Tuesday, 16th December 2008
Is it just a celebration of a fig leaf’s anniversary?
Many different appellatives have been addressed at the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Some said it is a milestone on the long road to the recognition and de facto respect of human rights. Others said that the declaration is like a fig leaf. Remembering the mother of all fig leaves which was used by Adam and Eve to cover you know what is helpful to understand the reference. This latter day citation is attributed to the use despotic governments of all sorts make to hide the skeletons in their collective cupboards. They can try to hide them but the leaf is much smaller than the skeletons!
The Pol Pots of this world
There is some truth in this assertion or comparison. Many governments which signed the Declaration do not respect basic human rights in their countries.
Since the signing of the Declaration the trampling on human rights has not ceased. Pol Pot was not deterred by the declaration. The Killing Fields give ample witness. Pinochet and other Latin American dictators went right ahead with their programmes of eliminating “the enemies of the people”. Apartheid reigned for decades. The multiple scars it created are still visible. Mugabe forges ahead denying the existence of all the obscenities that everyone else can see. The ethnic cleansing done in the Balkans is a clear example that no continent is exempt from perpetrators of human rights violations. Saudi Arabia and other fundamentalist states prop the fig leaf with barrels of oil to make people forget the harshness of their regimes. They say that they respect the declaration but only after they eliminate the first two letter of the word “human”.
The list goes on.
Now a movement is afoot to enshrine in the Declaration a crime most hideous i.e. abortion. The killing of the innocent should, according to them, be considered as a basic human right. What perversion! One hopes that this despicable initiative will be resisted by all means.
Indictment of relativism
But can we take the position that the abuses that are made discredit the Declaration or make it superfluous? Let us take the example of the Ten Commandments as comparison. Am I right in guessing that these have been breached on the odd occasions by some people at some occasion? The cynic can say that they were jotted down to be broken and that such an indication was given by Moses himself while the scalpel’s incisions were still fresh. (Tongue safely out of cheek and so I can write on.) Are the commandments rendered less valid because of these transgressions? I definitely don’t think so. They still set a standard and give a direction. Most do their utmost to follow them in their daily doings. Human fragility being what it is most of us err from time to time.
Similar things can be said about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
But there is another argument which I think can be made and is very valid in our contemporary culture. The Declaration gives the lie to the contemporary dogma of dogmas i.e. moral relativism. Such relativists say that every human being is a law unto oneself. They say that there are no universally recognized principles to guide our moral behaviour. Relativists add that my truth is as valid as your truth and that what I feel is good is in fact good for me – and who are you to say something to the contrary.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights shows that this is not true. It clearly manifests that for the men and women of our generation there are several things which are universally acceptable and there are several things which are universally to be condemned. A number of things are considered to be good while their neglect or outright refusal is considered to be bad. In our pluralistic and relativistic culture the Declaration is providing us with a common set of moral values that all countries subscribe too.
We can speak of crimes against humanity only if we believe in principles and rights which are considered to be universally valid. Those who break such principles do so at their own expense. This can take the form of ones pangs of conscience. It can also take a judicial sanction. It is true that retribution is not always possible and that many get away with their doings. But that’s besides the point that I am making. Their actions are still considered to be vile and wrong.
The Declaration is therefore valid indeed.
The role of the Church
The Church lagged behind in accepting a developed theology of human rights as part of its official teaching. We had to wait till 1963 when Pope John XXIII published the encyclical letter Pacem in Terris. Since then the Church, in many countries, became a strong defender of human rights. In several parts of the world it was and still is the main defender of human rights. Poland, Latin America, Zimbabwe, the Philippines are just few examples.
Pope Benedict’s visit to the United Nations earlier this year celebrates the validity of this declaration and the Church’s commitment.
On December 10, in the Vatican the Pope again praised the document for being "a convergence of different religious and cultural traditions." He also noted that "the rights recognized and expounded in the declaration apply to everyone by virtue of the common origin of the person, who remains the high point of God's creative design for the world and for history."
But as the Pope said, the declaration will remain fragile if its ethical and divine origins are ignored.
As The Tablet editorially noted this week:
“Many secularists, while favouring human rights in practice, have had difficulty describing a non-religious philosophical foundation for them.”
On the other hand the Church “can supply the necessary doctrinal leaven to the human rights dough, to the great advantage of the common good.”
Till next time I wish you all good bye and good luck.
