Mean 3 |mēn|
noun
2 a condition, quality, or course of action equally removed from two opposite (usually unsatisfactory) extremes: the mean between two extremes.
Aristotle describes a virtue as a mean: the point between an excess and a deficiency. One of the most easily comprehensible examples of this is courage, which is a balance between cowardice and foolhardiness.
Thomas Aquinas argues in the Summa Theologica that religion is a virtue. 1
If religion is a virtue and [all] virtues 2 are a mean, then religion is a mean. QED.
Objection: Religion is not a mean because obviously there are religions which are extremist. For example, you may have the extreme of a radical, conscienceless psycopath, but you can also have the opposite extreme of people who are overly prudish and obsessed with their own righteousness and therefore lose sight of what is truly valuable in life. The latter category is what is often associated with religion from a secular point of view. Sometimes you even get a combination of the two where you have radical psychopaths -- in the name of religion -- persecuting others for failing to confirm to their particular worldview.
Refutation: This is not true religion, but a corruption of religion. It's been too long since I've read the relevant Aristotle, but I believes he makes a similar point when defending the virtue of just government. For example, if you were to write lengthy treatises on the nasty character of chocolate chip cookies based on the large quantities of burned ones you had consumed, you would be condemning a corruption of the good rather than the good itself. 3
Therefore, if religion is a virtue and if all virtues are a mean, then if Catholicism is not a mean, it is not a religion in the proper sense of the word [abbv. ipsow]. Conversely, if Catholicism is a religion ipsow, then Catholicism is necessarily a mean. There are two ways this could be approached. Firstly, from an apologetics standpoint, to show that Catholicism is religion ipsow by demonstrating that it is a mean. The second way is to start with the assumption that Catholicism is indeed a religion ipsow and then examine the faith from the perspective of a mean for further edification. While the former approach could be most interesting, for my purposes I will be pursuing the latter.
This promises to be a fairly lengthy analysis so I will split the various reflections on Catholicism's meanness into different blog posts and leave this as the introduction.
Salvation is [a] Mean (in between Faith Alone and Works Alone)
Penitence is [a] Mean (in between Scrupulosity and Sin)
Hyperlinks to be added later.
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1 Summa Theologica 2.2.81.2 (aka the Second Part of the Second Part [Secunda Secundæ Partis], Question 81, Article 2) http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3081.htm
2 I am not exactly sure if I can accurately say that all virtues are a mean. I know that there are some vices which are an excess by nature and cannot have a mean, so it is possible there are some things of which you cannot have too much. Nothing comes to mind though. Love seems an obvious example, but the true virtue of caritas is the mean between the excess and deficiency of affection. You cannot, however, have an excess and a deficiency of lust, because lust is itself an excess.
3 It is one thing to say that the ideal for which a thing attains is impossible to reach and another entirely to say the thing is bad. Eg. if I laud the qualities of levitating chocolate chip cookies above all others, it would be perfectly reasonable to condemn me. If a thing actually exists which conforms to my specifications, however, it is completely irrelevant to attempt to discredit the worth of my good by citing things which obviously do not fall within its parameters. This would be like saying the fish are not cold blooded by citing the whale.
