Daily Archives: May 1, 2009

Aquinas on Acedia

Posted by on May 1, 2009 2 comments

Sloth, according to Damascene (De Fide Orth. ii, 14) is an oppressive sorrow, which, to wit, so weighs upon man’s mind, that he wants to do nothing; thus acid things are also cold. Hence sloth implies a certain weariness of work, as appears from a gloss on Psalm 106:18, “Their soul abhorred all manner of meat,” and from the definition of some who say that sloth is a “sluggishness of the mind which neglects to begin good.”

Now this sorrow is always evil, sometimes in itself, sometimes in its effect. For sorrow is evil in itself when it is about that which is apparently evil but good in reality, even as, on the other hand, pleasure is evil if it is about that which seems to be good but is, in truth, evil. Since, then, spiritual good is a good in very truth, sorrow about spiritual good is evil in itself. And yet that sorrow also which is about a real evil, is evil in its effect, if it so oppresses man as to draw him away entirely from good deeds. Hence the Apostle (2 Corinthians 2:7) did not wish those who repented to be “swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.”

Accordingly, since sloth, as we understand it here, denotes sorrow for spiritual good, it is evil on two counts, both in itself and in point of its effect. Consequently it is a sin, for by sin we mean an evil movement of the appetite, as appears from what has been said above (10, 2; I-II, 74, 4).

(Summa Theologica, II.2.Q35.1)

Acedia and Visual Media

Posted by on May 1, 2009 15 comments

So my latest theological–and somewhat personal–fascination has been with the concept of acedia, or as it is catalogued in the list of deadly sins, sloth. There is little question in my mind that acedia is the primary bane of my existence. There are literally dozens if not hundreds of worthwhile pursuits that I feel interested in, but when it comes down to uncontested time, I seem to inevitably end up watching an entire season of this or that awesome show. Btw, all you guys should totally check out Deadwood, its like, totally awesome…

St. Thomas has been quoted as providing perhaps the most arresting definition of acedia as “a sadness arising from the fact that the good is difficult.” If that doesn’t describe the sort of lethargy and listlessness that typifies my hours of transfixed attention to HBO series’ I don’t know what does.

Dante also interestingly claimed that acedia alone of all the seven deadly sins arose from a lack, an insufficiency in our love for God. In Purgatorio all of the souls in Purgatory who were guilty of acedia find themselves forced to constantly run at top speed. That’s perhaps the worst post-mortem punishment our generation could imagine.

The LCD screen is perhaps the worst facilitator of acedia to ever be invented. I’m sure writing a blog about this topic is the right move… Are there support groups for visual media addicts? I think I’m a visual media addict. The real world just requires too much attention and activity.

If Torture, then Not Christian

Posted by on May 1, 2009 13 comments

Nice surprise from the Scriptorium Daily, a blog based out of the supremely conservative Biola University. The only other time I had ever heard of the author was in a book he edited that was a debate over young versus old earth creationism. Well, regardless of where he comes down on that particular issue, the author is right on the money here:

Torture of any human being is incompatible with the Christian faith.

This should have been obvious, but like many hard and inconvenient moral lessons it was not. Christianity grew in cultures that used torture frequently and so had cultural assumptions inconsistent with their faith. Like most evil things, torture is justified by the good that can come of it. Most bad things are tempting because of alleged goods, but Christian experience shows that any gains from torture are not worth the cost to the souls of men and cultures.

Because there are times when torture seems like a good idea, Christians followed the practice of most ancient cultures and sometimes used it when they gained power. However, it was always a difficult decision for Christian civilizations to make and always had critics amongst Christian theologians and philosophers. The practice was modified and prisoners were given greater rights. The longer Christians thought about the practice and experienced the results, the broader the disdain and condemnation for it.

Eventually, a consensus developed in the traditional Churches that torture was a temptation to do evil, a snare of devils to corrupt souls, and a delusion that promised good, but only certainly did evil.

The condemnation of torture is part of the culture of life so central to the Faith. It is sad to see some Christians use arguments and lines of reasoning to justify torture that are similar to those used to justify abortion.

Traditional Christians disdain those who mutilate the corpses of enemies, because it dishonors the Image of God. How much worse is it to mutilate the living body or the immortal soul of a man?

The Politics of Resentment

Posted by on May 1, 2009 3 comments

Adam has written a lengthy skewering of Craig Carter. Here’s a few paragraphs:

A more worthy title for the blog [than The Politics of the Cross Resurrected], however, would have been “Craig Goes All First Things on Everybody’s Ass.” The blog is now basically a rant on the Liberal takeover of the Americas, from the homosexuals’ conspiracy to poison the minds of our children and force evangelical ministers to marry them, to Obama’s determination to kill as many unborn babies as he can, to socialism being the enemy of the church, and so forth, with some smattering of Augustine, Aquinas, David Bentley Hart, and the quasi-catholic extolations of the recent popes mixed in.

. . .

Resentment here is the political posture which believes that some entity out there controls the destiny of your self, community, or nation, and is controlling it in an undesirable fashion. Yet how can you be resentful when you have voluntarily chosen other than affiliation with that power (whether this is still the case with Carter seems hard to tell)? Here then is what Zizek describes as envy, which is the bane of most attempts at true fundamentalism. Envy names the attempt to withdraw from the world, yet all the while constantly measuring up to the world to ensure that we are really living a better life than them.

. . .

Ultimately, though, obsessing over every turn our fallen world takes is just exhausting. And boring: like Thoreau says, once you’ve read the news for a year, you’ve got the idea of how things go–each day is just a variation on the theme. My basic point here, then, is that we will know the true fundamentalist by her fretting. If she genuinely believes that Christ is the lord of history, then she will live simply, enjoy life with her friends, and trust providence.

Let’s see how this plays out. . .

The End of the American Century

Posted by on May 1, 2009 4 comments

Andrew Bacevich has a great new article in Salon about the end of the “American Century.”

The net effect [of the myth of the American Century] is to perpetuate an array of illusions that, whatever their value in prior decades, have long since outlived their usefulness. In short, the persistence of this self-congratulatory account deprives Americans of self-awareness, hindering our efforts to navigate the treacherous waters in which the country finds itself at present. Bluntly, we are perpetuating a mythic version of the past that never even approximated reality and today has become downright malignant. Although Richard Cohen may be right in declaring the American Century over, the American people — and especially the American political class — still remain in its thrall.

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