the possibility of any kind of external world as requiring the actuality of some kind of external world
euergetic vs philanthropic modes of beneficence
friendship, oaths, kinship, treaties as ways communities are threaded together
money as facilitating donation
As Christ ransomed us, Christians should ransom the good things of the world, freeing them for divine works.
Irenaeus, Adv Haer 5.1.1, on the Incarnation as pedagogical
Welfare pathologies in society often have analogies to addictions in individuals.
Ransom theories of atonement seem to have developed to oppose Marcionite and Gnostic theories of atonement being a a straightforward purchase.
all of the physical and spiritual almsdeeds as imitations of Christ
the fishhook Job 40-41; Ps 104:26; Is 27:1
Never confuse a delicate stomach with righteousness.
all that we sense as figuratively our body
Conciliarism is necessarily a very legalistic approach to ecclesiology.
"The Credit Theory is this: that a sale and purchase is the exchange of a commodity for credit." Innes
Money does not derive value from a single thing.
'Money is a matter of functions four: a medium, a measure, a standard, and a store.' -- try to find the origin of this mnemonic
There is no crucial experiment for character.
The quasi-material cause of indulgences is the participatory act by which the covering of merits may be imputed to a particular person.
Sometimes a little love makes the soul shine.
A society cannot satisfy human beings unless it has both hierarchy and equality.
Anything analytic philosophers analogize to a game can be, and sometimes is better, analogized to intellectual or spiritual disciplines, practices, exercises, or rites.
"Totalitarianism strives not toward despotic rule over men, but toward a system in which men are superfluous." Arendt
the conditions for human rights as a way of life
We have the rights that go with our obligations, and no others.
As love imitates God, there are idol-loves that are to genuine love as idols are to God.
Iconoclasm cannot be understood without distinguishing it from idoloclasm.
the quasi-diagrammatic character of religious icons
Columna est Christus (cp 1 Tim 3:15 Vulg)
The Sign of the Cross is an iconic sign of the Cross of Christ, and both are indexical signs of Christ Himself; and this entire sign-system is a symbolic sign of the Church with Christ as its Head.
that love than which no greater can be thought
Ezekiel 9:4 and the Cross
the needy as the porters of the Kingdom (Gregory of Nyssa)
Oil painting, because of its shine, is more of a working with light than many other visual arts.
Style is the manner in which art hides art.
Life is not merely a matter of fighting for right, but also of choosing one's battles wisely.
the Ninth Amendment & the reserve power of the people
Connotations are always within a context.
Lived experience is only known by triplex via or by living it.
All art is in a sense metanarrative.
Religion sets a limit to kitsch.
"The woman who purposely destroys her unborn child is guilty of murder. With us there is no nice enquiry as to its being formed or unformed." Basil, Letter 188
"Women also who administer drugs to cause abortion, as well as those who take poisons to destroy unborn children, are murderers."
mysticism as "the preparation for the experience of God" (Bernard McGinn)
The sacramental mysteries are the heart of mysticism.
Pirkei Avot 5:17: "Every dispute that is for the sake of Heaven, will in the end endure. But one that is not for the sake of Heaven, will not endure. Which is the controversy that is for the sake of Heaven? Such was the controversy of Hillel and Shimmei. And which is the controversy that is not for the sake of Heavean? Such was the controversy of Korah and all his congregation."
the Korachite generation
character: persons
plot: processions
theme: unity of nature
dialogue, music, spectacle: energies
A remarkable amount of politics and diplomacy is done without much of a plan; the man who has a plan and access to a table on which to put it already has a power.
The one who knows the mind of the Lord and has been His counselor would have to be a Wonderful Counselor.
There is no activity in the entire universe of human action for which human ingenuity cannot find a bad motive for doing it.
zeroth law & thermal equilibrium as an equivalence relation
Scales are defined according to a range of uses.
one's mythological country -- obviously a lot of variation but e.g., the Americas for indigenous of the Americas, Europe for Europeans, often Europe for Americans of European backgrounds, Celtic lands for certain periods of French courts
the right to have friendly response to long-term friendly behavior
Allegories have a dreamlike character because dreams have semi-allegorical aspects.
