All posts by kielkopf1

About kielkopf1

I am Professor philosophy (emeritus) of the Ohio State University. I am blogging to promote a book on sexual moral philosophy and to develop further themes not fully developed in the book. I live in Columbus, Ohio with my wife Marge. My three sons: Charles P., Mark S. and Andrew J. live in Columbus. My daughter Judy lives in Rhode Island while my daughter Susan lives in Fresno, CA. My wife and I are daily Mass goers at our Catholic parish: Immaculate Conception. Marge is an active Lay Cistercian and I am very active in the works of the Society of St. Vincent dePaul. View all posts by kielkopf1 →

Having Original Sin vs. Committing the Original Sin:How Original Sin Is Inherited

July 3, 2017Character Morality, Moral philosophy, On the Nature of Satankielkopf1

In a series of posts on how Satan and God are in a warfare over whether or not humans go to hell, this post follows, Humankind’s Original Sin & the Emergence of the Human Soul in Evolution.

In that post, we started with a man and a woman who could distinguish right acts from wrong acts but, as was the case with all members of their species had no concept of becoming the kind of person who always chose the right act regardless of any inclination to do otherwise. The moral concept they lacked has a variety of descriptions. We could say that they had no concept of the moral good of always choosing the right act. They had no concept of a good will. We could say that they had the “local” moral concepts of the right acts to do but lacked the “global” moral concept of becoming the kind of moral person they ought to be, namely a person who always chooses the right act because it is right. We could say that they had concerned for doing right acts but not being a righteous person.*

God brought it about that this man and woman acquired this concept of becoming a morally proper person by having as their maxim for making choices to choose what is morally right,i.e. choosing what they have an inclination for only if it is in accordance with what is right. On a momentous occasion when they were tempted to satisfy an inclination to violate a moral law or command of God, Satan provided them with a second temptation. The second temptation was to adopt as a maxim the policy of occasionally setting aside the moral law in order to satisfy an inclination. The temptation was to set aside the goal of being a morally proper person or one in obedience to God’s will. The original sin is the choice of this maxim. For the line of thought that I am pursuing here, it must be emphasized that the original sin of the original parents was the choice of a maxim or policy of occasionally setting aside the moral law. The original parents committed the original sin. Having original sin is having this maxim or policy. I now argue that we can accuse a person of having original sin independently of accusing the person of committing the original sin.

In this post I speculate how this original sin is inherited. Suppose the man and woman were selected by God from all the homo sapiens at certain time to introduce a new moral concept which would be a cultural universal for all humans. They, “Adam and Eve,” were selected to be the creative geniuses who brought a fundamental concept to humanity along with a host of associated concepts. Whatever God let evolution give them so that they could have this thought will be passed on in their biological reproduction. Also whatever God allowed evolutionary processes to give them so that they could have the thought of setting aside a command of God will also be passed on in their biological reproduction.
Recall that concomitant with the concept of obedience to all the moral laws was the associated concept of occasionally setting aside the moral. Here, though, we are primarily concerned with sociological inheritance; not biological inheritance.

All humans contemporaneous with the “original sinners” can be said to have this defective moral character. For the couple with the concept of moral good but who yet succumbed to the temptation to set aside its pursuit belonged to the community of homo sapiens. Once a concept is introduced by some individuals it becomes a concept of the human community. For instance, when someone introduced the concept of zero, we had the concept of zero. That’s how creativity works. So every one has these concepts of moral good and setting it aside once “Adam and Eve and Satan introduced them.”

Which should we assume to be dominant?. Having the maxim of always obeying the moral law requires a lifetime to exhibit. Setting aside the moral law to satisfy an inclination is readily exhibited from earliest childhood. So the presumption is that every child inherits as its operative maxim the policy of occasionally setting aside a command of God. Thus it is a presumption that every child has the original sin of those original parents. This is not a judgment that every child has chosen to do a wrong act. It is a judgment that every child has a moral character that it ought not have. Discussion of restoration of moral character is for subsequent posts. Satan claims that because of the defective moral character of all human beings, they are all on his side and deserve his fate.

*If we say that being a person who has as a maxim always choosing what is right, is a righteous person, , we can say that a fundamental assumption about human beings is that none of us are righteous.

Subsequent posts in this series will focus on why God did not abandon us although none of us are righteous.

