Ramadan Mubarak!

So, yesterday began the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. I'm not sure if any Muslims will read this post, but, if any of you do, my sincere good wishes for the fast.

I can imagine some eyebrows being raised at a Catholic Apologist wishing Muslims well in something tied to their religion. So that there are no misunderstandings, let me be clear; I believe public revelation ended with Christ and His apostles. For this  reason (and a number of other reasons) I believe that my Islamic friends are mistaken in their belief that Muhammad was a prophet. Logically enough, I therefor believe that they are mistaken in thinking that the Ramadan fast is something God commanded. To get an idea of why I reject Islam, you can watch my debate with Abdullah Kunde.

For all that I disagree with my Muslim friends, however, there are many things they a right about. One of those things is the importance of fasting. Fasting is not a specifically Christian or Islamic thing, but is a spiritual practice common to a great many of the world religions. For the Christian fasting is something Christ commands us to do (cf. Matt 9:15) and recommended by many of the saints a spiritual masters throughout history. I find it a source of some sadness that many Catholics today fast so rarely and would be very happy if a growing familiarity with Islam would help to encourage Catholics to reconsider fasting within our own spiritual tradition. So, while I don't believe the Ramadan fast to be divinely inspired, I admire the dedication of my Muslim friends on this point. I also think it is reasonable to hope that those who observe the fast in a sincere (even if mistaken) belief that it is God's command will be blessed by Him for doing so.

What really inspired me to write, however, was this news story. Apparently Woolworths supermarkets have been putting up signs in some stores wishing people a "Happy Ramadan". I have to say, wishing someone a happy fast strikes me as odd, but I guess their hearts were in the right place.

Some people, however, are upset, labelling the wishes as offensive and "Unaustralian." This annoys me, although it also amuses me a little. If you are an Australia who is anything other than (a) an Indigenous Australian, or (b) of pure White Anglo-Saxon Protestant heritage, the odds are pretty good that you are descended from someone who was once labelled "Unaustralian." This is particularly the case if you are a Catholic who is inclined to join the "Islam is Unaustralian" chorus. If you are such a person, can I suggest that you have a look at what was being said about your own religion seventy or so years ago. Indeed, I'm occasionally tempted to write a FaceBook post that would go something like:

First, we need to kick out all the Muzzies. They are probably all terrorists, or at least terrorist supporters ,and this is a Christian country and if they don't like it they can all go back to Arabia where they came from.

Then, we need to kick out all the Catholics. They put loyalty to Vatican City above loyalty to Australia and most of them are probably IRA members and if they don't like the religion of our protestant majority and our protestant Queen then they are all free to got live in Italy.

If you think the second paragraph is not the sort of thing anyone would say, do a bit of reading. I've read some of what was being said about Australian Catholics back in 30s by some of our protestant neighbours (not all of them, of course) and the above is only a slight exaggeration.

In any event, Woolworths gets an A for effort at least, and I wish my Muslim friends a sincere Ramadan Mubarak.

A Response to "DawahIsEasy" on the Deity of Christ (Part II)

I continue my response to this video by YouTube Vlogger "DawhaIsEasy". The first part of my response is found here.

The historic Christian belief, shared by Catholic, Protestants and the Eastern Orthodox Churches is that Jesus Christ is the God-Man, both fully human and fully divine. Our Islamic friends, as this video makes clear, claim that this is impossible. The common Islamic argument is that being God necessarily requires certain properties (necessary existence, being unlimited, being immortal) while being human requires properties (being mortal, etc.) which are inconsistent with the properties of God. From this, it is argued that the very notion of a God-Man makes no more sense than the idea of a four sided triangle.

This point is well made at approximately the fifteen minute point of the video by the Islamic speaker. He declares that it makes no sense for one being to have two natures since the nature of God is to be almighty while the nature of a creature is to be limited and you can't have a being at once limited and unlimited.

To show why Christianity doesn't contradict itself, we need to unpack exactly what the Church teaches. The faith shared by Catholic, Protestants and the Eastern Orthodox holds that Jesus is one person with two natures. What exactly does this mean? Jesus posses a human body and a human soul. This body and soul forms the human nature of Jesus. At the Annunciation, when Christ was conceived in His mother's womb, this human nature was joined to the Eternal Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity. Two natures, joined together, thus formed a single person.

With this in mind, it is possible to understand how some of the questions asked in the video should be answered. When for example, the Muslim speaker asks if Jesus is all knowing or if his knowledge is limited and the Christian replies "both" the Christian position looks horribly contradictory. The proper response is as follows: Christ has a human soul, one power of which is a human intellect. Christ also has a Divine nature, one power of which is His Divine intellect. These two intellects are the means by which Christ knows something. Having said that, while His intellects are the means by which Christ knows things it is important to note that it is the person who knows things.

From this it follows that Christ knows some things but not others through His human nature while he knows all things through His divine nature, but, and this is the crucial point, the person knows all things and is, in no way, limited in His knowledge.

It follows, from what is said above, that while Jesus has both a human and a Divine nature, the person, who is the union of these two natures, is a Divine and not a human person. Incidentally, the fact that the two natures make one person and that that person is Divine is the reason that the Church declares Christ's mother to be "Mother of God."

Let me say something to my Christian readers: I suspect many of you will find what I have just said rather technical and perhaps even difficult to follow. There is no getting around these facts, however. Anyone seeking to preach the Gospel in our current environment will increasingly find that we need to be able to answer the questions put to us by our Islamic friends. These are the questions they will be asking and, to answer them, we need to have a clear handle on exactly what the Church believes about the natures of Our Lord.

I will, deo volente, continue this response as time permits.


 

The Whiskey Sour (a la Jason)

I recently wrote this post  in which I discussed the six "basic cocktails" laid out in David Embury's classic work "the fine art of mixing drinks." In said post, I mentioned that the sidecar is my favourite among Embury's six "basics" and my all time second favourite before dinner drink.

My favourite before dinner drink is the Whiskey Sour. As with most cocktails, variations exist in how this is made. The most commonly cited recipe calls for a mix of Whiskey (preferably American), lemon (occasionally lime) juice and a sweetening agent of some kind. As previously noted, I'm more of a fan of sour in my before dinner drinks than most, so I dispense with the sweetener.

So, Jason's preferred recipe for the Whiskey Sour:

Let N represent the number of people having drinks mixed for them:

45mls x N of Whiskey, preferably Bourbon. Jim Beam is best.
30mls x N Lemon Juice, freshly squeezed if possible.
The white of (1/2) x N eggs.

