Chapter 29: Sufficiency in the Church

1. Meaning, Hope, Law, Unattainable without God
   • Introduction
     • We saw in the last chapter that “without God, man is insufficient for his own life, because life cannot be lived intelligently or vitally without knowledge of its meaning and purpose, the stimulation of hope [and] the clear grasp of the laws which will bring life to its goal. None of these can man provide of himself if he omits God” (393-3).
   • Secular Purpose Not Producible by Man
     • “Men cannot produce a secular meaning and purpose: they cannot discover one as something already there and only awaiting discovery, because it is hard for men to persuade themselves or anyone else that a story that has no author can have a plot” (394-1).
       • Man’s purpose, which is intimately related to man’s end, necessarily involves a story, and thus a plot, leading up to that end.
       • Apart from God, there is no possibility of an author; hence, there is no possibility of a plot.
     • “Nor can they arbitrarily invent a meaning and purpose and impose them upon life, because too much has happened already to condition mankind, including the would-be author of the new design, and because no one ever knows what is going to happen next” (394-1).
       • It is not clear what Sheed means in saying “too much has happened already to condition mankind.” He may be referring to the effects of original sin.
       • Purpose requires a goal, a final reality, but apart from God revealing it, we cannot possibly know what the final reality is or how we will get to it. Hence, Sheed writes, “no one ever knows what is going to happen next.”
         • This is clear from the Old Testament’s description of Sheol as an undefined, apparently final, place of the dead. The true final reality of the Beatific Vision had not been explicitly revealed to the Old Testament authors, nor had the true reality of hell been explicitly revealed.
   • Secular Hope Not Producible by Man
     • Likewise, man cannot produce a secular hope (394-1)
     • If each individual has merely emerged from a general mass of reality and will again be merged back into it, then there is no future of any significance for anyone; thus, there is no lasting thing for which to hope (394-1).
     • Even if the future of the human race were spectacular, there would be nothing in it for the individual (394-1).
   • Man Has Produced a “Secular” Ethics
     • Man has not been concerned with producing a secular purpose, but he has been “forced to provide some sort of ethics, since without general agreement upon what conduct is right or wrong, society would fall to pieces at once” (394-2).
       • This may appear to be a secular ethics, but it is actually based on what remains of the Christian ethic (394-2).
     • Any attempt to produce a genuinely secular ethics must fail because its authors cannot prove to themselves that there is no God and no afterlife (394-2).
       • The only justification for a genuinely secular ethics is the case where there is no God. If God exists, then ethics clearly needs to be based on whatever He has revealed to us.
       • Just as the existence of God is impossible to prove in a manner that is irresistibly compelling, even more so is the non-existence of God impossible to prove.
         • The existence of a being can be proved by a single datum of evidence. On the other hand, the non-existence of a being requires that all potentially evidential data be examined. This latter requirement is, of course, an impossible task.
     • The atheist does not try to prove that there is no God. Rather, he tries to do one or more of three things (395-1):
       • First, he tries to come up with a theory that could account for the existence of the universe without bringing God into the picture (395-1).
         • This argument fails for the simple reason that there is nothing in the universe that can account for its own existence. That which brought the universe into existence necessarily had to act prior to the existence of the universe.
       • Second, he attacks the arguments for the existence of God in an attempt to show that they are not conclusive (395-1).
         • This approach fails because arguments for the existence of God do not need to be absolutely conclusive (i.e., irresistibly compelling). They only need to show there is a convergence of evidence that necessarily leads to the conclusion that God exists.
       • Third, he emphasizes elements in the universe that should not be there if God exists (e.g., physical suffering, moral evil: theodicy) (395-1).
         • This amounts to him saying that if he (i.e., the atheist) were God, he would have done things differently, which is no argument (395-1).
         • Theodicy is the strongest of these arguments because it appeals to human emotion, but an appeal to human emotion is a logical fallacy. The argument fails because there is no logical connection between the existence of God and the existence of moral evil (sin) or physical evil (suffering).
           • Moral evil is merely an absence of goodness, in the same way that darkness is an absence of light and cold is an absence of heat. Darkness and cold are not physical realities in and of themselves.
             • Moral evil presumes the existence of God, for it consists in actions that express the rejection of God and His law.
             • Unless there is a moral Lawgiver, there can be no moral evil. If one admits that moral evil exists, then one admits that God exists.
           • Physical evil (suffering) is a necessary aspect of the sense of touch, which is also a source of pleasure.
             • Suffering provides us with “boundaries” that guide us away from harmful things.
