Inconceivable! The moral incoherency of divorcing Faith from Reason in the Public Life

To the American mindset, there is an intrinsic “out” which alleviates both secular and religious folks from any moral culpability for their actions.  The only thing required for us to sleep socially well at night is for us to proclaim, “I’ve acted according to my conscience!”  This magical phrase lulls us to sleep and promises to free us from the condemnation of our fellow citizens and God alike.  Moreover, it delivers us from any impositions that do not align with our own thought.  For example, how often do we hear the pro-abortion objection: “Remember, your Faith prohibits YOU from getting an abortion; it doesn’t prohibit ME from getting one!”  I, for one, hear this exact argument frequently.  But the argument that appeals to freedom of conscience as the ultimate license for anything is accounted for in Catholic social teaching, and is, quite frankly, an absurd position to take.  In order to convincingly appeal to conscience, an actor must, above all, have a conscience that is formed in good conscience and according to a coherent understanding of reality.  

Humans are rational animals.  We use our senses and experience the world with a radical subjectivity as individuals, extrapolating from the data we perceive and coming to conclusions based on that data.  This is the very basis of human reason, and there is no area of our life that this process does not touch.  In essence, we are simply forced to come to our own conclusions of the world, because it is we and no one else who is experiencing what our senses are telling us.  Thus, there is great merit in the proclamations of the last few years to “trust the science”, or “follow the data!”  In fact, there is not much else that we can do: if we are to rely on our faculties of reason, we must trust the data and try our best to live according to the reality we conclude it must show.

This is not to say, however, that we are free to conclude whatever we wish from data, nor that we ought to forgo anything known by Faith as subordinate or irrelevant to data.  The autonomy of American social theory would have us believe that conscience places morality within the confines of the individual’s mind; as such, every person must be free from coercion to follow any set standard of morality.  But the Church disagrees.  Though She does concede that, “the rightful autonomy of the political or civil sphere from that of religion and the Church… is a value that has been attained and recognized by the Catholic Church and belongs to inheritance of contemporary civilization (Doctrinal Note on some questions regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life, paragraph 6),” She maintains that this rightful autonomy absolutely does not free one from the dictates of objective morality.  

The moral reality is no less real than the reality of physical data.  And so, one must live as if it were so real, in order to be rationally consistent.  One cannot live two separate lives, flipping the switch between data and Faith: “There cannot be two parallel lives… on the one hand, the so-called ‘spiritual life’, with its values and demands; and on the other, the so-called ‘secular’ life, that is, life in a family, at work, in social responsibilities, in the responsibilities of public life and in culture (Doctrinal Note, paragraph 6).”  If something is true, it is true regardless of consequences.  Thus, for one to proclaim, “well I personally believe abortion is immoral, but I cannot try to impose my morality on someone else,” is a rational absurdity.  At the very least, if your conscience and your Faith (correctly) tells you that abortion is wrong, this requires you to do something to live according to this truth.  Does this mean attending every pro-life rally and becoming an activist?  By no means!  It does mean, however, at the very least, you must account for this in your political actions such as voting, and vote accordingly.

There is one, single word which could easily sum up the Catholic social doctrine which teaches the correct relationship between a public life of faith and reason: coherency.  It is the duty of every person to live an integrated life, to not hide behind such rational absurdities as “freedom of conscience” to justify an incoherent worldview which compartmentalizes their own personal faith and their public life.  As Cardinal Ratzinger says, “The Christian faith is an integral unity, and thus it is incoherent to isolate some particular element to the detriment of the whole of Catholic doctrine. A political commitment to a single isolated aspect of the Church’s social doctrine does not exhaust one’s responsibility towards the common good (Doctrinal Note, paragraph 4).”  This integration may be hard for us Americans, accustomed as we are to seeking unilateral equality and autonomy.  But, with God’s grace and attentiveness to our own cohesion, such a life is possible.