ACTIVE WITNESSING THROUGH DISCERNMENT:FAITH CALLING FOR ACTION By Fr. Rico P. Enriquez, ASAC Director

I. INTRODUCTION

The primary mission of the Church is to preach the good news for the salvation of the world. Therefore, evangelization in all aspects of life --- social, political, economic, cultural spiritual, and even environmental --- is her immediate challenge. So as Lay Faithful we are to discern and be able to contribute in the evangelization-mission of the Church in transforming its socio-political dimension. This, as “we commit our church personnel to the indispensable task of raising social awareness and forming social consciences through political education. We cannot say that we have done enough to educate our people in the social teachings of the Church.” (CBCP, "Pastoral Exhortation on Philippine Politics," 1997)
What is the basis for the Church's mission in politics? According to the Catechism on the Church and Politics issued last May 11, 1998 by the CBCP

The main reasons why the Church has a mission in politics are the following:

First, because politics has a moral dimension. Politics is a human activity. It may hurt or benefit people. It can lead to grace or to sin.

Second, because the Gospel and the Kingdom of God call the Church to political involvement. To proclaim the gospel to all creation necessarily includes evangelizing the political world. Moreover, at the center of Jesus' mission is the proclaiming of the Kingdom of God. But the Kingdom of God calls us to repentance and renewal (Mk. 1:15). This call to renewal is
to renewal is addressed likewise to the political field.
Third, because the mission of the Church of integral salvation involves the political sphere. Integral salvation is the salvation of the total person, soul and body, spiritual and temporal. This is why Jesus not only forgave sins but also healed people from sickness. The Church must likewise bring the healing grace of salvation to the temporal, including political, sphere.

Are there other reasons why the Church must be involved in politics?

Yes, there are. Another reason is because salvation of the human person is from personal and social sin. We know that in the political field, social sins unfortunately abound, such as graft and corruption, "dirty politics" of "guns, goons, and gold", deceit and unprincipled compromises, "politics of greed". In the mind of the Church, systems where such social sins have been imbedded through constant practice are "structures of sin
or structures of injustice.”

Still another reason is because the Church has an Option for the Poor. In the Philippines, politics is heavily tilted against the poor. The poor often become in a real sense voiceless and powerless. Laws are often passed that merely support vested interests rather than promote the common
good of all.

Finally, because John Paul II said that the concrete human being living in history is "the way for the Church" (RH, 14; CA, 53-54). The temporal and spiritual development of the total human person is the way by which the Church accomplishes the mission to proclaim the Gospel. We know very well that politics can dehumanize the human person and entrap the person in sinful behavior or structures.

Yes, there are. Another reason is because salvation of the human person
In short, politics cannot claim to be above or outside the natural law and the moral law. Politics has moral and religious dimensions. Therefore, the Church has to be involved in the political world. (Catechism on the Church and Politics issued last May 11, 1998)

II. Discernment: Pro-active response

There are situations in life which need our response in the family, community, and in our workplace. The way we deal with situations is sometimes reactive. What do we mean by reactive? This means that for example in the family a child fails in his study and parents would right away punish the child or blame the child instead of inquiring and trying to explore possibilities to help the child. Retaliation against the person who inflicts harm to us—could be one of the examples of being reactive. But as Christians we are called to be pro-active—trying to see and discover long term and wholistic solution of a problem in the family, community (society) and in the workplace. For example the community suffers flooding when it rains. The leader would gather the community—discuss, consult, plan and implement the solution as a result of the gathering. Rather than implementing something which does not pass through consultation and discussion or even blame the community for the flooding.
In the context of the nation and the city—the coming election we need to witness as Catholic Christians. We need to witness in a pro-active way through discernment. What is discernment? “Discernment” comes from the word “discern”, or, “dis” in Latin which means “off, away”, and “cerne” which means “distinguish, separate, sift”. (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/discernment) We need to discern, asking the Holy Spirit’s guidance whom to vote especially pro-God and pro-Life candidates. We need this kind of witnessing so that our action would be motivated by Faith. When we vote with a discerning heart we can let go of the political culture where we are in right now as a nation and as a city: Patronage politics, politics of personalities and politics of pay-off.

