bearing blog

Self awareness.

Here is a thesis that occurred to me over the weekend as I mused about success and failure, about weakness and willpower, about competing selves:

Could it be that... once you KNOW what you should do...   moral behavior, or "good" behavior, or "healthy" behavior (take your pick) is nothing more than the setting-up of the right incentive structures for oneself? 

 Figuring out what situations, or habits, give you strong incentives to succeed and strong disincentives to fail, and staying in the success-producing ones as much as you can; creating and modifying the incentives in the pre-existing arenas where your life's story unfolds; stepping back one level and creating meta-incentives to lure your self into the places where you feel the power and  the desire to do the right thing, and away from the places where you feel weak, where you do the things you hate yourself for doing.

This is a big topic, and I need to think more about it.  But I just want to say that, as psychobabbley as that sounds, there is certainly precedent for it in Catholic moral teaching.  Remember "avoiding the near occasion of sin?"  That's the idea that you should stay away from situations that strongly tempt you to sin, or activities that have been the precursor of sin in your past.  

It's really rather remarkable that so much writing on willpower, on avoiding temptation, is framed in terms of a kind of splitting or separation of the self.... there's the "me" who wants to lose weight  keep my weight down and the "me" who wants to eat entire sleeve of saltine crackers; a college kid has a "self" who wants to get good grades and a "self" who wants to party tonight... a drinker may have a "self" who decides to go to AA and a "self" who hates every sober minute.  Last month's Atlantic had a thought-provoking article that explored this phenomenon (of one "self" deciding to tie the hands of the other, untrustworthy "self"):

We used to think that the hard part of the question “How can I be happy?” had to do with nailing down the definition of happy. But it may have more to do with the definition of I. Many researchers now believe, to varying degrees, that each of us is a community of competing selves, with the happiness of one often causing the misery of another. This theory might explain certain puzzles of everyday life, such as why addictions and compulsions are so hard to shake off, and why we insist on spending so much of our lives in worlds —like TV shows and novels and virtual-reality experiences—that don’t actually exist. And it provides a useful framework for thinking about the increasingly popular position that people would be better off if governments and businesses helped them inhibit certain gut feelings and emotional reactions....

The multiplicity of selves becomes more intuitive as the time span increases. Social psychologists have found certain differences in how we think of ourselves versus how we think of other people—for instance, we tend to attribute our own bad behavior to unfortunate circumstances, and the bad behavior of others to their nature. But these biases diminish when we think of distant past selves or distant future selves; we see such selves the way we see other people. Although it might be hard to think about the person who will occupy your body tomorrow morning as someone other than you, it is not hard at all to think that way about the person who will occupy your body 20 years from now. This may be one reason why many young people are indifferent about saving for retirement; they feel as if they would be giving up their money to an elderly stranger.

and then of course there's Romans 7:

What I do, I do not understand. 

 For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate.   Now if I do what I do not want, I concur that the law is good.  So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.  For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not. 

For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.  Now if (I) do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.  So, then, I discover the principle that when I want to do right, evil is at hand. For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self, but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.  

Miserable one that I am!   Who will deliver me from this mortal body?

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, I myself, with my mind, serve the law of God but, with my flesh, the law of sin.

Boy, if that doesn't describe a sense of competing versions of the self, nothing does.

So my question is... is that all there is to it?  Is the "answer" to overcoming temptations of all kinds really for the "inner self" -- the one who "takes delight" in moral or correct or healthy or Godly behavior -- to set up the kind of structure around the "members" that cajoles them to behave?  To offer to the weak flesh, in return for good behavior, the short-term goodies it craves? 

And if so... knowing what I have done and how I did it...

...what else am I capable of overcoming?

Evangelical group carefully words a "statement of faith" specifically to exclude Catholics, and then manages to word it in a way that doesn't actually exclude Catholics.

Jimmy Akin has a post describing the conversion to Catholicism of a high-profile evangelical.  The post contains this interesting tidbit as a side note about the Evangelical Theology Society's statement of faith, which reads as follows:

"The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs. God is a Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each an uncreated person, one in essence, equal in power and glory."

Another evangelical blogger, James White, had written,

In 1998 I attended the national meeting of the ETS in Orlando, Florida. At one of the sessions some of the founding members were being asked questions about why they did certain things, why they wrote the statement of faith as they did, etc. A woman asked a question of the panel. "Why did you write 'the Bible alone' in the statement of faith?"

...Roger Nicole [a panel member] rose, slowly, and made his way to the podium. He looked out at the lady and said, "Because we didn't want any Roman Catholics in the group." He then turned around and went back to his seat. While most sat in stunned silence, I and a friend with me broke into wild applause.

