Second Sight

So that’s that then. Stephen Hawking has assured us that the laws of physics are sufficient to explain the universe we live in – and that we have no need to posit the possibility of God. His book, The Grand Design, will be published on September 9.

This is neither the time nor the place to focus on the detail of his arguments, and no doubt plenty of description will be forthcoming in the popular press and elsewhere. I want to focus initially on one remark he makes: “philosophy is dead.”

Bang goes the wisdom of two and a half millennia. But philosophy is not only not dead, it was never needed as much as it is now. One of the most important tasks in philosophy is to ensure that the right questions are asked and that the arguments which proceed stand up to rigorous examination. No wonder Hawking would like philosophy to be dead because he is wrong on both counts.

The drive of Hawking’s approach is that the theory, or rather the family of theories, he espouses leads to the possibility of 10 to the power of 500 different universes (try that on your calculator and watch it explode). Thus the extraordinary fine-tuning required for a universe which would eventually be able to support human life is not evidence for a designer God; it has in fact come about by chance. Since our universe is, by definition, the only one we can experience, we are fooled into thinking that it is the only one which exists, or has existed.

M theory, as it is known, is highly controversial within the scientific community; indeed there are eminent names who claim that it cannot properly be called a scientific theory at all. The idea of multiverses to explain the fine-tuning has been known as the “last refuge of the agnostic”. But let us assume that it is true, that there is an infinity of universes, and that our universe is an inevitable result of chance at work – where does that get us?

First, we are reminded of the theory of evolution. We have no difficulty in reconciling our belief in God as creator with evolution in which myriads of tiny chances, inevitably filtered by fitness to survive, develop into higher forms of life. God is not some sort of inventive superman who performs in the same sort of way as we do – but at an infinitely higher level. He transcends the universe; his creative action is utterly beyond our ken. If we use terms like “designer” it is only because the human mind and human vocabulary has no further reach. Our descriptions are only useful if we always bear in mind their gross inadequacy.

Similarly, if all the physical laws had been explained and proved (known as the Grand Theory of Everything) – which is a million miles from the case – our understanding of the actions of God would not be one whit greater: his existence and his actions are of a different order.

Most particularly it would not touch the question of how something existing comes out from nothing. That is a question which science cannot answer, and will never answer, because nothingness is not within its domain. Hawking apparently does not address this question – which is the true and ultimate Theory of Everything. But what philosophy can teach us is that neither he, nor you, nor I will ever explain creation, except through faith.

It is over two years since I wrote in general terms about the concept of the natural law (July 4 2008) but some recent correspondence in this paper suggests that there are certain aspects which could profitably be revisited. I have in mind, simply as examples, letters from Simon Reilly and Hugh Dwan (July 30).

Mr Reilly tells us that, being written in the heart of man, natural law is not subject to change and is self-evident. This, as a broad statement, is unexceptionable but, without refinement, it can lead to misunderstanding – and so wrong inferences. While it is certainly true of the major principles such as that the good should be done and evil avoided, that injustice is wrong, that moral principles are universally applicable – and so on, it is not so when judging the application of the more detailed tenets.

Since such tenets are derived from the circumstances of human nature, change is always possible. For example, the human reproductive system evolved to favour frequent pregnancies to cope with high early mortality. Such fertility would now be unsustainable, so natural family planning, which would formerly have been condemned, has become virtuous. Similarly, our relatively recent ability to donate a kidney to someone in need is seen as an act of love and not prohibited “mutilation”, as our earlier understanding would have judged it.

A second factor can be new knowledge. And, in the 19th century – when the microscope corrected our Aristotelean understanding of conception – the moral status of early abortion was changed correspondingly. Nowadays we realise at an increasing depth the interfusion between the psychological and biological elements in the human being. In the light of this knowledge we can see the potential inadequacy of absolute moral dicta based on biological phenomena. We might note, as a minor example of this approach, that one may, in justified cases, deceive but that telling an actual lie is held, “by its very nature”, to be always wrong because it violates the purpose of speech.

This is not to suggest that the inferences which may be drawn from the biological nature of human acts are irrelevant to natural law decisions, but rather that they should be part of the evidence to be weighed rather than the final arbiter.

That such tenets are not always self-evident can be illustrated by many examples. So I just choose some well-known ones.

It was not evident to the Church that everyone had a natural law right to freedom of religious conscience and practice. So Vatican II and the teaching of John XXIII corrected a misapprehension of centuries. And corrected it so effectively that Pope John Paul was able to say, with a straight face, that the Holy See “has always been vigorous in defending freedom of conscience and religious liberty”. I imagine that the odd heretic raised a singed eyebrow at that.

Slavery, which Pope John Paul condemned as intrinsically evil, was condoned throughout most of the Church’s history. And, if I remind you of the long history of the castration of youths for the sake of the glory of God and the Sistine choir, it is only to exemplify how some natural law applications have been far from self-evident.

We are very aware of the outstanding contemporary example of widespread episcopal collusion favouring the interests of the abuser over the rights of the abused. In rightly condemning corrupt individual priests and nuns we may forget that the real scandal lies in the institutionalised blindness to the duty owed to the victims.

