Mass Extinctions Revisited, Moving Octopuses

We've known about the Capitanian crisis for some time: some scientists have, anyway. What's new is the idea that it may have been a major mass extinction in its own right: a sort of prequel to the Great Dying.

Other scientists solved part of the puzzle of how octopuses coordinate their arms when moving. Their research may help folks design soft robots: useful in medicine and rescue work.

1. A "New" Mass Extinction
   • When the World was Young(er)
   • Igneous Provinces: Lava and Mass Extinctions
   • Life on Earth: Ups and Downs
2. Octopus Arms and Intelligence
   • Mollusk Brains

Reading up on mass extinctions while thinking about doomsday predictions, religious and secular, I wrote stuff that doesn't quite fit in this post. Instead of deleting it, or taking time to work it up to a full-fledged post, I tacked it on as an 'afterword.' I did the same thing last week. Anyway, this week there's —

• Another Afterword: Angst, Assumptions, and Aliens

---

Plato and Reality

Grabbing a bit of reality and running in a particular direction, I could assume that spirit and matter aren't the same (true); and that they're at war (not so much).

The notion that 'spiritual' is good and 'material' is bad goes back at least to Plato's theory of forms: the assertion that the highest reality is the realm of ideas, not the changing material world. Plato's cave is probably the best-known illustration of Platonic idealism.

Gnosticism may or may not have its roots in the Platonic Academy, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, or 'all of the above.'

I have no trouble believing that there's more to reality than what we can see, touch, or measure. That's just as well, since that's what the Church says. Humans are creatures made of spirit and matter. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 360-367)

I also don't have a problem with thinking that the physical world, this universe, isn't the highest reality. We've known that it's a tent, something temporary, for millennia. (April 17, 2015)

"He sits enthroned above the vault of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; He stretches out the heavens like a veil, spreads them out like a tent to dwell in."
(Isaiah 40:22)

However, that emphatically does not make the material world bad. I must believe that God makes this universe, that God is good: and that God doesn't make junk. (Genesis 1:31; Catechism, 295-301, 337-349, 1955)

As for the idea that 'spiritual is good, physical is bad:' Satan, a fallen angel, is pure spirit; and hardly a poster child for 'goodness.' That brings up free will, and that's another topic. (Catechism, 311, 328-336, 391-395)

Where was I? Plato, reality, Satan, getting a grip. Right.

A few more points that I've been over before, and I'm almost done.

Humans are animals: but we're not just animals. (Catechism, 1951, 1700-1706, 1730)

We don't own the world, but we've got "dominion" over it: pretty much the same way a shop foreman or steward has a degree of authority over the shop or estate. One of our jobs is managing this world's resources: for our reasoned use, and for all future generations. (Genesis 1:26-27; Catechism, 337-349, 355, 373, 2415-2418, 2456)

Knowledge is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Science, the systematic pursuit of knowledge, is part of being human. It's what we're supposed to do. (Catechism, 1831, 2293-2295)

Thinking is not a sin, and that's almost another topic. (April 3, 2015; March 29, 2015)

---

1. A "New" Mass Extinction

(From Science Photo Library, via BBC News, used w/o permission/)
("Brachiopods like these dominated the seas prior to the Capitanian extinction"
(BBC News))

"New mass extinction event identified by geologists"
Alex Berezow, BBC News (April 21, 2015)
"Over the past 450 million years, life on Earth has been devastated by five mass extinction events that are widely recognised by geologists.

"Now, an international team of researchers proposes adding a sixth mass extinction to the list.

"The team believes it has accumulated sufficient evidence to promote the Capitanian event to the rank of mass extinction.

"The extinction occurred approximately 262 million years ago.

"Their proposal would elevate the Capitanian, which occurred during the Middle Permian period, to sit alongside the so-called 'Big Five' mass extinctions.

"The researchers, led by Dr David Bond of the University of Hull, presented their case in the Geological Society of America Bulletin.

"The status of the Capitanian crisis is disputed because little has been learned about it since its discovery 20 years ago. The majority of the existing literature is based on evidence unearthed in the tropics...."

Dr. Bond's team headed to Spitsbergen, an island between the Arctic Ocean, Norwegian Sea, and Greenland Sea. It's populated by Norwegians, Russians, scientists, and polar bears.

These scientists worked during July, so they had 24 hours of sunlight each day; and the weather is better for outdoor work. They were studying the Kapp Starostin Formation, rock layers up to 400 meters thick, with fossils from the Carboniferous and Permian periods: laid down over about 27,000,000 years.

Spitsbergen is north of Earth's arctic circle now, but Earth's surface shifts around. A quarter-billion years back, that chunk of land was in Earth's temperate zone, about halfway between the north pole and equator.

When the World was Young(er)

(From Fred Ziegler and others at the Paleogeographic Atlas Project, via Allister Rees Paleozoic/PaleoIntegration Project, used w/o permission.)
(Earth in the Wordian age, Mid-Permian, about 268,000,000 and 265,000,000 years ago.)

The Capitanian age, about two thirds through the Permian, ran from 265,000,000 to 259,000,000 years ago: give or take 400,000. As usual, things had changed.

The Carboniferous rainforests had been replaced by great deserts. Meganeura, insects with two-foot wingspans, were extinct; but Blattoptera, forerunners of modern cockroaches, mantises, and termites, survived.

So had ammonites — relatives of today's octopuses (octopi?), squid, and cuttlefish — and would endure until the end of the Cretaceous. Those critters are Coleoidea. They've been around since the Carboniferous. I'll get back to octopuses, or octopi, or whatever, in a bit.

Paleontologists knew there had been a mass extinction during the Capitanian. Two, actually: Olson's Extinction, roughly 270,000,000 years back; and another at the end of the Capitanian, or maybe during the Wuchiapingian.

Like I've said before, don't bother trying to memorize those names. There will not be a test on this.

Olson's Extinction was bad news for pelycosaurs like dimetrodon, and diadectes, reptile-like amphibians.

On the other hand, therapsids flourished in the bounce-back which followed. That's good news for us, since therapsids included critters that would eventually become mammals.

"Therapsid" seems to be distinct from "theropsid," which means pretty much the same as synapsid, and that's yet another topic. (August 8, 2014)

Dr. Bond's team thinks their analysis shows that the mid-Capitanian extinction event was global, and as significant as the 'big five."

Igneous Provinces: Lava and Mass Extinctions

(From Williamborg, USGS; via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
("This file is an identification of large igneous provinces overlaid on a map produced by United States National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration's National Geophysical Data Center. Intended for use in the Large igneous province page."
(Williamborg/Wikimedia Commons))

"...the team examined fossils of brachiopods and bivalve molluscs (the former resemble the latter but, existing in different phyla, are evolutionarily unrelated). The pre-extinction Capitanian age was dominated by brachiopods....

"...However, in the middle of the Capitanian strata, brachiopod diversity fell precipitously: 87% of the species vanished in a few tens of thousands of years, a mere blip on the geologic time scale. Clearly, something catastrophic had occurred.

"Dr Bond believes the extinction was triggered by the eruption of the Emeishan Traps, now located in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan.

"Volcanic eruptions release enormous amounts of carbon dioxide, which can cause ocean acidification. A depletion of seafloor oxygen may also have played a role.