Stir the egg whites until slightly fluffy then mix ingredients together and shake vigorously over ice.

Serve neat, preferably in chilled glasses with an orange slice and maraschino cherry for garnish.

In my experience, the drink is best enjoyed fifteen minutes or so before ones main meal.
 

Understanding Class, a Rejoinder

Timothy Scriven has written a blog post in which he lays out his understanding of the Marxist theory of class. Tim has declared that his post is written in the hopes of stimulating debate and discussion and I offer this response in that same spirit.

Tim begins by arguing, reasonably enough, that in order to understand something you need to know what it is for. He then explains that the Marxist theory (at least, in his interpretation) differs from most other understandings of class in that its aim is not primarily to analyse society as it now but to identify how the system can be overthrown. As Tim puts it "Marxism sees everything in actually existing society through the lens of revolution." He makes clear that this does not mean that Marxism cannot analyse the existing state of affairs but that, as he put it "...its primary concern is with the instabilities, tensions and lines of possible motion within the system."

While Tim doesn't explicitly quote Marx's famous Eleventh Thesis on Feurbach "Up until now, Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point, however, is to change it." that quote would seem to me to undergird his whole article.

This would seem to raise the question of why overthrowing the system is so important. Tim will go on to tell us that he doesn't want to overthrow capitalism just for the fun of it. He writes:

Our objection is that capitalism in its hundreds of years of operation has killed and shortened the lives of billions and drained much joy from the lives of billions more. We are not rebels without a cause... we are instead desperate people.

A number of objections could be raised here, but the deepest objection seems to me to ask how Tim thinks he knows the system has these features which merit its overthrow. The obvious answer would be that this conclusion is drawn from his examination of the system as it currently exists. The problem is that Tim has told us that his analysis of the system takes the overthrow of the system as it's starting point.  If the starting point of your analysis is the overthrow of the system and you claim to derive your belief that the system should be overthrown from the same analysis, you would seem, at least prima facia, to lay yourself open to a charge of circularity.

Tim, none the less, thinks that he can make the case for why the system ought to be overthrown. He makes a number of points in support of this:

To mention just two: we destroy vast quantities of food because the starving who need them who need them can't afford them and we seem to find it inordinately difficult to prevent our species from roasting itself to death since trying to do so would interfere with profit.

I can't deny that Tim has a point. The fact that wealthy nations destroy food because that's the profitable thing to do with it while famine continues to exist in the third world is a blight upon the present system and upon humanity. In wanting to end this, Tim stands shoulder to shoulder with Catholic Social Teaching.

Having said that and having declared that I'm a long way from being any kind of friend of unregulated capitalism, some of what Tim has to say strikes me as more than a little overblown. When I read Tim's comment which I quoted earlier, about capitalism killing billions and draining the joy from the lives of billions more I really wasn't convinced. Are there injustices which Capitalism (especially in its untrammelled forms) creates? Yes, I believe there are plenty. But compare the lives of many who, by today's standards are considered 'working class', 'struggling' or even 'poor' to their counterparts a hundred years ago let alone at the dawn of the industrial revolution. Is it not plain that the worker of today is better fed, better housed, has a wider range of educational opportunities and travel available?

Having established his starting point, Tim goes on to declare that aim of his analysis of class is to determine which force has both the interest in and the power to overthrow capitalism. Tim likens this to the plot of a classic detective novel.

We seek to identify a group with means and motive. We call the hypothetical group who have both the means and motive the 'proletarians'; after a Latin word meaning that the group of people who had nothing to give but their own bodies and wombs.

Now, it's a very long time since I studied Marx's sociology in any serious way and I don't have a direct quote to mind, but Tim's definition here seems to me to stand Marx on his head. When I first read The Communist Manifesto (longer ago than I now care to admit) it seemed pretty clear to me that Marx and Engels started with the fact of the Proletariat's existence and saw it as their task to demonstrate that it was in the Proletariat's interest to overthrow the existing system. On Tim's view, it is analytically true (ie. true by definition) that, if any proletarians exist, overthrowing capitalism is in their interest, it is then the Marxists task to show that anyone fitting this definition of a proletarian actually exists. I have to say, I'm not at all clear why Tim's variation should be considered any kind of advance.

Those are my initial thought's on Tim's post. Obviously, I'm not a sociologist and I'd be interested in Tim's, or anyone else's response to my thoughts.

 

A Response to "DawahIsEasy" on the Deity of Christ (Part I)

I recently found this video, published by Islamic vlogger "DawahIsEasy". For those unclear, "dawah" is an Arabic word meaning roughly "preaching". The video shows a discussion on the deity of Jesus between a Muslim and a Christian. The video is well worth watching by any Christian interested in apologetics and evangelism.  I originally intended to write only a single post in response but realised that, some of the issues raised here, required a series. This first post, therefore, will cover a few minor and introductory points, the next post will (deo volente) delve into some deeper waters.

Let me first make a couple of minor points: The Muslim gentleman makes a couple of factual claims that are simple nonsense. For example, he claims that the English words "evangelise" and "evangelical" come from the Arabic word "Injil", the Arabic name for the Gospel. In fact he goes so far as to claim that "you can't disagree" that the Arabic name is the source of those English words. I'm sorry, but I can disagree. While I take it to be uncontroversial that the words are linked, the reason is not because  the English words are derived from the Arabic but because the Arabic and English words share a common root in the Greek "Evangelion."

Second he claims that "according to scholars" the gospels (he especially mentions St. John's Gospel) were originally in Aramaic and later translated into Greek. If he'd bother to do a simple Google search he'd learn what rubbish he was talking. In fact, while some scholars hold the St. Matthew's gospel was originally in Aramaic, they are a small minority. A majority of scholars agree St. Matthew was originally written in Greek and an effective consensus exists that the other three were written in Greek. The gentleman's claim that scholars generally believe St. John's Gospel to have originally been written in Aramaic is just ignorance.

Also, the Muslim claims that, on St. Paul the Apostle's tombstone, one will find the name "Saul", not Paul and that this calls into question whether Saul of Tarsus was ever really converted. Again, simply false. As this article notes, the sarcophagus commonly believed to have held the body of St. Paul clearly bears the words: Paulo Apostolo Matr". Paul Apostle and Martyr.

