Jesuit Obedience and Reason

By

Anthony J. Fejfar, B.A., J.D., Esq., Coif

©Copyright 2010 by Anthony J. Fejfar

Following the Jurisprudential Lawyer, Canon Lawyer, and Theologian, Grotius,

every person has the Natural Rights of Liberty and Property, which are grounded in

Natural Law based upon reason, and as such, are unwaivable, irrevocable, perpetual, and

cannot be abrogated even by God Himself, and, thus cannot be abrogated by any religious

or secular authority. The foregoing was affirmed by the Pope, the Catholic King, King

Louis of France, and the Protestant King, King Gustavus Adolphus. Accordingly, the

orders of any religious superior, including, but not limited to a Jesuit religious superior,

or the orders of the Jesuit General or the Pope himself, must be in accordance with reason

to be valid and binding. In other words, every religious superior must be reasonable in

their actions and directions regarding their religious community. Of course, reason is

defined as a composite of: love, logic, and intuition. The definition of love is a

“positive feeling flowing outward.” Logic is based upon the concrete logical syllogism

that there cannot be (A)pple and not (A)pple in a a person’s left hand at the same time.

Put more abstractly, you cannot have both A and not A at the same time in the same

logical proof or argument. This, then leads to a number correlative logical rules which

are logically valid because they do not result in a logical contradiction. This also results

in a number of arguments which are found to be false or fallacious because they can

result in a logical contradiction. For example, the Fallacy of an appeal to authority, as

such, is proven fallacious because given this principle the authority or superior could say
A and not A at the same time, which would involve a logical contradiction and thus

would be a Sophistic and illegal way of arguing. Thus, a religious superior cannot say go

to Mass, and then, don’t go to Mass, on the same day without some logical or reasonable

explanation. Finally, reason involves intution which is a cognitive faculty from which

insight flows (Lonergan). Intuition is based upon the operation of preconscious or

unconscious thought processes in the mind which involve high speed analogical thought

processes, and can even go “Quantum” with information being gathered through

Quantum Processes, from outside the mind and body, non-locally at a distance. As the

Mystics say then, it is possible that I can actually feel the rock, as Bergson would say,

with sympathetic intution. Nevetheless, such intuition is arational and thus is subject

to the critique of logic thought processes. The foregoing, then, is the basis for the

reasonable constraint of the authority of any religious superior, including, but not limited

to, the authority of a Jesuit superior.