I shall caution my readers that the heading to this entry does not imply that sublime or ridiculous are adjectives to be taken as modifiers of 'virtue' and 'vice'. :) It is true that my frozen brain will not be at its best till a spring thaw, but I know I'm on the verge of writing of some quite sublime concepts with ridiculous examples. Consider it the legacy of Franciscan jesters for the past seven centuries. The threads I'm ravelling here were prompted by a presentation I attended yesterday (by a theologian whom I regard highly overall, I must add) which dealt with Thomas Aquinas' treatment of virtue, vice, and that grey area in between where most of us dwell. It's a great topic - I love how Thomas is so totally positive about creation and humanity in particular, and stresses the goodness inherent in us and our natural inclination to turn towards Perfect Love however much we may fall short of this. (For Thomas, even grave wickedness is a failure to fulfil a potential for sanctity.) However, as I shall get to a little later, the illustrations were idiotic. I remembered how my father, no theologian but sometimes an apt observer of human nature, used to speak of "book learning, but not the ways of the world," or of "the smarter you make them, the dumber they get." Of course, I know to whom he usually was referring (maybe it's obvious), so it is heartening if concurrently discouraging when I observe that there are those with far more intelligence and learning than I who are capable of being 'dumber' (in Sam's sense) than I am at my worst.
Permit me to present a 'prelude' of loose associations. A dear friend of mine, now deceased, was a priest, friar, and moral theologian. He had been a professor of that subject, and had much experience with confession and retreat work as well as with the theoretical. I remember mentioning to him once that refraining from doing wrong (or doing what is 'right') when one is only thinking of natural consequences hardly was a practise of virtue. "Of course it isn't," he replied, but, after a very deep West of Ireland sigh (half sigh, half hum), he muttered, "The only thing that can separate anyone from sanctifying grace is mortal sin - so you try to keep them from doing it any way you can!"
I, of course, have no notion of what it is to be a confessor - Tom used to tell me that he thought his Purgatory would be to have to hear endless confessions of (his expression, not mine!) "Irish women who eat the candles off the altar, because they tell you everything except what they need to and about everyone's sins but their own." I can remain smug in the theoretical - far from holy, I'll admit with candour if regret, but very comfortable with the writings of the holy. Indeed, we are children of God - and children we often are, not only in some lovely concept of adoption but in our very immature ways of approaching sin and virtue. We do this, or don't do that, because we might get caught - or it might have consequences (other than the spiritual... we don't think of those consequences unless we're recovering from grave sins of our own that we've ignored and justified, which leave us - no, not bound for hell! but - so debilitated that we can barely see the great grace that is healing us afterwards.)
Most of us, in childhood (when we were far from being able to grasp, for example, that lying is injustice, or that stealing shows no respect for others' possessions - things along those lines), were given an idea of 'sin' based on 'obedience.' I'm an anarchist at heart, and obedience is not something I normally ponder - unless I'm considering adherence to the wisdom of the ages, tested for millennia, and, of course, recorded and expounded upon by great saints (or consensus at ecumenical councils and such, where considering centuries of tradition compensates for the lack of holiness of participants) who conveniently are long dead and therefore not likely to give me orders any time soon. Obedience, to rules, authority and so forth, is probably the only way a small child can become acquainted with right and wrong - they do not have an inkling of virtue, and, even though they are just as inclined to sin as the rest of us, they don't have the use of reason and will yet which would make them full fledged sinners. It's a beginning - but it can only take us so far. Not doing something because one will be kept after school or smacked may at least keep one from wrong doing (...when it doesn't make one adept at not being caught or, far worse, managing to place the blame on the innocent), but it contains no concept of virtue.
Yet there is an 'obedience' I esteem (...if from afar.) The root audire means 'to listen.' That's not a bad idea when one cherishes the relationship with God and his Mystical Body (us) - the more because the God who 'saw that it was good' said "let there be..." light, water, humanity. Whatever the Israelites borrowed from Canaan or Persia, Yahweh was distinguished from the local gods. He spoke - revealed himself, let us be in his image - letting that image be immanent representation of his own transcendent nature, long before the Incarnation made this image perfect.