These are all minor points and I'm not suggesting that any of them, in and of themselves, invalidate his arguments. The fact of him repeatedly making errors like this is, in my mind, significant, however. The reason is that he frequently makes claims about "what I have read" or, more significantly, what scholars say and goes on to make a very basic error. These are not the sort of errors which it would require any deep research to discover, a quick Google search would have shown any of the three claims I noted above to be baseless. Given this, I think we must say that the gentleman making these claims is, at best, showing serious incompetence in his research and, at worst, simply dishonest.

Having said that, while the Muslim certainly asserted a great many factual errors, I don't think the Christian did a very good job of explaining Christianity. As a minor aside, our Christian friend declares that "there was discussion about the two natures of Jesus in the second century." Well, I'm not exactly certain what he means and I'm sure there has been discussion of Christ's nature in every century since His coming, but the major debates in which the Church's beliefs about Christ natures were defined were in the fifth and sixth century. Much more seriously, our Christian declares that Jesus "is not a man" but "He was both human and divine." No, this is not orthodox Christianity. The Declaration of Chalcedon, accepted by Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and the vast majority of Protestant Churches describes Our Lord as subsisting (present tense) in two natures.

More importantly, however, the Christian in the video is clearly not prepared to answer questions about the dual natures of Our Lord. He identifies himself as a theology student and street preacher. If you are going to be a street preacher in our contemporary situation you need to prepare yourself to answer the questions our Muslim friends will have. Generally speaking, these questions will involve the divine and human nature of Christ.

I will, (deo volente) in the next post of this series, lay out, in more detail what we believe and how Muslim criticisms misunderstand this belief.

P.S. A small point, but, as I philosopher, I can't let this go. The Christian in the video makes a couple of statements about Philosophy that show he has not the faintest clue what Philosophy is.

Miraculous Transformations

I've noticed something interesting about certain political conservatives. Now, please note, I'm not saying this is true of all Conservatives, or even most and, if you are a Conservative who is reading this because we are friends, this almost certainly doesn't apply to you. Having said that, I've spent more time than was probably healthy over the past week reading some of the right-wing groups on FaceBook and other parts of the internet, and, in many of the people posting there, I notice something.

This something refers to the Australian unemployed, the homeless, the disabled and those who might broadly be described as "the needy." In the minds of the people I'm describing, such people seem to possess miraculous powers of transformation. The transformation goes something like this: whenever the conversation is about welfare policy, the aforementioned people are all bludgers who could find decent jobs and homes if they really wanted to and it's a terrible injustice that the taxes of hard working Australians get wasted on subsidizing these people's laziness. If, however, the topic turns to foreign policy, and more specifically to foreign aid, those same people are magically discovered to be poor Aussie battlers who both need and deserve a hand up and, obviously, we cannot be sending money overseas while there are all these needy Australians upon whom the government should be spending more money.

It really is an amazing thing and, as a legally disabled person myself, I was startled to discover that I posses such powers of transformation.

As astounding as this is, it is by no means the first time that such miracles have been observed in Australian politics. I can remember when John Howard first became Prime Minister, in Nineteen Ninety-Six.  After his election win, the unemployed underwent a change of a similar kind. Prior to the election, they had all been innocent victims of Paul Keating; they really wanted jobs, but the incompetence and heartlessness of the ALP government had created conditions under which there just weren't jobs for them to find. Within months, however, they had all been transformed into bludging layabouts who could easily find jobs, they just didn't want them.

What amazing folks, we unemployed and disabled Australians are; I don't believe J.K. Rowling's characters have anything on us.

Answers for an Atheist (Part IV)

I'm continuing my response to Hemant "The Friendly Atheist" Mehta's "78 Questions for Christians." This, is the original post and this is the most recent.

The first seven of Mr. Mehta's questions were on salvation. With question eight he begins a new series of questions on prayer.

#8 If you son or daughter were dying (and I hope that never happens) would you just pray for them or would you take them to the Doctor?
#9 And, if you say you'd do both, which one do you think has more of an impact?
#10 Whose prayers does God answer?
#11 And if it's ultimately God's will what happens, why even both praying?
#12 If you have cancer right now, what's going to help you more, drugs or prayer?

First, a brief aside, for Catholics, prayer has four essential purposes. In descending order of importance: adoration (praising God for His intrinsic glory), thanksgiving (of which the meaning, I hope, is obvious),  reparation (apologising and seeking to make up for our sins) and supplication (asking God for things) .

I note this because some evangelical protestants (I'm not suggesting this is true of all or even most, but those who do speak this way tend to be rather prominent) speak of prayer as if prayer simply referred to asking God for things. On Catholic belief (and, I should add, on the views of many protestants) this sort of prayers, prayers in which we make requests of God, are the least important kind. I realise that this doesn't answer Mr. Mehta's questions but it does, perhaps, put them in the proper context.

To answer these, it's important, once again, to state some basics of Catholic beliefs.

Catholics believe that God is both the ultimate cause of the existence of all things other than Himself and that He is also the ultimate source of all change that occurs in the world (This is the essence of St. Thomas' first two proofs of God's existence). So if I, or some hypothetical loved one of mine had a potentially fatal illness, it would be important for me to remember that God is the ultimate source of everything.

The upshot of this is that, if my hypothetical loved one does recover from his or her hypothetical illness, God is responsible, not in the sense that He will necessarily suspend the laws of biology with a miraculous cure but that God is the source of the natural laws  under which a cure will happen and is also the source of the intelligence of the men and women who will make the cure possible.

So, the answer to question #8 is that I would do both.

To answer #9 and # 12, I don't know and I don't believe it's quantifiable. God is all knowing. When God first laid down the laws of nature under which my hypothetical relative got sick and under which he or she will, deo volente, be cured, He knew I would one day be praying for my loved one's recovery. When He gave Louis Pasteur, Marie Curie and all the other genii of history who made modern medicine possible, their prodigious intellects, He knew I would one day be praying for the recovery of my loved one. So, Jason, are you really saying that your prayers were a factor in making Louis Pasteur as smart as he was? I don't know, as I said, I don't see how it could be quantified, but I don't see any a priori reason to reject the notion as impossible.

Having said all of that, even if I knew for certain that my prayers would have no effect on whether I or my hypothetical loved one recovered, I'd still pray. I'd do this because prayer is ultimately essential not as some means of changing God's mind but because of its effect on the one praying. In petitionary prayer I confess and remind myself of my status as a creature and my dependence upon my creator. This would be of value even if I were to be convinced that my prayers would make my desired outcome no more probable.

To answer #10, it depends what you mean by answer. God certainly hears and responds to the prayers of everybody. However I suspect that Mr. Mehta is asking whose prayers God grants. The simple answer is that God, who is, as I said, all-knowing, knows which prayers it will ultimately produce the greatest good to grant and He will grant those prayers which it will lead to the greatest good.

