SHORT RULES FOR THE DISCERNMENT OF THE SPIRITS
There is no single rule of discernment that is without exception, according to a Carthusian.
Cf. A Carthusian, The Call of Silent Love, translated by an Anglican solitary (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1995), page 160
“Fruits” is a definitive criterion, but they do not always immediately manifest.
Cf. Francisco López Rivera, S.J., “Obedience and Discernment,” Review of Ignatian Spirituality (January 2009) 40(120):
http://www.sjweb.info/documents/cis/pdfenglish/200912004en.pdf
Consolation is interior movement towards God and the morally good.
Cf. Galatians 5:22-23; Colossians 3:12-16
Desolation is interior movement away from God and towards the morally evil.
Cf. Galatians 5:19-21; Colossians 3:5-10
Consolation is life-giving. Desolation is life-draining.
Cf. Ali Newell, “Spiritual Discernment – what gives life / what discourages,” The University of Edinburgh, May 26, 2020:
Be aware of your feelings, use your head!
Cf. Brendan McManus, SJ, “Two Hints for Recognizing the Two Ignatian Movements of Consolation and Desolation,” IgnatianSpirituality.com:
Ask questions. Gather information.
Cf. Spiritual Exercises, Three Times for Making
a Good and Sound Election, Third Time; Second Set of 8 Rules, Fifth Rule
NOTES ON THE DISCERNMENT OF THE SPIRITS
ReplyDeleteDiscernment Is Iterative
Because discernment is a process active throughout life, which itself is in constant process, discernment is necessarily iterative. Generally, the task of discernment is not to settle dogmas with finality, but rather to evaluate, assess, and judge a mainly interior reality constantly in flux. Discernment is iterative because it asks us to revisit a changing existential reality.
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2017/07/discernmentwhat-is-it.html
Discernment Improves with Spiritual Maturity
What exactly consolation and desolation consist in is understood principally through one’s personal experience of the spirits. Theory by itself cannot fully explain them.
We learn how to distinguish between good and evil spirits by putting theory into practice, so that the gift of the discernment of spirits is the upshot of growing maturity in the spiritual life.
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2021/07/consolation-and-desolation.html
Discernment Advances with Age and Experience
“Wisdom is life experience applied to well-considered judgment.”
https://poetryofgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2018/01/aphorisms.html
To the extent that the gift of the discernment of the spirits depends on our capacity for making well-considered judgments, our application of this gift to the particular circumstances of our lives improves with life experience.
Gonzalinho
The first short rule, “There is no single rule of discernment that is without exception,” is a Russell’s Paradox.
ReplyDeleteWhat is a Russell’s Paradox? Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains the Russell’s Paradox concisely and accurately, even if the explanation is not very accessible to our understanding. See:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/russell-paradox/
—“Russell’s Paradox,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, October 12, 2020
“Some sets, such as the set of all teacups, are not members of themselves. Other sets, such as the set of all non-teacups, are members of themselves. Call the set of all sets that are not members of themselves ‘R.’ If R is a member of itself, then by definition it must not be a member of itself. Similarly, if R is not a member of itself, then by definition it must be a member of itself.”
Russell’s Paradox arises in the case of sets that are not members of themselves.
“Such a set appears to be a member of itself if and only if it is not a member of itself. Hence the paradox.”
The above description, even if precise, is rather abstract. It can be readily understood only through one or more examples.
The earliest example of the Russell’s Paradox is that of Epimenides, a Cretan philosopher (c. 600 BCE). He said, “All Cretans are liars.” Close examination will show that the statement is both true and false. It’s perfectly logical to make the statement, so that it is formally true. However, if the person who makes the statement is a Cretan, then the statement is also false—because he is a Cretan and we assume that the statement is true. So the statement is both true and false at the same time—a paradox.
The paradox can only be solved by treating Epimenides as an exception among Cretans, that is, he is a Cretan who is not a liar. In other words, he belongs to the set of Cretans who are not Cretans who lie. In the terminology of “naïve set theory,” he is a member of a set that is not a member of itself. Or, he is a member of a set to which he is an exception.
One widely accepted solution to Russell’s Paradox is that of Zermelo and Fraenkel, who basically say that we have to treat some members of a set as an exception to the set. They do not share all the properties of the members of the set.
So in the case of the Cretans who are all presumably liars, some Cretans, or at least one Cretan, Epimenides, is not a liar.
An explanation in symbolic logic of Russell’s Paradox and its solution according to Zermelo and Fraenkel is given in the Stanford Encyclopedia article cited above.
What I find more readily understandable is that given by Jeffrey J. Early, who at the time of publication of the following piece was an Undergraduate Physics Major at the University of Puget Sound. See:
http://math.ups.edu/~bryans/Current/Journal_Spring_1999/JEarly_232_S99.html
—Jeffrey J. Early, “Russell’s Paradox and Possible Solutions”
Going back to the first short rule, “There is no single rule of discernment that is without exception”—it is a Russell’s Paradox because it is a rule of discernment, and if it is a rule of discernment, then it must admit exceptions, including itself. However, if it is an exception, then it contradicts itself, because then it says that there are always exceptions. At the same time, if it includes itself as an exception, then it says that there are no exceptions. Therefore, the first short rule is both true and false at the same time.
One solution to this paradox—the solution of Zermelo and Fraenkel—is to regard the first short rule as at least one of the exceptions to the very rule it states. This solution I prefer.
Gonzalinho
IS IT ALWAYS NECESSARY TO FOLLOW YOUR CONSCIENCE?
ReplyDeleteWe must first define what we mean by the term “conscience.”
What is conscience? Catholic Dictionary defines conscience as an operation of the intellect and denies that conscience is an act of the will.
“The judgment of the practical intellect deciding, from general principles of faith and reason, the goodness or badness of a way of acting that a person now faces.
“It is an operation of the intellect and not of the feelings or even of the will. An action is right or wrong because of objective principles to which the mind must subscribe, not because a person subjectively feels that way or because his will wants it that way.
“Conscience, therefore, is a specific act of the mind applying its knowledge to a concrete moral situation. What the mind decides in a given case depends on principles already in the mind.”
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=32755
—“Conscience,” Catholic Dictionary
I agree with the Catholic Dictionary understanding that conscience is a judgment of the practical intellect concerning whether an action is right or wrong. According to this understanding, conscience is the moral judgment of a human being, who is always a moral creature.
However, I disagree with the Catholic Dictionary when it declares that conscience is not an act of the will. On the contrary, as a moral judgment, that is, as the assent of the will to the conclusion of the intellect, I would say that conscience is indeed an act of the will.
Because conscience is a judgment about what is right or wrong—it is an act of the will—a person who acts contrary to their conscience does what they judge to be wrong, knowingly so. Furthermore, if one’s conscience is erroneous and they act against it, they do what they hold to be morally wrong. Therefore, they contravene the moral law insofar as they understand it, and in doing so, they sin.
For this reason, it is always sinful to act against one’s conscience. Put another way, one must always follow one’s conscience. The injunction to always follow one’s conscience is a universal principle of moral theology. It is thereby a universal rule of discernment for which there is no exception.
However, the moral obligation to follow one’s conscience does not absolve that person from the moral obligation to form one’s conscience correctly.
“You need to make sure not just that your conscience is formed, but that it’s formed correctly. If it is, the moral judgments you make will be reliable. If it is not, your moral judgments won’t be trustworthy.”
https://www.catholic.com/qa/to-live-a-moral-life-is-it-enough-to-follow-your-conscience
—Catholic Answers Staff, “To live a moral life, is it enough to follow your conscience?” Catholic Answers
Gonzalinho
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Gonzalinho