What is meant by “patronage politics”?

Deriving from the feudal system of master and servant, the politics of patronage considers the relationship between public official and ordinary citizen as that of patron (master) and client (servant). Rewards or benefits are distributed according to the loyalty of clients to their patrons. Clients or voters depend on their patrons or public officials for every development project or assistance, and solutions to community problems. Rewards or development projects are distributed, then, on the basis not of justice due to people but on the basis of the government official's "kindness" and the loyalty of the people to the public official. Thus political leaders and followers who show support are rewarded with projects, money or jobs. Dependence and subservience, passivity and inaction on the part of citizens is characteristic of such a system. This accounts for the lack of viable political organizations among the poor on the one hand and the concentration of power in the hands of the few on the other. In addition because political positions are treated like feudal properties, public funds are used by some officials as their own, for personal or family interests. In fact a political office is often treated as some sort of a feudal title to be passed on from one generation to another. This is at the basis of so called "family dynasties." (Catechism on the Church and Politics issued last May 11, 1998)

What is meant by “politics of personalities”?

This is a system where the popularity of political candidates rather than issues count more than knowledge and competence. The popularity of personalities and the "connection" of personalities to the powers that be are more often than not the main criteria for judging who should be elected. Thus, candidates for political office who are popular in movies, sports, or are connected to powerful political families have a significant headstart in elections. Coupled with Filipino values of family-centeredness, family connections have resulted in family political dynasties. Moreover, the politics of personalities has made it possible for frequent changes in political party affiliation or political "turn-coatism". Parties do not have political ideologies that present voters with clear cut alternatives on key social issues such as environmental protection, globalization, trade liberalization, etc. PCP-II observed that people themselves "seem to care more for the projects and gifts and less for the substantive issues on which their elected political representatives should
take a stand" (PCP-II, pp. 279-80) (Catechism on the Church and Politics issued last May 11, 1998)

What is meant by “politics of pay-off?”

It is a system of politics where political advantage is the reason that a politician takes one position over another with regard to issues. The political debate depends on answers to such questions as "What will you do for me if I support you on this issue"? Pay-off can be in terms of financial "commissions", political appointments, or of better political leverage. This is sadly the belief of what goes on in the halls of Congress. It is not rare that decisions are based not on principles but on "horse trading", vested interests and on so called "party loyalty." Many people, therefore, believe that decisions on the government yearly budget depend very much on questions of the "pork barrel" fund. The more generous the "pork barrel" the easier other items of the budget are approved. "Politics of pay-off" also includes vote-buying. (Catechism on the Church and Politics issued last May 11, 1998)

III. Lay Participation: Spirituality to transform Politics

In our Christian life there is always a danger to separate Faith from our daily task and responsibility in life. Faith therefore is not expressed in our usual daily transactions. In other words, there is the reality of a split-level Christianity.

When the human person opens himself or herself to the spirit in prayer, in discernment, he or she is doing a spiritual activity. This discernment process that we are doing right now on how to get involve in the renewal of politics of the nation is a spiritual activity. The ultimate end of every spiritual activity is that we try to bring into concrete the presence of the divine, the “spiritual” presence of the divine, to concretize the fruits of the spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”(Gal. 5: 22-23)
All of us baptized Christians are given the responsibility, in the spirit of our being prophets and by the admonition of Jesus in Matthew 28: 19ff to evangelize, to preach the good news to all nations including the world of politics. However, the "Direct participation in the political order is the special responsibility of the laity in the Church…. it is their specific task to renew the temporal order according to Gospel principles and values" (CBCP, "Pastoral Exhortation on Philippine Politics," 1997).
As lay we have the specific task to bring into the realm of Philippine politics the principles of the social teachings of the Church and values of the Kingdom then and only then we can hope for renewal in Philippine politics not only short term but long term, continuous effort until we see concrete changes now and in the future.
IV. Conclusion

To conclude my reflection I would like to request the following:

1. Help the parish to evangelize the electorate
2. Evangelize your own members of the family
3. Pray. We should not be hopeless but hopeful in God. Because Christianity is hopeful religion and this is clearly manifested in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Personally I believed in my heart that God will do a great miracle in this coming election for the good of the nation and for the good of the city.

