Dashed Off XXVI

philosophy as a humanitarian tradition

constancy and sagacity as virtues required for intellectual inquiry (Hume, Treatise 179)

No proper plan of research or inquiry can be guaranteed to survive much interaction with what it investigates.

the fog of research

Every sacrament unifies the Church, teaches truth, gives grace, and provides something in which our minds may pleasantly dwell.

logical behavior as integrating behavior

Subsidiarity is inherently anti-totalitarian.

thanksgiving as dignum et iustum, and its roots in human dignity and justice toward God (religio)

"The first and most important lesson which the liturgy has to teach is that the prayer of a corporate body must be sustained by thought." Guardini

particular churches constituted by a double communion: with bishop in apostolic succession and with Rome in Petrine succession

A sacramental character forms an ecclesial body.

sacramentalia as circumstantial

translation as instrumental principle of spiritual warfare

Morality with religion does not suffice for salvation.

Liberty of conscience is bound up in principles of moderation; it becomes incoherent otherwise.

One must be prepared by prayer to receive the gifts of the Bible appropriately.

poetry as an instrument of virtue

New Jerusalem (also motherhood of the Church) Gal 4:26

the earthly life of Christ as exemplar of Christian life through our predecessors in the faith (apostolic succession broadly speaking)
the session of Christ as exemplar of Christian life through sacrament
the exemplates of both together: sacramental character

(1) the authentic notion of truth
(2) the objective validity of first principles
(3) the objective validity of the principle of causality
(4) the objective, public character of revelation
(5) the Church simultaneously hierarchical, juridical, charismatic, & mystical
(6) objectivity of moral order

God the Word is united with baptismal water, eucharistic elements, and oil of chrism, but in three different ways.

"Every valid celebration of the Eucharist expresses this universal communion with Peter and with the whole Church, or objectively calls for it, as in the case of the Christian Churches separated from Rome." Communionis notio
"in every valid celebration of the Eucharist, the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church becomes truly present"

Human failing requires that the moral law within receive an external republication appropriate to it.

the role of clock (when) and container (place) in organisms

If your Christianity is becoming more and more self-designed, you are going in the wrong direction.

Naming is an act of hope and remembrance at once.

end-timed action
end-placed instrument (part)
end-timed actions of end-placed instruments (parts)
end-configured systems of end-timed actions of end-placed instruments (parts)

Qualities establish genera of ends for actions and passions.

customary law // grammar

system interacting with genius

defeasible reasoning and possible truth-preservation
defeasible reasoning and possibility-preservation

categories and the kinds of modality

Reception of communion foreshadows the union of faithful in Christ and causes unity in the Church.

The common good of civil society is the commonality of good of its citizens not just as individuals but also as families.

papal solidarity and subsidiarity

rectifcation of names as required for people to act appropriately in relationships

avenues of prudential reasoning
(1) distinction of substantive and incidental good
(2) remoteness and proximateness of goods to each other
(3) fitness of means to ends

hope as a sort of purity of intention

The eucharist effects the bond of the Church by presence; matrimony effects the bond of the Church by signs.

Natural marriage is the natural environment of piety.

structured vs unstructured pluralisms

The liturgical-juridical articulation of the Church in its history seems analogous to the doctrinal articulation of the development of doctrine. Think about this.

the triple problem faced by the New Evangelization: the secularized West, the modernizing traditional Far East; and the Islamic middle

the notion of a field as a generalization of the notion of contact

Structurally, reciprocal causation is similar to (although different from) chance causation.

- a typology of semiosis related to typologies of causation

politics as a source of incentives for inquiry

navigation as bookkeeping

at-least-convenient-fiction status in scientific theories

Natural marriage makes generation an act appropriate to reason.

nomocratic and teleocratice activities in Church politics

Savagery becomes horrific in its harms to the innocent and especially the virtuous.

sovereignty, rule of law, peace

We are often too close to those who love us to see all the ways they love us.

character and competence as the primary ends of education

To Christ we render religion, for He is God. To Mary we render piety, for Christ has made her our mother at the Cross; but to Joseph we render observance as spouse of Mary and parent of Christ.

ministries in the order of sanctifying grace (e.g., apostle); ministries in the order of hypostatic union (e.g., Mother of God)

A calendar, properly speaking, is something by definition to be shared.

anaphorae without explicit words of institution: Addai and Mari; Sixtus II; Dionysius
Sixtus II and Dionysius both describe the institution; Addi and Mari does not but does have an oblation prayer asking God to "make a good and acceptable memorial...in the commemoration of the body and blood of thy Christ which we offer unto you on your pure and holy altar".