"Then, Dr Bond's team noticed that in younger rock layers, new brachiopod and bivalve species re-emerged. The post-extinction Capitanian age shifted from being dominated by brachiopods to being dominated by bivalves...."
(Alex Berezow, BBC News)

Scientists are still figuring out how the Emeishan Traps fit into the picture.

The Emeishan Traps are many layers of igneous rock left over from a whole mess of volcanic eruptions that started about 260,000,000 years ago. They're nowhere near as big as the Siberian Traps. That series of eruptions started about nine million years later.

I'm not sure what's going on here. I've read that Olson's Extinction happened about 270,000,000 years ago, then the Emeishan Traps started forming around 260,000,000 years back — and the End-Capitanian extinction would have been roughly 259,000,000 years ago: give or take 400,000.

I'm not surprised that the numbers from various sources don't quite line up. We didn't know that Earth's billions of years old until a few centuries back, and a great deal of what we know of Earth's story has been learned in the last few generations: much of that in my lifetime. Chronological uncertainties amounting to fractions of one percent are — understandable.

Back, briefly, to that BBC News article.

"...But, just a few million years later, these new species disappeared, apparently wiped out in yet another extinction event. Following that, the End-Permian mass extinction, represented by its own unique rock layer, devastated the planet...."
(Alex Berezow, BBC News)

That End-Permian mass extinction was a bad one: the only mass extinction affecting insects. Whatever happened killed off Tabulata and rugose corals, and finished off the last of the trilobites.

But scorpions survived. They showed up about 430,000,000 years ago, surviving every mass extinction since. Cockroaches are comparative newcomers. 'Modern' cockroaches didn't start scuttling around until the early Cretaceous, maybe 100,000,000 years back.

Rats have only been around for about 54,000,000 years, but are almost as notoriously hard to exterminate as cockroaches. We're not as nearly-indestructible as cockroaches: but we're a lot smarter. I'll get back to that.

Life on Earth: Ups and Downs

(From Albert Mestre, Philcha, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
("Phanerozoic biodiversity as shown by the fossil record"
(Wikipedia))

The 'big five' is a somewhat-arbitrary list of major extinction events. Those whacking great numbers is how many years ago each happened:

• Ordovician-Silurian
  (447,000,000 to 443 ,000,000)
• Late Devonian
  (375,000,000 to 360,000,000)
• Permian-Triassic
  (252,000,000)
• Triassic-Jurassic
  (201,300,000)
• Cretaceous-Paleogene
  (66,000,000)

Just to make things more complicated, the Ordovician-Silurian event happened in two pulses; The Great Dying is a more dramatic name for the Permian–Triassic event; and sometimes the End-Capitanian extinction event is called the end-Guadalupian.

Like I said, the 'big five' list is a bit arbitrary.

The Cambrian-Ordovician extinction event, some 488,000,000 years back, doesn't make the list; but it was hard on brachiopods, conodonts, and trilobites. Trilobites didn't survive the Permian mass extinction; conodonts probably got wiped out later, in the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event; and that's yet again another topic.

There may have been an End-Ediacaran extinction, about 542,000,000 years ago, that wiped out Ediacara biota, strange whatsit critters that aren't quite like anything alive today.

They're not Earth's earliest life, though: not by a long shot. Arcaea, single-cell organisms with no cell nucleus, showed up 3,000,000,000 — maybe 3,500,000,000 to 3,700,000,000 — years ago.

The Great Oxygenation Event, some 2,300,000,000 years ago, was a Precambrian ecological disaster — for anaerobic critters. (June 27, 2014)

Some scientists have said that extinction events happen in cycles, with mass extinctions every 26,000,000 to 30,000,000 — or maybe 62,000,000 — years.

My guess is that if there is a pattern to these extinctions, it's nowhere near as regular as today's seasons.

For example — it was smooth sailing between the Late Tithonian, about 145,000,000 years back, and the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction that killed off non-avian dinosaurs: a span of 84,000,000 years. But the interval between the Triassic-Jurassic event, 201,300,000 years ago; and the Toarcian turnover 183,000,000 years back; was less than 18,000,000.

---

2. Octopus Arms and Intelligence

(From SPL, via BBC News, used w/o permission/)
("The study is the first to examine how octopuses co-ordinate their eight, flexible limbs as they crawl"
(BBC News))

"How octopuses co-ordinate their arms"
Victoria Gill, BBC News (April 16, 2015)

"With the aid of high-speed cameras, scientists have revealed how octopuses co-ordinate their arms to crawl.

"Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem filmed crawling octopuses to work out exactly how the animals used their almost limitlessly flexible arms when they move.

"This revealed the surprising simplicity of their motion; they just choose which arm to use to push themselves along...."

Octopuses — or octopi, for folks who like the Latin plural form — are smart critters. We're not sure how smart: yet.

That animated image is from The Octopus Group, Hebrew University of Jerusalem: whose members are humans, not cephalopods. Octopuses are smart, but they're not that smart.

Since animals use neurons to process information, we can get a very rough estimate of how smart a critter is by counting how many neurons are in its brain.

Cockroach brains, for example, have about 1,000,000 neurons. That's plenty for a cockroach's lifestyle, but nowhere near the 760,000,000 neurons in a cat's brain, or 86,000,000,000 in a human's. (August 15, 2014)

An octopus has about 300,000,000 neurons: midway between the count for a rat (200,000,000) and a cat (760,000,000). Looks like those eight-armed mollusks could be at least as smart as the lab rats used in maze experiments. It's also why some countries have protective legislation for octopuses, insisting that surgery performed on them be with anesthesia.

I think that's a good idea. Responsibilities come with being human. Using animals is okay, but making them suffer or die needlessly isn't. (Catechism, 2418)

I've read that octopus intelligence is a subject of lively debate among scientists. That's not surprising: not to me, anyway.

Mollusk Brains

We're vertebrates, mammals, so we've got a cerebral cortex (with roughly 20,000,000,000 neurons in an average human's) that handles most of what we call "thinking."

Mollusk nervous systems aren't wired like ours. Their brain is wrapped around the esophagus, spelled oesophagus in British English; the pipe running from a critter's mouth to its digestive system.

On top of that, two thirds of an octopus's neurons are in its arms. Each arm has 'limited autonomy,' is able to act on its own. Suckers on each arm 'taste' what they're touching, so the arm won't grasp one of its seven partners.

Octopus arm research has a practical side:

"...'People want to build soft robots for medical purposes and rescue operations,' said Dr Guy Levy, one of the researchers involved in the project.

"Such soft-bodied, octopus-inspired arms would not be limited by fixed joints, he explained. This could be useful to access narrow, difficult to reach spaces - perhaps getting help to people trapped at the scene of a collapsed building....

"...To find out the secrets of the octopus's remarkably efficient movement, Dr Levy and his colleague Prof Benny Hochner videoed the animals from underneath as they crawled, and analysed their motion frame by frame.

"This detailed study showed that, by shortening and lengthening, each arm pushed the body in only one direction.

" 'So the octopus only has to decide which arm to use for the pushing - it doesn't need to decide which direction this arm will push,' explained Dr Levy...."
(Victoria Gill, BBC News)

It's a simple, elegant, solution to what could be a complicated problem. All the octopus does is push with the arm that's facing away from where it wants to go. No, I don't think octopuses are people, with our sort of free will: but I'm not going to tie myself in linguistic knots, avoiding words like "wants" or "decides."

Studying the critters' neural circuits to find out how octopuses decide which arm to use is a next step in this research: and may raise more questions than it answers. As Dr. Levy said, "Every time we try to understand something new about the octopus, there are new surprises."

