Pope Leo Reminds Us: Synodality is not Subversive

Catholic doctrine, Religious morality, Sexual morality

I was not alone when I cringed upon hearing of synodality and going to the peripheries. The secular media along with some Catholic sources mislead us to fear that synodality and going to the peripheries are primarily processes for subverting Catholic sexual morality. The peripheries to which we should go are the so-called LGBQT communities. While at these peripheries, synodality is accompanying representitives of LGBQT communities so that we can better understand and accept them as they are. Ultimately, such acceptance requires explicit admission that traditional Catholic prohibitions of certain sexual activities, begining with the intrinsically disordered masturbation, were in error. Such an admission would put the Catholic Church in conformity with the sexual morality of the mid-twentieth century Sexual Revolution; but a cruel betrayal of all who rely on the spiritual resources of Catholism in their struggle to be chaste.

Fortunately, in his August 15, 2025 address sent to the participants of the Peruvian Social week Pope Leo XIV has subtly calmed fears of subversion. He used “synodality” and “going to the peripheries” as normal terms for describing how the Church has been built up since Apostolic times. With special references to the missionaries and saints who built the Church in Peru he sketched out how, of course, they were at the peripheries in the New World. Of course, practiced synodality by learning the ways of those they encountered at the peripheries so they could convert them.

Jesus Would Not Have Reasoned as a Consequentialist

Moral philosophy, Sexual morality

This essay supplements my essay on Jesus’ sexual morality. In that essay, I argued that Jesus would never have masturbated because he was a moral genius. I elaborate on notion of moral genius and emphasize that the reasoning of a moral genius, especially in his early years when he would be a moral prodigy, is not that of a utilitarian or more broadly: a consequentialist.

His genius was possessing from a very early age perfect applied moral reasoning of a type frequently called natural law moral reasoning. Applied moral reasoning is primarily knowing how to do good and avoid evil. It is knowing, on a particular occasion how to organize the facts characterizing the situation and the values relevant to the situation into an intention to do good and avoid evil. The genius, as brought out below, invariably has the will to carry out his intention.

For instance, consider how I argue that a moral genius would resist a temptation to replicate the sensation of an unintended orgasm? He would recognize that he could aim at getting a pleasure and that since he had a desire for that pleasure it would be good. He would also recognize that he could manipulate himself to attain that pleasure. And, perhaps less clearly, he would recognize that such manipulations could be done whenever he wished. He was also at a stage of life when he knew of the role of male orgasms in reproduction. This knowledge of “the facts of life” brought with it recognition that lifelong monagamous bonding of a male and female for reproduction and mutual care was a basic human good. A basic human good is one which ought never be intenitonally set aside. Along with the recognition of the basic goodness of marriage, there would be the recognition that the pleasure of an orgasm is one of the features which make for marriage’s basic goodness. With this meagar but crucial information, the moral genius knows how to form an intention not to masturbate because an intention to masturbate would beintending what is evil – not good. The intention to masturbate would intend that the basic good of marriage could be set aside for only a portion of it. That would be intending evil since a basic good ought never be set aside for only a fragment of it.

More elaboration my be needed to persuaded everyone that the unarticulated reasoning of the alleged genius is correct. Here I want to give a reminder of the limited about of factual information – knowledge that – required. If the reasoning of the moral prodigy were to be based on an evaluation of the consequences of masturbating, an immense amount of factual information about the future would have to be innate to the child. Assuming an ability to organize a small amount of facts and values is more probable.

But making a correct moral decision requires more than forming a correct intention

A perfect applied practical reason is a reason for which to know the good is to do the good. Here I put myself on the side of those, such as St. Paul in Rm 7:19, who recognize weakness of the will. A weak will may not choose the good it intends. A perfect applied practical reason is a reason for which to intend the good is to choose the good. A moral genius is one with a perfect applied moral reason.

For a moral genius to intend the good is to choose the good. However, this choice may not be easy. A moral genius can be tempted and overcoming the temptation may be painful. However, the moral genius always has the will to endure the pain of setting aside the lesser good for the more fundamental good.

Might Jesus Have Masturbated?

Catholic doctrine, Sexual morality

Catholic Christology Corroborates Traditional Catholic Sexual Morality

The purpose of this essay is to make a case that a fundamental Christian doctrine requires traditional Catholic Sexual morality.. What is traditional Catholic sexual morality? Since I focus on the sexuality of a man, viz., Jesus of Nazareth, I state a principle of traditional Catholic morality for males. I call this the Paternal Principle

A man may not seek an orgasm except in consensual coitus open to conception with a woman to whom he has made a pledge of life-long fidelity with an intent to support and to protect her and any children resulting from their sexual intercourse.1

This principle is only a frgment of traditional sexual morality. The multiple facts, theories and customs which are used to justify and motivate such a rule comprise sexual morality. However, such a principle implies directly the behaviors which those who advocate revising Catholic sexual morality seem open to admiting as morally permissible2. However, such revisions cannot be made without revising, if not rejecting, doctrines about the nature of Jesus Christ3. For the Paternal Principle implies the immorality of the traditional sexual sins: masturbation, homosexual acts, fornication, adultery and forms of contraception which are physical or chemical interventions in coitus.

In this essay, I consider only masturbation. Masturbation is the foundational sexual immorality for men. Masturbation ,or the core intention of masturbation, is involved in all the other genital sexual immoralities. That core intention is seeking the estactic pleasure of an orgasm at the expense of the basic human good for whose promotion that pleasure is both a means and a constituent, viz., procreation and life-long male/female bonding.