Readers my be interested in my book on sexual morality. The central thesis of my book can be interpreted as a temptation from Satan to believe that in principle any pursuit of sexual satisfaction is morally permissible.

My book Confronting Sexual Nihilism: Traditional Sexual Morality as an Antidote to Nihilism was released by Tate Publishing on March 11, 2014. See Book Web Page for information about the book. The publisher’s listed price is $26.99. Printed copies can be purchased here by credit card for $3.99, plus $3.71 for shipping and handling.

To purchase the printed book by check, send check of $3.99 plus $3.71 for shipping and handling per copy. Send to:
Charles F. Kielkopf
45 W. Kenworth Rd.
Columbus, Ohio 43214
Include your shipping address.

Humankind’s Original Sin & Emergence of the Human Soul in Evolution

June 27, 2017Character Morality, Moral philosophykielkopf1

This post is in a series building a conceptual model of Satan and his warfare with God to bring all human individuals to annihilation. It follows Why Does Satan Want Us to Go to Hell?

How might this type of animal which Satan wants to bring to hell have arisen in the evolutionary process? Suppose a species of the genus homo had evolved far enough to do the type of thinking and feeling we now call moral thinking about the rightness and wrongness of particular acts. They are homo sapiens but innocent homo sapiens because they never think of themselves as good or bad people. They are aware of moral rules for what they ought not do and what they ought to do. Innocent homo sapiens are not conscious of a potential for being what they ought to be. They have moral concepts of ought-to-to but lack a concept of moral ought-to-be. Put another way: They have the concepts of right and wrong acts but do not have the concept of moral character formation.

For instance, they might have rules expressing moral inhibitions against killing, lying and stealing. Of course, they may not always follow these rules. But they lack the moral concept of the role of being someone who follows these rules. To say that the concept of this role is a moral concept is to say that it is thought everyone has an obligation to play this role.

A message comes from God to a breeding pair of innocent humans. The message takes the form of the imperative: Become the kind of beings who have as their highest priority obeying these moral rules regardless of any inclination to do otherwise. Put another way: The new moral thought is the thought of a command that all plans for satisfying their inclinations, all maxims for how to get things done, need to be restricted to plans that do not violate these general moral rules. Having as one’s highest principle or maxim choosing to satisfy inclinations in conformity with what is morally right simply because it is right to do so is having a good will. A good will is a moral good because it is something to be chosen and it ought to be chosen. This thought of this moral good is a great gift because it brings with it the thought of having a purpose for life. The purpose of life is to become a morally good person.

For those familiar with Kant’s moral theory, it will be apparent that I am adapting Kant’s Categorical Imperative as the thought which makes animals capable of having general moral rules into human beings. But I am not interpreting Kant’s moral theory. If there is anything worthwhile in what I present and it comes from Kant, give Kant credit for it. Do not blame Kant for foolishness in what I write.

However, I am proposing that having the thought of a good will as a good is what gave a human soul to beings in the evolutionary process. A good will is having the character of always choosing to satisfy inclinations for non-moral goods restricted by moral rules. Non-moral goods are the satisfactions of the numerous inclinations humans can have. Since I am not here trying to present a secular account,I will interpret moral rules as God’s commands and thus interpret a good will as always obeying God what commands.

So we have this couple with knowledge of right and wrong plus the additional thought of making themselves into people who always do what is right because they is the way they ought to be. They have the new and overriding good or goal of always choosing what is right when they choose lesser goods. Now comes a temptation. This is a new temptation different from temptations to violate a moral rule. They have always had temptations to violate the moral rules. The new temptation is to set aside the imperative to have a good will as a good for the sake of a lesser good. Put another way: The temptation is to set aside a policy of always doing what God commands simply because God commands it. This is exactly the temptation to which Satan or Lucifer succumbed as we saw What is Satan’s Sin?. They succumbed to this temptation by attempting to justify some violation of a moral rule – some violation of a command of God. So the man and the woman have the policy or maxim of reserving to themselves the right of setting aside a moral law of God- if they so choose. Adopting this maxim is their original sin. Their original sin is not the choice of the act they try to rationalize. The original sin – the sin which is original in the pursuit of moral character- is choice of the policy of on occasion placing inclination satisfaction over obedience to the will or God which we are here identifying with the moral law.