Which brings me to Mr Dwan’s reminder that Pope Paul claimed that “no member of the faithful could deny the Church’s competence in her Magisterium to interpret the natural moral law”. Leaving aside what Karl Rahner described as the “many doctrines which were once universally held but have proved to be problematic or erroneous”, we are still left with analysing what is meant by interpreting the natural moral law.

For the Magisterium to elucidate and witness to the natural law and its applications in particular circumstances is of course an invaluable service. But it differs in kind from its authoritative teaching based on revelation and tradition. Since natural law is patent to reason, such interpretations must equally be patent to reason and, like any legal body interpreting a law, the reasons for any conclusions should be given. Of course an inconclusive natural law argument may well be paralleled or supplemented by Revelation or by some other factor to which the Church has privileged access – but this is not, by definition, a discernment of natural law through reason.

A straightforward example is provided by monogamous marriage. While natural law strongly supports the concept, it is accepted that reason could allow polygamy in certain unusual circumstances. Moses was not condemned for permitting it among the Jews, yet Jesus makes it clear that it was not God’s intention for the human race – clarifying the divine will through revelation.

The principles here, if not my examples, are of course related to Aquinas, whose teachings on the natural law have been seminal both in Christian and secular thinking. I would encourage anyone who wishes to look into the question more deeply to start with him and then proceed to the Catechism, in which natural law has several references. It is particularly valuable on the relationship of natural law to the divine law and also on the ease with which sin and habit can cloud our grasp of what the natural law demands. Perhaps the missing element here is that it does not clarify that sin and habit can cloud the vision of institutions as well as individuals.

Lots of opportunity to argue about this one…

Imagine that you are watching a short video clip in which you are asked to count how many times a particular incident occurs. Easy enough. But now imagine that at one point someone in a gorilla suit walks across the screen and looks you straight in the eye. Would you notice it? Apparently around half the watchers don’t. This exercise has been carried out dozens of times, using people of different psychological profiles, and the results are always approximately the same.

The reason lies in our faculty for filtering out information which may distract us from the task in hand - in this case focusing on the incidents that have to be counted. It is easy to recognise the value of this focusing faculty. Many years ago, when the children were babies, I developed the capacity to sleep straight through their noises at night. On the grounds of my inability to breastfeed I took the view that this was their mother’s work. Typical man, you might say. But when my wife had to be away for a few days, my hearing became so acute that I could be woken by the slightest undue noise from the nursery.
So we are reminded that all our experiences are ultimately subjective. What we notice, what we remember: what we decide is mediated to us through various filters. We may have the impression that we are looking at reality but in truth we are only looking at what our mind, tutored by our innate disposition, our lifetime experiences and our chosen focuses is able to recognise.

We know about some of the irrational influences which affect us. For example, I am aware that we tend to attribute virtue to physically attractive people. But how many juries, who are less likely to convict an attractive person, and to award them higher damages, are aware of the injustice they perpetrate? And they are unlikely to be aware of how easy it is for a police interrogator to turn a witness’s uncertain and tentative evidence into sworn certainty (and genuinely experienced as such) by the time they reach the box.

What is your attitude towards money? You may range from keeping good reserves towards a rainy day to spending the maximum (or more) as soon as you hear the coins clink. You may think that your approach is rational and well thought-out. But it could depend on whether your are inclined to optimism or pessimism, or on earlier experiences - particularly as a child. And your spouse may take a different view: does that make for balance or antagonism?

No doubt many readers will have interviewed candidates for a job. How likely are you to make a good judgment of your applicant’s success? We must suppose it will be reasonably sound, or why interview? In fact on a scale from zero (completely random) to 10 (always right), the average correct judgment was between one and two.

There is strong evidence that most interview decisions are made within the first five minutes, and any contrary evidence is, like the gorilla, simply ignored. You will see tall people as more authoritative (and this can be effective throughout a whole career). A BBC accent will be seen as a sign of competence in one culture, and as a sign of effete impracticality in another. In many areas of industry a beard can be a problem; they will use your brains but the boardroom is a step too far for such eccentricity. The biggest quality to bring as a candidate is to be likeable to the interviewer. Provided that you have the essential qualifications that will be the decisive factor.
Of course, the interviewers may have been rather thick. But Professor Eysenk persuaded the matron at a London teaching hospital to give up interviewing, and to select senior nurses simply on paper evidence of the necessary (high) qualifications and proven work record. Her selection accuracy went up substantially. Overwhelming evidence shows that selection interviews are actually counterproductive. Of course no one believes that, but it remains true.

How do you judge risk? If I asked you to rate the safety of say bicycling, flying, walking, car, or train in order of deaths per mile travelled you might well get the order right. But you might not know that walking and cycling are about the same risk (about a third of the risk of motorcycling). The car risk is less than a tenth of the cycling risk but 25 times the risk of the train; and the air risk is so low that it practically falls off the chart. We are likely to be influenced by publicity given to big incidents, and certainly by our own experience or that of people close to us. Just driving past an accident, ambulance and all, may make us more careful. But none of this affects the actual probabilities. I break off at this point to nip out to visit my wife in hospital, remembering that, measured by deaths, hospital beds are a dangerous environment.

