Robert George & the Taliban

That scholarly radical Robert P. George just might end up on a "no-fly" list if he doesn't mend his ways--I am surprised none of the letters to the New York Times in response to the Dec. 20 Sunday feature on George contain an accusation that he is indirectly responsible for pushing people towards intellectual terrorism, if he isn't an intellectual terrorist himself. (What might all this say about Touchstone, if guilt by association is assumed?)

Comments

[Ranee @ Arabian Knits]

This may be an inappropriate question and please delete it if it is, but how is Robert George in an interfaith marriage as one of his accusers posited? It does not matter to the Manhattan Declaration, but I want to know if this is a misrepresentation by his opponents. I do admit that it would be hard to understand how someone could uphold the Christian standard of marriage while not living it, but perhaps it is a twisting of the truth, or perhaps the marriage occurred before conversion or some other circumstance.

[Peter J. O'Leary]

how is Robert George in an interfaith marriage as one of his accusers posited?

Sounds like simple ad hominem.

how someone could uphold the Christian standard of marriage while not living it

'Christian standard' is interpreted in diverse ways, most evidently. The most orthodox (right-thinking) standard invokes scripture and seeks counsel of current and past spiritual leaders and Church fathers. The scripture most often cited in this regard 2 Corinthians 6:14. Here Paul warns against, but doesn't prohibit such unions. It is important to remember other scriptural rejoinders against judging the state of another's soul. That George's wife is Jewish is likely of no consequence. By all accounts, their marriage is happy and stable. Besides, being Jewish does not preclude one from being Christian, actually. Judaism is not so much a faith as a cultural identification. Now, that last sentence might get me deleted.

[Jim Kushiner]

The poster's comments were irrelevant. Robert George's wife is Jewish. It's not my place to question him on how and why he got married to his wife. Many of the people I know who have a vibrant Christian faith came to it after their 20s and 30s; maybe that's the case, maybe it's not. There are plenty of mixed marriages in the church and it is not my understanding that such should be dissolved (!). George defends marriage as an institution (not exclusively Christian), and his marriage is a marriage.

[Peter J. O'Leary]

The liberal conflationists have been having their day in the media lately. It would be droll hearing how tax protesters and anti-globalists should be added to the literal no-fly list if those suggesting such weren't serious and had no traction.

Touchstone and The Manhattan Declaration notwithstanding, it is George's other associations (CFR, Beck, Rove, Gingrich) that bother me non-trivially. I strongly agree with his objectives generally, but, in true internet-tough-guy fashion, I will say his core 'new natural law' philosophy is a load of hogwash.

His is the dissembling disingenuous mindworm that chased Catholics from the pews by the thousands in the '60s. It paved the way for rationale for all types of Panglossian abuses, setting a dialectic, whereby some Catholics are now drafting documents calling for rights for bacteria and computers. George and his lawyerly ilk pulled some crypto-Godellian philosophic prestidigitation, exchanging Humean calculus for another. Reason is rationale is calculation.

For every George or Rigali, there are 40,000 willing to go to the mat to defend the family, the unborn children, and a host of fundamental environmental and cultural issues. We are unseen from the ivory towers, but we come through the doors of our churches.

George is right to radically defend fundamental values, we welcome it. The standard for these values should be traditional church sacrament, not reason. George: “Marriage in principle is a public institution,” he said. “I don’t think it can be like bar mitzvahs or baptisms or the Elks Club.” Here he equates a fundamental sacrament with the Elks Club. Through Western reductionism, it's a slippery sacramental slope from baptism, to communion, to marriage... he's a calculator and his ideas should be given no truck.

The true Christian Church is, and always will be, a grass-roots organization. All the supposed social justice issues aside, Church leaders will do well to not underestimate the fundamental conservatism of the little guy. We don't care if millions of us are called terrorists and can't fly. We will walk.

[Robert Espe]

So I saw this quote in the center of his argument:

"But just as friendships with sex are not friendships, marriage without sex is not marriage."

And couldn't help but think he might have trouble squaring it with the concept perpetual virginity...

On another note, if the Pope has already spoken on the issue of abortion, why is there even still discussion on the point within the Catholic church? I thought the issue should be closed.

[Peter J. O'Leary]

@Robert Espe

And couldn't help but think he might have trouble squaring it with the concept perpetual virginity...

Are you referring to the Virgin Mary?

