Autor: Ormerod, Neil

Buch: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Titel: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Stichwort: Das moralisch Böse; Sünde, Stolz; moralische Impotenz

Kurzinhalt: In the end the sinner becomes addicted to sin, no longer able to resist its lure. The evil of the will invades our imaginations and awakens biological processes that seek to reproduce the pleasurable impact of the initial sin.

Textausschnitt: 3 The Structure of Moral Evil

46a IN CHAPTER 1, WE EXAMINED the problem of evil in relation to Christian belief in the goodness of creation and God's sovereign providence. In this chapter we shall explore more fully the problem of evil. It is important never to underestimate the "problem of evil." Expressed in existential categories, evil is a pervading cancer, eating away at our personal relationships, promoting lies and sin as culturally normative, turning our social institutions into instruments of naked power and personal greed, leaving the poor and starving to fend for themselves as our pollution may destroy the very possibility of biological life on the planet. No aspect of our existence is untouched by the problem of evil. We can attempt to numb its pain from our consciousness through drugs or mindless consumerism; we may deny our responsibility for its cause by pointing the finger at others' faults; we can evade responsibility for its solution by saying "what can one person do?" But in doing so we add to the problem. If we are honest, we recognize that the problem is not simply "out there" but within each one of us, to such an extent that our best efforts at a solution are themselves distorted by the problem itself. Moral effort is, of itself, not enough. (Fs) (notabene)

46b In metaphysical categories, evil is the attempt to undo God's act of creation. In his pithy way Bernard Lonergan summarizes his proof for the existence of God as follows: "If the real is completely intelligible, God exists. But the real is completely intelligible. Therefore, God exists."1 But evil threatens to cast a pall of meaninglessness over God's meaningful creation; it is an attempt to plunge the order of the cosmos into chaos. For many, the pall of evil is so great as to create doubt about the very existence of God. The problem of evil remains the greatest obstacle to faith: How can a good God allow such appalling evil? And in a sense this is right. If God exists and is good, then God is interested in resolving the problem of evil: "the question really is what God is or has been doing about the fact of evil."2

47a Before we can address this question, we shall explore further and in greater depth the nature of the problem of evil and its personal expression in sin. The moral evil of sin has multiple dimensions-personal, social, and cultural- which deserve individual treatment. (Fs)

EVIL AND PERSONAL SIN

47b In chapter 1 we introduced the notion of evil as privation and of sin as that privation of the will wherein it acts without "good reason." In chapter 2 the notion of "good reason" was further explored in terms of the search of the human spirit for meaning, truth, and value in the movement of life that we experience. Meaning, truth, and value are the foundations on which "good reasons" are built. When we act out for "good reasons," we expand the field of meaning, truth, and value, not only socially and culturally in the world but just as significantly in ourselves. Meaning, truth, and value find a permanent home within us-in classical language, we embrace the virtues. We add to human flourishing and hence to the building up of God's kingdom. We further described the task of human existence in terms of the aesthetic and dramatic project of living in the tension of transcendence and limitation, of spirit and bodiliness. Virtue lies in the mean, in the ever-moving horizon of the self-transcending subject, committed to the search for meaning, truth, and value, while remaining grounded in the movement of life, of body and affect. Or, as Aristotle says, "Virtue is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the person of practical wisdom would determine it."3 There is no magic formula for determining the right course of action, just a continual commitment to authenticity, of maintaining the taut balance of transcendence and limitation, while committing oneself to the search for meaning. This is an artistic task of making oneself through engagement with the task of making the world. (Fs)

47c If virtue lies in a successful engagement with this artistic task, then vice lies in its failure. Morality is usually thought of in terms of sexual morality, the sins and temptations of the flesh, and it is clear that we can fail in our human project by rejecting the search for meaning, by sinking into the world of bodily pleasures, escaping from the demands of the spirit and the responsibilities of freedom. These pleasures need not be sexual; they can equally be the adrenalin rush of dangerous activities, of mindless thrills, drug-induced highs, or even the pleasures of shopping. None of these pleasures is necessarily evil in itself, but all can be effective strategies for avoiding the ever-pressing demands of the human spirit for meaning, truth, and value. But these are all failures in one direction, in the direction of limitation; hence, they are only one side of the catalogue of vices. (Fs)

48a However, we can fail equally in our human project by overreaching, by neglecting the reality of our bodiliness and pretending that we can "live like angels." A morality that fails to attend to this distortion tends toward the idealistic and the dualistic, viewing the body as the source of all sin. Tradition has held, however, that the source of sin lies in pride. This is a failure in the direction not of limitation but of spirit, of transcendence. Pride is the overreaching of the spirit, its attempt to claim more than its proper place. This is the sin of the first humans, succumbing to the temptation, "you will be like God" (Gen 3:5), not being content with the grounded reality of human bodily existence. Such overreaching becomes a libido dominandi, a desire to dominate, to control, often resulting in violence against the other. On the other hand, limitation denied will eventually demand recognition. For example, a denial of sexual desire, rationalized by labeling it as dirty and sinful, will eventually lead to an eruption of sexual irresponsibility, for the person simply has no way of controlling what he or she denies.4 More generally, manic overreaching will be followed by the crashing down of depression, a painful reminder of the unity of spirit and body that constitutes human existence. (Fs)

