Of Morality and Prayer Rallies

One of the latest legal commentators(Jack Okula Sunday standard,25/02/2012) on the matter of the so called Prayer Rallies has passed a schizophrenic judgment: the question is more moral than legal. The discussion of morality is, for some, convoluted. Right and wrong, truth and falsity, substance and accident, cause and effect are “primary ideas” which are common to all men. The human intellect holds certain acts in approval and calls them morally good and praiseworthy because it holds that they are directed to their true end, suitable to and worthy of a rational agent, conformable to the exigencies of things, and therefore that they ought to be done by man. Rendered differently, man ought to do what is conformable to his rational nature and conducive to his perfection. It follows then that the acts we hold in disapproval—and call morally bad or evil—and apportion blame to are so because we esteem that they are directed away from their true end, are unbecoming and unsuitable to a rational agent, at variance with the exigencies of things, and therefore not to be done by man. Man, therefore should not do that which rather than perfect, debases him and is unworthy of a rational being. In the discussion of the moral construct of the prayer rallies, we must invoke, obviously, the determinants of morality. Should the Kenyan public continue to attend these sessions as they are currently packaged? The argument that the prayers ought to be directed to victims and so on is good but not prohibitive for the suspects to hold such prayers—if indeed they are. To know whether the (in)actions of Uhuru,Ruto and co. qualify as (im)moral, we must consider the object of the prayer rallies, their end or purpose and the circumstances. To declare the prayer rallies moral, all three determinants must be without flaw, ”Bonum ex integra causa, malum ex quocumque defectu”—a thing to be good must be wholly so; it is vitiated by any defect. What is the object of the Prayer Rallies? In actual sense the object of the prayer rallies is the prayer rallies themselves (the object of an act is actually the act).Prayer Rallies are not bad—unless we introduce a further specification. For the rallies to be moral then, the object must be good—whether considered in itself or further specified-must be free from all defect. Unfortunately, the further specification here needed is a thing of inference. We may have to go into the Uhuru and Ruto mind to find that out but that is something that comes easily if we consider this in light of the circumstances. What is the end of the prayer rallies? The end (purpose) is not the end of the rallies but of the men convening the rallies. To rally in prayers to God is good in itself ,but, if in so ‘rallying to pray’ the intention is to achieve a political audience, the act becomes morally bad. And the ‘prayer rallies’ then remain morally bad even if the desire to achieve political gains is the nearest, further or last end—the actual or virtual intention notwithstanding. What are the circumstances here at play? What is the setting in terms of time, place and actors? The prayer rallies are ever so good but if the prayers introduce in the mind of those praying a siege mentality or ire—except against the devil—then the prayers become evil. The prayer rallies are licit unless the gentlemen can foresee any evil effects as likely outcomes of them. And this is where the plight of IDPs is brought to view. It is noteworthy that IDPs have not been banned from holding prayer rallies though the argument is too simplistic. A free being perfects himself by drawing himself close to God—the true end of all human existence-and debases himself by making morally bad choices that draw him away from God. The quality of goodness or badness must be something intrinsic to the ‘prayer rallies’ and must depend upon their accord with or disagreement with the permanent order of things. Now the essences of things are modeled by the Creator upon perfections known to the Divine Intellect as existing in the Divine Essence; therefore the (im)morality of the prayer rallies is determined ultimately by the intellect and not by the free will of God. Seeing as God cannot contradict himself, he cannot ‘immoralize’ an intrinsically moral act or moralize an intrinsically immoral act. He cannot pervert norms or normalize perversions. This argument flies in the face of democracy as understood in the context of “Vox populi, vox Dei”—the voice of the people is the voice of God. All men, consequently, may agree to call a certain act good or evil because they see that in itself it is so but it is not so because they call it so. So, then ,are the prayer rallies moral? That is a question that will determine how the Kenyan public perceives morality.