Mind that bus!

Posted on May 16, 2013 by

We have recently been discussing the pros and cons of changing from a straightforward clear cut expression of our religion into the complexities, arguments and uncertainties which accompany any up to date attempts at understanding.

So I look back and try to recall some instances in my Catholic education. I went to my first boarding school, run by the Jesuits, in 1943 – when I was about to have my eighth birthday. So here are some memories.

I had been told that my First Communion was to be a wonderful experience, so I expected ecstasy. But nothing happened – no flashing lights, no sign of my guardian angel, and certainly no sense of spiritual elevation. In fact my most vivid memory was being kissed on the cheek by my class mistress because of my holy innocence. The sense of ‘yuk’ still remains in my mind today – although I have had rather more pleasant experiences of being kissed since then. I don’t know how you explain to a child that something wonderful is going to happen – but that it simply won’t feel wonderful

Another association with Communion is a memory of trying to clean my teeth in the shared washroom without swallowing any water. This was apparently necessary to avoid breaking my fast. It dis not occur to me then that God might not be too concerned about such a details, and the clear threat that, in getting it wrong, I would end up in Hell for all eternity was something that I simply accepted without question. A year or two later we were asked to discuss in the classroom whether, if we had popped a chocolate into the mouth a second or more before midnight, we would be able to swallow it after midnight and still go to Communion the following morning. (The answer, our Jesuit class master explained, was that the process of eating had started before midnight so the fast was not broken.)

You may say that I had distorted or misunderstood the teaching of the good Jesuits. But I can document it from the night prayers we all said together. They came from The Manual of Prayers for Youth (1935 edition). Here is a passage: “Death is often nearer than you imagine; and many, who have promised themselves a long life, have suddenly been cut off in their sins. Are you so ready that, if death should come tonight, you would not be surprised? Do not live in a state in which you dare not die.”
And another:
“You can only die once, and if you die ill the loss is irreparable. If anyone from hell could return to life, how would he prepare himself for death? Let the misery of others be an instruction to you.” Good advice, no doubt, but perhaps a little strong for an eight-year-old when composing himself for sleep.

In fact, that preoccupation with mortal sin and sudden death was a leitmotif of all my education. In the teenage years I would note the daily queues of boys waiting to be absolved from sins of the flesh, just in case they died in the night. I remember my relief when a boy who was drowned in a boating accident was reported as having received communion that morning – and so could be assumed to have been in a ‘state of grace’ – that welcome, if almost accidental, condition. I learned, only recently, that self abuse was regarded as trivial in the early Church, and only a serious sin in those who had taken vows of chastity. That was to change. Indeed, by my time, to invite even an impure thought was matter for mortal sin. As I was to confess many years later, speaking at an Old Boys dinner, I did not so much welcome impure thoughts, as invite them in for the weekend. The loud laughter at my remark showed me that I had not been alone in my experience.

Lest you should think that my experience was not the norm you might like to look at the ‘official’ line. The atmosphere is well captured by this quote from Father Henry Davis SJ; his four volume work on moral theology was a standard. This is taken from the 1958 edition:

The Catholic Church insists therefore, in season and out of season, on the religious education of the child, explicit, dogmatic, determinate moral education in a religious atmosphere, thus giving him something to cling to against the time of vehement temptation. It indoctrinates its children during many years, until resistance to evil becomes an almost second nature. It does not wait until the passions have grown strong then to offer the youth the free choice of religious dogmas or moral antidotes. It says to the child: you must be good in the way I teach you to be good, so that afterwards you may know how to be good.

Much of this would be regarded as grotesque by an adult convert – largely because it was grotesque. I know this because I married a convert who found it mysterious. Having started life in the Church of Scotland her active conscience was still intact, while mine had atrophied. Indeed for many years I put put my moral questions to her, as I recognised that her unprogrammed judgment was better than mine.

Did I get over all this distortion? At a level of rational understanding I most certainly did. But at the emotional level the nagging possibility that Hell might be no further than the next careless crossing of the road still remains. Even my father’s view – that the English could never focus the mind sufficiently to meet the conditions for committing mortal sin – could exorcise it.

I am interested in whether my experiences sound an echo in other ‘born’ Catholics of around my generation. Were they affected in the same way, or were they left unscathed? And how about later generations – perhaps those who were educated after Vatican II? What was it like for converts? Were they taught much the same, and did it have the same effect?

Is it possible that the uncompromising, clearcut, teaching of my youth was valuable in keeping us within the Church, if only through fear? How should we teach the young today?