And I am back, reflecting on the dangers of unconscious factors in our decisions. I could have filled several columns with further, well-investigated, examples. I believe profoundly in free will but how can I judge that I am free in any specific decision? As it happens I have kept records of such studies over some 20 years, and wrote a book largely devoted to them. So it is likely that I know more about the effects of our unconscious on our freedom than most people have had the opportunity to study. And I am still foxed.

What effect does this have on our quest of virtue or for our capacity for sin? How well trained are our spiritual adviser or our confessors in such matters? Share your ideas with us.

In a recent column (June 4) and a feature article (May 28) I discussed two remarkable scientific advances: the creation of synthetic life and the unwrapping of the Neanderthal genome. Is it too tempting to look at the two together and ask whether it would be possible to reconstruct a synthetic Neanderthal?

But before I come to that we will benefit from looking at some of the reflections on synthetic life from people of standing, who have now had a little time to contemplate what has happened.

Have we really mastered the creation of artificial life? This first example required the injection of synthetically built DNA into a natural bacterium from which the native DNA had been removed. So the result was a hybrid of natural and synthetic elements. But the second and subsequent generations were  a response to the synthetic DNA’s instructions. So it was wholly synthetic but had required a “live” ancestor.

Opinions vary but I would hold that to create artificial life all the elements must have been combined from scratch. But, either way, no philosophical or religious difficulty is involved, provided that we are not considering intelligent life. Scientists may or may not succeed, but that is another question. Understanding the nature of God’s creative act is above my pay grade (and yours); we only know that it is infinitely different from any human activity. We have to make do with the thin milk of metaphor - and with never forgetting the limitations of that.

Back to making our Neanderthal. I don’t think we should hold our breath awaiting the event. It would be an immensely complex task, with no obvious commercial advantage. But scientists will try - there is no stopping their curiosity. Currently we only have 60 per cent of the Neanderthal genome to work from and even if that percentage increased we would have to combine it with human cells. The resulting hybrid might turn out to be a very strange creature. Undoubtedly it would be condemned as an unlawful breach of the dignity of human nature - but the theological status of the living result would be interesting to discern.

Presumably our reconstructed Neanderthal blastocyst would be implanted in a human womb and would grow up in a human culture. Once born we would be immediately aware of his stocky frame and heavy brow ridges. And, given that the later Neanderthals may well have adapted their own culture through imitating their human cousins, it might be difficult to distinguish innate characteristics from learned ones.

We could expect him to be able to master the simple language needed for cooperative activity, but we do not know how far he could get beyond that. His grasp of abstract or symbolic ideas might remain elementary. And he might be deficient in ingenuity or capacity to explore new ideas. He could no doubt be steered away from cannibalism, to which some of his brothers appear to have been inclined. But we would expect him to value the dead and to look to an afterlife. In many ways he would resemble early modern humans, but lacking the capacity for adaptation to new circumstances which was the key to our continuing development. These speculations are based on characteristics which are inferred from fossil remains, and would explain why Neanderthals made slower progress than early man.

A mite more practical than developing a Neanderthal would be to unearth more recent DNA - say Charles Darwin, or Shakespeare. And to use that to produce a twin sibling of identical genius. But perhaps on a shorter horizon, and with no ethical problems, we might succeed in creating woolly mammoth by using an enucleated elephant’s egg.

These bizarre and uncertain possibilities remind us that the truly important fact here is the skill which is being developed in the deliberate creation of new forms of life, and to do so through the copying of complete or partial DNA which can be used to change characteristics across species. People have been rightly concerned about genetically modified crops, but I think there is a growing understanding that these can solve certain problems under certain conditions - although a high degree of care required. But it is a further step to move from developing a better form of, say, wheat to developing an artificial new species. A further step again is required when the move is into the animal kingdom, and a huge jump when it comes to man.

A great deal of concern has been expressed about the danger of these gene manipulations escaping into the outside world. Various precautions ensuring that the organisms are built with fail-safe characteristics have been considered. But there is huge money in developing the techniques and plenty of regimes happy to ignore international law. While it is relatively difficult to develop a nuclear bomb in private, it is easy to conceal work on the development of synthetic life when it is performed in a small laboratory. Even the information published so far is sufficient to help scientists down a track which has now been proved feasible.

If we add to that the capacity for this new life to breed at a geometric rate, and to evolve through mutations into forms we cannot visualise now, the hazards are very great indeed.

You might like to review some of these opinions at Edge.org . Track down to “The Reality Club” May 10 , where you will also read the remark by Freeman Dyson, the veteran distinguished physicist: “I feel sure of only one conclusion. The ability to design and create new forms of life marks a turning-point in the history of our species and our planet.”

You may have some views on whetherthe genetic modification of our species would be a great advance or a great disaster.

I wonder who would make the best patron saint for the Science and Faith column. The first candidate who springs to my mind is Thomas Aquinas (13th century). And I have several good reasons for this.

I like his instinctive refusal to accept establishment ideas lying down; his objective was the truth. While he was expected to become an abbot to swell his family’s coffers, he joined the Dominicans – an order taking a vow of poverty. He was even kidnapped by his relatives, but succeeding in escaping.

Both the Dominican and Fransiscan, mendicant orders, were very unpopular with a church which had become fat and comfortable in its position of power and profitable revenue. Not only was Thomas frequently attacked during his life, he was condemned after his death – although this was corrected before long.

