pour enfants et adultes.
Savez-vous quel est le jour de l’anniversaire de Jésus ?
Le jour de noël ? Eh bien non !
Je vais vous raconter pourquoi.
Jésus, on ne sait pas quel jour il est né, alors on a choisi ce jour.
Mais pourquoi le 25 décembre ?
Parce qu’il y a bien longtemps, le 25 décembre, on célébrait la fête du soleil.
C’est le moment de l’année où les jours sont les plus courts.
La nature est brune, les arbres ont perdu leurs feuilles, la terre est froide, on s’inquiète de savoir si les beaux jours vont revenir, et si de nouveau les champs vont porter du blé et des fleurs.
Alors on a inventé la fête du soleil, la fête de la lumière.
Le signe est magnifique. Au moment où les rayons du soleil sont au plus bas de leur déclin, on célèbre son relèvement, car il va progressivement gagner sur la nuit. Le soleil va triompher, manifestant ainsi une nouvelle fois la victoire de la lumière sur les ténèbres.
Or pour nous les chrétiens, c’est Jésus-Christ qui est accueilli comme la lumière qui brille dans les ténèbres, comme le jour qui se lève sur l’humanité.
Jésus est le jour nouveau qui pointe à minuit. Il fait apparaître toute chose dans la lumière de l’amour. Et avec lui, rien n’a besoin de rester caché. Même ce que l’on croyait honteux, la lumière peut en faire une pierre précieuse.
Et savez-vous pourquoi à Noël on se fait des cadeaux ?
Les cadeaux sont une imitation du geste des mages. Les mages sont venus honorer Jésus, parce qu’ils ont reconnu en lui l’envoyé de Dieu. Ces cadeaux sont des signes de respect comme on en fait à une personne de grande importance.
Donc les cadeaux que vous recevez à Noël sont une façon de vous dire que vous avez une grande importance, et si vous faites des cadeaux, c’est la même chose.
Personnellement je regrette que l’on mélange Noël avec toutes ces dépenses dans les magasins. Je préférerais que l’on garde les cadeaux pour un autre jour.
Et comme la fête du Père Noël, c'est-à-dire la fête de Saint Nicolas, c’est le 6 décembre, je préférerais qu’on s’offre des cadeaux ce jour là, et qu’on débarrasse la naissance de Jésus de toutes nos processions vers le Temple de la Consommation.
Savez-vous quels sont les trois cadeaux que les mages ont apportés ?
Ils ont apporté de l’or, de la myrrhe et de l’encens. Vous connaissez ?
L'or, c’est pour reconnaître la royauté de Jésus,
l'encens, c’est pour reconnaître sa divinité,
la myrrhe, c’est pour reconnaître l’incarnation du Messie.
L’incarnation, vous connaissez ce mot difficile ?
L’incarnation ça veut dire que Dieu a choisi de devenir un humain, par amour pour les hommes et femmes, pour se rendre présent, pour qu’on puisse l’écouter, marcher avec lui, être guéri par lui.
L’incarnation ça veut dire que Dieu a choisi de devenir un humain, pour affronter le mal et pour que le péché soit cloué sur la croix.
L’incarnation ça veut dire que Dieu a épousé la condition humaine.
Oui, épousé. Dieu se fait l’époux des hommes et femmes, par amour.
Et le plus beau cadeau de noël, c’est celui-là,
c’est Dieu qui se donne lui-même,
c’est Dieu qui se donne à nous.
Le plus beau cadeau, il nous est fait ce soir.
mardi 21 décembre 2010
dimanche 24 octobre 2010
Parlez-vous ?
Un couple se sépare : comment en sommes-nous arrivés là ?? La parole a manqué. Faire-reproche aurait été une façon d’ouvrir un avenir. Dans le couple, la parole peut construire ou détruire. Mais ne pas parler est inhumain.
Livre du Levitique, 19 :17
Bible Œcuménique TOB « N’aie aucune pensée de haine contre ton frère, mais n’hésite pas à le réprimander pour ne pas te charger d’un péché à son égard. »
Bible de la Liturgie : « Tu n’auras aucune pensée de haine contre ton frère. Mais tu n’hésiteras pas à le réprimander, et ainsi tu ne partageras pas son péché. »
Bible de Jérusalem (1956) : « Tu n’auras pas dans ton cœur de haine pour ton frère. Tu dois le réprimander et ainsi tu n’auras pas la charge d’un péché. »
New International Version : « Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt.”
Comment en sommes-nous arrivés là ?
Christine et Bruno ont passé vingt ans ensemble, ils ont eu trois enfants, les choses semblaient bien se passer. Et puis voilà, Christine a pris un appartement. Ce n’est pas qu’elle ait rencontré quelqu’un ; elle n’a personne d’autre dans sa vie. Elle vient chaque matin à la maison pour faire le petit déjeuner et accompagner les enfants à l’école ; et le soir elle est là dès 17h pour le retour des enfants, pour être avec eux. Puis, vers 20h, elle regagne son appartement, tout proche.
Comment en sont-ils arrivés là ? Pas de crise, pas de disputes, pas de désaccord profond, et pourtant l’insupportable s’est installé peu à peu, l’impossibilité de continuer comme avant, l’insupportable de n’avoir plus de projet ensemble. Ils n’avaient plus rien à se dire. Ils n’ont pas encore 45 ans.
C’est elle qui est partie. Lui, il est abasourdi, anéanti. Il ne comprend pas. Il ne s’y attendait pas du tout. Il a l’impression de subir un verdict. Qu’est-ce qui s’est passé ? Ou plutôt qu’est ce qui ne s’est pas passé ?
Peu à peu, depuis plusieurs années déjà, elle n’en pouvait plus de se sentir ainsi étrangers l’un à l’autre : on fait ce qu’on a à faire, on achète une maison, on arrange une chambre pour chaque enfant, on va au boulot, on stimule les enfants dans leurs études, on a quelques activités, rarement ensemble. Et puis un jour, Bruno parle de l’avenir, de prendre une maison plus petite lorsque les enfants seront grands ; et soudain, Christine ressent au fond d’elle-même un sentiment étrange : « Ça, jamais. » Sentiment jusque là invisible. « Je ne resterai pas avec lui. » Elle a vite recouvert de déni ce sentiment ; ça va passer.
Quelques années encore ont passé, sans vague, avec cependant ce manque de sens à la relation de couple. Oui, nous sommes bien parents ensemble, mais pas couple. Et une fois que les enfants seront indépendants…
Christine a pris un appartement. Elle se sent coupable et Bruno se sent victime.
Il a beaucoup de mal à se remettre en cause. C’est vrai qu’il s’est un peu enfermé, qu’il n’a pas été très attentif, mais sa responsabilité lui semble sans aucune mesure avec ce départ brutal.
Elle a du mal à vivre cette culpabilité qui la tient. Elle n’a jamais voulu blesser Bruno, au contraire elle est émue par son désarroi, elle voudrait le voir reprendre le dessus. Et voilà que la méchante c’est elle ! Du coup, elle a du mal à tenir bon dans sa résolution : il lui faut obéir à ce désir de vivre, cette force vitale en elle qui lui dit de ne pas accepter une vie vide, de ne pas renoncer. Mais ça vient en contradiction avec ses convictions sur la fidélité, sur la parole donnée. Pourtant, elle ne PEUT pas accepter l’engourdissement progressif, la mort à petit feu, elle ne peut pas vouloir autre chose que vivre, que chercher à honorer la vie !
Depuis près de trois ans elle a senti monter en elle ce sentiment insupportable. Mais il n’y a jamais eu de véritable dialogue pour en parler. Jamais elle n’a pu dire ce sentiment d’insupportable.
Pourquoi n’en n’a-t-elle pas parlé ? Elle n’avait pas de reproche concret à faire, juste un éloignement, une indifférence mutuelle. Et puis surtout, en parler ça aurait rendu le malaise concret, ça aurait plongé la famille dans ce malaise qu’il valait mieux taire.
« Fais-reproche, afin de ne pas porter de péché. »
Or, en ne parlant pas, en ne disant pas pleinement son insatisfaction, en ne faisant pas à Bruno de reproche sur son éloignement, sur son isolement, elle ne lui a pas donné d’occasion de se remettre en cause. En ne parlant pas, elle ne lui a laissé aucune chance. Et c’est en cela qu’elle porte une faute.
Marie Balmary, dans son livre « Le sacrifice interdit », fait un long commentaire sur la vertu du reproche, qui est une façon d’aimer. Faire reproche c’est ne pas laisser pourrir la blessure. Faire reproche, c’est finalement ouvrir un avenir. Faire reproche c’est aimer. Ne pas faire reproche c’est fermer l’avenir.
Balmary appelle ça « rendre l’offense », non pas au sens de la vengeance, mais au sens de « remettre l’offense », la remettre à l’autre, la lui rendre comme un fardeau que je n’ai pas à garder, dont je n’ai pas à me charger. Et si je ne la lui remets pas, si je ne fais pas reproche, si je garde en moi le poids de cette blessure, je commence à nourrir en moi un malaise, un ressentiment, et finalement un péché. Ce ressentiment devient mon péché : je garde contre l’autre un sentiment négatif, je garde en moi un péché. Ça devient ma faute et non plus seulement la sienne. Désormais, parce que je n’ai pas fait reproche, je partage avec l’autre la faute.
La Parole est créatrice.
En effet, ce que l’on parle devient réalité ; la parole change le statut de ce qui vient à la parole. Tant qu’on n’en a pas parlé, ça n’existe que comme un sentiment vague et diffus. Dès qu’on en parle, ça passe du subjectif à l’objectif : dès que la parole sort de nous, elle perd son statut subjectif et acquiert le statut de quelque chose qui existe, au sens ou exister inclut cette dimension « ex-térieure, ex-primée, en dehors ».
Elle en a parlé, ça y est : ça a pris une existence hors d’elle, ça y est les paroles ont retenti, on ne peut plus faire comme si elle n’avait rien dit. Elle l’a dit, et la parole a fait quelque chose, elle a touché les oreilles et la conscience d’une autre personne.
Dans la théologie chrétienne, on parle de « parole performatrice ». La parole fait ce qu’elle dit, réalise ce qu’elle dit. « Je te baptise » ou encore « Ceci est mon corps » ; au moment où c’est dit, ça vient à la réalité. Mais il n’y a pas qu’en théologie. Dans la vie de chacun également, la parole est performatrice. Si je dis « Je ne t’aime plus », cette parole a un pouvoir, elle touche, elle transforme. Les choses ne peuvent plus être comme si ces paroles n’avaient jamais été prononcées.
Oui, la parole a ce pouvoir. La parole a une capacité objectivante. La parole est le propre des humains, elle a une capacité créative, elle crée une situation nouvelle.[1]
La parole bâtit mieux que toute grue, ou détruit mieux que toute arme. Peut-on être plus anéanti que par une parole ? Aucune arme, aucun danger, aucune maladie n’a le pouvoir de nuisance qu’a la parole.
Par leur maîtrise de la parole, certains se hissent au sommet d’une hiérarchie, certains obtiennent tout ce qu’ils veulent, ou lancent des ordres qui deviendront des actes… La parole c’est ce qui fait entrer certains projets dans la réalité, certaines idées à l’état de réalisation. Seule la parole a ce pouvoir.
La parole a le pouvoir de créer. Pas étonnant que le premier livre de la Bible,[2] dans ses premiers mots, décrive la Parole créatrice : « Dieu dit Que la lumière soit. Et la lumière fut. »
Pas étonnant que la tradition chrétienne ait dit de Jésus qu’il est « la Parole de Dieu, le verbe de Dieu. « Au commencement était le Verbe, et le Verbe était avec Dieu, et le Verbe était Dieu, et par Lui tout a été fait. » Ceux qui ont écrit ça avaient bien compris que créer est l’œuvre de la dimension la plus élevée de l’intelligence : la parole.
Et si la Parole est le propre de l’homme, l’absence de Parole est mensonge par omission, l’absence de Parole est inhumaine. Si l’autre ne me parle pas, il fait de moi un non-interlocuteur, un non-digne de sa Parole.
Le manquement à la Parole rompt ce lien unique qu’est la relation de Parole. Ce n’est pas seulement un lien unique, ça va plus loin encore, car la relation de Parole c’est la réalité substantiellement humaine qui fait de nous des humains.
Parlez-vous ?
mercredi 28 juillet 2010
Le désir comme grâce de Dieu
« Ce que Dieu a uni, que l’homme ne le sépare pas »
Qu’est-ce qui peut séparer ce que Dieu a uni ? le manque de dialogue ? La soif de pouvoir et de domination sur l’autre ? La projection de soi dans nos réalisations, par exemple dans le travail ? Pour y répondre, c’est plutôt à ceux qui ont été mariés depuis des années de le faire : eux ils savent quelles ruines ils ont frôlé, et comment ils les ont traversées.
« Ce que Dieu a uni, que l’homme ne le sépare pas »
Mais après tout, pourquoi ne pas séparer ce que Dieu a uni ? Tant de gens se séparent ! Qu’y a-t-il de si important dans ce que nous célébrons aujourd’hui ?
Le livre biblique du Cantique des Cantiques met en scène le désir entre un homme et une femme, la recherche éperdue de l’être aimé. Peut-être que nous pouvons y trouver des réponses ?
Le Cantique chante l’infinie beauté des retrouvailles, la souffrance du désir, pour lequel il n’y a aucun assouvissement définitif. C’est un texte d’amour, où le nom de Dieu n’est jamais mentionné, c’est un livre assez marginal à cause de sa forme et son contenu. Y est exprimée l’égalité du désir amoureux chez l’homme et chez la femme. Ce n’est pas l’histoire d’un homme qui désire posséder une femme, c’est un va et vient entre l’homme et la femme, entre le désir de l’un et le désir de l’autre.
Le côté religieux est balayé, il y a simplement un couple qui s’aime, sans visée de procréation, ni de mariage pour l’éternité. Dans ce texte de huit pages sur les 2500 pages que contient la bible, pas de prescriptions, ni de lois humaines; les autres pages sont pleines de Dieu, d’histoire, de lois et de mythes ; ici, rien de tout cela...