             • Suffering is a prime component of the virtue of charity. If we were incapable of suffering, we would be incapable of loving.
         • One cannot argue that God does not exist because there is suffering in the world any more than one can argue that God does exist because there is pleasure in the world.
       • “We might analyze [the atheist’s] arguments against a future life in roughly the same way, and with the same result” (395-1).
   • A Genuinely Secular Ethics Is Doomed by Uncertainty
     • “God and the next life are vast things to be unsure about. If either exists, it must wreck any system of human conduct that ignores it” (395-2).
       • A system of ethics is necessarily intended to produce a particular outcome; hence, the ethical system is built upon principles that are consistent with the generation of that outcome.
       • If one were to invent a secular ethic, the outcome, or goal, to which it is directed would almost certainly be the maximization of human happiness (395-2).
       • In order to maximize human happiness, one must take into consideration the whole spectrum of human life. However, if there is an afterlife, there is certainly no way to examine it so that it can be taken into consideration (395-2).
       • Hence, the invention of a secular ethic can only fail, and that for two reasons (395-2):
         • First, the would-be inventor of a secular ethic cannot determine whether or not there is a next life.
         • Second, a secular ethic must account for the possibility of a next life, but it cannot determine the way in which the actions of this life will affect one’s happiness in the next life.
       • The problems associated with the invention of a secular ethic are insurmountable as can be seen by the fact that there has never been a secular ethic that appealed to any large section of society. “Secular ethics are only in books” (396-1).
2. The Church Provides Meaning, Hope and Law
   • Religion Is the Only Answer
     • From chapter 28, “The Insufficiency of Man”:
       • It should be clear that man needs an ultimate goal in which to hope so that his life has purpose.
         • He also needs to know the way in which his hope can be realized. That is, he needs to know the rules of the road so that his energies are not dissipated on roads that do not lead to the goal.
         • Lacking either the goal or the rules of the road that lead to that goal, man falls into a state of devitalization.
       • The world cannot save man from devitalization, for there is no ultimate goal in the things of this world; worldly goals are hopelessly transient. Because the world cannot provide an ultimate goal for man, it cannot provide a way to an ultimate goal.
     • Hence, “religion is the only answer” to man’s yearning to have those needs (i.e., of purpose and law) satisfied (396-2).
     • Every religion can provide some part of the answer to the degree that Truth resides in it (396-2):
       • “The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men” (“Nostra Aetate,” #2).
     • However, the whole answer to man’s yearning is found in the Church established by God for the purpose of satisfying those needs (396-2).
     • In the previous chapter this was considered from the point of view of God’s will, which is, in itself, decisive, but it can also be considered from the point of view of man’s needs. From chapter 28, “The Insufficiency of Man”:
       • “The mind is doomed to dissatisfaction unless it sees things in God” (384-3).
         • Apart from God, the mind sees everything wrongly; thus, it cannot get to the meaning of the things it sees and it finds itself “living in a world of bits and pieces” (384-3).
         • The mind has a natural hunger for order and purpose. This natural hunger cannot be satisfied by seeing the world as a collection of disjointed bits and pieces in which it is impossible to find purpose (384-3).
         • In such a state, the mind “can have no over-all sense of what reality is all about, and is ultimately brought to a stand-still by a sense of futility” (384-3).
       • “Similarly the will is doomed to unsatisfaction insofar as it aims at things separate from God” (384-4).
         • Our desires are fixed on things by the action of our wills. We can fix them on anything from nothingness (e.g., sin) to the Infinite (384-4).
         • But note that apart from God, all “things” are “nothing”. That is, they could not exist without God.
         • It follows that to love things without loving God is to love shadows and to “expect from shadows what only reality can give” (384-4).
     • It is readily apparent that a fallible, non-dogmatic answer to man’s needs does nothing to satisfy them (396-2).
       • “Consider for one instant the nonsense of a non-dogmatic hope – to the best of our knowledge there is the possibility of fullness of life with God in heaven” (396-2).
         • What could be less stimulating than an opinion such as this that is based on incomplete information, and gives no more assurance than that of an ambiguous “possibility”? (396-2).
         • Anything short of complete certainty is uncertainty, and men are not inclined to make sacrifices or to do anything else for an uncertainty (396-2).
           • Note that certainty does not require an airtight formal proof such as the type of which we find in mathematics. It needs a compelling convergence of evidences.
       • “Consider . . . the morality of a non-dogmatic ethic – it seems to us that God does not like remarriage after divorce or sexual experience outside marriage” (396-2).
