Obedience?
April 23, 2009, 8:11 pm
Posted by Cathleen Kaveny
Is it a virtue? If so, what kind of virtue? A religious virtue? A domestic virtue? A political virtue–in a democracy? Under what conditions?
Bernard Haring, the real saint of our times, was asked by a Benedictine Monk whether obedience was the most important virtue of religious life. Haring reply that it was definitely not. That love and kindness superseded all. The monk was shocked by this. Before John Allen decided to become a politician he noted an acute difference between Ratzinger and Haring.
http://books.google.com/books?id=eR8weSA-f9gC&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32&dq=benedictine+question+to+bernard+haring+about+obedience&source=bl&ots=swwmNnLDJs&sig=eJ7kDJyrbaqvS7vsMlseMEgxMYc&hl=en&ei=lyTxSenHMJmFlAf3sYi3DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2
Paul VI loved Haring but he could not get out of the bag of monarchy so he allowed the CDF to persecute Haring which tells much about Joseph R who continued to denounce Haring when he joined the CDF.
Even Cardinal Dulles and so many others realized that Humanae Vitae should not be seen as a loyalt test as quoted in a fine essay by Richard A. McCormick S.J. a ND ethics teacher. S.Jhttps://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=10960&comments=1
A sensible reflection here. http://www.usao.edu/~facshaferi/augustine.htm
Finally, how about Jesus being killed for being disobedient to the authorities.
Obedience is of course not always a virtue, and the Church calls us specifically to disobey unjust laws…including her own if our correctly formed conscience tells us to do so.
That said, in countless contexts obedience is a virtue. It is important not only structurally for organizations to function well: family, business, military, education, orders, etc…but it it is implied in God’s command to honor our father and mother, Jesus’ command to give to Caesar, and Paul’s claim that everyone is subject to the proper authorities. In many ways, the concept of obedience seems to be directly connected to the concept of authority. Where one rejects authority one will be likely see obedience as less than a virtue. But recognizing authority is a key part, I take it, of what it means to be Roman Catholic: to see a 2000 year tradition of the Holy Spirit working through the Church as authoritative and something to which we owe our obedience.
Of course, the particulars often get messy when we get into the hard cases (especially when due respect for individual conscience…through which the Holy Spirit works as well)…but for many that last line is a deal-breaker all by itself. It requires too much submission, not enough control, and a focus on something other than the self.
A misprint in the article on artificial nutrition: “is directive 58″ should be “in directive 58″.
Many years ago I met two young German volunteers from an organization called Action Reconciliation, which was founded after World War II, and which originally sent German volunteers to nations that Germany had been at war with. (http://www.actionreconciliation.org/). They explained that questions of obedience and authority were a prominent part of their school curriculum, and because it was so central to Germans seeking to understand how the Nazi regime could have flourished. It impressed me that there was this solid and sustained conversation about the subject that is at once social, religious, and personal. And, of course, Stanley Milgram’s infamous 1963 experiment, unethical though it may have been, shows how ubiquitous this tendency is.
Many years later I worked with a man who had been in Special Forces, and had equally long talks with him about obedience in war situations. Subsequently I read (and would recommend) Jonathan Shay’s insightful book “Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character” — in the experience of these men, the prime commitment is to other soldiers in one’s unit rather than obedience to authority figures.
I think obedience in war may be a separate issue from obedience in religious vows, where it functions both as a symbolic (but real) willingness to surrender one’s life to God, an acting-out of a desire to die to self. This can be healthy or unhealthy, depending on the spiritual and psychological maturity of the religious community.
Healthy and necessary obedience makes civil society run, but the question is how we raise children who are cooperative but who have healthy enough egos to refuse to participate in evil. People like Franz Jägerstätter are the holy exceptions, and after 7 years of paying taxes for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan I no longer assume that German silence was as simple as it appears from the safe distance of time and place.
If more people felt they were in true communion with God, we would have more peace in the world. No one in this culture likes to hear the word obedience. But self-discipline in communion with God is the free obedience the Pope refers to, I believe.
In a Christmas homily, the Pope said that God came as a poor baby so that He could have our love rather than our submission. Obedience is a religious counsel, not a virtue. It flows from the cardinal virtues of wisdom, justice, prudence and fortitude (we obey God even when it is difficult, eg) but also as Christians we obey because we live in Christ, and “The Lord became obedient even to death.”
In civic life we practice primarily the civic virtues, and obedience flows primarily from them. Fortitude keeps a soldier running forward into danger, prudently we obey our legislators, or else our delegation of them would be meaningless. A complex web of relationships influence us to obey just laws.
The problems arise when there is a direct conflict between civic obedience and religious obedience. For me that happened when I was seven years old, when Roe v. Wade passed. Other people may have other such markers; this one was real to me.
Denise is right, I think, that the ground of obedience in the Pope’s talk is communion with God. He’s not talking, in the first place, of obedience to human beings.