Intellectually he was something of a rebel. Much of the philosophy and the theology of his time was NeoPlatonist. That is, it focussed on the ideals of mystical perfection, and regarded the world as very second rate. But Thomas was not afraid of taking a pagan philosopher, Aristotle, as his starting point. Much truth, he believed, could be learnt from studying the realities of this world, because it was a fundamentally rational example of God’s work. What we knew from Revelation would then deepen and complete the picture.

He welcomed the work of recent non Christian philosophers – Islamicists like Avicenna and Averroës, and the great Jewish philosopher, Maimonides. Indeed he referred to Averroës simply as “The commentator” – because of his superb commentaries on Aristotle.

But I reserve my highest admiration for the methodology of his work. The scholastic approach was characterised by adversarial debate. You proceeded by pitching different points of view against each other, and seeing which view survived the test. Thomas developed this to its highest form. Typically he would start by presenting the very strongest arguments  against the position he held. And he had to do this genuinely, giving himself the least quarter. He would explain his points, giving full reasons. Finally, he would take the objections one by one and demonstrate their inadequacy.

But you can see what I mean by Googling Summa Theologica, and reading for yourself. It’s challenging and stimulating reading. Dip where you like.

In his early day, his teacher Albertus Magnus said: ”We call him the dumb ox, but in his teaching he will one day produce such a bellowing that it will be heard throughout the world.”

Finally, right at the end of his life, he reported that he had had a vision. He had been shown that everything he had written (over 8 million words) was so much straw. He was not told that his teaching was untrue – merely that it has fallen infinitely short of the full reality of truth.

On this blog we would not dare to compete with Aquinas, but we can share his readiness to question establishment positions, if that is where truth seems to lead. We do believe that good science leads us towards the wonder of God and not away. We are enthusiastic to look at contributions from any quarter - Catholic or otherwise. We are set up in such a way that objections and debate are strongly encouraged. And our friend Advocatus Diaboli is growling in the wings if he feels we aren’t being tough enough on ourselves. But withal, we acknowledge that however hard we try we shall always fall short of the truth that we seek

I wonder whether you agree that Thomas Aquinas is a good patron saint for us. And perhaps you have some sub patron saints to add. I look forward to your suggestions.

It did not take the Hitchens-Dawkins suggestion that the Pope should be clapped in irons on his arrival in Britain to remind us that the secular humanist contingent should be treated as a group of eccentrics whom we should welcome as adding to the general variety of life. Their intellectual basis is, as Jeremy Bentham said in another context, such “nonsense on stilts”that we would assume that they were indulging in some arch sport were it not for their evident earnestness.

In any dialogue I like to open up with the suggestion that they have no sense of morality. This of course is a feint: they tend to have a very strong sense of morality - which they use fulsomely to praise their own virtues and to condemn the vices introduced by religion. So the next question is to ask them to explain the basis of their moral sense. Naturally they have a ready answer: evolution.

This approach takes the general form that human beings, like a number of lower species, can only prosper through a willingness to co-operate. While the basis is to ensure the survival of genes in the close and extended family it also applies in a general way to our whole community. And the rivalry between competing communities (war) is a negative support for this whole concept of evolved altruism.

The argument is attractive if only because we have good reason to judge it to be broadly true. Its only drawback is that is does not address the question of moral sense. To behave “virtuously” at the behest of our evolved genes is no more a matter of morality than any other genetic effect. If it so happens that I have inherited a gene which leads me to slaughter everyone with red hair, I can hardly be blamed for that. And the same can be said for other influences - perhaps poor upbringing or peer pressure - which I have received. While a myriad of external factors may contribute causally to my behaviour (and does), these cannot be the whole story if it is to explain moral sense.

An extension of this thinking is often proposed as the reason for the evolution of religion. Historically and currently (see Northern Ireland) religion has identified the group to which we owe altruism versus the groups we are right to oppose. But, at least as importantly, religion is a way of codifying societal values and enforcing them with sanctions which transcend the secular.

But recent work (Pyysiainen and Hauser, Cell Press 2010, February 9) suggests that “we evolved moral intuitions about norm-consistent, and inconsistent actions, and thus, intuitive judgments of right and wrong”. Religion would then be a by-product of this, enabling codifying and enforcement. Since Catholics have always held that the sense that the good ought to be done and the evil avoided is natural to rational man, who also possesses a native ability to recognise the fundamental content of morality (natural law), this does not come as a surprise.

The concept of a “moral intuition”, or as it is put elsewhere “pre-existing cognitive function”, has no useful meaning. So, in the interests of charity, we must offer what help we can. And to do so we must work in terms to which the scientific mind can relate.

My starting assumption is that we all share a moral sense, and so are able to approve or disapprove of actions either of ours or of others. Those who do not claim this are not our concern. (It would save confusion if, having denied its existence, they dropped any claim to moral judgment.)

We must then ask what characteristics would be necessary provide a rational basis for moral sense. In this I follow, as an example, a subatomic physicist whose equation tells him that a hitherto unknown particle is required. His first task is to designate what characteristics it must have to solve the equation.