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Another Afterword: Angst, Assumptions, and Aliens

I ran into the Fermi paradox while writing this post: something to do with mass extinctions, as I recall. The basic idea is that Earth's sun is a typical star, and it looks like this galaxy has billions of planets like Earth: but we've found no evidence of visits from other people.

We've found several ways to travel between stars: some of them very nearly ready for flight testing. Even at the ten-thousand-years-per-trip rate of the slower methods, folks like us could easily have reached Earth by now: even if they'd started on the other side of the Milky Way.

So: where is everybody?

A conventionally-pessimistic answer is that civilizations promptly destroy themselves after getting as smart and technically proficient as we are.

That may seem plausible, at least for folks who assumed that we have absolute control over nature. (February 10, 2013)

I've talked about fear, flappers, and Europe flambé, before. (August 31, 2014)

Add Cold War and environmentalist angst, and Yeats starts sounding like a starry-eyed optimist:

"...Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity...."
("The Second Coming," W. B. Yeats (1919))

Folks can make monumentally stupid, self-destructive, mistakes: and natural disasters happen.

But knowing that we live on a planet where intermittent continental glaciation, exploding mountains, and the occasional asteroid impact are facts of life doesn't fill me with dread.

Scorpions, cockroaches, and rats have endured here; we're at least as adaptable as they are; and we're a whole lot smarter.

We figured out how to use fire and string without killing ourselves — so I think we'll survive steam locomotives, PVC, and Roombas. (August 15, 2014; May 9, 2014)

As for the Fermi paradox, it hinges on a really big assumption: that folks who aren't human would think and act the way we do.

I don't think we do — or don't — have neighbors in this universe. Right now, we don't know.

But if we do meet non-human intelligence: my guess is that they won't be human. At all. And that's still another topic. Topics.

Not-entirely-unrelated posts:

• "Early Brood Care, Four-Eyed Cambrian Predator"
  (April 3, 2015)
  Particularly
  • Getting Surprised
  • Antennae, Eyes, and Brains
• "The Thumb-Brain Connection, and DIY Robots"
  (March 27, 2015)
  Particularly
  • Brains and Assumptions
  • God, Clay, and Accepting Arithmetic
• "Neurosynaptic Cores and Retinal Implants: Getting a Grip About Tech"
  (August 15, 2014)
  Particularly
  • IBM's TrueNorth Chip and Cockroach Brains
  • Science, Faith, and Autopsies
  • Leaving the 1940s Behind: Heavily Interconnected, Biologically-Inspired Chip
• "Habitable Worlds, Homer, and Haldane — or — Ganymede's Oceans, and Imagining Kepler-186f's Sunsets"
  (May 9, 2014)
  Particularly
  • Space Aliens May Not be Human — or — "the Great Filter" and Haldane
    • Horses, Humans, and Attitude
    • Smörgåsbords and Crazy Uncle Eddy
• "Humans are Animals: But Not Just Animals"
  (August 31, 2011)

When the Volcano Stops Screaming - - -

A sound that's too low for humans to hear may let us predict when a volcano is about to erupt:

1. A Screaming Volcano
   • Volcanic Glissando
   • Music and the Universe
2. 'Volcano Forecasts:' Eventually

My native culture has some odd ideas about science and religion, like 'faith means not thinking.'

Depending on your frame of reference, that assumption is rather new, or mildly antique. Either way, it's not true.

---

"The Sin of Thinking?"

Non Sequitur's Church of Danae and her "faith based physics" is fiction. Folks trying to warp reality around their preferences isn't.

I doubt that many churches actually say 'thinking is a sin.' On the other hand, I've heard folks insist that what we're learning about the universe can't be true because 'it's not in the Bible.' I understand how someone might assume that religion and reason don't mix.

I'm Catholic, so I'm expected to think. Using reason is part of being human. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1730-1731)

The light of reason lets us see beyond appearances to the deep truth of things. We can intuitively grasp the first principles of reality, and uncover new truths through reasoned analysis.

Being made in the image of God gives us enormous power and responsibility: and I've been over that before. (March 17, 2013)

Science and Religion

I see no problem with a lively interest in God's creation. It's filled with wonders and beauty, and is basically good: not perfect, but good. (Genesis 1:3-31; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 390-409, 282-284)

I like this creation, but some folks seem uncomfortable with it. Somewhere along the line, Plato's ideal universals, immaterial forms that are superior to their material 'shadows,' got hitched to a distaste for the material world.

The sort of dualism that sees physical existence as beastly or worse is a recurring blooper in Christian circles.

• "God Doesn't Make Junk: Or Mistakes"
  (November 27, 2011)
• "Humans are Animals: But Not Just Animals"
  (August 31, 2011)

Faith and Reason

My faith isn't disturbed because one and one always equal two. I expect an orderly God to create an orderly universe, and I've been over that before, too. (April 25, 2011)

When folks discover a rational explanation for some natural phenomenon, that doesn't make me doubt that there's a rational God.

Faith and reason get along just fine:

• Faith isn't against reason
  (Catechism, 35, 154-155)
• We can know God by studying the created world
  (Catechism, 36)
  • But it isn't easy
    (Catechism, 37)
• God's revelation
  • Confirms what reason shows
  • Reveals what reason can't show
  (Catechism, 38)

Belief and Seeking Truth

A fellow named Nietzsche had a talent for writing memorable one-liners. He also saw religion as unreasonable, emotional, and blind to truth. That was in 1865.

I see why folks who don't like religion, or feel that God shouldn't exist, say religion is unreasonable. Frothing radio preachers of my youth made religion look like a psychiatric disorder.

Then there's how some folks react to Darwin's ideas about evolution. Getting upset about how the world changes seems silly, at best. (May 15, 2012; January 18, 2012)

Some tried defending faith by agreeing that it doesn't make sense. They want to see faith:

"...either as a leap in the dark, to be taken in the absence of light, driven by blind emotion, or as a subjective light, capable perhaps of warming the heart and bringing personal consolation, but not something which could be proposed to others as an objective and shared light which points the way...."
("Lumen Fidei," Pope Francis) [emphasis mine]

This 'faith is a feeling' approach doesn't make sense: not to me.

I have nothing against emotions. They're part of being human. (Catechism, 1763-1770)

But we're supposed to make decisions by using reason: not necessarily 'because we feel that way.' (Catechism, 1767, 1951, 1954-1956)

---

1. A Screaming Volcano

(USGS/AVO, via BBC News, used w/o permission)
"The researchers studied the eruption of Redoubt in 2009"

"Volcanic 'scream' precedes explosive eruptions"
Simon Redfern, BBC News (July 15, 2013)

"A change in the frequency of earthquakes may foretell explosive volcanic eruptions, according to a new study.

"The seismic activity changes from steady drum beats to increasingly rapid successions of tremors.

"These blend into continuous noise which silences just before explosion...."

BBC News linked to 10 minutes of seismic sound and harmonic tremor from Redoubt Volcano in 2009, sped up to run in 10 seconds: "RedoubtScream," on soundcloud.com. It reminds me of an old fashioned tea kettle, when the 'I'm done' whistle starts up.

Volcanic Glissando

"...Those quakes continuously rose in pitch like a volcanic glissando - a musical glide from one pitch to another.

"Subterranean magma plumbing systems sit beneath volcanoes and feed pressurised molten rock toward the surface before eruptions.