“Commenting on the reading from the Acts of the Apostles in which St. Peter affirms that “we must obey God rather than any human authority”, the Pope noted in his homily: “The Word of God speaks to us of an obedience that is not mere subjection, nor simply an obeying of orders, rather it arises from an intimate communion with God and consists in an interior vision capable of discerning that which ‘comes from on high’ and ‘is above everything’. It is the fruit of the Holy Spirit which God grants without measure”.
Bill-
“Bernard Haring, the real saint of our times”
“John Allen decided to become a politician”
Tell us what you really think of Haring and Allen? You shouldn’t be so hesitant to speak your mind.
Anthony,
The facts speak for themselves. Further, we might want to ponder that Bernard Haring said that dealing with Ratzinger was more scary than dealing with the Nazis. Unpleasant as this may seem to some ears it must be emphasized that ignorance is not bliss.
At any rate, I presume your words are not ad hominem.
As far as the discussion on obedience it seems to me naive to clean it up with the communion with God envelope. John Paul II was incessant (and awful) in his rant to Jesuits about their fourth vow. This was not his best moment, in my opinion. So when the the pope talks about obedience antennas are instinctively raised and rightly so.
The kind of “obedience” the Pope is talking about would, it seems to me, be enlightened self-interest (for want of a better description, which eludes me at the moment). However, he says, “[I]t arises from an intimate communion with God and consists in an interior vision capable of discerning that which ‘comes from on high’ and ‘is above everything’. It is the fruit of the Holy Spirit which God grants without measure.” I would like to think that if I had this inner vision, I would follow it as best I could, but I haven’t been showered by the Holy Spirit with much of anything that I am aware of. So these are pretty much empty words to me.
Why isn’t it the same thing as conscience? Why isn’t what he’s calling for essentially the equivalent of obeying one’s conscience?
In their book, Covenant of Love, Bp. John Levoir and Fr. Richard Hogan define obedience as a relationship between persons of equal dignity. St Ambrose noted a similar thing when he was meditating upon Christ’s words, “You are my friends if you keep my commands.” He was confused because friends don’t command friends. He eventually came to the conclusion that Christ was presenting a new kind of obedience in which obedience is the logical response to being loved. In other words, if I love you, I want to do the things that are important to you–often without being asked, and certainly without being asked twice.
There is a difference between blind obedience in which you obey because I can make you, and Christian obedience, in which we willingly offer submission as a logical response to being loved and cared for.
The Children’s bible school song defines obedience well with the line, “Oh, how I love Jesus, because he first loved me.” Christ “commands” our obedience, primarily by wooing us and inviting our willing submission to his authority. And that is the normative way from Christians to “command” obedience from each other (although there are times when “tough love” is appropriate–but that’s a whole other discussion.)
Greg
My first response to your questions, Prof. Kaveny, was: All of the above. But, upon reflection and in agreement with much of what Bill has posted, I would have to say that there are virtues or principles that would seem to fit the category of First Principles (as in the philosophy). Obedience seems to sit better at the second level – applicable to a way of applying and achieving the First Principles – mercy, love, forgiveness, justice, conscience, freedom. Would support Greg’s insights – obedience correctly understood flows from a free choice to love; a choice that is informed, mature, and, as you said, Prof. Kaveny, flows from conscience.
Both Haring’s works and Milgram’s experiments shine a light on the struggles with defining obedience and the role of the individual conscience. It seems that this dilemma becomes messy and gray when folks put obedience above or as a First Principle. The Nuremburg Trials spotlighted the moral debate that can simply be summed up: “I followed orders”; but, do you not have a higher responsibility.
Would equate some of the church obedience debates to this same dilemma. Obedience flows from the other vows – poverty, chastity, stability – “we are obedient to those freely chosed charisms or virtues” which does not mean that we turn over our continued need to reflect, re-commit, and re-examine each virture at different stages of life, ministry appointments, etc. Would concur that when folks in position of power use “obedience” to demand or coerce submission, they have sabotagued the true meaning of obedience. It also gets one into the distinction between Authority and Authoritarianism. (in some ways, JPII’s actions against the Jesuits was authoritarian; not the proper use of authority. Would also suggest that many of the recent pronouncements by bishops and Rome muddy the waters between a proper way of calling for obedience and imposing power/control.)
So, question – does obedience have more to do with the person who gives it or the authority to which obedience is given? Is obedience about laws or about relationships? Does that question not shift the way we discuss and define obedience?
Bill M: “we might want to ponder that Bernard Haring said that dealing with Ratzinger was more scary than dealing with the Nazis”
I’ve pondered it, and decided it sounds more like something Bill Mazzella might say than Bernard Haring.
Obedience. . .
1. it involves at least two moral agents. .. the one claiming obedience and the one offering it or bound by it. What has to be the relationship between the two? As Kathy suggests, one relationship is a vow. But then a) is the vow of obedience appropriate between these two people? and b) obedience seems to be required in context where I haven’t made a vow –I obey the law, for example.
2. Obedience is used in different senses. Its proper sense is one person obeying another person. If I obey my conscience, the use is analogous, it seems to me. . . one part of me (my desires) are pulled into line before another part of me (my practical reason.)
