Oct 13, 2008
In my old age I have developed some new vices, the two worst being my bad habit of playing solitaire on my computer and my even worse habit of watching and listening to talking heads on cable TV, like Chris Matthews. Matthews is not the worst of them, and sometimes he's pretty good. When watching him it helps me that I have a good friend who can't sit still long enough to allow anybody to finish a sentence. Having been interrupted by my friend a million times over the years, I've grown used to this kind of thing; hence I can stand it (just barely) when the hyperactive Matthews interrupts all his guests.
Though Matthews is sometimes pretty good, he recently said one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. Despite being a Jesuit-educated Catholic (an alumnus of the College of Holy Cross), Matthews is pro-choice on abortion. Not long ago he was discussing the televised forum in which Rick Warren, pastor of the Saddleback Church and author of The Purpose Driven Life, held back-to-back interviews with Barack Obama and John McCain. Not surprisingly, Warren, an Evangelical, asked the two presidential candidates for their views as to when human life begins. Without hesitation McCain said it begins at the moment of conception. Obama gave what his fans call a more "nuanced" answer: He said the question was "above my pay grade."
Matthews holds that Warren had no business asking such a question of a political candidate, and neither does anybody else, for the question of when human life begins is a "metaphysical" question; and metaphysical questions, according to Matthews, are out of bounds when it comes to American politics. "If a politician, thou shalt not engage in metaphysical judgment; and if a voter, thou shalt not ask metaphysical questions of candidates." What an interesting and curious rule! I wonder who made it up? Matthews himself, I'd guess. For if the rule is valid, then it makes it easier for Chris to reconcile the apparent contradiction between his Catholicism and his pro-choice-ism.
Matthews didn't offer a definition of metaphysics, but he probably means what most people mean by metaphysics, namely, propositions that refer to realities -- or imagined realities -- that are not susceptible to empirical (or sense-evidence) proof. Thus belief in God is a metaphysical belief; and so is belief in the immortality of the soul; and so, for that matter, is belief in the very existence of a soul -- at least if soul is understood (as, for example, Plato understood it) to be a non-material entity whose existence is not dependent on the body. Matthews, then, would tell us that it is out of bounds for an American to demand that a political candidate answer the question of whether he believes in God or in the existence or the immortality of the soul.