"As the magma flows through deep conduits and cracks, it generates small seismic tremors and earthquakes.

"Scientists have noted earthquakes preceding volcanic eruptions before, for example drumbeat earthquakes were the first sign of renewed magmatic activity in Mount St Helens in April 2005.

"But the new analysis of Alaska's Redoubt volcano shows that the tremor glided to higher frequencies and then stopped abruptly less than a minute before eruption...."
(Simon Redfern, BBC News)

Authors of the Redoubt study say that maybe brittle fractures cause the 'scream.' Then again, they're not sure about exactly what's going on inside the volcano.

Similar tremors happened before the 1997 and 2003 eruptions on Montserrat, so listening for this sort of drumbeat-and-scream pattern may help predict eruptions. University of Cambridge's Dr. Marie Edmonds pointed out that we still don't know whether the pattern happens without a volcano going off.

Music and the Universe

I don't take 'music of the spheres' seriously as a way to explain planetary orbits and music.

Even so, I keep running into reports of sounds and sound-like natural phenomena that are a bit musical. Maybe there's a 'musical' angle to the universe that we haven't found yet.


(Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA, used w/o permission)
"...The oscillations we see on the surface are due to sound waves generated and trapped inside the sun. Sound waves are produced by pressure fluctuations in the turbulent convective motions of the sun's interior...."
("Solar Physics,' Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA)

---

2. 'Volcano Forecasts:' Eventually

"Volcanic ash closes regional airport in central Mexican city of Puebla"
Associated Press, via FoxNews.com (July 12, 2013)

"An airport serving Mexico's fourth-largest city has suspended operations due to volcanic ash from the Popocatepetl volcano.

"The international airport in Puebla was temporarily closed as a precautionary measure...."

Closing a city's airport is serious, but it could be worse. Back in 2000, Mexico evacuated about 50,000 folks in three states around Popocatepetl.

These days we know enough about volcanoes to have a general idea of when it's time to move away. I think it will be years, at least, before 'volcano forecasts' are as comparatively reliable as weather forecasts are today: but we're learning.

Related posts:

• Volcanoes
  • "Warp Drive: Imagined and Real (Maybe, Eventually)"
    (May 24, 2013)
    Particularly
    • The Next Mount Saint Helens Eruption
  • "Antigravity Experiments, Quantum Entanglement, and Making Kidneys"
    (May 3, 2013)
    Particularly
    • Yellowstone Volcano's Magma Pool
  • "Ecological Disaster - a Quarter of a Billion Years Ago"
    Apathetic Lemming of the North (December 14, 2010)
  • "Meanwhile, in Alaska, Mount Redoubt is Still Erupting"
    Apathetic Lemming of the North (March 28, 2009)
  • "Mount Redoubt Steaming, Anchorage Waiting, Webcams Watching"
    Apathetic Lemming of the North (February 1, 2009)
• Reason
  • "Seeking Truth, Accepting Vastness"
    (April 2, 2013)
  • "Getting a Grip about: Science and Religion"
    (March 13, 2013) One of a series of three posts
  • "The World isn't Flat"
    (June 9, 2012)
  • "Open Eyes and Assumptions"
    (March 25, 2012)
  • "The Beauty of the Universe, God, and Respect"
    (March 21, 2012)

More:

• "Lumen Fidei" (pdf)
  Pope Francis (June 29, 2013)
  (from http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20130629_enciclica-lumen-fidei_en.pdf , used w/o permission)
• "Theology Today: Perspectives, Principles and Criteria (2011)," Chapter 3
  International Theological Commission (2011)
• "Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God"
  International Theological Commission (2004)

Excerpts:

"Lumen Fidei"
Pope Francis (June 29, 2013)

"...2. Yet in speaking of the light of faith, we can almost hear the objections of many of our contemporaries. In modernity, that light might have been considered sufficient for societies of old, but was felt to be of no use for new times, for a humanity come of age, proud of its rationality and anxious to explore the future in novel ways. Faith thus appeared to some as an illusory light, preventing mankind from boldly setting out in quest of knowledge. The young Nietzsche encouraged his sister Elisabeth to take risks, to tread 'new paths… with all the uncertainty of one who must find his own way', adding that 'this is where humanity's paths part: if you want peace of soul and happiness, then believe, but if you want to be a follower of truth, then seek'.[3] Belief would be incompatible with seeking. From this starting point Nietzsche was to develop his critique of Christianity for diminishing the full meaning of human existence and stripping life of novelty and adventure. Faith would thus be the illusion of light, an illusion which blocks the path of a liberated humanity to its future.

"3. In the process, faith came to be associated with darkness. There were those who tried to save faith by making room for it alongside the light of reason. Such room would open up wherever the light of reason could not penetrate, wherever certainty was no longer possible. Faith was thus understood either as a leap in the dark, to be taken in the absence of light, driven by blind emotion, or as a subjective light, capable perhaps of warming the heart and bringing personal consolation, but not something which could be proposed to others as an objective and shared light which points the way. Slowly but surely, however, it would become evident that the light of autonomous reason is not enough to illumine the future; ultimately the future remains shadowy and fraught with fear of the unknown. As a result, humanity renounced the search for a great light, Truth itself, in order to be content with smaller lights which illumine the fleeting moment yet prove incapable of showing the way. Yet in the absence of light everything becomes confused; it is impossible to tell good from evil, or the road to our destination from other roads which take us in endless circles, going nowhere...."
[emphasis mine]

---

"Theology Today: Perspectives, Principles and Criteria (2011)," Chapter 3
International Theological Commission (2011)

"...62. The truth of God, accepted in faith, encounters human reason. Created in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26-27), the human person is capable, by the light of reason, of penetrating beyond appearances to the deep-down truth of things, and opens up thereby to universal reality. The common reference to truth, which is objective and universal, makes authentic dialogue possible between human persons. The human spirit is both intuitive and rational. It is intuitive in that it spontaneously grasps the first principles of reality and of thought. It is rational in that, beginning from those first principles, it progressively discovers truths previously unknown using rigorous procedures of analysis and investigation, and it organises them in a coherent fashion. 'Science' is the highest form that rational consciousness takes. It designates a form of knowledge capable of explaining how and why things are as they are. Human reason, itself part of created reality, does not simply project on to reality in its richness and complexity a framework of intelligibility; it adapts itself to the intrinsic intelligibility of reality. In accordance with its object, that is with the particular aspect of reality that it is studying, reason applies different methods adapted to the object itself. Rationality, therefore, is one but takes a plurality of forms, all of which are rigorous means of grasping the intelligibility of reality. Science likewise is pluriform, each science having its own specific object and method. There is a modern tendency to reserve the term 'science' to 'hard' sciences (mathematics, experimental sciences, etc.) and to dismiss as irrational and mere opinion knowledge which does not correspond to the criteria of those sciences. This univocal view of science and of rationality is reductive and inadequate...."

