This starts the notebook that was begun in April 2024.
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Morality is not a monolith, and has aspects both absolute and relative, the former making the latter possible.
Unfortunately we live in a time in which a man must be wrong often in order to be right enough.
'Day after day sharpens our thoughts, and night after night increases knowledge.'
Our faith is a testimony, a promise, and an inheritance.
Discussion of the sacrament of orders should begin with the apostles, who are the true fullness of order, then to the bishops as successors and vicars of the apostles, constituting particular churches, then priests and deacons who assist the bishops. This (1) clarifies the institution; (2) recognizes the primacy of bishops and their role in the Church qua apostolic; (3) clarifies the sense in which the three grades are distinct sacraments yet the same sacrament; (4) recognizes the permanent role of the Twelve and the relation of bishops to them.
temple-service order
-- proper & per se: apostles
-- -- derivatively
-- -- -- -- vicarious & participated: bishops
-- -- -- -- participatory
-- -- -- -- -- -- representative: priests
-- -- -- -- -- -- assistant: deacons
-- -- -- -- -- -- co-assistant: minor orders
kinds of poetic culture
(1) courtly makers
(2) popular songsters
(3) hymnodists
(4) bohemians
(5) academics/workshopists
(6) dabblers
Both Kelsen and Hart give accounts of law in which law mostly regulates and organizes officials' coercion of the people.
No one can be an official unless we already know what laws are 'legally valid'.
Reason is always one of the sources of law.
The law on a question is never settled on the basis of legally binding sources alone. Law jiggles; people are always fiddling with it in both interpretation and application, regardless of what the sources say.
Hart's criticism of Fuller shows that he doesn't understand what morality is, and has never properly considered what gives rise to legal ethics. (He also exaggerates the extent that Fuller's principles are directly required by efficacy or purposiveness in themselves, because he is in fact implicitly assuming that law requires more than bare efficiency for any kind of purpose. This is the strength of Fuller's position -- legal efficacy for legal purposes does in fact require going beyond bare purposiveness.)
In every form of ethics, tehre are kinds of efficacy conditions that are moral ideals.
Significant portions of law exist to facilitate and protect ethical practices of judges, lawyers, and officials.
"Ritual is poetry in the world of acts." Ross Nichols
Not everything knowable exists before it is known.
(1) Entia rationis are objects of thought whose being consist wholly in being objects of thought.
(2) Suppose no entia rationis exist. Either you know what is thereby said not to exist, or you do not.
(3) If you do not, then the supposition cannot stand.
(4) If you do, then the supposition is that objects of thought existing wholly as objects of thought do not exist when they are objects of thought.
We do not merely use concepts; we stretch them in using them.
There is great value in some of what is derided as 'picture book phenomenology'.
As soon as we can think, we are already in a world much larger than ourselves.
People sometimes say that two things are contradictory when in reality it is only that their minds are too small to relate them.
Human responsibility is a reflection of divine providence into the imperfect human person.
A key theme in many folktales is the small thing that is really large. This is flexibly used:
(a) the physically small that is physically large (ship in pocket)
(b) the physically small that is figuratively large (the help of the mouse)
(c) the figuratively small that is physically large (the troll, ogre, giant)
(d) the figuratively small that is figuratively large (the hero).
[1] Many things are clarified by striving to approximate a 'God's-eye view'.
[2] This is most naturally explained by there being something like a God's-eye view.
The lack of bottle in a bottle is part of what makes it a bottle.
We usually associate 'interests' with life or the capacity for spontaneous action, but even a knife has something analogous, in that there are things bad for a knife being a knife.
The teleology of an artifact is an extension of the teleology of a living thing.
Many fairy tales make use of the principles of a favor economy, because of its amplifying effect -- a small action of help on my part may solve a massive problem for another, which may result in later receiving a favor that is big for me. (Fairy tales also sometimes explore pathologies of this, e.g., putting oneself in a debt one shouldn't by accepting a favor ill-advisedly, or giving careless favors that put on in a vulnerable position. They also sometimes look at the scenarios on the other side, of failing to do favors for others, as well as negotiations over favors.)
existence qua esse vs existence qua ex alio sistere
In terms of what Biblical scholarship can actually study, the Bible is like a large family of musical performances, from which Biblical scholars derive s a score. These 'performances' are the actual texts in the manuscript traditions, and they have individual 'artistic variation', and are even played on different 'instruments' -- Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, and so forth. Of these 'performances', some are more central in terms of their intrinsic attributes and some are more prominent in their external influence. However, Biblical scholars have a tendency to posit a foundational text to which they do not have actual acess, and which, given how different texts were put together at different times and in different contexts, could nto have existed at all, and rather than treating this as merely a type in a typological classification, hypothesize about it as if it were history.
integral richness as a mark of understanding
Every human being naturally builds an 'imaginative realm', each depending on the imaginative capacities and habits of the person; and one of the most difficult aspects of moral life is disciplining and organizing this imaginative realm so as not to make oneself unnecessarily vulnerable to temptation.
aphorisms as means of thenching
"An enlightened king concentrates on expressing virtue, thus the four barbarians submit to his rule. Thus by propagating virtue one can make those distant submit. What need is there to rely on expanding territory?" Shi Zimei
"The government of the noble causes men to submit with their bodies. The government of the sage causes men to submit with their minds." Huang Shigong
Kant's categories as modes of similitude
In holy orders, the ordained receives consecration to an angelic ministry, (cf. Chrysostom, On the Priesthood 1.3c4; also the letters in Rev), a juridical title in the divine court for graces of help in this ministry, and a holy seal in conformation to Christ as High Priest and King of Angels. They also receive a general mission which is to be specified by jurisdiction, as well as the special patronage of the Holy Virgin as Queen of Heaven.