In the case of moral judgment the first requirement is freedom of will. Without freedom, approval or otherwise is otiose. This does not mean that we are not strongly influenced, and in some cases psychologically compelled, to choose a course of action but that we are in at least some cases free to make a choice, and therefore to take responsibility. Freedom is a difficult concept for the scientific secularist because it denotes uncaused activity; and science has no interstice to fit that.

And if there is a choice there must be a chooser. While this might seem obvious, many senior neurologists hold the view that we have just a biological brain, with a corresponding body, and nothing more. The term “self” is just a convenient way of expressing how our wholly natural brains think. It is not quite clear to me who or what it is which is able to make a judgment that there is no self, since there is presumably no self to do so. But we can safely leave our humanist friends to explain that.

The remaining characteristic is the provision of a reason why we should follow our sense of moral obligation in those cases when to do so is clearly against our own interests. Since this cannot be wholly caused, directly or indirectly, without losing the character of being moral, our recognition of the good, and our obligation to follow it, must originate from outside ourselves.

While a further analysis would lead one towards the concept of love and a transcendent God whose nature is goodness, it is usually enough to leave the secular humanist with the simple realisation that his fundamental position contains an inherent contradiction. His claimed devotion to truth should lead him towards revision. But don’t hold your breath.

The topic of obedience is very much in the air, so it may be valuable to consider some of the principles involved.

First, I would remind you of the Milgram experiments. You may recall that they established that a big majority of normal, decent people were prepared to administer extremely painful, and dangerous, electric shocks to innocent strangers at the behest of an ostensible authority figure. The outcome was so surprising that the experiments were replicated again and again, and with different groups, but - with insignificant variations - produced the same results. Further, recent, work has been done on this, and it confirms the earlier findings.

From an evolutionary aspect we should expect this. In order that groups can operate effectively it is important that the majority should instinctively defer to the leader. The alternative is anarchy, and the eventual destruction of the group.

But Catholics are immediately faced with an apparent clash. First, we are enjoined by Christ himself to be obedient to God. But since God’s will is coterminous with truth this is not a problem. The difficulty may arise when God’s will is mediated through the Magisterium. Here we have to distinguish between an infallible teaching (always remembering the demanding conditions which limit the scope of infallibility) and other teachings which, though varying in their emphasis, are not infallible. Or, if you dislike double negatives, are fallible.

Such rulings carry great authority from the mandate of Christ. Those who wish to disagree with such teachings (and their practical consequences in moral matters) accept the burden of proof. That is, they must have made every prayerful effort to understand and agree with the teaching.

And only in those very few instances where they are morally certain that the teaching conflicts with the law of love may they be disobedient. Indeed they must be disobedient because we are obliged to follow our properly formed consciences. Many will recognise this principle from Newman’s Letter to the Duke of Norfolk.

Nevertheless, there have been a number of occasions (although relatively few in the context of 2,000 years) when the Magisterium’s fallible, but authoritative, teachings have been erroneous, and needed correction. The heavens did not fall. In these cases it might have been a better witness if Catholics had expressed vocal and actual disobedience, although, for a variety of reasons, this did not occur. Apart from the heavy, and sometimes mortal, sanctions for disobedience, the senior clergy on the whole were educated, and the laity were not. That is no longer the case.

Bishop O’Donoghue (Report, July 3) has raised the issue by rightly citing the teaching on artificial contraception as the “litmus test” of obedience to the Church. The prohibition is in theory derived through reason from the natural law, but the derivation remains unproven. Therefore it is a fallible moral teaching, allowing of no exceptions, which cannot be based on reason but only on authority. And obedience or disobedience potentially has serious moral consequences. Thus it makes an excellent, and rather precise, “litmus test” of obedience.

I have distinguished in this column between the Magisterium and the Church, because it is the Magisterium which teaches and the community of the Church, clergy and laity, which believes. It is clear that the community of the Church as a whole does not believe in this teaching and, on the best evidence available, this includes 43 per cent of parochial priests (with a further 19 per cent “don’t knows”) in England and Wales. I cannot speak for the bishops (about whose lack of support Bishop O’Donoghue complains) but since they (and all the clergy) have sworn on oath to uphold even the fallible teaching of the Magisterium we do not know.

But there is a clue. At least five cardinals are recorded as arguing the possibility that condoms might be permitted as the lesser evil for lawfully married couples who are infected with HIV/Aids. They would claim that this is not to question the general ruling against artificial contraception. The claim is odd, for no intention whatsoever can justify an act which is intrinsically evil, and Humanae Vitae emphasises, with italics, that “any use whatsoever of marriage must retain its natural potential to create human life”. But the Holy See, to whom this controversial and, literally, vital matter has been referred, has delayed an answer for four years. It would be interesting to know the reason.

I am not giving a personal opinion on the doctrinal question (nor indeed is this newspaper). I am merely taking the example which Bishop O’Donoghue raised, and the observable facts which surround it. My focus is on the general principles of obedience which it illustrates.

Since we know that we have an instinctive, apparently genetic, tendency to obedience - a tendency which has in many, secular, historical examples led to the greatest evil, we need to arm ourselves if we are to retain or promote our full humanity.

First, we must ask whether the authority concerned is properly constituted and not merely claimed. Second, we should be clear about the degree of authority being invoked.

Third, we should be sure that the obligation imposed is just and reasonable, both in itself and in its consequences.

