When circumstances make it extremely probably that someone will act in a given way, they generally do so by making him perceive and thus judge that action in a given way. If this perception is erroneous, the action is an action proceeding from ignorance, and to that extent involuntary.
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The Difference Between Truth and Error
To what extent can a person be morally responsible for an evil deed if he was practically certain to do it in the first place? I argue that in this question we need to consider the difference between good choices that fulfill the will’s fundamental inclination and freedom, and evil choices that oppose the will’s fundamental inclination and freedom.
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Is predictability incompatible with responsibility for sin?
Newman, reflecting on the pervasive presence of evil in the world, “the blind evolution of what turn out to be great powers or truths… the disappointments of life, the defeat of good, the success of evil… the prevalence and intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries, the corruptions, the dreary hopeless irreligion…” (Apologia pro vita sua,
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Newman and Chesterton on Original Sin
The instruction of the CDF, Dignitas Personae, takes up the question of what could be done with the frozen embryos that are already in existence. It rejects the use of these embryos for research or for the treatment of disease because this would be contrary to their dignity as persons. It further takes up the
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Prenatal Adoption of Frozen Embryos
In the posts Is predictability incompatible with responsibility for sin and The Difference Between Truth and Error, I argued that external causes (genetics, upbringing, circumstances, etc.) that are not the result of a person’s will, and yet make it more likely that that person will commit an objectively evil act, decrease the voluntariness of that
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Are They Few Who Sin?
Shaun Nichols and Joshua Kolbe describe in a paper, Moral Responsibility and Determinism: The Cognitive Science of Folk Intuitions (PDF), several studies aimed at delineating common intuitions regarding the (in)compatibility of moral responsibility and determinism.
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Instincts Regarding Determinism and Moral Responsibility
In the article “Religious Differences Between Married and Celibate Clergy: Does Celibacy Make a Difference?” in Sociology of Religion (1998), Don Swenson attempts to make an empirical argument against some of the reasons advanced by the Church for clerical celibacy. While the experiment itself is poorly constructed to the point of being ludicrous, the idea
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Empirical Comparison of Celibate and Married Clergy
We talk a lot about God’s love. We talk about it being endless and unconditional. And we know how important it is for us to really believe in that love and to be convinced in the depths of our soul that we cannot lose that love.
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How We Think and Talk About God’s Love
We had a beautiful Taize service in my parish the other night. The reflection was offered by my friend Lynn, the parish’s Faith Formation Supervisor. The readings she selected to accompany the music focused on prayer and included today’s Gospel reading, the passage in Luke’s Gospel where Jesus tells the parable of the persistent widow
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Persistent Listening
This week was the final session of the Fall Reflection Series I’m offering at the University of St. Thomas Law School, titled, “Jesus Speaks.” The series seeks to deepen our appreciation of fundamental Christian teachings drawn from the words of Christ.
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Fall Reflection Series – Growing in Discipleship