Thomas stressed grasping God as the ultimate good - and our will, choosing, loving. Love cannot be based on "do as I say or you are in big trouble." (My own view of most authority, I must add - I'm a total cynic in the area, because we usually need to bow to authority, in adulthood, merely for the sake of a roof over our heads. Such an approach to God is tragic.) Thomas also saw us as constantly longing for that union with God.
In a nutshell - the truly virtuous have grown in their love of God to a point where, for example, their sense of charity and justice is so finely tuned that, even if they make mistakes as much as the rest, they will not violate those virtues. Most of us fall into an in-between area, where we may do 'right' often enough, but it isn't so instilled in our nature. As for vice - those hardened in sin to that point are going against their entire created nature. Despite any amount of grace, they are totally self absorbed, relishing their own power, enjoying the pain of those whom they control.
Now, back to yesterday's presentation. The idea of the 'virtuous, continent, (pause for giggles) incontinent, and vicious' was illustrated by... that the vicious would eat an ice cream sundae even knowing it was bad, without caring, and the virtuous would not even have the inclination. Considering the degree of learning on the part of the speaker, this has to rank with one of the dumbest examples on the planet!
I've long wanted to be the first Franciscan woman canonised as a doctor - maybe I'll qualify because I don't eat sweets. But, sadly, I'm afraid the reasons I do not have nothing to do with virtue. (Whether one eats ice cream, incidentally, has nothing whatever to do with sin or virtue.) One reason is morally neutral. There's something odd in my system where certain foods, sweets among them, greatly stimulate my appetite and cause cravings. I don't abstain because of my sanctity, but because I don't need the physical distress and obsession with hunger which would result. My other reason is not exactly sinful but certainly is a distraction to my prayer and other Christian practise much of the time. I've battled a weight problem since the age of 8, am extremely concerned about my appearance (there - I was humble enough to admit that it isn't health that prompts this - I've never been a light year within being a beauty, but I don't want to be poster girl for the 'obesity epidemic'), and refrain from all sweets just as I would from, let us say, sexually explicit books or films... I don't want to start what I can't finish (or what I indeed can finish but only with huge regret, and I assure you I could easily finish at least five ice cream sundaes once I got started.) I always have to be wary of the sin of idolatry - because I often am distracted, to a point of obsession at times, by worshipping at the altar of weight loss rather than that of the true God.
As long as I'm on this 'ice cream' thing (and I'm sure it was no coincidence that such a silly illustration, which has no relation at all to Thomas' treatment of any stage of temperance, was delivered by a very thin man who rather resembles a carved statue of some ancient, bearded ascetic with a dour expression), I'll add one little word about classic views of gluttony. (Surprise - eating is not evil!) Most treatments of gluttony, including Thomas', dealt with drunkenness. (No unkindness to alcoholics is intended here- the nature of that illness was not known until very recently.) The horror of gluttony (being dead drunk) was that it deprived one of reason and will. One could commit horrid acts (Thomas speaks of incest, rape, and murder in an example), which never would have happened had one not been drunk.
Gluttony, like any 'capital sin,' could be a serious matter if it meant negligence of responsibilities, focussing entirely on the pleasures of the table and not love for God or neighbour, cruelty to those who harvest the food because one values the table more than the labourer. But it does not consist in eating an ice cream - or in not living according to whatever 'new food pyramid' is fashionable at the moment. If those on Internet forums to discuss food (those focussed on 'health' can be the most obsessive) spent one tenth of the time they do there on prayer or good works, I think the only things wrong with this planet (except perhaps global warming... in which this past winter has increased my disbelief...) would, as usual, be the doings of the truly vicious.
So - my benediction for today. May all of us so strive for the love of which Thomas spoke, and so rejoice in the goodness by which and for which we were created, and be so thankful for all of creation that we are thankful in our use of any part of it, that the worst of vices is someone enjoying a sundae... (And I certainly hope that, unless ice cream affects you in some adverse fashion, as it does me, that you have a healthy helping of it daily throughout the Easter season. Fasts are worthwhile only when they are accompanied by feasts.)
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