Irreducible Part 1

Irreducibility: it's a fancy word that has serious implications (another fancy word)... Let's put it this way: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Philosophy all have this same concept: There is a point beyond which you cannot reduce a thing without changing its identity.

For example, if you remove my hair, I am still human, and I am still myself, perhaps slightly more or less handsome. No big whoop. If you remove some more essential aspect of me, say all of my lower torso, something has definitely changed. I would then be lacking some significant aspects of what it is to be a human being.

Occam's Razor, a popular tool in philosophical circles, is essentially a mental process of removing all unnecessary elements of an argument or analysis to get closer to true understanding. It is often over-simplified to the axiom: "The simplest explanation is most likely the correct one." This generalization loses the elements of completeness and accuracy and in so doing actually proves the point that one can, in the process of simplifying, remove something that in fact is essential. Occam would agree that one always must favor accuracy over simplicity.

In the sciences we learn about elements. It is possible to have great quantities of an element. Think of a zeppelin full of hydrogen. It is possible to reduce this great quantities all the way down to a single atom. However, if one tries to reduce beyond this point, a radical reaction takes place called fission: energy is released, and what remains is no longer the same element as before. For a larger scale understanding of what energy fission releases, think of the uranium-based fission device dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945.

In our country right now, there is a debate ongoing as to the definition of marriage. It is incumbent upon all rational beings in a society to contribute to such discussions in the interest of truth, social order, and the continuation of the very fabric of society. The Catholic Church provides a beautiful definition for marriage: "[...] a covenant by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring [...]" (CIC 1055).

There are five clear elements to this definition: 1) it is a covenant - agreed upon by man and ratified by God, 2) it is between a man and a woman - it can neither be alone nor with same sex partners nor with multiple partners, 3) it is for the whole life - it is a bond of love meant to last from consummation until death and all points in between, 4) it is for the good of both spouses - it must upbuild both partners and cannot be a relationship of slavery or abuse, 5) it is meant to produce and raise children - it must not be intentionally sterile.

When any of these four elements is absent or denied, marriage itself is being abused. I'll ask you to forgive the stereotypes, but a man who beats his wife, a wife who has her eyes on moreso on the potential alimony than on growing old with her spouse, a man and wife that take no interest in one another, a spouse who insists on bringing other persons into the marital bed, a young couple who consistently put their own interests ahead of having children or raising their children well, all of these are shadow "marriages" and cry out for deliverance. But even more to the point, they are denying themselves the inherent goods of marriage which cannot be present when it is reduced beyond its simple form. Repeat: By willfully denying an essential characteristic, they are depriving themselves of the identity and goods of marriage.

If some outside entity were to recognize such a flawed relationship exists and deny the recognition of their bond as marriage, what harm has been done to them? What these men and women are seeking through marriage are certain personal, civil, and spiritual benefits. The spiritual benefits that may have been sought are not available regardless. The civil benefits are intended as support for properly formed unions and the children they raise up. If those other "marriages" are denied the civil benefits when they are violating the conditions for application of those benefits, namely contributing to the well-being of society by a healthy marriage, then they are not being wronged, but rather prevented from wronging society by drawing unjust compensation from the rest of the citizenry. The personal benefits such as recognition, personal satisfaction, deeper sense of intimacy are simply not the concern of everyone else. I truly desire that everyone have those goods, but societies must be concerned with common goods (truth, justice, peace) not private goods. Securing private goods are strictly a private matter, not governmental.

Marriage is an immense treasure. The Lord Jesus saw fit to raise it to the dignity of a sacrament. Man and woman find in marriage the motivation to draw closer to their divinely intended perfection and the sublime calling to bring about that perfection in the other. Such a creation must be treasured and defended. Hear the calling in your own lives, and remind others of it. Some or those "marriages" can still become true celebrations of Matrimony.

Please look for the second installment of this article, which deals with many arguments regarding marriage and how they hold up to scrutiny. As always, if you like it, hate it, or want to talk about it, comment below.

20100723 New (Lord's Prayer 2)

"Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

God is the source of everything we could need or want because He is the source of the whole universe. Asking God to give us our daily bread is recognizing that even our basic needs for life are from Him. This is what we recognize when we worship God. By making choices to live for Him, by faithful worship, and by giving things up to Him we recognize that He is our Lord in every sense.

Throughout time, mankind has struggled to live up to the goodness we were created to have. Even with the first man and woman, we wound up sinning and hurting our relationship with God. In every generation after, sometimes better, sometimes worse, we have continued to sin and to forget how much God has done for us.

Yet in every age, God has continued to reach out to us. He has given us covenants to try and help us to live out our relationship to Him, revealed Scripture to us to guide us, and has worked miracles to strengthen our faith. The fullness of all these outreaches is Jesus. He and His message are the final public revelation of God’s Word. He worked great miracles and still does even today. And He gave us a new covenant in His blood.

