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Harry Potter and the Doctrine of the Calvinists

by Dan H

Friday, 17 August 2007

Dan refuses to just give up on the Potter articles already.~

A lot of people are mortally offended by the ending of the Narnia series, because it seems to suggest that Susan's absolute rejection of all the teachings of Christ prevents her from getting into heaven. I actually like it for exactly that reason: it's got a firm grounding in a genuine religious philosophy which I find significantly more interesting than the usual messages one gets from children's literature, or popular fiction in general.

This, of course, is why it seems so crazy to the secular reader. It's based on some profound assumptions about the metaphysical reality of the world, and if you don't believe the world works like that it doesn't make any sense. Many atheists (and a fair number of Christians, for that matter) have a hard time getting their heads around the idea that you can be a perfectly decent person, but still not go to heaven.

Even more difficult for atheists like me to get our heads around are the doctrines of the Calvinists. Very roughly (from my limited understanding) the Calvinists embrace fully the idea that it is impossible for any human being to be truly worthy of God's love. God is just that great and we are just that flawed. This is actually comparatively uncontroversial - it's just a firm statement of the idea that salvation comes wholly from the Grace of God, and not from your individual virtue. The Calvinists take this idea to its logical conclusion: that since obviously not everybody can be saved, God's grace will only fall on a small proportion of the population - the Elect. Since nobody can be worthy of God, whether one is or is not part of the Elect is entirely outside of one's own control. There are just some people who are predestined towards salvation, and some who aren't.

Now it would be easy here to score cheap points and say that this is just somebody using religion as a control mechanism, pretending that the reason he's so much better off than everybody else is because God likes him better. But that's actually not massively plausible. After all, when Calivinist doctrine was first developed, the Calvinists weren't exactly ruling the roost.

Calvinism is actually a fairly logical extension of one of the more difficult points of protestant doctrine: the idea of salvation by grace. People seem to be uncomfortable with the idea that drawing closer to a supernatural being who transcends all of the concerns of physical reality might actually not be the same thing as being nice to people. Perhaps it's just overexposure to classical mythology at an impressionable age, but I don't find it that hard to understand. I somehow can't imagine a classical theologian saying "but why would the Gods be so angry about Prometheus stealing fire? Why do we worship them if they're so mean?" or a Viking saying "I'm sure that Odin will understand that you wanted to die valiantly in battle."

I think that perhaps the reason people find the ideas expressed in - say - Calvinist theology, or The Last Battle is that, since we live in a secular society, we naturally divorce these kinds of ideas from their supernatural context. For example: burning at the stake was actually supposed to be a merciful form of execution, because it allowed the accused the maximum possible amount of time to repent. If you genuinely believe in an immortal soul, this is actually very sensible. Far better to burn somebody to death slowly, giving them a chance to go to heaven, than to cut their head off and condemn them to hell. To somebody who doesn't believe in an afterlife, though, it's needless cruelty.

When you decontextualise the doctrines or practices of a religion, you invariably make them into something extremely sinister and disturbing.

Which is why Harry Potter freaks me out so much.

JK Rowling self-defines as a Christian. More specifically, she was apparently raised Church of Scotland which, the internet reliably informs me, has strong Calvinist influences. If this is true, then it seems that Rowling has allowed her faith to strongly influence her work. Unfortunately she has also allowed it to become so decontextualised as to be unrecognisable.

Let us take the principle of Election, the notion that there are a fortunate few who, by grace of God, shall be called to salvation. In the Potterverse "Election" is called "Sorting" and instead of being controlled by Almighty God it is controlled by a hat.

Now I know Rowling pays lip service to the houses all being equal, but it's nonsense. Gryffindor is the superior house, all the way. Rowling herself declares not only that she would want to be in Gryffindor if she attended Hogwarts but also that she "hopes she would be found worthy."

So basically at the age of eleven, your fate is already sealed. Either you're Gryffindor, or you're evil, or you're chattel. You can't change, you can't be redeemed (unless you've already had the good fortune to fall in love with a Gryffindor) you are either Good or you are Evil or you Just Don't Matter and none of your decisions, none of your actions, mean a damned thing. No matter how much of a bullying little shit James Potter was, we are never really asked to see him as anything but a hero. Lily treats Snape like dirt, but is still the byword for selfless love in the series. And of course Dumbledore, our epitome of goodness, is a manipulative self-serving bastard who plots world domination and raises Harry to be a sacrificial lamb. But in the end we are expected to view all of these people as heroes because they were Gryffindors and therefore virtuous by definition.

Then of course there is Snape. After nearly twenty years of loyal service to Dumbledore, risking death or worse to spy on the Dark Lord, and incidentally building up a loyal fanbase who for some reason think that being smart is cooler than owning a flying motorcycle, JK Rowling eventually grants him the ultimate accolade. "Sometimes, we sort too soon." If a member of a different house displays courage, it shows that they must really be a Gryffindor deep down.

Rowling clearly subscribes to the philosophy that a person has a fundamental nature. That deep down a person cannot change. Deep down Harry is a hero, Percy is officious, Voldemort is Evil, Snape is a bully, Dumbledore is good but tempted by power. None of these traits will change, none of them can change. Rowling seems to believe it impossible.

This is most apparent, I think, in how she writes about Harry. It is never his actions. which win him praise, but rather the spirit in which he acts. This is perhaps most apparent in the seventh book, when Harry uses the Cruciatus curse on Amycus Carrow and McGonagall responds with the statement that it is "very gallant" of him.

Now I admit I might be a little bit behind the times here, but how is torturing your enemies "gallant"? Presumably in the same way that a single minded obsession with the personal destruction of your enemies has something to do with "love".

But my objections here are based on a false assumption: on the assumption that a person's moral character (their salvation, their redemption) is in any way affected by their actions. In Rowling's world it is not, and this is a deliberate and conscious theme throughout the books. Harry performs the same actions as other characters, but because he is by nature pure, his actions are actions of goodness, not of evil.

Even further proof that Harry's goodness is nothing to do with his actions - or indeed even his personality - but is instead some kind of elemental property comes from this rather interesting quote, regarding the fact that Voldemort had hope of salvation:

"Because he had taken into his body this-- this drop of hope or love (Harry's blood). So that meant that if he could have mustered the courage to repent, he would have been okay. But, of course, he wouldn't. And that's his choice."

Now there's two interesting things here. The first is that Voldemort's hope came literally from Harry's blood. Voldemort is not a person, Harry is not a person. Harry is a vessel full of Hope and Love in distilled form. No matter how many people he tortures or brutalises, he will always have Hope and Love in his very blood. It is physical contact with Harry's blood that gave Voldemort his one chance of redemption.

The second, subtler point is this one:

"But, of course, he wouldn't. And that's his choice."

Notice that she uses the words "of course" and "his choice" in the same sentence. And this is the point I find most interesting.

If you ever try to argue that JK Rowling is a slavering determinist, people always pull out two facts. Firstly, there's the fact that Harry "chose" not to be placed in Slytherin. Secondly, there's this extremely interesting line by Dumbledore.

"It is our choices Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

Now I hope it doesn't look like I'm being obsessive here, but I think it's extremely telling that Dumbledore uses the phrase "show what we truly are" and not " say "decide what we become." Dumbledore is telling us, quite clearly, that who we are never changes, that the decisions we make in our lives serve only to illuminate our natures, which are otherwise immutable.

So Voldemort could never have been redeemed. He was given the chance to "try for some remorse" but there was never any realistic expectation that he would be able to. Indeed we are told repeatedly throughout the series that Voldemort is not capable of love. Not that he hasn't known love, that he has never experienced love, that he is literally incapable of it.

A choice, to Rowling, is not a chance to control one's own destiny, but a chance to show your quality. The outcome of a choice is predetermined. Voldemort would never have chosen redemption, so he had no chance of redemption, no matter how much of Harry's Magic Blood he had pumping through him.