3. Obedience. . . it’s one thing to obey if I agree with the judgment. . . it’s entirely different when I obey despite my disagreement. Obedience v. conscience.
4. Kathy’s point about Roe. . . what’s interesting here is the notion of obeying or disobeying a permissive law. How do you disobey a permissive law?
David and Cathleen,
I don’t think “following one’s conscience” or “enlightened self-interest” quite gets it. While both are fine in its place, these concepts can set up the individual as the focus instead of the relationship.
I am working with a couple where the man is having an allegedly non-sexual, but still inappropriate, relationship with an employee. The wife has insisted that he discontinue the relationship but the husband objects, saying that his conscience is clear and that unless he can be convinced that he is wrong then he has no obligation to change. His obligation is, he says, to his conscience, not to the relationship.
I think that’s the difference. There are times when “enlightened self-interest” isn’t so enlightened as we think, and one’s conscience is poorly formed despite our best efforts to convince ourselves otherwise. As opposed to the enlightened self-interest approach, Christian obedience respects both conscience and relationship. In Christian obedience, I begin by respecting my conscience, but I may submit to the other, not because my intellect is swayed but because the power of the other’s authentic love for me convinces me to submit even in the absence of complete understanding on my part.
The object of Christian obedience is not rules, the self, or power-politics, but rather the facilitation of a mutually submissive, mutually self-donative love relationship.
Greg
????
Where does obedience come in your story? Is he obeying his wife, exactly? I reread your earlier post, and here’s my problem. That definition of obedience empties it, imo, of the hard content –of the submission of one person’s judgment about what should be done in a particular case to another person’s judgment. That judgment can be a mixture of practical evaluations and moral evaluations of a concrete example.
In your case, the wife wants him to stop hanging around someone–he’s saying his conscience is clear about the particular other relationship. But it seems to me that what you’re saying, is the wife is upset about the relationship, she’s within the realm of reason to be upset, and he should acquiesce to her wishes. In fact, you’re not even sure you believe him (allegedly non-sexual).
But that’s not obedience. It’s a mixture of saying a) your “conscience” needs to take into account your relationship with your wife; and b) in many situations, you ought to prioritize what your wife wants of you.
Suppose she said, in his view (and in yours) unreasonably, you need to quit your job because you now have a woman boss and I don’t want you to work with any women. (I think that’s the plot of a movie opening this weekend. . . )
I think we have to grasp the nettle. I don’t think putting “obey” in both sets of marriage vows works, to soften the concept. Just leave it as love, honor, and cherish.
No, Bill, it wasn’t meant as an ad hominem against you. Was your comment against Allen meant as an ad hominem against him. I think so. To dismiss someone as a “politician” seems fairly mean-spirited to me. But maybe I put more stock in your comments than you do.
And Mr Smith seems to make a good point also. Can you offer a direct citation of Haring on this? And if even i he did say this, to compare ANYONE to the Nazi’s seems extremely mean-spirited to me. As far as I can see, Pope Benedict XVI does not support genocide. And if Haring did say this, is it in the spirit of Christian charity to repeat this comment? Maybe you need to preform an examination of conscience (like we all ought to do daily)?
Cathleen,
Perhaps you can explain to me why you think Christian obedience–as I defined it above– isn’t a factor in my story. I would rather begin by understanding your confusion rather that waste a lot of time talking past each other.
G
I view obedience as a willingness to listen, an effort to understand, and a desire to agree. If I love someone and respect him, when his opinion as to what I should do differs from mine, I am distressed. I want to be in communion: how can it be that we have this disagreement? I am anxious to understand his perspective, and eager to change my opinion if only I could see his point. I hope to thus resolve the disagreement.
If the disagreement stays (as happens to me for some questions of church doctrine), I revisit the question regularly.
I think I went back and added to the post to explain why.
Kicking it old school:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11181c.htm
I guess that the distinguishing feature of obedience is that I do not try to change the other person’s mind: I want to believe that he is right, and am only asking for him to convince me. If he succeeds, I am thrilled to finally be in agreement, give up my previous ideas and obey with great joy.
At least, that’s my ideal.
If he convinces you, you’re not obeying–you’re collaborating. .
I can only think of one setting where I obey without being convinced: when I am mountaineering and my mountain guide tells me to do something. In such a context, where mistakes can be a matter of life and death, if there is urgency I just follow his directions even when I don’t understand them, and postpone questions to a later time.
I can’t imagine in what other circumstances I would behave like that!
Great question! First, I think Cathleen is right that obedience to God is nothing other than listening to one’s conscience.
I suspect obedience isn’t properly a virtue at all, any more than poverty is. Two possible alternative meanings: one is to think of it as an ascesis of the will. Like poverty, the purpose is to free us from a potential focus on something other than God. Instead, I prefer an Ignatian understanding, in which all the evangelical counsels are understood in light of a fundamental stance of apostolic availability. Poverty frees from literal and figurative attachment to stuff that has a claim on us, and so enhances availability for mission. Obedience frees us to be able to respond to the needs of the people around us, as discerned by whoever might have the best view of those needs. (Hence the Jesuit 4th vow of obedience to the pope “with respect to missions,” because the pope–at least in the 16th century–had the best view of the needs of the Church. Or so Ignatius thought.) Take these out of the context of Jesuit life only, and you have a spirituality of ready response to the needs of others, discerned in prayer, observation, conversation and community. Obedience as Jesus practiced it when he’d ask people “what do you want?” and then tried to meet their needs for healing, teaching, forgiveness, as they expressed them and as he discerned them.
