by Kolbitar » October 22nd, 2006, 1:54 pm
Hey Josh.
::With regard to Urban II's quote, consider its context. He's rallying his troops. No one is contending that the Muslims were not at fault, or that their practices were not brutal.
Here's the point: if the practices were "brutal," were directed at Christians, were spreading, were threatening Christian civilization itself, and these facts were added to a mindset that we cannot blame upon a particular people necessarily subject to the limitations of their time (they did not have a Bill of Rights which was born out of hundreds of years of experience - of common law, challenge to the divine right of kings by the Church, popular sovereignty, etc. -- and could not be a-priori intuited from Scripture), then there can be no culpability, in this case, on the part of the Pope in rallying for the cause of a defensive war, nor on the part of faithful Catholics in being rallied for such a war.
In general terms, if people are unable to make a distinction between the Church's role in matters concerning state self-defense because neither experience nor Scripture has matured the faculty through which to see that distinction, then blaming people (comprising the Church) for reacting in the only way they saw fit, at the time, is like calling Newton intellectually lazy for failing to see the inevitable (in retrospect) advancement of Einstein's relativity. Of course to go backwards and wish to implement such a mentality now would be wrong -- that is not disputed, nor is the fact that abuses occurred disputed; but let's be clear about where we stand in relation to those who could not possibly see as we see now, for, if we can be, then much emotion and prejudice will be dispelled so we can truly understand the facts.
::Should I juxtapose Jesus's exhortations concerning our enemies, those who injure us, and how we should react to them, against the Roman church's response to Muslim hostilities? Or can you see the problem without it?
The Church and State were not seen to be in opposition except in so far as the State violated the Church's jurisdiction. The Church, right or wrong, consequently played a large role in State affairs: let's deal with this cultural fact first. Now, who in their right mind thinks that Jesus' "exhortations," as you say, apply on a state level? The Declaration of Independence says:
"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends (Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness) it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
Is this amazing and rare cumulative wisdom -- derived from rational reflection on human experience - in conflict with Jesus' exhortation's? If not, then much less is the duty of defending one's national territory a "problem". The real problem, once again, comes down to the question, should the Church directly enter political matters, matters of the state? and though I agree that we should answer the question differently now, I don't fault the Church for answering it differently then. I do fault members of the Church for abusing what resulted from their answer, but this in no way cuts to the heart and negates the essential purpose of the Church: to safeguard the deposit of faith (encapsulated in dogmas as well as traditions that are unanimously taught by the Fathers, councils and Papal encyclicals).
Now let me frame the issue by presenting the other extreme, taking our present situation which we agree should entail a separation preventing the Church from directly controlling state affairs; this extreme would entail a denial of natural law and it's applications. Take for instance the application quoted above in the Declaration; is this contrary to Divine law? To any sort of Revelation? If it's my duty to defend my family, then it's my duty to defend my city, my state and my country from unjust attacks; this is natural law, the law God has written into nature. Does God contradict Himself? Does revelation trump natural law, or is it compatible with it? So, interpreting Jesus' exhortation's universally, without the context of common sense or natural law (they're really the same thing) would lead us to the insanity of, for example, pardoning all presently incarcerated individuals in the name of forgiveness, or extending an olive branch to Bin Laden.
::What do you believe Jesus intended to establish in a Church? Based on the gospel accounts and Acts, do you really think Jesus intended a political body that would avenge political wrongs and bring wrath upon the ungodly? Was the Church commissioned to spread the Gospel to the corners of the earth, or to bring the sword to the corners of the earth?
Your question isn't clear to me, what do you mean by "bring[ing] the sword to the corners of the earth?" You see, if you mean to ask "was the Church commissioned to bring about conversions by the sword?", then clearly the answer is no, but it's an irrelevant and fictional "no" because the question doesn't bear on reality: for the Church never said convert or die -- you're somehow confusing Christianity with Islam!
However, if you mean to ask is natural law an inherent part of the Church, is it something which flows from her principles, principles which the Church foresees, full grown, supporting an ordered, advanced, civilized society - a society where some civil servants carry the "sword" (cops) to keep internal peace, and others wield it against external enemies, then the answer is, most emphatically: yes!
::There was a point in the life of the Church when it ceased to be the visible Body that it was intended to be, and it became a political institution instead. Nearly a millineum of darkness followed, and things like the Crusades and the Inquisition resulted.
Most Christian cults agree, but they're at least consistent in rejecting the most wondrous cornerstone doctrine of the politically instituted Church: the Trinity.
Concerning your last statement, only Christian ostriches, with their heads buried in propaganda can agree that darkness was not being overcome; overcome by the light of charity -- of tending to the sick, the orphans, the outcasts, of the establishment of hospitals; by learning -- in logic, philosophy, the sciences, the arts, and the institution of universities; in agricultural advancements, technological advancements, industrial advancements - all owing to Catholic monasteries; in the organized resistance to unnatural heresies which denied goodness to matter; and, most strikingly to all modern accounts of rewritten history, in the realm of politics and ethics: just war theory, social contract, resistance to tyrants, popular sovereignty:
"It is impossible, for example, to understand our revolution or constitutional founding without some knowledge of the original settlers and their faith, the English common law experience that lay behind them, and the medieval background from which this all developed. Typically, these are glossed over or ignored entirely in our history, which portrays ideas of popular sovereignty, limits on royal power, or the right of resistance as "radical" concepts invented in the modern epoch. In fact, however, all these ideas had been expressed with utmost clarity (and repeatedly) in the Middle Ages.
At the period when Aquinas was writing, limits on political power were the norm in Europe… Representative institutions at this era were vigorous and growing, and the power of kings accordingly constrained-up to and including ideas of popular sovereignty, social contract, and resistance to tyrannical rulers." --Evans
One more thing I'd like to respond to, you write, in another post, "we don't have a good track record in that area, at least not for better than half of the Church's history. It shows some collective hypocrisy on our part to accuse Islam of being a religion of war."
But this accepts that there's a moral equivalence between acts of aggression, an aggressive war, and defensive measures, a defensive war. Further, to collectively affirm that the historic Church is essentially the same as Islam is to collectively affirm ignorance of their opposed underlying principles. In so far as Church members, or even the church, at times, in tandem, were wrong from our point of view, we can point to the Church's underlying principles and show, logically, why they were wrong. This is in stark contrast to Islam, which is a religion that denies natural law in principle, and denies those tenets of the natural law which are in conflict with revelation, with Allah's will. In Catholicism reason and Divine will are not in conflict, so there can be, for instance, a separation of Church -- which deals in matters of revelation -- and State -- which deals in matters of natural law-- for they mutually compliment each other.
Sincerely,
Jesse
The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and Shakespeare tomorrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to see some truth that he has never seen before. --Chesterton
Sober Inebriation:
http://soberinebriationblog.blogspot.com/