Posted in Moral judgment, Quentin queries | Tagged | 42 Comments

Body and soul

Posted on May 9, 2013 by

The Church teaches that our best understanding is that we are all descended from Adam, and from him inherit original sin. This is easily inferred from Scripture, but is less easily demonstrated from inheritance. This second method requires tracing back the lineage of the Y (male) chromosome. And so we reach our last common male ancestor who lived between 60,000 and 140,000 years ago. We can’t safely call him Adam because he may, in turn, descend from the first human being – who alone merits that name.

However we might modify our conclusion because in fact the late Albert Perry, who lived and recently died in South Carolina, who it turns out had a Y chromosome ancestor who lived over 300,000 years ago (New Scientist March 16, 2013). About 1,500 American men  have the same genetic history. Since the first fossils of homo sapiens date from around 195,000 years ago it is assumed that his ancestor must have interbred with a non-human “cousin: species. This of course is not unknown: DNA analysis shows that our species interbred successfully with Neanderthals and Denisovans – and a small portion of their genes remain with us today.

Quite where this leaves Adam is not clear. Interestingly, an article in the Clergy Review many years ago (I forget the author) suggested that the problems of incest arising among Adam’s children might well have been avoided by mating with “cousin” species. That now looks like a good guess. Presumably the proportion of truly human children would have followed the Mendelian distribution.

It is not easy to spot the moment when an ancestor species turned into homo sapiens. I use the word “moment” by virtue of the fact that the spiritual aspects of the soul are either present or absent. It is easy to detect the genetic changes which have occurred in the six million years since we last shared an ancestor with the apes. The changes are small, but small genetic mutations can play out as major changes in their effects. At what point in this development did our ancestors acquire a soul?

We need to consider the question raised by the Neanderthals. They broke away from the line before homo sapiens appeared. But they have the same brain capacity as us, they certainly made tools, and they had the crucial “speech” gene which at least suggests that they might have mastered speech. Indeed, even in our direct line, previous species of homo had developed different forms of tool. Did they have immortal souls and, if so, were they subject to original sin?

 If we look to Genesis in order to solve this problem, we have to be careful. What Genesis gives is a true picture of the underlying reality framed within the knowledge available to the writer. So we learn that our first parents had freewill from the beginning but they did not yet “know” good and evil. But this was knowledge in the semitic sense – not a matter of information but a matter of experience. Taking the fruit of the tree in defiance of God’s command was the first, but sadly not the last, experience of evil by the human race. And the second, as we might have expected, was the realisation through shame at their nakedness of the dangers involved in our sexual instincts. 

Here Freud’s concept of the id as the source of instinctual desires, and working on the pleasure principle, is relevant. Essentially a human being is a single entity but with two aspects. The first is the biological aspect which acts, as all the non-human animals do, in response to pleasure and pain, the second is the infused spirit whose aspiration is love. The metaphor of a ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ nature is instructive, for our lower nature, like gravity, is the default from which we can only rise by turning to the good which our higher nature presents.

If this is so, then the potential injustice of our inheritance of original sin ceases to be an issue. What we inherit is the whole of human nature with its inbuilt tension between animal appetite and aspiration. We cannot complain about this, because that is our identity. In the story, Adam and Eve actualise lower nature through their choice of disobedience, just as we actualise it in turn.

I write here as if turning to the good were a function of our native power. But, without attempting to develop the concept here, I note that it is the free use of the grace earned by the Redemption which is needed. That is a huge matter.

So, although we can only infer at what point in the development of homo the human soul was infused, we do know that it must have been the point at which our first ancestor recognised right and wrong and was free to choose the good and to reject the evil. Although the record is partial it is possible to suggest dates when skills of various kinds were achieved. They range from the development of tools to the development of speech, symbolism and religious awareness. In a future column I will look at some of the landmark skills the anthropologists have detected.

I have of course omitted reference to “mitochondrial Eve” – the mother of all the living. She has been traced and dated by a similar method since mitochondria is passed (relatively) intact from mother to child; it is racial DNA rather than personal. But, as far as Genesis is concerned, the omission is not of consequence since, being made from Adam, she inherited his DNA except for the substitution of one chromosome.

Posted in Bio-ethics, Catholic Herald columns, evolution, Neuroscience, Scripture | Tagged , , , | 56 Comments

With a bare bodkin…

Posted on May 2, 2013 by

There has been much discussion in the media about the desirability of ‘assisted dying’. The controversy over whether the Liverpool Care Pathway is a covert form of hurrying us to the grave or simply the best way to die peacefully has brought the question into the news. Before you read any further, just pause and ask yourself what percentage, do you think, of people in our population would favour a change in the law to allow this.

