Kant's argument that effects of grace are not theoretically cognizable depends on his false view of causation. (His argument against practical employment is much better, but assumes that grace's being another's action means that our contribution is nothing.)
As the service of the heart expresses itself in external service, the true service of God must be both internal and external.
rites as schemata for duties (Kant)
Marion's argument for saturated phenomena would, if sound, refute Kant's account of faith in mysteries as delusory faith. This raises the question of whether ether are analogues of Marion's argument for faith in miracles (cognition of the anomalous) or faith in means of grace (effect beyond our capacity), just as with faith in mysteries (aspect of moral life beyond concept).
-- Aquinas's instrumental account of sacraments gives an answer to the effect-beyond-capacity problem, and we also find the category of inspiration as being like that of revelation for Marion (This would include poetic inspiration, etc.).
-- The miracles point is complicated by Kant's defective account of miracle.
"The experience of many centuries also teaches that this divine law book has become, for a large part of the human race, a source of insight from which it draws new ideas, or according to which it corrects old ones. The more you search in it, the more you will be astounded at the depths of insight which lie concealed in it." Mendelssohn
The turning of water into wine involves the potential of water to become wine, i.e., there being a causal course of possibility from water to wine. This connects to MacDonald and Lewis on miracles. Such miracles thus affirm a background nomology: the lawlikeness of the world is a potentiality for miracle.
Each sacrament is sign, instrument, and remedy.
notion of tribunal : penance :: notion of sacrifice : eucharist :: notion of domestic church : matrimony
moral luck // technical luck
the hortatory functions of human proper names (we find it also with dwellings and towns and nations)
Schleiermacher's principle: That in which two diverse but opposed concepts are one is the higher concept to which the other two are subordinated.
perseverance in the race (Hb 12:1; Phil 2:16; Gal 2:2, 5:7; 2 Tim 4:7)
boxing, etc. (1 Cor 9:24-26; 2 Tim 2:5)
soldiery (Phil 2:@5; Philem 1:2; 2 Tim 2:3-4; 1 Cor 9:7; Eph 6:10-18)
Human beings deliberately use randomizing (coin flip, dice roll, etc.) for decision-forcing, so it's problematic simply to assume (as most do) that there can be no such thing built into human action. Certainly it would make sense to have a natural decision-forcing, and the only question would be whether it is deterministic or not.
the congealing of trial & error into method
Medical causality is very naturally seen as dispositive or sine qua non.
Analogical inferences can hold to different degrees of approximation.
skepticism as philosophical throttle (cp. Augustine)
Lovers hope for gifts, and give gifts in order to get gifts.
Schleiermacher does not adequately distinguish the immanent common good of the cosmos from the transcendent originary common good that is the Creator.
The aptitude of a field to inspire religious or 'spiritual' feelings is linked to the ways it suggests infinity.
"What actually appeals to the religious sense in the external world is not its masses but its laws." Schleiermacher
virginity and the enduring or eternal as associated across many cultures
Is there knowledge in the sense of something stronger than belief?
Yes: Platonism, Aristotelianism, Cartesianism, etc.
No: Is 'knowledge' (1) a strict description or (2) a loose or indirect one? If (2), then 'knowledge' is a shorthand for belief + lots of other things (e.g., practical commitments, feelings, etc.).
If (1), then either (1a) it is just true belief (= alethic reduction = TB) or (1b) it is not.
If (1b), then either it is true belief with evidence (standard JTB) or it is not (JTB with Warrant).
New Natural Law does not make an adequate distinction between highly reasonable and required.
vestments of human dignity: honor and reputation, labor, leisure and free time
"It's the half-educated, as usual, who's the enemy. He always is. The Wise Men and the shepherds both knelt in Bethlehem." Robert Hugh Benson
undesigned coincidences as nonartificial confirmations
"Instead of saying, 'the intention is in me,' I could more aptly say, 'I am in the intention.' Being directed to something in this way or that way is indeed my spiritual living; and 'this way or that' are features that I can discern in my various 'acts'." Edith Stein
authority as deontic power/ability
backward authorization
preemptive authorization
prescriptive vs permissive authorization
overdetermination of authorization
Are there causal powers?
Either Yes (causal powers theories) or No.
If No, either (1) causal descriptions involve necessities or (2) they do not (= regularity theories).
If (1), either (1a) they do so directly (=counterfactual/conditional theories) or (1b) they do so indirectly (=manipulability theories)
elements of tradition: lore, customary practices, documenta, signs under which the tradition operates, ground of reception, means of giving
See draws near to see in a kind of gravitational attraction.
exemplar causes as end-providing
the ethnic, diasporic, and global aspects of the particularity of the sui juris churches
classical culture as part of the ethnic and diasporic aspect of the Latin Church
brown qua nonspectral color as a test case for theories of color
the danger of a police force becoming a subsidized security system for the well-to-do
"Each organism appears as a self-enclosed whole which is formed over time from its own interior in a process we call 'life', or which opens its interior to outward visibility." Edith Stein
"The self-constructing organism constantly reaches beyond itself, absorbs materials, and 'organizes' them."
consciousness of the body
(1) thisness
(2) being
(3) mineness
(4) physicality
Christ is index (being from the Father), icon (Being consubstantial with the Father as His Image), and symbol (being designated as Son of God and exalted by the Father) of God.
It is quite clear that truths of judgment, whether about the past or the future, are usually indeterminate or unknowable, regardless of the truth of things, and thus that bivalence is not a principle governing how judgments and their 'truth values' work in actual reasoning, except where there is some additional reason to take it be applicable.
