What’s Wrong with the World

Thoughtful little essay, Lydia. Do you know the excellent book by Robert Adams: Finite and Infinite Goods? Especially the chapter on "symbolic value" deserves a closer look.

Please consider, only for a second, a recent parallel: For anyone who believes in the power of the better argument, burning books, even burning bad books, is not "just" a symbolic act. It's a disgrace, a denigration of everything a free society (or philosophy) should stand for. In the second part of the 20th century there used to be a consensus between Western intellectuals of all stripes, that books, instead of being burned, banned or censored, should be interpreted, discussed and criticised. Tempi passati?

For anyone who believes in the power of the better argument, burning books, even burning bad books, is not "just" a symbolic act.

Oh, I definitely don't think of burning the Koran as a _mere_ symbol. That's why I'm in favor of doing it as a symbolic act. (I don't know if you guessed I was going to say that.) Everything depends on what book we're talking about, not just "books" generically. That's because doing that isn't a mere symbol.

Lydia,
I must say that it was a great pleasure to read KW's comments in the old post, he really was insightful.

Since you brought up the Eucharist, I was wondering if you have an opinion on Jeff's claim that Christ is being attacked if the communion wafer is treated disrespectfully. To me, it sounds like idolatry when the omnipresent, omnipotent Creator can be harmed through His Achilles heel. To say the Church is being attacked seems to me a more accurate description. Skipping directly to the point, any item or place can have an emotional attachment and particular meaning for members of a group. But we know that groups of people can change their expectations and beliefs and that is reflected in language and law. So the question should be - Are there any items or places that people outside the particular symbolic community must acknowledge as important?

Grobi,
I suggest we only ban books that promote the banning of other books. In regards to burning, if you've paid for it there is no reason you shouldn't use it as kindling.

I do believe that one has to be Protestant in order not to know the answer to this question. Of course there are things that are "just symbols." A picture in a book is merely a symbol, a representation, of what it actually depicts. (That doesn't mean that the picture is contentless, or that how one draws it is free from all moral imperative, but the picture is merely a representation.)

Of course, you're not talking about pictures in books: you're talking about things that are clearly not merely symbols. And for someone who lives in a society in which the idea that a thing can be made, or be intrinsically, holy, the concept of "mere symbolism" is silly. Step2 poses questions that were answered over a millennium ago because he has not been fortunate enough to live in such a society.

Although, to take the matter a step further, the setting apart of an object so as to make it more than merely a symbol is not something that anyone can accomplish. Baptists and Anglicans don't have anything but symbols: as the original post suggests, they not only lack the sacerdotal means to bless objects, but don't even really believe in doing so. If a thing is actually sacred, it certainly doesn't become so simply because we attach a subjective importance to it: a real difference or change has to be effected by some real power.

This is, I suppose, very un-ecumenical of me. I do wish I could write a brilliant essay about the incarnational beauty of Sacraments and sacramentals. If I can (which is not at all clear), I certainly don't have the time to do so. But at the end of the day, I think that it remains a Protestant problem: Catholics clearly believe in sacrality of objects, and most Protestants apparently profess not to. The fact that this profession appears inharmonious to the Protestant is, I would maintain, suggestive.

Myer is certainly attacking Christianity when he attacks a consecrated Host. Even at a fairly mundane level, since Christ was the founder of Christianity, Myer is in that sense attacking Christ by attacking Christianity. Notice too the need for deception to obtain a consecrated Host. It has to be stolen, "snuck" away from those who are attempting to carry out a service with it. This is, for example, as far removed as possible from a refusal as in my Maori mountain post to tread carefully and not step on the summit of an entire mountain that is out there in the world and open to the public. Instead, it involves passing oneself off as a member of the religion, entering the services of the religion in a private church, and surreptitiously making off with an object believed to be sacred which is not intended (by those who are passing it out) to leave the premises in someone's pocket at all.

Then, too, notice how different it would have been had Myer burned a Bible. There he could claim, I dunno, that he was doing it in rejection of the genocides of the Old Testament or something like that. Silly and historically dumb as far as any contemporary references are concerned, but somewhat less...odd and creepy than desecrating a consecrated Host. It's a pretty hard sell to claim that the Eucharist symbolizes violent Christian supremacism or anything of that sort. Someone who did claim that definitely has a messed-up mind.

