by Kolbitar » August 23rd, 2008, 3:18 pm
::To look at a homosexual couple and acknowledge to them that their love is true and real and their committment faithful and honorable, but then confess nonetheless that it is not in accord with God's purpose, is the whole truth.
Hi Adam!
I think a lot of the problem in communication, as I do think there's a problem on both sides, has to do with words being the tip of deeper philosophical icebergs which we bring to the conversation; the latter being the actual objects conflicting imperceptibly down below the words themselves, and the true cause of our irritations. I think the whole hate the sin love the sinner conflict is one which, resting on two different stresses and meanings of "essential nature," is an example of this deeper conflict (can Sartre and Aristotle understand eachother here?) .
Another such conflict I detect may be arising from the implications involved in statements like that above, which I've quoted from you. For example, I, for one, find it impossible to objectively distinguish "God's purpose" from "love that is true" and "commitment that is honorable." Virtues, to me, are such because they're fronted by prudence, so that if they do not lead to the proper end, then they are not facets of a single aim which lends to them the quality of true virtue. Though I can acknowledge the fact that a person has a real commitment to another, and perhaps an enduring faithfulness formally worth emulating, I cannot call the material act true or honorable while at the same time holding "that it is not in accord with God's purpose."
With that said, there is also the subjective side of things, which, our intellects being clouded and our wills wounded, leaves us with the inability to judge the culpability of a person choosing something that may be objectively wrong. Remembering that -- our intellects still clouded and our wills still wounded -- we are unable to reach objective perfection in our aims and actions, that therefore we learn by trial and error, we should also realize, through empathy, the implicit pride involved in casting the stones of judgment in terms of culpability.
Adam, I admire your openness and reservation to act on this issue, which you say has no clarity in your mind in terms of God's will. I'm not sure that some of your assumptions do not betray a theoretical conviction despite your indeterminacy to act, but I think it's an amazing credit to you that you're willing to acknowledge that the objective standard of the Church on this issue may be right (strange grounds, incidentally, for people going off about rejecting the authority of the Catholic Church!), but that the true issue, if I may presume to put it in my own words, the true challenge, is in interacting with people in a way which inspires a want to see and meet the standard.
Finally, I'd like to say that it's most likely that I'm only partially right, though, of course, I could be way off, in the way I've interpreted your words; in either case I apologize if I've put words in your mouth and misrepresented your positions, and expect that you will (gently :-) correct me where I've erred.
God bless,
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/