An ethics that is concerned more with extensive tangible effects of giving than with the general habit of giving can in the long run have less extensive tangible effects, because it will miss the power of slow, tiny accumulation.
One of the dangers of being social-qua-rational is the temptation to substitute mere rationalization for actual cooperation.
Mizrahi's argument from evil fails because (1) natural qualities cannot be deserved and (2) undeservedly distributed qualities follow from mercy.
To consider: projectivism in morals requires projectivism in perception?
analogy as the fundamental logical structure of language
the Magisterium of the Church
(1) insofar as the Church possesses the faith
(a) so as to possess the principles of faith
(b) so as to grasp the principal conclusions
(c) so as to apply illustrative effects and examples appropriate to it
(2) insofar as the Church confirms the faith
(a) by things done
(b) by things known
(3) insofar as the Church presents the faith
(a) in translation
(b) in interpretation
philosophy as the receptacle receiving forms
The Church participates in the divine magisterium by baptism, confirmation, and orders.
Genuine love is the primary defense against hypocrisy.
The wrong of pornography consists of the stripping of intimacy from sexual life.
gematria as a form of remez
peshat:mishna::remez:gemara::derash:midrash::sod:zohar
Politics cannot replace virtue, but if done with savvy it can amplify its effects.
probability applied to beliefs (e.g., subjective Bayesianism), possible inferences (e.g., objective Bayesianism), tests (e.g., error statistics) & the very different epistemologies thereby created
reference class : frequentism :: use of units : counting
'More confident in p than q' does not identify a single attitude; what attitude it identifies depends on the context.
Pr 9:3-4 // Mt 19:13-14
To be evidence, something must be cause, effect, co-cause, or co-effect. (Perhaps complicated by certain kinds of necessary concomitants.)
Popper's propensity is explicitly on analogy of human habit or disposition.
Because one of the ends of the virtue of religion is to be taught by God, it seeks out a teaching authority by its very nature.
How great a good one accounts a consequence depends in part on one's assessment of the causes and intentions leading to it.
ontology, etiology, mereology
incremental aporetic dialectics
Life is not a matter of corporeality or complexity; but it is closely tied to ways of acting.
Mary as | by means of | concludes to Mary as Assumed
Theotokos | causal argument
Immaculate | rational/notional appropriateness
Type of Church | appropriateness to symbolism
Ark of the Covenant | evidence of revelation
Intercessor | insinuation of tradition
Attribution of truth allows one to explore proof. Thus there are things you can do with "p is true" that you cannot do with "p".
Whewell's virtues are, in a sense, the virtues of a society (and our virtues by approximating it, taking it as an ideal for us qua living in society).
Poston's 'social evil' is a complex of moral and natural evils (although his discussion of moral evil in the attempt to distinguish ti from social evil involves a false understanding of individual responsibility in collective action). What his argument actually shows is that some kinds of social evils are both natural and moral evils.
The blessing of holy water is a prayer of the whole Church, and the use of it a participation in that prayer. The same goes for holy oil.
Judicial cases are constituted of available facts, possible interpretations of law, and personal points of view.
Newman's arguments for Assumption
(1) Mother of God
(2) Immaculate Conception
(3) missing body
(4) preservative of faith
(5) ecclesial experience of Marian intercession
Ps 132:8 & Ascension & Assumption
Conceivability arguments usually imply that something is inconceivable, and this is often the most interesting part of the argument to consider.
Without intentionality there are no illusions.
Unction is a sign of the Mystical Body in its aspect of grace overflowing from Christ its Head. All the major sacraments signify the Mystical Body, although matrimony does so most perfectly.
Rome as the Chair of St. Peter per se and primarily; Antioch as the Chair of St. Peter per accidens and in an ancillary way
sacrament | is also in its being a sacrament
eucharist | sacrifice
matrimony | contract
reconciliation | tribunal
orders | ministry
baptism | initiation
confirmation | preparation for confessorship
unction | preparation for death (whether proximate or remote)
link between Marian apparitions and Assumption
Each sacrament has a corresponding account of the Atonement, each of which is true.
