On Rash Judgments:
(A Lenten Reflection -Part IV)

It helps in the Lenten season for folks to reflect more on themselves and their particular tendencies to better get a grasp of where improvement is needed spiritually as well as otherwise. The purpose of this reflection is to consider the subject of rash judgment. It was very briefly handled in a reflection from last year but this year, I want to go into the matter in more depth. For this is a problem not infrequent among people in general but it has particular currency among folks who consider themselves More Faithful Than Thou. Often these sorts of folks can be just as bad in this area (if not worse!) than many of those they would presume to lecture on matters of ethics and morality. This is the fourth and final part of the series. To start at the beginning, please go HERE. Without further ado...

We do not necessarily judge because we see or are conscious of something wrong. Rash judgment always presupposes something that is not clear, in spite of which we condemn another. It is not wrong to have doubts concerning a neighbour, but we ought to be very watchful lest even our doubts or suspicions be rash and hasty.

A malicious person seeing Jacob kiss Rachel at the well-side, {Gen xxix,11} or Rebecca accepting jewels from Eleazer, {Gen xxiv,22} a stranger, might have suspected them of levity, though falsely and unreasonably. If an action is in itself indifferent, it is a rash suspicion to imagine that it means evil, unless there is strong circumstantial evidence to prove such to be the case. And it is a rash judgment when we draw condemnatory inferences from an action which may be blameless.

Those who keep careful watch over their conscience are not often liable to form rash judgments, for just as when the clouds lower the bees make for the shelter of their hive, so really good people shrink back into themselves, and refuse to be mixed up with the clouds and fogs of their neighbour's questionable doings, and rather than meddle with others, they consecrate their energies on their own improvement and good resolutions.

No surer sign of an unprofitable life than when people give way to censoriousness and inquisitiveness into the lives of other men. Of course exception must be made as to those who are responsible for others, whether in family or public life;--to all such it becomes a matter of conscience to watch over the conduct of their fellows. Let them fulfil their duty lovingly, and let them also give heed to restrain themselves within the bounds of that duty.

"One From the Vault" Dept.

The following is a flashback to the archives of this website{1} from 2004...

[W]e need to start respecting the Constitution in reality and not just the abstract. I have a few quick proposals for going a significant way towards doing this:

---Abolish permanently the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974.

---Abolish permanently the modern rider option in congressional legislation methodology and replace it with the approach I will go over next.

---Enact a law that inserts into every budget proposal and program a sunset provision. The points of sunset can be staggered to some extent so the entire wheel is not reinvented at once. However, in every presidential cycle all budget items or federal programs should have to come up for renewal at least once. My proposed point for this is of course the midterm elections. (That way, turnout will be higher and of course it will keep our officials honest.)

And if the representatives do not do the latter, then we the people need to start the Constitutional Amendment process. In fact, maybe we need to start it from the ground up here. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa January 20, 2004)]

Note:

{1} It bears noting in brief that there are a couple of viewpoint in the above flashback thread where I have changed my position in the sixteen odd years since that thread was published. (They are not however in the excerpted material above.)

Pradheep J. Shanker
@Neoavatara

1. I hate this in theory. 

2. I don't see any other option.

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12:11 PM · Mar 17, 2020

On Rash Judgments:
(A Lenten Reflection -Part III)

It helps in the Lenten season for folks to reflect more on themselves and their particular tendencies to better get a grasp of where improvement is needed spiritually as well as otherwise. The purpose of this reflection is to consider the subject of rash judgment. It was very briefly handled in a reflection from last year but this year, I want to go into the matter in more depth. For this is a problem not infrequent among people in general but it has particular currency among folks who consider themselves More Faithful Than Thou. Often these sorts of folks can be just as bad in this area (if not worse!) than many of those they would presume to lecture on matters of ethics and morality. This is the third of a four part series. To start at the beginning, please go HERE. Without further ado...

If your affections are warm and tender, your judgment will not be harsh; if they are loving, your judgment will be the same. Holy Scripture offers us three striking illustrations. Isaac, when in the Land of Gerar, gave out that Rebecca was his sister, but when Abimelech saw their familiarity, he at once concluded that she was his wife. {Gen xxvi} A malicious mind would rather have supposed that there was some unlawful connection between them, but Abimelech took the most charitable view of the case that was possible. And so ought we always to judge our neighbour as charitably as may be; and if his actions are many-sided, we should accept the best.