In the next post in this series on Satan and original sin, I speculate on how this original sin is inherited.

Why Does Satan Want Us to Go to Hell?

June 21, 2017On the Nature of Satan, Philosophical Theologykielkopf1

This post follows a post What is Satan’s Sin? proposing that there is a Satan with the capability to convey messages to human beings contrary to messages that God would convey to humans. Here we consider what kind of messages Satan would convey to human beings and for what end.

I will refer to Satan with the neutered masculine pronoun “He.” Consider the following line of thought.

Satan has chosen, on occasion, to convey to humans what he wants rather than what God wills.
By choosing to convey what he wills rather than what God wills, Satan has chosen not to be as he ought to be. Satan ought to be a reliable messenger of God’s will.
By choosing not to be as he ought to be, Satan has chosen not to be.

(This crucial identification of not-being with not-being-as-it-ought-to-be has been defended in Moral Harm and non-Being .)

I am afraid that the line of thought I am developing requires at some stage I confront the fundamental question of philosophy: What is Being? I am afraid of this confrontation because I doubt that I can say anything worthwhile that has not already been said. Plato et al. have left the question -die Seinfrage- open.
What Satan has chosen can be defined as Satan’s goal or good.
Satan’s good can be considered as negative and positive but the negative is ultimately more accurate. Negatively considered Satan’s good is simply not-being
Positively considered Satan’s good is some way of being but which is not-being as it ought to be.

For instance, Satan conveys to humans the false message that the end justifies the means. Now being a bearer of that false message is not the way Satan ought to be. Nonetheless Satan is actually something as bearer of that false message. However, at the end of the ages when all that is exists as it ought to be Satan’s accumulation of states of what he ought not have been vanish. Satan is nothing – truly dead.

This total death is hell.

Satan wills his’ good for human beings. Satan’s good, as we have just noted, is that human beings receive and act on messages contrary to what God would tell human beings such as “The end justifies the means.” So Satan wills that humans not be as they ought to be and at the end of the ages be truly dead. Satan’s good for human beings is truly evil for human beings. So when we regard love as willing the good of a being we can regard willing evil for another as hatred for that other being. Thus Satan truly hates human beings just as he hates himself by willing his total death or hell..

We have now answered why Satan hates us and wills that we go to hell. The next post in this series on Satan confronts the issue of how Satan enters into a contest with God to bring all humans into hell with himself.

Readers my be interested in my book on sexual morality. It could be said that I confront the false message of Satan, sent through our culture, that there is no objectively right way to exercise our sexuality; rather in sexual matters the end justifies the means.

What Is Satan’s Sin?

June 17, 2017On the Nature of Satan, Philosophical Theologykielkopf1

This post continues building a conceptual model of a demonic being who struggles to bring eternal punishment to human beings. It continues reflections from There is a Satan in Opposition to Good. This post answers: What evil did Satan choose?

An assumption is that God created beings to convey His will to the material universe which he intended to create. These messengers of God’s will can properly be called angels. As part of this assumption we can postulate that these messengers are organized into an hierarchical society according to the type of messages to be conveyed. Whimsically let us suppose the highest one – the archangel- is called Lucifer or the bearer of light to humans who are to be created. For angels i.e., divine messengers, to be as they ought to be is choose as their policy, as their maxim, to convey what God wills. For an angel to not be as it ought to be is to choose as its maxim to ,on occasion,convey its own will rather than God’s will to whoever, or whatever, is to receive the message. In effect, a “bad” angel assumes a right to place its will between God and creatures. Thus, the sin of a bad angel is pride

Let us postulate that Lucifer chooses to be a bad angel who chooses as his operating policy to on occasion convey its messages for human beings rather than what God would convey to human beings. God has no place for a messenger such as Lucifer nor any other messengers who chose as Lucifer. Yet God cannot destroy these beings since as was argued in God Cannot Destroy Satan God cannot destroy beings who have been created with a way they ought to be. Yet they will be separated from God. Where God is, all is as it ought to be; that’s heaven. This condition of separation from God is Hell.

God allows Lucifer to go to Hell. To replace Lucifer as His bearer of messages to humans, God creates the second archangel Michael. Michael chooses the maxim he ought to choose, namely, always to convey to humans the message that God wants humans to receive.

