I once attended a non-Catholic Church that was long on religious enthusiasm, but short on common sense. The Church had been swept up in a charismatic revival that emphasized vigorous displays of emotion. In that larger movement, there were outbursts that sometimes appeared quite neurotic. Folks would roll on the floor, howl like dogs, cry, bark, and weep. (I’m not kidding about the animal noises.) To the participants, I suppose it was somehow cathartic. To an outsider, it was very alienating and hardly edifying. It certainly wasn’t a spirituality easily translated into family life or the workplace.
This kind of thing is not uncommon in religious history. There is a constant temptation to separate spirituality from the concrete demands of daily life. For people suffering this temptation, “spiritual” always means “otherworldly” or strange. Catholic writer Ronald Knox treated the history of this affliction in his famous book Enthusiasm. He identified the error as “ultrasupernaturalism,” or the determination to separate oneself into a kind of super spiritual clique. At root, Knox said, was the wrong doctrine of grace. The enthusiast believes that grace destroys nature instead of perfecting it.
The emotional enthusiast is not the only one who can fall into this error. We find it also in the legalist, who forgets that “the Sabbath is made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27) We also find it in the Gnostic, who forgets that “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” (1 Corinthians 8:1) It’s a danger that Pope Francis speaks against frequently, especially in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium. The Pope warns against an “ostentatious preoccupation” with the forms of religion that would nevertheless ignore the concrete needs of the human person.
But fear of “enthusiasm” should not blind us to the opposite danger. If religion can sometimes become divorced from the demands of nature, there is also a temptation to overvalue nature at the expense of grace. The most obvious form of this is pure secularism or the rejection of all religion as mere “fanaticism.” There are also more subtle forms of naturalism. Many people now describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” They think they don’t need help from religious teachers, sacraments, or a community of faith. There are others who accept religious practice, but think it merely a “beautiful symbol.” They see religion only as a way to enlist people in the task of renewing the social or ecological order.
The naturalist seeks redemption within. He does not believe we need a supernatural grace that comes to us “from outside.” The enthusiast accepts the supernatural, but denies that grace can really salvage nature. He wants to escape into his esoteric experience. Against each of these errors, we find the wisdom of Catholic tradition.
The truth is that is we desperately need grace not to escape the human condition, but to restore it to its proper order and beauty. In the words of St. Thomas: “Grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it.” Through grace, we come to share in Christ’s selfless, supernatural love. But that love fosters the growth of our merely human perfections. Consider the demands of family life, for instance. Love for my wife and children may call me to do very human acts of service, like relearning Algebra to help a struggling math student. Do you see how grace demands that I not ignore nature?
But nature also demands that I not ignore grace. A man can have all his ducks in a row. He can have impeccable taste, and worldly polish, perhaps even fair-dealing and honesty. He may be remarkable for his achievements. Nevertheless, his life is devoid of the transcendent. His vision is entirely of the human realm. He can give nothing to him whose heart is restless because it has not come to rest in God. To illustrate, the late atheist writer Christopher Hitchens had some human virtues. He was intelligent, witty, and had a keen eye for hypocrisy and posturing. Furthermore, he used to boast that he could do any good deed without the crutch of religion. But there was one good deed he could never do. He could never give transcendent hope.
As Catholics, our ultimate goal is the life of heaven. We can only get there with supernatural grace. But that grace is not at odds with the good of nature. In fact, it positively requires it. We must strive for every human perfection, of the natural as well as the supernatural order. That is the wisdom of Catholic tradition. In the words of St. Peter,
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:5-7)