I, for my part, am not in the least surprised at Kathleen Nott in her book Emperor’s Clothes (1954) carrying the banner of the Church of Reason like St. Joan of Arc against the perfidious neo-scholastics. And who were they? Graham Greene, T.S. Eliot, C.S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers amongst others and all of them bemused by the doctrine of Original Sin. She writes:
The writers whom I discuss and whom I call neo-scholastic, because they are reverting, at various speeds and from various directions, to a pre-scientific philosophy, try to do just this. Chief among the dogmas which they try to import into our intellectual outlook is the dogma of Original Sin, which is certainly the psychological foundation of Christian orthodoxy. This dogma implies, not that we do not or are unwilling to use our reasoning powers upon our own natures, but that we are incapable of doing so.
In another swingeing blow at ‘original sin’ she states:
The disparagement of scientific method, and the refusal to admit that its applicability is potentially unlimited, express themselves among those who are not yet wholly convinced by dogma in general statements of the type—"Our moral progress has not kept pace with our material progress"; and among those who have become converted, in statements about Original Sin. The belief in Original Sin, the belief that human beings are born essentially 'bad' and cannot become 'good', except through supernatural assistance, generally implies in practice that we cannot become better by knowing more about ourselves and about the nature which we share with others.
She frequently reverts to the subject, tirelessly:
All dogma, in fact, including, and especially, the dogma of Original Sin, divorces us from real and natural morality, which can only be taught us by personal and individual love, generally experienced early and unconsciously. If we cannot learn out morality from that reality, we shall learn it from another: hate.
An initial faint grasp of the scope of the doctrine gives way to journalistic distortions. What is the doctrine of Original Sin when it’s at home? The Maynooth Catechism put out in 1951 has a succinct definition:
Because of Adam’s sin, we are born without sanctifying grace, our intellect is darkened, our will is weakened, our passions incline us to evil, and we are subject to suffering and death.
In 1954, nine years after the disruption caused by the pleasantries of the Third Reich you would have thought that the sense of a propensity to evil that could overtake a whole nation might make the suffix Q.E.D. after that definition seem a given. No, no, it was the Prussian father or mother or inflation or something, anything; oh, make a cup of tea.
Nott studied philosophy at Oxford taking her degree in 1929 so the bright ‘vorpel’ blade of verification smites right fiercely. (Oh Vienna, it means nothing to me, this means nothing to me: Ultravox)
Thought that is concerned only with truth and is confident of its capacity for verification, for instance a scientific theory soundly based on investigation of observable facts, looks on criticism as an aid to development, a welcome corrective. In the Albigensian Crusades and in the Inquisition, the Church, we lament to recall, 'defended' its dogmas only too vigorously.
That could have been written yesterday. Did the gates of ‘Vienna’ withstand the neo-scholastic horde? Basically they died off. In 1957 Harold Macmillan told the British - “You’ve never had it so so good”. Then came the 60‘s and so on and so forth.
No Kathleen, I’m not surprised at a woman of your intelligence espousing scientistic doctrines and shabby distortions of your opponents views. That maybe is a sin but it’s not original.
The Emperor's Clothes
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