What is the Christological doctrine requiring traditional sexual morality? It is the doctrine that Jesus was a man like us in all things except sin. (Heb 4:15, CCC467)

Why write of corroborating rather than use logical terms such as “implying” or “entailing?” I want to avoid any suggestion that traditional sexual morality came from Christian doctrine. To corroborate means to strengthen and confirm. I hope to show that elaboration of what it means for Jesus to be a man without sin provides considerations which strengthen belief that masturbation is truely immoral; not merely immoral according to a moral outlook which I call traditional morality.

My Christological corroboration of traditional sexual morality as the genuine, real, or objective morality requires a bipartite strategy. First, show that masturbation is traditionally immoral. That has been done by drawing implications from the Paternal Principle in conjunction with descriptions of the various sexual acts. Second, show that it is inconsistent to think that the perfectly sinless Jesus masturbated. An act which is physically possible but morally impossible for a sinless man to do is morally forbidden. Hence, the immorality of Jesus masturbating strengthens and confirms belief the traditional immorality of masturbation is a genuine immorality; not merely immoral by tradition.

Showing that the sexual morality of Jesus is that of traditional sexual morality would require showing for each of the sexual immoralities derivable from the Paternal Principle are acts we cannot consistenly think of a sinless man doing. Such a series of arguments would be strong confirmation for traditional sexual morality. For it would be the sexual morality of the sinless Jesus. However, the argument that masturbation is immoral in Jesus’ sexual morality provides a model argument for the others, eg., homosexual acts, are immoral in Jesus’ sexual morality.

Thinking about Jesus engaging in any sexual activity is offensive. Nevertheless, Christians who fly rainbow flags from their houses, schools and churches should think about it. Unfortunately, the offensiveness of the thought can lead to question-begging. With religious images in mind, we may immediately decide “Jesus would never do anything like that!” We would thereby “beg off” from answering the question “Why would Jesus never do anthing like that?” I recomend adopting a philosophic attitude of trying to ignore any sense of offence. To avoid being offended try not to imagine anything about the historical man consideration under descriptions such as “Jesus of Nazareth” or “Jesus as portrayed in Luke’s Gospel.” We can imagine Jesus under those descriptions sinning in all sorts of ways. My argument is that we cannot think or conceive of Jesus masturbating under the description of “a man like us in all things except sin” regardless of how our imaginations can embelish what we know of a historical figure.

However, we must take as our starting point the son of Mary and Joseph the carpenter around the time of the Finding in the Temple. The Christological doctrine refers to him. This specificity saves us from philosophical digressions such as analyzing the supposed sinlessness of man of an IQ around 50. Luke tells us “Jesus advanced in wisdom and age in favor before God and man.” We, then, are considering primarily what this intelligent and well behaved Jewish youth might have done during the hidden years in Nazareth. But how should we consider this historical figure’s moral thinking and acting?

We should not attempt a historical reconstruction of the consciousness of the young Jesus. For instance, how did Jewish culture guide his moral thinking? That would be historical speculation without any evidence. We can use some bland factual assumptions such as he became aware of “the facts of life. But we cannot even assume that before his first temptation to masturbate he knew the role of ejaculation and accompanying sensations in reproduction.

I make a significant assumption. The assumption that he was like us in all things except sin allows another assumption that he was a moral genius throughout his life. Jesus would, then, have been a child prodigy of morality. There are different ways to characterize a moral genius. A moral genius is someone who always wills what is for the good because it is for what is good.4 Such is the will of God. So, a moral genius always wills what God wills because God wills it. God wills what is good for whatever God wills. That is loving. So, a moral genius loves what God loves because God loves it. However, since we can better articulate the object of God’s willing and loving, it is better to talk of what is good. The italicized qualifications beginning with because are important. In a positive way they bring out the negative point that a moral genius wills what is good, etc., regardless of any inclination to choose otherwise. It is also important to note that genius is exhibited primarily in knowing how rather than in having theoretical knowledge. A mathematical genius may know how to get a result without being able to articulate a proof of how he reached the result. Little Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart knew how to compose without musical theory. So, a moral genius knows how to put together the elements of morality: representations of goods as both ends and means, inclinations, plans of action, forming and acting on intentions to act and to be in accordance with what ought to be done and how we ought to be. The mind of a moral genius is not filled with all of the factual knowledge about how the consequences of acts actually effect human happiness. A moral genius does not think as a consequentialist or utilitarian. It must be emphasized that the works of genius are not expressions of the genius’ individuality. The genius, working as a genius, expresses what is right, what is correct and what is beautiful for everyone. The works of genius present what is universal: what anyone who tries to get it right hopes to discover and become,

So, our question is runs: Would a boy who always knows how to will what is for the good because it is for the good will to masturbate?

For completeness, start with consideration of the temptation of a boy who does not yet know “the facts of life.” Such a boy can have a temptation to masturbate. To be tempted he has to know to what he is being tempted. So, he has experience an orgasm. Perhaps, he touched his genitalia enough scatching a rash in a way sufficient for an orgasm. Perhaps, he experienced it while riding in a cart on a bumpy road. It could have been in a dream.

The temptation comes as a strong inclination to repeat that experience of an orgasm. Our moral prodigy has the knack of always willing what is good regardless of any inclination to do otherwise. Without being able to articulate his knowledge, he has the practical knowledge that acting on strong inclinations whose satisfaction is not necessary for survival is morally risky. The strength of the inclination for mere pleasure would be a “red flag” to a genius at navigating through the moral life.

So, the sexually naive moral genius would not masturbate regardless of an inclination to do so. However, he may not find resisting the tempatation easy.