On another note, if the Pope has already spoken on the issue of abortion, why is there even still discussion on the point within the Catholic church? I thought the issue should be closed.

There are many so-called social justice advocates, especially within the Catholic church, who think that abortion, birth control, and other soft eugenics is a good thing for poor people. I guess the thinking is 'if we can get rid of poor people, we will end poverty'.

[Ranee @ Arabian Knits]

Oh, of course I agree! I don't think divorcing one's spouse is ever a solution and I do realize that it is not a strict rule to be only married to a Christian. I will admit, though, that barring marriage before conversion, I have a hard time understanding marrying someone outside of Christianity, since it is difficult when one does not share a concept of who God is, and brings complications when it comes to raising children. My husband and I came from differing Christian backgrounds, he a cradle Christian and I a convert, and it caused enough disagreement (we have since come to agreement) that I wouldn't want to try to navigate those waters with someone who didn't start from the same position on the divinity of Christ.

Why is it, I wonder, that interfaith marriages are such a positive when the people are secular and a negative when they are not?

[TM]

I, too, don't understand how George could marry a non-Christian. He knowingly married a woman who does not agree with his fundamental beliefs. How can he go through life without that important connection to his wife?

By the way, I speak from experience. I married a non-Christian during a time in my life when I put my faith in the sidelines. I will not nor do I want to divorce, but it's been a HUGE burden for me. It has resulted in severe depression and lots of counseling, and it has had a profound impact on my faith (some good, some bad).

[Robert Espe]

@ Peter

Yes, I should have said Mary's Perpetual Virginity, which as a Catholic he should espouse as a matter of adherence to dogma. But if he believes that, according to his argument, Joseph and Mary weren't married. It just stuck out to me for some reason.

[Mike Melendez]

I read through the NYT letters, some by people with high academic credentials. Yet there is a theme. "I disagree with Robert George, therefore he is irrational." As the parent of six, I have heard this argument many times from my children, usually in the form, "You don't understand!" spoken with great emotion, when what they mean is that I disagree with them on a choice they wish to make. I wish more attempted the reasoned argument that George makes his hallmark, whether they agreed with him or not.

[Beth from TN]

My son and I were listening to a recorded lecture in a course he was doing on rhetoric, and both of us started laughing when the speaker said, "There is no misunderstanding here; the conflict exists because both people understand each other all too well." I've forgotten the context in which the speaker said it, but we had to agree that it was almost always true for our own conflicts!

[Deacon Michael D. Harmon]

I am not a philosopher, so I could be entirely off base here, but what I understand George to be arguing is that reason, properly understood and put to use, undergirds the revealed truths of faith. That is, those who hold faith to be presumptively irrational are wrong because its truths can be supported by rational argument. Indeed, true reason and true faith are complementary, not contradictory, as the secularists presume. The view that George's methods can be used to undermine faith thus applies to their perversion, not to their proper use. And anything good thing can be perverted, as we well know from simple daily observation of the world around us.

Thus, George is not placing reason above faith and judging faith by the standards of reason, as some seem to be saying. He is butressing faith with rational arguments as a flying butress helps the wall of a cathedral to stand. The support is not the wall or the roof, which do comprise the church. But it helps keep them in place. It should be quite reassuring to the faithful that the truths revealed in Scripture and tradition are confirmed by the logic of our minds, insofar as our minds are capable of doing so. Thus, it is a further indication that the universe is the product of Mind....

[Peter J. O'Leary]

@Deacon Michael D. Harmon

George is not placing reason above faith and judging faith by the standards of reason

I concur. That would be a tail-wag-dog proposition. I guess my issues with Robbie George are the much the same as with any professional philosopher. They (philosophers) tend to reduce in Augustinian fashion, and it looks like dissembling to the great unwashed. Rather than pick apart ideas for error, I would rather see philosophers distill away the impurities. We will still be left with a material quite apart from the essence that created it.

Leaders need to have the heat, light, and salt reagents to do this. Too many academics are too vested in their positions to risk being hot and salty.

As one of the unwashed, I stand on my own intellectual guard when it comes to political realists.

Pardon the vulgarity, but I would rather see quality over quantity coming through the Church doors. Too much emphasis on philosophers and theologians may result in neither.

That said, I see George as the enemy of my enemy. And a formidable one at that. He deserves appropriate support.