---

"Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God"
International Theological Commission (2004)

"...70 With respect to the immediate creation of the human soul, Catholic theology affirms that particular actions of God bring about effects that transcend the capacity of created causes acting according to their natures. The appeal to divine causality to account for genuinely causal as distinct from merely explanatory gaps does not insert divine agency to fill in the 'gaps' in human scientific understanding (thus giving rise to the so-called 'God of the gaps'). The structures of the world can be seen as open to non-disruptive divine action in directly causing events in the world. Catholic theology affirms that that the emergence of the first members of the human species (whether as individuals or in populations) represents an event that is not susceptible of a purely natural explanation and which can appropriately be attributed to divine intervention. Acting indirectly through causal chains operating from the beginning of cosmic history, God prepared the way for what Pope John Paul II has called 'an ontological leap...the moment of transition to the spiritual.' While science can study these causal chains, it falls to theology to locate this account of the special creation of the human soul within the overarching plan of the triune God to share the communion of trinitarian life with human persons who are created out of nothing in the image and likeness of God, and who, in his name and according to his plan, exercise a creative stewardship and sovereignty over the physical universe...."

Seeing the Horizon

Quite a few Catholics smile now and then, some of us occasionally seem cheerful, and Catholic fundraisers are notorious for their acceptance of gambling: Bingo, usually.

By some standards, we're not very 'religious.'

Setting the Tone

I grew up where quite a few folks were 'Christian' at the top of their lungs. Many seemed dedicated to proving that religion was a psychiatric condition, and some were downright grim.

On the 'up' side, their goofy version of spirituality started me on a search that led to my becoming a Catholic.

Even Americans who don't commit evangelization with a blunt Bible often assume that being grim and being Christian go together. Evangelization, by the way, is part of our job: and that's another topic. (October 7, 2012)

The 'oh woe all ye faithful' part of America's version of religion and spirituality goes back a long time.

"Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."
H. L. Mencken, The Quotations Page

Puritans weren't the only ones with a somewhat strict approach to their faith, and that's yet another topic:

• "Catholics aren't Calvinists"
  (May 7, 2012)

Pickled Peppers

Happily, being a Catholic means that I'm allowed to be happy.

"Pope: Sad Christian faces are like pickled peppers"
CNA/EWTN News (May 10, 2013)

"Pope Francis underscored the importance of being joyful by contrasting sad Christian faces - which are more like 'pickled peppers' - with the testimony of a beautiful life.

" 'Sometimes these melancholic Christians' faces have more in common with pickled peppers than the joy of having a beautiful life,' Pope Francis said May 10....

Looks like "melancholic Christians," aren't limited to America. Maybe it's part of human nature, maybe it's connected with the vein of dualism that runs through Western civilization:

• "God Doesn't Make Junk: Or Mistakes
  (November 27, 2011)
  Particularly
  • Dualism, Creation, and a Sticky Science
• "Gnosticism: Dissing God's Creation"
  (March 5, 2012)
• " 'From Sour Saints, Deliver Us' "
  (September 8, 2011)

Perennial pessimism might make sense for someone who didn't see much hope for the present or future. For someone who takes Jesus seriously - and that's still another topic. (January 13, 2011)

I've put excerpts from another news item about what the Pope said at the end of this post, one that includes more of what Pope Francis said.¹

Fun is Good: Joy is Better

"...'If we keep this joy to ourselves it will make us sick in the end, our hearts will grow old and wrinkled and our faces will no longer transmit that great joy, only nostalgia and melancholy which is not healthy,' he added....

"...The pontiff told them Christians should not keep joy 'bottled up' for themselves because they risk becoming nostalgic.

"Christian joy is not like 'having fun, which is good,' he explained, rather it 'is more, it is something else.'

" 'If we want to have fun all the time, in the end it becomes shallow, superficial, and also leads us to that state where we lack Christian wisdom, it makes us a little bit stupid, naive, no?' Pope Francis said...."
(CNA/EWTN News)

I like that: Having fun is okay, but it's possible to have too much of a good thing.

About happiness, it isn't the same as giggling all the time. Being who we are supposed to be is closer to the mark:

"HAPPINESS: Joy and beatitude over receiving the fulfillment of our vocation as creatures: a sharing in the divine nature and the vision of God. God put us into the world to know, love, and serve him, and so come to the happiness of paradise (1720)." (Glossary, Catechism of the Catholic Church)

Complete, unmixed, full-bore joy won't come in this world, but we get a sort of preview now and then. (Catechism, 1803, 1804, 1820-1832)

Eyes on the Horizon

"...'Joy is something that does not come from short term economic reasons, from momentary reasons, it is something deeper, it is a gift,'...

"...The pontiff described joy as 'a gift from God' that 'fills us from within' and 'cannot be held at heel, it must be let go.'

" 'It is a virtue of the great, of those great ones who rise above the little things in life, above human pettiness,' said Pope Francis.

"He explained that it is a virtue 'of those who will not allow themselves to be dragged into those little things within the community, within the Church' and that 'they always look to the horizon.'..."
(CNA/EWTN News)

I don't always see the horizon, but I'm learning to keep my eyes on the horizon: and what lies beyond.

Related posts:

• "Fasting, Penance: and Infinite Depths of Joy"
  (June 3, 2012)
  • Despondency isn't a Virtue?
  • Emotions, Faith, and Something Indescribable
  • God, Rain, and Me
• "My Take on the News: Jeanne d'Arc/Joan of Arc; Joy and Children of God; Mourning a Baby"
  (January 13, 2012)
  Particularly
  • Joy and Children of God
• " 'Inevitable Progress;' 'We're All Gonna Die;' and Getting a Grip"
  (January 16, 2012)
• "Hope, Joy, and 'More Despondent Than Thou?' "
  (January 8, 2012)
• "Hope, Joy, and Working for a Better World"
  (September 13, 2011)

Background:

• Acts 18:9-18
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1028, 1030, 1804, 2362

¹ Excerpt from the news:

"Pope at Mass: Christian joy far from simple fun"
Vatican Radio, via News.va (May 10, 2013)

"(Vatican Radio) Christian joy is a pilgrim joy that we cannot keep ‘bottled up’ for ourselves, or we risk becoming a 'melancholy' and 'nostalgic' community. Moreover, Christian joy is far from simple fun. It is something deeper than fleeting happiness, because it is rooted in our certainty that Jesus Christ is with God and with us.

"This is the lesson that Pope Francis drew from the Acts of the Apostles at Friday morning Mass as he described the disciples joy in the days between our Lord's Ascension and Pentecost and what we can learn from them....

"...'A Christian is a man and a woman of joy. Jesus teaches us this, the Church teaches us this, in a special way in this [liturgical]time. What is this joy? Is it having fun? No: it is not the same. Fun is good, eh? Having fun is good. But joy is more, it is something else. It is something that does not come from short term economic reasons, from momentary reasons : it is something deeper. It is a gift. Fun, if we want to have fun all the time, in the end becomes shallow, superficial, and also leads us to that state where we lack Christian wisdom, it makes us a little bit stupid, naive, no?, Everything is fun ... no. Joy is another thing. Joy is a gift from God. It fills us from within. It is like an anointing of the Spirit. And this joy is the certainty that Jesus is with us and with the Father'.

"A man of joy, the Pope continued, is a confident man. Sure that 'Jesus is with us, that Jesus is with the Father.' He asked: Can we 'bottle up' this joy in order to always have it with us?

" 'No, because if we keep this joy to ourselves it will make us sick in the end, our hearts will grow old and wrinkled and our faces will no longer transmit that great joy only nostalgia, melancholy which is not healthy. Sometimes these melancholy Christians faces have more in common with pickled peppers than the joy of having a beautiful life. Joy cannot be held at heel: it must be let go. Joy is a pilgrim virtue. It is a gift that walks, walks on the path of life, that walks with Jesus: preaching, proclaiming Jesus, proclaiming joy, lengthens and widens that path. It is a virtue of the Great, of those Great ones who rise above the little things in life, above human pettiness, of those who will not allow themselves to be dragged into those little things within the community, within the Church: they always look to the horizon'.