What about Jesus after he learned that the inclination for an orgasm plays an important role in starting and maintaining a man bonding to a woman to develop a family? He would recognize that monagamous marriage and family is a basic human good. Taking monogamous marriage and family as a basic human good is not a wild assumption. (See note 4.) It could be called a default view on sexuality. It is honored with an apology: ” If everyone could or would behave properly, that is how human sexuality would operate. But you know how human nature is, so. . . ” With this awareness of the basic human good of which an orgasm is both a means and constituent, one who is a genius at thinking morally would use the, perhaps implicit, knowledge that a fundamental way of not being in accordance with what ought to be done and ought to be is to choose a means to a basic good as a basic good. It puts disorder in the order of what is good. If we use “love” broadly to label that for which we have inclinations and that which we recognize as basic human goods, we can say a moral genius properly orders his loves. Hence, a perfect composer of intentions in accordance with what is good would not form or act on an intention to masturbate. He, however, may need to make an effort to resist temptations.

We, who are not moral geniuses, can validate the refusal of the moral genius to form or act on an intention to masturbate. Human sexuality functions well enough to cary on the human species. We cannot label human sexuality as dysfunctional. However, we humans make it troublesome, to say the least. The intention or maxim of a masturbator expresses the basic source of human sexuality’s problematic character. The maxim runs: I may enjoy the satisfaction of an inclination of a means for sexuality’s purpose regardless of attaining the purpose of sexuality. The maxim highlights the intrinsic disorder of masturbation. This is not to say that men who masturbate are intrinsically disordered; their masturbation is intrinsically disordered. With such a maxim, a masturbator joins that vast, almost universal, crowd of men who have disordered sexuality. Jesus, as a man like us in all things except sin would not join the crowd.

NOTES

1. From purely secular assumptions, I argue for this principle in my book: Confronting Sexual Nihilism: Traditional Sexual Morality as an antidote to nihilism, Oklahoma City, OK. 2014.

2. Cardinal Claude-Hollerich of Luxembourg advocates significant revisions to accommodate homosexuality Hollerich on homosexuality: the Cardinal’s many errors – Daily Compass. American Cardinal McElroy advocates revisions Cardinal McElroy’s Attack on Church Teachings on Sexuality Is a Pastoral Disaster| National Catholic Register Fr. James Martin SJ welcomes people with same sex attraction so enthusiastically, it seems to me that he condons homosexual acts Fr. James Martin on Marriage, Sexual Morality, and the Church’s Teachings: A Solution to the Puzzle – Public Discourse. Even some papal views suggest indefference towards traditional sexual morality. See Pope Francis’s Candid Views on Sexual Morality – CatholicCitizens.org

3. Previously, I thought revision of moral doctrines would not conflict directly with non-moral doctrines Sexual Revolution Undercuts Christianity

4. My notion of moral genius is an adaptation of Kant’s notion of a good will. Kant begins the first Section of his 1785 Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals with: “There is no possibility of thinking of anything at all in the world, or even out of it, which can be regarded as good without qualification, except a good will.” But I anchor the good will to willing basic human goods. Here I adapt the moral theory of the New Natural Law theory. Sexual Ethics, Human Nature, and New Natural Law Theory – Public Discourse. However, I am not providing any interpretations of Kant. Nor do I claim to present New Natural Law theory as its proponents would. This is not a scholarly essay. Note, though, that John Finnis’ excellent characterization of marriage and family as a basic human good can be found in the link to the New Natural Law theory. I suspect that any moral theory which condemns masturbation, Traditional (Thomistic) Natural Law theory or theology of the Body Relections, would conclude that a “natural born whizz” in apply those theories would refrain from masturbation as immoral. The crucial concept in this essay is “moral genius.”

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It’s a Fact: The Purpose of Sexuality is New Life

Sexual morality

The goal of this post is bipartite. First: Show that it is intelligible to talk of new life as the purpose of human sexuality without believing that there is any entity which intended that human sexuality brings about new life. Second,: Show that judging new life to be the purpose of human sexuality is based upon natural facts just as much as is judging that human sexuality actually brings about new life.

Why argue for the obvious? What could be more obvious than new life being the purpose of sexuality? I am laboring the point that it makes sense to talk about some parts of nature being for another part of nature because I lived for over forty years in a philosophical culture in which, as I understood it, an underlying assumption was that if we thought clearly, we would not think, or talk, of there being purposes in nature other than those of intention forming animals such as humans. Indeed, the materialists among us held that when we understood nature properly, we would realize that there are not even human intentions. This philosophical environment was that of the philosophy departments of the major secular universities. I experienced it primarily at the University of Minnesota and The Ohio State University. The assumption was not unmotivated although some motivations presupposed metaphysical theses which needed defense. The best motivation was that assumption of final causes in physics detracted from mathematical representation of physical laws. But that rationale for rejecting natural purposiveness, presupposed a metaphysical assumption that ultimately the only proper science of nature is physics. As noted, another motivation was that talk of purposiveness suggests that the reality of the mental, or at least, something capable of having intentions. That rationale for rejecting natural goals is based on the belief that somehow in someway it can be shown that there is only the physical. Another rationale is based on the fear that theistic arguments based on design in nature are tempting once it is conceded that there are purposes and, then, desgns in nature. Of, course, that rationale assumes atheism. Another rationale is based on a fear that moral arguments, especially arguments in sexual morality, will be based on showing that natural purposes are not to be frustrated. Here, I agree that recognition of natural purposes by itself does not support any moral conclusion. So, concern that recognition of moral purposes might lead some to commit a naturalistic fallacy is legitimate. I agree that only beings such as us who recognize basic goods and also recognize these goods as natural goals can draw conclusions about right and wrong from information about natural purposes.