I started this article talking about Calvinist Election, and by mentioning that "atheists like me" find it a rather disturbing concept. I think a big thing that people find uncomfortable is the idea that "the Elect" get to strut around being all superior, just because some random fluke made them God's Chosen. This is of course not how it works. The whole point of Election is that no one man is more worthy of salvation than any other, that any who are saved, are saved by the grace of God, not by their own merits. Within Calvinist philosophy being "chosen" doesn't make you better than anybody else, it just gives you one extra reason to thank God.

Rowling's world, however, really does work the way atheists perceive Calvinist Election as working. Harry is arbitrarily singled out as being "special" or "chosen" and this literally does make him better than other people. Harry is as incorruptible as Voldemort is irredeemable. Harry's choices will always be the right ones, not because of his moral character but because the world itself will change to accommodate him. He can withstand the Imperius Curse, he can see into the mind of the Dark Lord, yet remain uncorrupted by it, he can unite the Deathly Hallows. Even when he actively seeks to bring pain and death to his enemies, it is somehow virtuous. Because Harry is Just That Awesome.

JK Rowling has said, in interview:

"My beliefs and my struggling with religious belief and so on I think is quite apparent in this book."

And apparent it is. The culmination of the Harry Potter series reads like the scrabbling of a Cultural Christian, trying to construct a moral framework out of fragments of doctrine she does not entirely understand or believe. Half-formed ideas about faith and destiny and redemption and death collide producing a result that is mostly simplistic, and occasionally sacrilegious.

The quasi-Christian overtones make some parts of the book genuinely incoherent. At times Harry's faith in Dumbledore is presented as almost akin to faith in God. He sets forth on his great journey, after all, knowing virtually nothing and Trusting That Dumbledore Would Provide. Indeed the Dumbledore-as-Divinity concept is a strong theme from the very start. It is very frequently Harry's Faith in Dumbledore that truly saves the day (most explicitly in Chamber of Secrets). The entire subplot with Dumbeldore's backstory is presented almost as Harry's last test of Faith.

And of course if Dumbledore is God, then this naturally casts Harry in the role of Jesus: walking amongst the unbelievers, spreading His word, facing persecution and ultimately death. A sacrifice made in perfect Love to redeem the sins of the Wizarding World.

Except that Dumbledore isn't God, he's just a guy, so having unwavering faith in him isn't laudable, it's blind fanaticism. And Harry doesn't sacrifice himself to save Hogwarts, he sacrifices himself to kill Voldemort. Hell, Rowling even admits that after book 6, if Harry looked into the Mirror of Erised he would see "Voldemort finished, dead, gone". His deepest desire is not to protect his friends, or even to live a normal life, but to kill the guy who killed his parents.

It's a mess, and the fact that it's a mess is probably the saddest thing of all. Rowling so clearly wanted to say something big about faith, about love, and about death, but all she has managed to do is communicate her own confuson.Themes:

J.K. Rowling

Books

Young Adult / Children

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Wardog

at 09:34 on 2007-08-17And obviously you have the whole sacramental thing of Voldemort receiving Harry's blood, or rather refusing the salvation contained within it... euw.

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Arthur B

at 11:11 on 2007-08-17I think you can also see attitudes towards predestination in her view of herself and her work. I was watching her original publisher on TV the other day talking about how he advised her to get a day job, because very very few people can actually make a living on children's books, and how she simply said she was very confident that HP would be successful. Which turned out to be right, of course, but there's no way anyone could have predicted exactly how much the HP books took off (and arguably they didn't become

really

massive until

Prisoner of Azkaban

). I know, I know, most authors probably harbour hopes that they'll be able to live off their soon-to-be-published novel and ditch the day job, it's human nature to be optimistic - but it's also human nature to harbour a deep-seated worry that your book might just flop. Rowling has never shown any evidence of the latter.

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Dan H

at 14:49 on 2007-08-17This is, I think, also evidence of Ms Rowling's deeply fucked up priorities. Having faith in yourself is one thing, but she had a fucking *kid* to support. You think she'd give some thought to how the poor bastard was going to eat.

Also: Fun exercise for your spare time. Re-read the chapter entitled "Horcruxes" in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It's as fucked up as all hell. It's where Dumbledore explains that Harry Potter hating Voldemort and wanting to kill him is evidence of his deep capacity for love.

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Arthur B

at 16:08 on 2007-08-17Care to summarise? I don't have the Half-Blood Prince and don't intend to read it - as far as I can tell, it's the big waterslide that dumps the reader in the sewer of

Deathly Hallows

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Dan H

at 16:23 on 2007-08-17Lets see, choice quotes from that chapter include:

"If Voldemort had never murdered your father, would he have implanted in you a furious desire for revenge?"

And of course

"You have never been seduced by the Dark Arts, never, even for a second, shown the slightest desire to become one of Voldemort's followers!"

"Of course I haven't," said Harry indignantly. "He killed my mum and dad!"

"You are protected, in short, by your ability to love!" said Dumbledore loudly.

And

"Imagine, please just for a moment that you had never heard that prophecy! How would you feel about Voldemort now? Think!"

"I'd want him finished," said Harry quietly. "And I'd want to do it."

That's your shining beacon of love folks: an angry little man driven by pure hatred and the desire for personal vengeance.

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Arthur B

at 16:33 on 2007-08-17That's hilarious. It's like Dumbledore is dozing his way through a speech and isn't actually listening to what Harry is saying.

"So, Harry, what will you do if you defeat Voldemort?" asked Dumbledore.

"I will become an Auror and turn the Ministry of Magic into a terrifying machine devoted to exterminating House Slytherin. I will use Unforgivable Curses like they were party tricks. I will break every single rule regulating magical law enforcement in my pursuit of the Slytherin menace."

"Oh Harry, you truly are a fountain of love and forgiveness!"

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Dan H

at 16:38 on 2007-08-17It's even worse than that: he's paying absolute attention to what Harry's saying, but deep down he's thinking "bwahahaha, see how I have manipulated this boy into believing that his childish desire to lash out at Lord Voldemort is a noble and selfless act! Now he is certain to do exactly as I wish while I arrange his death!"

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Arthur B

at 16:47 on 2007-08-17Yeah. You know how I said how Harry walking to his own death in order to be the messiah was the act of a paranoid schizophrenic? I take that back. Orchestrating your own death and the death of your protege because you firmly believe that a) this will let you defeat the greatest evil in the world and b) this is how you think the Truest Love works is the act of a paranoid schizophrenic megalomaniac.

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lessofthat

at 01:04 on 2007-08-28If only it were. It sounds more to me like the act of a man with no discernible personality traits whatsoever. I wonder how the books would read if you quietly ctrl-H'ed every instance of the word 'destiny' with the word 'plot'.

Hemmens, you've skewered the woman precisely and with brio, and you deserve applause, but how in the name of fuck was all this - except the ugly suicide cult business you mention in the previous piece - not visible from the downslope of book 3?

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Arthur B

at 09:26 on 2007-08-28I think people still had some faith that Rowling would pull off some brilliant plot twist and the series wouldn't go in the direction that it was obviously going, and in fact did. To be fair, for the first four books she was able to surprise me with the endings - I didn't expect Bloke With Turban to have Lord Voldemort pasted to the back of his head, I didn't expect that Tom Riddle was anything other than a horrible sneak called Tom Riddle, I hadn't guessed that the Goblet of Fire would be a teleportation trap. The third book is the best example of this, where the climactic encounter with Sirius Black you're expecting is still fifty-odd pages away happens early, before our heroes are even slightly ready.

Book 5, conversely, is pretty much devoid of surprises. In books 1-4 the titular thing - the Philosopher's Stone, the Chamber of Secrets, the Prisoner of Azkaban, the Goblet of Fire - is a mysterious object, place or person which is the key to the mystery the book covers. The Order of the Phoenix, conversely, is carefully explained early on in book 5 and isn't really especially relevant or important.

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lessofthat

at 10:57 on 2007-08-28Even her critics admit that Rowling does a good plot, but her creepy ideology and incoherent philosophy - her apparent belief that moral goodness is something you're born to, like the aristocracy, or that happens to you, like celebrity - has been visible for years.