Baruch 3:3 & divine immutability (cp. Basil, On the Holy Spirit)
For Christians, other religions stand as distinct witnesses to divine truths, sometimes directly, sometimes quasi in figura, sometimes by analogy, and sometimes by approximation; they do this sometimes by reason, sometimes by preserved tradition from prophets or sages, sometimes by happy guess, and sometimes by providential convergence.
The Federal Register lists 432 agencies of the U. S. government.
Christ's life as intercession for forgiveness of our sins
-- the sacrifice of the Cross as simultaneously intercession, satisfaction, and absolution
declaratory vs constitutive coronations
-- despite what seems a common view, the latter are relatively rare
Peter Damian on the brevity of most papal tenures
1st Law of Thermodynamics: For measures of energy, loss and gain are transfer across a boundary.
caloric theory is equivalent to a principle of the conservation of heat
Survival depends on good and bad, not vice versa.
intensive | extensive | multiplied to get configurational work
pressure | volume | mechanical work
surface tension | area | surface energy
chemical potential | particles | chemical work
temperature | entropy | heat energy
Limited quantity of material with the end of wide distribution requires a method of circulation.
Every society has to posit something as having a kind of veda-permanency, which then serves as a stable framework.
"For those whose power is identical, the energy is wholly identical." Basil
person and product-of-person as disjunctive transcendental
mourning as something felt vs mourning as something done
(see, for example, the practice, common in the ancient world, of professional mourners)
the method of formulating philosophical problems allegorically or quasi-allegorically
Unity is in general more explanatory than plurality; the latter is only ever more explanatory for incidental reasons.
Existence is not a property but something that properties require.
Denial of the number zero is not affirmation of existence (1) because existence is not quantitative and (2) because assigning numbers presupposes rather than grounds existence.
An insistence on the Church being relevant will inevitably concoct syncretisms, some of which may be tolerated or accepted with caution and some of which are harmful to the Church.
We use 'reason' to indicate something in one of three general categories:
(1) cause
(2) anchor of general principle
(3) relevance link.
Each of these three works in very different ways.
piety as a source of authority (this is very clear in Chinese dynasties, but it is also found in Persian, Egyptian, Hellenistic, and Roman royal/imperial cults, among others)
parenthood as a sort of natural sacrament of Order, a natural ordination
"Men highly organized and trained to fight according to the book and in obedience to orders are most quickly demoralized by unorthodox and enterprising tactics." Josephus
A poll is just an anecdote about a group.
The main things that affect church-going are accessibility and social incentive.
Stable federalism requires either strong, longstanding customs or a written constitution.
There is more for human sympathy to work with when family meets family than when individual meets individual.
"In his deeds he was like a lion, like a young lion roaring for prey." 1 Macc 3:4
"No attacker was left in the land; the kings in those days were crushed." 1 Macc 14:13
"none who hope in heaven shall fail in strength" 1 Macc 2:61
Hume's account of causal reasoning is most plausible for systems that are very fast or very complex.
the importance of the 'iconic battle' to strategic thinking
One reason for the importance of water for life is that the thermal expansion properties and density profile of water allow for an unusually stable environment across very different conditions.
The Roman imperial cult was largely driven by local officials trying to 'suck up' to higher Roman powers.
profanum = beyond the fane (temple precinct)
gnosis and the sacral aspect of the person
sacrality and the capacity for initiation into gnosis required for anodos (rite of passage)
In the 1917 Code of Canon Law, an altar was encouraged to have a "tomb containing a relic" within it.
The most serious forms of gullibility are all deliberately self-imposed.
values as manners of perceived goodness
A lot of ethics has to concern itself with what reasonable and unreasonable people share.
Steiner on the "spiders of enormous wisdom" standing between mineral and plant as automotive beings created by human intellect
analogy as the structure of sympathy
sensible qualities as expressions of material things into sensory organs
Free choices breed the possibility of further free choices.