Guide questions for reflection:
1. Do I have a discerning heart?
2. Am I willing to take part in the evangelization work of the Church?
3. Am I resolved to transform politics by voting the right candidates this coming election?

Active Witnessing Through

Frankfurt’s assertion: the “principle of alternate possibilities” is false!

The principle of alternate possibilities means that, in relation with the person’s Free -Will, a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise. And this principle according to Frankfurt is false because a person may well be responsible for what he has done even though he could not have done otherwise. Frankfurt is correct when says that the principle of alternate possibilities is false for the fact that the true meaning of moral responsibility is: evil is evil regardless of how one justifies it, the end does not justify the means. It is not that one is only morally responsible when in spite of the possibilities or choices at hand he still does evil. Without possibilities or choices and with possibilities or choices by the mere fact one does evil, he is morally responsible.
Coercion into doing something or impelled to act by a hypnotic suggestion or inner compulsion drives one to do what he does may lessen the person’s culpability but not free him from any responsibility of his act. For example, Frank is hungry. And in front of him are the possibilities to solve his hunger: by stealing food, by asking food and by working to earn the money in buying food. And it happens that he chooses to steal the food to solve his hunger. According to the principle of alternate possibilities he is morally responsible because he has choices but for Frankfurt even without the presence of the possibilities and the only possibility is to steal the food that would solve his hunger then he is morally responsible. Another example, a Priest would decide not to celebrate Mass even if it is his schedule to celebrate mass. The principle of alternate possibilities would only bring that priest responsible of his action when in front of him are possibilities or choices and still decide not to celebrate the mass. However, Frankfurt’s assertion would tell us that even if the priest is without possibilities or choices and decides not to celebrate the mass, he is responsible of his action: a person is morally responsible for what he has done even if he could not have done it otherwise.

My role in the journey of the circle of being in the Universe

Based on the discussion of W. Norris Clarke, SJ about The Great circle of being and our place in it: The universe as journey in his book entitled: “central problems of Metaphysics,” I have learned that I am a human being with deep dynamism (with intellect and will) and I am taking a direction towards union with the Fullness of Being as Infinite Truth and Goodness. This union is what would satisfy my deepest longing within me as a Human Being. So, I am a Human Being who is on a journey back to the Source.
As a human being, my role, therefore, in the Great circle of being the universe is “to journey together with material cosmos below…” me. For the material cosmos is lacking self-consciousness, free of spiritual intelligence and will. And so, the material cosmos should be helped by a human being to be brought back to its source. So, the human person (embodied spirit) is the synthesis of both the spiritual and the material levels of beings. The human person sums up all the levels of being: inorganic, vegetative, animal, and human with spiritual dimension, and the whole course of evolution upwards on our planet from the lowest to the highest. The spiritual dimension of the human person is what helps to stretch all the way to personal union with the Supreme Being itself. The human person acts as mediator between subhuman and God Himself (supreme spiritual being). The Human Person is a traveler, journeying back home, towards personal fulfillment by union with the Infinite Goodness (this is where he came). In the journey in the material world each is unique but inseparable and the human person journeys with the whole universe back to its Source—this is to complete the Great Circle of Being.
Finally, reflecting of what is being said above, as a Human Person and as a Priest, like Jesus I journey with a mission. In Christian faith, Jesus is believed and received as fully human and divine. He is divine but forgot His being divine (cf. Phil. 2: 5-11) and took human nature to journey with humanity but sin and to bring divinity to humanity. Jesus brought healing to the wounds of humanity which is sin by His suffering, death and resurrection. And through His suffering, death and resurrection He restored humanity. So, Jesus became the mediator—He brought the whole of creation including humanity back to God. And since, Human being is gifted with spiritual gift; he has the capacity to follow Jesus, to participate in Jesus’ mission and to bring all creation including himself to God. Personally, as a spiritually gifted Human Person I have also the mission to bring God to the whole of creation and I can bring God to the whole of creation, especially to His gift of nature by helping its preservation. Hence, with the issue of global warming and climate change I have a mission to contribute in preservation of the environment. To be a good steward of the nature, of the environment that God instructed to take care not only for me, for human beings in this present age but of the coming generations, Amen!