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Arthur B

at 11:41 on 2007-08-28True, but until now people could always console themselves with the possibility that the whole goodness-by-selection deal was meant to be a Big Lie which was going to be exposed in the last book. In fact, the bit in

Deathly Hallows

where Harry struggles with the new facts he knows about Dumbledore could have been an excellent opportunity for Harry's worldview to be seriously challenged, but Rowling squandered the opportunity by having Harry's worldview be the correct one all along.

There was plenty of reason for bile and invective to be thrown in Rowling's general direction after books 5 and 6, and several decent causes for complaint after 4. I think the reason the flood has happened now, as opposed to earlier, is that with the publication of book 7 there is now no opportunity for Rowling to redeem the series.

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Wardog

at 15:00 on 2007-08-28I'm not actually sure all this stuff *has* been visible; it's been *there* but that's not quite the same thing. A lot of people (self included, at least until 6) assumed it was all building up into something quite dark and interesting. And don't we feel like idiots now.

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lessofthat

at 16:05 on 2007-08-28The more interesting question then is "what rendered it invisible?"

What surprises me is that everyone here dissing Rowling seems to have reached the same conclusions as I did, and articulated them rather better than I ever managed to, but inexplicably read all the way to the end before doing so. What dazzled you in the meantime? Was it just the plot, or were there promises of complexity in Harry and his gang that I overlooked?

I'd particularly like to know because I might then be able to reverse-engineer some kind of cure and inject it into the friend who told me last week '[book 7] is a fucking triumph and we're lucky to have her'. Or at least understand what the hell's going on with that.

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Arthur B

at 16:24 on 2007-08-28For my part, I was assuming (until book 5) that Rowling was going to pull the same start with the overarching plot of the series that she did with books 1-4 - specifically, try her hardest to trick the reader into thinking that a particular thing was going to happen, and then pull the rug out from under them. Sure, it was pretty obvious that we were going to have a ludicrous final battle in Hogwarts between Harry and Voldemort, and that Harry would prove to be the Chosen One by virtue of his amazing feat of surviving to his first birthday, but in the early Potter books whenever something's

that

obvious it usually isn't true.

Rowling's a one-trick pony, but she's pretty good at the narrative misdirection trick. It's why you had fans suggesting with a straight face that Dumbledore was actually Ron from the future; people realise that Rowling often throws out sudden plot twists, especially when the plot seems to be fairly straightforward, and the fans had plenty of fun coming up with convoluted ideas of what would happen at the conclusion.

Rowling's biggest misdirection was tricking people into thinking that the things which were obviously going to transpire in the HP series would not, in fact, come to pass.

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empink

at 03:32 on 2007-08-29@lessofthat

I think that sometimes, you just don't *see* the bad points of a book for whatever reason. Everyone I know can speak to hating or at least disliking a book that they loved a while ago- it's the same sort of thing at work, or at least the same set of forces. For some reason, you may just want to enjoy a book so badly that you ignore its rough corners. Or you aren't yet adept at recognising those rough corners yet, so they pass you by. Or you weren't really paying much attention, and everything seems all right to your friends, and everything seems all right in (faulty) hindsight, so you jump at the next chance to read more from the same author.

All of that is far, far more pronounced when there is a lot of strong emotion sloshing around about a book or story or creative endeavour. You're either caught up in the hype to some extent, invest in it and suddenly realise it matters to you because your investment in it feels a lot sillier if it doesn't matter to you, or you're not and you wonder why the hell everyone's losing their heads over the whole thing.

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Wardog

at 21:17 on 2007-08-29Agreed, empink.

The first three books, at least, have advantages to balance their disadvantages. They're not great literature (but then, what is?) but they're reasonably well-written, tautly plotted, genuinely amusing and occasionally, as Arthur points out above, quite surprising. I remember being quite startled that Snape wasn't, in fact, the bad guy of book 1 and I was quite impressed at the rather morally complex position he occupied in what was obviously a children's a book: at that stage in the game, he's good but not nice which is interesting for a children's book.

Also, as empink observes, the problems aren't really pronounced enough to add up to anything coherently problematic. Dan could never have written this article based off the first few books. I remember Harry seemed rather bland but nobody cared - he was a hero and heroes are meant to Save The World not be interesting and they were plenty of nice secondary characters to shine well when set against Harry's lack of personality. And the fact that Snape *wasn't* the bad guy seemed to suggest that Slytherin - despite the bad press - weren't basically evil, again suggesting a potentially morally layered universe. As the books progresses the houses, for example, become more and more simplified. I always thought well of the potrayal of Cedric Diggory (from book VI). I mean, he's a Hufflepuff, but he's clever AND brave AND abmitious. I always thought that might be trying to say something worthwhile.

Of course it wasn't.

Also the later books are all about shutting down avenues of interpretation - the early books are a glorious free-for-all. Because they're not sprawling information dumps, the glimpses of the world they offer are subtle and intriguing - perhaps it's just evidence of how lame we are but we used to spend hours discussing Harry Potter in the pub, wondering what this and that meant, and what was going to happen, and who such and such a character was.

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Arthur B

at 22:11 on 2007-08-29Slytherin is a particularly good example, actually. From the very beginning, Rowling has been adamant that the Slytherins aren't all evil. The internal evidence of the books seems to correspond with that, right up until the end when whoosh! Basically every Slytherin student and teacher turns Quisling and helps the Death Eaters stomp all over Hogwarts. The one exception is Snape, and it's notable that at the very end Harry names his kid after Snape because of Snape's courage - the Griffindor virtue, not traditionally anything to do with Slytherin.

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lessofthat

at 10:23 on 2007-08-30Fair enough. Looking back, I can remember that sense that though the first three were flawed, there was something a bit different about them; the Slytherins had that aristocracy-of-hell feel that old guard Tories like Heseltine do (they may be scum, but they're engaging scum and you know where you are with them); Snape was, as Kyra says, not bad but not nice. I remember even being faintly impressed that Rowling knew what colour a philosopher's stone would be, but that she didn't feel the need to regurgitate all the matching alchemical background. It suggested she'd bothered to do the research but wore it lightly.

I wasn't that impressed though. I also remember reading a quote by some publishing type on the back of the first book way back in like '98, to the effect that future generations of children will talk about Diagon Alley the way past ones talked about the Hundred Acre Wood or, I don't know, Byker Grove or something. I thought that was ridiculous hyperbole. I suppose that's why he's a publishing type and I'm not, because how wrong was I.

@empink. The hype and social enthusiasm bypassed me, largely for reasons of grumpiness I suppose. So that's a powerful inoculating factor too.

Again, I guess that Harry's abject blandness was less apparent in his pre-teenage years. I don't really understand children, so absence of personality in them is less troublesome. I imagine that's true of other people too.

"the problems aren't really pronounced enough to add up to anything coherently problematic." I still disagree - I think the Choosing Hat alone is a particularly repellent embodiment of the English class system - but I think I have a better idea of why bright, sane people were distracted enough not to be bothered.

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Arthur B

at 13:16 on 2007-08-30On Harry's personality: half the reason book 5 lost me was that Harry became a repugnant, grumpy teenager. He was a well-observed repugnant teen, and I can just about barely remember what it was like being one myself, but there's a reason most people don't want to hang out with such oiks once they get over puberty, and that's because they're completely awful to be around.

In the earlier books his main personality trait was utter confusion and occasional amazement and wonder when regarding the world he'd been thrust into, which worked nicely with his role as the character we see the world through. It's a good device for the first three-or-so books, but it couldn't have been maintained for the entire series - nobody would have bought it if Rowling had tried to have Harry still be completely bowled over by the awesomeness of the wizarding world when he's lived in it for over half a decade - but it's a crying shame she didn't have anything particularly good to replace it with.

Re: the Sorting Hat - in the early books, I could accept the Sorting Hat as being a nice pastiche of the apparently arbitrary nature kids get assigned to classes and houses in secondary school. I could convince myself that the Hat essentially took a quick look at the students' personalities and flung them into whichever House seemed to have the most suitable internal culture for them, and the different characters of the Houses were a result of a self-perpetuating internal culture that the Hat just reinforced. It eventually became brutally apparent that the Hat is essentially a living filter for the Elect, and that being chosen as Gryffindor by the Hat is essentially an absolute vote of confidence in your moral integrity, but it took a while; again, it wasn't until book 5 that I realised that we'd never seen

one

single person who didn't fit in perfectly in their House, and

come on

: just because you're hard-working or brave or ambitious at 11 doesn't mean that's still going to be the case when you're 15.