"...Joy is a 'pilgrim,' Pope Francis reiterated. 'The Christian sings with joy, and walks, and carries this joy.' It is a virtue of the path, actually more than a virtue it is a gift:

" 'It is the gift that brings us to the virtue of magnanimity. The Christian is magnanimous, he or she cannot be timorous: the Christian is magnanimous. And magnanimity is the virtue of breath, the virtue of always going forward, but with a spirit full of the Holy Spirit. Joy is a grace that we ask of the Lord. These days in a special way, because the Church is invited, the Church invites us to ask for the joy and also desire: that which propels the Christian's life forward is desire. The greater your desire, the greater your joy will be. The Christian is a man, is a woman of desire: always desire more on the path of life. We ask the Lord for this grace, this gift of the Spirit: Christian joy. Far from sorrow, far from simple fun ... it is something else. It is a grace we must seek'...."

Fasting, Penance: and Infinite Depths of Joy

I follow the Man:

• Who said
  • "...take courage, I have conquered the world."
    (John 16:33)
  • "Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM."
    (John 8:58)
  • And made it stick
• Who was killed
  • But wouldn't stay dead
    (Luke 24:5)
• Who gave his followers orders
  • Which we are still carrying out
    • Two millennia later

I hope for an unending life of joy and peace with my Lord. Following Jesus isn't always fun: but even now there's an echo of the "glorious joy" that, God willing, is ahead.

Despondency isn't a Virtue?

I've heard "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee" sung as if it's a funeral dirge; and met folks whose theme seems to be "oh woe, all ye faithful."

There seems to be a confusion of despondency with virtue in some American subcultures. I think it's partly connected with this country's cultural history. Some of the folks who set the spiritual tone for America managed to present Christianity as a rather grim affair:

"Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."
H. L. Mencken, The Quotations Page

Long before Mencken, Puritans, and the Mayflower, some folks got the idea that tangible, physical, things are evil. The idea caught on, and has been repackaged quite a few times over the centuries. Millennia, actually.

Knowing Stuff; Being 'Spiritual;' and Icky, Sticky, Physical Things

I can see an appeal to believing that knowing stuff, and being really 'spiritual,' is good - not like icky, sticky, physical things. I like knowing stuff, and learning more.

But believing that what can be seen, touched, tasted, are bad because they're physical? That would force me to assume that God is a klutz, and doesn't know good from bad:

"Then God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light.

"God saw how good the light was. God then separated the light from the darkness."
(Genesis 1:3-4)

---

"God called the dry land 'the earth,' and the basin of the water he called 'the sea.' God saw how good it was. "
(Genesis 1:10)

I think the idea that there are two eternal, balanced, equally-matched, principles locked in an unending struggle between Good and Evil, could make a really good story. But I don't think it's true.

More to the point, the Church says that's not how it works.

"...Still others have affirmed the existence of two eternal principles, Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, locked in permanent conflict (Dualism, Manichaeism). According to some of these conceptions, the world (at least the physical world) is evil, the product of a fall, and is thus to be rejected or left behind (Gnosticism)...."
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 285)

"The truth about creation is so important for all of human life that God in his tenderness wanted to reveal to his People everything that is salutary to know on the subject. Beyond the natural knowledge that every man can have of the Creator,¹²⁴ God progressively revealed to Israel the mystery of creation. He who chose the patriarchs, who brought Israel out of Egypt, and who by choosing Israel created and formed it, this same God reveals himself as the One to whom belong all the peoples of the earth, and the whole earth itself; he is the One who alone 'made heaven and earth.' ¹²⁵"
(Catechism, 287)

Genesis and Getting a Grip

America's cultural assumptions about Genesis, the Bible, science, and psychiatric disorders being what they are, I'd better explain that I'm a practicing Catholic.

I don't have to hate science, or believe that the Bible was written by Americans: Or by folks who were as poetically-challenged and literalistic as some of my fellow-citizens.

I take the Bible, Sacred Scripture, very seriously. But I don't refer to the Bible when trouble-shooting my computer, and it's not a science textbook:

• " 'In a State of Journeying' "
  (January 18, 2012)
• "When to Call Tech Support, When to Read the Bible"
  (January 14, 2011)

Emotions, Faith, and Something Indescribable

Fasting, Confession, penance, and other serious matters, are part of being a Catholic. So is joy. I don't mean a sort of Giggle Gospel, encouraging folks to 'get high on Jesus.'

Not that emotions are bad: but I can't and won't rely on a 'feel-good faith,' and that's another topic. (March 3, 2009)

"Joy" can be a noun or a verb:

• Noun
  • The emotion of great happiness
  • Something or someone that provides a source of happiness
• Verb
  • Feel happiness or joy
  • Make glad or happy
  (Princeton's WordNet)

"Joy" is "the emotion of great happiness:" so if I stop feeling "great happiness," I've lost my faith? No, I really don't think so. I've posted about the "dark night of the soul" before. (April 22, 2010)

If this "joy" thing that Christians are supposed to experience isn't just an emotional buzz, how would I describe it? Part of the answer is in the first chapter of Peter:

"Although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy,

"as you attain the goal of (your) faith, the salvation of your souls."
(Peter 1:8-9)

Knowing that it's "an indescribable and glorious joy" doesn't give me the sort of definite answer I might want: but I've gotten used to the idea that God's God, and I'm not. I don't expect to have all the answers. Not now, anyway.

Joy and Jesus

I converted to Catholicism because it made sense: but there's more to it than that.

I've followed Jesus for as long as I can remember. After I found out who held the authority that my Lord gave Peter, I only had one viable option. (Matthew 16:13-19, John 6:68)

For two millennia, the Catholic Church has been telling folks about Jesus:

"The transmission of the Christian faith consists primarily in proclaiming Jesus Christ in order to lead others to faith in him. From the beginning, the first disciples burned with the desire to proclaim Christ: 'We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.'¹¹ And they invite people of every era to enter into the joy of their communion with Christ:

"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life-the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us-that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing this that our joy may be complete.¹²"

(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 425)

What About All Those Rules?

There's something to the stereotype that the Catholic Church has lots of rules. The Vatican's "Secret Archives," a sort of office library for the Holy See, has about 85 kilometers of shelving now.

The basic principles are simple: Love God, love your neighbor; everybody's your neighbor. (Matthew 5:43-44; Matthew 22:36-40; Mark 12:29-31; Luke 10:25-27, 29-37; and Catechism of the Catholic Church 1822, 1825)

I think the proliferation of rules and explanations is partly the result of two millennia of folks trying to weasel out of the basic principles, simply stated. (September 26, 2011)

There's an attractive notion that all a person has to do is 'really believe' in Jesus. Yes, belief is important. But so is doing something about it. (James 2:18-20) I never could see the point in believing something: and not acting as if that belief mattered.

This gets me to morality - which sounds an awful lot like what those grim 'oh woe, all ye faithful' folks are so grimly sanctimonious about.

Like I've said before, "morality" isn't just about "morality." Ethical behavior includes what we do about our sexuality: but there's a lot more to being human than sex.

Where was I? Joy, Jesus, rules: right.

