitudes of the people in the pews repel you? Or that the average church-goer doesn’t understand their faith?

    Like

  5. How do you manage to get them to talk about their faith enough to find out?

    But seriously, I understand that this is a problem. Many Catholics my age were poorly catechized as children, thanks to the chaos that followed Vatican II (no criticism here; it was an unsettled time). And many Catholics, so I am given to understand, haven’t pursued the details of their faith as adults. It’s something that we, as a Church, need to work on.

    That said, the Faith isn’t primarily a body of knowledge to be absorbed; rather, the Faith is a Person, Christ Jesus, to be loved and followed. It is a very good thing to have a deep understanding of the Faith, but it’s quite possible to live the Faith deeply without it, and it’s equally possible to have a deep intellectual understanding of the Faith without practicing it.

    It’s quite possible, I suppose, that the average church-goer is good at neither understanding the Faith nor practicing it. But the latter is much more difficult to assess than the former. Given that every Catholic admits their sinfulness at every Mass, perfection is not to be expected; and as C.S. Lewis points out, the difference Christ has made in any person’s life is impossible for us to see.

    Like

  6. Again, I think it comes down to the fact that I know very little about Catholicism, seeing as my only interactions with most Christians are protestant or fundamentalists and the Catholics I do know were cradle Catholics and they seemed to live for fear and not for faith, being very caught up in being born in sin and obsessed with a fiery hell. So I didn’t see much of the “faith” outside of a very literal interpretation, having never read any of the church fathers, etc. I like how you say it, that faith is a person, to be loved and followed. I think that faith and “belief” are used synonymously and I think they’re very different things. Maybe it boils down to, as you say, being “poorly catechized.”

    I really need to learn more about this stuff. 🙂

    Like

Comments are closed.