The co-redemption seen in Mary is the very redemption found in Christ, as seen through Mary.
the queen mother
(1) crown Jer 13:18
(2) throne 1 Kg 2:19
(3) part of court 2 Kg 24:12-15; cp Jer 29:2
(4) counselor Pr 31; 2 Chr 22:3
Note particularly the role of Bathsheba in Solomon's court and the role of queen mothers as links of succession in 1 & 2 Kings.
the Wedding at Cana as a complete symbol of salvation history
the procatharsis of Mary
covenants as foundations of occasional causality
To be an experiment is to be an end subordinate to some other end.
If, as Hume suggests, scientific inquiry is structured by curiosity and vanity, scientific inquiry is necessarily teleological.
The moral character of promising lies not in any obligation created by the promise, as the obligation arises not from the promise as such but its context, but rather is already there in the way in which the promise expresses an overflow of reason and reason's good.
The mystical body anticipates the resurrection body, particularly in the overflow fo grace from higher to lower.
the layering of the sacraments
e.g., Baptism instituted in Christ's baptism & in conversation with Nicodemus & in the Mandate, each adding a layer.
->nonconflicting institutions may layer each other; they are not mutually exclusive (this is most obvious in the case of marriage)
-> note Bonaventure: material institution with Christ's baptism, final institution with Nicodemus, effective institution with Passion, formal institution with resurrection
immersions, infusions & aspersions of grace
sacramental character: distinctive, configurative, dispositve, obligative
the Cross as God's imposition of hands on humanity
Imposition of hands indicates a solidary communication.
baptismal character : Levites :: confirmation character : priests :: ordination character : high priest
Inference to the best explanation requires seed arguments to serve as starting points. (structural inferences for the explanandum) (IBE is based on the principle of proportioning explanans to explanandum -> which is itself derivative of the proportion of cause qua cause to effect)
Good decision procedures are criteria of rightness directly or indirectly applied under the limitations of practical conditions.
the end-having of the capable as such
the actuality of the actually possible in the way it is actually possible
the having-being of the able-to-be in the way it is able to be
the natural act of the open-to-acting, considered as such
Is mimesis poetic induction?
catharsis : persuasion :: poetics : rhetoric
Common ground may precede the discussion, but it is most often constructed on the fly in the discussion itself.
the sign value of good works
Truthfulness is one of the pillars of solidarity.
the potential parts of justice as tracing the outlines of human dignity
the potential parts of justice as reflections in the human heart of divine providence (related to justice as the virtue most like providence in its external works, as prudence is the virtue most like providence in its internal acts)
art -> wonder -> inquiry
painful art // painful knowledge
creation as the extrinsic basis of covenant (cp Barth)
Transfiguration as a theology of Scripture: Old and New Testaments both witness to Christ as glorious
The New Testament bears witness to Christ's conversation with the Law and the Prophets.
mimesis : beginning :: catharsis : purification :: rhaumaston : union
Pace A Kenny, simultaneity is not a transitive relation simpliciter, but a limited-transitive or partially transitive one, depending on the context.
Natural law is based on principles self-evident in their own right, but these principles admit of explanation in terms of more powerful principles -- for the principles of charity explain the principles of justice, as the principles of metaphysics explains the principles of physics.
Satisfaction is the restorative work of charity.
Sacraments are secondary efficient causes, as instruments of grace, and secondary exemplary causes, as signs signifying that to which we are conformed; indeed, they are one in being the other.
The sacramental character is Christ as High Priest in the temple of the person.
It is in the context of the Jewish sacrificial system that the Passion of Christ is salvation.
Infused potential parts of justice are that by which we participate in the sacramental system of the Church.
The common good of the liturgical commonwealth subsists in the Eucharist.
Resurrection is the fulfillment of the sacramental system.
visio : faith :: fruitio : hope :: dilectio : love :: subtilitas : prudence :: claritas : justice :: impassibilitas : fortitude :: agilitas : temperance
The four kinds of knowledge in Christ teach us the manner in which infallible and fallible doctrine (in its aspect of what is learned) are found in the Church.
Unction provides graces anticipatory of vision, fruition, and dilection.
the grace of the sacrament of matrimony
(1) perfects what natural love is there
(2) confirms indissoluble union before God
(3) sanctifies the spouses through love and union
Original sin is in us not by imitation but as serving as the ground of imitation of actual sin.