But I think obedience is only good insofar as it is conducive to the virtues it serves, and cannot be an end in itself for humans. Cocker spaniels, yes, but not humans.
Cathleen,
I replied, but the site timed me out. Let’s try this again.
In my story, the husband was being asked to comply with her wishes above his own wishes or reason. That’s not collaboration. That’s an invitation to obedience.
I don’t wish to presume but it seems that what’s gumming up your ability to understand my point is your objection to the use of the words “obey” and “marriage” in the same sentence. You said to just leave it with “love, honor, and cherish.” I’m fine with that if we’re talking vows, but as a concept, Christian obedience is simply complimentary to loving, honoring, and cherishing. Christian obedience is what happens when two people love, honor, and cherish each other.
Collaboration implies agreement. But what if I don’t agree, but out of respect for you and the fact that you love me I acquiesce. I’m not doing it resentfullly, as in “Fine. Have it YOUR way.” I’m doing it, even though I don’t completely understand where you’re coming from, out of a genuine respect for you rooted in my personal experience of your commitment to work for my good (i.e., love) me.
I hope that makes a little more sense.
G
“We must obey God rather than any human authority.”
This is the quote from St Peter (in Acts) that is the basis for the Pope’s remarks. I am not sure how this discussion morphed into a discussion of obeying human authorities, but I think it is worth going back to the Pope’s point in the article cited.
Obedience “arises from an intimate communion with God and consists in an interior vision capable of discerning that which ‘comes from on high’ and ‘is above everything’. It is the fruit of the Holy Spirit which God grants without measure”. “Christian families, with their domestic, simple and joyful lives, in which day by day they share their joys, hopes and concerns, and live in the light of faith, are schools of obedience and environments of true freedom.”
I suspect the Pope is reaching toward something like: ‘Obedience to God is listening to one’s conscience only when the conscience is properly formed.’ He is addressing that here by talking about how the conscience is formed by the daily life of sharing joys, hopes, and concerns in the family. Family life of intimate communion gives birth to obedience, which is not subjection but freedom. Thus, obedience is a virtue, a gift, a fruit of the Holy Spirit.
This is reflected obeying the mountain guide, whom you obey because you trust her. Being able to trust was learned in the family, or other place of intimate communion with another. It is qualitatively different from following her orders just because he says so. Similarly for most human authorities — we obey when we trust; otherwise we are simply following orders. That obedience is virtuous; simply following orders may or may not be.
The problem is that this isn’t “obedience” as has been traditionally been understood in the Christian tradition. As the article from the Catholic Encyclopedia demonstrates obedience was not generally understood as “what happens when two people love honor and cherish each other.” It has required more–a) a notion of hierarchy, b) a notion of role-related responsibilities, which in turn were presumed to be related to inherent capabilities and c) a notion of command and response.
The idea that you “obey” each other, in traditional understandings of the term, makes no sense.
I think using the term “obedience” in your case is so far from the common meaning of it that I don’t think it helps to talk of it as obedience. He’s not obeying her, he’s acquiescence to her, he’s deferring to he’s taking account of her beliefs and wishes. Suppose he said to her, “Listen, I’m telling you there’s nothing going on here. You’re just causing trouble–you just don’t like the fact that my work partner is a woman. But you’re being misguided and divisive, and threatening the stability of my work situation in a case where it isn’t easy to get another job. I really need you to cut it out.” What happens here?
Moreover, the definition of obedience you propose for two people in love clearly doesn’t work in other contexts where the term “obedience” is used. The law and I aren’t in love –the law commands, I obey (or not). I might engage in “civil disobedience”.
“First, I think Cathleen is right that obedience to God is nothing other than listening to one’s conscience.”
To understand any truth, one must always begin at the beginning. First, in order to be obedient to God, one’s conscience must be in communion with God.
“If you Love me, you will keep my Commandments.”- The Word of God
“And this is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you…)
But we’re pretty weak and fragile.
I think this is the real Rorscahch or whatever projective test yoiu wish, Cathy.
Everybody will agree at this point in time on extremes ; obedience to unjust commands and laws shouldn’t be followed(even the military accepts that -an extreme case itself in discussing obedience) to not jusr doing what one feels like. It strikes me that obedience is is fluid and dynamic with the maturity of the obeyer and the desire to serve of the one commanding being major variables.
The classic notion of obedience in the Church began to collapse for many in the struggles of V2 between the Holy Office folk and the forces of change.
That struggle perdures til today – enhanced by the reaction to Humanae Vitae, the increasing use of magisterium (previously understood in more nunace dand complex ways but now often joined as a single unit of basolute truth) and the struggles within between theology and authority, pastoral care and rules of law.