And finally we must decide which side we take when there is a clash between truth (as perceived through a formed conscience) and obedience. If truth wins we shall have preserved our universal vocation to live in the image and likeness of God.

As for myself, I try to commit one act of harmless disobedience a day, just to keep my instincts at bay and my muscles in trim.

*    *    *

You may have some comments to make on my theme. Perhaps I am advocating anarchy, or encouraging people to pick and choose. Or you might like to add some additional examples.

In my occasional columns examining ways in which we discern right and wrong I have looked at deontology, which sets out by “rule” that certain actions are permitted, and others forbidden, and utilitarianism, which is judged on the consequences of an action. Here I want to look at an approach which I find most attractive: virtue ethics.

The focus of deontology and utilitarianism is on acts - are they right or wrong? The focus of virtue ethics is on the actor: what sort of person is he and what sort of person should he strive to become? Most of the discussion and argument about moral matters centres on specific decisions: we can easily forget that our first duty is to be moral people. In fact the whole emphasis of Jesus’ message is that we focus on our faith in him, and work to become as perfect as his father. We not only have to be virtuous, we are required, as our constant vocation, to develop virtue.

St Thomas said that all moral issues can be reduced to the consideration of virtues. If we are virtuous, we do virtuous things, and doing virtuous things strengthens our state of virtue. Virtues might be described as deep habitual dispositions which are expressed in how we lead our lives. As the Catechism puts it: “The virtuous man is he who freely practises the good.” (See 1803 ff. for a description of the virtues.) This approach is natural and acceptable to us, because good parents use it to bring up their children well. We are less concerned with children’s immediate actions in themselves but rather because they enable us to watch and guide what sort of people they are growing up to be.

A virtue of particular interest is practical moral judgment. We sometimes call it prudence (a somewhat misleading word). It is known as the “charioteer” of the virtues because it addresses our judgment in the practice of virtue in general and particular circumstances. It enables us to recognise the salient moral aspects of a situation, and to achieve the best balance in both the short and long term. Aristotle (whose writings on the virtues have been, and remain, highly influential) tells us that it can only be fully developed through experience. So we do not expect it to be well-developed in children or even in adolescents. And, interestingly, we now know that, irrespective of levels of IQ, the adolescent brain has not yet developed its full capacity for emotional control, mature judgment and sensitivity to the long term consequences of actions.

The outcome of the development of virtue was known to Aristotle as eudaimonia, best translated as “flourishing”. It cannot properly be described as happiness because happiness is ephemeral or may result from unworthy causes - giving rise to unworthy actions. Rather it means living up to the full nature of a human being, as a human being. Similarly an elephant has its own eudaimonia when it is fulfilling itself according to its elephant nature.

In our terms eudaimonia is achieved through living our lives according to human nature as God created and redeemed it, body and soul. And our flourishing grows as we grow in virtue.

While virtue ethics has recently grown in importance in the eyes of both Christian and agnostic philosophers, it also has opponents. Some suggest that it is selfish because it concentrates on the self. But this has little merit because it is clear that the practice of virtue leads to a spread of benefits. A basic aspect of human nature is that we are social people, and so our virtues lead us to respect others through such qualities as care, or truthfulness or keeping promises. This is of course explicit in the concept of loving our neighbour as ourselves.

A more substantial objection is that it does not deal with moral decisions or address the dilemmas in which we have to deal with conflicting courses of action. It may prepare us for this, but it offers no solutions.

I leave aside the thought that, in general, neither deontology nor utilitarianism have been notably successful here either. Instead I would refer to my column of 29 August 2008 in which I summarised the Pope’s view (as cardinal in 1991) on true conscience. He tells us that the starting point is our recollection of the moral truth inside all of us - but which we often stifle so that we can cling to the opinions which happen to suit us - and then claim conscience as our defence. He presents the moral law as taught by the Church not as a command but as an invitation. We are not being required to do things because the Church says so, but because, after listening to the Church, we may be ready to say so. (See Holding out for a hero, 28 August 08)

The connection with virtue ethics is clear. Our development in virtue prepares us to respond freely to this invitation. It enables us to see more deeply and clearly how the moral law relates to us as, we may hope, virtuous people. And the growth in our practical and moral judgment (prudence) not only guides us towards respecting the wisdom of the Church in its moral authority, but also to see how it may apply to the decisions we have to make. It is only the imprudent person who neglects to consider what the Church invites. And our autonomy remains unimpugned because, to repeat myself, all moral issues can be reduced to the consideration of virtues. Thus: “The virtuous man is he who freely practises the good.”

In your comments on this you might like to think whether virtue ethics really works as a guide to the moral life. Is it enough, as Juliana suggested in one comment, to ask ourselves: what would Jesus have done? How would it solve the exchange Malteser and I have had on the question of condoms and HIV? (The Pope was right, 26 March 09) Does it throw too much weight on our fallible consciences and not enough on the Church’s authority with regard to moral law? Can obedience ever cease to be a virtue and become a vice? Plenty of meat here.

Do human beings have a true moral sense or is their altruism merely the outcome of natural selection through the genes? This is a key question because we hold that a true moral sense is a faculty unique to human beings, a characteristic of the soul directly created by God.

