Pope Benedict XVI’s new encyclical is Spe Salvi (On Christian Hope). It has a lot to say about what hope is, what the highest hope is, and how we can grow in the virtue of hope. But it also includes, along the way, a list of things that we should not put our hopes in.
Listing what we shouldn’t hope in is a helpful exercise, especially for Americans.
Our standard of living can easily lead to a false hope in this world. Technology has made our lives more comfortable than kings and queens in ages past. We can travel great distances quickly. We can buy tomatoes, oranges, apples and avocados from around the world year-round in our corner store. We can get in touch with almost anyone almost anywhere at almost any time ”” and we can fill our every waking moment with sophisticated entertainments.
Pope Benedict’s prophetic message is that much of what we hope in will fail us.
Can someone send this over to 815?
I commend this work to anyone who struggles with what to hold on to in the world we find ourselves in. My soul soraed reading this:
from paragraph 35 of Pope Benedict’s latest encyclical:
“All serious and upright human conduct is hope in action. This is so first of all in the sense that we thereby strive to realize our lesser and greater hopes, to complete this or that task which is important for our onward journey, or we work towards a brighter and more humane world so as to open doors into the future. Yet our daily efforts in pursuing our own lives and in working for the world’s future either tire us or turn into fanaticism, unless we are enlightened by the radiance of the great hope that cannot be destroyed even by small-scale failures or by a breakdown in matters of historic importance. If we cannot hope for more than is effectively attainable at any given time, or more than is promised by political or economic authorities, our lives will soon be without hope. It is important to know that I can always continue to hope, even if in my own life, or the historical period in which I am living, there seems to be nothing left to hope for. Only the great certitude of hope that my own life and history in general, despite all failures, are held firm by the indestructible power of Love, and that this gives them their meaning and importance, only this kind of hope can then give the courage to act and to persevere. “
It strikes me that we are so lucky to have two great Christian traditions led by such gifted theologians. In our current model of “leadership”, with all it’s trappings of control, command & action – what a sublime experience. God truly equips the called, rather than calling the equiped.
But don’t you see the trouble? The Pope apparently doesn’t. Now hear this: Technology and the science that drives it is remarkable precisely because it does not fail. It has made an enormous list of promises, and it has produced on them, over and over. The evidence is everywhere and you know it. Nor is there any sign that it will not continue to fulfill its promises and then some. Can one hope that a cure will b found for cancer? Do you for one minute doubt it? Will stem cell research yield real benefits for mankind? Can we legitimately hope that it will? And can we dare to hope that science will grasp the aging problem sufficiently well so that we can live ever longer and longer – yes, even forever?
You may say, these hopes are all dashed by death and disease. But if you consider 50 years ago, 100 years ago and ask, have the sciences and technology given us real hope that they will conquer everything that made life suffering and misery? There can be only one answer. It is over the utmost importance that Christianity deal with today’s realities, not those of 500 years ago. If it does not, it will simply become a shadow from the past, throwing a dark, grim shadow over the hopes of the living world, and it will be discarded accordingly. LM
Unfortunately, it is those human achievements that seem–or even are– most successful that seduce us into idol worship. Look at all the scientists and researchers who argue that they are virtually subject to no moral boundaries because of their past successes and possible future promise. Yet science and research without moral boundaries was (and maybe still is) in full display at the Washington Holocaust museum in a special exhibit of doctors and researchers “doing their thing” without regard to any morality whatsoever.
Larry Morse, you wrote:
*** Technology and the science that drives it is remarkable precisely because it does not fail. It has made an enormous list of promises, and it has produced on them, over and over. ***
I have got to disagree with you. I have worked 22 years in technology, my family works in science. They fail almost more often than they “work” – it is a common joke among technical folks that a failure is simply an opportunity for improvement.
I fear you are conflating faith & certainty, Larry – something that seems to be at the core of so much of modern day Christianity. Faith and hope must be seen to be believed – they can no more be proven than the presence of the wind or my love for my wife or daughters.