I think Joe J. was right in an earlier post that most Catholics are now distanced “centrists”; I would infer much of the debate here would be irrelevant to them because of credibility issues around the hierarchy on numerous unresolved (to them) issues.
In government, my experience is that obedience can be deadly what matters is professionalism in the best public service sense.
Like the guy in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying singing about “playing it the company way,” organizational by the book is lethal to organizational growth.
What’s worse -and I’v e seen it experientially, the misuse of power in public service or in the name of law requires disobedience – a point Bill D. nicely noted in his discussion.
Part of the problem in discusing this issue within the frame of Catholicism is how much recent scandals are tied to issues of power and control.
And where does the line of power get crossed?
The reaction of the Religious superiors meeting in Rome this week with Bishop Levada makes an interesting case , especially if one looks at their statement in the aftermath.
“There is a difference between blind obedience in which you obey because I can make you, and Christian obedience, in which we willingly offer submission as a logical response to being loved and cared for.”
What are we to make of this story, proclaimed in our churches within the past two months, that begins:
“God said: ‘Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There you shall offer him up as a holocaust on a height that I will point out to you …’” (Gen 22:2)
What are we to make of this passage, taught solemnly in an ecumenical council:
“In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. ” (Lumen Gentium 25)
What do we make of this passage of the CCC:
“1269 Having become a member of the Church, the person baptized belongs no longer to himself, but to him who died and rose for us.[cf 1 Cor 6:19; 2 Cor 5:15] From now on, he is called to be subject to others, to serve them in the communion of the Church, and to ‘obey and submit’ to the Church’s leaders, [Heb 13:17] holding them in respect and affection. [Eph 5:21, 1 Cor 16:15-16, 1 Thess 5:12-13, Jn 13:12-15]”
I don’t think that any of these passages call for blind obedience out of fear of punishment or reprisal. However, istm that there is an inescapable element of submission, without which obedience is meaningless. If obedience is freely chosen out of love, which seems to be a popular notion in this discussion, then it should be at least equally emphasized – probably more emphasized, given our society – that freely chosen submission is a necessary prerequisite to obedience. It is through submission, gratefully and freely chosen, but in the end still submission – that God’s love is experienced.
I think the concept is interesting.
I say, I want to cook a turkey. I don’t know how to cook a turkey. I call my mother up and say, “How do I cook a turkey?” She gives me directions. I follow them. Is that obedience?
I am driving in a car with three other people. . . We want to go to the beach. . . I say, I think we turn left, they say, no you need to turn right. I think about it, about the fact that I’m directionally challenged, and they’re not. .. . and I decide on balance that they’re more likely to be correct than I am. I do what they say. Is that obedience?
I write a column. Paul or Grant says, “That paragraph doesn’t make any sense. You should rewrite it.” I rewrite it, because I trust their judgment about what will make sense to other people–not just inside my head Is that obedience?
None of these strike me as problematic–or as obedience in any interesting sense.
Anthony,
Your argument is with Haring not with me. http://books.google.com/books?id=5CcXgmzHmcAC&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47&dq=haring+on+ratzinger+and+the+nazis&source=bl&ots=m8k5YZJHGq&sig=wFAMyxa3GPT1CIEJjoLM-0Q1OoE&hl=en&ei=kffxSYXqJIm0NKOooa4P&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7
Hi, Cathleen, I would say in the turkey example, that is not obedience. If you were still 12 years old, helping your mother prepare Thanksgiving dinner, and she told you to preheat the oven to 325 and you did it, that would be obedience.
The driving to the beach example sounds more like negotiation than obedience to me. You’re all peers.
The column example sounds more like obedience to me, albeit of a conditional sort (they have authority over you as your editors, but your acceptance/acknowledgement of it may depend on your respect for their judgment). If for some reason you didn’t trust their judgement, but acknowledged their authority and so you rewrite it anyway, that would be an even more striking example of obedience.
I say, I want to learn how to Love my neighbor according to the Will of God. I trust the judgement of the Magisterium of the Church because I believe the Magisterium of the Church speaks for The Word of God Who Has not left us “orphans” regarding Faith and Morality.
Jim: you actually suggest obeying people whose judgment you don’t trust, simply because they have authority over you?? Ugh!
(And I have to admit that your quotes from Lumen Gentium and of CCC are a challenge for me to interpret in a way that I can relate to.)
Gregory Popcak:
Three questions:
1) Is it right for therapists to refer — as you do in your comment — in such specific terms to the cases of people they’re working with? I wonder how this couple would feel if they were to come upon this blog and see their situation mentioned here. Might they feel hurt, or even betrayed?
2) Is is right for a therapist to take sides, as you do? You’ve already decided who the “good guys” and “bad guys” are on this one; you declare, right up front, that his relationship is “inappropriate.” But isn’t that exactly what’s at issue here — trying to determine whether the relationship is, or is it not, appropriate?