However, because of its indestructibility even in hell, Lucifer, or Satan, still has the function of conveying messages to humans. What messages does Satan want to convey to humans and for what purpose? They won’t be the messages that Michael will convey since Michael has chosen as his maxim to convey a message to humans if and only if God wills it to be conveyed. Thus there is a warfare between Michael and Lucifer in the form of putting conflicting messages into human culture. The next post in this series on Satan answers this question about what type of messages Satan sends us. That post is titled ” Why Does Satan Want us to Hell?

Readers my be interested in my book on sexual morality provoked by although in that book I do not consider sexual sins as provoked by anthing beyond sexual desire..

Moral Harm as the Natural Harm Which Ought to Be

June 7, 2017Moral Harm and Moral Worth, Moral philosophykielkopf1

In this post I modify the notion of moral harm in a post Moral Harm and Non-Being and in my book on sexual morality.* In those places the notion of moral harm was presented as too intellectual and individualistic. I presented moral harm as the mere status of an individual who had chosen contrary to the moral law and the damage done to him was the status of diminishing his being -what he is- by now being less than he ought to be. I am modifying it in in light of my post justifying the rationality of retribution. With use of the notion of retribution, the notion of moral harm is being expanded to include the natural harms which OUGHT TO BE brought about by violation of moral laws.

Let the term “bad moral consequences of an act” mean the natural bad things that ought to happen to human beings because of the choice of an act contrary to morality..

Consider some examples of moral thinking and thoughts of moral consequences. A person who knows that he has lied to make a good deal certainly does not think that he ought to be better off because of his lying. This is so even if he has lied to bring about better natural conditions for all concerned. He hopes that he will get the good things without getting the harmful things which ought to be for having lied.

But let me go beyond individuals to communities. Communities can suffer moral harm by virtue of having their decision making authority, however it may operate, choose what is contrary to moral law. U.S. citizens before the War Between the States were well aware of the injustice and cruelty of the enslavement of people of African origin. The devastation of that horrible war was regarded by many as some of the harm that ought to have been brought about by the slavery system. Because the notion of retribution by itself does not specify how much harm ought to occur, who should suffer it or who should inflict it we are still thinking that harms ought to be brought about for slavery and its residual violations of moral law in the racism remaining after slavery. To put it simply: A part the White Guilt felt by so many over slavery and its residual racism is a manifestation of its moral harm – the lingering expectation that some bad things still OUGHT to be inflicted upon us.

Consider more examples for citizens of the U.S.. Part of the reasons we cringe when learning of our country’s unjust proxy wars during the cold war and the torture, targeted killings and reckless collateral damage in the war on terror is that we must admit that some bad things ought to happen to us because of how we as a nation have violated moral laws.

Relevant to these reflections is a suggestion about reporting on the achievements of those who have been the first member of certain groups who suffered some type of unjust discrimination to make such achievements. These are reported as “The first black who…” “The first woman who…” Such reporting calls to mind the thought of injustice for which harm ought to happen along with the thought of the individual’s achievements. The thought of harms which ought to happen are not pleasant thoughts. These unpleasant thoughts about bad things which ought to happen can diminish the pleasure of the thought of thinking about the splendid achievements of the individuals. The splendor of the achievement gets forgotten as the report as taken as more “political” reporting.

*Introduction of the retributive principle is developing the notion of moral harm which I used in my book. In my book I did not clearly enough link moral harm with natural harms
My book Confronting Sexual Nihilism: Traditional Sexual Morality as an Antidote to Nihilism was released by Tate Publishing on March 11, 2014. See Book Web Page for information about the book. The publisher’s listed price is $26.99. Printed copies can be purchased here by credit card for $3.99, plus $3.71 for shipping and handling.

Retributive Punishment is Consistent with the Logic of Moral Thinking

May 28, 2017Moral philosophykielkopf1

Physical or mental pain for human beings is a bad thing. This is the way IT IS. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. This not the way IT OUGHT TO BE.