         • “That is too frail a barrier to set against passion: there is a kind of cruelty in it, throwing in a probability to worry the mind instead of a certain truth to sustain it” (396-2).
   • Genuine Happiness Found Only in God
     • Recall that happiness is “a splendor resultant from spiritual energies functioning at their maximum” (391-1), and that the improper use of the spiritual energies designed into our nature necessarily results in unhappiness (390-2).
     • Now, observe that the Church meets man’s need for happiness at every point by providing an outlet for all of man’s spiritual energies (396-3).
     • So much of man’s energy was meant to be used exclusively on God; these energies cannot be properly used on any lesser object (396-3).
       • If man does not use these energies as they were meant to be used, they will turn upon him and torment him (397-1).
       • This is exactly what Augustine was getting at when he wrote: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you” (Confessions, bk. 1, ch. 1; 397-1).
     • We have a need for God at every point of our being, most notably in the highest faculties, the intellect and will (397-1).
     • In the Church, the intellect may know God to its capacity to know, the will may love God to its capacity to love, and a man’s whole being may be in contact with God to the limit of his capacity for union with God (397-1).
       • This contact with God is a reality as opposed to the pseudo-reality one finds when attempting to manufacture happiness apart from God (397-2).
     • “In that total contact [with God] men do not lose themselves but find themselves . . . in a total union between man and God in which man remains himself as truly as God remains Himself” (397-1).
   • What the Church Offers to Meet Our Needs
     • In the Church (397-2):
       • The devitalization of life, resulting from the lack of purpose and, therefore, hope, is countered by the life of grace (397-2).
       • The diseases of society (i.e., the chaos that results from the lack of a fundamental social unity) are countered by the unity of the Mystical Body (397-2).
       • The complexity of man is met by the simplicity of the Church, which, in its simplicity, is fully capable of addressing the complexity of man’s nature (397-2).
       • Every human person’s unique spiritual and intellectual needs are fully met (397-2).
     • Hence, “the Church is the paradise of unstandardized men . . . [for the Catholic Church], more rigid than any in dogma and law, is, as no other church ever has been, the home of every type of human being” in every type of vocation, in every social class, and in every type of society and in every age, “because only in the Church is man fully himself (397-2).
3. Why Do Men Not See It?
   • Two Criticisms from the World
     • The world fails to recognize that man is fully himself only in the Church because it has lost its appreciation of the gifts of Truth and Life and no longer realizes that these gifts were entrusted to the Church by Christ Himself (398-1).
       • Coming from this perspective, it is only natural that the world does not see a purpose for the Church’s existence (398-1).
       • As a result, they judge it by two lines of inquiry that they would recognize as being irrelevant if they had any understanding of the Church and its mission (398-1).
       • These two criticisms are the character of Catholics and the alleged failure of the Church to take a role in the improvement of the social order (398-1).
     • Regarding the first criticism, the character of Catholics:
       • In the Church we find sinners of the worst type, and these sinners are found in every place in the Church from the highest office to the lowest, at least at some point in the Church’s history (398-2).
       • But even if the proportion of these sinners were as great as its critics believe this particular criterion of judgment is the wrong one because it is precisely to this odd assortment of sinners that Christ has chosen to give the gifts of Truth and Life (398-2).
         • “No one who knows his own desperate need of those gifts would be kept at a distance by the character of the human means through which Christ has chosen that they shall have them, any more than a man hungry for bread will be kept from it by doubts about the moral excellence of the baker” (398-2).
       • The man who does not know about the gifts of Truth and Life is bound to have strong opinions of the purveyors of iniquity found in the Church for it “is a spectacular body and the vices of [its members] are not likely to be overlooked” (398-2).
         • A large part of the motivation of these critics is found in the Church’s bold doctrinal and moral claims, many of which the world considers to be an impediment to happiness.
     • Regarding the second criticism, the Church’s alleged failure to participate in the betterment of the social order:
       • Note: Sheed also refers to this as the Church holding as secondary what the world holds as primary (400-3).
       • “Man, so says the critic, is striving for a better life upon earth, and the Church stands aside from the strife” (399-1)
       • The truth of the matter is that “the Church has done more for the betterment of life upon this earth than all other institutions put together” (399-1).
         • For example, the Church gave birth to modern science, the university system, international law and western music, art and architecture. It changed the swamp of Europe into fertile farmland. The worlds system of social charity was invented by the Catholic Church. The list goes on and on. See “How the Church Built Western Civilization” by Thomas Woods.