3) You don’t seem open to the possibility that others – in this case, Cathleen Kaveny –might be right, and you might be wrong; so, when she disagrees with you, you say it’s because she’s suffering from “confusion,” and because her ability to understand is “gummed up.” That sounds patronizing. It seems to me she’s saying, “It’s not that I’m confused; I understand your point perfectly well – but it doesn’t persuade me.”
“Jim: you actually suggest obeying people whose judgment you don’t trust, simply because they have authority over you?? Ugh!”
C’mon, Claire, weren’t you ever a teenager? :-)
I agree it’s difficult if you don’t respect or trust the person. I’d definitely struggle if, for example, I was assigned to a pastor I didn’t respect.
FWIW, I’ve had a couple of encounters with police officers over the years whose judgment I didn’t respect. I did what they told me to do, although in those cases, it wasn’t out of love or freedom.
I could imagine disobeying someone in authority who I do have a lot of trust and respect for, if an important principle were at stake. E.g. earlier this week I attended mandated-reporter training. The trainer is a former teacher who knew of a situation where a teacher wanted to report an incident, but was urged by her principal to hold off because, ‘what if you’re wrong, think of the lives that will be ruined.’ (FWIW, her message to us is, ‘The child’s well-being comes first. Your responsibility to report doesn’t depend on the agreement of your boss’).
Not sure where I’m going with this, just musing on the relationship between obedience and respect.
“There are two types of obedience: obedience in relation to power and obedience in relation to love. When understood in the first way, obedience means submission or surrender, the sacrifice of one’s own intellect and will.
According to the second understanding, obedience does not mean submission, but response. Disobedience is not the putting forward of opinions different from those commanded by authority. To do so might well be a duty, not a sin.”
Charles Davis on why it was not enough to ignore the church, NCR, February 7, 1992.
Or, to put it another way: Freedom is not absolute. Conscience is.
One of the 2 “The Great” (contrary to popular hagiography, JPII isn’t included) popes put it this way:
“Better for scandal to be caused than for the truth to be abandoned.” Gregory the Great.
To quote the CCC as authority in Catholics’ lives is like quoting the Bush-era lawyers’ memos as authority for torture.
These documents are written by those in power to justify an exercise of power that is a forgone conclusion.
Sacred scripture they ain’t.
A contribution from Aquinas:
“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” and “The law is not given for the just person.” Some people have mistakenly taken these words to mean that spiritual men are not obligated by the precepts of the divine law. But this is false, for God God’s precepts are the rule for the human will. Now there is no human being, nor even any angel, whose will does not have to be regulated and directed by the divine law. It is impossible, then, for any human being not to be subject to God’s precepts.
The statement, “The law is not given for a just person,” should be interpreted thus: The law is not given for the sake of righteous people, who are moved by an inner habit to do the things God’s law commands, but for the sake of the unrighteous, even though the righteous also are bound by it..
Similarly, the statement, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom,” should be understood thus: A free person is one who exists for his own sake [Liber est causa sui–Aristotle] while a slave is someone who exists for the sake of his lord. Whoever acts from himself, therefore, is free, while whoever acts because moved by another is not acting freely. A person, therefore, who avoids evil not because it is evil but because of a command of the Lord, is not free, while a person who avoids evil because it is evil is free. This is what the Holy Spirit does: he perfects the mind inwardly by a good habit so that one avoids evil out of love, as if a divine law were commanding this. He is therefore said to be free, not in the sense that he is not subject to the divine law, but because by a good habit he is inclined to do that which the divine law ordains.
A lot of words still that get bound up together. respect, trust, obedience… :
respect, something we may give a person because of his status or because of behavior or both. Many titles carry respect which means they require our listening, but respect that’s earned behavior creates appreciation,
and appreciation creates a sense of trust.
Trust means reliability and credibility -it’s just not built out of titles.
I tried to makj the point that what’s happened in the Church is that credibility over the past 40 plus years has continued to be eroded for many.
Hence Jimmy Mac’s coment analogyzing CCC on obedience to the Bush torture memos.
Beyond that, the idea of ‘maximal nmagisterialism” which we batted around a little when Bishop Robinson visited underscores the problem of how credible Bishops seem unless one takes only the posture that they are grace filled all the time.
At bottom, I still think, the issue of obedience is rooted in the maturity of the one asked to obey and the desire for service in the one requesting.
Picking up on Fr. K’s and Bob’s comments. Would like to insert a couple of other ideas or concepts into Prof. Kaveny’s definitions of obedience:
a) most religious communities take the vow of obedience and during their lifetimes are assigned various jobs, task, etc. under the vow of obedience. Yet, most mature communities define “obedience” in terms of a relationship that involves both personal/individual and community/common good discernment;
b) would also like to put obedience into the concept of FAITH specifically an understanding of the stages of faith; maturation and growth that is reflected in how a person acutalizes obedience.
