Ideas and Actions | Fr. James V. Schall, SJ | CWR
The wars of the world are first fought in the minds and hearts of the wise before they ever reach visible reality; when they do arrive, the ones who suffer most are the weak
“So many past controversies between Christians can be overcome when we put aside all polemical or apologetic approaches, and seek instead to grasp more firmly what unites us, namely, our call to share in the mystery of the Father’s love revealed to us by the Son through the Holy Spirit. Christian unity—we are convinced—will not be the fruit of subtle theoretical discussions in which each party tries to convince the other of the soundness of their opinions. When the Son of Man comes He will find us still discussing!”
— Pope Francis, Vespers, Closing of Christian Unity Week, January 25, 2015.
“'Many are the strange chances of the world,’ said Mithrandir, ‘and help oft shall come from the hands of the weak when the Wise falter.’”
— J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion
“While ideas are indeed important, a history of ideas is far from being always a history of good ideas. Good ideas may easily be lost sight of, whether willfully or by lack of publicity. It was as true in the past as it is in the present, not only that bad ideas drive out good, but that the fortune of ideas themselves is apparently often a matter of chance….”
— John M. Rist, Augustine Deformed (Cambridge, 2014)
I.
Few titles have been more tellingly cited than that of Richard Weaver’s 1948 book Ideas Have Consequences. One could reverse that title with equal force to read: “Consequences result from ideas.” In this view, ideas—far from being vague, inert, neutral concepts—are the main forces in the world for stability or change, for good or bad. Yet, ideas fall in the order of “formal” causality, not “efficient” causality. That is, ideas only indicate a “what”. As such, they do not have any effect on the world unless someone decides to put them into operation.
Ideas have consequences only when they become that which some agent decides to put into effect. Someone must cause them to become the form or design of an actual deed or action. This view does not deny that all existing things implicitly have a “form” or “intelligibility” that establishes what they are. This intelligibility is what the human mind seeks to know about things outside of itself.
Beyond or outside of action in the contemplative or intellectual order, a “war” or lively examination of ideas does occur. This sorting out of the meaning of ideas takes place regarding the truth of things. As such, in the order of thought, it does not much matter whether or not anyone decides to put any particular idea into effect. This rumination about the validity and content of ideas is what the life of the mind is about. Though books are written about it and lectures given, this war of ideas is essentially invisible, lodged in the souls of those who think them.
What subsequently goes on in the visible world has its origin in the interplay of ideas that previously took place often centuries ago or in distant places. To assess the import of ideas, we need to be educated. We need a sound grounding in philosophy itself both because of our inner desire to know the truth and because we seek to know what ideas are false and dangerous so that we do not set them inadvertently loose in the world. It is true, as philosopher John Rist indicated, that bad ideas can drive out good ideas. Yet all bad or erroneous ideas are presented as if they are true. We cannot escape the effort to distinguish what is true from what is not.
The motto of the Dominican Order—Contemplata Tradere—carries a similar notion. We can only teach or “hand over” what we have first reflected on in our own souls. Both false and true ideas can be given existence, can be taught, can be thought about, can be put into effect. The contemplative side, the actual pondering of what ideas mean, recognizes that one of the major sources of the what is done in the world is always an idea, even a bad idea. Too, we should not confuse an idea with our will or our passions that incite us to take an idea outside of ourselves and put into the world in some form or other.
We are beings who cannot be explained only by our reason, but also by our wills, the immediate object of which are indeed our ideas, which in turn have some relation to what is, to what is not our intellects. An idea remains what it is no matter what will or desire is the impulse that puts it into existence. Once in existence, it has its own life as an idea now embodied in a thing, in an act, a habit or custom, or an institution.
II.
How do we arrive at good ideas to carry into effect?
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