Please note: this response represents part of an ongoing fraternal debate between Peter Cermak and myself on several points. I want to thank Peter for graciously editing my first draft.
Christian Magnanimity resurrects an important question posed by the early Church Fathers: “What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?” It is a timely and oft-neglected question, which Peter Cermak’s essay deftly navigates, calling us to re-examine our assumptions about the compatibility between worldly standards and the standard of the cross. While acknowledging the power of Peter’s critique of a moral life too far saturated with a comfortable version of Aristotle, I take issue with one of the essay’s major contentions: the mean as a framework for understanding virtue should be diminished or eradicated from the Catholic moral lexicon.
Since Grace builds upon nature, but does not destroy it, and if Aristotle’s moral framework is consistent with man’s nature, then it must necessarily remain consistent with that nature, even once perfected by grace through Baptism. What has changed then in the Christian era, is not the framework within which virtue is cultivated, but rather the paradigm at which virtue aims. For Aristotle, that at which virtue aims is the Kalon, which admits of a wide translation including “the beautiful.” The new paradigm introduced by Christianity, therefore, can be understood to elevate our understanding of the morally beautiful from those examples offered by the Greeks to the far more sublime examples offered by Christ and His saints.
As a result of the new paradigm, our understanding of the mean also shifts, but without destroying the very applicability of a mean. Or are we to say that the virtues embodied by the saints do not admit of counterfeits? Or, if there are counterfeits to the saintly virtues, do they not differ from the real thing by some kind of excess or deficiency?
There are counterfeits, and they do demonstrate some excess or deficiency in relation to the saintly action. The passion of the heretic resembles the zeal of the saint, but differs in the degree of proper aim. The saint aims at God’s glory, the heretic often pursues his own. A more apropos example may be the virtue of obedience to human authority. Many saints were forced to walk a hazardous path in living out proper obedience to monastic, episcopal, or kingly authority. Thomas More refused obedience to his king’s unlawful wishes, but died a loyal subject of the crown. St. John Bosco, in obedience to his bishop, ceased his ministry for a time, despite his certain knowledge of the good his ministry was accomplishing and the unjust ignorance which prompted his superior’s command. Both examples demonstrate the virtue of correct obedience, yet both decisions required a certain moral finesse, which was reached through experience and deliberation about the true aim of the action.
Counterfeits, on the other hand, may offer their obedience to human authority as an excuse to disregard Divine commands, demonstrating a certain excess of respect to the human powers. Others may claim obedience to the Higher Authority as an excuse to neglect their clear duties of submission to a human power, showing conversely, their deficiency in true obedience.
The Holy Spirit offers grace and guidance, but, nevertheless, our natures remain such that we often choose in a fog of uncertainty. Seeking to reach a stable habitual state of moral action that aims at the beautiful as a deliberate mean between excess and deficiency is not a mediocrity, nor a compromise. It is rather an all too rare endeavor that elevates the best of natural wisdom into the light of wisdom’s ultimate source. I stand with the Church Fathers who sought, like the Israelites despoiling the Egyptians, to take all the riches and plunder of Athens to embellish the temple in Jerusalem.