Opinions have recently been sought through a YouGov poll of 4000 people. This is a good-sized sample, and the YouGov methodology should give us confidence that the results are broadly accurate.

Some 16 percent were actively opposed to a change , and another 14 percent “were torn.” Bur, overall, seven out of ten believed that “people with ‘incurable’ illnesses should have the right to ask close friends or relatives to help them commit suicide, without the risk of those people being prosecuted.”

The main reasons given for championing “assisted dying” were the “rights” people had over their own lives, and the belief that it was better than prolonged suffering. About a third believed that the NHS could not provide decent end-of-life care.

So how do we feel about this? We all know the standard answer that our life is a gift from God and that suicide in whatever form can never be right. Do we actually believe this? Would we still believe this if we were dying in extreme pain and our relatives were willing to provide us with the, painless, fatal dose? Or if a much loved relative were to ask us to ease them out of life?

And, if we still maintained that it would be wrong, are we entitled to impose our prohibition on “assisted dying” over the rest of our society?

Telegaph report on the survey at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10026314/NHS-fears-fuelling-support-for-assisted-suicide-poll-suggests.html

See my column ‘How they die in Liverpool’ via the search box (top right hand side).

Posted in Bio-ethics, Moral judgment, Quentin queries | Tagged , | 82 Comments

Blest if I know

Posted on April 25, 2013 by

‘Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; the proper study of Mankind is Man,” sang Alexander Pope. And he continues with perhaps the most eloquent description of our fallen natures in the English language. But he didn’t have to contend with scientific studies which come in threes, as I have to do. While I have no difficulty in squaring man’s unique nature with evolution, new information requires new consideration.

The first of my three is our cousin, the common fly. You might think that the central brain region of the fly we swatted on the windowpane this morning would be very different from our own. But in fact the basic ganglia of humans and the central complex of the fly’s brain turn out to have a similar genetic origin and to operate in similar ways. The same neural mechanisms control internal stimuli such as hunger and sleep, and external stimuli such as ambient light or temperature. Even the defects in our brains which can cause disabilities such as schizophrenia or neurodegeneration occur in similar ways.

These characteristics are so alike that scientists tell us that studies of these distant cousins may well help us to understand, and perhaps remedy, human disease. Increasingly, problem conditions are being tackled through the genetic route.

Not everyone will welcome the confirmation of our evolutionary connection to other living species, although the evidence on a larger scale – such as the basic body plan of lower animals – tells us that it must be so. Why did God set about creation in such an indirect way? Blest if I know. And blest if I don’t. I just marvel.

Last year a new set of fossils from Australopithecus Sediba were discovered and Science has just published some studies of this ancestor of ours who lived around the time of the first in the Homo line about two million years ago.

Sediba is of great interest because of its mix of ape and human features – good evidence on an early link to an ancestor. And an important aspect of this evidence is how well a species was adapted to walking: Sediba has a human-like pelvis but a chimpanzee-like foot. The inference is drawn that he (and she) spent more time in the trees, and this is supported by the nature of the arms, but not by the hands which are more human-like. The rib cage was ape-like, and he had a strong and flexible spine. The scientists conclude that “everywhere we look in these skeletons, from the jaws on down to the feet, we see evidence of the transition from australopith to Homo; everywhere we see evidence of evolution”. 

I have taken a personal interest in the work of early Homo because I have a granddaughter studying such things at university. I have been struck, on one hand, by the enormous amount of information discovered and, on the other, at its provisional nature – since fossil remains must be only a tiny sample of our distant ancestry. It is a fast-moving field and I take pleasure in keeping my granddaughter slightly ahead of her tutors.

The “three-parent baby” is back again. Our Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority is seeking legal change to enable experiments on human blastocysts (the cellular structure forming about five days after fertilisation). You may remember that the procedure makes use of a third parent’s mitochondrial DNA to replace the faulty version. Existing work shows good progress but there are still a number of difficulties, and so much more experimentation is required.

There are two issues here. The methods envisaged require that the egg and its fertilisation take place outside the reproductive tract – so clearly moral issues concerning the dignity of human reproduction arise. Perhaps of more gravity is the number of fertilised eggs which will inevitably be destroyed. The Catholic position prohibits this. Moreover the prospect of three parents per human is one that sharply raises the ecclesiastical eyebrow. On the other hand, it is clear that faulty mitochondria can cause alarming diseases – from mental impairment to blindness and death. Mitochondrial DNA contributes 37 genes compared with more than 20,000 in the nuclear DNA. Moreover, where nuclear DNA defines personal characteristics, mitochondrial DNA does not. We all inherit our maternal DNA, with no change other than incidental mutations. While technically three parents are involved, the practical reality is that there are only the two unique parents. There might, of course, be legal considerations, although I find it hard to believe that the gift of mitochondrial DNA would form a basis for any parental rights.

