By DONALD DeMARCO
The notions of inheritance and transmission are, in a certain sense, opposites. Inheritance, such as our biological endowment, comes to us naturally and without any effort on our part. But what we inherit is undeveloped. The great lessons of history that we would like to transmit to the next generation represent highly developed accomplishments. Nonetheless, benefiting from them requires a great deal of personal effort.
The incompleteness of inheritance was sharply expressed by novelist John Updike when he remarked: “The dwelling places of Europe have an air of inheritance, or cumulative possession — a hive occupied by generations of bees.” We want to be more than bees living in a hive; we want to be fully developed human beings. On the other hand it is only too well known that you can lead a student to knowledge, but you cannot make him think. What is transmitted may neither be received nor respected.
“Be thou perfect as you heavenly father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48) is a command to become a fully developed human being while, at the same time, accepting the transmission of the Gospel. The Christian is commanded to develop his God-given, inherited talents, in accordance with the His eternal Word.
The most appropriate situation in which inheritance and the transmission of values occurs is within the family. After completing their monumental 11-volume work on The Story of Civilization (published between 1935 and 1975), Will and Ariel Durant reflected upon their nearly lifelong study of human history in The Lessons of History. In this work, they offer a rather touching statement concerning the importance of transmission the best that civilization has to offer:
“If a man is fortunate he will, before he dies, gather up as much as he can of his civilized heritage and transmit it to his children.”
One is impressed by the sheer body of work produced by the Durants. Millions have read their books and have profited by them. And yet, as Christians, we can supplement their advice by adding that the transmission of the faith along with the hope that our children and grandchildren will accept and live by it is more important than simply handing down remnants of our civilized heritage.
The central paradox of our secular society is that while people believe uncritically in progress, they can find no evidence to support their belief. In fact, they find an abundance of evidence to the contrary. We cannot rest on our inheritance. We must labor to convert potency into act.
We cannot assume that the transmission of wisdom from one generation to the next will be successful. When people think of progress, they think that the word applies to society in general, whereas it really applies only to individuals in particular.
There is progress in medicine. This, however, is a technical triumph.
But is it progress in the hands of those who use it to abort the preborn, or euthanize the elderly? There is progress in the field of communication. But is it progress when it delivers propaganda and pornography? There is progress in the means of transportation. But is it progress when highways are choked with traffic, pollution contaminates the environment, and fatalities yearly number in the thousands? Has progress produced what Henry Miller has described as “an air-conditioned nightmare”?
Science has produced nuclear energy, but also the atomic bomb. Progress in science remains ambiguous until it is given the right moral direction by the individual person.
True progress, therefore, exists on the moral, not the material level. Five-star general Omar Bradley stated the matter well when he remarked: “We have men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.”
In their book, The Lessons of History, the Durants point out one lesson we should not ignore: “There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.”
With regard to the arts, we wonder if there has been any progress at all. Has the modern world produced better playwrights than Shakespeare, better composers than Beethoven, better sculptors than Michelangelo, better philosophers than Aquinas, better poets than Dante, or better painters than Da Vinci?
Art has a moral component that science does not have. Science develops through reason; art develops through mysterious forces that do not negate reason, but rise above it.
The widespread myth that progress is worldwide and applies to everyone is pernicious. By assuming that material progress alone equates with moral progress is to deaden the moral instincts and morally regress. It assumes that all we need to do is inherit the various lines of material progress and do nothing more. Such complacency can be found in the self-righteous individuals who believe that “now” is better than “before,” “today” is better than “yesterday.”
Hence, the vilification of traditionalists as “old fogeys,” “old-fashioned,” or “troglodytes.” As a result, communication between one generation and another becomes extremely difficult, making the transmission of the best that history has to offer problematic.
Progress, in the most meaningful sense of the term, is a phenomenon not of society as a whole, but of the individual in particular. And its most likely venue is in the home where parents understand their vocation as transmitting the Gospel message to their children and at the same time, helping them to develop their natural inheritance. Here, transmission and inheritance come together in an atmosphere of love.
Progress is not the world’s most important product because the human being is not a product. “Be thou perfect as your heavenly father is perfect” remains the clearest and most reliable formula for the spiritual progress of the individual because it integrates inheritance and transmission with carefully directed spiritual development.
(Dr. Donald DeMarco is professor emeritus St. Jerome’s University and an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College. His latest book, Apostles of the Culture of Death, is available through amazon.com.)
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