There are logical rules for thinking correctly about what ought to be done and what ought to be. These rules are called “deontic logic.” In this post I propose some fundamental rules of deontic logic which are so fundamental that they can be called axioms. In particular, I bring out that retributive punishment is in principle justified by axioms of deontic logic. Retributive punishment is inflicting mental or physical pain on human beings simply for violating a moral law. This infliction of pain is warranted regardless of any production or protection of human happiness brought about by such infliction of pain. Because retributive punishment is in principle justified by deontic logic it cannot be dismissed as a primitive way of moral thinking or based on amoral feelings of vengeance. In this defense of the rationality of retributive punishment I am arguing against views on punishment I previously held

The judgment that an immoral act ought to have bad consequences is as fundamental in moral thinking as a judgment that an act violates a moral law. Indeed the two moral judgments ” This act is wrong” and “This act ought to have bad consequences” are made together. This proposal is significantly different from the utilitarian outlook which proposes that if an act has bad consequences, then it is an immoral act. My proposed axiom states: if an act is immoral, then it OUGHT to have bad consequences. I propose further that the judgment that an immoral act ought to have bad consequences entails a further moral judgment that something ought to be done to bring about the bad consequences for an immoral act. This comes from a deontic logic axiom that something ought to be done to bring about what ought to be. What is entailed by axioms of logic alone is also a rule or principle of logic. So we have as a deontic logic principle the RETRIBUTIVE PRINCIPLE:

Something ought to be done to bring about the bad consequences for an immoral act.

All that is needed for the retributive principle to become activated in moral thinking are some moral rules such as: Do not kill! Do not steal! Do not lie! Do not commit adultery! Besides the rules there needs to be recognition of a violation of a rule. This first violation could be thought of as an “original sin.” With recognition of an original sin moral thought contains the judgment that something ought to inflict pain on human beings for violations of moral rules.

Here I will not pursue theological speculations about original sin. Here I want to emphasize that the moral rules such as Do not Kill! are not principles of deontic logic. Deontic logic gives for reasoning about moral rules and from moral rules. Moral rules need to be justify by rational thinking. But deontic logic is not sufficient to justify moral rules. However, the retributive principle is sufficient to show that retributive punishment is logically consistent in moral thinking. In fact I think that the retributive principle can be used to define punishment explicitly as: the bad consequences for human beings which ought to be brought about for violation of a moral rule.

In effect, “retributive punishment” is a redundancy. Punishment is retribution.

Of course, to use the retributive principle in reasoning about punishment many questions need to be answered. Some of the obvious questions are: What should the punishment be? Who should inflict the punishment? On whom should the punishment be inflicted? These questions reveal that the logic of moral reasoning leaves open the question on whom should the punishment be inflicted just as the logic of moral thinking leaves open the question of the degree of punishment. I am suggesting that the notion of another person suffering the punishment than the person who performed the immoral act is consistent with the logic of moral thinking. Much more could be written about applying the retributive principle. For instance, I have left open whether there is something like mercy which can eliminate or lessen the bad consequences.

But enough has been written so that I can continue with my project of writing blog posts to show that the notion of Satan is consistent with deontic logic. Look for more posts on the topic.
See There is a Satan in Opposition to God.

Introduction of the retributive principle is developing the notion of moral harm which I used in my book. In my book I did not clearly enough link moral harm with natural harms
My book Confronting Sexual Nihilism: Traditional Sexual Morality as an Antidote to Nihilism was released by Tate Publishing on March 11, 2014. See Book Web Page for information about the book. The publisher’s listed price is $26.99. Printed copies can be purchased here by credit card for $3.99, plus $3.71 for shipping and handling.

A Catholic Man Confronts a Rainbow Flag

May 8, 2017Sexual moralitykielkopf1

A Catholic Stand Against a Rainbow Flag

Our enemy is advancing. Our enemies are not the poor souls he has pressed into his service. In Ephesians 6, Paul warned that our battle is against demonic powers. Our enemy’s bright cheery banners are flying from more and more houses in our neighborhoods. His rainbow flags demand surrender of all our Catholic notions of sexual purity. His dominance of the media persuades so many of us silently to surrender without resistance. He has broken through our defensive wall built from bricks of traditions. He has not yet won. Bishop Olmsted challenges Catholic men to rush into the breach *. How can we resist? Pray always. Think clearly and speak directly when occasions present themselves. But save your strength. Use prudence about when to fight.
Imagine an occasion presented by one of those ubiquitous rainbow flags. A man and a boy are cleaning up a yard on a March day.
———————————————————————————————————————————-
“Dad what do those dudes do?” Thirty seven year old Richard is raking leaves with his eleven year old son Frank. Frank points to the house across the street flying a rainbow flag. Frank adds: “The mail carrier told me that Ron and Jay just got married.” “Isn’t that weird?” he mutters.