Certains maîtres du Talmud se sont battus pour maintenir le Cantique dans la bible, comme Rabi Aqiba, qui est un grand mystique juif de la fin du premier siècle. Et de même chez les chrétiens. Jusqu’à Calvin qui a vivement défendu l’introduction du Cantique dans le canon protestant.
Pourquoi cette polémique autour de ce texte ?
Peut-être à cause de la gène de livrer ces images sensuelles. De nombreux commentateurs ont cherché à en adoucir le contenu, leurs interprétations sont des métaphores: ces bouches ne sont pas des bouches, et ces jambes ne sont pas des jambes, non, ce sont des métaphores, le Cantique parle du bon Dieu et de Jésus-Christ ! On peut y lire le chant d’amour de l’âme dans son élévation vers Dieu, on peut y lire aussi le chant de l’alliance entre Israël et Dieu, ou encore y reconnaître les époux que sont le Christ et l’Eglise.
Et en effet, les hommes ont souvent utilisé des métaphores sexuelles pour qualifier la mystique. Pourtant, il faut bien reconnaître que ce texte évoque la part la part de l’homme la plus intime, celle qui le traverse et qui le dépasse ; le désir. Et quoi qu’il en soit, le désir n’est jamais condamnable, il est noble.
Mais il doit être cadré pour ne pas être vécu comme une aliénation. Le désir humain est à l’origine de bien des dépassements, il peut même conduire à se passer de Dieu.
L’un des grands mystiques du soufisme, Ibn Arabi au XIIème - XIIIème siècle pose la question du désir, aussi bien de l’homme pour la femme, que du spirituel pour son Dieu.
En pèlerinage à la Mecque Ibn Arabi tomba éperdument amoureux d’une jeune femme persane, et cet événement de sa vie lui révéla que le désir en nous est un reflet du désir d’absolu. C’est de ce désir fou qu’il découvre le visage ultime du double désir de l’homme pour son Dieu, comme de Dieu pour sa créature.
Pour Ibn Arabi, il n’y a pas de séparation entre désir humain et désir vis-à-vis du divin, il y a une unité, peut-être même une unicité profonde du désir. Le désir fondamental n’est autre que le désir divin, et le désir du fidèle n’est autre au fond que le désir de Dieu s’épanchant, se donnant dans la création.
Or qu’est ce que désirer ? Etymologiquement, la racine latine de ce mot c’est dé-siderare, (sidus, l’astre). Désirer c’est à dire avoir perdu son étoile, regretter l’absence de l’astre. Un manque qui donne la mesure de Dieu, de l’infini. Voilà une étymologie qui exprime que tout désir humain trouve sa source dans le manque même de l’absolu, et qui exprime aussi que celui qui est éperdu d’amour et de désir… est un pauvre ! Et cette pauvreté de l’homme est ontologique, elle est irrémédiable, inversement, la plénitude de l’être, c’est ce qui fonde la Seigneurie divine. En sorte que, pour Ibn Arabi, le désir, c’est ce qui, dans l’essence de l’homme, exprime le plus authentiquement la réponse à l’acte créateur.
Ce qui est à la portée du désir, c’est la manifestation de Dieu dans la personne aimée. Elle n’est pas le Dieu caché, mais elle devient, dans l’expérience amoureuse le dévoilement du Dieu personnel. En sorte que l’amour est alors un acte de sainteté, on pourrait dire que quand un couple s’unit, Dieu est là. Ainsi, le mouvement amoureux c’est ce qui sauve l’homme parce qu’il le fait entrer dans l’expérience de Dieu. Le désir et l’amour sont alors vus comme une expérience de rédemption.
« Ce que Dieu a uni, que l’homme ne le sépare pas. »
Le mariage est appelé à exprimer tout ce que l’on porte comme désir et amour, et à refléter le désir et l’amour divins. Refléter ce n’est pas assez, le mariage est appelé non seulement à l’expression mais même à l’incarnation de l’amour divin. Cette union est Icône de l’Alliance Eternelle, elle est temple saint, où Dieu fait sa demeure.
Votre mariage ne vous appartient pas, vous en êtes responsables mais il ne vous appartient pas, et c’est peut-être la raison pour laquelle c’est un acte public. Votre mariage vous dépasse, il engage d’abord vous, mais il n’engage pas que vous ; d’autres s’engagent, et Dieu lui-même s’engage. Votre mariage est un voyage, charnel et spirituel.
Qu’il soit un acte de sainteté !
Qu’est-ce qui peut séparer ce que Dieu a uni ? le manque de dialogue ? La soif de pouvoir et de domination sur l’autre ? La projection de soi dans nos réalisations, par exemple dans le travail ? Pour y répondre, c’est plutôt à ceux qui ont été mariés depuis des années de le faire : eux ils savent quelles ruines ils ont frôlé, et comment ils les ont traversées.
« Ce que Dieu a uni, que l’homme ne le sépare pas »
Mais après tout, pourquoi ne pas séparer ce que Dieu a uni ? Tant de gens se séparent ! Qu’y a-t-il de si important dans ce que nous célébrons aujourd’hui ?
Le livre biblique du Cantique des Cantiques met en scène le désir entre un homme et une femme, la recherche éperdue de l’être aimé. Peut-être que nous pouvons y trouver des réponses ?
Le Cantique chante l’infinie beauté des retrouvailles, la souffrance du désir, pour lequel il n’y a aucun assouvissement définitif. C’est un texte d’amour, où le nom de Dieu n’est jamais mentionné, c’est un livre assez marginal à cause de sa forme et son contenu. Y est exprimée l’égalité du désir amoureux chez l’homme et chez la femme. Ce n’est pas l’histoire d’un homme qui désire posséder une femme, c’est un va et vient entre l’homme et la femme, entre le désir de l’un et le désir de l’autre.
Le côté religieux est balayé, il y a simplement un couple qui s’aime, sans visée de procréation, ni de mariage pour l’éternité. Dans ce texte de huit pages sur les 2500 pages que contient la bible, pas de prescriptions, ni de lois humaines; les autres pages sont pleines de Dieu, d’histoire, de lois et de mythes ; ici, rien de tout cela...
Certains maîtres du Talmud se sont battus pour maintenir le Cantique dans la bible, comme Rabi Aqiba, qui est un grand mystique juif de la fin du premier siècle. Et de même chez les chrétiens. Jusqu’à Calvin qui a vivement défendu l’introduction du Cantique dans le canon protestant.
Pourquoi cette polémique autour de ce texte ?
Peut-être à cause de la gène de livrer ces images sensuelles. De nombreux commentateurs ont cherché à en adoucir le contenu, leurs interprétations sont des métaphores: ces bouches ne sont pas des bouches, et ces jambes ne sont pas des jambes, non, ce sont des métaphores, le Cantique parle du bon Dieu et de Jésus-Christ ! On peut y lire le chant d’amour de l’âme dans son élévation vers Dieu, on peut y lire aussi le chant de l’alliance entre Israël et Dieu, ou encore y reconnaître les époux que sont le Christ et l’Eglise.
Et en effet, les hommes ont souvent utilisé des métaphores sexuelles pour qualifier la mystique. Pourtant, il faut bien reconnaître que ce texte évoque la part la part de l’homme la plus intime, celle qui le traverse et qui le dépasse ; le désir. Et quoi qu’il en soit, le désir n’est jamais condamnable, il est noble.
Mais il doit être cadré pour ne pas être vécu comme une aliénation. Le désir humain est à l’origine de bien des dépassements, il peut même conduire à se passer de Dieu.
L’un des grands mystiques du soufisme, Ibn Arabi au XIIème - XIIIème siècle pose la question du désir, aussi bien de l’homme pour la femme, que du spirituel pour son Dieu.
En pèlerinage à la Mecque Ibn Arabi tomba éperdument amoureux d’une jeune femme persane, et cet événement de sa vie lui révéla que le désir en nous est un reflet du désir d’absolu. C’est de ce désir fou qu’il découvre le visage ultime du double désir de l’homme pour son Dieu, comme de Dieu pour sa créature.
Pour Ibn Arabi, il n’y a pas de séparation entre désir humain et désir vis-à-vis du divin, il y a une unité, peut-être même une unicité profonde du désir. Le désir fondamental n’est autre que le désir divin, et le désir du fidèle n’est autre au fond que le désir de Dieu s’épanchant, se donnant dans la création.
Or qu’est ce que désirer ? Etymologiquement, la racine latine de ce mot c’est dé-siderare, (sidus, l’astre). Désirer c’est à dire avoir perdu son étoile, regretter l’absence de l’astre. Un manque qui donne la mesure de Dieu, de l’infini. Voilà une étymologie qui exprime que tout désir humain trouve sa source dans le manque même de l’absolu, et qui exprime aussi que celui qui est éperdu d’amour et de désir… est un pauvre ! Et cette pauvreté de l’homme est ontologique, elle est irrémédiable, inversement, la plénitude de l’être, c’est ce qui fonde la Seigneurie divine. En sorte que, pour Ibn Arabi, le désir, c’est ce qui, dans l’essence de l’homme, exprime le plus authentiquement la réponse à l’acte créateur.
Ce qui est à la portée du désir, c’est la manifestation de Dieu dans la personne aimée. Elle n’est pas le Dieu caché, mais elle devient, dans l’expérience amoureuse le dévoilement du Dieu personnel. En sorte que l’amour est alors un acte de sainteté, on pourrait dire que quand un couple s’unit, Dieu est là. Ainsi, le mouvement amoureux c’est ce qui sauve l’homme parce qu’il le fait entrer dans l’expérience de Dieu. Le désir et l’amour sont alors vus comme une expérience de rédemption.
« Ce que Dieu a uni, que l’homme ne le sépare pas. »
Le mariage est appelé à exprimer tout ce que l’on porte comme désir et amour, et à refléter le désir et l’amour divins. Refléter ce n’est pas assez, le mariage est appelé non seulement à l’expression mais même à l’incarnation de l’amour divin. Cette union est Icône de l’Alliance Eternelle, elle est temple saint, où Dieu fait sa demeure.
Votre mariage ne vous appartient pas, vous en êtes responsables mais il ne vous appartient pas, et c’est peut-être la raison pour laquelle c’est un acte public. Votre mariage vous dépasse, il engage d’abord vous, mais il n’engage pas que vous ; d’autres s’engagent, et Dieu lui-même s’engage. Votre mariage est un voyage, charnel et spirituel.
Qu’il soit un acte de sainteté !
mercredi 21 juillet 2010
« Je ne parviens pas à croire »
« Venez, les bénis de mon Père, recevez en héritage le Royaume préparé pour vous depuis la création du monde. Ce que vous l'avez fait à l'un de ces petits de mes frères et soeurs, c'est à moi que vous l'avez fait. »
Dans cette histoire, il y a des gens qui ont pris soin des autres lorsqu’ils étaient fragiles, malades, affamés… Et tout d’un coup Jésus leur dit Merci.
Alors ils répondent : pourquoi tu dis merci ?
Parce que ce sans le savoir, le bien que vous avez fait à tous ces gens, c’est à moi que vous l’avez fait. Et Jésus rend hommage à tous ceux qui, sans le savoir, l’ont accueilli, visité, nourri.
Beaucoup d’entre nous disent « je ne parviens pas à croire, je le souhaiterais mais je n’y parviens pas. » Et à l’occasion de la mort, disent encore « j’envie l’espérance des chrétiens, mais je ne peux pas croire à la résurrection. »
Pour ceux qui croient en la résurrection, l'existence n'est pas le point final de la vie.
Dieu suscite de nouveau l'être, d'une façon que nous ne savons pas. Dans la foi, nous confessons que le Christ a vaincu la mort, qu'il s'est levé du tombeau, premier-né d'une multitude.
Mais comment s’en convaincre si l’on ne peut pas y croire ?
Pour ma part je n’ai pas de certitude,
Je n’ai pas de savoir ferme, pas de preuve, mais seulement un choix,
Le choix de la foi.
Ma foi et bousculée, mais elle cultive en moi le "peut-être".
Peut-être que c’est vrai qu’ils ont vu Jésus réssuscité.
Peut-être que c’est vrai que Dieu existe et qu’il appelle les vivants à la confiance, et qu’il nous emmène au delà de notre mort.
Si c’est vrai, alors ça change tout. Ça change le sens de la mort, ça change la perspective de l’existence.
Qu’avons-nous à notre disposition pour douter de la résurrection de Jésus ?
Il faut envisager soit une falsification des témoignages,
soit un délire collectif touchant une vingtaine de personnes de l’entourage de Jésus.
C’est possible.
C’est possible que ce soit une hallucination collective,
C’est possible aussi qu’une falsification ait pris place dans l’entourage de Jésus. Ce serait d’ailleurs assez cynique qu’ils aient choisi de prêcher par un mensonge un Christ qui est "le Chemin, la vérité et la vie".
A l’inverse, il est possible d’accorder foi à leur témoignage.
Peut-être que Oui il s’est levé de la mort, et
peut-être que Oui nous sommes promis nous aussi à nous lever de la mort ?
Oui, autre chose est en germe, dont l'heure n'est pas encore venue.
La plus belle analogie est celle de la Chrysalide du papillon. Elle semble morte, recroquevillée. Pourtant il en sortira une beauté jamais imaginée, une légèreté qui n'a aucune commune mesure avec la vie rampante de la chenille.
Autre analogie, celle du gland et du chêne. Il y a une telle démesure entre eux! Mais si la graine ne meurt, comment pourrait-elle pousser et finalement porter du fruit? Tombée en terre, elle disparaît à nos yeux. Mais la vie est à l'œuvre.
"Ce que vous l'avez fait à l'un de ces petits de mes frères et sœurs, c'est à moi que vous l'avez fait."
Il y a des actes que nous faisons, qui engagent l’éternité.
Jésus dit que la façon dont nous acceptons une fraternité avec les plus vulnérables d’entre nous, engage l’éternité.
Venez, héritez de ce que Dieu a préparé pour vous depuis la création du monde.
L’une des qualités célèbres de Françoise, c’était sa capacité, dans son travail, à tisser des liens avec tous, sans distinction de position sociale, depuis le magasin jusqu’à la direction. Il me semble que Jésus fait allusion à cette capacité à tisser des liens avec tous, sans distinction de position sociale.