The intercourse theory of conception provides a helpful starting point. The what? I recall from my teen years, wondering about the understanding of sexuality as expressed by many of my male acquaintances and many novelists. These stupid conversations occurred in last two years of high school and while in the army. I married shortly after release from active duty. I soon became well aware of the purpose of sexuality.

We talked and they wrote as if persuading a girl to engage in full coitus was an accomplishment and no more morally significant than holding hands. The implicit rules for these kinds of conversation forbade raising the prospect of untoward consequences. Many of those, along with me, participating in this self-imposed ignorance, were Catholics. We were well aware of Catholic teaching on sexuality which is not very difficult to understand. But the Catholicism and standard sexual morality in the 1940s and 50s was bracketed-off – pushed to the “back of our minds.” To myself, perhaps in an attempt to excuse myself, I would think “These people talk like they don’t believe in the Intercourse Theory of Conception.” I fell into an irrational pattern of excusing which runs “I know this is wrong or stupid so my doing it is not seriously wrong.”

I have never heard anyone ever use the term “intercourse theory of conception.” The intercourse theory of conception, if it be a theory, is so well confirmed that we call it “a fact of life.” However, for our primitive ancestors, there was a gap of some months between coitus and clear signs of conception. Also infertility made the correlation only statistical. How, did our primitive ancestors connect the two: coitus with pregnancy and birth?

I think an hypothesis of innate knowledge better explains its universal acceptance. It is hard to imagine, as I do below, how homomids like us, would be ignorant of the “facts of life.” I could engage in socio-biological speculation about innate knowledge. But I find speculating about it as learned knowledge, brings out how moral knowledge is grounded in factual knowledge. Many of us have to learn the intercourse theory of conception as we grow up. It also aids in making the polemical point that the contemporary view of the Moral Neutrality of Sexuality is an implicit theoretical return to a primitive ignorance.

By sexuality I refer to that whole range of courting, mating and bonding activities connected with human reproduction. I could not define sexuality without assuming the intercourse theory of conception

How might early homo sapiens have dealt with sexuality before they knew what sexuality brought about? There would be these strange, delightful but dangerously disruptive urges and activities which suddenly errupted in children as they reached teenage. Strange if for no other reasons than that they seemed to lead to a activities which made the participants vulnerable to attacks from man and beasts. Delightful, of course, but dangerous and disruptive . There would be what we now call rapes and perversions such as genital manipulation of the very young. Males seeking orgasms. especially in coitus, would be recognized as a central paractice within this cluster of practices.

If they had any sapiens, sexuality would be regulated. Trying to imagine a species of homo without social mechanisms for behavior control is to think of an animal too different from us to shed light on our sexuality. There would be rules for repressing all sorts of urges and activities. There would be punishments. Of course, they could not have surpressed all expressions of sexuality, for , then, in addition to missing considerable joy they would have disappeared. Utilitarian, i.e., practical considerations lead to the regulation, so it is not implausible to assume that the regulation of sexual expression would be based on utilitarian or consequential considerations.

In passing, note that I am assuming something like the collective consciousness of a group and, indeed of all humanity. This is not the place to examne that assumption. See Human Thought as a Fundamental Reality .

We need not assume that they made accurate assesments of what brought about a tolerable amount of satisfaction; let alone the greatest possible mount of satisfaction. Nobody has ever figured that out. There most likely would have been a diversity of regulations amongst different communities. It is also plausible to assume that some who thought about why things are as they are, early natural philosophers, would conclude that sexuality is for the special physical and emotional pleasures that it can bring about. We will evaluate this judgment that sexuality is for pleasure shortly.

I set aside a hypothesis that sexuality in our primitive ancestors did not contain any dangerous and disruptive practices prior to being repressed by regulations. If the sexuality of our primitive ancestors did not contain a great deal of the weirdness, “kinkiness” for lack of a better term, existing in our contemporary sexuality, it is diffcult to explain why it would have become regulated. Cartoons used to portray a caveman dragging a woman by her hair off to his cave.

Now, suppose they discovered the natural fact that sexuality brought about babies and frequently a male bonded to the female who bore the child to help her and the child. If this is how it happened, a woman was most likely to have discovered this scientific breakthrough, since women are closer to more of the relevant data.

Let us call this complex result “new life.” It is the new life of the infant, new life in the nuclear family, renewal of the life of the bonded mother and father and new life for continuance of the life of the community. Some but, but not all, and many, if only dimly, will recognize new life as a good in the The Common Good. In my moral theory, new life is the basic human good, i.e., common good, which is the obligatory good grounding sexual morality. See Basic Human Goods & Human Morality

How might the thoughtful people, now regard the well confirmed theory that sexuality centered on coitus brings about new life? Would they find it of interest primarily because it showed similarities between their breeding practices and those of many other types of animals or suggested techniques for preventing new life? If they had a value for human life, would they be mistaken in concluding that sexuality is for this value- this good? If they recognized new life as a common good, would it be a mistake to think that sexuality was for this common good? They would not need to be primitive animists who believe that they have discovered spirits who designed sexuality. They need not be clever philosophers who think they have explained this natural function as the plans of some superhuman rationality or the cunning of evolution. To discover a purpose, to introduce for, they need only think “now we understand what all that “stuff,” viz., sexuality, is about. Now we understand why we were doing all that crazy courting, mating and bonding.

There are two issues about use of for in this context. First, is it some fundamental misuse of intelligence, to think about something , call it X, being for something else, Y, without thinking about about some intelligent being, , intending X to bring about Y? Second, granted that it is intellectually legitimate to talk of the purpose of human sexuality, is the purpose discovered or invented?