First, some definitions. Altruism is our tendency to do good to each other, even when this is at a cost to ourselves. True moral sense is a recognition that the good ought to be done and that evil ought to be avoided, and, since we exercise true morality through free will, we may hold ourselves or others responsible for moral or immoral behaviour.

In practice articulate sceptics demonstrate a full-blown true moral sense because they expend a great deal of energy in condemning the Church, in its current or historical actions, for immoral behaviour. But in their theory they hold that altruism is simply an outcome of natural selection and therefore has no true moral content. This is of course a major inconsistency. While I have asked in many forums for an explanation of this inconsistency I find that the usual defence employed is to change the subject.

 Perhaps this was most frankly epitomised by Bertrand Russell: “I find myself in a dilemma. On the one hand I certainly want to condemn the Nazis’ behaviour towards the Jews as wrong in itself. On the other hand, my ethical theory does not allow me to say this.”

 There are a number of natural reasons for altruism. First is the “selfish gene” theory which argues that in many groupings from the primitive up to the human animal altruistic behaviour is beneficial to the welfare and continued success of the group. Thus the inheritance of genes for altruism is evolutionarily adaptive. Some theorists relate this to closeness of kin. Thus we care more for those who are closer to us genetically, and less for those who are more remote. So we are acting to preserve our genes. And a “halo” effect may include those with whom we have enough in common.

A second is self-protection: if I am altruistic towards you, you are likely to be altruistic towards me. Related to this is the fear that we may be punished by society for breaching its own code of altruism. Third, we get scientifically measurable pleasure from altruistic behaviour. When I had a full leg plaster cast I was aware of the sense of self satisfaction and the boost to self-image I was giving to people who helped me at very little cost to themselves; I was a walking (limping?) social service.

None of these causes for altruism produce true morality because they are all ultimately founded on self-preservation or personal benefit. We should of course be glad that altruism is well rooted in our evolved human nature, because it’s is hard to imagine living in a society without it. On the other hand it has a disadvantage: the more closely we are bonded to our own group, the more we are susceptible to opposing other groups whose interest differs from ours. Altruism and xenophobia are two sides of the same coin. Machiavelli recommended in The Prince that a powerful way of unifying your subjects was to create an external enemy. We have seen this at work in the Middle East and Northern Ireland in our own time, and in countless historical examples. Loving your enemies and doing good to those who hate you has no currency here.

 So what constitutes true morality? The first requirement is a rational intelligence capable of dealing with abstract thought. We do not require morality from those without this capacity either through youth or mental disability. We also need free will: we cannot be held responsible if we cannot make choices.

 These requirements are outside the sphere of science. It is impossible to demonstrate abstract thought scientifically without the use of abstract thought thus obliging us to assume what we are setting out to prove. Second, free will is by definition uncaused, and science is only equipped to deal with causes. Of course many factors, such as evolved altruism, innate characteristics and experience will play a part in choices and can be examined scientifically, but, unless we are ultimately free to make a choice for the good or the evil, true morality is not involved.

Since recognition that the good should be done and the evil avoided is innate in anyone who has the use of reason, it would be an error to suggest that an atheistic scientist, for instance, has no such sense. As St Paul puts it, those who do not have the law of God have what the law requires written in their hearts, to which their consciences bear witness. But they, and we, have a regrettable capacity to blunt our innate moral sense through bad habits, intellectual arrogance and self-indulgence. And often, ironically, we use conscience as our justification while forgetting the fundamental basis on which conscience rests.

The application of law in the detailed circumstances of our choices is a subject which I have often addressed in this column, and will do so again. But for now I will merely summarise, as Jesus did, with the love of God, and the love of neighbour. “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” 

So if you hear, read or see on television, in this Year of Darwin, the claim that our moral sense is no more than an altruism which has developed through genetic natural selection, just bear in mind that the author, however virtuous he may be, is talking bunkum.

But you may want to disagree, or add some extra points. Open for comment!

2009 will be the year of Charles Darwin. 12 February is the 200th anniversary of his birth, and his great book On the Origin of Species was published 150 years ago on 24th November. Festivals and symposia are already planned, and we may look forward to endless comment in the press.

We can see Darwin as the great liberator – freeing us from the superstitious burden of being created by God, and transporting us into the sunny uplands of scientific nirvana. In recent times, his theory of natural selection has become a proxy for a general view that the flora and fauna of the world have come about through biological causes, relegating the existence of God to a gratuitous hypothesis. 

On the other side of the divide is the theory of intelligent design in which God is the necessary agent intervening to a greater or less degree in the creation of the species. My purpose is to explain why this difference is born of a false dichotomy, and that neither approach conflicts, so long as our thinking is clear and we understand the limitations of each.

Evolution is an immensely complicated subject (and appears more complicated every day) but the principle is simple. In the process of reproduction many mutations occur. The great majority are harmful and so disappear. But a tiny number prove useful and give the species a small additional chance of survival in the existing environment. Those with this advantage are likely to breed more than those without, and so the advantage tends to accumulate. Over many thousands of generations, genetic mutations can result in substantial changes.