Il me semble qu’à Françoise aussi, Jésus dit : « Viens ma bien aimée – reçois en héritage cette fraternité universelle en germe depuis la fondation du monde ».
La longue maladie de Françoise nous a préparés à cette séparation. C’est n’est pas plus facile pour autant.
Je voudrais vous inviter maintenant à entrer dans le temps du Merci. C’est le sens de cette eucharistie que nous allons célébrer. Eucharistie est mot grec qui signifie Grand Merci.
Merci pour Françoise, pour tout ce que nous avons reçu dans sa compagnie, merci pour sa vie, merci de nous l'avoir donnée.
Dans cette histoire, il y a des gens qui ont pris soin des autres lorsqu’ils étaient fragiles, malades, affamés… Et tout d’un coup Jésus leur dit Merci.
Alors ils répondent : pourquoi tu dis merci ?
Parce que ce sans le savoir, le bien que vous avez fait à tous ces gens, c’est à moi que vous l’avez fait. Et Jésus rend hommage à tous ceux qui, sans le savoir, l’ont accueilli, visité, nourri.
Beaucoup d’entre nous disent « je ne parviens pas à croire, je le souhaiterais mais je n’y parviens pas. » Et à l’occasion de la mort, disent encore « j’envie l’espérance des chrétiens, mais je ne peux pas croire à la résurrection. »
Pour ceux qui croient en la résurrection, l'existence n'est pas le point final de la vie.
Dieu suscite de nouveau l'être, d'une façon que nous ne savons pas. Dans la foi, nous confessons que le Christ a vaincu la mort, qu'il s'est levé du tombeau, premier-né d'une multitude.
Mais comment s’en convaincre si l’on ne peut pas y croire ?
Pour ma part je n’ai pas de certitude,
Je n’ai pas de savoir ferme, pas de preuve, mais seulement un choix,
Le choix de la foi.
Ma foi et bousculée, mais elle cultive en moi le "peut-être".
Peut-être que c’est vrai qu’ils ont vu Jésus réssuscité.
Peut-être que c’est vrai que Dieu existe et qu’il appelle les vivants à la confiance, et qu’il nous emmène au delà de notre mort.
Si c’est vrai, alors ça change tout. Ça change le sens de la mort, ça change la perspective de l’existence.
Qu’avons-nous à notre disposition pour douter de la résurrection de Jésus ?
Il faut envisager soit une falsification des témoignages,
soit un délire collectif touchant une vingtaine de personnes de l’entourage de Jésus.
C’est possible.
C’est possible que ce soit une hallucination collective,
C’est possible aussi qu’une falsification ait pris place dans l’entourage de Jésus. Ce serait d’ailleurs assez cynique qu’ils aient choisi de prêcher par un mensonge un Christ qui est "le Chemin, la vérité et la vie".
A l’inverse, il est possible d’accorder foi à leur témoignage.
Peut-être que Oui il s’est levé de la mort, et
peut-être que Oui nous sommes promis nous aussi à nous lever de la mort ?
Oui, autre chose est en germe, dont l'heure n'est pas encore venue.
La plus belle analogie est celle de la Chrysalide du papillon. Elle semble morte, recroquevillée. Pourtant il en sortira une beauté jamais imaginée, une légèreté qui n'a aucune commune mesure avec la vie rampante de la chenille.
Autre analogie, celle du gland et du chêne. Il y a une telle démesure entre eux! Mais si la graine ne meurt, comment pourrait-elle pousser et finalement porter du fruit? Tombée en terre, elle disparaît à nos yeux. Mais la vie est à l'œuvre.
"Ce que vous l'avez fait à l'un de ces petits de mes frères et sœurs, c'est à moi que vous l'avez fait."
Il y a des actes que nous faisons, qui engagent l’éternité.
Jésus dit que la façon dont nous acceptons une fraternité avec les plus vulnérables d’entre nous, engage l’éternité.
Venez, héritez de ce que Dieu a préparé pour vous depuis la création du monde.
L’une des qualités célèbres de Françoise, c’était sa capacité, dans son travail, à tisser des liens avec tous, sans distinction de position sociale, depuis le magasin jusqu’à la direction. Il me semble que Jésus fait allusion à cette capacité à tisser des liens avec tous, sans distinction de position sociale.
Il me semble qu’à Françoise aussi, Jésus dit : « Viens ma bien aimée – reçois en héritage cette fraternité universelle en germe depuis la fondation du monde ».
La longue maladie de Françoise nous a préparés à cette séparation. C’est n’est pas plus facile pour autant.
Je voudrais vous inviter maintenant à entrer dans le temps du Merci. C’est le sens de cette eucharistie que nous allons célébrer. Eucharistie est mot grec qui signifie Grand Merci.
Merci pour Françoise, pour tout ce que nous avons reçu dans sa compagnie, merci pour sa vie, merci de nous l'avoir donnée.
Un roc pour y bâtir sa maison
Pour un mariage.
Un commentaire de l’Evangile de Mathieu (7,21. 24-29)
Comme les disciples étaient rassemblés autour de Jésus, sur la montagne, il leur disait:
« Il ne suffit pas de me dire 'Seigneur, Seigneur !' pour entrer dans le Royaume des cieux, mais il faut faire la volonté de mon Père qui est aux cieux.
« Tout homme qui écoute ce que je vous dis là et le met en pratique est comparable à un homme prévoyant qui a bâti sa maison sur le roc. La pluie est tombée, les torrents ont dévalé, la tempête a soufflé et s'est abattue sur cette maison; la maison ne s'est pas écroulée, car elle était fondée sur le roc.
« Et tout homme qui écoute ce que je vous dis là sans le mettre en pratique est comparable à un homme insensé qui a bâti sa maison sur le sable. La pluie est tombée, les torrents ont dévalé, la tempête a soufflé, elle a secoué cette maison; la maison s'est écroulée, et son écroulement a été complet. »
Marion et Félix,
vous avez choisi ce texte : bâtir sur le roc
On comprend que ce texte aborde une question qui vous concerne : bâtir sur le roc votre histoire, votre foyer, votre avenir.
Au risque de vous surprendre, je voudrais démentir certaines interprétations de ce texte
Quel est ce roc sur lequel bâtir ?
L’amour ? la volonté de Dieu ?
La fidélité, le respect ?
Sur quel roc allons-nous bâtir notre vie ?
On cherche un roc solide, immuable, qui n’est pas érodé par le temps.
On se tourne vers Dieu parce qu’on a l’idée qu’il réside en Dieu la solidité à l’épreuve du temps. Parce qu’on se dit que Dieu-l’Eternel, est une garantie contre l’érosion.
Il y a des rocs qui se révèlent plus fragiles, plus friables que prévu.
Ceux qui sont ici l’ont peut-être expérimenté.
Certains couples se sont unis avec la certitude que leur amour ne faiblirait pas. Mais l’amour se transforme, vous le savez mieux que moi. Et il est assez rare que la Passion amoureuse se prolonge. C’est donc autre chose qui sert de roc ?
Laissez-moi poser la question à ceux qui sont plus avancés en âge :
Sur quel roc avez-vous fondé votre vie ?
sur le roc de l’amour ? de la fidélité ? du travail ? de l’éducation des enfants ? des valeurs qui sont les vôtres ?
Certains rocs ne tiennent pas le coup. Ils se révèlent factices, trompeurs.
La palme du roc trompeur, c’est l’argent, qui est un trompeur bien connu. Mammon, le dieu Argent, dieu trompeur.
Tout le monde sait cela, et on a bonne presse à dénoncer la course à l’argent, à l’apparence.
Ces rocs trompeurs, la bible les appelle idoles.
Ne vous fondez pas sur des idoles, car votre barque sombrerait…
Est-ce de cela que Jésus parle dans cet évangile ? Je ne crois pas.
Il n’est pas dans les habitudes de Jésus d’avoir des interprétations moralisantes.
Mais alors rebondit encore la question que pose ce passage de l’évangile de Matthieu :
« que faut-il faire pour bâtir sa vie sur le roc, pour entrer dans le royaume des cieux ? »
Jésus répond.
"Cette parole que je vous dis, mettez-la en pratique."
Quelle parole ? Qu’est-ce qu’il a dit précisément ?
on aurait envie de repasser l’enregistrement pour réécouter.
"Tout homme qui met en pratique la Parole… "
Quelle parole ? la parole de Dieu ? la loi ? les commandements ?
non, pas la parole de Dieu,
mais tout simplement la parole…
La parole, l’échange, la verbalisation, voilà le roc.
Se parler, se dire les choses en face, se dire les choses avec respect,
"Tout homme qui met en pratique la Parole… "
Ce qui est inhumain, c’est de ne pas parler. Vous le savez dans vos couples, dans vos familles, dans votre travail : ce qui est inhumain c’est de ne pas se parler, de ne pas se dire les choses, de ne pas faire de l’autre un interlocuteur.
Elles sont là les plus grandes blessures que nous nous infligeons les uns aux autres, dans le manquement à la Parole.
Soit par le mensonge,
soit plus simplement par l’omission de parole.
C’est bâtir sa maison sur le sable que de s’habituer à pratiquer le manquement à la parole.
La Parole est ce roc. La parole qui entre nous se modifie, évolue,
la parole, au début est amoureuse,
puis elle se transforme,
Nous cherchions un roc indestructible, résistant à l’érosion, nous aurions voulu annuler le temps,
et voilà qu’avec le Christ, ce qui est résistant, ce n’est pas ce qui est immuable, mais ce qui s’adapte, qui vit, qui bouge, qui évolue. C’est la Parole.
Devenir des êtres de parole, je crois que c’est cela que nous dit Jésus :
"Tout homme qui met en pratique la Parole… "
est comme un homme prévoyant qui a bâti sur le roc.
Vous connaissez le proverbe :
le rire est le propre de l’homme
je conteste ce proverbe
le propre de l’homme ce n’est pas le rire,
le propre de l’homme c’est la Parole !!
La bible le sait bien, elle qui dit au prologue de l’évangile de Saint Jean :
"Au commencement était le Verbe – la Parole"
et le Verbe était Dieu.
et au livre de la Genèse :
"Homme et Femme il les créa, à l’image de Dieu il les créa."
Je crois que la bible nous dit que la Parole est l’essence de l’humain : nous autres, humains, sommes de nature verbale.
Bâtir sur le roc c’est bâtir sur cette nature qui est la nôtre : la parole.
Et vous, quelle usage faites-vous de la parole ?
Marion, Félix, je vous invite donc à bâtir sur le roc de la parole ajustée, à rechercher entre vous la justesse de la parole.
Un commentaire de l’Evangile de Mathieu (7,21. 24-29)
Comme les disciples étaient rassemblés autour de Jésus, sur la montagne, il leur disait:
« Il ne suffit pas de me dire 'Seigneur, Seigneur !' pour entrer dans le Royaume des cieux, mais il faut faire la volonté de mon Père qui est aux cieux.
« Tout homme qui écoute ce que je vous dis là et le met en pratique est comparable à un homme prévoyant qui a bâti sa maison sur le roc. La pluie est tombée, les torrents ont dévalé, la tempête a soufflé et s'est abattue sur cette maison; la maison ne s'est pas écroulée, car elle était fondée sur le roc.
« Et tout homme qui écoute ce que je vous dis là sans le mettre en pratique est comparable à un homme insensé qui a bâti sa maison sur le sable. La pluie est tombée, les torrents ont dévalé, la tempête a soufflé, elle a secoué cette maison; la maison s'est écroulée, et son écroulement a été complet. »
Marion et Félix,
vous avez choisi ce texte : bâtir sur le roc
On comprend que ce texte aborde une question qui vous concerne : bâtir sur le roc votre histoire, votre foyer, votre avenir.
Au risque de vous surprendre, je voudrais démentir certaines interprétations de ce texte
Quel est ce roc sur lequel bâtir ?
L’amour ? la volonté de Dieu ?
La fidélité, le respect ?
Sur quel roc allons-nous bâtir notre vie ?
On cherche un roc solide, immuable, qui n’est pas érodé par le temps.
On se tourne vers Dieu parce qu’on a l’idée qu’il réside en Dieu la solidité à l’épreuve du temps. Parce qu’on se dit que Dieu-l’Eternel, est une garantie contre l’érosion.
Il y a des rocs qui se révèlent plus fragiles, plus friables que prévu.
Ceux qui sont ici l’ont peut-être expérimenté.
Certains couples se sont unis avec la certitude que leur amour ne faiblirait pas. Mais l’amour se transforme, vous le savez mieux que moi. Et il est assez rare que la Passion amoureuse se prolonge. C’est donc autre chose qui sert de roc ?
Laissez-moi poser la question à ceux qui sont plus avancés en âge :
Sur quel roc avez-vous fondé votre vie ?
sur le roc de l’amour ? de la fidélité ? du travail ? de l’éducation des enfants ? des valeurs qui sont les vôtres ?
Certains rocs ne tiennent pas le coup. Ils se révèlent factices, trompeurs.
La palme du roc trompeur, c’est l’argent, qui est un trompeur bien connu. Mammon, le dieu Argent, dieu trompeur.
Tout le monde sait cela, et on a bonne presse à dénoncer la course à l’argent, à l’apparence.
Ces rocs trompeurs, la bible les appelle idoles.
Ne vous fondez pas sur des idoles, car votre barque sombrerait…
Est-ce de cela que Jésus parle dans cet évangile ? Je ne crois pas.
Il n’est pas dans les habitudes de Jésus d’avoir des interprétations moralisantes.
Mais alors rebondit encore la question que pose ce passage de l’évangile de Matthieu :
« que faut-il faire pour bâtir sa vie sur le roc, pour entrer dans le royaume des cieux ? »
Jésus répond.
"Cette parole que je vous dis, mettez-la en pratique."
Quelle parole ? Qu’est-ce qu’il a dit précisément ?
on aurait envie de repasser l’enregistrement pour réécouter.
"Tout homme qui met en pratique la Parole… "
Quelle parole ? la parole de Dieu ? la loi ? les commandements ?
non, pas la parole de Dieu,
mais tout simplement la parole…
La parole, l’échange, la verbalisation, voilà le roc.
Se parler, se dire les choses en face, se dire les choses avec respect,
"Tout homme qui met en pratique la Parole… "
Ce qui est inhumain, c’est de ne pas parler. Vous le savez dans vos couples, dans vos familles, dans votre travail : ce qui est inhumain c’est de ne pas se parler, de ne pas se dire les choses, de ne pas faire de l’autre un interlocuteur.