The Queenship of Mary consists in that her ministry as Mother of Christ does not cease at death.
Augustine on order: "a disposition given his own place to each one of those being equal and unequal" (Civ Dei 1.19 c 13 n1).
The sacramental character seals an interior covenant.
the enceinte of a doctrine
doctrinal development by concentric fortification of principle
Acceptively, God exists as a social entity, and this is true even if (like an atheist) one regards Him as a social fiction. But we tend not to think much about God's existence as a social entity.
The matter of matrimony is the passive contract, which is what is given, and the form of matrimony is the active contract, and thus the mutual giving.
The mutual consent expressed in words in matrimony is the efficient cause; the nature of matrimony is the mutual consent formalized as contractual bond. Thus the sacrament is permanent, not transient.
The priest in matrimony is the minister not of the sacrament itself but of the Church's recognition and benediction.
All genuine marriages are 'sacraments of nature' and have a natural sacredness as instituted by God, being the locus of the humanly appropriate survival of humanity, and foreshadonwing union with the divine (albeit confusedly).
It seems likely that marriage between Christian and unbeliever, if done properly according to the Church, should be seen as a minor sacrament (saramental), even though not as a major sacrament, for the baptized believer.
'Civil marriage' is in some sense a misnomer; it is natural marriage, and the civil power has only authority insofar as is involved in its being part of the civil religion or piety or in its having publicity as a contract.
The primary difficulty with iterated deontic operators is maintaining consistent interpretation.
Identity is a way of thinking about entity.
Being has its first principle in God, and so does distinction; being and distinction alike imitate God.
"The dynamism of our mind proceeds necessarily beyond every finite object, beyond the sum of all possible finite objects, towards the infinite itself." Emerich Coreth
"Every finite being stands in a fundamental relation to the absolute being of God. When we render this relation explicit, we may derive from it a proof of God's existence. Thus demonstrations of God are possible from the finalistic order and harmony of the world, from the finite subject-object relation, hence also from the ontic truth and goodness of being, further from the absolute nature of moral obligation, from the transcendence of human society and history, from the religious experience both of the individual and of humanity as a whole, and so on."
Being is the instigator and object of wondering.
"In a generalized sense, a horizon is specified by two poles, one objective and the other subjective, with each pole conditioning the other. Hence, the objective pole is taken, not materially, but like the formal object *sub ratione sub qua attingitur* (under the aspect whih the activity specifically regards); similarly the subjective pole is considered, not materially, but in its relation to the objective pole." Lonergan
Our capability for the sublime is itself sublime.
A pope who teaches something explicitly as an innovation is by definition not teaching it as the successor of St. Peter.
Merit by its nature involves a note of incompleteness and probation.
There is almost always more than one possible strategy.
co-prayer as a central component of the communion of saints (prayer with and prayer for)
Nothing is as contagious as confusion.
James Chastek on baptism of viarious desire (JST 4/17/24)
Given: At least some unborn humans are persons.
(1) People have rational souls and so are ordered to the beatific vision.
(2) Where there is order to beatitude, something is responsible for attaining this beatitude by its proper means, which in the ease of beatitude is baptism or some intentional act with the force of baptism.
(3) For the young, the parent is responsible.
(4) One cannot be responsible for doing something that cannot be done.
(5) Since baptism of the unborn is impossible, the parent must be capable of, and responsible for, some intentional act with the force of baptism.
The unborn in a Christian family are within the enclosure of the domestic church. Welcoming into the domestic church begins well before birth, being virtually present in the marital sacrament itself.
Lived experience is susceptible to critique for the same reasons lived action is.
topology as a sort of algebra of measurables
Metaphysics begins with being even before any affimration or negation, being as the precondition for any affirmation and negation.
"...those objects are metaphysical which have the absolute properties of generality and necessity." Marechal
"We do not really overcome an error until we can point to a contradiction."
"Every error contains a part of the truth."
"The conditions of possibility which determine the essential structure of the object of thought a priori are precisely what we term 'faculties of knowledge'."
"In every object of thought, whatever it may be, we affirm absolute being implicitly and contingent being explicitly. Outside of this simultaneous dual affirmation there is no possibility of objective thought."
being as presupposed in inquiry, as constitutive of the object of inquiry, as regulative of the imquiry, as that to which the inquiry tends
the history of philosophy itself as intrinsically a dialectical, rhapsodic, eclectic interaction of minds
Every error relates to truth
(1) as including (presupposed by) truth
(2) as included in (corrected within) truth
(3) as resembling truth.
These interact and come apart in various interesting ways.
Being we discover both phenomenally and noumenally.
two moments of transcendental method (Muck)
(1) retorsive -- shows the necessary ground of object of thought and knowledge of it
(2) operative (act-analytical) -- shows the structure of the act whereby the object of thought is known
Potential being and counterfactual possibility are inherent in the very concept and nature of experimentation.
To Muck's two moments of transcendental method we should perhaps add a solutive or illuminative moment where one uses the retorsive and operative results to solve or reduce problems, or possible problems.
Method begins not with pure abstract consideration but with purported successes and diagnosis or analysis of them as successes.
experiment --> ensemble --> analytical formulas --> laws of nature --> cosmos
You can't form a method without already knowing how to succeed, at least in principle.
science as structured not by a method but by a system for creating methods
imaginative association as a symbol of intellectual reasoning
Somehow human beings never seem to learn that politics is not puppetry.
To fight requires anticipating the future.
rule in claim, rule in name, rule in domain
Particular injustices can be observed; systemic injustice must be inferred by reasoning.
catechetical similes