Here, with permission, I reproduce a comment made on SecondSight Blog, when this question was first discussed: “This benefit may be a short-term one, and open the way to an acceptance that we are free to do anything we wish with the process of procreation. Imagine the possibility of producing new human beings from, say, skin cells, which have been reprogrammed. Or perhaps producing a hybrid from mating human DNA with animal DNA. Such procedures may look both grotesque and unlikely today. But they are no more grotesque and unlikely than this current procedure would have looked a few years back.”

Wisely said, I think. But it can do no harm to look again, in the light of scientific knowledge and scientific potential, at what we teach – in order to confirm our views and to explain in ways which make our principles clear to both the public and the regulators.

References

Nervous system of flies.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/kcl-sb040513.php

Australopithecus Sediba

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/kcl-sb040513.php

Three-parent families

New Scientist 23 March 2013

Posted in Bio-ethics, Catholic Herald columns, evolution, Moral judgment, Quentin queries | 68 Comments

We are free spirits

Posted on April 11, 2013 by

This column is dedicated to the relationship between faith and science. As you would expect, its modal habit is to look at scientific discoveries and suggest how the progress of science need be no enemy to faith, and indeed can sometimes give it stout support. The Pope Emeritus spoke in 2012 of the “urgent need for continued dialogue and cooperation between the worlds of science and of faith in the building of a culture of respect for man”.

So today I want to examine the basis of that relationship and think about how it works out in practice. First, I want to look at reductionism which, in this context, explains phenomena to such a depth that there is simply no room for spirit: matter and the causality of matter explain all.

The example most readily to hand is evolution. While there is much still to understand, there is really no argument (outside the merry band of flat-earthers) that evolution is the major factor in bringing about the material world that we experience. The picture of God creating the world by a series of fiats is anthropomorphic. Equally anthropomorphic is the problem we may have in grasping that the random processes of evolution are possible to God. We must accept that the relationship between God and his creation is opaque to us; we must speak in metaphors. We need only to remember that every iota of creation exists from moment to moment by the active will of God.

The second topic is harder to tackle, but thankfully Revelation helps us. I speak of the human brain. In this column I have written at some length about the growth in our knowledge of the human brain. The outcome of this is that some of the best minds in the field have come to the conclusion that all the functions of the mind can be explained in material terms. While they have not all been demonstrated as yet, enough is known to infer that the remainder will confirm this provisional conclusion. So for example the hypothesis of free will is unnecessary.

Take, for instance, our inclination to religion. Our tendency to be attracted to a religion is, so the studies of identical twins tell us, about 40 per cent genetic – the same, by no coincidence, as our inclination to conformity. It is easy to understand that primitive human societies required most of their members to conform. While some non-conformists might succeed as leaders, most would have been destroyed. So the majority survived to transmit their conformist genes.

A powerful means of encouraging conformity is religion. Not only can the society’s shamans ensure obedience through their contacts with the preternatural but the omnipresence of the higher power can monitor us when we are alone. Religion needs a story. We have the Christian one.

This account of the origins of religion is speculative but plausible. Let us suppose for a moment that it is actually true. Why would we have problems in accepting that God prepared us at the natural level to accept a supernatural power, so that in course of time we would accept his Son – and be guided to do so via the biological senses and the inbuilt faculties of the brain?

We need to take seriously that the infusion of our biology by the creative spirit of God results in a single organism; it is this that is the image and likeness of God. So we are called.
So we are redeemed. So we will rise again. Everything that happens in the “soul” happens in the “body”.

Here is a practical example. The development of habits involves the firing patterns of neurons in the basal ganglia (and you can’t get more biological than that). But Aquinas defines virtue as “a habit by which we live righteously, one that makes its possessor good, and his work good likewise”. Now the development of the virtues is the high road to our imitation of Christ. So let’s take a strong example: Our Lady is full of virtue, and were we able to examine the basal ganglia in her resurrected brain we should find the biological correlate of her love of her son.

But it would be foolish to presume that a biological correlate gives us the whole story or, in such a case, the important part of the story. Our Lady’s habit of virtue finds its essence in the free choice of her will inspired by the mystery of divine grace. The same is true of us (albeit at a considerably lower level) whenever we aspire to practise and develop virtue. That the wonder of this should be complemented in our bodies is the way God chose us to be.