Elles sont là les plus grandes blessures que nous nous infligeons les uns aux autres, dans le manquement à la Parole.
Soit par le mensonge,
soit plus simplement par l’omission de parole.
C’est bâtir sa maison sur le sable que de s’habituer à pratiquer le manquement à la parole.
La Parole est ce roc. La parole qui entre nous se modifie, évolue,
la parole, au début est amoureuse,
puis elle se transforme,
Nous cherchions un roc indestructible, résistant à l’érosion, nous aurions voulu annuler le temps,
et voilà qu’avec le Christ, ce qui est résistant, ce n’est pas ce qui est immuable, mais ce qui s’adapte, qui vit, qui bouge, qui évolue. C’est la Parole.
Devenir des êtres de parole, je crois que c’est cela que nous dit Jésus :
"Tout homme qui met en pratique la Parole… "
est comme un homme prévoyant qui a bâti sur le roc.
Vous connaissez le proverbe :
le rire est le propre de l’homme
je conteste ce proverbe
le propre de l’homme ce n’est pas le rire,
le propre de l’homme c’est la Parole !!
La bible le sait bien, elle qui dit au prologue de l’évangile de Saint Jean :
"Au commencement était le Verbe – la Parole"
et le Verbe était Dieu.
et au livre de la Genèse :
"Homme et Femme il les créa, à l’image de Dieu il les créa."
Je crois que la bible nous dit que la Parole est l’essence de l’humain : nous autres, humains, sommes de nature verbale.
Bâtir sur le roc c’est bâtir sur cette nature qui est la nôtre : la parole.
Et vous, quelle usage faites-vous de la parole ?
Marion, Félix, je vous invite donc à bâtir sur le roc de la parole ajustée, à rechercher entre vous la justesse de la parole.
jeudi 24 juin 2010
É preciso proteger a criança
"É preciso proteger a criança. Mas é necessário atribuir ao adulto tantas intenções nefastas? É necessário fazer dele um predator?".
O questionamento é de Antoine Carlioz, pesquisador em oncologia e padre da Comunidade Mission de France, em artigo para o jornal Le Monde, 21-03-2010. A tradução é de Moisés Sbardelotto. Eis o texto.
Quando eu visito os Estados Unidos, é muito estranho, eu nunca encontro crianças. Nenhuma criança nas ruas, jamais uma criança sozinha. Sempre acompanhadas por um adulto. A criança é talvez uma espécie protegida? Protegida do quê?
Fiz lá um curso de formação obrigatório para aprender a evitar toda situação de risco, isto é, qualquer relação particular com uma criança. Jamais ficar sozinho com um menor de idade em uma sala – deixar a porta aberta, ou então obter a presença de outro adulto. Tive que entender que aqui as crianças são uma presa potencial. Porque os predadores somos nós, os adultos, os educadores, os voluntários. Todos obsessivos. Todos apresentam um risco potencial de comportamento abusivo com relação às crianças. Abusos sexuais, gestos fora de lugar, uso da autoridade, palavras inadequadas que podem constituir uma agressão para a criança. Vocês não sabiam disso? Esse curso de formação serve justamente para lhes advertir sobre tudo o que é preciso evitar, tudo aquilo pelo qual vocês poderiam ser perseguidos judicialmente.
Esse país está completamente traumatizado pelos abusos de crianças. Escândalos estouraram em todos os lugares. É um sofrimento para todos. Mas eu lhes reservei o melhor. Porque o pior predador de crianças, o perigo comprovado é o padre! Precisei de um pouco de tempo para compreender que eu era um criminoso potencial. Isso me deixou muito mal. Foi necessário que eu me convencesse – a fim de adotar os comportamentos adaptados – que toda situação em que me encontro a sós com um menor de idade apresenta um forte potencial de risco. Portanto, aprendi.
"Atenção: criança". Comumente, esse aviso visa proteger as crianças dos riscos potenciais: saída da escola, parada de ônibus, zona de brinquedos. Mas eu aprendi que "Atenção: criança" pode também significar: atenção, risco para mim, adulto; atenção, cuida os teus gestos. Portanto, aprendi. Para me proteger, eu aprendi a entrar na pele de um predador – ou de um delinquente sexual arrependido. Se estou na casa de amigos, presto atenção para nunca ficar sozinho com uma criança. Esforço-me para seguir os adultos em todos os lugares, da sala de estar à cozinha, da geladeira à pia. E, se necessário, até mesmo ao banheiro. Se telefono aos meus amigos, e um de seus filhos atende, eu desligo imediatamente por medo de. . . enfim, nunca se sabe! Telefono novamente até que eu ouça a voz de um dos pais. Quando eu encontro uma criança, mudo de trajeto, por medo de que alguma coisa na minha atitude seja interpretada como ameaçadora ou abusiva. A acusação potencial está em todo o lugar. Cometi algumas imprudências. Às vezes, não tive bom senso. Por sorte, sem consequências. É preciso prestar atenção, algumas vidas foram arruinadas por causa de certas acusações. Também na França foram vistos indiciados se suicidarem após uma ação judiciária baseada em uma acusação. . . que no fim se revelou mentirosa.
A proteção da criança é uma prioridade. Uma prioridade mundial. A criança é vulnerável, inocente. Merece a proteção da sociedade. A criança é o nosso futuro, é aquela na qual projetamos nossos sonhos de sucesso, é o objeto de todo o nosso amor. A criança é a nossa ambição ressuscitada, é uma vida renovada para a nossa pureza decaída. A criança é a redenção feita carne e da qual podemos cuidar dia após dia. A proteção da criança é uma prioridade. O adulto, ao contrário, é a perversão sutil, que dá de si uma imagem atraente maquiando suas rugas. O adulto é o compromisso com a impureza.
É preciso proteger a criança: essa convicção se apoia em parte em um imenso insulto feito ao adulto, em uma ferida inconsolável, a da inocência perdida. Nisso, existe uma recusa da maturidade. Porque, nós, adultos, não temos mais essa inocência infantil. Mas era tão necessário atribuir ao adulto tantas intenções nefastas? Era necessário fazer dele um predador?
O questionamento é de Antoine Carlioz, pesquisador em oncologia e padre da Comunidade Mission de France, em artigo para o jornal Le Monde, 21-03-2010. A tradução é de Moisés Sbardelotto. Eis o texto.
Quando eu visito os Estados Unidos, é muito estranho, eu nunca encontro crianças. Nenhuma criança nas ruas, jamais uma criança sozinha. Sempre acompanhadas por um adulto. A criança é talvez uma espécie protegida? Protegida do quê?
Fiz lá um curso de formação obrigatório para aprender a evitar toda situação de risco, isto é, qualquer relação particular com uma criança. Jamais ficar sozinho com um menor de idade em uma sala – deixar a porta aberta, ou então obter a presença de outro adulto. Tive que entender que aqui as crianças são uma presa potencial. Porque os predadores somos nós, os adultos, os educadores, os voluntários. Todos obsessivos. Todos apresentam um risco potencial de comportamento abusivo com relação às crianças. Abusos sexuais, gestos fora de lugar, uso da autoridade, palavras inadequadas que podem constituir uma agressão para a criança. Vocês não sabiam disso? Esse curso de formação serve justamente para lhes advertir sobre tudo o que é preciso evitar, tudo aquilo pelo qual vocês poderiam ser perseguidos judicialmente.
Esse país está completamente traumatizado pelos abusos de crianças. Escândalos estouraram em todos os lugares. É um sofrimento para todos. Mas eu lhes reservei o melhor. Porque o pior predador de crianças, o perigo comprovado é o padre! Precisei de um pouco de tempo para compreender que eu era um criminoso potencial. Isso me deixou muito mal. Foi necessário que eu me convencesse – a fim de adotar os comportamentos adaptados – que toda situação em que me encontro a sós com um menor de idade apresenta um forte potencial de risco. Portanto, aprendi.
"Atenção: criança". Comumente, esse aviso visa proteger as crianças dos riscos potenciais: saída da escola, parada de ônibus, zona de brinquedos. Mas eu aprendi que "Atenção: criança" pode também significar: atenção, risco para mim, adulto; atenção, cuida os teus gestos. Portanto, aprendi. Para me proteger, eu aprendi a entrar na pele de um predador – ou de um delinquente sexual arrependido. Se estou na casa de amigos, presto atenção para nunca ficar sozinho com uma criança. Esforço-me para seguir os adultos em todos os lugares, da sala de estar à cozinha, da geladeira à pia. E, se necessário, até mesmo ao banheiro. Se telefono aos meus amigos, e um de seus filhos atende, eu desligo imediatamente por medo de. . . enfim, nunca se sabe! Telefono novamente até que eu ouça a voz de um dos pais. Quando eu encontro uma criança, mudo de trajeto, por medo de que alguma coisa na minha atitude seja interpretada como ameaçadora ou abusiva. A acusação potencial está em todo o lugar. Cometi algumas imprudências. Às vezes, não tive bom senso. Por sorte, sem consequências. É preciso prestar atenção, algumas vidas foram arruinadas por causa de certas acusações. Também na França foram vistos indiciados se suicidarem após uma ação judiciária baseada em uma acusação. . . que no fim se revelou mentirosa.
A proteção da criança é uma prioridade. Uma prioridade mundial. A criança é vulnerável, inocente. Merece a proteção da sociedade. A criança é o nosso futuro, é aquela na qual projetamos nossos sonhos de sucesso, é o objeto de todo o nosso amor. A criança é a nossa ambição ressuscitada, é uma vida renovada para a nossa pureza decaída. A criança é a redenção feita carne e da qual podemos cuidar dia após dia. A proteção da criança é uma prioridade. O adulto, ao contrário, é a perversão sutil, que dá de si uma imagem atraente maquiando suas rugas. O adulto é o compromisso com a impureza.
É preciso proteger a criança: essa convicção se apoia em parte em um imenso insulto feito ao adulto, em uma ferida inconsolável, a da inocência perdida. Nisso, existe uma recusa da maturidade. Porque, nós, adultos, não temos mais essa inocência infantil. Mas era tão necessário atribuir ao adulto tantas intenções nefastas? Era necessário fazer dele um predador?
mercredi 19 mai 2010
Religious beliefs are not held by evidence. So what?
Many people – especially in secularized Europe - ask me how I can be both a Priest and a scientist. They feel a strong epistemological divorce between the two passions of my life. “How can you be someone who spend your days building experimental evidences and also listen faithfully to narratives such as the creation, the miracles, and the resurrection as recounted in scripture?”
These questions are easily asked. Answering takes more time. It requires showing first, that beliefs are not only a specificity of religious knowledge but are also part of scientific knowledge; second, that the claim to hold true only what can be proven is not solidly grounded but ignores the practice of scientific knowledge; and third, that religious knowledge is not irrational but also submitted to a reasoned evaluation process.
I offer in this paper an approach to the integration of faith and reason by distinguishing between the notions of truth, evidence, belief and certitude. I contend that our religious beliefs cannot be expected to pass the “foundationalist test” since no theory of knowledge has passed it, even in experimental sciences.
1 - Sara
Mom is very happy. Little Sara, one year old, just did with her hand the “gesture” that Mom had been trying to teach her for some weeks. It’s not her first success though. Little Sara has been increasingly successful with all kinds of gestures lately. She is able to wave to Dad when he leaves in the morning. She knows how to clap her hands, grab a toy, and hold her bottle. So tonight she was able to do this new gesture. Little Sara understood that you do the gesture when sitting at the table, before Mom brings Sara’s plastic plate. Mom and Dad do the gesture too, and then they bow their heads, close their eyes. When Little Sara imitated it, it made them so happy!
Grandma is very happy. Little Sara, two years old, just did the gesture as they were in the church. Grandma did it when entering, and now Little Sara also did it nicely. Grandma is so proud. Little Sara understood that after doing the gesture, Grandma says something, usually beginning by “deergod”. Little Sara knows that after the gesture you ought to stay quiet. If you don’t, they look upset and take you out.
Little Sara is now three years old. She is able to say the words together with the gesture. “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” She knows she can bring great joy to her parents when she does it at the beginning of the family prayer. Of course Little Joshua doesn’t do it yet. He is just a baby. Then Mom or Dad say “deergod” and talk about the day, or about Grandma, or about other people. Then it is bed time and Dad reads the story of Willie the Bear.
Little Sara goes to preschool. The teacher was very impressed that Sara was able to do the sign of the cross. Not many children are. Little Sara knows about Dear God, how to talk to Dear God, what kind of thinks you say to Dear God. She knows about Dear God’s family, about Mary and Jesus.
Sara is now seventeen years old. She is a senior in high school. She comes back home tonight troubled. At the dinner table, she tells that the theology professor explained today that there is no evidence of the existence of God. She has been thinking about it all day. Sara realizes that there are a number of things in her life that she has never questioned though they are her daily realities, things that are obvious in her life, not only obvious, but important and that she holds for true. So many things that she always has accepted indisputably. For example she knows that God loves her. She has always known it, ever since she was a child, and she has had many signs of it. She was taught by her family how to search for and recognize the signs of God’s grace every day. Actually, Sara thinks, when you learn how to apperceive the signs of God’s blessings, you are able to enter that reality and you love it. Sara has gone on youth retreats with the diocese, and she has experienced the presence of God, the peace of God’s forgiveness, the deepness of the scripture, the importance of personal commitment in at least one outreach program.
Sara is much involved in the Christian Youth Network. It’s her life ever since she got out of college. She was hired by the diocese as a community organizer. She is very happy with this job. She has discovered that her commitment to her community includes a larger universal communion with people from all over the world and from all along history. The presence of God in this world and in her life is not only a personal, intimate belief but also an experience shared by thousands of people around the globe and back in time. What she holds for true about God is rooted in her own history, in her community, in the larger communion of the Church, in the reflection of theologians, in the commitment of holy people. By all her mind, soul, experience, she knows the reality of God in her existence. It makes her happy.
Sara got married. She and Ignacio are expecting a boy. Ignacio is Italian. He grew up in Milano. Like many people in Europe, he does not believe in God. He is a little indeterminate about Sara’s wish to have their son baptized.