Richard thinks “Frankie’s got me. I’m stuck, I can’t tell him to go ask his mother. I need the guts to speak straight and tell Frankie that homosexual acts are always immoral. Yet I have to put it in such a way that I give him no justification for ever harassing gay guys. How? I haven’t really talked with him about sex yet!”

Richard answers: “Yeh, I think that it is weird too. No matter what judges decide real marriage is for a man and a woman to form a family. You know how babies get started, don’t you?”

“Sure, sure we learned all that stuff in life sciences,” replies his son.

With relief Richard continues: “Good, that’s the place to learn about the basics of sex. A lot of it is natural science. Still there is much more to learn about loving and controlling ourselves to have kids the way God wants us to. And we have to start talking about all the horrible rapes and murders we hear about on the news every night. I’m sorry, though, I didn’t talk with you about sex basics before.”

“No, no”Frank quickly replies. ” I don’t want to think of mom and you when I think about the science stuff. I’d rather learn it in class or just talking with other guys.”

“So, you kids talk about sex:” Richard comments.

“Naturally” Frank answers.

Richard plunges into the serious discussion: “Well, then, you guys have talked about masturbating or jerking off. Do you guys use that word?”

“Maybe: “Frank mumbles with embarrassment.

Richard chuckles: “Frankie, you lied. You got an idea of what those dudes do.”

Frank responds: “Why does everybody think that the stuff they do and just jerking off is bad? It doesn’t hurt anybody.”

“Now I have to teach. Can I keep his attention?” Richard worries.

He begins: “Masturbation is really bad. It doesn’t seem like a big deal. But it is. It’s the phantasy world where all the horrible sinful things men do with sex can flash through your head. You’ve heard the gospel where Jesus said that a man who commits adultery in his heart has already committed it. Well, all those dirty thoughts guys have in their heads; they, in a way, are actually doing. While masturbating a guy is just a few thoughts away from doing the worst sex crimes in the world. And thoughts travel faster than light. ”

“Oh, oh, I’ve gotten too heavy” Richard senses.

“Any of the guys you hang out with talk about porn? I’ve worked it out so that you can’t get much, if any, on our phones or computers.”

“Some, maybe, get some pretty hot stuff” Frank volunteers. “But I don’t and some of the stuff they show me makes me feel, I don’t know, dirty or sexy, I guess.”

“Does it make you feel like playing with yourself?”

“ Yeh. Is that wrong?”

“Yes. Well, it is not wrong to feel like that. But it is wrong to do a man’s part of baby making just for that crazy feeling. A man is supposed to control wanting that feeling so that he gets it only when making babies with his wife. It’s hard being a man.”

“Is jerking off wrong?”

“It sure is. That’s what I have been saying. Masturbating is wrong for every man and a sin for Catholics because we believe that God wants us to use sex as we ought. The church gives us a lot of help to do that. You’ll stop looking at porn and thinking of sex to avoid confessing each week that you’ve been playing with yourself.”

To get the conversation away from himself, Frank asks about their gay neighbors. “Do you think that Ron and Jay are sinful?”

“Of course, what they do to get that special sexual feeling is a sin. But it is not just against a rule of our religion. It’s against a rule for all men. It’s immoral. Doing those thing with another guy would be wrong for me even if I weren’t married. Those kind of things would be wrong for you. Men are not supposed to play with each other that way.”

“Are Ron and Jay are bad people?”

“I didn’t say that. Their house is well kept up. They pick up after their dog better than some people on our street. They’re good neighbors.
Jay’s a fast runner. I met him running on the bike path a couple of weeks ago. I found out that he is an IT guy figuring out how to handle huge masses of data. But his pace was too much for me. I dropped back after about two miles.”

“Dad, you’re not answering my question.”

“Frankie, you’re old enough to know that doing some bad things doesn’t make you a bad person. Bad people regularly mess up other people’s lives in serious ways. However, doing some bad things stops you from being a good man: the kind of man you ought to be. Jay is not the kind of man he ought to be.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“No. It’s none of my business to talk to him about that. I’m not related to Jay in any way which might give me a right to even ask about his sexual acts. I wish that he had not told us by putting up that stupid rainbow flag and advertising that weird gay marriage.”