This leads, naturally enough, to question #11. Part of the answer is given above, even if I knew my prayers had no effect on what I was praying for, they would still be worthwhile. Having said that, I believe prayer does effect outcomes. How, a reasonable person may ask, is that possible if it all comes down to God's plan? A full answer to this would involve a lengthy discussion of providence, predestination and the exact ways in which Divine Sovereignty interacts with human freedom, a task beyond a simple blog post.

A short answer, however, is given by St. Thomas Aquinas. God, being all powerful, could, if He wished, have created a world in which He directly accomplished all His plans Himself. God, however, wanted to enable humans to be active participants in bringing about His will. Prayer is one of the ways in which we participate. As St. Thomas puts it, drawing upon St. Gregory the Great:

"For we pray not that we may change the Divine disposition, but that we may impetrate that which God has disposed to be fulfilled by our prayers in other words 'that by asking, men may deserve to receive what Almighty God from eternity has disposed to give,' as Gregory says " (S.T. II-II Q. 83. Art. 5. c.f. I Q.23. Art. 8)

I will, (Deo volente) continue with this at some point in the reasonably near future.

A Wonderful Afternoon

Well, I had a wonderful day today. I had lunch with my friend Lyle, a top bloke with whom I have not caught up in far too long. I went over his place and he cooked quite a meal.

For entrée, Lyle cooked up a recipe that I'm going to have to try sometime. He started with a fry-pan with butter and some bacon rinds for flavouring. He then chopped up a black-pudding into reasonably large pieces, fried the pieces, then fried some large scallops. He then placed a scallop on top of each piece of pudding and a slice of apple on top of each scallop. The flavours of the pudding, scallop and apples went surprisingly well together. If you want something a little different to serve for an entrée to a nice meal anytime soon, I recommend trying this.

For main course, he made a dish consisting of small fillet steaks, each wrapped in a strip of bacon (held in place by a toothpick) with a small strip of pate placed over the steak (where it quickly melted) and then a large, fried, mushroom was placed over the pate. Again, great food (served with asparagus spears and potatoes) and something I'm keen to try making myself.

What made today something that just had to go on the blog, however, happened at the end of the afternoon. After lunch, Lyle and I spent the afternoon talking about philosophy, religion, politics, you know the stuff. As the afternoon was starting to turn into evening, we were talking about my blog and I showed him my post from last week about cocktails. I was (pleasantly) surprised to discover that he had some Apple Brandy (not actually Apple Jack, but close enough) and that he was rather enthusiastic about making up a Jack Rose. So, thanks to Lyle, I have now tried all six of the "Standard Cocktails"

So, the Jack Rose:

Embury calls for a recipe of eight parts Apple Brandy to two parts lime juice and one part Grenadine syrup. We didn't have any Grenadine so Lyle made up a substitute by mixing pomegranate molasses with raspberry cordial. The three ingredients were mixed in roughly the ratios given above (we actually ended up putting slightly more syrup than was called for but not by much). This was then shaken over ice and served neat.

The results: The sidecar's position as my favourite among the big six is no immediate danger, but I certainly found it a pleasant drink. Lyle shared my enjoyment, although his wife found it too sour. It did have a rather sour taste, with only a slightly bitter aftertaste. Having said that, as I noted last time, I'm more of a fan of sour drinks than most; if you are planning to make one of these yourselves and you don't share my love of sourness, you might consider a higher ratio of syrup.

A (Hopefully) Final Comment on the Tuam Matter

 Yesterday this article was drawn to my attention. The article makes a number of good points placing the tragedy in its proper context and pointing out that there is still much that we don't know. Another good article on the matter can be found here.

As the friend who pointed these articles out to me rightly noted, there has been a rush to judgement on this issue and, as I confessed last week, I too was guilty of that. It's also helpful to note that problems of this kind were by no means peculiar to Catholicism and I think that the author of the Telegraph article makes a good point about the way certain people react to such acts by Catholics versus those committed by Muslims.

Having said all that, there are still hard truths in this matter for Catholics to face up to. There may yet be much that don't know but we know enough to know that a culture existed which allowed serious injustices to happen against unwed mothers and their children.

We can point out that protestants and other institutions were as bad as Catholic ones. We can point to the surrounding culture; that's all useful as context, but, as a defence of the Church it will only go so far. We Catholics claim to have the fullness of the Gospel, we have the guidance of what we believe to be an infallible magisterium and we have grace of the sacraments. We should be doing better than everyone else. If the best we can say is that we were no worse than others, then we need to remember Christ's words that "to whom much is given, from him much will be expected." (Luke 24:18).

 Blaming the surrounding culture will also only go so far. This is 1950s Ireland we're talking about. The Church was very influential in that culture. If aspects of that culture were unjust, what was the Church doing to confront and change the culture? Where were the letters from the Bishops warning that, while fornication is a sin, the culture that treated being an unwed mother as the worst possible sin was closer to the spirit of the Pharisees than to Christ? Where were the priests warning from the pulpit that those who treated illegitimate children as though they were somehow guilty of their parent's sins was to oppress orphans, one of the four sins that cries to Heaven for vengeance?

The Sin Against the Holy Spirit (aka, Answers for an Atheist 3.5)

This is post is, in part, a part of my "Answers for an Atheist" series. In part two of said series, I argued that, I would not want a perfectly good and holy God deciding that there were some sins He would not pardon since I would have no reason for believing that He would draw the line where I thought it should be drawn. A priest friend of mine was kind enough to leave a comment, generally praising my post but qualifying that praise with a question. He asked what I thought about the sin against the Holy Spirit and whether the fact of such a sin, in way, effected my answer.

For those who may not be aware, the background to this question is Christ's statement that "All sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin." (Mark 3:28f c.f. Matt 12:31, Luke 12:10).

These passages have, it must be said, caused a great deal of confusion among Christians. Dorothy Sayers once wrote a "mock catechism" to satirise the ignorance of many church goers of her day in which she wrote, of the Holy Spirit "There is a sin against Him that damns you for all eternity, but nobody knows what it is."

In brief, my answer was that I didn't think it did effect my answer. I waited to give my reply in full, because I thought it was necessary to lay some groundwork about the nature of heaven and hell. That groundwork I laid in the third part of the series. In that post, I spelt out the Catholic belief that Heaven is not some arbitrary reward and hell some arbitrary punishment that God has imposed upon those who follow or don't follow a list of rules but are rather the necessary consequence of accepting or rejecting the kind of relationship that God wishes to have with us.