2 – Can belief in God be rational?
In this narrative, I have tried to illustrate that what one holds for true is influenced by one’s context and is closely bound with one’s history and experiences.[1] How does Sara know that what she hold for true is indeed true? When she realizes that she never questioned a number of beliefs she had always hold for true and remained faithful to them, does Sara stick to reasonably verified beliefs or to her context of happiness? What grounds the reasons for which one may hold one’s beliefs, and how does one argue about the truth of one’s beliefs? ?
Does an existential gain help reason or, on the contrary, does it fool, confuse and obfuscate reason? For instance though faith has never been strongly significant in Ignacio’s life, he may – for the love of Sara - find himself convinced by her faith beliefs. Indeed, many people convert to their spouse’s religion when it is imposed as a requirement for marriage.
In the following sections, I would like to compare the ways by which we hold something for true in religious faith and in scientific practice.
3 - I was trained in a Popperian epistemology
I was trained as a scientist in Genetics, Molecular Biology, and Biochemistry. I was trained in a Popperian scientific epistemology, based on falsification: scientific models are true until proven false. This theory of knowledge is not based on certitudes. Evidences are hypothesized and experimented to test the trueness of the hypothesis. The expression according to which “scientific models are considered true until proven false” implies experimental evidences. A model is considered true when it best pictures the reality as investigated by experimentation. True, therefore means valid, accurate. Until proven false implies the continuous scientific inquiry process that builds day after day testing experiments. Sometimes a model is contradicted by a series of convergent results and has to be falsified. New results must then be taken into account and integrated in the formulation of a new model. Therefore the meaning of the word true is not equivalent to certain, intangible, definitive. True rather means to the best of our current knowledge. Such is not the common understanding, which often confuses “true” with “certain”.
My scientific knowledge is not built only of experimentally tested truths. There are many beliefs in my knowledge. For example, I have been taught about the structure of the cell membrane. I could give a lecture on the double layer of unsaturated lipids, with their hydrophobic function oriented inward, and the hydrophilic outward. I could talk endlessly about the tubular proteins allowing cell’s exchanges with its milieu. But all that knowledge I never verified. Cell membranes have never been my research topic. I could teach chemistry, and explain the structure of the atom, the whirlpool of electrons twirling around the nucleus with its neutrons and protons. I could describe how atoms interact to constitute a molecule. But all that knowledge I never verified nor experimentally tested. I have never done research in molecular chemistry.
The reason I hold this claims for true is woven with my belonging to the international scientific community. What is held in common to make it a community? It is a methodology, an epistemology, a common procedure of bringing about knowledge. We trust each other’s work. When one team publishes its work, other teams around the world reproduce the experiment which is also their research topic. They publish their experimental results after submitting them – like any potential scientific author – to a board of reviewers who know the subject well and estimate the work. Concordances or discordances occur, but never in a climax of incommensurability, for the language is worldly shared. It is the experimental procedure. Its principle relies on the fact that all other things being equal when one factor is experimentally modified. We never question a scientific model that gives an account of a reality until several concordant papers are published that question the model. And we consider that there is no point questioning what everybody agrees is accurately modeled.
As a comparison, a few centuries ago, Aquinas also considered that there was no point questioning what is accepted by all ("lex aeterna omnibus nota"). In his time, the reality of God was little questioned. It was obvious for all. Are we therefore in a similar epistemic configuration, namely a state of sciences built on basic knowledge that is accepted by all but never verified?
This is Nicholas Wolterstorff’s point as he criticizes the pretention of several theories of knowledge to dominate, mute, and shut other epistemologies. In Reason Within the Bounds of Religion,[2] he outlines an accurate approach to the integration of faith and reason. He provides a common ground between theology and science, by showing that the belief content of authentic Christian commitment should provide the Christian scholar with 'control beliefs'. Control beliefs, he demonstrates, are also found in the scientific community. His critique of epistemology continues in his article entitled Can Belief in God Be Rational If It Has No Foundations?[3] I found help in his use of the work of Thomas Reid, describing the psychological mechanisms of belief in order to define what can rightly be demanded of us in our belief formation.
4 - Popperian falsifiability
What is this unquestioned Popperian epistemology held by the international scientific community? Popperianism is essentially a form of empiricism. Its cornerstone methodology is falsifiability, the logical possibility that an assertion can be shown false by an observation. Popper's theory of knowledge is based on Hume’s. Traditional empiricism holds both that 1) all knowledge is derived from experience and that 2) universal propositions (including scientific laws) are verifiable by reference to experience.
There is a contradiction in this theory, that derives from the fact that, despite the open-ended nature of experience, scientific laws may be interpreted as empirical generalizations which are in some way finally confirmable by a ‘positive’ experience. Popper eliminated the contradiction by rejecting the first of these principles and removing the demand for empirical verification in favor of empirical falsification in the second. Scientific models, for him, are not inductively inferred from experience, nor is scientific experimentation carried out with a view to verifying or finally establishing the truth of models; rather, all knowledge is provisional, conjectural, hypothetical—we can never finally prove our scientific models, we can merely (provisionally) confirm or (conclusively) refute them; hence at any given time we have to choose between the potentially infinite number of models which will explain the set of phenomena under investigation. Faced with this choice, we can only eliminate those models which are demonstrably false and rationally choose between the remaining, un-falsified models. Hence Popper emphasizes on the importance of the critical spirit to science. For him critical thinking is the very essence of rationality. For it is only by critical thought that we can eliminate false models and determine which of the remaining models is the best available one, that is, possesses the highest level of explanatory force and predictive power.[4]
5 - Faith doesn’t work that way.
Faith’s beliefs are not hypothesized and experimented but submitted to reasoning. As a scientist and a Christian, I do not hold all types of knowledge with the same epistemology. My faith does not rely on certitudes. When I use this word, I use it as a scientist, dedicated to daily building of experimental evidences. Holding together both scientific and religious practices, I try to differentiate truth from certitude. Certitudes being produced by evidences and truth being hold by a reasoning process. Being held implies a continuous process.
Yet, my friends come back to me with their questions. “How can there be an activity of your life where you prove your assertions and another activity where you just believe your assertions?” Such a question insinuates that they hold an inaccurate characterization of the difference between science and religion. It attempts to oppose scientific assertions as objective and true, as opposed to beliefs which are weak kinds of knowledge, and therefore not true, just held without sufficient inquiry. Some questions – as this one - are misguided. Some claims are misguided too. In accepting their premises, one finds oneself trapped in false assumptions. Here is an example.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the French xenophobic extreme-right party affirms “Five millions Arabs in France – five millions unemployed.” Such an allegation insinuates that unemployment is a direct consequence of immigration. Le Pen tries to grow a popular anger against the presence of immigrants, against the supposedly laxity of political leaders, unable to protect us from the Moorish hordes. It takes a long argumentation to clear the mines, to deny the spontaneous equivalence we make of these two numbers, and to oppose the alleged cause-consequence relation of the two terms.
Similarly, it takes time to show that science and religion are not exclusively and respectively on the sides of evidence and credulity. An argumentation needs be built about how scientific and religious knowledge are brought about. It requires an epistemology. Does an epistemology determine the level of genuineness of the truth claims it produces? With Wolterstorff, I contend that indeed, some epistemologies can be shown to provide insufficiently grounded truth claims.
Now, could a single epistemology account for both scientific and religious knowledge? Is there a need for a single one? Actually, the same epistemology cannot be used for truth claims in different domains because in sciences we are in the area of empiricism, whereas in religion we are in the area of rationalism. Truth claims do not follow the same path of genesis. They cannot be submitted to the same epistemology. This does not make one set of truth claims stronger, or firmer than the other one. We need to accept that experimental sciences and religion belong to different orders. Their respective epistemologies can be evaluated, but a cross evaluation is not accurate, for the same reason than one does not measure time in meters nor distance in seconds.
6 - A need for epistemology.
How do we think and come to hold something as true? We need a consistent practice for our thinking, providing means of understanding how we acquire knowledge, how we rely upon our senses, and how we develop concepts in our minds. We need epistemology to understand how to evaluate truth claims. Epistemology[5] investigates the grounds and nature of knowledge itself. It focuses on our means for acquiring knowledge and how we can differentiate between truth and falsehood.
Many debates revolve around fundamental issues which people do not recognize or never get around to discussing. Many of these are epistemological in nature: in disagreeing about whether it's reasonable to believe in the existence of God, to believe in miracles, to accept revelation and scriptures as authoritative, and so forth, disagreements arise about basic epistemological principles. Without understanding this and understanding the various epistemological positions, people will just end up talking past each other.
Now what is the debate introduced by my friends’ questions ? It involves a debate between – roughly categorized - rationalism and empiricism, where empiricism presupposes that knowledge is obtained through experience, while rationalism presupposes that knowledge is acquired through the use of reason. This debate is about epistemology. What can we know? How can we know it? How do we acquire knowledge? Can knowledge be certain? How can we differentiate truth from falsehood?
Empiricists and rationalists differ in what they consider to be appropriate criteria for truth and, therefore, the proper criteria for a reasonable belief. Debates over what one believes are unlikely to go very far unless discussing these different approaches.[6] According to empiricism, we can only know things through a posteriori knowledge - after we have had the relevant experience. Empiricists insist that truth-claims be accompanied by clear and convincing evidence which can be studied and tested. According to rationalism, it is possible to know things before we have had experiences - a priori. Rationalists believe that "truth" can be attained through rational evaluation of different sources of knowledge, not only experimental. There are no third options here (except, perhaps, for the skeptical position that no knowledge is possible at all).
But my twenty five years experience as a scientific reseacher tells me that in a number of theories of knowledge, what is held to be true is funded on unverified assumptions. Therefore, unverified beliefs are not a specificity of the religious area but are shared by number scientists. Wolterstorff writes “Anthony Flew contended that if one scrutinizes how people guard their religious convictions one sees that they treat them as compatible with the happening of anything whatsoever. In other words, these beliefs are not falsifiable. And because they are not falsifiable they do not constitute genuine assertions. [..] Scientists convinced of the truth of some scientific theory behave exactly the way Flew says religious believers do.”[7]
Furthermore, when scientists come along with experimental data that do not fit with - or contradicts - an accepted scientific model, they have to arbitrate in rejecting either the model or the experiment. “Does the falsification test now instruct you forthwith to surrender the theory? Not at all. For no theory stands alone. Every theorist confronts the world with a whole web of theoretical and non-theoretical beliefs”[8], Wolterstorff continues. He illustrates the scientist’s surrendering of his falsification test before the intimidation power of the web of theories by quoting[9] a convincing tale written by Imre Lakatos about a pre-Einsteinian physicist who cannot make sense of a scientific observation and steps on the accelerator, accumulating new experiments, drowning the initial one, rather than questioning the accepted model.
So if we cannot submit even science to the foundationalism test, why should we submit religious belief? This question may undermine the fallacious pretension of foundationalism to label all other theories of knowledge as untenable; nevertheless it does not suffice to prove that foundationalism is itself challenged as being a theory of “genuine science.” We still need to establish that non-foundationalist epistemologies can be rightly grounded and justified, and at what condition.
7 - A criticism of the “Evidentialist Challenge”
The primary challenge posed to philosophers of religion has come from the understanding of truth in terms of ‘foundationalism’ or ‘evidentialism,’ initiated by Descartes and given religious expression by John Locke: “No religion is acceptable unless rational, and no religion is rational unless supported by evidence.” As a consequence, Christian scholars, particularly in the contemporary West, have been repeatedly confused and intimidated by this challenge in their theorizing, as they perceived it to be an overwhelming one for Christian and theistic belief.
Foundationalism, broadly speaking, is the view that beliefs, in order to be rational, must be intrinsically reasonable, i.e. self-evident or evident to our senses, or be justified by inference from other secure, basic first principles via a finite chain of reasons. One can summarizes the foundationalism challenge as: 1) theistic beliefs are not properly basic beliefs because they are neither self-evident nor evident to the senses; 2) therefore religious beliefs can be rational only if they are warranted by sufficient evidence; 3) since this is not the case, theistic beliefs are not rational and should not be believed.
Fondationalists claim that “A theory of knowledge belongs to genuine science if and only if it is justified by some foundational proposition and some human being could know with certitude that it is thus justified. And in turn, a proposition is foundational if and only if it is true and some human being could know non-inferentially and with certitude that it is true.”[10] This claim has widely influenced the general scientific pretention that such theory produces knowledge that is neutral and objective. But this claim is weakened by the fact that foundationalism itself is not faithful to its own requirements. Therefore, foundationalism cannot pretend to deny Christianity’s epistemology.
According to Wolterstorff, the specific problem with foundationalism, is that first, it is too restrictive, for much of what we believe to be true is not justifiable in terms of foundationalism. Second, it is not operational, for “no one who has professed to be a foundationalist has ever followed the norms to which he subscribes.”[11] Third, foundationalism itself is a belief: its chief precept – that the only properly basic beliefs are those that are self-evident or incorrigible – is not itself self-evident or incorrigible.
John Locke described the evidentialist challenge to theistic belief as consisting in two contentions. First, it would be wrong for a person to accept Christianity, or any other form of theism, unless it was rational for him to do so. And second, it is not rational for a person to do so unless he holds his religious convictions on the basis of other beliefs of his which give to those convictions adequate evidential support.[12] Being rational consists in not violating these two duties of believing. Wolterstorff focuses his argument on the former, using Thomas Reid’s substantiation that if we want to understand knowledge and rationality, we cannot talk only about the abstract relations holding among propositions, along the way making unreflective assumptions about the “mechanisms” which form our beliefs. We must look ahead-on at the psychological “mechanisms” involved in belief formation, for “articulate epistemology requires articulate psychology.”[13]
8 - An epistemology of religious beliefs
Thomas Reid, the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher, elaborated about belief formation, arguing that we each have “a variety of dispositions, inclinations, and propensities, to believe things… What accounts for our beliefs is the triggering of one and another such dispositions.” Does this suffice to justify our beliefs as true, just because we can rationally conceive a belief as true in the moment? What responsibility do we have to evaluate whether our beliefs are rational or not?