“Are you afraid to tell people what you think is right?” Frank taunts his father.

“No” his father comes back. “I would tell Jay if he asked. I’d tell anybody who asked. I’m telling you now that what those guys do is something no man ought to do and it is something to be ashamed of. Anyway, Ron and Jay already know anything that I would tell them.”

“Shouldn’t you try to make them better?” Frank continues his challenge.

Richard gets an insight on a way to move the conversation to bullying.

“Making other people better can be an excuse for doing mean and cruel things to other people. You have to know a lot about how to help people. You have to know what you have a right to do to other people before doing things you think are making other people better. The one sure thing you can do to help other people be better is to be a good example and never saying what you do not think is true if you are asked. Having the attitude that you can make others better can make you a bad person.”

“What? Wanting to make things better is making things bad.” Frank almost shouts.

“Yes, it can. I ‘m serious. It works like this. Usually bad people do something different from what is normally done. So it is their difference you want to change or punish to make them better. Even though I don’t think that it is OK, let’s say that it might be OK to be angry at the difference from normal that makes a person bad and try to do something about it. Well, one thing you will learn is that it is easy to think stupidly.”

“I already know lots of people are stupid.”

“An easy way to be stupid is to think that because what makes a person bad is being different simply being different makes a person bad. Being different from normal is confused with being bad. Still, people think, or at least feel that stupid way. That stupid way of thinking is what leads to bullying.”

“I’m not a bully” Frank protests.

“I believe you, of course. But you or your friends could become bullies; especially about being gay. Lots of guys feel that a kid acting in those different ways they think are girlish means he is gay. Those guys pick on that kid and maybe feel justified because they feel he is somehow wrong. They certainly could be wrong about his being gay. But they are absolutely wrong about picking on him. If he is gay, the poor kid is going to suffer a lot through his life. It’s terrible to have those temptations to have sex with other guys. It’s wrong to make their lives more miserable by picking on them.”
“If it is so terrible couldn’t we help him stop being gay” Frank interrupts.

“No, you can’t. Besides men are not gay or straight. We are all simply men who have all sorts of temptations to do what is wrong with our bodies. But we know what is right and have to work hard to do only that. The work is easier if you try not to think too much about sex.
Here, hold this yard bag open while I shove in this insert. We’ve talked enough about sex today. It’s good we started, though. We’ve got much to talk about as you go through school. Meanwhile, pray for them. And don’t even think of what those dudes do.”

———————————————————————————————————————–

A skirmish has been fought. One rainbow flag waves less victoriously. A father has taken a Catholic stand. A father and son have begun to fight back.

* Into the Breach: An Apostolic Exhortation to Catholic Men, Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted, Bishop of Phoenix, Phoenix, AZ 2015

Readers my be interested in my book on sexual morality.

There is a Satan In Opposition To God!

April 18, 2017On the Nature of Satan, Philosophical Theologykielkopf1

This post continues the series of reflections on the core Christian teaching that God had to become a human being who suffered died and rose from his grave to a new way of life. God had to do this in order to restore human beings to the regain the capacity to be as they ought to be. The series began Moral Harm and Non-being. It must be emphasized that no originality is claimed for what I propose and no claim that I am proposing teachings of the Catholic Church.

One crucial notion,previously introduced is that moral evil is non-being in so far as it is a condition of an agent differing from what it ought to be. The notion proposed in this posting is that God is in a struggle- a warfare against intelligent forces in opposition to there being what ought to be. The intelligence of these forces is Satan!

Who is Satan?

Assume for this posting, God created an intelligence with a will free to choose as God wills it to act and to be or choose not to act and to be as God wills. Suppose this being is almost equal to God in intelligence and creative power. Suppose further that this being chooses not to act and be as God wills. Such a being could plausibly be described as Satan.

I argued in an earlier posting God cannot destroy Satan when Satan is described as in the previous paragraph.

Subsequent posting will develop the notion of Satan to make it plausible that this Satan opposes God and tries to corrupt the human race. Here I want to close by citing two reasons why I am introducing the notion of Satan in opposition to God. One is that the Christian tradition portrays God as in a struggle against evil forces. C.S. Lewis emphasizes this in his Mere Christianity. Secondly, and of most importance to me is that I want to understand Jesus’ suffering and death as something God had to do is save us from the Satanic forces trying to keep humanity permanently as one of his forces. I want to avoid interpreting Jesus’ suffering and death as punishment He required for humans not acting and being as they ought to be.