I have already introduced my position on the first issue. We introduce for when we explain a human practice, frequently a socially regulated practice, to make sense of our so behaving. But judging that nature displays purposiveness extends beyond human affairs. Primitives would not be restricted by some philosophic strictures that nature shows only sequences of events; some of which are repeatable. For instance, their thinking that the seasonal change of fur coloring on deer is a provision of nature for the protection of the deer from predators.

One role of evolutionary theory, or the evolution paradigm, is to help us understand natural purposiveness. Perhaps, some philosophers hope evolution will show us how to eliminate any thought of natural ends or goals. But the goal of such philosophers is in nature and will not be eliminated if attained.

Consider that I have talked of natural purposes only in the most bland sense of being what some processes are for. Theism and evolutionary theory are examples of explaining the occurrence of natural purposes. Recognition of the legitimacy of FOR claims is foundational for these explanations.

Note in passing that claims that sexuality brings about new life are empirically distinguishable from claims that sexuality is for new life. There could be two societies. Both recognize that sexuality brings about new life. But only one believes that sexuality is for new life. Sociological predictions could be made about moods and attitudes of the respective cultures.

If a process or practice naturally brings about, for the most part, something which is good, it is perfectly intelligible to say that practice is for this good. For instance, regulating behavior by rules and sanctions brings about order, which is presumably good. So, we can say the practice of regulating is for order. Humans may have practices which are pointless – are for nothing. Warfare may be such a practice Perhaps, warfare doesn’t promote human welfare; but it is not yet so destructive as to eliminate humanity. If so, we could say that warfare is not for anything. In this use of for, judgments about what a practice or process is for are supported or rejected by natural facts. Of course, amongst these facts are facts about what human judge to be good. And, I submit that it is a fact that humans hold as good the common goods.

So it is intellectually respectable to talk about purposes in nature. In particular, it is not obscurantism to claim that new life is the purpose of human sexuality. I do not know how or whether our primitive ancestors discovered the regular result of sexuality and its purpose. I do know that for many individuals, myself for sure, learned the purpose of sexuality

If a reader has patience, I list several more justifications for thinking there are purposes in nature.

If people think that sexuality is for pleasure or on the contrary think that sexuality is for new life are both parties thinking unintelligently about what sexuality brings about? Are they somehow imposing upon the facts a belief, unsupported by any evidence, that something intentionally created, or at least arranged, sexuality to bring about pleasure or new life for us?

What is the difference between claiming that sexuality brings about new life and claiming that sexuality is for new life? Use of “for” expresses taking new life as a purpose of sexuality instead of merely a result of sexuality. What, though, is the difference between a result and a purpose? It is the difference between thinking factual about sexuality and thinking morally about sexuality. It is not an assumption of some entity having the intention of sexuality producing new life. The “for” comes from asking “What is that for us?” Thinking of what the facts are is no more rational than thinking of what the facts are for us. To be sure we cannot ask what the facts are for us prior to getting the facts, however asking both questions are equal as parts of rationality. We ask what are facts for us only if we have values. Hence, having values is no less a part of being rational than thinking of what the facts are.

We first make a judgment that sexuality is for us. Then we infer, perhaps hastily, that since fact patterns can be intentionally arranged to be for something by us, then always when a fact pattern is for something, someone intentionally so arranged it. However, if we correctly recognize that a fact pattern is for us, it is not foolish to keep open a hypothesis that something so had that result as an intention.

We think evaluatively that X is good. We have the basic law: Do good, avoid evil. Evaluative thought is independent of factual thought. If fact patterns produce what we value we link fact patterns with what we value by concluding those fact patterns are for this value. This linkage grounds moralizing those fact patterns to specify activities which ought not be done, which may be done and which must be done.

When I write “They take new life as a basic good” I am using “they” in the way in which it is used in “they say girls mature sooner than boys.” The referent is a community, which is usually not well defined and the opinion is attributed to the community regardless of whether many do not hold the opinion. Acceptance of communal thought is not an assumption introduced solely for to find a place for the value judgment that new life is a basic good. Communal thought is presupposed in claiming that they found that sexuality brings about new life.

For any community it is rational to judge that for it to be is an ultimate value – new life is what it is to be. However, it is not inconceivable that a community chooses not to be. For instance, they commit suicide rather than be enslaved. Better we vanish from the face of the earth than endure servitude. However, suicide, individual or communal, is not a judgment that being is not good. It is a decision that evil prevail or at least a recognition that evil is prevailing

Granted that recognition that sexuality is for what is good is a foundation for moralizing sexuality, what, though, shows the moralizing is not only human invention? Ultimately, the judgment that morality is not only a human invention, is taking a realist stance. The realist stance is not irrational even if it is not a logical truth. Here, I want to note that a realist acceptance of factual truth also presupposes a supernatural which leads to nature being as it as regardless of whther we know it or think it. So, thinking as a realist about the intercourse theory of conception is no better founded than thinking as a realist about the value judgment that sexuality is for new life.

I submit that I have labored my point long enough to establish what I set out to to show

Supporting Sexual Morality vs. Speculating about Satan

Booklet on Satan, Sexual morality

I am thinking about dropping my project of writing a booklet rationalizing belief in Satan? and turning to revising my book book on sexual morality. Would any conceptual scheme I develop in which there is a place for a Satan-like being convince anyone? Indeed, it would not be the conceptual scheme which convinced me of the reality of Satan if I am so convinced. Is it not more important to convince people of the reality of sexual evil? That means convincing people of the incorrectness of the Moral Neutrality of Sexuality.

Why is sexual morality so important? I cite two reasons which I did not present in the first edition of my book. In the October 2024 issue of First Things, we can read in Ryan T. Anderson’s, The Way Forward After Dobbs, “Nonmarital sex is the main cause of abortion. Marriage is the best protector of unborn human life.” Another is the vast increase in viewing pornography as examined in Grant H. Brenner MD’s Pychology Today article “4 Ways Porn Use Causes Problems.”