The Holy Spirit, has a unique role of working within our souls to bring us into this relationship. This is why the sin against the Spirit is unforgivable. It is not that God has decided that such blasphemy is such a horrible sin that forgiving it is beyond even His mercy. Rather, by rejecting the work of the One who is sent to bring them into a relationship with God, those who commit this sin are closing off the possibility of such a relationship.

This is the point that St. Thomas was making when he argued that "...the sin against the Holy Ghost is said to be unpardonable, by reason of its nature, in so far as it removes those things which are a means towards the pardon of sins." (S.T. II-II Q. 14 A.3 corp.) In other words, the sin is unpardonable because, by resisting the work of the spirit, the sinner closes his or herself of from the one who is to bring pardon.

Pope St. John Paul II, noting St. Thomas' exegesis, went on to say:

..."blasphemy" does not properly consist in offending against the Holy Spirit in words; it consists rather in the refusal to accept the salvation which God offers to man through the Holy Spirit, working through the power of the Cross. If man rejects the "convincing concerning sin" which comes from the Holy Spirit and which has the power to save, he also rejects the "coming" of the Counsellor-that "coming" which was accomplished in the Paschal Mystery, in union with the redemptive power of Christ's Blood: the Blood which "purifies the conscience from dead works." (Dominum et Vifificantem Part II:6:46)



 

"Basic" Cocktails

This morning, before going to confession, I had an old fashioned. "What's that?" I hear some folk ask. An old fashioned is a cocktail. To be more precise, it is one of the six "basic cocktails" listed in David A. Embury's classic book "The Fine of Mixing Drinks."

After having drunk my first old fashioned, I've now tried five of Embury's six basic cocktails. My list, as follows:

The Martini:

Arguably the best known cocktail in the world and the classic before dinner drink. While variations on a theme obviously exist, I think the simplest form is the best. That simplest form involves a mix of six parts gin to one part of dry vermouth. I know that some people substitute vodka for gin. If such people enjoy drinking vodka mixed with vermouth, I wish them well, but I'm traditionalist enough to think they should call it something other than a martini. The classic garnish is an olive (or group of olives) but I personally prefer a twist of lemon peel.

Interestingly enough, the original recipe called for equal, or almost equal parts. Over time the ratio of vermouth has shrunk. I believe someone said that the ideal martini was made by waving a glass of gin in the general direction of a bottle of vermouth, but, I think the current ratio is actually pretty good.

I assume most people know that James Bond orders his martinis "shaken, not stirred". In season three  "West Wing" episode, "Stirred", fictional President, "Jed" Bartlet proves that even the most heretical of Catholics will occasionally get something right when he points out that the reason for stirring the martini is to prevent the ice breaking and the martini from being watered down. Bartlet doesn't quite go so far as to call the most famous of fictional spies a wimp, but it's pretty strongly implied.

My thoughts; the Martini is my second favourite among the basic five and one of my favourite before meal drinks. The great thing about it is that because it is so well known, you can order it just about anywhere and feel reasonably confident that it will be well done.

The Manhattan:

I'll always think of this as the drink which Bart Simpson acquired a reputation for his skill in making, in the Season 3 episode "Bart the Murderer". The basic recipe consists of a mix of North American whiskey (most commonly rye but others are acceptable) with sweet vermouth, between one and three dashes of bitters and a maraschino cherry as garnish.

The exact ratio of whiskey to vermouth can vary with taste but will normally be somewhere between two and three to one. My personal preference is for a relatively large amount of vermouth, but I'm, perhaps, a little weird.

Variations on a theme include replacing the American Whiskey with Scotch (making a "Rob Roy"), replacing the vermouth with port wine (making a "ruby Manhattan") or replacing the sweet vermouth with dry and the cherry garnish with a twist of lemon peel (to make a "dry Manhattan").

My thoughts; my experiences with this drink have varied. I've had some Manhattans I've really loved, and others where the aftertaste was far too bitter for my liking. The multitude of variations possible means that each Manhattan drinker will probably need to make sure that he or she knows what he/she likes and be sure to tell the bartender making it. I should add, I've tried the dry Manhattan only once, when the bar I was drinking at was out of maraschino cherries and found it very enjoyable.

The Daiquiri

Perhaps the most open to variation of the basic six, the daiquiri is famously mixed with various forms of fruit drinks to create the "strawberry daiquiri", "peach daiquiri" and many other variants, ad nauseam. The basic daiquiri, however, consists of a reasonably simple mix of white rum, lime juice and sugar syrup.

As with the Manhattan, the exact ratios will vary; Embury suggests eight parts rum to two parts lime and one part syrup, but more modern authorities seem to advocate mixes with relatively large amounts of lime juice and syrup, although the rum should always be the single biggest component.

My thoughts; I don't have a lot to say. This is my least favourite among the basics that I've tried. I once attempted to improve it by adding a dash of egg white, but this didn't help.

The Old Fashioned

The one I tried today. Perhaps the simplest among the basics, this is a mixture of American whiskey, sugar syrup and bitters. As with other drinks, exact ratios will vary but the classic recipe calls for a single sugar cube with just enough water to dissolve the cube, two dashes of bitters and a jigger of whiskey. The traditional recipe calls for this to be stirred over ice and served "on the rocks" with a twist of lemon peel. I wasn't watching as they made mine today, so I can't tell you how closely they followed the traditional prescription, although they did substitute a large twist of orange peel for the traditional lemon.

My thoughts; Obviously, I'm judging this based on only one try and, as I said, I don't know how closely they followed the traditional recipe, but I liked it. They garnished it with an unusually large twist of orange peel which stuck up out of the drink. The fragrance of the peel was noticeable and its citrus scent provided an enjoyable context for the flavour of the drink. The after taste was a little bit bitter for my liking, but not so much as to spoil the experience. Overall, I recommend it.

The Jack Rose

The only one among the basics I haven't tried. Unfortunately, it requires Applejack, a drink made from distilled apple juice, which does not seem to be widely available these days. If anyone knows a bar in either Sydney or Canberra where they serve the stuff, you'd go several rungs up my favourite people list by drawing it to my attention.

The Sidecar

Saving the best (or at least my favourite) till last. The sidecar is made of a mix of brandy (preferably cognac) some form of triple sec, and lemon juice. I prefer Cointreau as the triple sec of choice but Grand Marnier is a perfectly acceptable alternative.