I do NOT disagree that Christianity must continue to deal with today’s realities – with the crisis in our prosperity, security and equity systems, with the corrosive spiritual hunger than eats at so much of the world. Benedict’s writing on hope (and love in his first piece as Pope) speak to our world today, to the Church historic and to future Jesus followers.
I am not certain what #3’s problem is with Spe Salvi and the Pope is. I have only begun to slowly read the encyclical for Advent reading and have found it a marvelous pastoral treatment of the subject of hope. What has impressed me is the personal nature of hope in the text found in an encounter with the living God.
Certainly science has provided subsidiary hope in some areas such as medicine, but the Pope’s point is that ultimately hope transcends death itself. Only the Good Shepherd who has faced death can lead us through the valley of the shadow. Such a hope is as current as it was 500 years ago.
Working for a technology company that has produced many breakthroughs in basic and applied research in its history, I feel a few points are in order: yes, technology and the larger realm of applying systematic reason to important problems are powerful forces; yes, standards of living objectively measured are rising; BUT, both basic and applied research proceed on the backs of failure as much (or more) than successes, often serendipitously (harken to Einstein’s famous quip, that if we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be research); and neither science nor its subsidiary disciplines provide much in the way of moral guidance as to how their discoveries and developments should be used, much less how a human life ought be lived. Science provides us incredibly powerful [i] means[/i].
I did NOT say that science does not fail. Obviously it does and it uses its failures to instruct its future course. I said that it consistently offers hope and that this faith in science and technology has been born out again and again. The evidence is perfectly clear. And more still;, science has its sights set on aging. Do you really believe that it cannot unravel the causes of aging and offer a “remedy” to them, one way or another?
But can science and technology become an END, not just a powerful means? Of course it can, for the goals it pursues can be made into values, and values are ends, and scienticism already does this. I need not list them since you already know them. Do you believe that the good life consists of health, wealth and the pursuit of happiness? Does not science speak to all these in concrete ways?
Suppose I offered all America this choice right now: You can be an atheist and have all of the benefits above, or you can be miserable in this life but have the hope to go to heaven after you die, do you really doubt the choice that Americans would make? This is the real America t hat Christianity in NOT dealing with, does not even wish to look at.
Mind you, science as a religion substitute will serve Americans very well, but it won’t serve me well because I do not believe in what is commonly called progress. (That is, I do not believe that I enjoy television more when the screen is the size of the whole wall than I did when it was a four inches across. I do not believe that I enjoy baseball more in 2007 than I did in 1940 – in fact, I enjoy it less. Did I enjoy life less in 1940 when polio was still commonplace and dentistry was medieval? No, I enjoyed life more, in fact. Do I get more out of Christianity now than I did in 1940? Do I enjoy Christmas more now than then? You must be kidding.)
A life in which standards are observed and upheld, when the past was an integral part of the present, when right belief and right behavior actually meant something for both individuals and the culture as a whole, when a priest or minister was held to higher standards than t he run of us: Give me this world, the one that Br M above sees dissolving into meaninglessness. Larry
Larry,
I think I see what you’re saying. But the hope talked about by Pope Benedict and the hope we may place in scientific and technological progress are two very different kinds of hope. Science can offer us plenty to hope for, but even the most astounding achievements we can reach through science and technology are limited to the material universe. Our hope in Christ goes literally infinitely beyond that. I agree that Americans (and mankind in general) would certainly take a life of comfort and joy through materialism rather than a life which risks misery, pain, and suffering in the hope of eternal life, however, I do not think even the most advanced science can cure mankind of its ills. This is due to the fact that we are broken, fallen creatures and science cannot cure the stain on our souls.
So can we keep BOTH kinds of hope? A hope that science and technology will help us care for each other and alleviate human suffering AND the hope in Christ’s promise of eternal life? I don’t see a contradiction.