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empink

at 13:19 on 2007-08-30@lessofthat I don't really understand children, so absence of personality in them is less troublesome. I imagine that's true of other people too.

SO TRUE.

I still disagree - I think the Choosing Hat alone is a particularly repellent embodiment of the English class system

That's what I would have said after reading it. I can't remember how many times I wanted to point at JKR's treatment of the women in her book (married, had babies, or wanted to, or died, or died regardless, or were ugly, unsexy and old) and ask people what they thought was up with THAT. Then again, I remember how much less that would have pinged me a year or two ago, when I was still supposedly not a feminist. Snape's "I see no difference" feels particularly apt in this case. Until you *do* see the difference, or have it pointed out to you in a way you can't bring yourself to ignore, you...don't. And to others who do, you either look like a huge, defensive jackass, or like Stupid of the century. And to others who don't, you are Sane McGrateful for the author's bounty. And even that's simplifying the whole thing, but really, that's how it seems to have worked in my corner so far.

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Dan H

at 00:40 on 2007-09-07Sorry I haven't commented: No internet.

In short, the reason that it took me a while to realise that Rowling was espousing a repulsive moral philosophy is that the series went through a massive genre shift between (roughly) books four and five, and assumptions which are perfectly acceptable in a boarding school romp have no place in a serious story about love and death and choices.

I always saw the Sorting Hat as being a metaphor for the cliques you get at school. The Slytherins are the privileged popular kids, the Ravenclaw are the swots, Hufflepuff are everybody else. Gryffindor - in the early books - was essentially just "the hero and his mates". There's comparatively little evidence that Gryffindors are *objectively* superior in the early books - there's just Harry's natural tendency to side with his friends. Indeed in the early books there's a fair number of dodgy Gryffindors (like Peter Pettigrew) and admirable non-Gryffindors (like Cedric Diggory and, arguably, Snape). In book five we even discover that James Potter was a bullying little shit. By the start of book six, things actually looked reasonably complex, and rather grown up. The last two books, though, took all of that apart. The Slytherins all leave in the final battle, James Potter wasn't a bully at all, he was just mad at Snape because he called Lily Potter a bad name, and we are asked to take Harry's desire for vengeance as evidence of his moral superiority.

Essentially I didn't find the early books morally repulsive, because I didn't think they were trying to make any kind of moral statement beyond "it is good to stick by your friends" and possibly "believe in yourself". The whole business with Sorting and predestination was just a convenient plot device to give the hero a set of allies and enemies. Early Potter doesn't advocate predeterminism any more than the Lord of the Rings advocates genocide.

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at 11:32 on 2009-08-09Aw come on Hemmens, don't you think getting that level of publicity could have turned your head like it did JKR's? I don't blame her for over reaching herself and her abilities given the phenomenal publicity she received. I shudder to think what it would have done to my mind!

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Robinson L

at 00:30 on 2009-08-11

I don't blame her for over reaching herself and her abilities given the phenomenal publicity she received. I shudder to think what it would have done to my mind!

Sure it's understandable for fame to go to her head. Doesn't make the results any less execrable.

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http://lunabell14.myopenid.com/

at 22:42 on 2010-07-27Actually, in Order of the Phoenix, during the sorting hat song, it sings this line (credit from Mugglenet):

For instance, Slytherin Took only pure-blood wizards Of great cunning, just like him

So basically, Rowling admits even earlier that Slytherins are all racist, and therefore the bad guys. I remember this kind of bugged me when I read it, since there is definitely no relationship between being cunning and being pure-blood. And you would think since Voldemort and Snape could by-pass the pure-blood rule, they would get rid of that criteria.

But honestly, I don't see how she can get credit for complex characterization when there such sweeping generalizations about Gryffindors and Slyterins. Especially when some of the good guys show what I consider some very questionable morality (such as Harry crucio-ing the Death Eater over nothing, Dumbledore being a manipulative dick, etc.)

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http://prue84.livejournal.com/

at 23:06 on 2011-02-20I've avidly read this articol and how hell, how you are right!

I admit I'm never been Harry fan (I'm a "Slytherin" person because I feel I fell in that house - not a fan because they're the evil!), but this articole make me even less fan of Harry.

I'd also like to point out what I feel about Draco/Malfoys and Ron/Weasleys: they are basically the same, as both the families are racist but, when Draco say something nasty about Ron (usually something about being poor), he is labelled as "evil" while when Ron says something nasty about Draco (and Slytherins in general), he is still the good guy (or the Chosen One's biggest friend). What always bugged me is that Slytherin's House has some qualities (if I remember right, the Sorting Hat explain them in the first book), and yet "all in Slytherin are bad". What, why? Why there can't be bad or asses in the other houses? Why there is no Death Eater's son in Rawenclaw? Why Slytherins' students are all "Death Eater's wannabes?": couldn't be that many of them have pressures? Couldn't be that many of these families are simply acting like nobles families had done during the centuries, acting in a way while they wanted nothing more than be free to hug, kiss and reward?

I'm going totally off-topic here, but...

Thanxs for this articole! I have read the one regarding Abused Woman in the media and I'll slowly made my way in this site: too many interesting analysis. :)

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http://shrek2be.livejournal.com/

at 14:05 on 2011-12-30I am not too intelligent to say that I understand what you have writtenabove in your post Daniel.I'll try to interpret DH and essentially HP in my own little simplistic way.

The problem for me is Rowling tries to keep Harry as Jesus and then convert him back to a human . Dumbledore ideally should be the Merlin/Gandalf figure (or like GOD with Harry being the son of GOD) but due to poor writing comes across as a bad human being. who shouldn't be preaching philosophy as he still believed in the greater good with the way he treated Harry.

I haven't read LOTR but have watched the movies and even Tolkien understands Frodo has changed irrevocably because he is no longer normal that he has to go to Valinor which I guess is the term for heaven. Rowling doesn't get this part at all. The epilogue validates how naive Rowling is terms of understanding religion. Harry's ideal character growth for me would be accepting that he has never been normal.

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http://ladylazarus1027.livejournal.com/

at 00:38 on 2012-07-12

I'm fairly sure Rowling didn't start attending the Church of Scotland until she was in her late twenties* -- at the absolute earliest-- but I can see why you wouldn't want facts to get in the way of your rant.

* According to wikipedia, she was born and raised in Gloucestershire, quite far from Scotland.

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Jamie Johnston

at 17:27 on 2012-07-13Greetings, unnecessarily sarcastic commenter! I don't know when (or whether) Rowling joined the Church of Scotland, but it's possible for her to have done so without living in Scotland. There is, for example, a Church of Scotland church near where I work in central London.

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Shim

at 20:39 on 2012-07-13A quick googling shows

this article from the Telegraph

which says she was raised as an Anglican. When she joined the Church of Scotland, I have no idea, and the Anglican church is very varied, so it's not that enlightening.

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Dan H

at 21:09 on 2012-07-13

Thanks for the clarification. To be honest, though, I'm not convinced that there is much difference between "was raised" and "was influenced by in her twenties" and I'm not sure whether that particular detail actually has much to do with my central argument, which is that the Harry Potter books present a world in which some people are predestined towards salvation and others not.

What Rowling herself believes, or why she believes it, or when she started believing it is distinctly secondary.

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 02:54 on 2012-07-14I think people are tripping up on the idea that Rowling's terrible writing is due to her being a deranged Calvinist, rather than just a terrible writer. I don't think this article really pushes that connection very hard, but I can see why people who want to nitpick for the sake of nitpicking would jump on that.

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Dan H

at 10:34 on 2012-07-14I think that's probably the case. Ironically I think the article actually argues fairly strongly that Rowling *isn't* a deranged Calvinist, and that if she was her writing would probably be somewhat improved.

The problem I have with the attitude to Salvation in the Potter books is that it superficially resembles Calvinist Election without any of the theological underpinnings.