PS. The Universal Declaration can be accessed from http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
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Comments
It seems that my suspicion was well founded. Your use of the word "judging" was not in the sense of putting God on trial but on an understandable human endeavour to understand the true nature of God - even though you had decided a priori that we do not need Him or the Bible!
To each according to his taste!
So there you go these are written in our hearts. But I agree with you that the RCchurch has removed scriptures and rewrote them to suite their needs the Bibles states that who ever remove or add to these words will not have his name written in the book of life,
Deuteronomy 4:2, You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.
Proverbs 30:6 Do not add to His words, Lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar.
Revelation 22:19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
Lets continue with the 10 comands the 2nd one that the RCC has removed
I agree with you here, Religion has brought nothing but destruction to this world ! WHY ?
Cause religion is men made, based on only some of the truth from the Bible itself!
GOD is NOT a religion God is a Spirit so it is about Spirituality not a men made religion. We have to honor God in spiritual way not in a religious way. There so much prove that the Holy Bible is an infallible word of God, if one does not use the Bible as his manual book of his life he will end up in error, yes many has Abused the Bible in so many ways and so many Christians has died for their faith cause they believed in the Bible the infallible word of God!
Now talking about morals saying to remove the Bible and God out of the concept i find that one is only fooling himself cause the Lord has said in Hebrews 10:16 ...... Continue......
@ Ramon Casha
Sorry for the late reply but I was at a Christian, ah Roman Catholic wedding.
In which Bible does Jesus say that 'divorce is ok, at least in cases of marital infidelity'? Mt 19:8 He said to them, “It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the 'beginning it was not so.'” Does the Greek in the text 'me epi porneia' mean “marital infidelity”? Since you seem to be quite the exegete, kindly elaborate on this text. Methinks you are doing the picking and the choosing...This is better than the DeMille example I am sure :)
Your argument is flawed for it is not the Church in Malta does not allow divorce, for it is the Roman Catholic Church worldwide that does not allow it. I think that the basic problem with vociferous secularists such as yourself is that ironically you fail to make the distinction between Church and State. In my mind they are two distinct bodies and as a Christian I live quite comfortably in both for the Church is in the world and not out of it. I am a human being, not an angel.
Show us where and when have practicing Christians ever judged God, what was their verdict , did they absolve God or did they find Him guilty of anything and if so what was the punishment they inflicted on Him? Please realise that my question is purely hypothetical and intended only to convince your readers that you have no inkling of just how outrageously unfounded and how blasphemous are your comments about the "judging" of God by Christians.
You have no idea whatsoever of the correct modern interpretation of the Old Testament in relation with its authors, their time, the people to whom it was addressed and to subsequent generations who seek genuine enlightenment in the light of the New Testament and modern exegesis. You do not seem to be able to understand Victoria Grech's extensive comment and I lack her patience to become involved with someone who shows no genuine inclination to acquire proper knowledge and a correct evaluation of a bible for which you "have no need".
I do not appoint myself as a spokesman for Christians. I'm merely describing what they do. Yes, I certainly do understand what I'm saying. There are parts of the Bible which are an embarrassment to Christians. They won't admit it - of course not! But they do demonstrate this by skipping certain chapters from the Bible, or changing the translations to fit their beliefs.
Why doesn't the church emphasise the sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter as a burnt offering - a human sacrifice - to God? What about the Midianites: men, women and boys slaughtered and virgin girls kept as slaves by God's orders? Could it be that the church judged these chapters of the Bible to be too immoral to teach? On the other hand, Jesus allows divorce in Matt 19:9, but the Catholic church judged divorce to be always immoral and therefore changed the translations from "fornication" (Douay-Rheims) to "illicit marriage" (new Jerusalem) to match their teachings. Note that both are Catholic translations.
Yes, that is called judging.
I did not mention The Ten Commandments "as an example of the Church's pick-and-choose mentality", but that of Christians in general, because all Christians do it. It's inevitable really- with the Bible being so open to interpretation you have no choice but to choose among those interpretations using your own mind. The Catholic church justifies this by using its doctrine of tradition to supplement the Bible. Other denominations have other means.
Here's an explicitly Catholic example: Did you know that, in the Bible, Jesus says that divorce is ok, at least in cases of marital infidelity? How come the church in Malta today does not make that allowance? And where did the idea of annulments come from? Certainly not the Bible. Pick and choose.
Please make up your mind whether you should take pride in being acclaimed as "the most Catholic amongst us" or whether Catholicism is only "crap"! You seem to be be enjoying quite a lot of freedom, and not "discrimination in this Catholic only country" judging by your ready access to freedom of expression of your derogatory vitriol.