But as Jimmy points out, any Catholic could (and should!) sign on to that statement of faith.  We do believe that there are no errors in Scripture, as do the ETS, even though the evangelicals there probably interpret many passages differently from us (and indeed from each other).  We do believe that the Bible is "the Word of God written."  We do indeed believe that there is nothing else but the Bible that is "the Word of God written."  (That word "written" is key.)  IOW, "Bible alone" in that context doesn't sway us.   And, of course, we are Trinitarians.

I wonder why the ETS thought that would exclude us?  Do they think we have some other documents that we call "the Word of God?"  (We do, of course, have a Savior whom we call by that name, but He's not "written," now, is He?)  It certainly doesn't speak well about their comprehension of the differences between them and us.  Couldn't they have found something else that was actually different to put in their statement of faith, if the intent was merely to keep us out?

UPDATE:  Predictably, the comment boxes over there have begun to devolve into an argument about grammar.  What do they teach them in these schools?

UPDATE II:  Ah, I see.  The problem was that the founders of the ETS wrote a text that later got misinterpreted.  Father Al Kimel thinks maybe they need a magisterium.

That Document.

On Priesthood and Those with Homosexual Tendencies, that is.  Here's my translation of what the document says, for those of you who don't feel like reading the whole thing (which is pretty short).

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Introduction:  We have already taught plenty about homosexuality.  This document answers only one question:  "whether to admit to the seminary and to holy orders candidates who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies."

I.  Only men can be priests.  The priest represents Christ as "head, shepherd, and spouse" to the Church.  The priest makes a gift of his whole personhood to the Church.  Therefore only mature men who can relate correctly to both men and women may be ordained.

II.  Homosexual acts and homosexual tendencies are different.  Homosexual acts are inherently wrong.  Homosexual tendencies are disorders which are difficult for many who suffer them.  Today we must state clearly that men who have sexual contact with other men, who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies, or who "support the so-called 'gay culture'" cannot enter the seminary or be ordained.

This is because men who have sexual contact with other men, who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies, or who support the so-called "gay culture" are hindered from relating correctly to men and women.  Bad things can happen if men with deep-seated homosexual tendencies are ordained. 

Not all homosexual tendencies are deep-seated.  Some are the expression of a transitory problem, for example, of immaturity.  Such tendencies must be overcome at least three years before ordination to the diaconate [which is a prerequisite for ordination as a priest].

III.   Desire alone doesn't give a man the right to be a priest.  The Church gets to decide, from among the candidates, who enters the seminary, how seminarians are formed, and who gets to be ordained.  It's the bishop's or the superior's responsibility, and if he has a serious doubt about a candidate, he mustn't admit him to Holy Orders.   The rector of the seminary must tell the bishop or superior what he thinks of each candidate.  The spiritual director is bound by secrecy, but he has the duty to try to dissuade an unsuitable candidate from seeking ordination.  The candidate has the most responsibility and he has to be honest and trust the judgment of his superiors.  Dishonesty does not characterize someone who believes he is called to serve Christ and his Church.

Conclusion:  Bishops, bishops' conferences, and superiors must observe this document for the good of the candidates and to make sure that we always have good priests.

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OK, so what here is new?  Only a clarification: 

   --- Homosexual tendencies (by which I think they mean same-sex attraction, or SSA) and homosexual contact in the past do not automatically exclude a man from ordination.  If a man has not had sexual contact with other males for three years; and if he can show that his SSA is insignificant, or that it has been outgrown, or that it does not prevent him from relating correctly to men and to women; and if the latter has been true for at least three years --- then he may be admitted to the diaconate.

  --- But if the candidate has "deep-seated homosexual tendencies," or is currently sexually active as a homosexual, or "supports the so-called 'gay culture'" at this time, he may not be ordained.  Period.

On first reading, I thought that there were two serious flaws in the document:  a failure to define the term "deep-seated," and a failure to define "the so-called 'gay culture.'"  Surely these definitions are necessary to make the appropriate distinctions? 

But on further thought, I decided that given the other content of the document, the terms are clear enough.   

What is deep-seated?  If a candidate can overcome his homosexual tendencies and remain victorious over them for three years, then they're not deep-seated and he can be ordained, assuming he meets other qualifications.  If he hasn't done that yet, they might be, and he shouldn't be ordained.

And what is the "support of gay culture" that makes otherwise suitable candidates unsuitable?  At minimum, to "support" something is to believe in it.  It might also mean political support. What sort of beliefs and politics would render an otherwise suitable person unsuitable for the priesthood?  Only heretical beliefs; only politics contrary to Church moral teachings.  Therefore, the document must mean that those who contradict Church teaching in their beliefs and politics, relative to homosexuality and homosexual persons, can't be ordained. 