The story of the peppered moth is illustrative. Before the Industrial Revolution the light-coloured moths were camouflaged against the light-coloured trees, while the dark-coloured were an easy prey for birds. But as the tree trunks blackened through industrial pollution, the advantage switched to the dark-coloured version. And, with successive generations, the proportion of black moths increased greatly, at the expense of their lighter cousins. The survival of the fittest for the prevailing environment could be observed in action.

But this relatively minor alteration within a species is a long way from the development of the variety of complex species from the original basic life forms. And so we are right to call evolution a theory since there is no practical way in which all the missing links can be discovered. Nevertheless it is a very strong theory, supported by various different forms of complementary evidence – and recently much strengthened by deepening knowledge of DNA. Indeed this new knowledge is prompting science to explore supplementary ways through evolution may occur. There cannot be a proof, but the degree of plausibility is so high that those who discount the theory appear to be generally motivated by principle rather than by rigorous examination of the science.

Intelligent design always needs definition. The meaning can range from the literal 6-day account of Genesis to various levels of divine intervention in the evolutionary process in order to correct its course towards God’s ultimate ends. At the very least it cannot be disproved, and since satisfactory empirical evidence is not obtainable it is not a scientific issue.

Evolution in itself is a mindless process; it has no internal purpose. It works though filtered chance in which the random mutations of reproduction have to pass the test of enhancing, or at least not diminishing, the survival value of their host. One might compare it with a fisherman who uses a large meshed net. The fish that swim in are of random size but only those who pass the test of the mesh are caught. 

This makes evolution, as you would expect, untidy. So the bower bird builds a nest to attract a mate, but the nest is never used. The peacock has an unnecessarily large tail to prove his suitability as a father. We are prone to bad backs because we were not originally bipedal. The spermatic cord travels in a vulnerable circuitous loop because an ancestor had its gonads near its liver. All rather unintelligent, but because these systems work well enough they survive.

Naturally our interest is focussed on the human line. Although homo sapiens is genetically closer to the chimpanzee than the chimpanzee is to the gorilla, it did not spring into existence overnight. In fact our lines of descent diverged about 5 million years ago, and we have no evidence of any significant changes in the hominid line for the next 3 million years. Our own species is very new in evolutionary terms, appearing in Africa about 200,000 years ago. The small population (perhaps 10,000 to 50,000 individuals) began its emigration about 60,000 years ago. Neanderthals, our evolutionary cousins, spread somewhat earlier. Current evidence suggests that they sometimes lived alongside homo sapiens, and may have interbred to some degree. They declined for a variety of reasons. Fossil records suggest that they were skilled, innovative and may have had limited powers of speech.

Despite our genetic similarity to the chimpanzee (which is by no means the whole story for genes can express themselves differently and in different combinations) we are struck by the obvious differences. Our capacity for self consciousness, abstract thinking, freedom of the will, and our sense of moral obligation stand out. These faculties are not explicable through biology, although they necessarily work through the brain. For example, freewill cannot by definition be caused by the biological, and without freewill moral responsibility has no meaning.

 If I describe such faculties, as I do, as being infused by God I have no account to give about how this happened beyond the fact that the human brain must have evolved biologically into an instrument through which the faculties could work. I do not know whether Neanderthals, or other species earlier in the human line, had souls, but the evidence of intelligent activities suggests that we cannot rule this out.

If homo sapiens were purely the result of biological evolution the anthropologists would hold that descent from a single couple was extremely unlikely. But this would be irrelevant in the case of a soul infused by an act of God, who could have chosen monogenism or polygenism according to his purposes. What we do know is that we inherit a nature which is a blend of the biological and the spiritual, and that it is our inability to integrate our selfish, biological, elements with our aspirational, spiritual elements in which disorder lies.

So I do believe in intelligent design in the sense that God used evolution as his biological methodology. Whatever his reasons may have been, in human terms I recognise that the fisherman who uses a combination of the random tempered by the filter of the mesh has chosen a more economical method than picking out his fish by hand. But I need to remember that nothing, in the end, is random to God, who knows from all eternity the movement, and mutation of creation, right down to the most basic sub-nuclear particle. The outcome of evolution was known and intended in every detail from the beginning.

I also know that my spiritual faculties were created and given to me directly by God. I could not meaningfully claim truth for any proposition I have made if I were obliged to make it only through the biology of my brain. Biology could not give me a mind to judge the workings of my brain or my emotions. And I could not see how far I fall short of the life of love if biology were my only means of knowing that I should follow the good and avoid the evil. Moreover such faculties are not susceptible to evolution. For instance one either has free will or one has not: there is no halfway house.

So, as believers in a creator God, natural selection through evolution is not an obstacle but a fruitful way of exploring the wonderful way through which he most probably worked. Our celebration of Darwin’s anniversary year should be all the richer since we are able to see the methodology in its proper context.

I am aware that my account is simplistic. There is much more to say about the complexities of evolution, including some real difficulties raised by its critics. Or the part that a Catholic priest played in discovering the mechanism of inheritance. The integral intellectual connection of Darwinism to eugenics needs to be examined. The claim that the source of altruism is evolutionary advantage requires assessment. I would like to have written more about the myopic vision of the secular scientist. I would like to have looked more closely at our first ancestors and discussed the part that Original Sin played in our inheritance from them. I shall try to deal with some of this in my fortnightly Science and Faith column during the year. But I would be greatly helped by your comments and suggestions.