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It is quite
clear that the Sun affects the earth in exceedingly important ways, for
example, by its mass, heat, brilliance, and path that is artfully
angled relative to us, giving us our four
seasons. The Moon pulls on the earth's waters, lights the night,
and affects us emotionally with its beauty. It is the same with all
planets and stars to some degree or other, and studying the effects of
such influences -- a science called "natural astrology" -- is a
fascinating topic, perfectly in keeping with the Faith.
The sort of astrology which is usually meant by the word "astrology"
today, meaning seeing one's individual future as if cast in stone,
imagining that one's destiny is tightly fated by the position of the
planets in the Zodiac's constellations -- these things are forbidden to
Christians. A few verses to keep you on track:
Isaias 47:13-14
Thou hast failed in the multitude of thy counsels: let now the
astrologers stand and save thee, they that gazed at the stars, and
counted the months, that from them they might tell the things that
shall come to thee. Behold they are as stubble, fire hath burnt them,
they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flames: there
are no coals wherewith they may be warmed, nor fire, that they may sit
thereat.
Jeremias 10:2
Thus saith the Lord: Learn not according to the ways of the Gentiles:
and be not afraid of the signs of heaven, which the heathens fear.
Wisdom 13:1-2
But all men are vain, in whom there is not the knowledge of God: and
who by these good things that are seen, could not understand him that
is, neither by attending to the works have acknowledged who was the
workman: But have imagined either the fire, or the wind, or the swift
air, or the circle of the stars, or the great water, or the sun and
moon, to be the gods that rule the world.
Such admonitions
were necessary in a world in which the stars were often seen as not
just as living things, but living things to be worshipped and which
controlled our destinies. Even as late as the Middle Ages, St. Thomas
Aquinas
felt the need to address the question "Whether the lights of heaven are
living beings?" -- something about which the Church Fathers were
divided. From his Summa Theologica, I-70-3:
...Philosophers
have differed on this question. Anaxagoras, for instance, as Augustine
mentions, "was condemned by the Athenians for teaching that the sun was
a fiery mass of stone, and neither a god nor even a living being." On
the other hand, the Platonists held that the heavenly bodies have life.
Nor was there less diversity of opinion among the Doctors of the
Church. It was the belief of Origen and Jerome that these bodies were
alive, and the latter seems to explain in that sense the words, "The
spirit goeth forward, surveying all places round about." But Basil and
Damascene maintain that the heavenly bodies are inanimate. Augustine
leaves the matter in doubt, without committing himself to either
theory, though he goes so far as to say that if the heavenly bodies are
really living beings, their souls must be akin to the angelic nature.
After explaining
how Plato (and, therefore, the early Church Fathers) describe the union
of soul and body as a contact of a moving power with the object moved,
and how "since Plato holds the heavenly bodies to be living beings,
this means nothing else but that substances of spiritual nature are
united to them, and act as their moving power," St. Thomas concludes:
From what has
been said, then, it is clear that the heavenly bodies are not living
beings in the same sense as plants and animals, and that if they are
called so, it can only be equivocally. It will also be seen that the
difference of opinion between those who affirm, and those who deny,
that these bodies have life, is not a difference of things but of
words.
"Living" or not
in any sense of the word, the stars are not to be worshiped. However,
it isn't against the Faith to consider the
possiblity that the stars and planets influence us, even the
characteristics of our personalities -- our inclinations or temperaments. St.
Thomas Aquinas, again in his Summa Theologica (II-II-95-5) acknowledges
this:
Hence the
heavenly bodies cannot be the direct cause of the free-will's
operations. Nevertheless they can be
a dispositive cause of an
inclination to those operations, in so far as they make an impression
on the human body, and consequently on the sensitive powers which are
acts of bodily organs having an inclination for human acts.
Many people,
even educated, intelligent Catholics, are surprised to learn that
astrology isn't, in itself, against Church teaching. I believe this is
especially true in the United States, where Protestantism has a large
cultural influence, even affecting how Catholics see their own Faith,
how they see Christianity itself -- a religion that their Church has dominion over. I
imagine, as well, that the prevalence of bad astrology out there -- the
newspaper Sun Sign nonsense -- doesn't help astrology's cause either.