In my book, I advocated the traditional , which has been taught by the Catholic Church, sexual morality as an antidote for nihilism. I am still certain that traditional sexual morality is an antidote for nihilism. Unfortunately, it is being undercut by some leading Catholics. See for instance: Cardinal McElroy: Sex and sin need a new framework in the church | America Magazine . Even the current Pope is less than supportive of traditional Catholic sexual morality. See, for instance, Pope Francis on sexual morality

Basic Human Goods Constitute The Common Good

Moral philosophy, Sexual morality

The common good is defined in Pope John XXIII’s encyclical Mater et Magistra (On Christianity and Social Progress) as “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily.” I propose that the Basic Human Goods specify what ought to be pursued to attain the common good and what ought not be done because it detracts from the common good. If the no one ever acted in a way to impede a basic human good and would always so act as to promote some basic good, all that humans could do for the sake of the common good has been done. Unfortunately, factors beyond human control might always occur so that human life is wretched beyond any human effort.

So, I propose interpreting “basic human good” as “a constituent of the common good” or as “a common good.” So, the first law of morality “Do good, avoid evil!” can be read as ” Always promote a common good; never directly inhibit development of a common good.” Recreation or play is a basic good. So, one can be promoting a common good and hence the common good by “taking it easy” once and a while.

I offer an example of a common good brought about by human sexuality. Human sexuality, sexual practices, frequently brings about babies and somewhat less frequently a male bonded to the female who bore the child to help her and the child. Let us call this complex result “new life.” It is the new life of the infant, new life in the nuclear family, renewal of the life of the bonded mother and father and new life for continuance of the life of the community. Some but, but not all, and many, if only dimly, will recognize new life as a good in the common good. Hence, the gist of sexual morality is: Use sexuality to promote new life and never directly inhibit sexuality from leading to new life.

Much can be written about how we discover the common good. Here are a few observations on recognizing the common good. A common good is good for us; not necessarily good for me. It is communal. Nonetheless, since individuals are in communities common goods have to be good for individuals for the most part. There can be misperception of a common good if “us” refers to less than the whole human community. However, people understanding their community as less than the whole of humanity may very well recognize a common good in what is good for a narrower comunity to which they belong. Ethno-centricism accounts for misperception of a common good. However, ethno-centrism does not prevent correction perception of a common good. Perception of a common good does not require some impossible deracination program of thinking as a person who is simply human’ only in the community of humanity. Careful use of imagination and analogies suffice fairly well, I submit, for recognizing what people the world over care about. For instance, on the whole they don’t want their babies to die.

Why Confront Secularism?

Character Morality, Virtue ethics

Why have I changed the theme of my blog posts from confronting Nihilism to confronting Secularism?

From September 2024 through February 2025, I am dedicating a page of my blog site as the instructions and information page for The Priestly Vocation Essay contest of the Serra Club of Columbus. I manage the contest. Parents, teachers and students might be confused by a title about a Catholic philosopher confronting nihilism when they are looking for information about writing essays on a vocation to the Catholic priesthood.

The Columbus Serra Club challenges eighth grade boys to write an essay of five hundred words or less answering  a question about whether God might be calling them to the priesthood.  Writers of the ten best essays are awarded a $1,000 tuition assistance grant to a diocesan Catholic high school for the 2025/2026 academic year. The Serra Club encourages  participation from all schools in the diocese. The mere fact of writing the essays helps form a culture of vocations. The 2024 essays, even those written as an extra credit assignment,  were very well written while showing serious thought about what God might have in mind for them. Most of the essays were analyses of why they did not think God was calling them to be a priest. Nonetheless: A boy   who settles down to write out what he thinks about his future in light of God’s will, forms in himself an antidote against secularism.

An antidote against secularism is an antidote to nihilism. For in a secular outlook a boy thinks about his life as if God is irrelevant to what he should become. There is heavy pressure to think as a secularist in our culture. If he continues to think as a secularist and becomes aware of his secularist outlook, he will either become an explicit nihilist, continue as a secularist while suppressing thoughts about the meaning of his life or return to thinking of God having a purpose for his life. Rememberance of having written, way back in the eighth grade, how it was not all about him but God and him, might protect him from the nihilism of “It’s all about me.”

Freewill of Love, Freewil of Duty & Freewill of Inclination Satisfaction

Freewill, meaning of love, Moral philosophy

In other posts I have written of the freewill of love. See: Agency, Ordinary Free Will, & Free Will of Love. Here I frequently call that level of freewill “freedom to love.” I hope to show that the freedom to love is no more mysterious than the fact that humans, and perhaps all animals, inject agent causation into the events which occur in nature. Of course, agent causation remains mysterious from an explicit, or even implicit, outlook that when reality is properly understood reality will be recognized as nothing more than matter in motion. But more importantly, I hope to show that the freewill of love is necessary for the freedom of morality. The freewill of love is the capability of choosing the good of the other for the sake of the other. The freewill of morality is the capability of choosing what is morally obligatory because it is morally obligatory. Hereafter, I will call the freewill of morality, the freewill of duty.

I conjecture that agent causation extends far down in the animal kingdom. Suppose I lift a rock and bugs scurry off in various directions To an external observer, this is a stochastic process. However, internally to the bugs the paths taken are selected by the individual bugs. The individual bugs are not mere conduits through which a stream of causal action and reaction, be it deterministic or pr0bablistic, flows. An agent caused event has no sufficient conditions prior to what an agent does and the agent’s selection provides the sufficient conditions. Most likely there are neural processes in the bugs which give them the power of selection to initiate new causal pathways. Still agent causes are self-accelerators.

