I was reading C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”, about how humans can never be perfect… perfect car drivers, perfect tennis players, or draw perfectly straight lines.
Then came this random thought. Just how do we draw perfectly straight lines? Well, we do use a ruler, but how do we know the ruler is perfectly straight? Was it made from a perfectly straight mold? If so, how do we know the mold is perfectly straight? What was it built with that enabled it to be perfectly straight?
Then I started thinking about what in reality is perfectly straight. I started thinking about the horizon, but even that is curved. I thought about light and how it travels in straight lines, but physics shows us this isn’t entirely true either.
So what in the world or in the universe is perfectly straight by which we can measure the straightness of our lines against? And how can we show others that it is undoubtedly and perfectly straight? There must be a method by which we can show this, otherwise anyone can take a relatively straight-looking line and say that their’s is perfectly straight, and we will have no way of showing otherwise.
I haven’t yet found an answer that I can understand yet, but it got me thinking about something else: If it is so hard in nature to find a line that is perfectly straight, by which other straight lines can be measured against, how much harder (or easier) can it be to find a perfectly good morality by which all morality can be measured against? How do we know whether what we consider a perfectly good morality really is perfectly good? How can we show it to others that it is perfectly good? Otherwise, anyone can take a relatively good-looking morality and say that it is the absolute morality, and we have no way of showing otherwise.
Filed under: Moral Theology
hello again.
have u heard of a ’spirit level’? those alcohol bubble things carpenters use to check horizontal and vertical.
the earth itself is round-ish. that should mean something. everything works well with balance, the spirit level measures by balancing the bubble between 2 points.
which means at different parts of the earth the hypothetical ’straight line’ drawn using it, is different but still ’straight’.
i think it’s also interesting to note that c.s. lewis writes that evil is a warped or imbalanced pursuit/ sense of goodness. WhCatholicism itself teaches temperance, prudence, etc.
Part II:
the spirit level itself does not really tell a perfectly straight horz/ vert line, just a tolerable or acceptable level of straightness. does this mean nothing is truly linear?
perhaps the key thing is to rmbr that these are all physical ie. can be seen/ measured. and with materiality comes imperfection. nothing is truly accurate, just as accurate as physically/ humanly possible, within tolerable limits.
the BUBBLE used to measure, however, is not. it has to be ‘contained’ by the ethanol/ spirit 2 be seen. morality , and God, is not physical. air is also common commodity.
maybe the important thing is to ensure all is right at/ with the spirit level tool, make sure each and every one is functioning ok. then no matter which part of this imperfectly round earth (!), you will always be able to see/ measure a tolerable straight line.
same with people, perhaps it’s not so impt to impose so called absolute moralities, since our human interpretation of ‘God’s will’ could be wrong. more important to take care of each person’s spirit level and make sure it’s working and they are ‘being good/ serving God according to their own conscience’ (smth like tt in the catechism).
trying too hard to prove a point-of-view or morality may make us unduly self-righteous. each spirit level shows the straightness at whatever part of the earth it’s at. as long as the tool is working and the bubble is within the acceptable limit, who are we to challenge?
how can we judge who is further from God, or which tool is more accurate? isn’t it more impt to care for each indiv and make sure they are balanced, happy and whole, and thus more predisposed to receiving God’s Grace (upon which their spirit level would show an acceptable straight line) rather than trying to prove this or that.
—
‘Conversion requires convincing of sin; it includes the interior judgment of conscience, and this, being a proof of the action of the Spirit of truth in man’s inmost being, becomes at the same time the start of a new grant of grace and love: “Receive the Holy Spirit.”‘
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/moral.html
Hi Clare,
That’s a depth that I’ve not seen in you before. Thank you for writing that.
I like what you said, that the important thing is to ensure that all is right with the spirit level, and to take care of each person’s spirit level. The problem here is – how do you tell that the spirit level is working well? You need a perfectly straight line to measure it against, no? Now assume that you have a line that is not so straight and you hold up your spirit level to it and you find that there is, apparently, something wrong with the spirit level. Won’t you then try to, mistakenly, fix the spirit level rather than the line?
The problem worsens when you hold other people’s spirit level up to that line that you think is straight, from your perspective, but is actually crooked. Then we go about telling other people that there is something wrong with their spirit level because it doesn’t measure correctly against the line we have chosen to use as the standard. The problem compounds when we refuse to accept that our line might not be good as a standard, and refuse to explore other lines as possible standards.
That’s where we come to the problem of self-righteousness. And the hardest part about this problem is that the self-righteous person cannot see that because his own spirit level tells him that he matches up to the line which he thinks is straight, but is actually not.
God bless,
Catholic Writer
Would like to share a beautiful quotation from Hans Von Balthasar which i like very much
“Why then do i remain in the Church? Because it is the only chance to escape from oneself, from this curse of one’s importance, of one’s own gravity, from the role which is identified with my own person, so that if I lost my role I would end up by falling in love with my person; to escape form all this without becoming estranged from man, because God has become man, not in a vacuum but in the community of the Church.”
Hi Nick,
Took me some time to grasp the meaning of this quote. Speaking with Jim, I find that he subscribes to the belief that Christians do not need to go to a church (building) to worship God. His reasoning for this comes from Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, where he says that the time is coming where people will worship God not on a mountain or in Jerusalem, but in the person of Jesus Christ. Why then, Jim says, does the Catholic Church insist that people must go to church to worship? It is in this aspect, one of the many, that he likens Catholic officials to the Pharisees of old.
God bless,
Catholic Writer
There is a difference between judging people and judging actions. We should judge a deed on whether is right or wrong based on what we are taught in the Church, while when judging, always give them the benefit of the doubt and if people fall, we should be there to help them up and not laugh at their failure.