The deterioration of marriage has led Christianity in the Western world to being in a wild state, as if we were all in the first or second generation after a large-scale conversion. Things continually have to be reconstituted rather than handed down, Christian ideas are held syncretically and eclectically, theology is filled with a great deal of quackery, and even the devout are more in a state of Christianizing than of being Christian.
The quality of the liturgy depends in part on the general use of devotions.
knowledge that is neither simply a priori nor simply a posteriori (virtually every account requires that there be such, for either glutty or gappy reasons)
candidates for contingent a priori: (1) cogito-like (2) conventional
candidates for necessary a posteriori: (1) unforeseeable identity (2) unforeseeable structural explanation
Our experience in itself suggests necessities.
There is an interactive element to the stage that has generally been missing from the screen, which has to rely on anticipation of reaction instead.
civilization: respect for God, respect for the dead, respect for neighbor, respect for marriage
As there are 'high' and 'low' approaches to Christology, so too to ecclesiology, theology of sacraments, Mariology, and all else in close interdependence with Christology.
Justice and its potential parts have a cumulative effect; they build systems, layer by layer.
etiquette as the intersection of justice and temperance
asceticism as the intersection of fortitude and temperance
duty (officia) as the intersection of justice and fortitude
law, ascetic method, code of etiquette
fortitude-relevant self-knowledge (knowing one's limits and taking them into account)
temperance-relevant self-knowledge (knowing one's temptations and taking them into account)
Philosophical attention is finite, but the philosophical universe is infinite.
the analogy between white space and silence (cp. Don Paterson)
video game combat systems
(1) direct & deterministic
(2) indirect & deterministic
(3) indirect & indeterministic
-- in fantasy games, which often have layered combat systems, one sometimes sees all three; e.g., in Darklands, weaponry is (1), alchemy is (2), and invocation of saints is (3), although the last is partial and not fully integrated with the other two.
-- indeterministic tends by its nature to make combat indirect. ARe there exceptions (however weird) to this? 'Deterministic' here can cover a set range over different conditions, so it is flexible. Perhaps the old Civilization quirk of catapults being able to defeat tanks occasionally?
A photograph is like an anecdote, and has analogous limitations.
Are there abstract objects? Yes: Platonism broadly construed. If no, are the descriptions strict or loose? If loose, paraphrastic nominalism. If strict, do they imply existence? If no, are they true or false on other grounds? If true, deflationism. If false, fictionalism. If they do imply existence, is that existence physical or psychological? If physical, physical, physical reductionism; if psychological, psychological reductionism. (Cp. Balaguer)
Are there mental events? If yes, are they themselves physical or psychological? If physical, physical reductionism. If psychological, nonreductionism. If there aren't any, are descriptions of them loosely true? If yes, paraphrastic eliminativism. If no, fictionalism (eliminativism proper).
Kinds of strategies used by Modernists in theology
(1) paraphrastic reduction
(2) quasi-pantheistic translation
(3) emotivist translation
(4) narrative (fictional) reduction
Different views of precedent
Box = binding, True = illustrative, Diamond = opening
(1) Box implies True implies Diamond
(2) Box implies Diamond, Box does not imply True.
(3) Box implies True, True doesn't imply Diamond.
(4) Box doesn't imply True, True doesn't imply Diamond.
(5) Box doesn't imply True, True implies Diamond.
Perception is already the beginning of memory and memory is already the beginning of imagination.
Suppose I imagine a bear. What am I imagining? Something that has reference to memory and perception.
All arguments against abstract objects can be converted, with only minor modification, into arguments against evidence.
Is evidence in the world? If yes, evidentialism. If no, then are descriptions of evidence nonetheless capable of being true? If not, fictionalism about evidence. If they are capable of being true, is this because they imply that something else exists? If no, then constructive particularism. If yes, then is this a physical process or a psychological process? If physical, physical reductionism (evidence is a physical signal); if psychological, subjectivism (evidence is a subjective interpretation).
the body as an efficacious instrument for communicating the real presence of life and mind
the possible and necessary as matters of final cause.
the fluid of philosophical description crystallizing into the structure of philosophical classification
A 'legal system' is a reasoned system of signs concerned with simulation and modeling of authority for practical matters of political life.
A 'logical system' is a reasoned system of signs concerned with simulation and modeling of goodness of reasoning in matters of argument and proof.
divine love : principle of merit :: Incarnation : preeminent example of merit
preeminence as fidelity to principle
icons, relics, and invocations of saints as the three interlocking systems of devotion to the saints
cooperation by operative overlap
cooperation by instrumentality (one operation part of another)
cooperation by union (operations equivalent)
incidental cooperation (operations distinct)
Value: causal classification within valuation proper leads to behavioral guidelines as the valuation itself creates an emotional ambience
human inquiry as primarily structured by pack cooperation and endurance hunting
hetertrophic vs autotrophic inquiry
pursuit inquiry vs ambush inquiry
forms of inculturation
(1) protective mimicry
(2) creative appropriation
(3) baptism & transfiguration
'Sunk cost fallacy' is not any kind of fallacy at all; it is just liable to cost overrun. It in fact derives from a way human beings learn, by trying to find something of value even in mistakes.