If agent causation goes fairly far down in the animal kingdom, so-called libertarian or contra-causal freewill goes fairly far down in the animal kingdom. Once agent causation emerged in evolutionary history, the evolutionary process may have selected for organisms capable of agent causation as opposed to those whose reactions are always strictly determined or totally random. I do not think that the bugs do anything like conscious deliberation. But conscious deliberation is not necessary for libertarian or contracausal free will. I also conjecture that once organisms with libertartian free will have evolved, there is evolutionary selection for agent causation modified, but not totally determined, by sensations, inclinations and thoughts. There is always remains a need for the selection or act of will by the agent. This is the common core of freewill for bugs, humans and angels.

Put it this way. Basic agent causation is freedom from deterministic causation. Levels of this basic freedom from are freedoms to execute choices of various types. Perhaps the freedom from deterministic causation only gives my bugs the freedom to select a flight path at random. However, their possesion of photo sensors might be giving them the freedom to seek a darker spot after my lifting the rock exposed them to bright sunshine.

The first law of freedom is to restrict it. An organism develops freedom to do specifIc things by developing ways of restricting its freedom from non-agent causality.

In the remainder of this post, the concern is with the levels of freewill at which humans act. Humans frequently deliberate before making a selection. In delibertion the agent consciously considers alternative before making a selection. I must emphasize that the deliberation of an agent before making a selection is not the cause of the selection. The agent is the the cause of selecting action its deliberation proposed.

Consider three types of human feewill typically preceded by deliberation. . There is the freewill of inclination, the freewill of duty, and the freewill of love.

In freewill of inclination the agent chooses amongst ends toward which he recgonizes no end as that to which he has an overwhelming inclination. The goal is to satisfy inclinations. This frequently takes the form of trying to avoid leaving inclinations unsatisfied. Choosing a desert in a cafeteria provides a typical example. Should I choose apple pie, cherry pie or chocolate cake? I enjoy them separately but realize I would feel sick and waste money if I chose more than one. I think and think; but the other people in line cause me, perhaps deterministically to make up my mind. I select cherry pie, enjoy it while satisfying my desert inclinations for awhile. My inclination for cherry pie was not an efficient cause of my selecting it. I selected the cherry pie to satisfy my inclination.

If humans had only the freewill of inclination satisfaction, it might seem that freewill is restricted to selfish choices. However, people have inclinations for the health and well-being of others. Choosing to help others be happy is certainly not selfish.

With freewill of dutyy an agent deliberates between satisfying an inclination for a good in conflict with a basic human good and following the moral command not to act contrary to a basic human good.

For an example, imagine that I live in a community allowing medical assistance in dying, MAID. Suppose also that I have an extremely painful terminal illness. I can deliberate between satisfying my strong inclination for the good of being pain-free at the expense of destroying the basic human good of my life,which I am usually inclined to preserve. Basic human goods are obligatory goods. See: Basic Human Goods Convey Divine Commands Hence, basic human goods entail categorical imperatives that they never be directly destroyed. In this case, then, I am deliberating between a good, viz. no pain, towards which I am strongly inclined and obeying a moral law not to take my life. Suppose that I refuse the euthanasia option. I have then exercised my freedom of duty by selecting obedience to the moral law over satisfying an inclination involving its violation. I did not select obedience to the law because I had a stronger inclination to obey than to avoid pain. I selected to subordinate inclination satisfaction to doing what is right. I realize that at best a sense of righteousness is small comfort in great physical pain. In this case, I can choose not to have my life taken while hoping that I die immediately because all my inclinations oppose the path I select.

An agent who can use its freedom from determism to select obedience to a moral law over inclination satisfaction has the freedom to be moral.

However, the freedom to be moral requires recognition of moral laws. What capabilities does an agent need to recognize moral laws? Suppose that my adaptation of the New Natural Law theory gives a correct account of how moral laws are recognized. See: Basic Human Goods & Human Morality Under this supposition, humans must recognize certain human goods as basic human goods. This means that they are goods which are to be promoted and never intentionally frustrated. The general command never to frustrate the basic goods supports the various categorical imperatives – moral laws- such as Do not kill used in the euthanasia example above. However, to become convinced of the moral laws we need to come to appreciate that these basic goods are indeed goods in whomever they occur. This means learning to will these goods in whomever they occur. Willing what is good for the sake of the other is love. For love is to will the good of the other.

What we notice here is that the capability of loving – the capability to choose the good of the other is the foundation for the universaliization of what is often called “the moral point of view.”

It might seem that I have, at best, written of learning to love abstractions such as life, knowledge friendship etc., for basic human goods. However, humans do not learn which goods are basic human goods by thinking of abstractions. We reflex on real or imagined situations to learn good from evil. Our thoughts, which are always inseparable from affections, of good and evil are always thoughts of good or evil in particular real, or imagined, human beings. If we will the good for the humans in these scenarios our willing is an act of love – willing the good of the other.

Consider a case to show that my opposition an abortion is based on love. In so far as I oppose abortion because I hold that life is a basic human good, my opposition to abortion is only moral. However, an abortion for a particular woman because I choose for her to have the good of being a mother who preserves the life growing in her, my choice is a choice for the good of the other – a choice of love for that girl. That this choice is of love is clearest when both my inclinations and those of the woman are all in favor of solving current problems with abortion. It is the love which strenghtens my moral choice against abortion.

