Why we must really know our faith

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant argued that the capacity to make choices about one’s life is central to the development of moral autonomy. In his famous statement, What is Enlightenment? (1784), he wrote: “It is so easy to be immature. If I have a book to serve as my understanding, a pastor to serve as my conscience, a physician to determine my diet for me, and so on, I need not exert myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay: others will readily undertake the irksome work for me.”
If we look closely, this is what our modern lives have become. We run to experts and gurus instead of taking moral responsibility about our choices. As far as Kant was concerned, it was preferable to make a wrong choice through the exercise of moral independence than to follow the “right” advice which one had not considered in a mature manner.

Kant argued that through the exercise of moral autonomy, people gain the experience that is necessary for maturity. An autonomous person is presumed to possess moral independence; in other words, to act with moral responsibility. Through the exercise of autonomy, people can develop their personality through assuming responsibility for their lives.

The cultivation of moral independence requires that people are free to deliberate and to come to their own conclusions about how best to live. Put differently, in St Irenaeus’ language, the glory of God is a human being fully alive.

Where the Ecclesia programme, which the archdiocese of Cape Town introduced this year, helps the most is in urging people to think about their faith; to consider and give reasons for the hope they hold. The unthinking faith has become an epidemic in the Catholic faith. This is why we find ourselves avoiding situations where we are challenged about our faith, thereby sometimes missing an opportunity to evangelise. The unbelievers have become not only shrewder but often much better informed than the faithful even on matters concerning our faith—because we regard our faith just as tradition or culture.

For Aristotle the central virtue was phronesis. Phronesis is difficult to translate into English. It generally means the capacity to exercise judgment in particular circumstances, but is more or less judgment with proper discretion. According to Aristotle, making judgments and choices is the precondition for virtuous behaviour. Telling a colleague or friend or relative something they don’t want to hear, for instance, may in some circumstances express the virtue of honesty, and in other circumstances spring from the vice of boasting. Discretion is paramount.

It is in the very act of making moral choices that we develop the virtue of phronesis. That is why judgment cannot be left to choice architects and gurus of our age who want to control every fibre of our thinking.

Phronesis is not something that can be outsourced to experts — it is a virtue that we need to learn and cultivate for ourselves. And it is, possibly, the single most important virtue when it comes to pursuing and conducting a good life, because it will not only guide your choices but those you make for those dependent on our judgement, like our children.

The serious problem with modern gurus, beyond the Pharisee tendencies (not practising what they preach), is a moral exhibitionism and levelling. Judgment with proper discretion means that we have to acknowledge that not all behaviour is morally on the same level, that sometimes genuine criticism is required. And not all opinions are equal; in fact, the opinion most worth disseminating is the informed one, based on experience and learning.

As the faithful, we cannot be part of moral relativism just because we don’t want to offend. That’s living by the standards of the world; worse still, that’s following wrong fads of misled modern gurus with their fake generosity of spirit that levels everything at the expense of Christ-like values.

We must guard ourselves from the sicknesses of our age, and this can only be done by exploring the meaning of faith.