Taylor's solution: causal and logical necessity

This is how taylor solved the problem about causal and logical necessity:

“Philosophers have long since pointed out that causal connections involve no logical necessity, that the denial of a particular causal connection is never self-contradictory, and this is undoubtedly true. But neither does this assertion or the denial of determinism is any concept of what is and what is not logically necessary. If determinism is true, then anything that happens is, given the conditions under which it occurs, the only thing possible, the thing that is necessitated by those conditions. But it is not the only thing that is logically possible, nor do those conditions logically necessitate it. Similarly, if one denies the thesis of determinism, by asserting, for instance, that each of two bodily notions is possible for him under identical conditions, he is asserting much more than that each is logically possible, for that would be trivial claim.

“This distinction, between logical necessity and the sort of necessity in determinism, can be illustrated with example. If, for instance, a man beheaded, we can surely say that it is impossible for him to go on living, that his being beheaded necessitates his death, and so on; but there are no logical necessities or impossibilities involve here. It is not logically impossible for a man to live without his head. Yet no one will deny that man cannot live under conditions that include his being headless, that such state of affairs is in a perfectly clear sense impossible. Similarly, if my finger is in a tight and fairly strong cast, then it is impossible for me to move it in any way at all, though this not logically impossible. It is logically possible that I should be vastly stronger that I am, and that I should move it and, in doing so, break the cast, though this would ordinarily not be possible in the sense that concerns us. Again, it is not logically possible that I should bend my finger backward, or into a know, though it is, in fact, impossible for me to do either or, what means the same thing, necessary that I should do neither. Certain conditions prohibit my doing such things, though they impose to logical barrier. And finally, if someone—a physician, for example—should ask me whether I can move my finger, and I should reply truly that I can, I would not merely be telling that it is logically possible for me to move it, for this he already knows. I would be telling him that I am able to move it, that it is within my power to do so, that there are conditions, such as paralysis or what not, that prevent my moving it.

“It follows that not all necessity is logical necessity, nor all impossibility logical impossibility, and that to say that something is possible is sometimes to say much more than that it is logically possible. The kind of necessity involved in the thesis of determinism is quite obviously the nonlogical kind as is also the kind of possibilities involved in its denial. If we needed a name for these nonlogical modalities, we could call them causal necessity, impossibility, and possibility, but concepts are clear enough without making a great deal of the name.”[1]

For Taylor, determinism is not logically necessitated but causally necessitated. This is an action of man that he can not do otherwise because of the presence of conditions. Although, there are things that are logically possible (in cebuano: butang nga naa ra sa huna-huna) but in fact logically impossible. This is very clear in his examples. Freedom is logically necessitated; and the actions in Freedom are logically possible. This point will be further elaborated in the succeeding paragraphs.

In line with the thought of Taylor about logical necessity, logical necessity is essential in understanding the true concept freedom. Freedom is not born out of the presence of conditions nor it is permissiveness—that one can just do whatever he likes to do but to do what is right —what is reasonable to do as rational—thinking being such that his thoughts would not haunt him of the thing he does contrary to what is the right thing to do or what is logical to do at a given moment—especially in situations when he would have to choose between evil and good.