As with many of these drinks, ratios vary with taste. The traditional French recipe calls for equal parts of the three ingredients, while Embury says eight parts brandy to two of lemon and only one of triple sec. My personal preference leans to the traditional side (equal parts) but that does produce a very sour drink. If you don't like sour as much as me then you might prefer a mix more in line with Embury's prescription.

My thoughts; my favourite among the "basic six" and my second all time favourite before dinner drink. This is simple to make, even bar tenders who don't know it will generally be willing to make it up since the directions are pretty easy to follow. If you haven't tried one of these, I defiantly recommend it.

Answers for an Atheist (Part III)

I'm continuing my answers to Hemant "The Friendly Atheist" Mehta's video "78 Questions for Christians". The video I'm responding to can be found here and the previous parts of this series are here and here.

#5 Should a kind hearted atheist be forced to go burn in hell for all eternity?
#6 What about any non-Christian good person, should they be burning in hell?
#7 Could you be happy in heaven while someone you loved was burning in hell?

#5 and #6 have already been partially answered in my first part of this series. As a Catholic, I don't believe that non-Christians of whatever sort automatically go to hell. Having said that, there is no getting around the fact that Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular does call upon people to believe, and we do think that belief, or unbelief has at least the potential to impact where one might be spending forever and I can well understand why many people believe this is unjust.

To explain why I believe Catholic belief is, in fact, just, I need to explain a bit about what Catholics believe. Central to Catholicism is the belief that God is the source of all truth, goodness, beauty and love. I've read and heard a lot of atheist critiques of Christianity where the one making the critique seems under the impression that we regard hell as some arbitrary punishment and heaven some arbitrary reward that God has chosen to inflict or grant to those who break or follow His rules. That's not the Catholic view at all.

In Catholic belief, the essential nature of heaven lies in the possession of the "Beatific Vision". This means that we will directly see God as He, in His essential nature, is, enjoying perfect communion with that source of love, goodness and beauty.

By contrast, hell consists primarily in what is called the pain of loss. By this, the Church means that the damned will know, with clarity, that they were created for the purpose of enjoying the perfect happiness that comes from the beatific vision and that, through their own choices, they have eternally lost that chance.

With these definitions in mind, I think it can be seen what I meant about heaven and hell not being an arbitrary reward or punishment for following or not following certain rules. Heaven, the beatific vision, is the logically necessary consequence of a person embracing the sort of relationship that God wishes us to have with Him. Conversely, hell is an equally necessary consequence of consciously rejecting that relationship. On the subject of hell, let me add this, Satan and the other fallen angels are in hell, they are direct creations of God who rejected Him with a full knowledge of what they were doing. I do not claim to know how many humans might be there with them, nor who they are. I do not even know with certainty whether any humans are there; I fear there are, but I hope there may not be.

I think the above clarifications will help to show why it is just that belief will have some effect on where one spends eternity. Now, to be clear, I am not saying that all atheists, or non-Christians generally, are going to hell, that's more than I can judge. I am, however, saying that, the person who is given an opportunity to know that God exists but resists this opportunity out of pride or an unwillingness to give up some sin or for some other unworthy reason, is deliberately putting his or herself on the road to the same place as the fallen angels. (Please note! I am not saying that this is the case for all or even most atheists. Absent a supernatural window into my neighbours' hearts, I can't even say with certainty that it's the case for any atheist.)

This applies, not only for atheists but for those of other religions. In arguments I've gotten into and things I've seen written in various places, I frequently encounter the assumption that, if God cares about relationships, this means he won't care what specific beliefs people hold. This strikes me as pretty silly. Generally speaking, if a person is in, or wishes to be in, a relationship with another person, that person wants to know as much as possible about the other person. If Catholicism is true, then the things about God's nature which the Catholic Church teaches must also be true. If a person truly wants a relationship with God, he or she will want to know those things. Again, this is not to suggest that all non-Catholics, or non-Christians are on the road to hell. What it is to suggest is that if someone is given the opportunity to know that Christianity/Catholicism is true and rejects that opportunity out of pride or unwillingness to submit to some difficult Church teaching, that person is, in fact, rejecting a real relationship with God.

Having said all this, I think I can give reasoned answers to the questions above.

#5 - No, I don't think a truly kind hearted atheist should go to hell. I do, however, think that such a  hypothetical atheist, in order to be truly kind hearted needs to want his or her fellow human beings to know the truth and needs to want to know the truth his/herself.

#6 - No, I don't think a good non-Christian person should go to hell. However, once again, to be truly good, this hypothetical person needs to be concerned about and open to the truth.

#7 - I found this the hardest question to answer. I have to admit, I feel the force of this objection and a big part of me wants to agree with Mr. Mehta and say no. I've said already, I want all of my fellow human beings to go to heaven and, obviously, this is a fortiori the case for my family and friends. I sincerely hope the none of the people I know and love will end up in hell. I have to say, though, that if it happens, yes, I could be happy. I don't believe any earthly happiness, however multiplied, could compensate for the knowledge that a person I loved was undergoing eternal torment. However, as I said, heaven is not just earthly happiness multiplied and then made eternal. Heaven is the direct vision of the source of all goodness. Given this, yes, I believe I could be happy knowing someone I loved was suffering in hell, given that I would also know that this was the result of his or her own choice.

I will, Deo Volente, have more answers to Mr. Mehta in the near future. I will also answer the question which Fr. John F. was kind enough to leave in the comments thread of my last post.

Further Reflections

This morning, I wrote this post responding to news reports of a horrible discovery in Ireland. I was pleased to read this, by Caroline Farrow which makes the strong case that the picture is nowhere near as bad as first reports might have indicated. For this I am thankful to God and if I, myself, was too quick to believe the worst, I must ask God and my fellow Catholics' pardon for that.

The fact remains, however, as Farrow herself acknowledges, there was a culture, a culture to some degree fostered by the Church, in which real injustice to women who fell pregnant out of wedlock and, even worse, to their children was not merely done but was made to seem virtuous.

In his excellent book, Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton wrote about the way in which individual Christian virtues, stripped of their proper place within the over-all moral life, can become monstrous. As I said a few weeks back the essence of the virtues is that they are those habits which help us to live our life to its fullest. For this to happen, however, each virtue needs to fit within the overall context of a virtuous life, taken outside  of this context, it is easy for a single virtue to become demonic. As the old scholastic maxim put it "corruptio optimi pessima est" - the corruption of the best is the worst.

Catholic blogger, Mark Shea gives, what seems to me to be an excellent discussion of a culture where chastity, which, let me be clear, is a real virtue, was elevated above virtues like justice and charity.