A theory of truth values is not a theory of truth but a theory of what can be marked as true or true-like.
piacular responsibility as related to responsibility for common good
Hb 10:11-14: The session of Christ as marking the perfection of Christ's priesthood.
"We do the thing before we understand why we do it: speech precedes grammar, reason precedes logic, and so a division of animals into groups, upon an instinctive perception of their differences, has preceded all our scientific creeds and doctrines." Agassiz
Operations are what we use to identify wholes.
The Church Triumphant is united to God by His indwelling it, for it is His most perfect Temple; and by unity of intention, for it is purified; and by operation, for it is moved by grace; and by sharing in His honor, for it is the Bride of the Lamb.
Christ as having divine jural freedom and both divine and human right of ownership
Quanto bonum est communius, tanto est divinius. (Aquinas In Sent 2.11.1.2)
"Our hierarchy is distinguished from the angelic by the fact that ours is perfected by the divine light as veiled through sensible likenesses both in the sacraments and in the metaphors of Scripture." Aquinas (In Sent 2.9.1.3)
priesthood of reception: Baptism
priesthood of proclamation: Confirmation
priesthood of consecration: Orders
purgation, illumination, and union in marriage
In the Incarnation, the Word Himself is given as grace, grace qua person to human nature and thereby to humankind.
The Word Incarnate communicates personal dignity to the Church itself insofar as the Church is united to Him.
the spread of symbolism from Christian teaching as part of the Holy Spirit's work through the Church
Every healthy state is filled with symbols recognizing a higher, moral order to which it is beholden.
The Church is like all human associations by virtue of human nature, but has the dignity of consciousness of God, like many mirrors together reflecting one scene or a painting of one thing across many canvases or the cumulative character of a hologram.
instruments by which other things are used as instruments (this is quite common -- quills are that by which ink is used to write, knobs are that by which doors are used; steering wheels, keys, shoelaces, handles, levers, buttons, switches, etc. etc.)
Originality is a byproduct of classification.
The body's usefulness depends on its limited resistance to change, its inertia and friction.
the face as that which intends us
the chora of sensory experience
Sensory perception is organized; it requires something that organizes. There is in the chaos of sensation something apt to be organized.
We experience our animality as a drive to be animal, to be animally.
the hedonic vs the ascetic experience of body
-- note that these overlap: the exhilaration of exercise is one of the common examples
-- athletic-ascetic vs moral-ascetic
-- tranquil-hedonic vs ecstatic-hedonic
-- these categories can cover widely different things -- .e.g, being tickled and orgasm are both ecstatic-hedonic, as are kissing and sinking into a hot bath after a long hard day and urinating after holding it in for a long time.
-- hedonic rest and hedonic release
-- ascetic restraint and ascetic work
how to do things with bodies
the common experience of sexuality as being-for-another
"Whoever follows Christ the perfect man becomes himself more a man." Gaudium et spes
natural law in Gaudium et spes: 74,79,89
A nation governed by vanity is a slave to the person who can offer a never-ending stream of purely symbolic equalities.
the Holy Virgin in assumption // the ark over the Jordan (Damascene)
The Word within a woman's womb
was given flesh from woman's flesh;
so hardly then shall gaping tomb
conquer one within whose mesh
the Word itself was human made;
she is assumed, the sleeping maid.
| Life of Christ | Life of Mary |
|---|---|
| Annunciation | Immaculate Conception |
| Presentation | Presentation |
| Baptism | Annunciation |
| Passion | Sorrows |
| Resurrection | Pentecost |
| Ascension | Assumption |
| Session | Queenship |
1 Cor 9:9-10 -- oxen do not read what is written; what is written cannot be for their sake, and thus God does not have it written for them
Human conversion must be conversion with the senses as well as with the mind.
Not all human beings see, and not all hear, so the pinnacle of the sacraments does not lie chiefly in what is seen or heard; but all living human beings eat and drink in some way, so the chief sacrament is eaten and drunk, that all may participate in it. But it also may be seen, in ocular communion, and may be heard ("This is my body"), for those who cannot eat and drink it for incidental reasons.
Schopenhauer: "With the exception of man, no being wonders at its existence. ...With this reflection and this wonder there arises for man alone the need for a metaphysics."
We try to understand animals by
(1) observation of patterns
(2) projection of ourselves onto them
(3) privation of what is distinctively human
"To live the eucharist means imperceptibly to leave the narrowness of one's own life to be born to the immensity of the love of Christ." Edith Stein
what is, what is thought about, what is talked about
causal analysis, phenomenological analysis, linguistic analysis
"When motion is removed from action and passion, only relation remains." Aquinas (ST 1.45.3)
a contractualist account of etiquette
Standard logic without plural quantification really needs classifiers for nondistributive predicates. 'They are shipmates' -> 'They are (members of a group of) shipmates'.
communion of anticipation, communion of salutation, and communion of participation in the Mass
We do not merely have cognitive objects; we are bound to them, linked with them.
Since a palindrome is something that can be read the same both forward and backward, nothing is a palindrome except under an interpretation relevant to reading that establishes, among other things, how it is to be read. But it can still be objectively assessed whether something is a palindrome under this or that interpretation.
The life of Jesus is a life in contemplation of God, but not merely such.
vestment as the most closely joined separate instrument (more closely united and you get a conjoined instrument)
The experience of pain is a good; that which pains is recognized (in the experience) as relatively bad in some way.
(1) All Christ's acts of human intellect and will are such that His acts of divine intellect and will are present with them. (compresence)
(2) All human acts of Christ are instrumental to His own divine acts. (instrumentality)
(3) Some human acts of Christ are occasions for special divine acts. (intercession)
(4) Some human acts of Christ are symbolic representations of divine acts. (symbolism)