Larry – Just to clarify, you did say science does not fail in #3 above:
[blockquote]Technology and the science that drives it is remarkable precisely because it does not fail.[/blockquote]
I also don’t follow the argument that science can be an end because the goals it pursues can be made into values. For science to be an end, it would have to be a goal in and of itself. You are correct science drives improvements in health and wealth generally, but not universally. Discovering how communicable diseases spread can help improve public health – or provide an opportunity for biological warfare. Discovering steroids and their use can aid in the treatment of lupus, cancer, and AID – or give athletes a short-term performance boost (and an asterisk). What we have to remember is that “Science” does not actually do anything. People act, and as a tools in the hands of acting people, science/technology can make them much more effective at reaching ends (for good or ill) but cannot tell them what ends are appropriate.
You also ask about the good life, and health, wealth and the pursuit of happiness. At any given time, would I prefer to be healthier, wealthier, and happier? Of course. But these attributes of the good life are often in conflict with each other or even internally. I can make choices that allow me to maximize wealth, but my health and happiness would suffer. I frequently make choices that tradeoff long-term happiness for short-term happiness. Science and technology help breakdown some of these tradeoffs (for example, communication technology allows me to have a good job that I can sometimes carry out from home, so I see my wife and children more, don’t waste time commuting, have less stress, etc). But, ultimately, we come to a point where (a) trade-offs between these attributes of the good life become arbitrary; (b) one gets maximized and becomes the de facto highest good; or (c) a separate higher good helps harmonize the three by making them subservient to itself. As a Christian, I would argue that the highest good is conforming inward thought and outward deed with God’s will (to the extent one understands God’s will and with the usual caveats of how imperfect this conformance necessarily is).
God love you.
Larry,
Your belief that science and technology have the power to some day create “heaven on earth” such that people will no longer need to hope for heaven after death is, IMHO, very shortsighted. Assuming that science could defeat aging and death itself (which there is absolutely no reason to believe) there will never be a world in which children don’t die in horrible accidents, in which people who spend their lives working on a dream never see their efforts dissolve in failure, in which lovers are not unfaithful to the ones who love them — in short in which we do not experience all of the kinds of heartbreak that exists in this “vale of tears.”
A mother’s 4 year old child has just drowned in the backyard pool. What is the “hope” for her? “Don’t worry — technology will find better ways to prevent pool drownings in the future?” A man spends his whole life working on a project which ultimately does not come to fruition. He loses his funding and ultimately his job. “Don’t feel bad. Science builds on other people’s failures. You’re just one of the failures.” Do you also assume that all war and crime will eventually be eliminated? No one will be lonely, friendless, or abandoned? Do you assume that all people will have access to the highest forms of technology at all times? Right now 40% of AMERICANS (forget the 3rd world) don’t even have health insurance. They’d be happy to have access to the technology that lets them have a gall bladder operation, much less that which is going to let them live forever. It’s not even clear how much longer we’re going to have the petroleum resources that support basic technology once the rest of the world ramps up to our level of consumption.
Jesus understood that life on this earth is important — by example and teaching he showed us the importance of taking care of people’s physical needs. But he also showed us that this will never be enough — not only because “the poor you have with you always” but because “man does not live by bread alone.” The soul will always yearn for a greater hope than can be offered in this world.
#9: My personal belief is that it is as you say, that we can have that hope that both science andChrist provide. But this is just me (and you and you and you). I see by the above that others have misunderstood my argument, that they think I am not being the devil’s advocate. But the da has a powerful word of warning for us all, that scientism is a potent religion and its roots and hope are in this world alone and how one may live long and well in it. For those who say this, and there numbers increase in leaps and bounds, what does Christianity have to say to them. That they are broken and fallen (when they can obviously see that they’re not)? That science and technology are failing them in vital ways when they can see it isn’t? Why worry about your soul when no one can demonstrate that such a thing exists?