Faced with this, other words of Chesterton seem highly apropos:

O God of earth and altar,
bow down and hear our cry,
our earthly rulers falter,
our people drift and die;
the walls of gold entomb us,
the swords of scorn divide,
take not thy thunder from us,
but take away our pride.

From all that terror teaches,
from lies of tongue and pen,
from all the easy speeches
that comfort cruel men,
from sale and profanation
of honor, and the sword,
from sleep and from damnation,
deliver us, good Lord!

Tie in a living tether
the prince and priest and thrall,
bind all our lives together,
smite us and save us all;
in ire and exultation
aflame with faith, and free,
lift up a living nation,
a single sword to thee.

Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!

I was hoping to write something more on apologetics stuff today, then I read this story. (Trigger Warning: The article discusses some pretty disturbing stuff) I don't particularly want to comment on it, but I feel like I have to.

I'm (obviously) Catholic. I also belong to the school of thought within the Church that could broadly be described as traditionalist. I prefer, when possible, to worship according to the pre-Vatican II liturgical forms, I try to observe other, traditional forms of discipline like meatless Fridays, and I regard the way in which most of the old orders of nuns abandoned the habit is one of the great cultural tragedies of human history.

We traditionalists have a tendency to get awfully nostalgic about "the good old days" before the council when the mass was in Latin, nuns wore habits and everyone knew what a good Catholic was supposed to believe and do. I can even remember one well-meaning friend of mine posting on FaceBook a comment to the effect that all the Church's problems started with the new mass and, if we had only stuck with the mass in Latin, all would be well in the Catholic World.

Except, as this story makes clear, the good old days were not really all that good. Now, don't get me wrong, I would not wish to replace one caricature of a Catholic golden age with an equally false caricature of some terrible dark age. I'm sure that the first six decades of the last century were, like every era of human history, an era of saints and sinners, an era when many people tried their best  to do the right thing, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.

But we need to be honest. A Church in which injustices of this kind could happen is a Church in which something was horribly wrong. In his classic novel "A Tale of Two Cities", Charles Dickens, while certainly no fan of the French Revolution, warned against the tendency to speak of the Revolution as if it had somehow come out of nowhere, as if the indifference of the nobility to the sufferings had done nothing to create circumstances ripe for such a revolt.

In a similar way, we Catholics, when we complain about the state of the world and the Church, when we decry increasing numbers of ordinary Catholics not listening to what the Church says, when we find ourselves in a situation where the culture around us is increasingly hostile to the Church and our message, we need honesty about the ways in which the Church we love has brought this judgement upon herself.

In some ways, the revelations in this story are nothing new. We already knew that the Catholic culture of the time, in Ireland at least, was one in becoming an unwed mother was treated as an unforgivable crime. We knew the way that, in addition to visiting these gross punishments upon women, the Church added stigma to the innocent children of such women.

Now, we discover that, in addition to stigmatising such innocents, it seems that children were malnourished to the point of death and then, there dead bodies were treated in a way that showed a horrific lack of respect for human dignity.

I have to pause and wonder about the "good Catholic folk" who created and sustained such a culture. I'm sure these people, at least some of them, read the Gospels, they surely all heard the Gospels preached to them at mass. They must surely have heard Christ's warning "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others." (Matt 23:23). Did none of them pause to reflect on the way in which the culture they were reinforcing perfectly fitted Christ's description?

Catholics, but especially traditional ones, need to accept the sobering reality of the past and the sins of the Church. And we need to call upon Our Lord for His mercy.
 

Of Infalability and Green Cheese

Brendan Burnett, a friend of mine, an Evangelical Protestant and a fellow blogger, has an argument which, he believes, disproves the authority claims of both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. The argument can be found here.

Brendan attempts to refute the claims of those Churches which claim infallible authority to interpret the Scriptures with a Reductio ad Absurdum. For those unfamiliar, this is a form of logical argument, sometimes called a "proof by contradiction". The essence of the argument consists in assuming, for argument's sake, that a given proposition is true, demonstrating that said assumption leads to a contradiction and, thereby showing that the initial assumption was false.

Brendan does a small thought experiment and asks us to imagine a possible scenario:

Imagine, then, that the Church says that John 3:16 means: “The moon is made of green cheese.” Imagine that all the respected, godly, knowledgeable church fathers and leaders forever since the first, second and third etc. centuries AD have always believed and interpreted John 3:16 as meaning “The moon is made of green cheese.” Church today holds it. Holy Tradition has always held it.

In such a circumstance, Brendan, argues, either Roman Catholic or Orthodox claims about the authority of the Church to interpret Scripture would lead to the conclusion that John 3:16 does teach that the moon is made out of green cheese. However, as Brendan quite correctly argues, John 3:16 is very clearly not saying anything about the composition of the moon but is, rather, a statement about God's love for humanity and His salvific purpose. From this, Brendan draws the conclusion that, Catholic and Orthodox beliefs about the infallibility of the Church logically lead to absurdity and are, therefore, proven false.

To clarify what he is and isn't arguing, Brendan writes:

Now for this argument to work, I don’t have to show that there is some real instance of it in the world. All I need to illustrate is that there exists some possible, logically consistent situation, which implies some absurd counterfactual (counter-to-fact proposition) from the premise, “Whatever the Church teaches about Scripture is true.” This proposition would be true if the facts turned out a certain way, This turns out quite easy to do.

The reason this argument may seem logical is because of an ambiguity in the term "possible" in the second sentence. Possible can mean a few different things in different contexts.

Some metaphysicians and logicians use possible simply to mean that given proposition has nothing that makes it logically absurd, it is true in some possible worlds. In this sense, it is possible that Julius Caesar died of old age and Brutus remained his faithful friend until death, since there is nothing about the essential nature of Caesar that logically required him to die of assassination at his former friend's hand.

On the other hand, the word "possible" may refer to real, concrete possibilities in the actual existing world. In this sense it is not possible that Julius Caesar died by any means other than assassination since, all the evidence clearly shows that that's the way he died.

Now, if, in the argument above, Brendan means "possible" in the first sense, true in some possible world, then I'll grant that his fathers and councils teaching John:316 is about moon cheese scenario is possible. I deny, however, that this proves what he thinks it does. To the best of my knowledge, no Catholic or Orthodox theologian has ever claimed that an infallible Church must exist in all possible worlds, as if God was somehow logically bound to operate in this way. If somebody ever did make such a claim, Brendan's argument might (I say might, I'd still have some issues) help to refute them. This, however, tells us nothing about what is and isn't the case in the world as it actually is.

