‘Nominalism denies natures/essences.’
i) There is such a thing as a Nature / Essence
The Council is Nominalist,
as we noted above, and accordingly denies natures / essences. In denying
essences, it deprives itself of any possible logical foundation for giving
definitions, and is obliged to have recourse either to mere descriptions of
things or what we may term ‘incoherent amalgamations’.
We shall
accordingly examine some examples of the Council’s:
i) Denial of
natures;
ii)
Descriptions;
iii)
Incoherent Amalgamations.
i) Denials of natures
The following
examples may be given of the denial of natures:
-
The Council’s heterodox presentation of the
Incarnation as the Union of the Divine Word not with human nature but with
human individuals [1];
- The
Council’s suggestion that human nature can change, which presupposes the
nominalist theory that human nature is nothing other than the sum total of
human individuals. We refer to the following texts: ‘Modern men have been so
profoundly changed that we can speak of a new age in human history [2];
and similarly: ‘Humanity appears to be entering into a new order of things…’ [3];
- The
rejection of an ontological view of Christianity in favor of a nominalist one [4];
- The
silencing of the priest’s ontological nature as alter Christus in favor of his ministerial function.
ii) Descriptions
1. Marriage is described as an ‘intimate
partnership of life and love’ [5]
rather than defined as a bond.
2. Heretics and schismatics are described simply
as being in ‘imperfect communion’ [6].
iii) Incoherent Amalgamations
1.
The Mass is designated variously as ‘sacrifice’, ‘Paschal mystery’,
‘commemoration of the Paschal mystery’, ‘banquet’, thanksgiving [7],
and ‘assembly’ [8];
2.
The Church is understood as an amalgamation with the World [9];
3.
The Catholic Christian is understood as an amalgamation with the
non-Christian [10].
a)
There is
such a thing as Causality
Like the principle of non-contradiction, causality is
also one of the first principles of thought, without which, as we said above,
it is impossible to think. Modern philosophy however holds this latter
principle in disfavor, indeed David Hume goes so far as to deny it; and the
Council, in its turn, neglects it. The Council, indeed is not interested in
Truth, or in understanding Truth, which as we have noted above, is what the
doctrine of the causes particularly facilitates. It is interested, rather, as
we said in the last subsection, in action. We have earlier criticized the
Council’s notion of the Catholic Christian in terms of its failure to distinguish
between three types of cause, but what we shall examine here is the Council’s
particular neglect of two of the types of cause, namely final and formal cause.
a) Final Cause
The principle of final cause, or finality, is
characteristically scorned by Modern Philosophy. We observe this scorn already
in empiricism, a superficial and primitive vision of reality which effectively reduces
philosophy to physical science, thereby excluding finality altogether. ‘The
search for the final cause’, writes the empiricist Francis Bacon, ‘is sterile,
like a consecrated virgin.’ To deny that finality is a feature of reality, or
Being, is of course entirely to abolish not only the Natural Law, relying as it
does on the finalities inscribed in human nature as guides for human conduct, but
also the Proof by Finality, the strongest and clearest proof of the existence
of God [11];
it has the effect of reducing finality to the will and to the desires of man,
and ultimately to the dynamics of Fallen Nature, thereby demoting finality from
the objective, to a purely subjective, status of being.
'The search for the final cause',
writes the empiricist Francis Bacon,
'is sterile, like a consecrated virgin.'
The Council neglects finality by silencing it, and by
substituting it with other, lesser, putative goods. We have seen the following
examples above:
1.
The finality of
the Church for this life, namely the salvation of souls, is silenced in favor
of the interpersonal or political ideals of peaceful co-existence with other
Christian confessions [12],
religions [13],
or fellow-citizens [14];
2.
The finality of
the Church for this life is substituted with the finality of the World for this
life [15],
that is to say with societal hedonism [16];
3.
The finality of
all men for the next life, which is Heaven, is silenced, as though the State
should be concerned only for their temporal well-being, and the Church only for
their eternal well-being [17];
4.
The finality of
the World for the next life, by contrast, is substituted with that of the
Church, namely Heaven [18];
5.
The finality of
the priesthood, namely the salvation and sanctification of souls, is silenced;
6.
The finality of
the religious life, that is to say the genuine love of God, is sacrificed to,
or at least diluted with, humanitarianism [19];
7.
The finality of the
Holy Mass, the glory of God, is sacrificed to the glory of man [20]
as in the process of ‘inculturation’ [21];
8.
The finality of
creation, namely the glory of God, is usurped by man [22];
9.
