Light is Right Joe Campbell
“Don’t call it sin,” he declared, and proposed that, to describe someone’s immoral behaviour, I write objectively disordered.
Preserve us from word-watchers, I thought. His lecture was a reminder of how much verbal clutter irritates me. Oh, I understand why he complained. I just don’t understand why he thought it necessary.
It wouldn’t bother him if I wrote that certain acts are wrong. It would bother him immensely if I wrote or implied that certain actors are culpable. Fair enough. It would bother me, too. I know the difference between deeds and dispositions. I learned it in elementary school catechesis.
For acts to be mortally sinful, for example, they must not only be gravely immoral, but performed with full knowledge and deliberate consent. That is, the acts must be objectively disordered and the actors subjectively at fault. Outside observers can judge the acts but not the actors.
What my word-watcher overlooked, however, is that sin is not limited to a single meaning. It can refer to disordered acts alone, material sin, or when perpetrated by culpable actors, formal sin. When ethicists say that pride is the most serious deadly sin, they intend the material. When the Church teaches that all are sinners, it intends the formal.
There should be little, if any, difficulty distinguishing between the two, especially when writing for the Christian press. For the sake of brevity, a cardinal virtue of uncluttered prose, writers should feel no compunction calling immoral acts sins or the actors sinners. Properly catechized readers know that to be culpable, the actors have to fulfill the subjective conditions.
So, when I first heard it, the periodically popular song “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie” seemed beyond reproach. Which is fortunate, because it’s really difficult trying to sing “Be sure it’s true when you say I love you. It’s objectively disordered to tell a lie.” I don’t even want to think about having to alter King Lear’s “I am a man more sinned against than sinning.”
But while it should go without saying that to be held accountable for objective evil, perpetrators must be subjectively complicit, there’s more. Although we can’t assume their subjective guilt, we can nevertheless recognize that their salvation may be at risk. They are, after all, sinning materially. What’s more, failings like negligence in forming their conscience, willful ignorance, hardness of heart, or courting the occasions of sin can lead to their sinning formally.
So, while we can’t judge them subjectively complicit and guilty, neither can we deem them invincibly ignorant and innocent. That’s one reason we ought to discourage their objectively disordered acts. Another is that the acts alone can cause untold evil. Who can tell the evil of abortion among those who innocently believe killing their unborn children is a moral choice?
In my experience, most word-watchers decry our being judgmental only if we deem someone evil. They’re slow to do it if we deem someone good. But if we can only judge acts, not actors, how can we deem anyone good? For all we know, the motives for doing good may be evil.
This puts into question tributes, commendations, citations, accolades, plaudits, salutations, encomiums, panegyrics, ovations, acclamations, cheers, and applause. It especially puts into question obituaries and eulogies, most of which suggest that only the saintly die.
Lest this tempt my word-watcher to propose more verbal clutter, I should point out that, like sin, good is not limited to a single meaning. It can refer to objectively ordered acts by subjectively righteous actors, or to the acts alone. When the Catholic Church teaches that saints are heroically good, it intends the broader meaning. When ethicists say that helping the poor is socially good, they intend the narrower one.
So, we should be able to acclaim objectively ordered acts without saying or implying that the actors are subjectively meritorious. If, for example, our community honours its philanthropists for their monetary support, we can acknowledge that their gifts are good. We can even recognize that the givers are good in the narrower meaning of the word. We just shouldn’t assume or imply that they’re virtuous.
Moreover, if it goes without saying that good can refer to actions alone, we needn’t revise the jazz standard “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” Which is a relief, because it would be really awkward trying to sing, “Give him plenty of lovin’, treat him right, for an objectively ordered man is hard to find.”