"Sing for Joy to the Living God"

By cherry picking in the Catechism, and elsewhere, I could find 'proof' that the Catholic Church only accepts perfect people. We're supposed to work at perfection: but it's a goal, not an entrance requirement.

There's a sort of 'payoff' to being perfect, apparently:

"Moral perfection consists in man's being moved to the good not by his will alone, but also by his sensitive appetite, as in the words of the psalm: 'My heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.' ⁴⁶"
(Catechism, 1770)

Somehow, I don't think I'll find out what that sort of "moral perfection" feels like this week. Or this month, or year - but it's still a good goal.

Meanwhile, I can work at developing virtues: human and otherwise.

"Human virtues are firm attitudes, stable dispositions, habitual perfections of intellect and will that govern our actions, order our passions, and guide our conduct according to reason and faith. They make possible ease, self-mastery, and joy in leading a morally good life. The virtuous man is he who freely practices the good.

"The moral virtues are acquired by human effort. They are the fruit and seed of morally good acts; they dispose all the powers of the human being for communion with divine love."
(Catechism, 1804)

The human virtues are rooted in the theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity. (Catechism, 1812-1829)

Joy: Short-Term and Long-Term

My long-term goal is the joy of Heaven. In the short term, I realize that there's no guarantee that I'll have a worry-free life. I follow Jesus: and my Lord went through some rough terrain:

"¹ Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us ² and persevere in running the race that lies before us

"while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. For the sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross, despising its shame, and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God."
(Hebrews 12:1-2)

I'd just as soon not be tortured and executed for my faith: and don't think it's likely that I will face that.

God, Rain, and Me

On the other hand, I don't expect following Jesus to result in fame, fortune, and a rollicking good time. Although my life has been pretty good.

I've been blessed with good parents, and a mind that's thirsty for knowledge. My wife stood by me through some very rough times. Four of our six children survived birth, and are as wonderfully varied a new generation as I could have hoped for.

Some of what I've experienced isn't obviously good news. I've:

• Been used as a sort of lab rat
  • Without my parents' knowledge
• Lived for decades with
  • Undiagnosed
    • Major depression
    • ADHD-inattentive or
      • Asperger syndrome
      • Something else
  • Pain in my hip joints
    • Until getting them swapped out
      • In my '50s
• Lost a dear friend to suicide
• Lost two of six children
  • Nearly lost my wife when the second died

I think God's given me lots of opportunities to practice patience and other virtues. Which is just as well, since I'm not a very patient man. Actually, I need improvement in all the virtues.

As nearly as I can tell, God loves all of us. He showers blessings on everyone, pouring sunshine and rain "on the just and the unjust." (Matthew 5:45)

Joy: "At the Heart of the Christian Experience"

Earlier this year, Pope Benedict XVI discussed joy, and reasons for rejoicing:

"...Joy is at the heart of Christian experience. At each World Youth Day we experience immense joy, the joy of communion, the joy of being Christian, the joy of faith. This is one of the marks of these gatherings. We can see the great attraction that joy exercises. In a world of sorrow and anxiety, joy is an important witness to the beauty and reliability of the Christian faith...."

"...A yearning for joy lurks within the heart of every man and woman. Far more than immediate and fleeting feelings of satisfaction, our hearts seek a perfect, full and lasting joy capable of giving 'flavour' to our existence...."
("Message for the 27th World Youth Day," Pope Benedict XVI (March 15, 2012))

There's quite a bit more: I strongly recommend following that link and reading the rest.

Jesus, Joy, and Standing Orders

Here's why my Lord endured torture and death:

"^{1 2} When Jesus had said this, he raised his eyes to heaven and said, 'Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you,
...
"But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely.

"I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.
...
"Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth.

"As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.
...
"I made known to them your name and I will make it known, ⁸ that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.' "
(John 17:1, 13-14, 17-18, 26)

Later, after Jesus stopped being dead, my Lord gave His disciples the standing orders that we're still carrying out:

"¹¹ Then Jesus approached and said to them, 'All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

"Go, therefore, ¹² and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit,

"teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. ¹³ And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.' "
(Matthew 28:18-20)

"Infinite Joy"

I've had a few unpleasant experiences: a stubbed toe; the death of a baby; hurting one way when I moved, and another when I didn't.

But I'm convinced that it is all overwhelmed, lost in an infinite ocean of joy: if I keep my wits about me, remember to look at the 'big picture,' and accept the love of God.

One more excerpt, and I'm done:

"...Whatever brings us true joy, whether the small joys of each day or the greatest joys in life, has its source in God, even if this does not seem immediately obvious. This is because God is a communion of eternal love, he is infinite joy that does not remain closed in on itself, but expands to embrace all whom God loves and who love him...."
("Message for the 27th World Youth Day," Pope Benedict XVI (March 15, 2012))

Related posts:

• Looking up
  • "Hope, Joy, and 'More Despondent Than Thou?' "
    (January 8, 2012)
  • "First Sunday of Advent, 2011: Joy, Peace, Love, and a Dog Named Rollo"
    (November 27, 2011)
  • "Hope, Joy, and Working for a Better World"
    (September 13, 2011)
  • "A Thought for the Day, About Sin and Tomorrow"
    (December 5, 2010)
  • "Celebrating Our Faith: This I'll Want to Think About"
    (July 28, 2009)
• Embracing creation
  • "Gnosticism: Dissing God's Creation"
    (March 5, 2012)
  • "God Doesn't Make Junk: Or Mistakes"
    (November 27, 2011)
  • "Sex, Science, and the Home Schooling Parent"
    (September 17, 2011)
  • "Humans are Animals: But Not Just Animals"
    (August 31, 2011)
  • " 'If you must see ghosts ...' Materialism, Being Spiritual, and Uncle Deadly"
    (December 18, 2009)
• Getting real
  
  • "Catholics aren't Calvinists"
    (May 7, 2012)
  • "God the Almighty, Providence, and Some Guy in Minnesota"
    (February 1, 2012)
  • "Faith, Works, and Spirituality for Dummkopfs"
    (October 5, 2011)
  • " 'From Sour Saints, Deliver Us' "
    (September 8, 2011)
  • "Morality, Wisdom, and Getting a Grip"
    (June 3, 2011)
    Particularly
    • Morality isn't Just About "Morality"
• A spot of unpleasantness now and then
  • "Prescriptions, Panic, and Points to Ponder"
    (September 14, 2011)
  • "Losing a Child, Charity, and All That"
    (June 4, 2011)
  • "Why did God Do That to Me?"
    (February 12, 2011)
  • "Brilliant, Talented, and On Medication"
    (November 30, 2010)
  • "Medical Ethics and Human Experimentation: Why I Take it Personally"
    (February 3, 2009)

Honoring the Body, Within Reason

For most of my life, I've had trouble dealing with gluttony: which is in the list of seven capital sins. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1866) Gluttony involves intense human desires, where the way my body works makes it easy for me to act unreasonably.

One way to deal with gluttony is to decide that the body is bad, and try to be purely 'spiritual.' This is a bad idea. (Catechism, 2515-2516) And I'm getting ahead of myself.

Living in a Material World

The part of the Catechism I'm reading now is about man (humanity), what and who we are. Along the way I've written about American culture and language, a movie, and a unity that we don't quite have yet:

• "Diversity in Unity: Two Millennia and Counting"
  (April 18, 2012)
• " 'Not Just Something, but Someone' "
  (April 11, 2012)
• " 'Man?!!' Political Correctness and Getting a Grip"
  (April 10, 2012)
• "Genesis, Optimus Prime, and Victorian America"
  (April 10, 2012)

Here's how this part of the Catechism starts. Today's post picks up several paragraphs after #355.