On the other hand, if by, "possible" Brendan is talking about concrete possibilities in the actual world, then I'll agree, if you could prove the possibility of the Church teaching that John 3:16 is about moon cheese, then you would have disproven the Church's claims to authority. The problem here is that, a thought experiment is not, by any stretch of the imagination, enough to demonstrate such a real possibility.

Brendan then attempts to write his argument out formally. For those of you not familiar with philosophy and/or formal logic, what follows may be a little technical and difficult to follow. I'll simply say that I've already made clear my principle objections to his argument, what follows need only interest those concerned with the technicalities.

He writes:

P: Whatever the Church says about Scripture is true.
Q: The Church says that John 3:16 means ‘The moon is made of green cheese.’
R: John 3:16 means ‘The moon is made of green cheese.’

(1) If whatever the Church teaches about Scripture is true, then if the Church were to say that John 3:16 means ‘The moon is made of green cheese’, then John 3:16 really would mean ‘The moon is made of green cheese.’
(2) But the text of John 3:16 cannot possibly mean ‘The moon is made of green cheese.’
(3) Therefore, John 3:16 would not mean ‘The moon is made of green cheese’ even if the Church said that it did.
(4) Therefore, the proposition ‘Whatever the Church teaches about Scripture is true’ is false.

I assume (1) and (2) are premises, and I accept them both. (3) follows necessarily from (2). (4) However, does not directly follow from any combination of (1) (2) and/or (3). The only way it would do so is with the mediation of some premise along the lines of "There exists a real possibility that the Church would say the John 3:16 is about green moon cheese"

Finally, Brendan tries to write it out symbolically.

(1) If P, then if Q then R.
(2) Not-R.
(3) Therefore, not-Q. (Therefore not-’if Q then R’)
(4) Therefore, not-P.
QED. Modus tollens.

And at this point he's pretty much lost me. (1) and (2) obviously correspond to their counterparts in his non-symbolic argument. However, at (3) he gives two statements "Therefore, not-Q" and then, in brackets, "Therefore not -'If Q thenR'". These statements are not equivalent to one another, neither is equivalent to (3) in his non-symbolic argument and I don't see how either is derived from his premises. (4) Does follow as a Modus Tollens from (1) and from the brackets part of (3), but that only helps him if he can explain how he derives (3) from his premises.

In short, this argument will not work.

P.S. I don't believe it's possible to derive the conclusion "Not P" from Brendan's premises. It is, however, quite easily to derive the conclusion "If Q then not P". Absent, however, some proof of at least the real possibility of Q this doesn't help his case.

For anyone who cares, the relevant proof is as follows:

1. P > (Q > R)       (Premise)
2.  - R                    (Premise)
3.  Q                      (Assumption)
4.  P                       (Assumption)
5.  Q > R                (> E; 1,4)
6.  -Q                      (M.T.; 2,5)
7. Q & -Q               (&I; 3,6)
8. - P                       (-I; 4- 7)
9. Q > -P                 (> I; 3-8) Q.E.D.

Answers for an Atheist (Part II)

This is a continuation of my response to Hemant "The Friendly Atheist" Mehta's video "78 Questions for Christians." You can find the original video here and the first part of my response here.

Mr. Mehta's fourth question is "Should a killer who genuinely repents be able to go to heaven?" As with his third question, I find myself responding, "It depends what you mean."

First, I'll answer a question Mr. Mehta probably wasn't asking, but some might, does such a person deserve heaven? Does he or she have any right to go there? The answer to this, of course, is no. A murdered doesn't deserve heaven, but then, neither does anyone else. The Christian belief is that heaven is an eternity of happiness beyond what any person could deserve. (Actually, heaven is more than that, Deo volente, I'll go into more detail on what it is in a future post, but this will do for now.) The Christian belief is that everybody in heaven is there because God gave them a gift that they could never, of their own efforts, earn.

I suspect, however, that what I've written above doesn't really answer the question which Mr. Mehta intended to ask. I imagine the question would be something like "Is it morally acceptable for God to grant such a gift? Surely, for someone to commit such a crime and then go heaven forever is wrong." 

I have to begin by saying that I feel the power of Mr. Mehta's point. I can understand the feeling that those who commit such crimes shouldn't be let into heaven. Indeed, it's harsher than that; my religion not merely offers the possibility of heaven to murderers, rapists, child molesters and others, but it tells the victims of such people that they should desire the repentance and salvation of the one who offended against them. I can well understand why so many people find this offensive.

I'll also say that I find the response of some evangelical protestants that justice is served because Jesus was punished in the place of such offenders unsatisfying. The idea of justice being satisfied by another person being punished in the culprit's place, however innocent and willing the other party might be, is not obviously reasonable.

So, what can I say in response to this? To begin with, I have to note one substantial difference between Catholicism and Protestantism. The Catholic Church teaches that there is a difference between eternal and temporal punishment and that, temporal penalties may remain to be paid even after eternal punishment is forgiven. Put simply, this means that, some form of punishment may (and usually will) remain to be undergone. This is why Catholics believe in Purgatory, a place where repentant sinners who die with some degree of temporal consequences for their sin unpaid will undergo a period of purification.

This is a substantial difference between the Catholic and Evangelical Protestant views. On the view held by most Evangelical Protestants, a person could commit any number of horrible crimes, evade capture for his entire life, sincerely repent on his death bed and go straight into paradise. On a Catholic view, such a person would very likely still have payment for his sins to undergo after death before he is admitted to heaven.

While some may find the above answers Mr. Mehta's objection, I can well imagine that others will reply that, no matter how much penance and purification, no matter how long someone spends in purgatory, there are some crimes so terrible that a person guilty of them should never be admitted to heaven. While I certainly sympathise with such a position, I can't agree with it. The reason I can't agree is this: I've done some pretty bad things in my time, nothing as bad as murder or rape, but I've hurt people, including people I care abut. As I said, I've never done anything like murder and I'm pretty sure that most of my fellow human beings, if they knew everything I've done, would agree that I've done nothing that can't be forgiven.

However, while most of my fellow human beings may agree that I've done nothing unforgivable, my entrance to heaven depends not on what my fellow human beings think, but on what a perfectly sinless and holy God thinks. Once that Holy God decides that some sins will be beyond His forgiveness, I have no confidence that He will draw the line where I'd like it to be drawn.

Update:  I have now written a response to the question asked by Fr. John F. in the comment thread below.