As Wolterstorff puts it, “it is Reid’s view that we are prima facie justified in accepting the deliverances of the credulity disposition until such time as we have adequate reason in specific cases to believe the deliverances false... the deliverances of our credulity disposition are innocent until proved guilty...”[14]
Reid introduces a fruitful distinction by showing that “what is true” is a different question than “are we justified to hold such or such beliefs.” He shows that one could be justified in holding control beliefs that are false, for rationality is always contextual. Reid perceived that knowledge and rationality need to be apprehended not only through abstract relations holding among propositions, but also the psychological “mechanisms” involved in belief formation. Articulate epistemology requires articulate psychology to describe the psychological mechanisms of belief formation. First, each of us has “belief dispositions, inclinations, and propensities” that help account for their beliefs.[15] These belief dispositions produce their effects immediately. Second, each of us also has a “reasoning disposition” that allows evaluating a proposition in the light of other beliefs, and produce “mediate beliefs” as opposed to “immediate beliefs” produced by our belief dispositions.[16] Third, we gradually acquire another kind of belief dispositions by the “inductive principle,”[17] which is comparable to Pavlovian conditioning. Finally, Reid argues that we acquire the rest of our non-innate belief dispositions by “operant conditioning, working on our native belief dispositions.”[18]
Yet, Reid shows we are not entitled to believe anything; we are justified in holding beliefs that are natural to us until we have reason not to. Indeed, if a belief is questioned, even one’s experience of God, one should be ready to inquire it further, in order to avoid being fooled by every natural disposition to belief. How so? By obedience to epistemological practices, which allow increased reliability of religious beliefs by verifying how believers come to believe and whether or not the belief is rational. As a consequence, what would be irrational would not be the failure of the belief to fit into some system built on sensory evidence or self-evident propositions, but instead would be the failure to submit the belief to epistemological inquiry. Rationality or irrationality does not reside in any particular belief, but rather in the believer’s willingness to rationally seek the reliability and truthfulness of his or her beliefs, and to eliminate error as he or she finds it.
Hence, the disposition to believe in God is a situated rationality. The proper question is not whether it is rational to believe that God exists, but whether it is rational for this or that particular person in this or that situation to believe. Therefore, whether some specific person who believes immediately that God exists is rational in that belief "can only be answered by scrutinizing [...] the ways in which that believer has used his noetic capacities.”[19] I contend, after Reid, that articulate epistemology requires articulate psychology, and that we must look at the psychological mechanisms involved in belief formation, for rationality is always contextual.
Conclusion.
In a number of theories of knowledge, what is held to be true is funded on unverified assumptions. Exploring different epistemological theories allows to shows that it is quite difficult to know anything with certitude. Though, this is not sufficient to doubt all epistemological theories. In this paper, I have used Wolterstorff’s deconstruction of epistemological theories namely foundationalism and evidentialism, to claim that philosophical arguments against Christianity just don’t work and that fondationalism and evidentialism cannot pretend to deny Christianity’s epistemology.
Although reasoning is not the only way of obtaining rational beliefs, reason can and should be used to modify beliefs. Therefore, belief in God can be rational if it is simply obtained through our childhood credulity disposition, and it is also rational for belief in God to be abandoned in the face of overpowering arguments.
In human relationships, we do not dwell in an area of certitudes, but one of trust, confidence, givenness, love. Faith is a relationship in which we dwell by belief, not by certitude. Such is also the fate of science, whatever the rumor says. For Sciences are falsely held to be woven with certitudes. Thanks to Wolterstorff, faith is freed from the suspicion of being devoid of rationalism.
Fr. Antoine Carlioz, PhD, ThM. is both a Priest and a Scientist, aiming to wove these two vocations through 1) his full-time activity as a research engineer in cancer genetics (Laboratoire d’Oncobiologie, Hôpital Nord, Marseille, France), 2) his commitment with the Espace Ethique Méditerranéen (Public Hospital System of Marseille), and 3) his involvement as a theologian and a priest in the Communauté Mission de France, better known as the “worker priests”.
He was ordained a Priest in 1998 for the Catholic Diocese of the Mission de France (the “worker priests”) and was appointed an associate Pastor (1997-2008) at Ste Claire Chapel, Marseille. Before his current professional position, he worked as a Research Engineer, (2004-2008) in clinical proteomics, Laboratoire d'Oncobiologie, Hôpital Nord, Marseille, a Research Engineer, (1997-2004) at the Fédération de bactériologie sérologie virologie, Hôpital Timone, Marseille, a Research Associate, (1992-93) at the Institut Cochin de Génétique Moléculaire, Paris; and as a Postdoctoral fellow, North Carolina State University, Raleigh NC, 1990-92.
He has worked as a volunteer Visitor, at Aides (Outreach to people living with Aids) Paris 1992-94, at the Aids Service Agency (Raleigh, NC) 1990-92, and as a full-time social worker at Centre Corot (Outreach to Homeless Adolescents/Prevention and Reinsertion) Paris 1988-90.
[1] I made up this narrative from an anecdote: one day, a fellow student proudly announced that their daughter, the night before, for the first time, made the sigh of the cross. He was visibly very happy of it.
[2] Nicholas Wolterstorff, Reason Within the Bounds of Religion, William B. Eerdemans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1984.
[3] Nicholas Wolterstorff, Can belief in God be Rational If It Has No Foundations? In Faith and Rationality, by Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff 1983.
[4] Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Karl Popper, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/
[5] Epistemology gives us a set of tools and legacy of ideas shaped over time which can be used to great effect in order to examine and categorize thing we know by how well we know them to be related to absolute truth within the real world. The need for epistemology originated from the amazing variety of explanations given to natural phenomena before the maturation in science. Most every attempt at developing a universal theory of everything has fallen between the contradictory interpretations of two Pre-Socratic philosophers, Heraclites and Parmenides. The former described the world as a constant flux of changes while the later described the opposite in a world in which permanence was the basis of the universe and all movement and changes must be illusions, because movement is impossible as everything in the universe is manifestly the same thing in a unitary singularity. Building from this base it may be possible to find a medium in between these two conceptions on the universe and its nature that would come close to being a complete and consistent true theory of everything. http://knol.google.com/k/aaron-rogier/overview-of-epistemology/24bv85eaq9if4/6#
[6] Rationalism is not a uniform position. Some rationalists will simply argue that some truths about reality can be discovered through pure reason and thought (examples include truths of mathematics, geometry and sometimes morality) while other truths do require experience. Other rationalists will go further and argue that all truths about reality must in some way be acquired through reason, normally because our sense organs are unable to directly experience outside reality at all. Empiricism, on the other hand, is more uniform in the sense that it denies that any form of rationalism is true or possible. Empiricists may disagree on just how we acquire knowledge through experience and in what sense our experiences give us access to outside reality; nevertheless, they all agree that knowledge about reality requires experience and interaction with reality.
[7] Reason Within the Bounds of Religion, op. cit, p24-25
[8] Reason Within the Bounds of Religion, op. cit, p43
[9] Reason Within the Bounds of Religion, op. cit, p44
[10] Reason Within the Bounds of Religion, op. cit. p29
[11] Reason Within the Bounds of Religion, op. cit. p34
[12] Can belief in god… op. cit. p136
[13] Can belief in god… op. cit. p149
[14] Can belief in god… op. cit. p163
[15] Can belief in god… op. cit. p149
[16] Can belief in god… op. cit. p150
[17] Can belief in god… op. cit. p150
[18] Can belief in god… op. cit. p151
[19] Can belief in god… op. cit. p176
samedi 17 avril 2010
De Beata Vita – The happy life
Aurelius Augustinus, Bishop of Hippo
A close reading.
How do we make good choices? How do we make a decision? These questions are constantly in my mind, as I try to build and educate my own interest for medical ethics.
How can Saint Augustine, the great thinker, the teacher, help us in this reflection on ethics? What did he say about it? Did he directly address these questions? Or did he only address the reciprocal question: how do we avoid bad choices?
Augustine confesses he has done bad choices as a young man, in his passionate quest for the truth: sensual experiences, Manichaeism, Skepticism. He has the experience of a man who has lost his way during years, and then was able to reach the haven of tranquility. Christianity has given him more satisfaction than any other way of life, but he wouldn’t have embraced it without complete exploration. Having reached this happy life, he is willing to share its path and teach its conditions.
We will follow him as a master in knowing the traps and how to avoid them. In his early writing de Beata Vita, he relates the main philosophical stages on the long way of his intellectual, moral, and spiritual journey from Manicheism to Catholicism via skepticism.
“The desire for happiness is essential to man. It is the motivator of all our acts. The most venerable clearly understood, enlightened, and reliable constant in the world is not only that we want to be happy, but that we want only to be so. Our very nature requires it of us.”
Saint Augustine, de Beata Vita [1]
Converted but not yet baptized, at 32 years of age Augustine went on retreat for several months at a friend’s country estate in Cassiciacum with a band of his friends, relatives, and students. From there he wrote his first Christian works, beginning with Contra Academicos, a refutation of philosophical skepticism. But in the middle of writing Contra Academicos, he broke off and wrote De Beata Vita (written in 386/387), a short Platonic dialogue about the meaning of life. De Beata Vita is thus the first work completed by Augustine the Christian.
Purpose
In this paper I offer a close reading of de Beata Vita to see if Augustine’s vision and interpretation of his own way of seeking truth could help us in determining how we make good choices, or, in other words, how we handle our ethical questions. I also use the Confessions as an interpretive reference rather than a closely read text. My framework follows the chronology of the text, beginning with a prologue, then a dialogue taking place over the course of three consecutive days. Along the text, we will keep in mind the question with which we read Augustine: how do we make good choices, how do we avoid bad ones?
This paper is divided into five parts. The first part is a close-reading of the prologue. This prologue is the most useful section for one wondering if we can do ethics with Augustine? The second part takes us to the dialogue itself, on the first of its three days. The third and fourth parts are close-readings of the following two days of the dialogue. The fifth and last part is a discussion. It shows the usefulness of de Beata Vita in medical ethics.
1 - Prologue
Augustine’s reasons for writing de Beata Vita are rooted in his quest for a happy life, by way of philosophy. The text leans on a linkage between the pursuit of wisdom and the pursuit of happiness. In the first lines of this text, Augustine acknowledges that this quest cannot rely on reason only. He lets us hope, though, that there is another way:
Considering that the voyage to the port of philosophy, from which one proceeds to the land and domain of the happy life, if it must be charted only by rational choice, […] a much smaller number of men would have arrived there than actually have. [2]
Augustine borrows the metaphor of seafaring for himself, enlightening it for us: steering one’s ship is indeed comparable to the investigation of the right path to one’s life’s haven. Augustine compares human restless wandering to a tempestuous voyage on a ship. He likens the man searching for truth to a seafarer trying to find his way while his vessel is being tossed about by waves and gales: “I seem to see three classes of sea-farers, so to speak, whom philosophy is able to embrace.” [3]
Augustine opens his text as the helmsman, leading his readers – if they agree to follow him - out of their wandering ways down a signposted path. His vocabulary uses the words haven, land, domain (quoted above). The haven evokes steadiness and restfulness. Augustine tells us that the aim of his voyage was to “steer my leaky and weary vessel to the tranquility that I desired.”[4] It implies a time of shakiness and insecurity; the path to philosophy and happy life can be a worrisome journey. By contrast, land and domain evoke a large and hospitable estate where one can find abundance, generosity, stableness, comfort.
A philosophical journey
Making good choices could accordingly be compared to making good moves while steering one’s ship. The aim being to reach the haven of philosophy. He tells us he has the experience of that journey:
At he age of nineteen, after I had encountered in the school of rhetoric that book of Cicero which is entitled Hortentius, I was fired with such an enthusiasm for philosophy that I immediately considered devoting myself to it. [5]
Augustine makes it known that his philosophical journey has not been a straight one. He has erred in misguided paths.
But there were clouds to confound my course, and I confess that for quite a while I was led astray, with my eyes fixed on those stars that sink into the ocean. For a certain childish superstition used to frighten me away from investigation itself. When I became more resolute, I then dispelled that darkness, and I persuaded myself to trust those that taught rather than those that ordained obedience —and I fell in with human beings [the Manicheans] to whom the very light that is discerned by our eyes was seen to be among supremely divine things to be revered. I did not agree, but I thought that they were concealing something important in those wrappings which they were someday going to reveal. [6]
In this passage, four bad choices are described that enlighten our search for Augustine’s conception of how to avoid bad choices.
Four errors
The first one was his “childish fear of autonomous thought”. In the movie “Star Wars”, Master Yoda would likely advise young Luke Skywalker not to fear. “Fear is the way to the dark side of the Force. Trust your feelings.”[7] Once Augustine oversteped his fear, he was able to listen to those who appeal to his intelligence (those who teach) rather than simply use authority (those who command). Intelligence was now leading his quest. Augustine may, though, not rely definitely on intelligence to go forward, as we said of him earlier considering the insufficiency of reason. Augustine remained suspicious of autonomous thought because it “didn’t work” for him. Even as reading the Platonists, he reached the limit, hitting the wall of his unanswered questions. Human ability to reach out to truth, in Augustine’s thought, is always distorted by ignorantia and infirmitas. Only through grace, only by the encountering of the Entire Teacher, Christ - through the mediation of the Church - was Augustine able to reach that peace in his intellectual quest and his need for illumination. For Augustine, human beings require grace to overcome the mind’s susceptibility toward twisted reasoning and self-deception.
As a matter of medical ethics, the fear of autonomous thought threatens patients in their decision making. The conclusion will discuss this.