Titus, I don't know that you're right, because the Catholic will still have the question arise for things that he himself does not believe to be really Sacraments. The wedding ring is a good example. Or, for that matter, a Bible. The Catholic may say, "Well, because we believe that there _are_ real sacraments and real sacramentals, real things that can be made holy and have metaphysical meaning infused into them, that will spill over even into other things." But why should it? Why shouldn't a Catholic say that if some object isn't designated officially as a Sacrament or sacramental, it really is a mere symbol and it doesn't matter what you do with it?

Here's an interesting question: What would a Catholic think of a Protestant Pastor who took a bit of the matzo cracker used for Communion and, in the middle of the Protestant Communion service, deliberately ground it under his heel in order to make a point to the congregation against the Real Presence? Is that weird? Unhealthy? I think so. What about reverence in Protestant worship? Is there any point in it, or does it not matter since, on the Catholic view, they don't have real Sacraments anyway?

One more thing: Step2 and Grobi both raise questions about unbelievers and religious symbols. To me an even more interesting question is that of believers and religious symbols. Presumably the husband in my wedding ring example _believed_ that his ring symbolized his wedding vows. I think sometimes people try to walk a fine line, which I suspect can't be walked. On the one hand they are willing to use things as religious symbols for things they themselves deem important. On the other hand, they want to treat those symbols disrespectfully and then pretend that this means nothing because they are "just symbols." I'm not at all sure you can have it both ways. A husband who puts his wedding ring in a shot glass is saying something, and he's lying to himself if he thinks that he isn't.

Pardon me if this ends up a non sequitur, but I recall a Christian who kept Tarot cards and defended it on the grounds that he wasn't using them for divination so he wasn't putting other gods first, he just liked the pretty pictures. I suggested this test: Find some pictures of old girlfriends and put them on your wife's dresser and when she asks you what on earth you are doing, tell her you are not committing adultery, you just like the pretty pictures; then report back to me how that went (assuming he survived).

Oh, I think that's a great example, Scott! I do wonder if he survived.

Lydia,
The husband you have described in your example is already a member of the symbolic community. I'm talking about someone outside it.

Without delving into the matter of how someone could obtain the communion wafer otherwise, let me take your Eucharist example this way. Suppose you wrote a book entitled Lydia's Amazing Home Schooling Guide. If a bunch of militant public school teachers decide to have a book burning to denounce your creation, would you consider that an attack against you as a person? Is it really an assault against you?

I will admit that I'm inclined to think that places are more appropriate to be viewed as sacred than mobile objects. In addition to your animist post, we had a similar debate when Paul commented on the desecration of a battlefield's pristine surroundings by a commercial retailer. So I'm not absolutely opposed to the idea that there ought to be some respect shown for "hallowed ground", but I do have a strong skepticism of other items being consecrated by mystic ritual.

I would consider it so over the top as to be pretty creepy--hence, plausibly, an "attack" in some sense against me. But note the "in some sense." Not therefore something that should be outlawed. And I'm not saying anything about outlawing things anywhere here, by the way. I think we have to ask about people's sense of perspective and about _why_ they would be doing such a thing as burning a book called An Amazing Home Schooling Guide. I can't imagine anything that I would write in such a book that would make it other than strange in the extreme for someone to be so het up about it that he would burn the book. Those would have to be some pretty wild-eyed public school teachers.

But, again, I think it's pretty important to separate what we might call the "unbeliever" position from what we might call the "believer but nominalist" position. Whether or not an unbeliever is doing something weird, understandable, not understandable, cruel, etc., in "refusing to respect" the ostensibly hallowed places and objects of a religion he totally rejects depends on such a host of factors that it can't be answered in the abstract. I _do_ think that whether one has to go to a lot of trouble and obtain an object under false pretenses makes a difference. Consecrated hosts, unlike either copies of the Koran or of my hypothetical home schooling book, are not available for purchase in bookstores! The area around the battleground literally belongs to someone else. The mountain is a public park. And so forth. What Myers did was strange and unhealthy for a whole lot of reasons.

Compare: Suppose that a Christian went "undercover" in order to obtain some object used in witchcraft under false pretenses in order to burn it. The only way he could possibly begin to justify that, it seems to me, would be to hold that the object was not a mere symbol. In fact, he would probably have to _believe_ in the efficacy of the witchcraft in order to hold that he had done right to use deception to obtain and destroy the object (the wax doll, for example, with the pins in it) to prevent harm to the person represented thereby. PZ Myers has no such excuse.