Jesus has given us true forgiveness for our sins. In dying on the cross for us, He accepted the death that would only be fair punishment for our sins. He died in our place to give the opportunity for new life to all mankind through all time. He even descended unto the dead so that He could raise the righteous of the past up to life with God in Heaven. He died for each one of us as if we were the only one. This is the example of the kind of love we are supposed to try to live out in our lives: to give your life for your friends.

20100723 New (Nicene Creed 2)

"We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father. Through Him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation, He came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit, He was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man."

Jesus is both God the Son and the Son of God. That is to say that He is both God and man. This is one of the most central and most difficult aspects of Christian faith. Many years of conflict led to the Church adopting this part of the Creed to express this idea.

Jesus being truly a man means that He shares fully in our human nature but without sin. He has both a human body and a human soul. He has a human mind and human free will. He lived a truly extraordinary life in that with everything He did, He united His human will with the Divine Will.

Given that Jesus shared fully in our human nature except that He was sinless, we have to deal with the question of how His humanity was sinless. Jesus received His human nature from His mother, Mary, by the work of the Holy Spirit. For this reason and others, knowing that God had created and prepared Mary specifically to be His mother, we believe that Mary was also created without sin. The fact that Mary was conceived without Original Sin is what we refer to as the Immaculate Conception.

Because Mary was so important to God that He preserved her from sin and chose her to be His mother, we hold Mary in a special place in our hearts. We take her for our own because we take Jesus as our own.

Jesus’ life was mostly hidden from public view. He grew up in much the same way as every other boy. He lived out His teenage years much the same as others. He lived a fully human life, but His obedient sinless example stands as a challenge to us to follow in His footsteps.

When Jesus began His public ministry, He worked miracles to show that He was from God. He preached our relationship with God in a new way that focused on having a real relationship with God above simply following rules. Following the rules is great, but only if it is done with love. Jesus said that the greatest Commandment of God was to love God with all our heart, mind, body, and soul, and then to love our neighbor as ourselves.

20100707 New (Lord's Prayer 1)

Lord's Prayer Part I

"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

God created us to love and serve Him and to be happy with Him in Heaven. At the end of our lives, we hope that is where we shall go. We only know a few things about Heaven, but we know that God loves us and knows what is best for us, therefore we trust that Heaven will be the greatest thing possible for us.

To be able to go to Heaven, however, we must observe God’s law on Earth. God created the whole universe good. In the beginning, some of the angels rebelled and thus were expelled from Heaven. We recognize therefore, that following God’s will is necessary for us to enter Heaven.

Thankfully, we can recognize God’s law, not only in Scripture, but also, using our God-given intellect, in the world around us. This is what we call the “natural law.” Everyone, whether Christian or not, is required by God to observe these laws because they are available to all of us.

As persons who long to be with God in Heaven, we must do all we can to love God and one another on Earth. We must also do what we can to make sure that people treat one another as they should be treated. This is called “justice.” While we cannot make people love each other, we can do things to help make sure that they do not treat one another with injustice. This is part of what we must do to bring a little bit of Heaven’s ways to Earth.

20100707 New (Nicene Creed 1)

Nicene Creed Part I

"We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen."

Unlike most ancient belief systems, we do not believe in multiple gods, nor do we believe that God has only specific domains over which He has power. God is also not distant or uninterested in the world. Rather, we know God to be the One who created both the whole physical universe and the heavenly realities that we cannot see. Even more than that, He lovingly cares for His creation and actively works for the salvation of His prized creation, mankind, whom He made in His own Image.

Being made in God’s Image does not mean that God the Father looks like us, rather that we are made to resemble Him. We are made to resemble Him in His Essence, that is Love. We have intelligence, free will, memory, and the ability to love. In all of these things, we reflect God’s Nature and are meant to demonstrate His goodness to the world.

God is all-powerful, that is to say that everything in the universe is completely within His power. The only thing He never directly changes is human freedom. Rather than take away part of what makes us so special, He chooses to act in other ways that draw greater good out of the evils that we do.

God is all-knowing, that is to say that He perceives all aspects of all things in the whole universe through all time at all times. God is also eternal, that is not just to say that He has been in existence forever, but also to say that His existence has no reference to time. He created time and space for our world, not for Himself. He perceives all time already laid out before Him.

God is Loving, Merciful, and Just. Even though mankind sinned against God, He still reached out to us time and time again. That is not to say that He does not punish our offenses, but rather to say that He forgives far more than we deserve. God has a deep, abiding and passionate love for mankind that we have not nor can do anything to deserve. Rather, He has asked simply that we accept a loving relationship with Him, accepting Him as our God, and we shall be His people.