The second error was to expect some concealed truth to be some day revealed. “I thought they were concealing something important.” Augustine had been captivated by his great Manichean teacher Faustus. Captivated is the word. Faustus pretended he could answer any question and solve any problem. Augustine kept waiting for his answers, trusting it was just a question of time. But it never came. Manichaeism was a form of a Gnostic system. Christianity is not. Gnosticism pretends that highest levels of truth can only be revealed to initiated ones and should be concealed to those who are not far enough in the initiation process. Christianity early established that Christ’s mystery of salvation is not hidden, but instead is available to all, the smart and the simple, the poor and the rich, the well and the little educated. In Augustine time, some of the Church's mysteries were hidden from the uninitiated - which is to say the unbaptized. Catechumens were allowed only to the liturgy of the Word, not to the Eucharist. The Church has recovered some of this today. I understand this through the prism of gospel of Mark and its motive of the “secret”. One example: after the Transfiguration, when Jesus comes down the mountain together with Peter, John and Jack, he “ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.” (Mark 9:9). Indeed, some realities are unreachable until their sense has been unveiled. It would be counter productive to give to those who cannot decipher it access to the treasure. Augustine explains the disciplina arcana, to a certain catechumen named Firmus: "…while you, although still a catechumen can explain to your wife, a baptized Christian, some things pertaining to religion which you have read about, which she has not read; nevertheless, she knows things which you do not yet know and she cannot tell you about them. For the mysteries of rebirth are rightly and properly made known only to those who accept them. So while you may be more learned in doctrine, she is more secure in the mystery."[8]
In the medical field, the word "diagnosis" comes from the Greek word "to know." A diagnosis reveals something about an individual that a healthcare professional has special expertise in knowing. To whom such knowledge should be hidden of revealed? Certainly not to the patient, though it happens.
With the third error, Augustine raised the dilemma of obeying authority or reason. “I persuaded myself to trust those that taught rather than those that ordained obedience.”[9] I believe later on, Augustine the Catholic will make more room in his life to negotiate his choices, his doctrine, his ministry, with both those who command (the Church’s hierarchy) and those who teach (the theologians and the other bishops). But at this stage of his life, young Augustine had to free his reasoning capacity from unfounded ascendancy. As a matter of medical ethics, patients are sometimes asked to blindly trust those who command, namely their busy-and-all-knowing physician. They are commanded to be no more than an obedient body.
Augustine warned us with the fourth – the Manichean’s – error. They pretended that “the very light that is discerned by our eyes is among supremely divine things to be revered.” Augustine refers to their incapacity to understand beyond the visible, which is the material. The rationalistic promises of Manichaeism prevented him for many years from learning to think of God and the soul as incorporeal.[10] He clarifies this a few lines later, when telling about his dialogues with Ambrose of Milan, and Manlius Theodorus, to whom this text is dedicated:
I noticed frequently in the sermons of our priest, and sometimes in yours, that, when speaking of God, no one should think of Him as something corporeal; nor yet of the soul, for of all things the soul is nearest to God.[11]
Getting off the hands of the Manicheans was not the end of Augustine’s erring. He tells us that the ship of his philosophical quest “fell” again in other’s hands, the “Academics’”, which have been identified with the Skeptics.
When I freed myself from those men [the Manicheans] and escaped, especially after I had crossed this sea, for a long time the Academics held the tiller of my ship as it battled all winds in the midst of the waves.[12]
Will Augustine’s ramble ever cease? Yes, eventually, obstacles were removed, partly through studying Platonism and partly through listening to the sermons of Ambrose.[13] But this, Augustine described, was not achieved without intellectual distress and renouncement.
After I had read only a few books of Plato, of whom, as I learned, you are particularly fond, I compared them as well as I could with the authority of those who have given us the tradition of the divine mysteries, and I was so inflamed that I would have broken away from all anchors, had not the counsel of certain men stayed me. What else was left, then, except to find aid in my dilemma from an apparently adverse tempest. Thus, I was seized by such a pain of the chest that, not being able to keep up my onerous profession, through which I might have sailed to the Sirens, I threw off all ballast and brought my ship, shattered and leaking though it was, to the desired haven of tranquility.[14]
What kind of philosophical seeker are you?
This last words of section 4 are the very words of Psalm 107. The comparison shows such similarities, that one supposes that Augustine found in this psalm the accurate frame to shape the narrative of his spiritual journey. The quest for happiness is comparable to a tempestuous journey on the sea. Augustine wrote a commentary of this psalm. Could it help us understand his use of the seafaring comparison? [15]
23 Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the mighty waters;
25 For he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea.
26 They mounted up to heaven, they went down to the depths; their courage melted away in their calamity;
28 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out from their distress;
29 he made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.
30 Then they were glad because they had quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven.
31 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind.
This comparison allows us to go back to Augustine’s categorization of men among three typologies of sea-farers. The text draws each lector to wonder which kind of philosophical seeker he is.
The first class consists of those who […], with a slight effort and an indolent stroke of the oars, move off a short distance and establish themselves in a state of tranquility.[18]
Who would identify with these lazy fellows, deprived of ambition? Obviously not Augustine. He doesn’t take more that three lines to depict them.
The second class […] is made up of those who, deceived by the beguiling appearance of the sea, have chosen to proceed out into the middle of the deep, and venture to travel far away from their native land, which they often forget.[19]
The vocabulary of this passage uses the words beguile, elate, bewitching, satisfaction, pleasures, honors, ensnare. The false seductions are at work in this second class of men. The passage ends with the expression “futile undertakings”, which tells it all about the vanity of these sea-farers.
Let us note here his expression “away from their native land”. This expression will reappear throughout the text. It likely refers to Augustine’s personal history in which he wandered away from the steadfast advices and catholic faith of his mother, which he eventually adopted. In the Confessions, Augustine often refers to his childhood: "In my mother's heart, you had already begun your temple."[20] The Catholic Monica often admonished young Augustine, who later recognized that God was speaking through her. At the time, however, her warnings seemed "womanish advice which I would have blushed to take the least notice of."[21]
As we are still reading the first pages of de Beata Vita, Augustine has already told us the tenants of his intention. We already know much about the cul-de-sac of philosophical quest, and what bad choices we should avoid. The third class of seafarers, sure enough, resembles Augustine. Here we find men who are passionate in their inquiry but misled.
There is a third class who, either on the very threshold of youth or else after being tossed long and far upon the sea, look back to certain beacons and, even amid the waves, the great sweetness of home.[22]
Many dangers and traps are described, clouds, sinking stars, enticements, adversities, misfortune, tempests. Several words and expressions, like clouds and sinking stars, are used by Augustine in section 4 to describe his own philosophical wandering.
These seafarers are the most sympathetic ones. They are lost, but ardent. They will finally reach homeland, the haven. But other deceiving seductions await them. Before the port itself stands a huge mountain that causes the passage to be extremely narrow.[23] What are the bad choices Augustine is trying to warn us against? This mountain is described as resplendent, clothed with deceiving light (honors), presenting itself as a dwelling place (wealth), attracting not only those who are arriving, but also men from the harbor itself, holding them in its sheer loftiness (pride).
Augustine ends his comparison by reminding us very clearly what he was writing about. “Does reason teach those who are approaching and entering upon philosophy that they must fear any mountain more that the proud pursuit of vain glory?” Avoiding the pursuit of vain glory by way of humility is a theme that comes later on in the following dialogue, when the assembly agrees about the importance of moderation.
One may have been surprised, along Augustine’s narrative of his philosophical journey, how much he was influenced by other philosophers. The philosophy of the Academicians, along with that of Cicero and that of Plotinus, appears to have made a lasting impression on Augustine. The remark that “for a long time the Academics held the tiller of my ship” is especially noteworthy. Augustine develops in the Confessions how the social pressure operates within a group. What he explains in the Confessions, he probably learned in the different groups he belonged to, including the Academicians, and the Manicheans.
Peer pressure
As a teenager, Augustine and his friends stole an armload of pears from their neighbor's pear tree. In this passage we find a sample of Augustine’s emphasis on the role of social framework. Augustine tells the story of how he and some of his teenage cronies went and stole from a neighbor's pear tree. They got so many pears that they couldn't hold any more. They had their arms filled with pears. He said they each took just a few bites and threw them away to the pigs. Why? Because it wasn't the pears they were after. They just wanted to enjoy breaking the law.[24]
One tries to please his peer. Augustine writes that he would never have committed the theft alone. "The single desire that dominated my search was simply to love and be loved." In this case, the problem was that his love had "no restraint imposed [on it] by the exchange of mind with mind." Augustine is always concerned with the life of human beings within society. He knows that he would never have committed the theft if he had not been with a group of his friends. In contemporary terms, he is aware of the influence of peer pressure, subtle and unspoken, on his own behavior. Augustine tries to explain exactly how this social pressure operates. What is it about human beings in groups that makes them so susceptible to irrational impulses, impulses they would never act upon if they were alone? For Augustine, who so deeply values friendship, this remains an unsolvable problem. People in groups can both support each other in good—as his little community of friends later does at Cassiciacum (near Milan in northern Italy)—and lead each other in vain paths.
In his later anti-Pelagian writings, Augustine elaborated on the question of the human quest for happiness. He deemed there is a perversion and distortion in the human ability to pursue happiness in light of the devastating effects of original sin. In a real sense Augustine's early optimism in De beata Vita is later tempered by a sense that human beings substitute lesser goods for higher goods resulting in poor choices with potentially disastrous consequences.
2 - The dialogue
The dialogue is by far the main part of the text. It stretches from sections six to thirty-six. With the sixth section, we enter in the narration of a dialogue of three days between Augustine and his guests. The dialogue itself begins (section 7) with an introduction to the theme of the happy life by means of a discussion on the components of human nature. Happy life is then discussed and found to be reached only through the possession of an immutable and imperishable good, that is, God. Augustine criticizes the irrational and mistaken position of the skeptics (the Academicians) who, filled with stubbornness, keep seeking restlessly and therefore cannot be happy.
Set-up and guests.
The dialogue takes place over the course of three days beginning with Augustine’s 33rd birthday (November 13 386). It is a kind of symposium, a convivial discussion on a set topic among (mostly) Augustine’s relatives. Monica, his mother, is there. She gives to the discussion the benefit of her long years of Christian faith. Her demeanor reveals deep respect for and pride in her son’s intellectual and spiritual achievement. Yet she displays her typical firmness and determination in requiring Augustine to explain himself fully. Young and spontaneous Licentius is among the guests. He is the son of Augustine’s benefactor. He stays with Augustine as a pupil, as he wishes to undertake philosophy. Other guests are Trygetius, also Augustine’s pupil, Navigius, Augustine’s brother, Adeodatus, Augustine’s only son, Lartidianus and Rusticus, Augustine’s cousins, and finaly Lartidianus.[25]
The path to the happy life.
This quest is not merely an academic exercise, but it is Augustine’s intimate quest. He acknowledges still being hesitant on the nature of the soul.
You see, therefore, the philosophy in which, as in a haven, I am now sailing. However, this haven is wide open, and, though its largeness offers less danger, it still does not exclude all error. For I simply do not know to what part of the land -that part which alone is really happy- I should move and how I should chance to reach it. What firmness do I possess? For, up to now, in my mind even the question of the soul is uncertain and changeable.[26]
As we read de Beata Vita with our question in mind: “How do we make good choices, or how do we avoid bad choices”, it is intriguing that, at the opening of this dialogue, Augustine knows his path “still does not exclude all error.” This may be a rhetorical figure intended to hook the reader, since the conclusions of the dialogue show much firmer ideas.
As the discussion progresses, Platonic influences quickly become evident. The soul is depicted as in need of food (knowledge), and its "appetite”, which is the source of all faults and worthlessness, is attributed to soul’s famine. In the following (shortened) dialogue, we discover how Augustine drives his guests to the points he has in mind.
Since we all agree that man cannot exist without body and without soul, I ask all of you: For which of the two do we try to obtain food?' 'For the body,' said Licentius.[27]
Is there no food proper to the soul? Or do you think that knowledge is its nutrition?' 'Obviously' said mother. 'I believe that the soul is not nourished except by the understanding and knowledge of things.' [28]
Then we state correctly that the souls of people not scientifically trained and unfamiliar with the liberal arts are, as it were, hungry and famished.' 'I believe' said Trygetius, 'that their souls also are full, but full of faults and worthlessness.' [29]
This Neo-Platonic thesis that evil is privative and therefore springs ultimately from emptiness plays an important role in Augustine's ulterior discussions of the problem of evil. He displays it and introduces the spiritual virtues and weaknesses with which we are at discernment, namely worthlessness and frugality.
According to the ancients the very word nequitia [worthlessness] -the mother of all vices- springs from nequicquam, that is, from that which is a nothing. The virtue which is opposite to this vice is called frugalitas [frugality], for, as this latter is called after the word frux [fruit], i.e., after fructus [enjoyment], because of a certain fecundity of the souls, so is nequitia named after this sterility, i.e., after nihil [the nothing]; nihil is all that flows, that is dissolved, that melts and steadily perishes.[30]
Coming back to what food is appropriate for the soul, Augustine asks his guests what should be the object of our desire. Following the skeptic’s postulate (but never naming them!) that the happy life requires desiring only something that could not possibly be taken away, Augustine concludes that the possession of God is a desire fitted to render happy.
Anyone setting out to be happy must obtain for himself that which always endures and cannot be snatched away through any severe misfortune. […] Is God, in your opinion, eternal and ever remaining?' I asked. 'This is so certain,' replied Licentius, 'that the question is unnecessary.' […] 'Therefore,' I concluded, 'whoever possesses God is happy.' [31]
Augustine wants to bring about the way to this achievement. Who possesses God? He proceeds.
Licentius: 'He who lives an upright life possesses God.' Trygetius continued: 'He who does what God wills to be done possesses God.' […] My son, the youngest of all, said: 'Whoever has a spirit free from uncleanness has God.’ [32]
This categorization in three groups will provide the ground for subsequent dialogue on the theme of virtues. At this point, Augustine announces that he will end that conversation by taking the occasion to show that the Skeptics’ philosophy goes nowhere but to unhappiness. Along with the Manicheans misjudgment, their philosophy is one of the worse choices one could possibly make. In what may be his most concise and precise refutation of the Academicians, Augustine says:
It is clear that he who does not have what he wants is not. But no one searches for what he does not want to find. And they [the Academicians] are always searching for the truth. Therefore they do want to find it. Accordingly, they also want to have the discovery of the truth. Yet they do not find it. It follows that they do not have what they want. And from this it also follows that they are not happy. Yet no one is wise unless he is happy. Accordingly, the Academician is not wise.’ [33]
The Academicians are caught in a vicious circle, in that they are not happy because they are not wise and not wise because not happy. If they do not change their method, then they cannot change their results. Perhaps Monica was right about the Academicians after all, as Augustine says:
I smiled at my mother. She said: ‘Now talk to us, and tell us who these Academicians are and what they want for themselves.’ After I had explained these things to her briefly and clearly […], she said: ‘These human beings are stumblers.’ (This is the name commonly used for those who suffer from epilepsy.) [34]
The Academic skeptics are “stumblers” on the path of life; they are neither on the right track nor on the wrong track; they are on no track at all. Since they do not know how to search, they also do not know how to find. They have devised a disordered way ever to be searching and never to be finding. In the end, who has better prospects of pursuing wisdom and attaining the happy life, is evident to human beings of faith and reason.