         • “[Mikhail] Gorbachev [former president of the Soviet Union] once said ‘The collapse of the Iron Curtain would have been impossible without John Paul II’” (Joseph Bottum via WikiPedia, “Pope John Paul II”)
       • “Yet there are areas where the Church seems to have acquiesced in, if not actually encouraged, great social evils” (399-1).
         • The Spanish Inquisition (late 1400’s) is a classic example. It was carried out by the Spanish government with the assistance of some Spanish clergy. It is wrongly portrayed as being carried out by the Church.
       • Here again we must accept the role that sloth has played in the lives of Churchmen, the sloth of the intellect that accepts the status quo without seeing the evil therein, and the sloth of the will by which it is easier to do nothing than to “raise the devil by trying to put [things] right” (399-2).
       • Nevertheless, even when the Church is doing the least for social betterment, God continues to give the gifts of Truth and Life through the Church, and there is no comparison between what these gifts are doing for mankind and what the rest of the world’s institutions are doing for mankind (399-2).
       • “Certainly there is no sanity in foregoing the vaster thing [i.e., truth and life] which the Church is giving because of such lesser things as she is not giving” (399-2).
   • A Lack of Appreciation for the Church’s Salvific Work
     • However just these complaints against the Church may be, in one place or another, they are almost invariably made with no appreciation whatever of the things that she exists to do” (400-2).
       • The spectrum of this lack of appreciation for what the Church does varies from the Catholic who “accepts the gifts [of Truth and Life] as a matter of habit . . . yet has no profound awareness of them or response to them” to the “non-Catholic who regards the Church’s own work as a lot of nonsense, but would be willing to overlook it . . . if only the Church would concentrate on what seems to him the vital business of mankind” (400-2).
     • What these individuals fail to see is that “The soul’s needs are the Church’s business. If you are not interested in souls, then she will seem to have no business at all” (400-2).
     • To recap, these two things (a third will be mentioned below) stand between men and their recognition that the Church is their home (400-3):
       • A preoccupation with the defects of Catholics (400-3)
       • An impatience that the Church holds as primary what the world holds as secondary (also stated above as the Church’s alleged failure to participate in the betterment of the social order) (400-3)
     • Our task of evangelization is to show the world that the gifts of Truth and Life that God gives through the Church are primary and everything else is secondary (400-2).
     • In attempting to do this we meet a third difficulty, which is actually the greatest: “Even when men do know something of what the gifts are, they are not necessarily attracted [to them] but may even shrink from them” (400-2).
     • Their first reaction of one who is made aware of the gifts of Truth and Life is typically that he has neither the “muscles to take hold of them, nor any taste for them or likelihood of happiness from them” (400-3).
       • The problem is that merely to grasp this vision of reality requires the use of intellectual muscles he may have never used, and the moral law associated with this reality “threatens the loss of pleasures” to which he is very much accustomed (400-3).
     • The world of spirit seems so thin and remote whereas the physical world seems solid and close so that one thinks he must lose his hold on reality in order to enter the world of spirit (401-1).
       • We must have something to cling to, but in clinging to the attractions of the world we only cling to passing shadows that are “as empty as ourselves” (401-1).
         • “[Let] those who deal with the world [act] as though they had no dealings with it. For the form of this world is passing away.” (1 Cor 7:31).
       • Nevertheless, the shadows appear ever so lovely unless the reality of the world of spirit can be shown to be more lovely still (401-1).
     • This thought brings us to the life of grace and the landscape of reality, which are the topics of the next two chapters.
   • Excursus: The Church Is Holy
     • Ephesians 5 gives us the classic image of the Church as the bride of Christ:
       • “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph 5:25-27)
     • It is an article (9th) of faith (from the Council of Nicaea) that the Church is holy: “[One – added at Constantinople], Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic”
     • As the spouse of Christ, the Church has a material and a spiritual element: a body and a soul.
     • The spiritual element (soul) is the Holy Spirit.
       • By its very nature, the soul of the Church (the Holy Spirit) must be absolutely holy, and absolutely free of doctrinal error.
         • “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”” (Mt 16:18-19)
     • The material element (body) consists of the members of the Church.
       • Unlike the spiritual element, holiness is not intrinsic to the material element of the Church. It is present in authentically holy individuals, but it is absent to a greater or lesser degree in the rest of the Church’s members.
       • Nevertheless, the state of the material element of the Church has no effect on the Church’s intrinsic holiness and purity of teaching.