" 'God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.'²¹⁸ Man occupies a unique place in creation: (I) he is "in the image of God"; (II) in his own nature he unites the spiritual and material worlds; (III) he is created "male and female"; (IV) God established him in his friendship."
(Catechism, 355)

Backing up a bit more, I'm a practicing Catholic, so I have to believe that God created everything: and that what God created is good. (Genesis 1:1-31; Catechism, 337-338) Which isn't the same as believing Bishop Ussher, or hating science: and I've been over that before. (March 14, 2012, January 18, 2012)

The bottom line is that God made the material world, and God doesn't make junk.

Matter and Spirit: One Nature

I'm not nice soul, stuck in a nasty body that's dragging me into sin. I'm a human being, and the specs for this sort of creature say that a human being is a body and soul. Not a soul trapped in a body.

"The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. The biblical account expresses this reality in symbolic LANGUAGE when it affirms that 'then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.'²²⁹ Man, whole and entire, is therefore willed by God."
(Catechism, 362)

There's more about body and soul, with emphasis on "and." (Catechism, 362-368) One of the important points is that man isn't two natures, body and spirit, welded together. We're body and spirit, united to form a single nature. (Catechism, 365)

Turns out that, as a practicing Catholic, I'm not allowed to despise my body:

"The human body shares in the dignity of the image of God: it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit:²³²

Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day.²³³"

(Catechism, 364)

I'm not supposed to worship my body, either, and that's another topic. (April 15, 2012)

Living in a Good World

Deciding that the world, the physical universe, is "good" wasn't hard for me. For starters, I've been fascinated by the world as far back as I can remember.

I also wasn't dismayed at the idea that the universe seems hostile or indifferent. I grew up in an region where water is a mineral for a significant fraction of the year. I figured that if I didn't have the sense to keep from freezing to death, blaming winter wouldn't help: and blaming God would be daft. Maybe that's why this is one of my favorite bits of poetry:

"A man said to the universe:
'Sir, I exist!'
'However,' replied the universe,
'The fact has not created in me
'A sense of obligation.' "
("War is Kind," Stephen Crane (1899), via Project Gutenberg)

I've run into folks who seem to think that God shouldn't exist, because there are places in the universe where we need to use our brains to survive. I don't see it that way: but like I said, I grew up in a place where winter happened.

The point I'm groping for is that I like God's creation: even the parts that could kill me if I'm not sensible. There are some Church teachings that I've had to struggle with. Believing that the world was created by God, and is basically good, isn't one of them

Sin and Virtue

In a way, it might be easier for me to deal with gluttony, if I could convince myself that 'spiritual' was good and 'physical' was bad. I could, in principle, develop an antipathy toward food and every other physical pleasure.

But I'm not going to spend the rest of my life eating barely enough to stay alive. And I'm not going to fume about the evils of steak and potatoes. Not that I'd be tempted to do that. I enjoy being a matter/spirit creature too much.

Another option I have would be to brood about the capital sins. (Catechism, 1866) And venial sins, and every other sort of sin. I could obsess about avoiding sin, and fume about how sinful other folks were: and that doesn't seem like a good idea. At all.

I think a better approach is to focus on virtues. Like the cardinal virtues:

• Prudence
  • "Disposes practical reason to discern our true good"
  (Catechism, 1806)
• Justice
  • "The constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor"
  (Catechism, 1807)
• Fortitude
  • "Ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good"
  (Catechism, 1808)
• Temperance
  • "Moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods"
  (Catechism, 1809)

Note: "Temperance," Catholic style, is about moderation, balance, and avoiding excess. (Catechism, 2290) Carry Nation, with her Bible and hatchet, are an American phenomenon. I've been over that before, too. (October 5, 2011)

Applying what I've read, it looks like I'm obliged to see my body as good, "and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day." (Catechism, 364) That's going to take quite a lot of work. Decades of overeating and under-exercising have effects that won't be undone quickly or easily. By the way, gluttony isn't the only sin I've had trouble with. And that's another topic. Topics.

Related posts:

• God's creation
  • "Humans: How do We Fit In?"
    (March 28, 2012)
  • "Beauty, Science, and a Crazy Idea"
    (March 14, 2012)
  • "The Visible World"
    (March 7, 2012)
  • " 'Only a Few of His Works Have We Seen' "
    (February 27, 2012)
  • " 'Visible and Invisible' "
    (February 8, 2012)
• Dualism
  • "Gnosticism: Dissing God's Creation"
    (March 5, 2012)
  • "The Sea of Galilee, Four Fishermen, and God the Son"
    (November 30, 2011)
    Particuarly
    • Jesus: Divine and Human
  • "God Doesn't Make Junk: Or Mistakes"
    (November 27, 2011)
  • "Humans are Animals: But Not Just Animals"
    (August 31, 2011)
    Particularly
    • 'Darkness and Light, Locked in Combat' - Nifty Slogan, and Wrong
    • " 'If you must see ghosts ...' Materialism, Being Spiritual, and Uncle Deadly"
      (December 18, 2009)
      Particularly
      • Let's Remember: "Spiritual" Doesn't Mean "Good"

---

¹ A list of major points, from Catechism, 362-368. Like I've said before, I've got the teaching authority of "some guy with a blog." I recommend following those links and reading the Catechism yourself.

One reason I make these lists is that it helps me study the material:

• The human person is
  • Created in the image of God
  • Both corporeal/material and spiritual
    • A unified whole
  • And that's the way God designed us
  (Catechism, 362)
• In Sacred Scripture "soul" means
  • human life
  • The entire human person
  • The innermost aspect of man
    • That which is of greatest value
    • By which man is most especially in God's image
  • The spiritual principle in man
  • Sometimes the soul is distinguished from the spirit
    (1 Thessalonians 5:23)
    • The Church teaches that this distinction does not introduce a duality into the soul
    • "Spirit" signifies that
      • From creation man is ordered to a supernatural end
      • His soul can gratuitously be raised
        • Beyond all it deserves
        • To communion with God
  • The spiritual tradition of the Church also emphasizes the heart
    • In the biblical sense of
      • The depths of one's being
      • Where the person decides for or against God
  (Catechism, 363, 367, 368)
• The human body is
  • Part of "the image of God"
  • A human body because it is animated by a spiritual soul
  • Intended to become a temple of the Spirit
    • As part of the whole human person
    • In the body of Christ
    (Catechism, 364)
• Man is a unity
  • Body and soul
  • Man's "bodily condition" sums up the elements of the material world
  • Through man, the material world may freely praise its Creator
    • Therefore, man
      • May not despise his bodily life
        • Since God
          • Has created it
          • Will raise it up on the last day
      • Is obliged to
        • Regard his body as good
        • Hold it in honor
  (Catechism, 364)
• The unity of soul and body is very profound
  • "One has to consider the soul to be the 'form' of the body"
  • A human body
    • Is material
    • Is a living human being because of its spiritual soul
  • A human being is
    • Not two natures united
    • A single nature
      • Formed from the union of two natures
  (Catechism, 365)
• Every spiritual soul is
  • Created immediately/directly by God
    • Not "produced" by the parents
  • Immortal
    • Separated from the body at death
    • Reunited with the body at the final Resurrection
  (Catechism, 366)