The finality of
the state, namely God, is equally usurped by man [23];
10. The Council
effectively denies that man’s ultimate dignity resides in his use of reason and
free will according to their respective finalities [24];
11. It no longer
uses the term ‘finality’ (finis) of
marriage. The good that the Church has always regarded as such, namely the
procreation and education of progeny, is subordinated by the Council to
‘marital love’, and thereby cast into the shade [25];
12. It fails to rely on the finality of the marital act in order to demonstrate the evil of contraception.
‘The New Testament is the formal cause of the Old
Testament.’
b)
Formal Cause
‘The Princes of Judah have become like those who move
a boundary; on them I will pour out My wrath like water’ [26];
‘Do not move the
ancient boundary [landmark] which
your fathers have set’ [27]
‘Some remove the landmarks; they seize and devour
flocks.’ [28]
The formal
cause, as we have explained above, is that which makes a thing what it is. In
the course of this book we have seen how the Council erodes and dissolves
Catholic teaching. This it does by avoiding definitions, or, more precisely, by
silencing the formal principle, or formal cause, of things. For example:
1. In claiming that there is a ‘hierarchy of truths’, the
Council effectively denies that the formal cause of Faith is the authority of
God Revealing. In other words, in claiming that one can still preserve the
Faith while abandoning some of its articles, the Council denies that one
acquires and preserves the Faith by accepting it in its entirety on the
authority of God [29];
2. In silencing the doctrine of the Mystical Body of
Christ, the Council silences the formal cause of the Church, which is Christ;
3. The Council effectively denies that the Social
Kingship of Christ is the formal principle of Catholic social teaching, or, put
simply, that Christ the King is the formal cause of society; instead of which
it replaces Him with man [30];
4. It effectively denies that the formal cause of the
Christian is baptism [31],
Faith, and submission to the Pope, but situates it rather in the Incarnation,
Death, and Resurrection of Our Lord [32];
5. It effectively denies that the formal cause of
religious life, that which makes it what it is, is a Christocentric Rule, in
diluting the Rule with anthropocentrism [33];
6. It effectively denies that the formal cause of the
priesthood is Christ the High Priest [34];
7. It effectively denies that the formal cause of the
Mass is Christ Crucified [35];
8. It effectively denies that the formal cause of
relations to other Christians, to other religions, and to the World is Christ
the Savior [36];
9. It effectively denies that the formal cause of
marriage is Christ the Head and Spouse of the Church [37];
10. It fails to
define ‘separated Christians’ in terms of their formal causes as Orthodox or
Protestant, schismatic or heretic, or in terms of material or formal heresy or
schism;
11. It does not
accept that [38]:
a) the New Testament is the formal cause [39]
of the Old Testament;
b) the Talmud is the formal cause of the modern Jewish
Religion, just as the Old Testament was the formal cause of the ancient Jewish
Religion.
[1] ch.8, A. 1
[2] DV 54
[3] Opening Speech of Pope John XXIII
[4] ch.2, B. 1
[5] ch.6
[6] ch.2, A
[7] ch.7 B, 1 for these terms
[8] ch.7 B, 2
[9] ch.5
[10] ch.8
[11] we may reply to Francis Bacon
that final cause is fruitful, just as the state of a consecrated virgin is
fruitful. The former enables one to know God, the latter to love Him; the
former enables one to know His Will, the latter to follow it perfectly.
[12] ch.2
[13] ch.3
[14] ch.4, A.5 on Christ the King
[15] which thereby also becomes
the finality of man in this world
[16] ch.5, A
[17] ch. 4, A. I
[18] ch.5, B
[19] ch.6, C (a)
[20] ch.7
[21] ch.7, B.4 (g)
[22] ch.8, C. (b)
[23] ch.8, C. (b)
[24] ch.4, A.3
[25] ch.6, A.2
[26] Hosea, 5.10
[27] Proverbs, 22.28
[28] Job, 24.2
[29] ch.1, C.1 (c)
[30] ch.4, A.5
[31] baptism is of course at the
same time the efficient cause of the Christian
[32] ch.8, A
[33] ch.6, C (a) Aristotle teaches that the final
cause is often identical to the formal cause, so that the end of a given thing
is often that which determines its form. This is true of the religious life:
here the end of the religious life is Christ the Spouse of the soul, and this
end is also the form of religious life: it determines the nature of this life,
or at least it did so, as we have learned, before ‘man attained his maturity’
with the Council.
[34] ch.1, B.3 (a)
[35] ch.9, B below
[36] ch.9, B below
[37] ch.9, B below
[38] ch.3, B.5
[39] and at the same time the
exemplary and final cause