Still, contrary to what Protestants and Protestantized Catholics think,
and in spite of how the doings of silly, modern alleged astrologers
affect how many people think of "astrology," astrology can be entertained as a field of
study by the faithful. Aquinas says
further, in answering the question, "Whether the heavenly bodies are
the cause of human actions?":
It must be
observed, however, that indirectly and accidentally, the impressions of
heavenly bodies can reach the intellect and will, forasmuch, namely, as
both intellect and will receive something from the inferior powers
which are affixed to corporeal organs. But in this the intellect and
will are differently situated. For the intellect, of necessity,
receives from the inferior apprehensive powers: wherefore if the
imaginative, cogitative, or memorative powers be disturbed, the action
of the intellect is, of necessity, disturbed also. The will, on the
contrary, does not, of necessity, follow the inclination of the
inferior appetite; for although the passions in the irascible and
concupiscible have a certain force in inclining the will; nevertheless
the will retains the power of following the passions or repressing
them. Therefore the impressions of the heavenly bodies, by virtue of
which the inferior powers can be changed, has less influence on the
will, which is the proximate cause of human actions, than on the
intellect.
To maintain therefore that heavenly bodies are the cause of human
actions is proper to those who hold that intellect does not differ from
sense. Wherefore some of these said that "such is the will of men, as
is the day which the father of men and of gods brings on" (Odyssey
xviii 135). Since, therefore, it is manifest that intellect and will
are not acts of corporeal organs, it is impossible that heavenly bodies
be the cause of human actions.
Reply to Objection 1. The spiritual substances, that move the heavenly
bodies, do indeed act on corporeal things by means of the heavenly
bodies; but they act immediately on the human intellect by enlightening
it. On the other hand, they cannot compel the will, as stated above
(111, 2).
Reply to Objection 2. Just as the multiformity of corporeal movements
is reducible to the uniformity of the heavenly movement as to its
cause: so the multiformity of actions proceeding from the intellect and
the will is reduced to a uniform principle which is the Divine
intellect and will.
Reply to Objection 3. The majority of men follow their passions, which
are movements of the sensitive appetite, in which movements of the
heavenly bodies can cooperate: but few are wise enough to resist these
passions. Consequently astrologers are able to foretell the truth in
the majority of cases, especially in a general way. But not in
particular cases; for nothing prevents man resisting his passions by
his free-will. Wherefore the astrologers themselves are wont to say
that "the wise man is stronger than the stars" [Ptolemy, Centiloquium,
prop. 5], forasmuch as, to wit, he conquers his passions.
In other words,
it is possible -- and not against the Catholic Faith to believe -- that
the stars influence our temperaments, our passions, and our
sensitiv e appetites, but in no way can it be believed that they
"cause" human actions in any sense that denies human responsibility or
negates free will. A way of thinking about this using a metaphor is
this: the stars might be able to lead a horse to desire water, but they
can't make it drink. To take that metaphor further, it isn't against
the Faith to believe that the astrologer might be right in saying that
the celestial circumstances a horse might find itself in would make it
prone to being thirsty and drinking lots of water, but if the horse
drinks it, it's still the horse's decision, a result of his free will
(well, horses don't have "free will," but you get the point). And
finally, because most horses, say, don't control themselves very well
and will drink water when they're thirsty, an astrologer might be right
if he were to say that most horses will, in fact, drink water when the
celestial circumstances lead them to feel thirst. What he cannot say
and remain consistent with the Holy Faith is that the stars indicate
that a particular horse should feel thirst now, and, so, he will, in
fact, drink water because the stars have said he will, have caused him
to. St. John Damascene (A.D. 676 - 754/787) also made clear that
the Christian view of astrology cannot deny free will. Writing in his
"Exposition of the Orthodox Faith," he said:
For we have
been created with free wills by our Creator and are masters over our
own actions. Indeed, if all our actions depend on the courses of the
stars, all we do is done of necessity: and necessity precludes either
virtue or vice. But if we possess neither virtue nor vice, we do not
deserve praise or punishment, and God, too, will turn out to be unjust,
since He gives good things to some and afflicts others.
Nay, He will no longer continue to guide or provide for His own
creatures, if all things are carried and swept along in the grip of
necessity. And the faculty of reason will be superfluous to us: for if
we are not masters of any of our actions, deliberation is quite
superfluous. Reason, indeed, is granted to us solely that we might take
counsel, and hence all reason implies freedom of will.
So, to sum up,
the stars are not to be worshipped or feared, and the stars do not
control our fate or negate our freedom -- but it is most certainly not
against Christian belief to consider that the heavenly bodies influence
our inclinations.
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