Again, when S. Joseph found that the Blessed Virgin was with child, {S. Matthew i} knowing her to be pure and holy, he could not believe that there was any sin in her, and he left all judgment to God, although there was strong presumptive evidence on which to condemn her. And the Holy Spirit speaks of S. Joseph as "a just man." When a just man cannot see any excuse for what is done by a person in whose general worth he believes, he still refrains from judging him, and leaves all to God's Judgment.

Again, our Crucified Saviour, while He could not wholly ignore the sin of those who Crucified Him, yet made what excuse He might for them, pleading their ignorance. (8) And so when we cannot find any excuse for sin, let us at least claim what compassion we may for it, and impute it to the least damaging motives we can find, as ignorance or infirmity.

Are we never, then, to judge our neighbour? you ask. Never, my child. It is God Who judges criminals brought before a court of law. He uses magistrates to convey His sentence to us; they are His interpreters, and have only to proclaim His law. If they go beyond this, and are led by their own passions, then they do themselves judge, and for so doing they will be judged. It is forbidden to all men alike, as men, to judge one another.

To Be Continued...

On Rash Judgments:
(A Lenten Reflection -Part II)

It helps in the Lenten season for folks to reflect more on themselves and their particular tendencies to better get a grasp of where improvement is needed spiritually as well as otherwise. The purpose of this reflection is to consider the subject of rash judgment. It was very briefly handled in a reflection from last year but this year, I want to go into the matter in more depth. For this is a problem not infrequent among people in general but it has particular currency among folks who consider themselves More Faithful Than Thou. Often these sorts of folks can be just as bad in this area (if not worse!) than many of those they would presume to lecture on matters of ethics and morality. This is the second of a four part series. To start at the beginning, please go HERE. Without further ado...

[Some hearts] there are who are guilty of rash judgments less out of a bitter spirit than from pride, supposing to exalt their own credit by disparaging that of others. These are self-sufficient, presumptuous people, who stand so high in their own conceit that they despise all else as mean and worthless. It was the foolish Pharisee who said, "I am not as other men are." {S. Luke xviii,11}

Others, again, have not quite such overt pride, but rather a lurking little satisfaction in beholding what is wrong in others, in order to appreciate more fully what they believe to be their own superiority. This satisfaction is so well concealed, so nearly imperceptible, that it requires a clear sight to discover it, and those who experience it need that it be pointed out to them.

Some there are who seek to excuse and justify themselves to their own conscience, by assuming readily that others are guilty of the same faults, or as great ones, vainly imagining that the sin becomes less culpable when shared by many.

Others, again, give way to rash judgments merely because they take pleasure in a philosophic analysis and dissection of their neighbours' characters; and if by ill luck they chance now and then to be right, their presumption and love of criticism strengthens almost incurably.

Then there are people whose judgment is solely formed by inclination; who always think well of those they like, and ill of those they dislike. To this, however, there is one rare exception, which nevertheless we do sometimes meet, when an excessive love provokes a false judgment concerning its object; the hideous result of a diseased, faulty, restless affection, which is in fact jealousy; an evil passion capable, as everybody knows, of condemning others of perfidy and adultery upon the most trivial and fanciful ground. In like manner, fear, ambition, and other moral infirmities often tend largely to produce suspicion and rash judgments.

What remedy can we apply? They who drink the juice of the Ethiopian herb Ophiusa imagine that they see serpents and horrors everywhere; and those who drink deep of pride, envy, ambition, hatred, will see harm and shame in every one they look upon. The first can only be cured by drinking palm wine, and so I say of these latter,--Drink freely of the sacred wine of love, and it will cure you of the evil tempers which lead you to these perverse judgments. So far from seeking out that which is evil, Love dreads meeting with it, and when such meeting is unavoidable, she shuts her eyes at the first symptom, and then in her holy simplicity she questions whether it were not merely a fantastic shadow which crossed her path rather than sin itself.

Or if Love is forced to recognise the fact, she turns aside hastily, and strives to forget what she has seen. Of a truth, Love is the great healer of all ills, and of this above the rest. Everything looks yellow to a man that has the jaundice; and it is said that the only cure is through the soles of the feet. Most assuredly the sin of rash judgments is a spiritual jaundice, which makes everything look amiss to those who have it; and he who would be cured of this malady must not be content with applying remedies to his eyes or his intellect, he must attack it through the affections, which are as the soul's feet.

To Be Continued...