What is called the form of the sacrament should often be really considered as the mark of the form, that which shows the form to be present. The form of penance is being a tribunal, marked by the words of absolution. This mark is integrally united with the form, the expression of it, as energy to essence, because it is the nature of the sacrament to be a sign.
spouses as mutually signifying signs
the purposes of satisfaction
(1) atonement & penalty for past sin
(2) protection of new life
(3) remedy against infirmity
three kinds of satisfaction through Christ
(1) voluntary penalty undertaken on one's own initiative as baptized
(2) penalty measured out and imposed for that purpose by the priest
(3) temporal affliction imposed by God and patiently borne
Satisfaction is a form of worship of God.
Every covenant with God involves sacrifice and priesthood.
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics concerns the customary, and his Politics the structural or positive, elements in the Aristotelian theory of civilization.
There is no private good apart from public good, for our own private good includes our participation in public good, and we learn what our private good is by considering how we are related to public good.
Human connectedness is intrinsically deontic.
catharsis, conversion, compensation, and rich experience in the pursuit of political and moral goods
political systems as partly held together by rhetorical craft
Nussbaum on capabilities // Grisez & Finnis on basic goods
the family as epistemically and deontically integrated into personal dignity
the imago, arra (munus), and exemplum of each sacrament (Erasmus)
the fourfold imago of marriage: union of God and man in Incarnation, union of Christ and His Church, cooperation of God and the Virgin Mary, the union of Christ and the soul
the confirmation character as a covenant of evangelism
The difficulty in the theology of confirmation is wholly this question: What priestly functions does it enable?
baptism : exordium :: confirmation : incrementum or narratio :: ordination : summa or climax
baptism : Israelite :: confirmation : Levite :: ordination : Aaronite
baptism as passive union with Body, confirmation as active union with Body
baptism : angels, archangels, principalities :: confirmation : virtues, powers, dominions :: ordination : seraphim, cherubim, thrones
note that the middle tier of angles has the task of lifting up the lower
baptism : promise of heaven :: confirmation : bringing heaven to people indirectly, in ordinary life (heaven in ordinary) :: ordination : bringing heaven to people directly in sign (heaven in solemnity)
Another way to approach the theology of confirmation: What is it in marriage that corresponds to it?
divine sacramentals & ecclesial sacramentals
ablution, presentation, imposition, unction, penitence, consent
sacrament | point of eminence
baptism | necessity (priority of condition)
confirmation | seal
penance | restoration
marriage | signification
orders | sacramental service
unction | preparation for glory
eucharist | supremacy (priority of end, sacramental completeness)
Penance & marriage are both communicating sacraments: penance by reconciliation of man & God, marriage by conciliation of man & woman. Signification is also very important to both -- it is the essential eminence of marriage as the most pedagogical sacrament, and penance must signify & summarize the whole of Christian life as penitential. (In a sense, marriage signifies the sacramental economy of the Church, and penance signifies the penitential economy of the Church.)
Wordsworthian poetics as an idiographic approach to philosophy.
Carroll's account of the pleasure of horror seems to work better for suspense.
plain English approach to problem
(1) survey of problem
(2) rigorous-enough proof without formal apparatus, or only minor formal apparatus for convenience
(3) proper formalization
(4) dialectical discussion of formal proof, testing it and showing that it proves
exact formulations of approximate conclusions & approximate formulations of exact conclusions
manipulability accounts of causation as really accounts of causation for the sake of experiment
orders -> sets -> switches -> propositions
theory of evidence-construction -> theory of experimentation
heuristic : evidence :: occasional cause : efficient cause
the Additions to Esther as Maccabean reflections on the religious significance of Esther (note links to 2 Macc)
repentance as walking with the Lord Sir 44 :16 (Enoch!)
Tobit & the connection between almsgiving and matrimony
a criterion of elegance of proof (think Leibniz as starting point)
Mereological failures of transitivity of simultaneity establish that modality can break the transitivity and raise the question of what other modalities do the same.
The prayers of the Church Militant are gifts brought by the Church Triumphant to the altar of heaven.
The essence of Hell is not misery but penalty in contritionlessness.
reductio ad absurdum as a sign of proof: genuine proofs allow the creation of a corresponding reductio
The priority of labor over capital arises due to the more intimate connections of the former with human dignity; although it does not follow from this that the latter has no connections with human dignity, or that is a strict linear ordering in every case.
Our deeds have merit when they are done from a principle of love to God (Hb 10:24), in accordance with the will of God (Rm 6:16), in Christ's name (Col 3:17), because of His Cross.
Confirmation indicates our union with Christ in His aspect of Son of David.
original sin // hell
by development, by structure