True freedom, born out of logical necessity, can be articulated through the experience of Victor Frankl in the concentration camp (1942) when in front of that seemingly evil outside him he found inner meaning (logical meaning so to say) to preserve his life—that freedom within--helped him to respond rightly and logically to the situation outside himself (the situation of the concentration) which encouraged suicide and passivity and probably boredom. He said:

“If a prisoner felt that he could no longer endure the realities of camp life, he found a way out in his mental life - an invaluable opportunity to dwell in the spiritual domain, the one that the SS were unable to destroy. Spiritual life strengthened the prisoner, helped him adapt, and thereby improved his chances of survival.”[2]

“Freedom can also signify inner autonomy, or mastery over one's inner condition. This has several possible significances:

the ability to act in accordance with the dictates of reason;
the ability to act in accordance with one's own true self or values;
the ability to act in accordance with universal values
(such as the True and the Good); and the ability to act independently of both the dictates of reason and the urges of desires, i.e. arbitrarily (autonomously).”[3]

This kind of freedom is a mastery of our independent logical strength. And, Richard Lovelace's poem echoes this experience:

Stone walls do not a prison make
Nor iron bars a cage
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage[4]

[1]http://books.google.com.ph/books?id=l649AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA181&lpg=PA181&dq=causal+and+logical+necessity&source=web&ots=dYWm6eLX9l&sig=XftZrPf4iq-onUkAa54Y3j9kD1o&hl=en#PPA181,M1

[2] Man's Search for Meaning, p. 123

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_(philosophy)

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_(philosophy)

Daniel Dennett's "The self as a Narrative Center Gravity?" versus "person as an independent existence of rational substance"

Daniel Dennett’s concept of the self as a narrative center of gravity “has a deflationary theory of the self. Selves are not physically detectable. Instead, they are a kind of convenient fiction, like a center of gravity, which are convenient as a way of solving physics problems, although they need not correspond to anything tangible — the center of gravity of a hoop is a point in thin air. People constantly tell themselves stories to make sense of their world, and they feature in the stories as a character, and that convenient but fictional character is the self.”[1] Hence, when a person for example tries to make stories he tends to feature him “self” so that others would listen so there is that movement within (self) the person to attract others towards him “self.”

Dennett’s concept of the self is different from the popular understanding of the person which believes that in each person there is that rational substance—the capability to think and so each person is independent in as far as rational thinking is concerned—a person does not have to attract others towards him “self” in order to think although he can share the product of his thinking to others. Perhaps Boethius[2] can enlighten more about the popular understanding of a person:

“Person is an individual substance of rational nature. As individual it is material, since matter supplies the principle of individuation. The soul is not person, only the composite is. Man alone is among the material beings person, he alone having a rational nature. He is the highest of the material beings, endowed with particular dignity and rights.”[3]

Together with Boethius, the English Philosopher John Locke shares the same view about the person when he said that the person is "a thinking intelligent Being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider it self as it self, the same thinking thing in different times and places; which it does only by that consciousness, which is inseparable from thinking, and as it seems to me essential to it"[4]

And this same concept of the person is also shared “In the fields of philosophy, theology, and bioethics, the definition of 'person' may exclude human beings who are incapable of certain kinds of thought (such as embryos, fetuses with incomplete brain development, or adult humans lacking higher brain functions).”[5]

Daniell Denette's view about the person is his own opinion. The Christian-biblical comprehesive view of the person is still worth upholding since it views the person with mind, body, soul and spirit.
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_(philosophy)#Dennett:_The_self_as_a_narrative_center_of_gravity

[2] Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius[1] (480–524 or 525) was a Christian philosopher of the 6th century. He was born in Rome to an ancient and important family which included emperors Petronius Maximus and Olybrius and many consuls. His father, Flavius Manlius Boethius, was consul in 487 after Odoacer deposed the last Western Roman Emperor. Boethius himself was consul in 510 in the kingdom of the Ostrogoths. In 522 he saw his two sons become consuls. Boethius was executed by King Theodoric the Great, who suspected him of conspiring with the Byzantine Empire.

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person
[4] Essay on Humane Understanding, Book 2, Chapter 27, Section 9
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person