Schism is properly a sin of will, and only in a secondary sense a state of a person; the latter is a summary description, not a fundamental point.

three constant pulls on liturgy:
(1) restoration of the past
(2) imitation of the Great Sees
(3) interaction with cultural context

Like the body, language is both instrument and mediation.

Jn 1:1-14 as the appropriate template for sacramental semiotics
Hb 4:16 understood sacramentally

image-prototype, figure-truth, appearance-presence, flow-font, sacramentum-res

the Church as the collateral experience required for understanding Scripture

sacraments as rallying points for meaning, inspiring as well as notifying

A key question of Confucian ethics: How can one teach and cultivate observantia in society at large?

satispassio as accepting the consequences of one's actions

plausible narrative as integral to the nature of historical inquiry

actual being & capacity for being

the priest as cupbearer of Christ

perpetuity, indefectibility, visibility of ecclesial unity int he Word as the ecclesial principle of coherence

sacraments as doctrine teaching us love of the heavenly, adherence to the eternal, wise assessment of the earthly

rhetoric and the quasi-intelligible

the enactment of the sacrament (form)
(1) the operation of Christ (form)
(2) the ministerial word symbolizing the Word (matter)
the capacity for the sacrament (matter)
(1) the semiosis of the sign (form)
(2) the material for the sign (matter)

the Word
the minister
the human mind
the material world

sacrament / semiotic instrument / material thing

In colloquial contexts, it is often assumed that 'terrorism' is a form of organized crime. This is not always assumed in technical contexts, and is a potential source of confusion.

circumstantial topics and strategic planning

traditions as dynamic systems of signs

a priori Box, a posteriori Diamond-Not
self-evident Box, non-self-evident Diamond-Not
(Pace Plantinga, who, however, is right for some kinds of necessity of proportions)

Merely thinking of numbers in terms of sets does not of itself explain how we use them to number things in the first place.

marriage as a natural sign of providence

modes of authority: narration, praise, blame, exhortation, precept, prohibition, counsel, threat, promise, supplication

consequentialist and non-consequentialist accounts of success in an enterprise
'winning at any cost' as a 'might makes right' view of success

philosophy by the natural method
(like learning a language: language pedagogy // philosophical pedagogy)

Christ's Baptism : baptism :: Christ's Ascension and Session : eucharist :: chrismation : Christ's victory

The notion of a reliable process is an unavoidably causal notion.

artificial marriage

human ecology and common good
(1) 'respect for the human person as endowed with basic and inalienable rights ordained to his or her integral development'
(2) ' overall welfare of society developed through subsidiarity'
(3) 'social peace, the stability and security provided by a certain order which cannot be achieved without particular concern for distributive justice'

the tendency to conflate dignity and sense of dignity

Titus 3:10 -- the right to be warned before juridical excommunication as a right of divine positive law

The Office of St. Peter is a divinely established juridical status.

How many have been led astray by the desire to be clever!

Eternity has a completeness only crudely imitated by the past, a presence only roughly approximated by the present, and a freedom only loosely suggested by the future, for time is merely an imperfect reflection of eternity, smeared out, so to speak, because of the imperfections of the changeable.

true propositions // halting computations

Marriage is prior in being to civilization, and civilization is prior in end to marriage.

All ecclesial Tradition is both constitutive and inhesive -- that is to say, the distinction is not between two different strands of Tradition, but two ways Tradition teaches, as carrying forward and as establishing things in so doing.

"hope withdraws us from evils and induces us to seek for good things" ST 2-2.20.3

Irenaeus: tradition and apostolic succession
Basil: tradition and sacramentalia
apostolic appointment of elders: Acts 14:23
apostolic consolidation of churches: Acts 15:41; 16:5

(1) keys of kingdom
(2) confirming of brethren
(3) feeding of lambs and sheep
(4) barque

locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary aspects of instrumental causation

-- all of Latour's modes are trajectories of extension across a gap -- each thus requires identifiable antecedents, consequents, and differences between both, as well as an action of overcoming the differences (union)

modes of external world reasoning
(1) suppositional (narrative speculative)
(2) conflational (nonnarrative nondifferentiative)
(3) interactional (causal)
(4) analogical (parallel)