You started by proclaiming that God is "judged" by intellect and the "non-religious" sense of right and wrong - check it out for yourself. Now you appoint yourself as an authoritative spokesman for all Christians and escalate your outrageous presumption that human beings "judge" God by gratuitously attributing that blasphemous judgement to all Christians.
Are you sure that you fully understand what it means to "judge" God?
Mentioning The Ten Commandments (1956) as an example of the Church's pick-and-choose mentality is a bit stretched for I haven't read anywhere that Pius XII directed or produced it or any one else from his pontificate for that matter. The Ten Commandments was made by Cecil B DeMille, one of the giants of Hollywood whose only intention was not to educate the masses but to entertain them...He had violence aplenty in the script and he wanted a hint of sex too. Now since Moses' wife couldn't be depicted as a sexpot, he had to resort to other means.
This film has never been endorsed by the Church as a good education tool, if you will. Have a look at the Vatican Film List drawn up by the Pontifical Commission for Social Communication. What you find there will probably surprise you...not least a film by a known Marxist and a practising homosexual, Pasolini, who made the most wonderful film called The Gospel According to Matthew.
The complete list can be found here:
http://www.decentfilms.com/sections/articles/vaticanfilmlist.html
One might be correct to think that ‘conscience’ is the sole realm of the Church. This might be because it occurs so many times in the NT (syn-eidēsis) which literally means ‘knowing-with’. But it originated in Greek philosophy’s identification of the experience of self-awareness in the forming of moral judgements. The Roman Stoic, Seneca, wrote that the moral experience is that of a ‘sacred spirit seated within us, an observer and guardian of good and evil in us’ (Epist. 41,1). In the 5th century BC it meant a consciousness of one’s bad behaviour. The Greek term seems by NT times to have become one of the popular everyday usage, perhaps not unlike the way in which some of the technical terms in psychology have today acquired common, if simplified currency.
The Latin literal translation, conscientia, became equally common in ethical literature and usage, especially in Seneca and Cicero, who attributed considerable force to conscience, both in dispelling fear in those who have done nothing wrong and in presenting a continual sanction to those who have perpetrated some offence.
In Pauline usage, conscience is viewed as a possession of all men by which they evaluate the moral worth of their behaviour in the light of their beliefs, appearing at times in his writings, sometimes as witness for the prosecution and at other times as witness for the defence (cf. Rom, 2,15; 9,1; 2 Cor. 1, 12-13).
Sometimes it is mistaken, sometimes corrupted, sometimes good and sometimes weak or wavering. For Paul, syn-eidēsis is the centre of the soul where choices are worked out and responsibilities undertaken. Jerome used another and more rare Greek term ‘syntērēsis’ to refer to the ‘scintilla’ or spark of conscience, a power still flickering in man even after sin. In a typical attempt to do justice to both authorities, later theologians applied the Pauline term to the actual exercise, or judgment of conscience, while reserving the Jerome term for the idea of conscience as an innate permanent capacity in man or woman, in the light he makes his judgements. Aquinas made quite the contribution but I’ll leave it for another post…
Part Three
I think that at its best the issue is about the exercise of moral responsibility and about the extent to which an individual moral subject may surrender the responsibility which he or she experiences as personal and in some respects, unique, and abdicate it to be discharged for him by another claiming such authority.
It was Sir Thomas More, in the Tower of London, who said that he would not pin his soul at another’s man’s back. Where, then, does hierarchical Magisterium find its place in such considerations? Is dissent from non-fallible teaching a morally legitimate option for a member of the Church? There are 3 possible answers: The short answer is, yes. A less short answer is, yes but. And the long answer is, yes provided that certain conditions are adequately fulfilled. And the far point of all these answers is not just that even a mistaken conscience must be obeyed, or that to act from invincible ignorance is not something for which one can be held morally guilty.
For the believer, the ultimate theological point of these answers is that in dissenting one may very well be correct, even although in thus going against Church teaching one is undertaking a serious risk of being wrong. That risk, and responsibility for it, have to be assessed and weighed against counter-claims if any other competing personal responsibilities in the religious solitariness of a man’s or woman’s heart, where he or she is ultimately, as Vatican II taught, ‘alone with God’ (Gaudium et Spes, 16).
[This post was lengthy...I have been away from this blog for a bit and I needed to stretch my legs ;) ] Now where's my buddy Kenneth Cassar?
