by Dr. Rafael Xavier Gonzalez
It is said that artists interpret society and culture faster than any other group. Philosophers of course lag behind, attempting to make sense of it all and encapsulate the new realities into systematic abstract ideas and theories. Futurism is the philosophy (or anti-philosophy, depending on how you see it) of the day. It seems to be mostly understood though as an art movement that originated in Italy in the 20th century. Its core ideas, and its inspirations also, revolve around technology, youth, violence and the urban life all mixed into a pot of futuristic looking artwork. The style is quite dynamic with bold lines and vivid colors. Futurism is also expressed in literature and even in new forms of architecture.
What Futurism as a philosophy? It is tied to posthumanism/transhumanism. Anyone who is interested in the topic can check out Francesca Ferrando’s in-depth book, Philosophical Posthumanism (2019), among other fascinating and revealing works. I am looking forward to my interview with Grayson Quay on his book The Transhumanist Temptation (though by the time you read this article it may have happened already. See my channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MyCatholicTwoCents). Also see the illuminating and fun site https://Futurism.com.
Futurism as a philosophy is not a formalized school of thought like Idealism or Stoicism. Futurism seeks substantial novelty in all aspects of human life, and even regarding human life itself. It claims a certain tradition fatigue, and hence rejects traditional values in all aspects of reality. It is centered on radical change, innovation and the belief that the future can and should be actively shaped, through technology of course. It seeks the redemption of man in technological advancements, our new messiah!
Futurism is a type of rationalistic nihilism, an extreme materialist utopianism that actually has no future. Futurism is futureless. In Pope Benedict’s encyclical Lumen Fidei (actually finished by Pope Francis) we read the following:
“Slowly but surely, however, it would become evident that the light of autonomous reason is not enough to illumine the future; ultimately the future remains shadowy and fraught with fear of the unknown. As a result, humanity renounced the search for a great light, Truth itself, in order to be content with smaller lights which illumine the fleeting moment yet prove incapable of showing the way. Yet in the absence of light everything becomes confused; it is impossible to tell good from evil, or the road to our destination from other roads which take us in endless circles, going nowhere”.[1]
Futurism is scary because it idolizes technology, replacing the true God. This makes the future uncertain, leaving it up to AI, or ASI (Artificial Superintelligence), to greatly form it. This idolization though is really worship of the self, which is reflected in this created digital god:
“Idols exist, we begin to see, as a pretext for setting ourselves at the center of reality and worshiping the work of our own hands. Once man has lost the fundamental orientation which unifies his existence, he breaks down into the multiplicity of his desires; in refusing to await the time of promise, his life-story disintegrates into a myriad of unconnected instants”.[2]
Only supernatural (Catholic) faith provides man with true optimism for the future, since it is the transcendent light that man needs:
“There is an urgent need, then, to see once again that faith is a light, for once the flame of faith dies out, all other lights begin to dim. The light of faith is unique, since it is capable of illuminating every aspect of human existence. A light this powerful cannot come from ourselves but from a more primordial source: in a word, it must come from God… since Christ has risen and draws us beyond death, faith is also a light coming from the future and opening before us vast horizons which guide us beyond our isolated selves towards the breadth of communion”.[3]
The underlying desire of futurists, posthumanists and transhumanists can only be fulfilled in Christ, since he is the Light that illuminates and gives meaning to our lives. Man needs to live for and even give his life up to what transcends him, that which goes beyond his mere material existence. Only in Christ can nihilism be destroyed. He is the ultimate anti-nihilist, precisely because He is the only true transhumanist! In Jesus we must place all our trust:
“Faith does not merely gaze at Jesus, but sees things as Jesus himself sees them, with his own eyes: it is a participation in his way of seeing…Jesus, the Son of God, is the one who makes God known to us (cf. Jn 1:18). Christ’s life, his way of knowing the Father and living in complete and constant relationship with him, opens up new and inviting vistas for human experience”.[4]
But what is the faith we are talking about? What is the faith necessary for salvation? Catholics and Protestants both agree that faith is necessary for salvation but not on what faith is required. Interestingly, Futurism and Protestantism both end up kind of agreeing since both of their doctrine originates and ends with the ego, a Modernist error clearly condemned by St. Pius X:
“[The Modernists] assert, therefore, the existence of a real experience, and one of a kind that surpasses all rational experience. If this experience is denied by some, like the rationalists, it arises from the fact that such persons are unwilling to put themselves in the moral state which is necessary to produce it. It is this experience which, when a person acquires it, makes him properly and truly a believer”.[5]
The Protestant faith is called fiducial faith and it stems from their philosophical voluntarism, based upon their radical individualism. Fiducial faith is basically one’s trust in God, an act of the will in which one is firmly persuaded that his/her sins will not be imputed because Christ paid for them on the Cross. Christ has made remission for our sins so all we need is to believe as an act of the will. Fiducial faith as saving or justifying faith is actually condemned by the Church:
“If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ’s sake, or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us, let him be anathema”.[6]
From this traditional Protestant belief of faith, the later Protestant belief in faith as sentiment naturally evolved. This already is explicit Modernism and what St. Pius X condemned, especially as an error creeping within Catholic intellectual ranks.
