Loose Thinking And Lost Logic
By DONALD DeMARCO
Loose thinking occurs when more is attributed to a subject than what the subject contains. For example, the U.S. Constitution does not include any provision for justifying abortion or same-sex marriage. You cannot extract a liter of water from a bottle that contains only a pint.
Barack Obama offered us an excellent example of loose thinking when he defended the legalization of same-sex marriage by stating that it is about time that someone can marry the person he loves.
Marriage contains marital love, but not all forms of love. Love is far more inclusive than marriage. We can love our parents, siblings, children, and married friends, but we cannot marry them. Marriage demands love, but love does not demand marriage. If one’s belt is too loose, his pants will not stay up; if his reasoning is too loose, his arguments will not hold up. Loose talk starts rumors that are devoid of truth. A sound argument respects truth and is prepared to exclude what is irrelevant.
There is an art to loose thinking. If one cannot come up with a good argument to defend a position, he may use sheer rhetoric to take its place. Obama’s notion of marriage succeeded in convincing many of his supporters. When Edmund Burke stated that the “study of law sharpens the mind by narrowing it,” he was referring to the fact that the law involves only the things that are relevant. The law convicts the guilty, not the suspects.
Currently an altercation rages between members of the Toronto Catholic District School Board. The controversial issue centers on whether sexual orientation, gender identity, and family status (LGBTQ) should be added to the list of protected classes.
Michael Del Grande, a lone dissenter, maintained that the board has a responsibility to uphold Catholic moral teaching. He argued that if we continue to add things that are at odds with the Catholic Catechism, where do we stop? We will open ourselves to any number of immoralities, he stated, perhaps even “bestiality and vampirism.” His reductio ad absurdum backfired. His opponents did not see the logic behind his argument.
In addition, LGBTQ activists targeted Del Grande, making the complaint that his remarks, logical though they were, violated the Code of Conduct. In agreement with LGBTQ, but neither logic nor the Catholic Catechism, board members voted 8-1 (Del Grande was not allowed to vote) to censure and impose sanctions on him. Campaign Life Coalition commented on the fiasco that “this board is in open rebellion against the moral teaching of the Catholic Church.”
It is worth noting here what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about marriage, in n. 1604:
“God who created man out of love also calls him to love the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being. For man is created in the image and likeness of God who is himself love. Since God created him man and woman, their mutual love becomes an image of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man. It is good, very good, in the Creator’s eyes, and this love which God blesses is intended to be fruitful and to be realized in the common work of watching over creation: ‘and God blessed them, and God said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it”.’”
Getting back to the Toronto Catholic School Board: It illustrates a widespread problem that exists among “liberal” Catholics, one that may be characterized as featuring a combination of loose thinking with lost logic. The Catholic Catechism is relevant to everyone. Therefore, it is truly catholic. It does not, however, single out individuals who have a particular lifestyle. Nor does it single out people who belong to a certain profession, such as medicine, law, education, and so on.
If it accepted every lifestyle, it would have nothing to say. But it does have something to say, especially when it distinguishes between moral and immoral activities.
Loose thinking with regard to the Catholic Catechism aims at being broad-minded and inclusive to the point that contradicts what it should defend. Many Catholics who uphold Catholic teaching, such as Michael Del Grande, are now regarded as pariahs, roadblocks in the path of progress.
At the same time, Del Grande is contemplating launching defamation suits against those who have slandered him. Catholic trustees ought to be able to get along with each other without the need for legal action. One does not need to read the Catechism to understand that.
In his logically sensible book, The Day Is Now Far Spent, Robert Cardinal Sarah strongly rejects the notion that we can profit by affirming something that is not there: “If I say that two plus two makes five or four and a half, am I freer? Rather, I am more idiotic. Freedom is essentially connected to the truth.” I am not more free or more liberal or more broad-minded if I affirm something that is not grounded in truth. In fact, I would be living in a dream world.
Logic is for everyone, atheists as well as theists. Bertrand Russell was a resolute atheist, but a superb logician. If logic is contradicted, it is highly unlikely that something more complicated, such as the Catholic Catechism, will make any sense. In fact, when logic is violated, nothing makes any sense. Logic courses should be available at every Catholic institution of higher learning. A Catholic should be logical, in addition to being faithful.
But it is quite another thing to develop sufficient moral integrity to perform one’s duty as a member of a Catholic school board.
- + + (Dr. Donald DeMarco is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University, and adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College & Seminary. He is a regular columnist for the St. Austin Review. His latest five books are How to Navigate through Life; Apostles of the Culture of Life; Reflections on the Covid-10 Pandemic: A Search for Understanding; The War Against Civility (all posted on amazon.com), and A Moral Compass for a World in Confusion.)