James Fowler speaks of faith as a way of making meaning and that there are identifiable stages of faith which develop over the person’s life cycle. Fowler speaks of faith as a “verb” and contrasts his understanding of faith with those who would consider faith to be a “noun”. When faith is understood as a noun, it is like having a bank deposit rather than being involved in a life long process (doing). In the same way, I would suggest that obedience is a “verb” and not a noun. When obedience is understood as a noun, it is not involved in discovery, choices, maturation, use of conscience to decide if one obeys a wise & appropriate law/tradition/rule or disobeys because it is not in the common good.
Gabriel Moran suggests that the pretzel shape is a better visualisation of the faith development stages. Each stage is complete and provides a meaningful faith response to life. Walsh does point out that each stage has an in built tension which allows the person’s growth to the next stage (1 Cor 13: 11). Persons at lower stages are unable to grasp the reality of the person who is at a higher stage and this can lead to mistrust and suspicion of those who have moved out of the socialisation parade of stages 1-3 and have begun to develop a personal faith.
Marathon runner (level 6): Universal Faith/Obedience … Resolution of models: This person has many models of making meaning in life and there is a resolution of the tension between the various models which work in a perfect harmony.
Jogging (level 5): Community Faith/Obedience … Many models: This person is able to deal with paradox in life and is able to deal with reality which is not always “either…or” style but frequently involves “both…and.” There is openness to the views and the sensitivities of others. All persons who undertake ministry in the Church must have reached this stage of faith & obedience development.
Hopping (level 4): Personal Faith/Obedience … One Model: This person has undergone some conversion experience which had resulted in an analysis of faith & obedience and realised that there are many ways in which various people can appropriate and personalise their faith/obedience.
Parade Socialisation (level 3): Searching Faith/Obedience… Carried by the community: This person follows significant others in the parade in a rather unquestioning and non-judgmental manner. This person is happy in his or her parade and will derive his or her identity from the group.
Indoctrination (level 2): Affiliative Obedience … Carried by the community: This person is formed in-doctrine of the story of the particular Obedience tradition. Obedience is doing and believing what is taught / presented.
Vibrations (level 1): Experienced Obedience … Carried by the community: This person shares the obedience experience of her/his parents. God is like a super parent. Basically, this stage should convince the child that life is worth living.
A person will not move to the next stage until she or he is faced with a disequilibrium which challenges their present stage of obedience and its inability to make meaning of the new experience. Parents will remember that Sunday morning when they called their teenage son or daughter to get out of bed and get ready for Mass. Then the response comes from beneath the blankets, “I’m not goin’”. Frequently, parents go into a guilt attack asking, “What have we done wrong?” The truth is as Tertullian (c.160-220) observed that “Christians are made not born”.
Tertullian’s insight is perhaps the reason for many cultural Christians failing to successfully negotiate the shift from community obedience (stages 1-3) to personal obedience (stages 4-5 and hopefully 6). Some of these cultural Christians will return later in life when they have owned their obedience but many will never return.
There needs to be a gradual process of faith/obedience development. Obedience is as Fowler shows a “verb”, it is growing and develops through identifiable stages. A healthy community will constantly be challenging its members to personalise obedience and to take responsibility for their decisions.
“Tertullian’s insight is perhaps the reason for many cultural Christians failing to successfully negotiate the shift from community obedience (stages 1-3) to personal obedience (stages 4-5 and hopefully 6). Some of these cultural Christians will return later in life when they have owned their obedience but many will never return. ”
Very interesting framework and comments, Bill.
… but forgot to ask, on Sunday morning when you call your teenage son or daughter to get out of bed and get ready for mass, and they respond from beneath the blankets, “I’m not going’”, does Moran have a magical, non-conflict-fanning response? Fowler? Walsh? Tertullian? Anyone? :-)
Jim…
My response to the younger teenager: “Once you’re confirmed, it’ll be up to you to choose what you want to do. Until then, I am responsible for your religious upbringing, and therefore you’re going to church.” (Result:a sulking teenager dozing in the pew, counting the months until confirmation sets him free!)
And to the older teenager: “It’s your choice, but know that it would make me happy if you went.” (Result: was effective for a while, until that kid dared try staying home and realized that she really was free to do it. She has seldom gone back to church since then.)
But that’s off-track. I wish I could contribute more to the discussion. I’m interested but don’t have a clear definition of obedience and I see a lot of contradictory information in the comments!
This is what Pope Benedict stated in his homily in Mexico:
“Our contemporaries…need to discover this obedience, which is not theoretical but essential. It means opting for specific forms of behavior which are based on obedience to God’s will and which make us fully free. Christian families, with their domestic, simple and joyful lives, in which day by day they share their joys, hopes and concerns, and live in the light of faith, are schools of obedience and environments of true freedom. They know this well who over many years have enjoyed marriage in accordance with God’s plan, … experiencing the goodness of the Lord Who helps and encourages us”.
First I would like to state that there are some people who need to be wary of the Catholic Church’s authoritative pronouncements. This has been my history with the Catholic Church because I am gay.
In the Benedictine tradition obedience means listening. In this tradition, the Rule mandates that everybody is listened to by those in authority. The Second Vatican Council told us that in order for the Gospel of Jesus Christ to be proclaimed, we need to listen to the world and to listen to each other. Freedom and discussion are needed for this to happen. The current pope doesn’t seem to believe that he needs to listen to others.