I hope eventually to show how Satan exacerbates our sexual temptations. Readers my be interested in my book on sexual morality.

My book Confronting Sexual Nihilism: Traditional Sexual Morality as an Antidote to Nihilism was released by Tate Publishing on March 11, 2014. Email kielkopf.1@osu.edu for a free copy of my book.

Are Masturbators Intrinsically Disordered?

April 11, 2017Moral philosophy, Sexual moralitykielkopf1

The point of this post is to use an analogy that reminds us that to say homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered is not to say that men who are classed as homosexuals are intrinsically disordered.

Let’s say that a masturbator is a male who masturbates at least once a week. There is a lot of masturbators in our society. With the ready availability of internet porn, the class of masturbators is growing because almost all men have inclinations at least to masturbate when sexually aroused. There are far more masturbators than men who engage in homosexual acts on the average of once a week. Let’s call such men homosexuals. If the homosexuals are not wholly included in the masturbators, the class of homosexuals certainly overlaps the class of masturbators.

An act of masturbations is intrinsically disordered. It is wrong regardless of the circumstances and reasons why it is done.

Proving that an act is instrinsically disordered is not easy. There is a long Catholic tradition of making a case, in Thomistic philosopohy, that masturbation and homosexual acts are intrinscially disorder. I have tried to make the same case, in a Kantian way, in my book: Confronting Sexual Nihilism. Here is not the place to make that philosophical case.

Here is the place to remind ourselves that just as we would not classify almost all men as instrinsically disordered because they have strong inclinations to perform intrinsically disordered acts, we should not classify that subset of men who have strong inclinations to perform intrinsically disordered acts of the homosexual style intrinsically disordered.

Moral Harm and Non-being

April 4, 2017Core philosophy, Moral Harm and Moral Worth, Moral philosophykielkopf1

I am beginning a series of posts the goal of which is to get some understanding of the basic Christian framework called the Paschal Mystery. The Paschal Mystery is the teaching that the Incarnation of God as Jesus and Jesus’ subsequent suffering, death and resurrection radically transformed the human condition. These events restored the human condition from a fallen one in which at best human life had no greater destiny than that we typically attribute to bedbugs to an original one in which human beings rise after biological death to live eternally with God. Human beings were in the fallen condition because they had chosen some act which they ought not have chosen and so they were no longer as they ought to be.

The phrases with the moral terms are emphasized because they gave me the clue on how to clarify and modify concepts to become somewhat clearer about the Paschal mystery. Moral concepts will be those under closest analysis and modification. This post focuses on a notion of moral harm.

What is moral harm? Distinguish moral harm from natural harm which here I will treat as medical harm. I use “medical” to have a working definition of natural harm. The medical harm of an act is a physical or psychological condition brought about by an act for which the person has a high probability of being compensated by medical insurance. So if you assault a person and break his arm, that person can very likely win a suit for damages from you. Similarly, if a man seduces a boy into sexual acts medical professionals will almost certainly testify that the boy has suffered psychological harm for which he should be compensated.

Moral harm is not the medical harm which an immoral act causes. Certainly we cannot say that an act is not immoral if it causes no medical harm. Moral harm is the harm a person inflicts on himself when he chooses contrary to a moral law. For instance, there is a moral law that you ought not testify that you saw a man at the scene of a crime when you clearly realize that he was somewhere else. “Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor!” The moral harm he inflicts upon himself comes from choosing to break the moral law. Moral laws specify how we ought to be. By choosing to break the moral law he chooses to not be the kind of person he ought to be. Moral harm is not being as you ought to be. Harm can be called an evil. So a notion of harm or evil as non-being is being used: non-being as a departure from what ought to be. The non-being which is evil may be an actual state of affairs. But it is a state of non-being, moral non-being, because of its difference from what ought to be.

This notion of moral harm or evil as non-being will be fundamental in posts trying to get clearer about the Paschal mystery. This will include introduction of a notion of Satan!

My book explores the notion of moral evil in conjunction with an examination of male sexual morality.