In Apple TV’s futuristic series Silo, characters are given a drug in an attempt to suppress the memory of the person they once were. The protagonist Juliette Nichols is a strong willed woman in constant pursuit of the truth. This instinct is muted by the drugs, but the regime cannot quite make a new woman of her. The tick of her former lover’s watch, the comic tenderness of a PEZ dispenser, the shock of love embodied in familiar objects: these relics pry open a sealed door. Memories of the woman she was keep fighting to surface. Love has left a trace that power could suppress but not quite destroy. There is something unique about the human person, an inseparable unity of body and soul. Despite the attacks, something fights through, a wounded but not eliminated will.
A Catholic friend I once knew used to complain of an abusive spouse. If their story was to be believed they were suffering daily from quite overwhelming abuse, sometimes physical, often mental and undoubtedly spiritual. “But X can’t help it” they would say, “I know it’s not their fault”. The behaviour would always be explained away with stories about a difficult upbringing or early childhood trauma. Whilst there is merit in acknowledging trauma, I was surprised by this attitude of resignation, and wondered whether the despair was symptomatic of the culture at large. “X simply can’t change” I was told.
I have often thought about this. Whether X could change or not. And, if not, to what extent they could be held accountable for their actions? My old friend deduced ‘not at all’.
Yet, don’t we all suffer with wounds throughout life; some lesser, others greater, some hidden, others more obvious. No one gets to adulthood unscathed. To conclude that these wounds define a person and cause them to behave in ways that are out of their control is to deny their dignity as human, made in the image of God.
Where does culpability come in? Determinists would argue that there is no such thing as free will, it is merely an illusion. How we act, what we do, what we think, how we respond is all determined by prior causes outside of our control. Humans follow the same laws of cause and effect as every other physical thing. We are like a man locked in a room, unaware that it is locked and choosing to stay inside. We feel like we made the choice, but the truth is that we could have made no other.
Jean Paul-Satre took a different view; a libertarian who claimed that there was no objective purpose, nor anything else which determines our actions because ‘existence precedes essence’; humans exist before they have purpose and subjectively define their purpose for themselves.
Neither of these positions is adequate for the Catholic, and both lie behind the increasingly therapeutic and pharmaceutical culture that we now find ourselves in. The one that claims we have no control has led to a culture that simply medicates problems, the one that says we are free to choose the path our lives take but removes any destination, offers therapy to those lost in the abyss.
Both are indicative of a people far from God.