The position of the nominalist believer, however, is a more nuanced one and really presses home the question of whether there are any mere symbols in these contexts.

Here's one for you, Titus: Women's ordination in Protestant denominations. Some Catholics say that since there are no valid sacraments in the Protestant denominations anyway, women's ordination doesn't matter, that it's a matter of complete unimportance. That seems to me short-sighted, even from a Catholic perspective. Being called "the pastor" of a congregation _means_ something, and it means something about something important. Catholics should think twice before shrugging off the importance of that symbolism even when they are thinking about non-Catholic Christian bodies.

Women's ordination in Protestant denominations.

There are many reasons not to have women pastors. The failure to achieve validity (in the Catholic sense) for any Protestant ordination (male or female) doesn't really cancel any of them.

To me, it sounds like idolatry when the omnipresent, omnipotent Creator can be harmed through His Achilles heel.

The Creator is harmed when any of his creatures sin for any reason. PZ Meyers can inflict no greater damage than countless Catholics receiving the Body unworthily each week.

Being called "the pastor" of a congregation _means_ something, and it means something about something important.

True, Lydia, but it means something different to different groups. To an Anglican who believes that they are accomplishing something that falls under the term "ordination", the ordained is truly someone set aside for God's purposes. That is, after all, the root meaning of sacred: to be set aside for God's own use. (Sacra = sacred rites, and facere = to do.) A Sacrifice is something made sacred precisely in virtue of being set aside for God. But to then use it for something else is to defy its being "set aside", even though on one level its being "set aside" is a sort of symbol, since God doesn't need or want the specific thing for his own purposes.

And if the sacrifice is sacred, then the one ordained to do the sacrificing (i.e. the priest) is ALSO something set aside for God. For this reason, whether the priest be really changed sacramentally (as is true of Catholic, Orthodox, etc priests, as well as Anglican priests who bother to hunt up a Catholic or Orthodox bishop and get ordained), or is only symbolically changed - in either case, we respect the point of the ordination by treating the ordained minister as set aside.

But for groups that forego on the part of their minister any ordination, this obviously does not apply: the pastor is then symbolically NOT SET ASIDE in his own person, but rather a human assister, presider, leader: a first among equals. In this aspect, he cannot bear any more symbolic meaning than simply the person around whom the group forms: a kind of stand-in representative of the group itself. It is solely in respect of his office that he represents the group, and if he steps down from the office he ceases to represent anything, ceases to be any kind of a symbol.

But to speak more generally: a sign that is a sign solely by way of a mental assignment (i.e. B-l-u-e stands for a certain color), is a "mere" symbol, and bears no meaning over and above that of the mental assignment itself. But most symbols outside of language are not formed as signs SOLELY by reason of a mental assignment. Usually there is something natural about it that lends itself to the choice: red for danger touches on blood. A gold ring is chosen because gold is a "precious metal" that is beautiful in its own right, the metal being an enduring substance: beauty and scarcity and endurance lend themselves to the meaning pointed toward by the symbol. Even though most such symbols are partially achieved by convention that requires a mental assignment, they are not constituted as symbols purely by that mental assignment alone. Therefore, they are not "mere" symbols, not at all. To denigrate the symbol is to denigrate the meaning is pointed to by the symbol that makes that symbol a natural choice. If you use the wedding ring for a game of catch, (and risk losing it), you are denying that the ring stands for something precious. You cannot get out of that meaning of the act by saying that the ring is "merely" a symbol, because the preciousness of the gold is not subject to your choice.

Hmmm. I think the distinctions you're making are natural ones, Tony, but I'm not sure that I think they do all the work you're assigning to them. Take for example your distinction between pastoring in the "higher" denominations and pastoring in all the others. It's actually not that simple. Even some very "low" Protestant denominations have an ordination ceremony involving the laying on of hands by a group of people deemed to have some sort of authority to do so. They might be professors at a seminary or a group of other local pastors, but there is still a ceremony of setting aside the person for the work. Such a pastor, even in a congregational form of government where the congregation hires him and can fire him, is still a leader in, I think, a stronger sense than you are acknowledging. He is expected to have special knowledge of the Bible, to have responsibility for the people under his care, to be responsible for teaching, comforting, and shepherding (not to mention conducting marriages). There is a definite aura of authority that goes beyond merely being a "representative of the group." Indeed, such denominations usually take quite seriously the pastoral epistles with their lists of special qualifications for the ministry.