But for the rest of Americans, let us start with the assumption that we are NOT all broken, fallen creatures with stained souls. This notion is after all, not demonstrable. We have the usual set of weaknesses and a taste for vice, but this is simply the way evolution has “grown” us from our origins. What we need, e.g., is a pill that will not allow drug use to turn into addiction or that will ease us out of such addiction. Will you refuse to believe that science can do this?
And will you disagree that we are in statistical fact living longer and longer lives? And getting richer and richer? And that science and technology are at the root of these “improvements”? What equal benefits can Christianity show to secularist who says, “I’m from Missouri.Show me.”
At last, Chris, there IS no contradiction, and in the far future we shall see clearly. For the present, scientism is winning virtually all the fights, and, Chris, the church is paying no attention to it because it is so occupied with in-fighting. There is a bigger fight coming , and we are showing the enemy that we are unprotected.
Chris, suppose that I offered you a chance to live a healthy life until you are two hundred. Would you turn the offer down, even though you knew that if many people made this choice, overpopulation would literally the world alive in a generation or two. Would you respond, “Well, maybe, but I suspect that science will find a way to feed so many when the necessity to do so presents itself.”
I personally waste no love or time on scientism because it mistates mankinds’ essential needs. Larry
twilson: I meant that it does not fail in the long run, and the reason is that it uses its local failures to provide the data to keep the same failure from being repeated. Indeed, this is why it does not fail in the long run. We have been dreaming of sending a man to the moon in some kind of a device for a long time. But, I ask you, one hundred years ago,who would have believed that we would actually do so. Incredible! Can’t be done! What, go through millio0ns and millions of miles of almost perfect vacuum? Dream on. And then….. I offer you a rule: In the physical world, if we can imagine it, it can be done. That’s true, isn’t it? What then? Can we imagine living five hundred years? See Catholic Mom. Which is liklier to be right in the long run?
I wish I could examine your argument in detail, but t he truth is that I have gone on and on, and I am beginning to feel guilty. I shouldn’t write reams on what used to be called “paper.” Do you remember paper and writing on it to send what were called, quaintly “letters?” I mean writing with your hand with a stick- kind of thinger that made marks of the paper?
So I will just say this, that Catholic Mom has touched in one sentence the crucial issue: The soul -or whatever you call it – will NOT be satisfied with less than perfection, and this can never be met because we cannot grasp what this could mean. We can NOT imagine perfection, but the soul, which is not us, can. (See here Thoreau’s discussion of doubleness in “Walden.” This is his most important passage.) Larry
Larry, I think after a fashion you and I agree at least that (a) science can become an idol and (b) ultimately man’s essential needs come from the soul, not the body or mind, and are met by something other than science. And the seduction of science comes precisely from its potency in providing for the needs of body and mind. I don’t have the domain expertise to assess the likelihood of extending life to 500 years, though longevity is increasing. But even longevity is an issue fraught with complications: even if we can stop or slow decay of the body, can we also do so for the mind (or is that even a meaningful question, as the mind could be an emergent property of the body)?; what new conditions will emerge as we extend the term of physical life? (think of how the rising incidence of cancer looks like an epidemic, until we consider that most people didn’t survive long enough to have high odds of getting cancer until only few generations ago). All this to say that I cannot imagine total escape from natural death, and certainly not from accidental death. Unless the mind can escape the body, I suspect we will be finite beings in a physical sense.
Of course I remember paper – another tool, and a personal favorite of mine. In my experience, the starting point for tackling any problem is a clean sheet of paper and some writing instrument.
BTW, you might be interested to know that the Roman Catholic Church takes a keen interest in science. [url=http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.12/pope_astro.html]Check this out.[/url]
Larry, thank you for your thought provoking reflections. I believe you’re right that this is something that Christianity will have to face, and sooner, rather than later.
However, it’s interesting to see that despite (or perhaps because of) the astonishing increase in scientific understanding and technological expertise in the 20th century, people still seek spiritual answers to spiritual problems. I can’t envision a way for sci/tech to ever be able to supplant that side of human nature. Of course, I’m not all that imaginative.