Unscientific speculations about agent causality:

I propose limiting agent causality to animals. Attribution of agency to angels poses problems which must be confronted elsewhere. Let’s not speculate about the crazy networks of roots sent out by plants as agent selected. Further I suggest restricting speculation about agency to organisms with at least a rudimentary central nervous system. An agent is an individual organism. Its agency – its capacity to spontaneously change- be an uncaused cause of – its state may depend upon the potential -DNA-for having a certain level of neuronal complexity. But an agent is not its conditions for it to exercise agent causality. Agency is an emergent feature of animals. Once a certain neuronal complexity evoved, or was created, agent causation came into being. But the agents are not identical with the complexity required for their existence. Two agents can have identical conditions for their agency and not be identical.

There Ought to be Something Rather than Nothing

Authoritarian Morality, Deontic logic, Moral philosophy

In construction of a model of what it would be like for there to be Satan in which I represent Satan as a disobedient deputy creator, I need to answer why God creates at all; let alone creates a deputy creator capable of insubordination. So, we confront the question: Why is there something rather than nothing? But I have transformed the question into: Why ought there be something rather than nothing?

The transformation is based on a model of reality in which what ought to be the case – the Deontic- is more fundamental than what is the case- the Ontic. Values are more fundamental than facts; obedience is a more fundamental correct response to reality than knowledge of facts. I have not yet presented this model.

Consider the following argument in which moral necessity is logical necessity when the major premisses are deontic statements, viz., statements of what ought to be. or ought to br done.

If there were nothing, there would be nothing good.

What is good ought to be.

Hence, if there were nothing there would not be what ought to be.

So, by moral necessity, there ought not be nothing.

Or by moral necessity, there ought to be something.

Conceptual Models are Models of HavingTruth Conditions.

Core philosophy, On the Nature of Satan

In my efforts to construct a conceptual model of what reality would be like if there were a Satan, I am concerned about the purpose of such an effort. See: The Value of Conceptual Models of Satan The purpose for the model is found in a realistic or correspondence understanding of truth, under the constraints of a presupposition that thinking of justified belief, let alone the thinking of knowing, is reflective. Here “reflexive” means “thought about thinking.”

The reflective interpretation of thinking assumes that what we are aware of in thinking is something produced by thinking and not things in-themselves apart from thought. There might be some thinking which is directly about things-in-themselves But whenever we have the least concern about the correctness of our thinking we think about our thinking. The support for the representational understanding of thinking is that whenever we try to think carefully we reflect on our thinking. We cannot think of ourselves not thinking of our thinking. For any attempt to think of ourselves not thinking about our thinking leads to our thinking about our thinking.

What we think and say can be true or false depending upon whether we say of what is that it is and of what is not that it is not. This realist interpretation presupposes that our thoughts and words are a type of dependent reality – dependent upon humans- and real – independent reality- to which our thoughts and words refer, viz. things in themselves apart from out thinking.

The fundamental challenge to realism based on a correspondence theory of truth points out that we have no concept of things in themselves. For whenever we try to think of things apart from out thinking, we think of them whereby we fail to guarantee their existing apart from thinking of them. This challenge leads me to hold a mitigated skepticism about truth. See Confession of a Truth Skeptic .

We must acept the result that a conceptual model of reality independent of our thought is not a model of reality independent of our thought.

The mere possibility of thinking of reality apart from our thought seems illusory.

However, the possibility of the way we think corresponding to conditions apart from our thinking can be shown by distinguishing two types of our thought. Let us call them empirical and abstract. The distinguishing feature of empirical thought is that we can imagine what we think about. The distinguishing feature of abstract thought is that any imagery of what is thought about is dismissed as misleading. Now we cannot really think without imagery. So, completely abstract thought is an idealized type of thought that we cannot attain. Abstract thinking requires keeping always in the background an intellectual conscience to criticize any recourse to imagery. So, idealized abstract thought can be used as a substitute for a reality beyond our thinking which can be compared with our normal ways of thinking. Of course, constructing the abstract model requires showing the abstract way of thinking more or less accurately represents the empirical way of thinking. Hence for the case of Satan, I need to display how my ways of talking about Satan with abstract moral and theological concepts is in accord with religious talk of Satan with all of its imagery.

Some realists, let us call them “classical realists,” assume our thought can match reality apart from thought. This assumption holds that the structure of empirical thoughts can be the same as the structure of things-in-themselves. We have truth when the structure of empirical thoughts we obtain by abstraction from our images corresponds to the structures outside human thinking. I do not accept this type of direct realism. For when we try to think of abstract structures outside our minds we are thinking of our thought in constructing that abstract structure.

The important message of this post is the conceptual models show the possibility of truth by correspondence with a reality apart from truth claims. But this all takes place within our thinking.

I found the following passage from Ch 3 of BI of Augustine’s De Trinitatae encouraging when I felt like discontinuing work on this Satan book. I realize that few, if any people, will be interested in my efforts to show the major thelogical claims about Satan could be true. My effort may be of use to some. A book does not have to be suitable for everyone.

This is not well said, because I do not understand it; such an one finds fault with my language, not with my faith: and it might perhaps in very truth have been put more clearly; yet no man ever so spoke as to be understood in all things by all men. Let him, therefore, who finds this fault with my discourse, see whether he can understand other men who have handled similar subjects and questions, when he does not understand me: and if he can, let him put down my book, or even, if he pleases, throw it away; and let him spend labor and time rather on those whom he understands. Yet let him not think on that account that I ought to have been silent, because I have not been able to express myself so smoothly and clearly to him as those do whom he understands. For neither do all things, which all men have written, come into the hands of all. And possibly some, who are capable of understanding even these our writings, may not find those more lucid works, and may meet with ours only. And therefore it is useful that many persons should write many books, differing in style but not in faith, concerning even the same questions, that the matter itself may reach the greatest number— some in one way, some in another.