Now, in that context, the fact of being a pastor is not a "mere" anything. One is truly a religious leader and special teacher of the whole congregation--men as well as women. It therefore is quite sensible to ask whether it is appropriate for a person in that position to be female. For example, if the "pastor" were a woman but her husband were not so designated, she would be his spiritual shepherd, which raises all _kinds_ of issues.

As to your second point, I'm not sure how crucial the actual physical nature of the object is. Suppose that there were some extremely poverty-stricken society in which they could not get gold for wedding rings and had to make do with carved wooden rings instead. I'm just making this up, but it's still imaginable. My inclination is to say that this would not make it _more okay_ to keep your wedding ring in a shot glass, because, "Hey,it's only wood." The fact would still remain that it was _that_ object that your wife gave you on your wedding day, that you've been wearing all along, and that is known and recognized in your society as symbolic of your vows. Therefore it's a mere pretense to say that you can just sort of "take away" its symbolic meaning because you personally feel like it. And the attempt to do so is probably indicative of a deeper problem.

Here's another example: I once heard of a professor at a seminary who made some sort of point to his students to the effect that the Bible is "just a book" by kicking it across the floor. I don't think it would matter to the issues raised by that act whether the Bible in question was made with cheap materials or expensive materials. The symbolic nature of the act would be the same either way.

Even some very "low" Protestant denominations have an ordination ceremony involving the laying on of hands by a group of people deemed to have some sort of authority to do so.

That's fine, I was not trying to set forth the defining characteristic of "high" versus "low", so your point here is compatible with mine. For the groups who do not ordain (in any sense) their pastors, then the pastor doesn't bear the same symbolic sacredness to them, that's all I was saying. That they bear some special meaning is not to say that they are understood as sacralized by being made pastor.

For example, if the "pastor" were a woman but her husband were not so designated, she would be his spiritual shepherd, which raises all _kinds_ of issues.

Yeah, unless he had the good sense to belong to a different church altogether :-)). Now THAT would be something to behold. Reminds me of a talk I caught a couple years ago, with Mary Matalin and James Carville, who are married but who are leading strategists for opposing parties.

Presumably in a society that cannot get gold, they would arrange to use other symbols for marriage, and then more than likely some OTHER aspects of those symbols would lend themselves to symbolize marriage.

The Bible is not a "mere" symbol of the word of God, it actually contains the word of God as symbolized in written language. The book on the floor can cease to point to God's holy word only when that language ceases to be represented by those letters. No individual user can choose, of his own will, that the letters cease to represent that meaning. And so nobody can kick the Bible without that having a symbolic meaning of defiance of God's word.

In general, it seems to me, (bearing on both examples above) culture and custom carries weight within our realm of action whether we want it to or not. A person can wish that the flag be just a piece of cloth, but he is not the arbiter of custom, and his wishing does not make it cease to represent the country. THAT it represents the country means, precisely, that treating just as a piece of cloth is disrespectful - that's what being a physical symbol does. The fact that it became a symbol because of custom (i.e. based on human whim rather than being a natural symbol) is irrelevant. Once the culture designates it as a symbol, you cannot pretend that it is "merely" the physical object (i.e. without a meaning pointing elsewhere) simply by your own mental assignment.

The fact that it became a symbol because of custom (i.e. based on human whim rather than being a natural symbol) is irrelevant. Once the culture designates it as a symbol, you cannot pretend that it is "merely" the physical object (i.e. without a meaning pointing elsewhere) simply by your own mental assignment.

Bingo.

What would a Catholic think of a Protestant Pastor who took a bit of the matzo cracker used for Communion and, in the middle of the Protestant Communion service, deliberately ground it under his heel in order to make a point to the congregation against the Real Presence?

I agree that this would be, in a sense, wrong. But it would be wrong in a different way than than attacking a consecrated Host would be. The Pastor commits blasphemy in the first instance, but also sacrilege in the second.

And a wedding ring (or at least my wedding ring and possibly any Christian's wedding ring, since all Christians can enter sacramental marriages) is a sacramental: so if I were to abuse it in some manner I would not only be committing whatever adulterous sin I was abusing it for, but also the grave sin of sacrilege.

I once heard of a professor at a seminary who made some sort of point to his students to the effect that the Bible is "just a book" by kicking it across the floor.