I appreciate the way Bill DeHass has explained how the stages of faith reflect how a person actualizes obedience. Faith in God is faith in life which means a life of faith is a life of great change. If somebody believes at 65 what they believed at 15, they have not lived—or have denied the realities of their life.
For some time I’ve been thinking about St. Paul’s moral exhortations. For a man who says there is no Law, he sets forth a lot of rules!
He compares the Law to a tutor, who can boss a boy around, but only until the boy becomes a man.
Perhaps his exhortations can be heard on two different levels, much like the teachings of Jesus that were proclaimed publicly in parables, but plainly to his disciples. Perhaps for those who are still in need of “mother’s milk,” as Paul calls elementary teaching, the exhortations are just that: reminders of a Christian’s duties. But to those who are “spiritually mature,” they are like deep calling on deep in the roar of waters. They are a consoling word that confirms the priorities of the Gospel for those who “have the mind of Christ.”
In the Christian tradition love trumps any rule. Situation ethics opposes any absolutist ethic that might say, for example, “It is always wrong to lie no matter what the situation.” Obviously the situationist would say that someone should not lie habitually; however, in some situations, lying is the most loving thing to do. For example lying to Nazis to save Jews.
Dominican Fr. Herbert McCabe, OP tells us language is very important as we approach ethics. He notes with regard to the language of moral absolutes that “it is quite important to notice that being absolutely wrong is not the same as being very wrong. A man might hold that
lying is absolutely wrong while at the same time regarding it as often a rather trivial offense. All that ‘absolutely’ says is that whatever makes it wrong is independent of circumstances.” Whether these kinds of absolutes exist was and is the debate.
For McCabe love is a basic moral concept. Love is related to context. What counts as a loving act and how we recognize it depends on our own biography. It takes a life time to understand the word “love”. It is not like understanding the word “tree”. Once you understand the word tree you understand it for life.
There must be something that love can never mean if the word is ever to mean something. There must be some human behavior that can never be “loving” if the language of love is to be meaningful.
Cathy,
I think it is very interesting that a man who spent his childhood in Nazi Germany would describe the family as the place where one learns about obedience to God and how it preempts obedience to any human authority.
In that light, perhaps there is more to your examples of cooking turkey, going to the beach or listening to an editor. While banal in themselves, they may contribute to an understanding of how choices are made. The habit of building a family through festive meals and vacation trips enables you to work with an editor in sharing ideas?
I do not know. I do not cook turkeys, got to beaches or listen to editors, so I hesitate to comment. I am just intrigued by the personal experience of the Pope in his family as he faced the demands of the Nazis. (Or of the Jesuit master general, who was named “Adolfo” in Spain during the 1930s and then lived in postwar Japan for 40 years.)
We must obey the commands of God rather than any human authority. What does that mean to these men?
Three points about obedience:
1) When those who claim authority over you talk of obedience they mean “submission”.
2) To characterize Jesus love relationship with the Father as obedience is a travesty.
3) When at ordination I promised obedience to Cardinal Dearden AND to his successors I deeply admired and trusted Dearden but since I could know nothing of his successors, obedience could only mean submission (even if I didn’t realize it at the time.)
Again in Allen’s book, this page higlights pretty well the tension between dogma and ethics. I don’t agree with Allen’s comparsion between ethics and systematic theology. A more suitable contrast is desirable.
http://books.google.com/books?id=eR8weSA-f9gC&pg=PA32&lpg=PA32&dq=benedictine+question+to+bernard+haring+about+obedience&source=bl&ots=swwmNnLDJs&sig=eJ7kDJyrbaqvS7vsMlseMEgxMYc&hl=en&ei=lyTxSenHMJmFlAf3sYi3DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#PPA33,M1
To all of you: be sure to check out the link that Bill Mazzella included in the preceding post. It’s very good.
Deacon Carroll: What do you make of: “Not my will, but thine be done” (Mk 14:36). “He became obedient unto death, even to death on a cross” (Ph 2:8) “As by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so also by the obedience of one, many shall be made just ” (Rm 5:19). “Son though he was, he learned obedience by the things which he suffered” (Hb 5:8). Travesties?
Father Komonchak:
My main point was that when church authorities call for obedience they mean submission; unquestioning, even servile submission and that Jesus’ relationship with his Abba surely cannot be described that way. Jesus words “not my will…” must rather be understood as an expression of surpassing trust. As for the Pauline and other obedience quotes you give; for lack of space and time let me simply characterize them as conditioned by a culture that saw slavery as willed by God.
Deacon Carroll: It’s possible that it wasn’t cultural conditioning that underlay the Pauline texts, but a different notion of obedience than the one you entertain which sees it only in its worst possible light. Obedience does indeed rest upon trust, and not only in the case of Jesus in relation to his Father. I also don’t agree with your flat statement about “Church authorities”.
Father Komonchak:
Thank you for your response. You accurately sense that I have a very low opinion of how authority is presently exercised in the Church. Oremus pro invicem.