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Cammalot

at 11:38 on 2012-07-14

The problem I have with the attitude to Salvation in the Potter books is that it superficially resembles Calvinist Election without any of the theological underpinnings.

Yes, and I'd speculate that seems like that *would* be a product of a later-in-life association with the church, rather than early internalization of the doctrine.

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Ibmiller

at 11:38 on 2012-07-14Rather hilariously, I love this article, and I am a Calvinist (who some call deranged...) Completely agree that Rowling's world would improve from theological underpinnings other than "some people who are pretty are nice and some people who don't have noses are racist."

Hmmm...the Harry Potter series rewritten by a deranged Calvinist...if I were any kind of writer, I might want to take that up as a challenge...

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 11:55 on 2012-07-14I think this specifically is what's getting people.

If [Rowling belongs to the Church of Scotland] is true, then it seems that Rowling has allowed her faith to strongly influence her work.

That implies a more direct connection than the one I got: that

Potter

and Calvinism both espouse a similar salvation-of-the-elect worldview, the difference being that Calvinists have put a bit more thought and indeed humanity and decency into their version. Their conclusions about how life works aren't the inadvertent result of an overlong fantasy series spinning out of an inexperienced writer's control.

Potter

would likely have ended up the same way if Rowling had never heard of Calvinism.

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 12:02 on 2012-07-14

I am a Calvinist (who some call deranged...)

I actually don't think Calvinists are any more deranged than any other religious group. What would make Rowling's worldview deranged would be a conscious attempt to decontextualize Calvinist or most other religious beliefs into something secular, which I think everyone agrees probably did not happen.

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Ashimbabbar

at 14:27 on 2014-04-25• It's an extremely interesting and deep analysis ( not that everybody hadn't noticed, but now I have too )

• The "but of course Voldemort wouldn't repent" makes an interesting contrast with LOTR [ Tolkien being a Catholic ]. Here Saruman could really have repented ( after the Ents smashed Isengard ), it is not his 'nature' that prevents him too, only his choice ( I think LOTR would have been much better if he had but never mind that ). Gollum too could have if it hadn't been for Sam's hostility and his own reaction to it… they were really offered the choice.

• This "Rowlingian Calvinism", for want of a better term, sounds like a very good belief for the bad guys in a Fantasy novel…

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Daniel F

at 15:46 on 2014-04-25

it is not his 'nature' that prevents him too, only his choice ( I think LOTR would have been much better if he had but never mind that ).

I'm morbidly curious now...

#Ferretbrain #Harry Potter #J.K. Rowling #Dan H #Religion

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electric-sympathy · 8 years ago

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When bizarre weirdos use your beloved headcanon that Dean legitimately enjoyed torturing in Hell to victim blame him

Okay bitches, let me lay down the law: There is no interpretation that exists under which Dean can be blamed for breaking in Hell. Not even the worst-case ones that lie in the hearts of dark!Dean lovers everywhere. This post has been made in context of & endorsing veneredirimmel’s masterful takedown here. Even if Dean did, truly, come to enjoy what he was doing as Senoir Shitbird described it, it does not take away his victimhood.

The distinction of whether he really enjoyed it or not (”it is great not being tortured” vs. “TIL I love torturing”) means literally nothing in the blame department because he never would have done it without Alastair’s unnatural intervention. It took THIRTY YEARS of UNEARTHLY TORTURE for him to succumb to this sin. And the moment he leaves those forcible circumstances, he nearly cries at the prospect of being asked to sin that way again. He was forced no matter which way you slice it. Even if, in this headcanon, he likes it, he is not at peace with this. He does not accept it as part of himself or compromise his morals to feed it.

Emphasis on “unnatural intervention.” I know this is really fucking difficult for people in this fandom to grasp for some reason, but Dean’s circumstances are totally and completely outside of the scope of mortal man, the scope by which we judge ourselves. The same rules do not apply. Ex., in reality, we could choose death by our captors over committing grave sin. This influences how harsh we are on the subject of sin. Ex., to lie is a sin, but it is inevitable due to our nature that we will lie at some point. Therefore, it is forgiven. Evangelical communities seldom condemn soldiers, as war is part of the reality we live in.

Dean literally did not have the ability to escape. It was only a matter of time before Alastair twisted him beyond his own recognition. Dean sinning in this situation was inevitable. Torture is the reality he lives in. Who are you to blame him for it?

(The only part you can even begin to consider is the fact that Dean took up the blade in the first place, and even then, these fucks are wrong. Would yall like to take a trip south of the border and yell at Cartel victims for being forced under threat of rape and death to cut each other’s fingers off and shit? Even then would you really say they should have died?

No...?

I didn’t think so.)

The whole point of the First Seal was to take someone objectively, supremely good-- designated by the title of Righteous Man-- and twist their soul into egodystonic (or rather, anima-dystonic..?) action. The very nature of the Seal is dependent on Dean’s blamelessness. If Dean were worthy of real blame for torturing others in this scenario, his Righteous status would not have existed, and the Seal would be retroactively worthless. This is the nature of prophecy and divine titles: They are immutable.

All of us have the potential for good and evil inside us. We have no way of knowing what we might be capable of if our capacity to hold goodness against those evil parts were forcibly taken away by some malevolent, all-powerful being backed by eternity and unfathomable pain that ripped us apart and rearranged us how he pleased.

Sorry to break this to you, but there are none among us without sin. Especially not you people, who enjoy tormenting victims. (Yall sitting here jacking off to incest and shit but acting like Dean is horrible for maybe possibly enjoying something he shouldn’t???? FOR REAL?)

We are by nature flawed creatures. It is inevitable that there is something we enjoy that we truly should not. The only difference between us and Dean, assuming the “He legitimately enjoyed it” headcanon, is that he was forced into the perfect storm. Most people on this earth will never be subjected to any such thing. You or I will never know that horror of complete self-knowledge. But make no mistake: Somewhere out there, it exists.

But are we all damned for having this unalienable quality? Of course fucking not. And it is no different for Dean.

Who do these people think Hell is populated by, anyway? Poor orphan boys that stole to feed themselves??

We watch this show every day and applaud Sam and Dean for their brutality towards monsters that have committed things we judge them for. We love it when they bare their teeth, and cheer when their victims are crushed from existence, despite knowing that the world of the supernatural is not black and white. You people in particular just love it when Sam erases demons to their everlasting pain, and bemoan the idea that he may have a speck of evil within him even though he slavers with it.

Dean was running around down there torturing Hitler wannabes, literally people that were so evil that in the final judgement they were sent to Hell, nobody innocent was hurt, and NOW you want to complain?

Your bias is showing.

Whether the capacity to enjoy inflicting pain even without consequence is something you find immoral on a personal level is for you to decide, and I think I share Dean’s feelings that I would not feel okay having that be a quality of mine (which is what makes the story so compelling), but as we have established: None of us is without this kind of sin. If yours is not wrath like Dean’s would be in this headcanon, it is certainly something else.

If God (Who is relevant here whether you like it or not given Season 4-5′s mythology) is perfection and the personified essence of good, if we follow the theory espoused by C.S. Lewis and others that He is the light and Satan the dark, with all space between them varying degrees, it logically follows that anything outside of Him is tainted with imperfection and darkness on some level. That’s just the way it goes.

If you blame Dean, in this headcanon (And it IS a headcanon no matter how ardently one may believe it as the show just is not specific enough to prove it), for enjoying the specific mode of torture he committed, you are essentially blaming humanity for being flawed.

Stop throwing stones.

And if you really are arguing this way through spiritual conviction over petty bullshit who’s-better arguments (which I highly fucking doubt), go read Psalm 103:8-12. God has forgiven much greater sins, as you should know, and vengeance is not yours. Repentance is in Dean’s heart, even when he has nothing to repent for and no one to repent to. And this is what matters.

What exactly do you think Dean has done wrong, in being forced to take his master’s place in torturing those condemned to torture by the highest moral authority in existence? The point of the First Seal wasn’t that he torture an innocent soul-- what a big deal that would be, /s. The point was to make his very nature collapse in upon itself through contradiction. This was a boon for demons, a dark prophecy, meant to “prove” that humanity is utterly corruptible despite the presence of the Holy Spirit. What exactly would this Seal prove if it was just about generating suffering like the demons already do every day? What would give it power?

