JUST WHO IS SUSPENDING REASON? by Gary L. Morella
ritics recently have charged that Scripture has been "deceptively" interpreted
- that "assertion" is being substituted for Scriptural fact. These charges are
false. What has been presented is traditional Scriptural exegesis as
understood since the founding of the Church two millennia ago. For
proof consider the following Navarre Bible Commentary, a widely recognized
authority on Scriptural exegesis, on the verses in question.
"The words of Luke 14:26 should not disconcert us. Love for God and love for
Jesus should have pride of place in our hearts and we should keep away from
anything which obstructs this love: 'In this world let us love everyone,' St.
Gregory the Great comments, 'even though he be our enemy; but let us hate him
who opposes us on our way to God, though he be our relative [...].' We should,
then, love our neighbor; we should have charity towards all - towards relatives
and towards strangers - but without separating ourselves from the love of God
out of love for them. (In Evangelia homiliae, 37.3). In the last analysis, it
is a matter of keeping the proper hierarchy of charity: God must take priority
over everything."
This verse must be understood in the context of all our Lord's teachings.
"The force behind these words does not lie in their implication of a negative
or pitiless attitude but rather that we cannot be half-hearted when it comes
to loving God" [Navarre].
It is not news that Scripture has been perverted to say what it doesn't. That
is called eisegesis and is an attempt by critics to make the Church accommodate
the world instead of standing in contradiction to it which the Church must do
if salvation in the next life as opposed to gratification in this life is the
goal.
The accusation of presenting a "clinic in deceptive apologetics" regarding the
verse "If a man also lieth with mankind, as he lieth with a woman ... they
shall surely be put to death ... " is without foundation. How so? If one
looks at one of the earliest translations of Leviticus from the Vulgate
diligently compared with the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, the Douay
Old Testament Volume I, 1635 A.D., the verse in question reads "He that lieth
with a man as if he should companie (sic) with woman, both have committed
abomination, dying let them die: their blood be upon them." This verse has to
be understood in the context of God speaking in the absence of contrition.
There is a second death more horrible than the first with eternal consequences.
"The sin of idolatry leads to the kind of moral disorder, described by St. Paul
in Romans 1:24-32. Every time man knowingly and willingly tries to marginalize
God, that religious aberration leads to moral disorder not only in the
individual but also in society" [Navarre]. Prophetic words today when we're
told via "values clarification" in our schools at all levels that "there is no
right or wrong." God punishes the sin of idolatry (the idol in your mirror) by
withdrawing his graces: that is what the Apostle means when he says that he
"gave them up to the lusts of their hearts." Eisegesists are advised to
remember that, while some ceremonial aspects of the Old Law were rescinded in
the New Testament, the moral force WASN'T.
Finally, we're told that Matthew 18:3 should have been substituted for Matthew
18:13 as evidence of the "irrationality" of Scripture as the clergy wants us to
be like "little Children" blindly believing everything they say. The parable
of Matthew 18:13 shows our Lord's loving concern for sinners. Per the
Commentary, "it expresses in human terms the joy God feels when a wayward child
comes back to him." Matthew 18:3, far from being "a command to suspend
reason", has Our Lord showing the priority of His kingdom which is not of this
world. Specifically, "to correct the pride of those suffering from human
ambition above all, He shows them a child and tells them that if they want to
enter the Kingdom of Heaven, they must decide to be like children who are
incapable of hating anyone and are totally innocent of vice, particularly of
pride, the worst vice of all. The primary emphasis here is on humility, one of
the main pillars of Christian life and is THE essential thing in the religion
and discipline of Jesus Christ per St. Augustine's Letter 118."
The command to suspend reason has not come from Sacred Scripture or the
Tradition of the Church but rather from the disciples of The Endarkenment who
tell us that truth is relative not absolute, I'm OK, you're OK with license
confused with authentic freedom, and that we can act like a barn animal in heat
in our private lives just as long as we smile in front of the cameras publicly
- the former having no influence on the latter or so we're guaranteed despite a
large body of historical evidence to the contrary. Do people honestly believe
that someone with so little regard for his family and his self-respect will
treat them otherwise?
The highest levels of violence of all types that the world has ever seen, with
the killing of the unborn, euthanasia, STDs, suicide - in particular teen
suicide, divorce, teen pregnancies resulting in single parent families
(SIECUS, Sex Information and Education Council of the United States, sex-ed
being an abysmal failure per their own statistics as reported in October 1994
Atlantic Monthly), the exportation of the "culture of death" by the west to a
third world that doesn't want it in the absence of definitive evidence
anywhere that contraception leads to fewer abortions (in fact, the contrary is
always true with nations dying out unable to reproduce themselves), speak to
the consequences of ignoring Scripture.
Under the guise of "diversity" we find emphasis on "discrimination" used to
automatically refer to negative or unequal treatment of persons. The concept
makes no mention of the fact that a civilized society, while not downgrading
individual people, must "discriminate" in favor of health over disease, right
over wrong, moral over immoral, discriminate use of sexuality (monagomous
marriage) over indiscriminate sexual expression.
Isn't it ironic that the answer to the critics is found in Scripture, 1
Corinthians 13:11. "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a
child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away the things of
a child." It's time to put away "the suspension of reason" rightfully
understood as evidenced by the chaos in the world around us and to look to the
Truth which is a Somebody, not a something.