3- Second day
The second day begins with an abstract of the conclusions agreed the day before. Augustine recalls the three ways to possess God. He then shows that these three ways sum up in one single predicament: be virtuous, keep God in mind, and devote oneself to God. Sec. 18 p89.
A second Platonic postulate appears when the group agrees that virtuous people possess beatitude despite misfortune and affliction, while vicious people are really unhappy because of the condition of their souls, no matter how much wealth, sensual pleasure, or fame they may enjoy. The key difference between these two types of people is that the former have directed their desires toward an abiding reality which does not depend upon fate or the vicissitudes of temporal existence, while the latter, directing their desires toward temporal goods, can never be freed from anxiety because they know they can always lose the object of their desire. The problem arises, however, as to whether the happy life is to be equated merely with seeking this abiding reality (God) or with actually possessing it. This question is closely related to the next dialogue because the Academic skeptics identified wisdom with the quest for truth instead of with the attainment of it. [35] Augustine keeps on associating virtue and possession of God, in order to draw the discussion up to proving that only seeking God provides happiness, even though the one who seeks God does not possess the object of his desire.
My mother […] said: 'Nobody can attain God without first seeking Him.' 'Very well,' I replied. 'But one who is still seeking has not yet attained God, although he lives an upright life. Therefore, not everyone who lives a good life possesses God.' Sec. 19 p91. “My mother said: 'It is one thing to possess God; it is another, not to be without God. […] He who lives righteously possesses God, that is, has Him propitious to him; he who lives a bad life also possesses God, but as hostile to him. But, whoever is still seeking God, and has not yet found Him, has Him neither as propitious nor as hostile, yet is not without God.' 'Yes,' I replied. […] 'Consequently, everyone is happy who has already found God and has God propitious to him; on the other hand, everyone who is seeking God has God propitious to him, but is not yet happy. Of course, everybody who, through vices and sins, goes astray from God is not only unhappy, but is not even living with God's favor.' [36]
The consequence of the discussion is that nobody is really left alone afflicted to her/his quest for the knowledge of God, even though the full knowledge of God remains unreachable. The primary obstacles to such knowledge are regarded as moral ones and can be removed by directing desire away from inordinate attachment to temporal goods.
4 – Third day
On the third day, the conversation reaches the ground of wisdom. Wisdom is an intrinsic requirement to achieving the happy life, whereby the soul maintains its equilibrium; but wisdom is also a divine virtue, for, according to Christian teaching, the Son of God, who is truly God, is called the Wisdom of God. Therefore the happy life consists in having God within the soul, that is, in beholding the source of truth.
The conversation opens by recalling one of Monica’s sayings: unhappiness is nothing but want. Follows a discussion on the ability that have wise people, who are able not to suffer from not having what they want, even wellbeing, because of the quality of their want, which is deprived of attachment.
Every wise man is strong, and the strong man entertains no fear. The wise man, therefore, is not afraid either of bodily death or of those pains for whose banishment, prevention, or delay he would need all those things of which he is capable of being in want. Nevertheless, he will always make wise use of them, when they are not wanting. […] For this aphorism is true: “Since not all you wish for is possible, wish only for what is possible.[37]
Finally Augustine – who previously warned his guests that on that day he did not expect them to say much[38] - shows that the worse deficiency is the lack of wisdom. He cites the example of a wealthy man who is unhappy, not because he lacks anything, but because he is afraid of loosing what he has, concluding: “not everybody who is unhappy is in lack.” Sec. 27 p101. From there Augustine can go to what he prepared, but his mother says it before him!
Although [this man] had great riches and abundance and […] desired nothing more, he still was in lack of wisdom, since he entertained the fear of losing these things. Are we going to consider him in lack, if he be without silver and money, and not if he should lack wisdom? […] Licentius joyfully exclaimed: 'Verily, no truer or more divine words could have been spoken. For, there is no greater unhappiness than the lack of wisdom. Whoever does not lack wisdom cannot lack anything.' [39]
This allows Augustine to go back to virtues. He develops genuine lesson of Christian spirituality of virtues, going from egestas (want, lack), stultitia (folly), nequitia (worthlessness) unto frugalitas (worth) and plenitudino (fullness) by means of modestia (moderation) and temperantia (restraint). Here are the Augustinian tools for the happy life, the means to avoid bad choices, the path to good decisions.
Which haven?
For Augustine, the objective is to return to the haven, which, for him, is the Catholicism of his mother Monica. This is specific to him, as he went away from his original catholic faith during several years. This, though, may not be applicable to all truth-seekers. Setting a distance with family’s belief is for some people healthy and salutary. Haven, then, is not to return to one’s culture or family values. But for Augustine it is. This helps to put back into Augustine’s perspective his frequent usage of a vocabulary of return. Thus the second class of seafarers who “venture to travel far away from their native land”. Thus the third class who “look back to certain beacons and the great sweetness of home”.
Maturity and human achievement have their ways, different for each person. Augustine’s journey is not paradigmatic, and therefore shouldn’t be taken for the standard trajectory, but it is highly instructive because each step is exposed with its motives. Hence, Augustine explains the nature of what misguided him, listing 1- the fear of autonomous thought, 2- the incapacity of conceiving any reality beyond the visible and material, 3- the Gnostic error consisting in believing that truth could be kept secret and concealed, and 4- the error of failing to trust those who teach rather than those who ordain obedience. He also lists typical traps in the philosophical journey, corresponding to the three kinds of seafarers – indolence, seductions, and the most powerful and dangerous of all, pride, that can even attract those who are arrived in the desired haven.
The dialogue is a joint quest, firmly directed by Augustine who knows to where he wants to drive the conclusions. It explores who possesses God. And comes to the following conclusions: the one who seeks God gains God’s favor, but is not happy yet. The one who has found God and to whom God is favorable is happy. The one who let himself separated from God through sin and vice not only is unhappy but also has lost God’s favor.
Finally the discussion brings out a new orientation according to which happiness is the absence of want. Want and foolishness are associated and declared opposed to happiness. Happiness instead is reached only by wisdom, which is fullness and moderation of soul. Fullness of wisdom is in the Son of God. The one who comes to wisdom is drawn to the Father through the Son.
This is the happy life. Though, since Augustine and his friends are still seeking, they cannot yet regard themselves as wise and happy; but this dialogue has served to define the goal and to indicate steps which may be undertaken with faith and hope.[40]
5 - Discussion
Can we do ethics with Saint Augustine?
How do we make good choices? How do we make a decision? These questions are constantly in my mind, especially due to my work in the field of diagnosis which has been my professional activity during the past 10 years. When confronted to medical decisions, either as a medical team, a patient or her/his family, can we have a diagnosis result sheet and one hand, and Augustine’s writing in the other hand, as a help, a decision making guide? I found helpful Augustine’s four-steps warning, in the prologue. I think it is a useful framework for decision making. Augustine explains the nature of his misguiding, listing
1- The fear of autonomous thought.
Augustine’s first warning about the fear of autonomous thought is, again, useful in medical decision-making. For Augustine, human ability to make good decisions is distorted if based only on reason. His encounter of Christ, through Ambrose, through his mother, and through the mediation of the Church has been crucial in his life. Likely, medical counseling should empower patients in their ability to stand as the ultimate decision maker. First by accurate and translational information, then by reassuring and self-confidence guidance to the patient. No patient should be left with the feeling s/he has not been given the possibility to handle her/his own medical decision.
2- The incapacity of conceiving any reality beyond the visible and material.
Augustine’s second warning about incapacity of conceiving any reality beyond the visible and material is also useful in medicine. Some people are unable to conceive any human reality beyond the somatic reality of a person. I should claim (and many health providers do so) that treating a person cannot be confined to treating a body. There is an immaterial dimension to humans, the soul. Augustine in de Beata Vita says: “Of all things the soul is nearest to God.” [41] The soul, this highly and eminently respectful reality of our human nature should not be pushed apart in the medical field. There can be no healing in treating the soma only.
3- The error consisting in believing that truth could be kept secret and concealed.
This later mistake points to the secrecy of knowledge. In the medical field, knowledge is about diagnosis. Rendering a diagnosis can be a complex process. It may profoundly affect that individual's life as it has clinical, personal and social significance and it can become central to how a person experiences him- or herself. A diagnosis is also a label to which others respond and thus has profound social implications.
Rendering a diagnosis often brings about ethical questions posed by treatment decisions rather than by diagnoses. It should therefore be achieved in a context that offers counseling.
Two types of medical counseling can be distinguished: directive, by giving advice about which decision is the best, and non-directive, by refraining from making recommendations. In my judgment, ethical counseling should never substitute for a patient’s decision. Rather, it should empower the patient reach his/her own autonomous decision wisely. Therefore the warning raised by Augustine about any kind of knowledge that may be concealed is useful in medical decisions. No knowledge should be concealed from a patient. And all knowledge about her/him belongs to her/him, as the medical decision does. Medical teams and family are there to help her/him, not to alienate from him the final decision.
4- The error of failing to trust those who teach rather than those who ordain obedience.
“I persuaded myself to trust those that taught rather than those that ordained obedience.”[42] Some medical teams are under such a pressure with work-load, that they try to avoid patients’ questions and their asking endlessly for explanations. Some physicians actually ordain obedience, “This is my decision, based on my huge medical competence and experience; you take it or leave it. You are lucky enough to have been able to have an appointment. If you don’t want to trust me, there are many other patients waiting at the door.” Some medical teems instead put together medical counseling and teach patients and families, through translational information. When confronted to medical decisions, one should trust those who teach rather than those who ordain obedience.
Reading this Augustine’s discussion in de Beata Vita rather than polemical treatise has been a relief for me. I have hard time with the peremptory tone of Augustine’s dogmatic works. Only in the Confessions and in this early writing, do I find myself at ease. When he writes de Beata Vita, Augustine is not yet a priest nor a bishop. No one has asked him to refute such or such doctrinal wandering. No ministry has been put on his shoulders; Augustine is not yet a teacher; he therefore is not doctrinal; he is a seeker; so am I.
[1] Aurelius Augustinus, De beata vita – The happy life [Ruth Allison Brown, The Catholic University of America. Washington DC
[2] Sec. 1 p61. I have also been using the translation by Ludwig Schopp that can be found in the Fathers of the Church series (NY: CIMA, 1939).
[3] Sec. 2 p61.
[4] Sec. 4 p67.
[5] Sec. 4 p65.
[6] Sec. 4 p65.
[7] I find it important to think theologically with references to contemporary culture. Otherwise we lose the ability to talk in a language that our modern fellows can understand.
[9] Sec. 4 p65.
[10] When Augustine came to Carthage
[11] Sec. 4 p65.
[12] Sec. 4 p65.
[13] Platonists believed, unlike the Stoics, that there were intellectual principles which existed independently from matter. In the hierarchy of being these “ideas” were superior to their material instances, and above them all was the One, or God, who was necessarily incorporeal and, as their source, beyond intellect and matter. Carl W. Griffin and David L. Paulsen, Op. Cit.
[14] Sec. 4 p67.
[15] St. Augustin's Expositions on the Book of Psalms: Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Volume 8, Edited by Philip Schaff (1819-1893), Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (1984)
[16] “For what is deeper than human hearts? hence often break forth winds; storms of sedition, and dissensions, disturb the ship. And what is done in them? God, willing that both they who steer, and they who are conveyed, should cry unto Him.” Here is Augustine’s intension: draw us slowly to cry unto God.
[17] The commentary continues: “Sometimes all human counsels fail; whichever way one turns himself, the waves roar, the storm rageth, the arms are powerless: where the prow may strike, to what wave the side may be exposed, whither the stricken ship may be allowed to drift, from what rocks she must be kept back lest she be lost, is impossible for her pilots to see.” Augustine warns us about the uselessness of human counsels. This likely refers to the ability of humans to originate a true wisdom.
[18] Sec. 1 p61.
[19] Sec. 1 p61.
[20] Aurelius Augustinus, Bp. of Hippo, The Confessions Book II,6
[21] Aurelius Augustinus, Bp. of Hippo, The Confessions Book II, 7
[22] Sec. 2 p63.
[23] Augustine draws us now into a biblical theme, as we read in Luke 13:24 "Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.” Pride could be the name of this mountain, for intellectual pride is the chief obstacle to reaching wisdom. It is one of the most wide-open traps in which one can loose the way to haven. (In latin, haven and heaven are not homophones; the use of haven has no paradisiacal connotation).
[24] Aurelius Augustinus, Bp. of Hippo, The Confessions Book II, 11
[25] Ruth Allison Brown, PhD dissertation, [Aurelius Augustinus, The happy life, The Catholic University of America. Washington DC
[26] Sec. 5 p67.
[27] Sec. 7 p71.
[28] Sec. 8 p71.
[29] Sec. 8 p73.
[30] Sec. 8 p73.
[31] Sec. 11 p79.
[34] Sec. 16 p87.
[35] The Stoics, wanted to find something that could not possibly be taken away. Yet they did not want to live 'like dogs'. The solution is this: The good is to live in accordance with reason, and the power to do this cannot be taken away. Our external circumstances may be the result of accident or the malice of others, but whether we act rationally given the circumstances is up to us. As for physical things, it is in accordance with reason to use them when they are available and useful, but not to become attached to them so that their loss causes distress. Possessions do not make you vulnerable unless you become attached to them. To live in accordance with reason is the Stoic conception of the good for man. http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/y67s10.html
[36] Sec. 21 p93.
[37] Sec. 25 p97-99.
[38] “There will be no need for you today to give me any answer or, at least, not many answers.” Sec. 23 p97.
[39] Sec. 27 p103.
[40] David E. Roberts, Augustine's Earliest Writings, [The Journal of Religion, The University of Chicago Press, 1953, Vol. 33, No. 3] p.161
[41] Sec. 4 p65.
[42] Sec. 4 p65.
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