Perhaps my initial demarcation, that all things that are not sacramentals (although the Bible probably qualifies as a sacramental even if not blessed) can be "just symbols" is overbroad. The tendency to detach words and actions from their inherent, instinctive meanings and import seems quite wrongheaded. So too does the attempt to divorce physical or representational things from that which they inherently represent. I'm not sure if this is a Cartesian error, or pure modernism, but it's clearly wrong. It's where we get the silly notion that we don't have to kneel in church so long as we think pious thoughts. Nonsense.

We inhabit a physical world in which we interact with each other and to an extent with God, through physical means. Thus, the actions that we take cannot be divorced past a certain point from their underlying qualities. It is wrong not only to disparage and abuse good or holy things, it is wrong to communicate to others that doing so is acceptable. So one could object even to a professor kicking a book that looked like a Bible: not because kicking other books is blasphemous or sacrilegious, but because making people think kicking the Bible is acceptable is scandalous. The same notions can be adapted for things that, while not holy, represent important human goods (flags, valuable art, etc.), although they don't quite fit into the categories outlined below.

So, in short, there are three sins that one can commit by abusing physical things of a symbolic nature: 1) Sacrilege - abuse of a holy thing; 2) Blasphemy - displaying hatred towards God or the saints through abuse of a thing associated with them, even if not in and of itself holy; and 3) Scandal - leading others into disbelief or sin through disrespect or perceived disrespect of holy things.

As I revise my initial comments, I will reiterate, however, that I think the answer to the question, the idea that the abuse of physical things can be a sin not merely against property (cf. vandalism), is naturally inherent in Catholicism in a way that it does not appear to be in Protestantism.

as well as Anglican priests who bother to hunt up a Catholic or Orthodox bishop and get ordained

Well, probably not, actually. It's not at all clear that Anglicans (or Catholic or Orthodox bishops playing with them) have the requisite intent to confect the sacrament of holy orders, even if they use a proper form. In fact, most observers would be inclined to say that Anglicans, despite all their occasional hand-wringing, quite affirmatively do not intend to do what the Church does in ordination.

Even some very "low" Protestant denominations have an ordination ceremony involving the laying on of hands by a group of people deemed to have some sort of authority to do so.

Lydia has quite aptly identified the intellectual and ontological chasm that I have pointed to previously. First, nothing happens when a bunch of Baptists lay hands on each other. Sure, all the other Baptists now maintain that the laid-hands-on Baptist can talk in front of them, or what have you. But he is still ontologically just the same as he was before. And unless I am greatly mistaken, the Baptists don't believe to the contrary: the whole affair is merely a manner of designating the person in question, much the same way as a public official might be installed in office.

But when a man is ordained---that is, actually ordained---there is an ontological affect. He undergoes a permanent change in the character of his soul, much in the same way a person's soul is indelibly marked by baptism. Other physical things can be marked in a similar fashion (although not having immortal souls, the consecration of a thing cannot be indelible and can be undone by desecration). Catholics (and Orthodox Christians) have always believed that physical actions can have real spiritual consequences. That's a horse of a different color from just saying "Bob's in charge now as a matter of agreement among this community." Protestants effect such consequences too in baptism and marriage, although they would have a hearty debate about whether they are or aren't. But it really comes down to the question of what is real. Just calling something "blessing" or "ordaining" doesn't make it real.

Of course, I don't know that Lydia intended to start a debate about sacramental theology. Those discussions are, in all fairness, better presented elsewhere.

Well, probably not, actually. It's not at all clear that Anglicans (or Catholic or Orthodox bishops playing with them) have the requisite intent to confect the sacrament of holy orders, even if they use a proper form. In fact, most observers would be inclined to say that Anglicans, despite all their occasional hand-wringing, quite affirmatively do not intend to do what the Church does in ordination.

No, Titus, I think you don't have that right: if the bishop's intent simply matches the meaning of the words of the rite, then his intent is all that is requisite to confer the sacrament. He doesn't have to have some special intention in addition to the meaning that is the thought that the words were crafted to convey. It is well established that schismatic bishops (such as those of the Orthodox Catholic Church, and the Old Polish Church) ordain validly if they use a proper rite intending to ordain. They also ordain sinfully, but that's another issue.

That's assuming the bishop uses a valid Catholic or Orthodox rite, not an Anglican rite.