So what this comes down to is:  To be ordained a priest, you have to be faithful to Church teachings, and you can't be currently struggling with homosexuality or permanently self-identified as a homosexual.

This isn't so hard, folks

Christoph Cardinal Schonborn, archbishop of Vienna, wrote an op-ed in the NYT stating that evolution driven by random processes is incompatible with truth:

Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not. Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science.

I would correct the Cardinal on one minor point:  an attempt to explain (rather than to explain away) the complete set of evidence technically does count as science.    All rational attempts to explain the complete set of physical evidence ---all theorizing---are part of science.   Some of it will turn out to be right, and most of it will turn out to be wrong, of course. 

And I wonder about this:

In an unfortunate new twist on this old controversy, neo-Darwinists recently have sought to portray our new pope, Benedict XVI, as a satisfied evolutionist. They have quoted a sentence about common ancestry from a 2004 document of the International Theological Commission, pointed out that Benedict was at the time head of the commission, and concluded that the Catholic Church has no problem with the notion of "evolution" as used by mainstream biologists - that is, synonymous with neo-Darwinism.

I'm just wondering which neo-Darwinists he means, and where this quote and conclusion appeared. 

Setting that aside, though, nothing the Cardinal has written about the church's teaching is new.  You wouldn't know it, though, from reading this analysis piece in the NYT:

LEADING CARDINAL REDEFINES CHURCH'S VIEW ON EVOLUTION

An influential cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, which has long been regarded as an ally of the theory of evolution, is now suggesting that belief in evolution as accepted by science today may be incompatible with Catholic faith...

Darwinian evolution is the foundation of modern biology. While researchers may debate details of how the mechanism of evolution plays out, there is no credible scientific challenge to the underlying theory.

Assuming (as always) that the evolutionary evidence is responsibly gathered, catalogued, and analyzed, there are exactly two points that the Church makes about it:   (1) No theory that excludes the creative action of God can be true.  (2) No theory that claims the human soul evolved naturally can be true. 

All that is necessary for teachers of evolutionary biology to remain in good graces, so to speak,  is to make judicious use of the word "appears," as in "This process appears to be random."  Assuming, of course, that this is what the evidence (ahem) appears to support.

That's it.

And then, of course, any evolutionary biologists who think that the sequence of mutations, the changes in environmental pressures,  and the probabilities of survival are not random can write, "This process appears to be guided by the following mechanisms..."

Randomness is a tricky thing to determine.  Given a sequence of events, what is the probability that it was a random sequence?    When I was working on my thesis, I looked at dozens of electron microscope images of close-packed colloidal spheres, and judged whether the packings---all a mix of two different kinds of crystal structures---were likely random stackings or not.  I never wrote of any stacking, "This crystal exhibits random stacking."  I might have written "This crystal appears to be random stacking."   On occasion I would write "This crystal exhibits non-random stacking."

And of course, non-random doesn't mean "this crystal could not have arisen except by the direct action of a designer."  It means "some mechanism, some underlying law, caused the particles in this crystal to prefer a particular arrangement."

Here's a quick quiz.  I have a quarter before me.  Is this sequence of heads and tails random?  How could you tell?  What does it mean that it isn't?

htht ttttth httthhhhtt   

How about this one?

htht hhhtht hthhthhhtt

How about this one?

hthh hthtth tthtttthht

I'll answer below.  My point is this: Even with these simple sequences, you cannot know.  You can only guess.  You know that each sequence, if random, should be roughly half heads and half tails; but you also know that there is no guarantee that a random sequence of only twenty binary choices will divide evenly into half.   You intuitively would reject the idea that a recognizable pattern, such as "hthththt..." or "hhhhhhh...." or "hhthhthhthht...." is random; but you also know that these sequences are just as likely as any others of the same length.   It has famously been proved that all numbers are interesting; a necessary corollary is that all sequences of twenty binary choices are interesting.

The first sequence (40% h) is random; I flipped the quarter twenty times.

The second sequence (60% h) is designed.  Each entry in the sequence is determined by the corresponding letter in my full name:  if the letter in my name is from the first thirteen letters of the alphabet, the entry is "h," and otherwise the entry is "t."

The third sequence (50% h) was produced in the following way:  I flipped the coin four times to produce the first four entries.  Then I put an "h" in the fifth part of the sequence, because I felt like it.  Then I flipped the coin fifteen more times to produce the rest of the entries.

Make whatever conclusions you want from this.  The cardinal is right:  Science can never say with certainty that anything is random---period.  Any given scientist can, however, make the claim that something appears random.  And other scientists can contradict him or her.  And that's okay.