"The first death drives the soul from the body against her will; the second death holds the soul in the body against her will. The two have this in common, that the soul suffers against her will what her own body inflicts." Augustine (Civ Dei 21.3)
"Eternal punishment seems hard and unjust to human perceptions because in the weakness of our mortal condition there is wanting that highest and purest wisdom by which it can be perceived how great a wickedness was committed in that first transgression." (Civ Dei 21.12)
"The very life we mortals lead is all punishment, for it is all temptation." (Civ Dei 21.14)
"God's anger is this mortal life, in which man is made like to vanity and his days pass as shadow." (Civ Dei 21.24)
"Sinners are destroyed in two ways -- either like the Sodomites, the men themselves are punished for their sins, or, like Ninevites, the men's sins are destroyed by repentance." (Civ Dei 21.24)
Note Augustine's suggestion that spirits (like devils) are attracted to symbols (Civ Dei 21.6).
"Humble yourself to the utmost, because fire and worms are the punishment of the ungodly." Sirach 7:17
Every argument from evil against God's existence has analogues in arguments against providence and against hell.
Arguments against the existence of hell usually collapse due to a defective conception of heaven. There's nothing that seems to necessitate this; but it happens over and over again.
the danger of attributing the properties of the whole Church to oneself
the frame of the picture & the boundary of the experiment
the abstract architecture of an experiment (mereotopological)
the catholicity of the Church and room for disagreement (Paul & Barnabas, Augustine & Jerome)
The devil generally works by a touch here, a touch there.
the dangers of an amorphous compassion
the Kantian critiques as metaphilosophy (they set up for Hegel in precisely this way)
the inherent tendency of philosophy qua inquiry toward free choice, intellectual independence from matter, and divine primacy (each is associated with a condition for pure inquiry)
the inherent tendency of philosophy qua inquiry to a community of inquirers
the coherence-finding and constancy-assuming faces of scientific inquiry
the continuant, the independent, and the external as the goals of scientific inquiry
"Taste and elegance, though they are reckoned only among the smaller and secondary morals, yet are of no mean importance in the regulation of life." Burke
There is a dangerous tendency to replace disciplines of temperance and of fortitude with disciplines of justice. disciplines of justice are indeed very important, but justice cannot survive where a people do not learn moderation and endurance.
sports as performance fiction
icons & faith; relics & hope; indulgences & charit
principle of traditional precedent in iconography
"Faith thinks, and if she does not think like the world, it is not because she thinks less, but on the contrary because she
thinks more than the world." Jean-Luc Marion
"The three great doctrines of the redemption of man by the sacrifice of our Lord on the cross; the three equal persons united in one Godhead; and the resurrection of the dead,--are the foundation of Christian Architecture." Pugin
- cruciformity, integral triplicity, verticality
gratitude for architecture
architects and artists as benefactors
architecture that expresses and emphasizes human dignity
sense of danger & sense of health as moral senses
Almost all time travel paradoxes arise out of free will -- it is free will that makes them possible and apparently paradoxical.
Good taste, particularly as it is relevant to courtesy, is a fundamental condition for dealing properly with the poor.
Eugenics has a naturally utilitarian structure.
The danger with breeding for intelligence is that it is likely to be a stupid man's idea of intelligence.
"At the summit, true strategy and politics are one." Churchill
originary analysis in early modern philosophy
good-seeking and bad-avoiding motives for crimes
ideation -> objectification of ideas -> reassessment
cycling in inquiry
Lullian art as middle-term finding
overlay of metaphor as source of discovery
An analogical inference may be rationally acceptable even if its conclusion is not more probable on the evidence than any rival conclusion based on the same evidence
the casuistics of analogical inference (safety &c; probabilism &c.)
In historical reasoning, one must always recognize that the evidence is but a trace, that there was more to the real thing than shows up in your evidence.
historical evidence as like advice
historical narrative as an exploration of the rationality of specific actions (Oakeshott)
Gluttony, lust, and greed as violations of already existing common good; sloth, wrath, envy, and vainglory as preventing even the formation of new common good.
the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and the Note of Sanctity
stole of immortality (Latin vesting prayer)
There are times when disputes over liturgy seem like a perpetual war between those who delight in removing the landmarks of their ancestors and those who refuse to use accurate weights and measures.
One way to read medieval discussions of the agent intellect is as accounts of philosophy itself.
For idealizations to be realistically grounded (as opposed to merely justified as practically useful) requires final causes: the tendencies of which the idealization is the limit.
'the original source of things has no more regard to good over ill than to heat above cold, or to draught above moisture, or to light above heavy'
- note that these are all of degree
- this has the greatest plausibility for natural evil (the difficult and the easy)
Bayesian accounts of belief inevitably make belief otiose (belief becomes just the word for relations among apparent evidences).
The problem with credences, or assimilating belief to probability in general, is that such things fail to account for the differences in kind between raising something as a possibility, holding it in abeyance, toying with the idea, doubting if it could be true, suspecting it might be true, thinking it could very well be true, or actually believing it.
If probabilities characterize only how belief should be, then belief itself is an act or event distinct from anything to do with probability, if belief is to be characterized in terms of probabilities, then it seems it would have to be only how things seem to be.
The purpose of a talent is the multiplication of God's goodness.
the Psalms as an exploration of the moods of the Church
common attention and shared beauty
undesigned correspondences and the Muse (inspiration)
good - pleasant good - beautiful
Strong forms of vice create typical reactions. Thus intemperance creates a pressure toward contempt, and vainglory toward resentment, in those who must deal with it.
The point of a wedding is to be a sign of the marriage, not to stand on its own.
tradition & diachronically common good
All common good is capable of having a diachronic aspect due to inheritance.
It is always easy to find the advice an age least needs because it is the advice most commonly given.
We cannot determine what requires consent in the first place except in light of some more fundamental moral standard.
inner-core moral concepts: virtue, universal duty, human dignity, common good
intermediate perimeter moral concepts: honor, prima facie duty, sociability, social order
outer defense moral concepts: enlightened self-interest, tolerance, consensual relations
Marriage is for all too many the only school of temperance.
Traditions cannot give virtue, but, properly handed down, they can build bulwarks of honor and profit and pleasure for virtue.
modestia as good bearing
The prudent rethink the world.
the importance of distinguishing the consensual and the preferential
Marriages, like societies in general, may be built on virtue, honor, profit, or pleasure; and like societies they face the same kinds of difficulties.
The intemperance of one is often the penalty of many.
Love transfigures truth; it does not erase it.