It is no surprise that the scientists are unable to find hard evidence of free will, or to explain moral obligation. Nor is it a surprise that they cannot check their minds from thinking that they have free will and declaring that they have moral values. They are ensouled bodies, too: the spirit escapes the microscope.

There is irony here. The more confidently they argue the absence of free will and the fundamental origin of morality the more they unconsciously witness to the Spirit of God which alone can explain these things.

I will return in due course to a closer examination of behaviour which we do not immediately recognise as virtues, but which are in fact practical implementation of the cardinal virtues. As you would expect, such virtues have one foot in good psychology, and the other in good theology.

Posted in Catholic Herald columns, Church and Society, Moral judgment, Neuroscience, Philosophy, virtue ethics | 80 Comments

A Pope for our times?

Posted on April 4, 2013 by

Pope Francis 3

HILARY
So, Leslie, I imagine that you must be a fan of our new Pope. Perhaps he’s the man who will bring you the cuddly, feely Church you seem to be asking for.

LESLIE
He’s certainly made quite a media impact. That’s good as far as it goes but kissing babies won’t be enough.

HILARY
What do you mean?

LESLIE
Everything I have seen him doing looks excellent. His love for the poor and unfortunate is impressive, and the world is noticing. But, you know, it could be just public relations. The real hard work is to come.

HILARY
I think you’re a cynic. I hear that his example of simple living has already put the wind up the comfy members of the Curia. But, if you had to set out a programme for him, how would it look?

LESLIE
First things first, Hilary. He has really got to be a committed reformer. Don’t fool yourself, the Curia are experts at holding on to power, and delaying change. He’s 76. Let’s be optimistic and give him 10 years. In the history of the Vatican that’s just a moment. And I wonder whether he is a reformer at heart.

HILARY
What makes you say that?

LESLIE
I haven’t read anything about him asking for real change in the Church, have you? When he spoke to his brother cardinals back at the 2001 Synod you could be forgiven for thinking that he was a dyed in the wool centralist.

HILARY
But that was a long time ago – and so much has happened in the Church which simply cries out for change. The Holy Spirit wouldn’t have inspired the Conclave’s choice if he couldn’t do the job.

LESLIE
Surely, Hilary, you’re not claiming that an elected pope is the choice of the Holy Spirit? Take a look at all the bad popes if you believe that.  All I am saying is that the evidence isn’t there. He has a strong reputation as a doctrinal conservative. Nothing wrong with that, except that conservatism tends to be a state of mind or a general characteristic of temperament. It could well apply to his views on reforming the Church. It may be a straw in the wind, but look at his view on the Falklands. He simply assumed that the Government (of Argentina) was in the right. He didn’t give a thought to the inhabitants. That’s an establishment man for you.

HILARY
Perhaps that’s a very good thing. The last thing we want is a great row about changes all over the place. I suspect that what he is going to do is to focus on the Church behaving like the Church. That means holiness, compassion for the poor, and loyal, energetic support for established Christian doctrine. And of course it means unity for the Church. Historically the Church has survived and been strong because of the papacy as a principle of unity. If anything he’s going to strengthen that. If he reforms the Curia you can bet it will be to make it a more effective way of promoting papal influence.

LESLIE
So, you think no change on priestly celibacy, or proper recognition of the radical equality of women, or homosexuality? And the medieval practices of the Holy Office?

HILARY
I wouldn’t hold your breath. And I’m not sorry. You seem to think that the future of the Church lies with those liberals whose appetite for change is simply dismantling the Church, and making it into their own image. But he might do something about contraception.

LESLIE
You’re wrong there, Hilary, he’s well known for his support for the orthodox teaching.

HILARY
Right on, Leslie. He must be as aware as anyone that the contraception question divides the Church. And the damage continues because there’s a conspiracy of silence. Many priests don’t believe the teaching, but they keep silence. Much of the laity no longer even thinks about it. And they wouldn’t mention it in Confession – if they ever went to Confession. It wouldn’t surprise me if he emphasised its grave sinfulness and said that anyone who practised it or maintained that it was acceptable, could no longer think of themselves as Catholics. That might hurt a few people, but it would end the “silent schism” which is taken for granted nowadays.

LESLIE
So the remaining members of the Church – all twenty five of them – will at last get what they want?…

(Exit both, muttering fiercely.)
So what would you want Pope Francis to do over the next few years? And how realistic do you think your wishes are?

Posted in Church and Society, Quentin queries | Tagged | 81 Comments