The Council of Trent cautioned against the Protestant principle of Sola Fide, in which individuals believe they are justified solely by believing themselves absolved, neglecting the importance of repentance and good works. This type of fiducial faith, disconnected from actively living out one’s faith through love and obedience is problematic, because it empties faith from having any actual objective reference. This subjectification of the act of faith turns it into a self-idolization, in which in reality oneself is the one who has the merit for such an act of the will. It’s funny yet also sad how two opposing positions can agree, Protestantism and Pelagianism, in this case.
As Catholics we believe that we need the definitive formulations of the faith to be saved. Since these formulations are dogmas, the faith that saves us is dogmatic faith:
“All those things are to be believed with divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the Word of God, written or handed down, and which the Church, either by a solemn judgment, or by her ordinary and universal magisterium, proposes for belief as having been divinely revealed. And since, without faith, it is impossible to please God, and to attain to the fellowship of his children, therefore without faith no one has ever attained justification, nor will anyone obtain eternal life unless he shall have persevered in faith unto the end”.[7]
For Catholics, the act of faith is an intellectual act. It is, according the Church Fathers, the rational and dogmatic assent of a free soul. Having faith is thinking with assent. It is dogmatic because our faith has a content, everything that God wanted to reveal that is necessary for our salvation, namely, His Nature and His works for man, and how man should respond (morality).
It is important to note that the intellect is illuminated by God prior to the fiducial movement of the will (of course the will has to come into play). It is true that since faith is meritorious it would seem that it is from the will, as meritorious acts are from the will. Yet a necessary qualification must be placed. The will commands the act of faith. It does not draw forth into existence or elicit the act of faith. The intellect elicits and the will commandsthe assent in the act of faith. Here, faith as a rational (not rationalist) act is safeguarded. The intellect and the will can actually never operate independently.
The intellect tends towards truth so it affirms the truth of Revelation, though without actually apprehending or perceiving the object of faith, but yes judging it to be true due to the formal motive of faith, which is the authority of God, an authority that is proven by the numerous miracles and prophecies that only exist in Catholicism (there are other criteria of course like its fruits, internal coherence of doctrine and even internal criteria also, like strong divine impulses).
In the end, both Futurism and Protestantism seek to relegate natural intelligence to artificial intelligence, simply because it denies the former (intelligence applied to religion for Protestants), at least as a consequence of its doctrine. We must affirm real human intelligence, the unique one that exists in material creatures, and this is fully manifested in man’s act of faith, a Divine gift and our response, which truly illuminates the future and gives us real hope. May God be blessed, Amen.
[1] Encyclical, Lumen Fidei, #3.
[2] Ibid., #13.
[3] Ibid., #4.
[4] Ibid., #18.
[5] Pope Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, #14.
[6] The Council of Trent, S. 6, Ch. 6, cn. 12.
[7] Dogmatic Decrees of the First Vatican Council, On Faith, Chapter III.