Just like with the quality of courage, Dean’s incredible strength as the Righteous Man is not his absence of sin. It is in his ability to defy the sin that exists within himself. To wrestle down through great struggle this cancer of the soul which everyone else around him capitulates to, to remain eternally good-hearted as this eternal flaw yet exists.

He is not to blame for what he did in Hell regardless of whether he “liked” it in the moment or not. All we learn from this is unnatural knowledge of what form Dean’s sins would take, if he were to capitulate to them. Nothing more.

The decision of whether or not to capitulate was taken away from Dean the moment he entered Hell.

#dean and Hell #spn wank #dean meta #hell meta #potentially stupid word vomit

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fitnesswomenshealth-blog · 7 years ago

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Euthanasia in Australia: Why it will never be legalised

New Post has been published on https://cialiscom.org/euthanasia-in-australia-why-it-will-never-be-legalised.html

Euthanasia in Australia: Why it will never be legalised

THE difficulty with euthanasia is not that it doesn’t make sense. The issue is that it does.

Certainly, the greatest argument in favour of euthanasia is the best argument in opposition to it: It is supremely rational.

Following all, we are all likely to die in any case and so why, when the close is imminent, must we not go out in a time and manner of our very own deciding on? It is eminently sensible.

And, for that matter, why should really that selection be restricted to those with imminently terminal health problems? Absolutely people with persistent ailments that topic them to unbearable soreness also are entitled to the ideal to die when the agony gets to be far too much.

And of training course we all know now that mental well being is just as vital as bodily overall health and can be just as debilitating. And so of course anybody who is in this sort of extreme psychological anguish that existence is unlivable should really be ready to stop theirs with dignity.

Yep, it will make great perception. The only issue is that if you are even now nodding your head you’ve just endorsed point out-sanctioned suicide.

But the arguments never conclusion there. As has been front webpage news in recent months, aged care is extremely costly — even if the top quality of it is typically appalling.

Add euthanasia to the blend, however, and both of those problems fix on their own. Out of the blue the elderly don’t have to have to endure any more and the govt will save tens of billions of bucks. It’s acquire-acquire.

The exact same of training course goes for persons of any age with profound disabilities. Absolutely it is up to them to make your mind up if their everyday living is well worth living.

But, what if there is cognitive impairment? What if the elderly man or woman is struggling from dementia, as a few in 10 persons above the age of 85 now do? What if the incapacity is psychological as effectively as actual physical? Would the decision to are living or die then rest with that person’s next of kin? The inheritor of their prosperity? Or whoever has ability of legal professional? The distributor of their wealth?

And of course any thoughtful or thoughtful individual would not just ponder their individual wellbeing but also that of their loved types. They would barely want to be a bodily or fiscal stress on their beloved kids, whose happiness they have generally set previously mentioned their possess.

In fact, the more civic-minded citizen would also appreciate that outdated age is a massive economical pressure on the wellness system. A 2007 NSW examine discovered that healthcare facility treatment for the elderly in their last calendar year of lifetime by yourself soaked up virtually a person-tenth of the full hospital price range. And it acquired extra and far more high-priced the nearer the individual got to death — nearly ten instances in the past month what it was six months preceding.

In other text, have been doctors equipped to estimate how lengthy a affected individual had to reside and give them the selection of bowing out a few months before they could save hundreds or even tens of hundreds of dollars per individual?

And here, all over again, is the problem. It is not that euthanasia doesn’t make sense, it is that it can make significantly as well significantly perception. It is not just a commonsense selection for the individual but for their relatives, their group, the government and the overall economy. When it comes to earning a decision no matter whether or not to conclude a life that is a whole lot of force to resist.

And what counterargument do we have lined up versus this mountain of evidence, this immovable wall of logic?

Almost nothing. Just a sentimental attachment to our personal life irrespective of the fact we all know they are going to stop in any case. It is totally and utterly irrational.

The entire heritage of humanity has taught us that existence is low cost, that the solid get rid of the weak, and that just about all of us will sink into the soil and be overlooked in just a several brief generations.

Yet human beings have childishly and nonsensically resisted this immutable simple fact at each and every convert. We have invented religions and rationalisations of each conceivable sort to reassure ourselves that our lives are worthy of one thing additional. We have even fought wars and killed to confirm that daily life is value living.

In fact, the quite basis of what it indicates to be human appears to be to stem from our skill to see our personal demise coming and our refusal to accept it. Grave web pages courting back 100,000 several years have been uncovered with symbolic or worldly merchandise destined for some imagined afterlife.

Even right now militant atheists and secular humanists defend an inherent human right to life or ascribe needs to human everyday living that transcend mere survival, this kind of as serving a popular moral good.

But all of these convictions are in the end mere superstitions. Rationally talking, there is practically nothing inherently superior in simply remaining alive and the minute a person ceases to be so they are cost-free from suffering. There is no sensible cause for us to exist at all and every motive to suspect that we will possibly wipe ourselves out anyway.

And yet the human race persists with this foolish and sentimental idea that life have to be preserved. In fact we location it at the incredibly heart of our civilisation, be it the oath that we demand from customers of our medical professionals, the founding document of our most highly effective country or the really premise of democracy itself: that one particular life is truly worth one vote and that is what determines who controls us.

Once again, this notion is wholly illogical. It is, even so, important.

Indeed, at the time you begin implementing logic to the price of a lifestyle, its intrinsic benefit immediately disappears. The founding fathers of the United States did not even endeavor to give a logical argument as to why a person need to be entitled to life. They basically stated it was a “truth” that they held to be “self-evident”.

In other terms, if you have to argue why you should to be authorized to are living then that is not genuinely living at all. One’s suitable to lifetime cannot be measured versus the excellent or well worth of the life they direct or it is a recipe for slavery or genocide — a societal league desk or a human cull. The truth of the matter is there is no objective to everyday living: Lifetime is the goal.

And the dim counterpoint to this is that you just can’t argue for the correct to die without the need of measuring the ideal to everyday living. Any legalisation of euthanasia, however perfectly-intentioned or carefully worded, have to by its quite nature established a threshold at which lifestyle ceases to be value dwelling. A issue at which the law will sanction an individual’s judgment that dying is preferable to existence. And that is a very harmful point to legislate.

The simple fact is, of program, that human beings make that judgment all the time and the law ought to not stand in their way. And the fact is that it nearly by no means does. The very small handful of prosecutions that have happened in Australia have either been quashed or resulted in suspended sentences. It is properly recognised that doctors quietly aid their people to die all the time and that is as it ought to be.

To be sincere, anyone I appreciate deeply has questioned me to choose care of them when the time comes and if they have been to insist I would do so regardless of the law. I will likely also close up asking someone to do the identical for me.

But that is a incredibly various issue to the government successfully defining the truly worth of a lifestyle or the point at which it may possibly legally be taken absent, even if it is accomplished with the very best of intentions. Once you set a threshold for the expendability of a human everyday living it is unattainable not to believe persons who attain that threshold will measure their worth towards it.

Look at a 90-year-previous girl with terminal cancer currently being cared for spherical the clock by her fatigued 65-yr-aged daughter — and yet she is nevertheless frightened to die. It defies belief that in a modern society exactly where euthanasia is a mainstream lawful choice that she would not experience a degree of obligation to unburden her boy or girl, despite her inwardly wishing to hold on. Why really should folks who want simply just to reside be designed to feel they are deciding on not to die?

And on the flip side any euthanasia regulation would also are unsuccessful to go significantly adequate for my revenue. I as soon as argued that the government had no small business telling us how we were being permitted to have sex. It definitely has no small business telling us how we are authorized to die. That is a issue for fate and free will.

All of us know suffering and soreness in our lives and for some it will overwhelm us. Demise is usually an solution but that doesn’t imply it should be govt coverage.

Individually, I envy the bravery of both of those these who fight on and people who bow out and I salute the men and women who help them.

But like all functions of valour it is a deed finest performed discretely.