48b Another reminder of this unity is the impact of our moments of failure (sin) upon our own person, in particular on our freedom. Sin captures our freedom, sending us down a spiral of habit and eventual compulsion: Fs) (notabene)

The truth is that disordered lust springs from a perverted will; when lust is pandered to, a habit is formed; when habit is not checked, it hardens into compulsion. They were like interlinking rings forming what I have described as a chain, and my harsh servitude used it to keep me under duress. (Augustine, Confessions 8.10)5
48c In the end the sinner becomes addicted to sin, no longer able to resist its lure. The evil of the will invades our imaginations and awakens biological processes that seek to reproduce the pleasurable impact of the initial sin. Such processes can become so habitual that any attempt to resist can produce a physical response of withdrawal.6 The tradition speaks of this condition as the moral impotence of the sinner, who is non posse non peccare, not able not to sin. Sin does not completely destroy freedom but limits it to an ever-tightening circle of possibilities. Each time sinners sin, they sin freely, with the limited and distorted freedom available to them, but they are not free not to sin, not free to break though the cycle of addiction within which they are trapped. They are truly "sold into slavery under sin" (Rom 7:14). (Fs)

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate ... Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me ... Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Rom 7:15,20,24)

49a We can witness the compulsive addictive power of sin in the multiple addictions that plague our society. Drugs, pornography, power, violence, greed, sexual promiscuity, and alcohol are the most obvious examples; more subtle are our attachments to consumer products, shopping, entertainment, computer games, mobile phones, and automobiles! Much of modern consumer society is based on the compulsive power of shopping and our attachment to the products that fill our marketplace. Although less destructive than promiscuity, violence, and drugs, the power of these attachments reveals an important area of unfreedom that distorts our relationships with others and trivializes our own life quest. It is not that we want "too much," as some moralizing preachers would suggest, but rather that we think we can be satisfied with so little, with baubles and trinkets, when what our heart truly desires is meaning, truth, and value. (Fs)

49b Indeed, in its own way the power of addiction is a hidden reminder of the unlimited intentionality of the human search for meaning and value. Addiction can be thought of as infinite desire of a finite object.7 To the addict nothing is more important than the object of addiction, nothing more valuable, more valuable indeed than the addict's life or those of his/her own family. Everything can and will be sacrificed on the altar of addiction. The desire of the human heart that is meant to find its fulfillment in God focuses all its energy, all its power on this finite object of addiction. In the very insanity of addiction we can learn the futility of being satisfied by anything less than God. We can also understand why biblical authors often identify sin with idolatry. In the grip of the addictive power of sin we truly are worshiping a false god. (Fs)

50a The question may arise whether addiction is indeed a "spiritual" problem, a problem of the will, of meaning and value, or is it a "medical" or "psychological" problem? Here we encounter our tendency to compartmentalize and categorize. What we have is, in fact, a single problem with spiritual, psychological, and medical dimensions. The willingness of the addict for the good is weakened; the search for meaning is disrupted, and hence there is a profound spiritual aspect to addiction. However, addicts are also subject to powerful compulsions (psychological) that can even affect them somatically (medical). Again we witness the spiritual-psychological-somatic unity of a human being. That is why serious sin should never be just "spiritualized," as if a "good" confession followed by three Hail Marys will produce lasting effects-this is perhaps apparent in the failure of church authorities to take the problem of clerical sexual abuse with the gravity it deserved. Nor should it be "psychologized," as if the problem simply required counseling and perhaps some phar-maceuticals to lower tensions and anxieties. Addictions distort and eventually break relationships, damaging families and loved ones and further isolating the addict from possible sources of help. For there to be real conversion, the addict needs to take responsibility for his or her actions, to make recompense for past hurts and to apologize for damage done.8

50b The problem of human sinfulness is not just a matter of individual choice and responsibility. Human beings are not isolated monads, cut off from the world of social and cultural forces. Indeed, some of the "addictions" we suffer, such as the overconsumption of material goods, are in fact promoted by free- market capitalism in order to "keep the economy growing." Overconsumption drives the economy, and our "addiction" to shopping is actually promoted by the advertising industry. This is not to deny individual responsibility for actions committed, but it is a reminder that our freedom is always a conditioned freedom, conditioned by our own personal stories and by the social and cultural world in which we live. (Fs)