Obama at Notre Dame and Christian Theology
by David Wagner
Voegelin understood well that so-called current events may or may not have something to do with the march of human existence in God, in Whom, as Paul proclaimed in the Athenian forum, "we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17: 28) Our freedom as rational creatures, however, makes it possible to reject the reality of the transcendent and follow a path away from the ground of divine being.
For Voegelin, the way to fully evaluate such events is not to simply sift current opinion, but to explore events utilizing the tools of history. We need the perspective that only time can give. While I agree with this whole-heartedly there are times when an event so distorts reality and manipulates truth that it cries out for the immediate restoration of order. I am not so arrogant as to suggest that I am in the business of restoring order, but when opportunities arise to recapture reality it can be useful to make a quick strike at falsehood. I sensed this opportunity during and after the commencement speech at Notre Dame yesterday and felt compelled at least to try to untangle a bit of the error knotted up by the President. Voegelin also pointed out that perpetrating falsehood is an easy project and untying it complicated. This is my small contribution to that task.
Obama the Kantian and "Common Ground"
There are so many problems with the President's speech that it is difficult to narrow one's analysis, the problem being that his foundation is what I would call a Kantian destruction of ethics though the relegation of God to the sidelines of our own creation. His foundation is also one stolen from Cardinal Bernadine in the name of "Common Ground," a movement spearheaded by the late Cardinal to bring all the supposed disparate elements of the faith under one tent.
Sounding good, it ended up being, instead of a tent to shelter all, a barrel just for those who rejected Church teaching on matters of morals and faith. With this foundation, Obama's relativism shines through in all he spoke of, the first being abortion through his recollection of a response to a concerned physician who questioned the candidate's abortion position. Candidate Obama responded:
After I read the doctor's letter, I wrote back to him and I thanked him. And I didn't change my underlying position, but I did tell my staff to change the words on my website....Because when we do that-when we open up our hearts and our minds to those who may not think precisely like we do or believe precisely what we believe-that's when we discover at least the possibility of common ground. That's when we begin to say, maybe we won't agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this heart-wrenching decision for any woman is not made casually; it has both moral and spiritual dimensions.
Obama denies the nature of abortion
This demonstrates Obama's brilliant technique of dismissing opposing views while appearing to accept the person. For the President, the change on his website is the symbol that represents his own notion of accepting reality instead of true acceptance which can only be done in the tension between the soul and the divine ground of being, i.e., in Christ. The heart-wrenching decision he speaks of is only difficult because in order to make it, one must disengage from the divine and make the ultimate egophanic revolt in destroying a life, using the mystery of death and the temporal "good" that comes of it to promote one's self in the world. To see the damage of choosing oneself over God, ask a priest to tell of hearing confessions of women in their sixties, seventies and eighties, and there are many, who have had abortions and have carried it on their soul, separated from God, for half a century or more. Rejecting God is the truly heart-wrenching, freely chosen human act.
The possibility of "common ground" that the President speaks of can be reached only if some reject the truth. The greatest evils can be perpetrated when individuals come to common ground or agreement on how to proceed. Nazi Germany and its political religion need only be mentioned.
Obama both offers salvation and alters the "substance of Hope"
The President also creates a false reality in which he can be the leader of the "salvation movement" instead of God. This is made clear when he tells the graduates their obligation as gods: "Your generation must decide how to save God's creation from a changing climate that threatens to destroy it." We are the saviors, He is the leader of the saviors and as mentioned above, there is no truth that we must or even can follow. What logically follows is this whopper—a theologically perverse claim making it clear why in his reality we must become gods:
And in this world of competing claims about what is right and what is true...remember that the ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt. It's the belief in things not seen.... And this doubt should not push us away our faith. But it should humble us.... And within our vast democracy, this doubt should remind us even as we cling to our faith to persuade through reason, through an appeal whenever we can to universal rather than parochial principles, and most of all through an abiding example of good works and charity and kindness and service that moves hearts and minds.
Faith does not admit doubt. Far from it, faith eliminates doubt, is the substance of things hoped for (Heb. 11:1 upostasis pragmaton translated in the Vulgate as sperandorum substantia), and offers us understanding of the creation of the world from and through God's word. Obama then takes his doubts and resolves them through reason in a democracy where truth is promoted in external works and preserved by "well-intentioned people with brilliant minds and mastery of the facts."
Benedict XVI comments in his recent book, Jesus of Nazareth, that the gospels are not informative but performative. They shape our relationship with the person of Christ who is the Logos of God; they are not just facts that tell us the roadmap of human existence.
Furthermore, universal principles are to be used, Obama tells us, but only "whenever we can"—leaving all the important truths of human existence to be relegated to the realm of opinion and self-definition. When I mentioned Obama's mischaracterizations of faith to a colleague, he replied that "we knew what he meant," suggesting that Obama meant that doubt is resolved through faith and we live in hope for our eternal life. But the President didn't say that, nor did he imply it. Instead he told us that "even as we cling to our faith" we should put our "parochial principles" aside. No thank you, Mr. President. The truth is much too precious to be set aside so we can rationalize error and call it common ground. 
[David Wagner is an administrator and adjunct professor at Ave Maria School of Law. He holds degrees from The Ohio State University, The University of Dallas, The Pontifical College of St. Thomas Aquinas (Rome) and Ave Maria School of Law.]