Supply url

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pamphletstoinspire · 8 years ago

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Catholic Philosophy - Part 3 - General Articles - Omnipotence

"With God all things are possible"—Matthew 3:9

Catholic Dogma: God is almighty (De Fide)

If we grant the theists victory of the philosophical question "Does God exist?" we inevitably come to the question, "Does the Christian God exist?" This seems a valid question. For if the ontological proof is truly correct, then it implies that some being "which nothing greater can be conceived of" truly exists. A skeptic will ask what these "great-making" qualities are that make God the being "which nothing greater can be conceived". In answer to this, Catholic Christians posit a handful of divine properties that make God "great". The following list of properties are attributed to God by Catholic dogma:

Omnipotent

Omniscient

Omni-benevolent

Impassable

Infinitely Just

Infinitely Merciful

Eternal

Knowable by Nature

Omni-present

Absolutely Perfect

Absolute Immutability

The First Efficient Cause

If we are to answer the question, "Does the Christian God exist?" we must analyze the properties attributed to God and see if they are at least philosophically sound. In this first essay on God’s qualities I wish to consider God’s omnipotence (God’s power) and some of the difficulties with the idea of God’s omnipotence.

There are two major difficulties with an all-powerful being. The first problem has to do with the extent of God’s power. Does omnipotence allow God to redefine logic or break the laws of logic? Does God’s omnipotence mean that he is capable of sin? The second major difficulty is the apparent conflict between God’s power and his omni-benevolence. Namely, if an all-good, all-powerful God exists, why does evil exist in the world he created? These questions are real problems for Christianity, and I wish to address each of them carefully.

The reader should also be aware, that many of the problems with God’s omnipotence proceed from conflicts with his other "great-making" qualities. One possible solution to some of these conflicts is to abandon one of the properties which conflict. Another possible solution is to abandon Christianity entirely. As a devoted Catholic, I will not consider these "solutions" as valid alternatives. Indeed, I believe that most of these conflicts can be overcome or neutralized with some thought and a careful definition of the qualities of God. The definitions I will expound are Catholic definitions; in essence I will not address ad hominen arguments against non-Catholic doctrines. Instead, the following paper is a defense of the Catholic Faith from skeptics and not a general defense of the myriad of non-Catholic Christian doctrines. With this in mind I will proceed to analyze the first skeptical argument against God’s omnipotence.

Problem 1: The problem of the scope of God’s omnipotence

An Initial Definition of Omnipotence: God can do anything

The following question is often posed by skeptics of Christianity to bring about a conflict with the idea of omnipotence. The question often posed is, "Can God create a rock so heavy he can’t lift it?" This question creates a dilemma in our initial definition of omnipotence. For if God can do anything then that means he must be able to create a rock he can’t lift (even if it’s infinitely heavy). Yet, if this were true then he would not be able to lift the rock; so we must conclude that God is not omnipotent. I think the argument can be broken down in the following manner

Def. Omnipotence means a person X can do anything.

P1. Person X can make an object heavier and heavier by way of omnipotent power.

P2. Because Person X is omnipotent, X should be able to make a rock so heavy X can’t lift it.

P3. If Person X does not have the power to lift the rock this conflicts with omnipotence

C1. Person X is not omnipotent

I think this is not a valid argument against God’s omnipotence because P2 does not make logical sense. The reason P2 is not logical, is that P2 basically says:

Suppose a Person X exists and is purportedly omnipotent

Omnipotent beings must be able to do A (create rocks)

Omnipotent beings must be able to do B (lift rocks)

X must be able to do A such that B is not possible otherwise X is not omnipotent.

Do you see the logical conflict here? Our skeptical argument asserts that God must be able to do A and B or he is not omnipotent (which makes logical sense) AND God must be able to do A in such a way that B is not possible or God is not omnipotent. The argument sets God’s omnipotence up to fail by stating that in order to be omnipotent he must be able to do three things:

X must do A

X must do B

X must do A such that B is not possible

There is no logical way God can "do B" and "not do B" at the same time! I suppose we must conclude that there is one limit on God’s power: logic. Yet, is that really a limit? Does the skeptic truly suppose that an illogical God is more powerful than a logical God? I don’t believe so, and if the reader disagrees than re-read the above argument. The implication is that an illogical God either doesn’t exist (by the stone-lifting example) or can’t be discussed at all. For if God transcends logic, then we have absolutely no way of knowing or discussing him. Logic is the only mode by which we can make sense of the world in a rational manner. How can we even conceive of a being whose very nature is based on illogic? I submit that only a logical God is part of Catholic dogma. In fact, I will now give the reader the proper definition of omnipotence as defined by the first Vatican council:

Dogmatic Def: God is almighty (De Fide)

Def. of almighty: God has the power to execute all that He may wish, that is all that is real and possible. God’s power is identical with God’s essence

Dogmatic Def: The Divine Attributes are really identical among themselves and with the Divine Essence (De Fide)

These two definitions proceed from the absolute simplicity of the divine Essence. The essence of God is his nature. The nature of God is defined as that which he is capable of. For example, for us humans our human nature is from what we derive all of our powers (be they cognitive, physical, emotional and psychological). Therefore our nature defines "what" we are while our person defines "who" we are. Since the cosmological argument for the existence of God concludes that God is in pure actuality it follows that he is entirely simple. The fact that he is simple also demands that the nature of God (his essence) is entirely simple. In this way, the divine attributes (omnipotence, omniscience, omni-benevolence, etc.) are really one and the same due to the simplicity of the divine Nature. Here is an explicit summary of my argument that all the divine attributes are really identical among themselves and with the divine essence:

P1. The cosmological argument proves the existence of a completely actualized God.

By the term "actualized God" we mean that God has no potentiality, only actuality. In this sense, God cannot change.

C1. A being of total actuality is entirely simple because of his unchanging nature.

P3. By entirely simple we mean that God’s nature is entirely simple.

P4. If the nature of God is entirely simple, then all the divine attributes (omnipotence, omniscience, etc.) which describe his nature are entirely simple.

P5. The divine attributes of God’s nature can only be entirely simple if the divine attributes are really identical among themselves and with the Divine Essence.

C2. The divine attributes are really identical among themselves and with the Divine Essence.

The reader may ask why I have gone through such pains to prove that God’s attributes are one and the same. The reason I have done so is because I wish to justify a redefinition of God’s omnipotence. Catholics believe that God’s power is subject to logic, and I believe that I have justified this premise already. However, there is another "constraint" on God’s power which I have not yet named. This constraint becomes clear when we ask the question "Can God sin?" This is a very interesting question because if we say that God is absolutely incapable of sinning then this means that there is something God cannot do. Therefore, it follows that he is not omnipotent. For example, I have the power to steal a candy from a baby. This action would be a sin, yet it is within my power to do so. If we say God cannot possibly sin, then God would not have the power to steal the candy from the baby, thus we can’t say that God is omnipotent. It is logically possible for God to steal the candy, yet if God can’t sin then he is incapable of doing a logical possibility. One solution to this problem is to admit that God CAN sin, it’s just that he refrains from doing so. Unfortunately, if we accept this solution then that means that it is conceptually possible that God could stop refraining from sinning and start sinning whenever he wants. Could you imagine a "God" who stopped refraining from sinning and started raping, pillaging and destroying randomly? Certainly this is not the Christian God! I submit that we have no reason to accept this alternative as true. In fact, it is my belief that God’s omni-benevolence (God’s all-goodness) prevents him from sinning. In this sense, God’s omni-benevolence is another "restriction" on God’s power. Now the skeptic may argue that it is ridiculous to keep redefining God’s omnipotence to suit the Christian position. In response, I offer the following argument:

P1: The divine attributes are really identical among themselves and with the Divine Essence.

P2: Both omnipotence and omni-benevolence are divine attributes

C1: By premise 1, it follows that omnipotence and omni-benevolence are really identical among themselves and with the Divine Essence.