Actually, I'm saying that we ALL depend on our sense of good and evil, our conscience if you will, and that Christians judge God and the Bible based on it. That is why the morality of Christianity throughout history has changed so many times. The Bible is thick enough that it can provide verses to support just about any moral position you care to choose. Therefore, you (or your church) have to pick and choose which verses to use, and how to interpret them, making the Bible fit your beliefs in this matter. The example of the film The Ten Commandments is an example of this.
Presumptuous? Not at all. At least, no more presumptuous than a Christian who judges the Hindu god Ganesh, or the Greek god Zeus and thousands of other deities, and finds them wanting.
However wherever I have been, after people get to know me they tell me "You're the most Catholic amongst us" even though I don't believe in that crap. It's because I don't need any 'virtual supervisor' who I should be afraid of punishing me if I don't do what 'his messengers' say. No man, nature has provided me with a mind and I make the most out of it. Even if it costs me to suffer more discrimination than I already have in this 'Catholic only' country
Christian doctrine teaches that everyone has an innate sense of right and wrong that we call conscience, and this is not restricted only to those who believe in God and the Bible. Evidently, this innnate sense of right/wrong is could become corrupted by an individual's need to serve his own expediency. That is why no reasonable man would ever expect to be allowed to act as judge and jury in his own case. The practicing Christian has the comfort of an extraneous God for reassurance that impartial justice will be done.
You advocate that the individual should rely absolutely on his own "personal intellect and non-religious sense of right/wrong". You claim that you do not need God or the Bible and, as if that is not outrageous enough, you arrogate to yourself a right to "judge God and the Bible"!
Pardon me, but don't you feel a trifle presumptuous?
Ah, but who gets to decide what is the correct interpretation of the Bible - which is correct use and which is abuse? You say the Bible was abused, but those people who used the Bible in this way thought they were giving it the correct interpretation. These included past Popes, as well as Protestant leaders from various churches. Ultimately, we are applying OUR OWN sense of morality, and then using verses from the Bible to support that position. If the Bible were so clear and explicit, there wouldn't be so many wildly contradictory interpretations derived from it.
I am reminded of Cecil B.DeMille's "The Ten Commandments". He was apparently so uncomfortable with the idea of God repeatedly hardening Pharaoh's heart and then punishing him along with all the Egyptians for having a hard heart, that he invented a new character (a woman of course) and made HER take the blame for hardening Pharaoh's heart instead of God.
We are using our own intellect, and our own non-religious sense of right and wrong to judge God and the Bible. I say we don't need to use the Bible or God at all.
I suggest you rather write: The Bible has been ABUSED to justify ,,, ... ..."
Here's another example of moral relativism coming from none other than the church. Most people will agree that bombing a city and killing all its civilians is wrong. Killing thousands of people by drowning them is wrong. Yet these, and many other acts are described as good simply because the Bible says that God did them. Isn't that moral relativism?
How can the church, using the Bible as a reference, provide any doctrinal support to any concept of human rights? Even if one does not believe these stories to be literal, what they stand for is still reprehensible. This kind of blind devotion to the bible as a source of morality led many people to commit atrocities. The Bible has been used to justify slavery, kill Jews, launch wars and many other "crimes against humanity".
I think we're better off leaving religion out of it, to be quite honest.
But, to go back to moral relativism... Morality IS relative. The things that we consider good or bad here and now, are not the same as they were in Malta a century ago, nor are they the same as today in Osaka, Japan. Some things are relatively universal - such as murder being immoral - while others are not, such as whether two men or two women should be allowed to marry. Not a long time ago, the idea of a white person marrying a black person was thought of as wrong. Today it's the opposite - it's wrong to OPPOSE such a marriage.
Completely false!! The foundation for that can be purely social and/or biological! Evolutionary Biology/psychology have made quite compelling arguments that leave little space for the supernatural. I think it is quite obvious that we can all profit from the declaration of 'human rights' as individuals. We're getting a good return from it. I don t really need a religious justification to show me that (for example) respecting life and property can have a positive effect on me. This quote comes from a religious establishment trying hard to justify its existence. The religious know that they have to struggle more to convince people that magic really exists. Religion may still have a philosophical contribution to make but I feel that aspects of philosophy are crumbling in the face of huge steps forward made in neurology and other science fields that seek to explain the human condition by first explaining what makes us tick. This is just my humble opinion anyway.
What do others think?