Human beings are always tempted by the idea of being right merely because of what they are. This is indeed to set oneself up as a god, for God alone is right simply by virtue of what He is.
St. Paul's insight after so many centuries still remains sure: the nations build altars to the unknown God.
Body is a material cause for locomotion qua body.
Seven names for diabolical evil in Revelation
(1) Wormwood (8:11)
(2) Abaddon (9:11)
(3) Apollyon (9:11)
(4) Dragon (12:3)
(5) Serpent (12:9)
(6) Satan (12:9 et al.)
(7) Devil (12:9 et al.)
the sacraments as supersemiotic
Testimony is both evidence and assurance; it is, in fact, evidence because it is assurance. The assurance is part of the causal structure by which testimony connects us to what it is about.
There are different kinds of testimonial assurance.
We experience Scripture as a whole as assurance in (and generally only in) the context of its proclamation and use in prayer and practice by the Church; this experiences posts the assurer as the Holy Spirit, indeed, as the only possible assurer adequate to the assurance.
the juridical (or at least quasi- or pre-juridical) character of testimony: testimony give sa right to act on the authority of the testifier
There is an aesthetic quality somewhat literary in character, to testimonial evidence that is not found in other evidence (although they may have other aesthetic qualities).
"And how great a fact is that which you Academics repugn and reject, the fact that by means of the senses and intelligence we perceive and realise things external to us." Cicero (DN II.59)
Faith is by nature externalist, or partly externalist (depending on how, precisely, one defines the term), for it involves not just representation of something as true, but the action of divine truth.
The sacrament of Matrimony functions as a sign by convergence on that of which it is a sign. Human marriages are scattered and flawed, even at their best, but as they, through divine grace, begin to reach a higher completion, they become more complete and unified as signs, and more intimately related to that which they signify.
Human covenants must have signs.
"Do not relate your actions to anything other than a goal which may serve the human community." Marcus Aurelius
"For rational animals, action in conformity with nature is at the same time in conformity with reason."
"...rational beings are made for one another. The primary constituent in the makeup of human beings is therefore the tendency to act for the common good."
"People were made for one another, so either instruct them or put up with them."
utilitarianism : Epicureanism :: Kantianism : Stoicism
"Faith, justice, honesty, and virtue must have been as early as the state of nature or they could never have been at all." Shaftesbury
Love of mankind is only not an affectation in the context of friendship.
What counts as evidence depends on the field of possible interpretations, as does the way in which it is evidence.
Every truth is a truthmaker for a string of truths consequent upon it.
'truthmaker' as a coextensive transcendental
'Overdoing is undoing.'
Intercessory mediation is the heart of the communion of saints.
Patterns of saint dedications arise from (using St. Nicholas as an example):
(1) direct biographical connection: Myra
(2) mission under his patronage: Dominicans
(3) thematic association: harbor towns
dedication of Temple (I Kg 8)
dedication of 2nd Temple (Ezr 6:16)
dedication of Maccabees
dedication of Herod's Temple (Josephus, 15.14)
Hume's essay on miracles should more properly be regarded as a critique of hagiography.
the three lines of hagiography: oral, pictorial, written
Delehaye underestimates the value of the topographical test for hagiography, in part because he neglects its value for undesigned coincidences.
To each theological virtue corresponds a discipline, distinct from but corresponding to the virtue, consisting of elicited and external acts taht ought to be performed in light of, and in expression of, that virtue, as well as ideals for which one should aim.
wholewise and partwise versions of the Five Ways
abstract objects: ontological
external world: cosmological
other minds: teleological
self: things like Maritain's Sixth Way
four versions of each of the Five Ways
I. possibilized objective
II. actualized objective
III. possibilized subjective
IV. actualized subjective.
-- e.g., Aquinas's version is II for each. Stein has IV for First Way, something more like Scotus is I for Second Way; Arguably Aquinas on law gives a IV for Fourth Way.
The UGCC requires that the sacrament of reconciliation be given in front of an icon of Christ, if possible (canon 95).
"No reason, however grave, may be put forward by which anything intrinsically against nature may become conformable to nature and morally good." Pius XI
It is true that thinking of marriage as a form of juridical contract was not adequate to the sacrament; but the same is true of thinking of it as a form of self-gift. This is inevitable given that a sacrament is an inexhaustible fountain.
The uniting friendship of marital love is expressed in procreation and education of children, in mutual help, and in corrective counter to concupiscence, by its very nature. It is not something separable, as if there were a sort of dualism.
The body is both private and public, individual and common, although in different ways.
Marriage creates a bundle of shared juridical rights, which might be summarized as the shared right to be as one.
marriage as
juridical contract
self-gift
procreative friendship
stewardship
natural tradition