I have already proved that premise 1 is true previously in this paper. Additionally, premise 2 is true because these are definitional properties of the Christian God. Thus, the above argument is both logical and sound. So what is the consequence of the above argument? The above argument shows that omnipotence and omni-benevolence are not conflicting qualities in God’s nature. Instead, these properties are our human way of understanding the infinite nature of God. We can’t grasp the infinite nature of God with our finite intellects, so we must resort to assigning properties such as "power" and "goodness" to God’s nature. Thus we are justified in redefining God’s omnipotence as:

Def : God can do anything logically possible which does not conflict with his nature.

One final comment on the scope of God’s omnipotence: a skeptic might suggest that if the above definition is true then that still means that a human can steal candy from a baby but God cannot. Does this suggest that we have the power to do something that is impossible for God? Yes, in a sense this is true. We have one power that God does not: we can sin. For what is sin? Sin is a direct violation of the Divine Will of God, which is always unified with his omni-benevolence. Since God’s power is identical with his love, and his Will proceeds from his Nature then it is logically impossible for God to violate his own perfect Will of goodness. In this sense, it is logically impossible for God to violate his own divine Will. This does not mean that God is helpless to the whim of an infant (as the example seems to assert), only that God’s very Nature is of such an essence that power and goodness are joined together in such a way that Evil can never proceed from it.

Problem 2: The problem of Evil

Now if evil cannot proceed from the combined qualities of omnipotence and omni-benevolence we seem to be in a real dilemma. Namely, how can an all-good and all-powerful God allow evil to exist in the world? This problem is called the problem of evil; and it is a very real problem for Catholic Christians. The classical atheist argument against the existence of God goes something like this:

P1. Evil exists in the world

P2. God is all-good and all-powerful and all-knowing

P3. An all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing God should only create a world of total goodness

C1. Yet P1 conflicts with P3 so we must conclude that an all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful God does not exist.

One way out of the problem is to deny premise 1. A few philosophers have actually done this (I think the Buddhists probably see reality in this manner), but this view does that seem to be that of orthodox Christianity. Not only does it seem obvious that evil exists (a posteriori), but it is a defined dogma of the Church that evil exists in our world as the direct result of the devil. Thus a rejection of premise 1 seems out of the question.

A second way to solve the problem is to deny premise 2. One could accept that God is not all-good or all-powerful or all-knowing. For example, a God which is not all-good is not bound by his nature to create only good; he could create both good and evil. In a sense, if a Catholic were to take this position then he has already granted victory to the atheist. A Catholic must remember that it is an article of faith that God is all-good. In a similar manner, a Catholic cannot abandon the definition of God’s power and knowledge. Therefore, a Catholic defender of the belief in God cannot reject premise 2.

A third way the proof can be defeated is to deny premise 3 or show that the conclusion does not follow from the premises. St. Augustine gives the traditional response to the problem of evil:

"Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil."

I think Augustine would agree that God allows evil to exist so that the highest form of good can exist. Now we come to the inevitable question, "what is this highest form of good which God can draw exclusively from evil?" Essentially, everything that comes from God flows from his omni-benevolent nature. I think it is possible to reconcile evil with the omni-benevolent nature only if we define evil and treat each definition separately.

Definition of evil:

Moral Evil—That which contrasts with God’s love and the principles of his nature

Physical Evil—Pain, the privation of goodness (deformities, starvation, etc.)

Evil in Nature—The effects of nature on Man (hurricanes, floods, disease, etc.)

The Evil of Death—The loss of life and the psychological aspects of death (fear, grief of lost loved ones)

If it can be shown that God draws a greater good from these evils, or that these evils do not conflict with the divine benevolence, then we can successfully show that the conclusion of the problem of evil does not follow from the premises.

Moral evil seems to proceed from the will of each person. This form of evil is committed in its simplest form when an individual makes a choice between two moral options, one of them good and the other evil. As Augustine noted, moral evil is a necessary consequence of the gift of free will. Free will is a part of the nature of man which allows him to choose either to accept the Creator or to reject the Creator. It should be noted that not all of God’s creations are endowed with free will (such as stones, plants or perhaps even animals who are slaves to instinct). However, all men are endowed with free-will; this knowledge seems to be known a posteriori. If we grant that men have free will as part of their nature it becomes immediately obvious that free will allows men to freely choose between good and evil. Thus the possibility of man succumbing to evil is a consequence of free-will. This explanation of how evil exists in God’s creation is called the free-will theodicy. The free-will theodicy successfully explains how evil can enter the creation of an all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful God. Evil is accounted for by the free choices of creatures. God permits free-will because he deems it a greater good to create creatures of will than to eliminate all possibility of evil.

The other three evils (physical, nature and death) seem to be unanswerable with the free-will theodicy. However, Christian doctrine does tie the existence of death and natural evil to the choice of a man; namely Adam, the first member of the human race. In attempting to answer this problem, St. Augustine sought to understand the nature of evil. He realized that evil is not a tangible thing; in a way evil is not a reality like goodness. Augustine believed that evil was a privation of goodness; a lack of something that should be. This astounding statement helps us to understand the very nature of evil and how it can exist in creation.

In truth, Augustine realized that all things of the universe (even the devil) were originally created entirely pure and good. They were morally and physically good in the sense that God had endowed them with existence. The goodness of God ensures that everything created by God is entirely good. However, the free choice of the devil to refuse submission to the divine will lead to a corruption and a dissolution of the natural powers of Satan’s will. In a metaphysical sense, the will of Satan was corrupted by his choice to disobey God. This was the beginning and origin of all evil: for the choice of Satan lead to a corruption within the very will of Satan. It is important to realize that the source of evil is not God; the source comes from the fallen angel Satan. Because the very nature of angels is spiritual, the will is the primary mode of being for the angels. A corrupted angelic will would mean a fall from goodness (which is a positive reality created by God) into evil (which is a lack of goodness). Consequentially, the angelic nature of Satan ensured that he became entirely evil. There are two results of an "angelic fall" from good to evil. First, the initial corruption of the angelic will resulted in a permanent and indelible loss of goodness. Satan’s very nature was weakened and transformed into an intangible lack of goodness. For an angel, there is no repenting and turning back after sinning because of the catastrophic loss within it’s own nature. Secondly, Satan’s power was unaffected by the corruption of the will. His natural powers over matter and spiritual beings (such as the lesser choirs of angels) were not lost. Therefore, a fallen Cherub such as Satan would be a deadly and horrific foe. A fallen angel, unchecked, would destroy everything in existence (morally and physically) and would seek to create a vacuum of despair. It is only by the power of God and the higher angels, that Satan is kept from literally destroying the Universe.

We can now see the consequence of the fall of Satan: Satan constantly seeks to destroy all that is good. The powerful fallen angel, source of evil, is one explanation for the evil we see in nature. Yet, a final question remains: why doesn’t God stop the devil from spreading natural evil. We know God allows moral evil so that he can allow us to exist as creatures of free will, but why the natural evil? One solution is to recognize that justice demands retribution for evil. In this sense, the moral evils done by man are punished by natural evils. The human race is bound up as one family, and the evil done by one member merits punishment to all members. Therefore, the evil done by the first father and mother of the human race (Adam and Eve) merited punishment. Scripture attests to this fact:

And God said to Adam, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return" (Genesis 3:17-30).

Therefore it is likely that God permits the devil and his army of fallen angels to prey on man and on all material things. Certainly this is a hard and difficult fact, but St. Paul recognized that suffering had a redemptive value. He believed that if a person experiences the unavoidable suffering of life, they can the suffering to draw themselves closer to God. A person bereft of the joys of the world can either despair or avail themselves to the deeper joy in God.

Thus, the existence of evil in creation is not incompatible with an all-good and all-powerful God. Evil is not a tangible thing created by a good God; instead it is an intangible lack of goodness caused by the abuse of free will of Satan. Ultimately, the problem of evil loses its force because P1 (premise one of the proof against God’s existence) is false. Evil is not a tangible reality within the universe; therefore we acknowledge that God did create a perfect universe. However, the corruptions of the good universe entered it through the free choice of Satan. Thus, the loss of goodness within creation cannot be ultimately attributed to the work of God. We can be comforted with the knowledge that nothing can ultimately contest the power of God; eventually in the fullness of time, good will triumph over evil.

#catholic prophecy

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