I've been doing some mercy-blogging recently, trying to stab at some unformed thoughts.
- Can we obtain the fruits of the Eucharist on behalf of people who do not receive it? (An argument from pronouns)
- Trust as the necessary atmosphere for engaging with anyone
- Failing to love the person you proclaim the truth to = proclaiming a falsehood by denying their personhood
What all of them have in common is the concept of "meeting people where they are:" -- a point of difficulty for many Catholics who are engaged in the world, because it seems to put two values in tension:
- speaking the truth without compromise
- welcoming, loving, and serving people without reservation.
The reason for the tension is the combination of the two "withouts" -- it seems as if we wish to put into play both an immovable object and an irresistible force.
You know that old paradox, right? There is a handy Wikipedia article about it. It goes like this:
The irresistible force paradox, also called the unstoppable force paradox, shield and spear paradox, is a classic paradox formulated as "What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?"
...The immovable object and the irresistible force are both implicitly assumed to be indestructible, or else the question would have a trivial resolution.
Furthermore, it is assumed that they are two separate entities.
The paradox arises because it rests on two incompatible premises: that there can exist simultaneously such things as irresistible forces and immovable objects. The "paradox" is flawed because if there exists an irresistible force, it follows logically that there cannot be any such thing as an immovable object and vice versa.
....The problems associated with this paradox can be applied to any other conflict between two abstractly defined extremes that are opposite.
We wish to speak the truth without compromise: that's the immovable object (and indeed, we are not relativists, we affirm that there exist immovable truths). We have a duty of self-donation: to love the neighbor as ourselves, to serve everyone -- but believing in the human person as subject means always and everywhere the interaction of service must start with inviting everyone in, hopefully successfully; we wish our love to be an irresistible force which attracts everyone.
Unsurprisingly, we run into problems. It seems that we wish both to radiate a love that is stronger than truth, so that it draws people in regardless of whether we tell them the truth, and proclaim a truth that is stronger than love, so that our poor showing in the love department does not matter.
This cannot stand. The commonest resolution of the irresistible-force-immovable-object paradox, mentioned above, is to point out the logical fallacy: both cannot exist in the same causal domain. Thus the easiest answer comes to mind: Either there is no truth that cannot yield, or there is no love that can move every heart.
If I stick within the rigid fence I build from Truth, and my attempts at Love from within its boundaries fail to move people outside it, I conclude those people are unreachable by Love. Not my neighbor.
If I regard Truth as essentially flexible, then when in the course of exercising Love I encounter a person who resists it beyond my ability, I conclude those people are un-attractable by Truth. I feel free to distort, deny, or denigrate Truth to attract them; I draw them wherever I can draw them, in the process taking both of us off-target.
In practice (practice only), faced with any moral dilemma or tension that appears between serving truth and serving others, Catholics seem to fall into two camps: the "truth" faction and the "love" faction.
In that practice, by the way, it isn't a moral fault, may simply reflect incompetence or lack of practice, to find ourselves stuck in one camp.
I mean, how do I stay within the bounds of truth, and yet reach out to people in love? Maybe I'm just not good at navigating a particular situation. We might find it very easy to avoid distorting the truth, but not know how to reach out. Or we might find ourselves overflowing with energy to serve all sorts of people, but be flummoxed as how to answer questions truthfully and stay in that place of tact and kindness.
The crucial trouble -- in practice -- comes when the two camps point at each other and say "You are the problem."
+ + +
There is an intriguing hint at the resolution (sadly, marked "citation needed!") in the Wikipedia summary of the irresistible force paradox.
One of the answers generated by seeming paradoxes like these is that there is no contradiction---that there is a false dilemma....
[A]n irresistible force, an object or force with infinite inertia, would be consistent with the definition of an immovable object, in that they would be one and the same. Any object whose momentum or motion cannot be changed is an immovable object, and it would halt any object that moved relative to it, making it an irresistible force.
The less common resolution is not to deny the existence of the opposing realities, but to remove the assumption that they are separate, and to assert that they both exist in the same entity. They will never meet each other because they are fused in their essence from the beginning.
I think this is the correct way for Christians to look at it: Love and Truth are one and the same, and in fact are personified on earth in Christ.
In theory Christians accept this, actually. It's just that we don't behave like it. We behave in every situation as if one is more important than the other, and to emphasize the "wrong" one is sure to lead to disaster.
(See above regarding "in practice.")
In theory, whichever camp we fall into, we claim we are uniting Truth and Love.
The "sola veritas" crowd theorizes, "I am putting Love first, because I put Truth first, and Truth is the same as Love."
The "sola caritas" crowd theorizes, "I am putting Truth first, because I put Love first, and Love is the same as Truth."
But in practice, because it is difficult, we usually compromise one for the sake of the other. And always, always, always, we point at people who make the opposite error -- even people trying hard in good faith! -- and say, "You are the one making it hard for the rest of us!"
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Only in the person of Christ have Truth and Love ever been perfectly united. In one sense this lets us off the hook: we don't have to be perfect, because we can't. On the other hand it means we have to let other servants off the hook in the same way. And we have to strive for that unity, and encourage others to strive for it too: point out the contradictions, point out the gaps into which people fall, keep bringing that fraying thread right up to the the eye of the needle over and over again.
This is really good, Erin. I'm currently pondering this sort of question within a family context of teaching kids about sexual morality/chastity. Your blog post speaks to the dilemma I have in conversations with this person I dearly love. This is great for me to ponder. Thank you!
Posted by: Tabitha | 23 July 2017 at 06:19 PM
When I was at Notre Dame in the '90s, there was a loud conversation going on (among the students at least) about covering same-sex partners through the spousal benefits. Some people were big and loud on the truth side, and some were trying to work things through one-by-one on the reach-out-in-love side. My experience, as one of the latter, was that it actually helped having the "John the Baptist Voice in the Wilderness" proclaiming truth for me so I could take it as a given (for both of us in the conversation) and start from, "OK, well then what does love look like?" as a second half to the same thing. In that one situation, I didn't experience the mutual finger-pointing. Perhaps this was because my part wasn't "policy scale" but rather one-on-one? And perhaps the truth would have been more palatable if I had been forced to include it, rather than it being broadcast impersonally....
I find it helpful to remember the quote I've heard attributed to St. Catherine of Alexandria, she of the wheel: "Recall that everyone is fighting a great battle". The people I reach out to, the people clinging to truth at the expense of charity and those around them, and me.
Posted by: mandamum | 26 July 2017 at 07:57 AM