"When a sign produces an effect, it is never insofar as it is a sign." Maritain
"The craftsman's creative *idea* is in no way a *concept*, for it is neither cognitive nor representative; it is only generative, it does not tend to make our mind conformed to things, but to make a thing conformed to our mind." Maritain
moral causality & coins 'containing' value
gift: aptitude for being given; what is given has aptitude or relation both to the giver and to that to which it is given; implies something belonging to another through its origin (must belong in a way to the giver); not called from actually being given but from the aptitude to being given; properly an unreturnable giving, i.e., what is given but not with intention of return of that thing (contains the idea of gratuitous donation); the reason of donation being gratuitous is love, so love has the nature of first gift through which all free gifts are given. [ST 1.38]
sacrament as power of grace, as relationship with (relating to) God, as membership/participation in divine society (Kingdom of God)
facts & states of affairs as beings of reason
'depends on reason'
1. as effect on cause
--- a. as from efficient cause (e.g., art)
--- b. as maintained by quasi-material cause (e.g., habits)
2. as object cognized (ens rationis)
entisimilitude/beinglikeness
"For a lover's first gift is his own heart, and when this gift is received and deeply appreciated by his beloved, it joins the two by an intense inner bond." John of St. Thomas
(1) intrinsic denomination
--- (a) by identity
--- (b) by inherence
(2) extrinsic denomination
--- (a) by extrinsic relation (urine is healthy as a sign of health)
--- (b) by extrinsic foundation of relation (ground is sunny from sunlight)
By beings of reason, the intellect makes what is not directly knowable as being into something indirectly knowable on the model of being, thereby coming to a richer understanding of what can be known directly as being.
The basis of gratitude is that the gift in some secondary way remains the giver's; qua gift it retains the relation of its being from the giver.
using being as a diagram for lack of being (negative impress); using one being as a diagram for another being
A hole can be understood either negatively (what would fill it but does not) or relatively (with respect to nonhole context, e.g., as a passageway).
liberal arts as facilitating the formation of useful beings of reason
Classics as a field is concerned with literary (and, when taken in a broader sense, artistic) treasures pertaining to the common good of the human race itself.
Thing as Existent (A) | Thing as Intelligible (B) ||| Intellect as Formally Signifying (C) | Intellect as Power (D)
--- B + C = Understanding
The sacraments as signs are unions with the mind; the causal work of the sacrament makes use of this union.
-- the perfecting causality uses the semiotic causality as part of its disposing in the full causal act itself
"The *object* is one with the thing and differs from it only by a virtual distinction of reason." Maritain
"...by one single and identical act, the mind *conceives* (gives birth to) the thing in the concept and *perceives* it as object."
Concepts are simultaneously the purest form of sign and the purest form of means.
waterless clouds carried by winds, fruitless harvest trees, doubly withered, uprooted, fierce sea-waves foaming their shameful deeds, wandering stars detained in the murk of perpetual shadow
Jude 21 as Trinitarian
sacraments as distributions of the merit of Christ
Christ's miracles as symbols of the sacraments
Gal 3:27 and baptismal character
real presence -> real holiness
The sign 'produces' knowing not as efficient cause but by taking the place of the object in such a way that it is related to what is known through it.
The sacraments are occasional causes for certain kinds of effects, although not their primary ones; in particular, they are occasional causes for certain kinds of cooperation between God and the soul in reception and edification.
moral causality: coin containing value, sack of money containing price of freedom
Cano: rememorative instruments of the pact by which God promised the application of Christ's merits by bestowing grace when the rite is applied
Insofar as we consider the sacraments only in their working by semiotic causality, they do not reach to causing grace but to disposing for it. However, this semiotic causality is in the sacraments of the New Law transfigured and used by God instrumentally; qua used as divine instruments, the signs cause grace.
The pactum theory of sacramental causality is not a fiat theory.
intention with respect to sacramental rite
(1) jocose
(2) external
(3) internal
-- 'internal' here means the internal nature of the sacrament, not a secret intent on the part of the minister; when the minister has the internal intention, he aims at the Church's sacrament, not merely the appearance or caricature of it.
Berkhof claims that the sacraments of the OT are not essentially different from the sacraments of the NT on the basis of 1 Cor 10:1-4, Rm 4:11, 1 Cor 5:7, and Col 2:11, but in fact all of these only establish that the sacraments of the OT are genuinely sacraments and that the look forward to those of the NT.
Berkhof claims that there were only two OT sacraments: circumcision and passion (sacrifices and purifications he calls 'other symbolical rites').
Every small pain can in some context be a pleasure, without ceasing to be a pain, thus showing that pain and pleasure are not direct opposites.
"It is those that do nothing that lack the time to do anything." Manon Roland
quasi-existing nonentities (cracks, holes, imaginary time)
pure nonentities (nothing)
impossibilities (square circle)
proxy uses of entia rationis vs scaffolding uses of entia rationis (two different ways they can be used to simplify reasoning)
a hole/gap/crack may be *used*
jokes as verbal magic tricks (and magic tricks as sensible jokes)
theories of truth as theories of (our knowledge of) the external world
quasi-existing nonentities as involving both negation and relation: mere negation gives us something indefinite; relation can give us something particular, so you need the latter to specify a particular nonentity
the juridical external world
three purposes of contract: to resolve or prevent dispute, to achieve mutual benefit or mutually to avoid harm, to facilitate acts of virtue
Kenelm Digby's account of grace in the postscript to "Observations upon Religio Medici" conflates it with providence.
distinction as negation of identity-relation
negation, relation, negation of relation, relation of negation
titles: (a) claims (b) rights-to
Marian assent in the Eucharist
"We may say that all eating and drinking is an attempt to reach towards the communication we will find only in Christ." McCabe
"To the degree that man's understanding of the transcendent is weakened, so also is weakened his self-consciousness and his ability to experience the perspectival structure of time." Dooyeweerd
Nouns signify things as if subsisting according to some qualification; verbs signify things as if operating according to some qualification.
Baber's account of the Eucharist seems to be a moral impanation.
"All theological theories of the Sacrament agree that its meaning lies in the fact that while it is performed as a repetition in time, it manifests an unrepeatable and super-temporal reality." Schmemann
"The Sacrifice of Calvary, as a great supra-temporal reality, enters into the immediate present." Karl Adam
The sacrifice on the Cross, qua sacrifice, cannot itself be clocked in the way Christ's physical suffering and dying on the Cross can.
"The sacrifice of Christ subsists under three different modes. It is the same priestly action which took place in a precise moment of history; which is eternally present in heaven, and which subsists under the sacramental appearances." Danielou
The divine idea of sacrifice has the Crucifixion and the Session and the Mass as exemplates.
connoisseurship of translations like connoisseurship of wine
descriptive vs evaluative wine judging
A purely individualistic society would be one in which every individual is exposed like a raw nerve.d
"The understanding naturally seeks and bursts out into manifestation." John of St. Thomas
We all, by reason itself, have a moral responsibility to listen peaceably to honest arguers. The difficulty is that honest arguers do not wear a divinely given sign that says 'Honest'. And what counts as 'peaceably' can vary considerably, as well.
configurative signs
"Every finite spirit believes either in God or in an idol." Scheler
Republic Bk II on the errors of the poets indirectly establishes three things about the Good: it is one, it is self-diffusive, and it is immutable.
usury as sophistry of finance
The Jewish shepherds were spoken to directly by the angels; the Gentile Magi had to follow a star based on their own skills, and then get further information from the Jews, who, even when not seeking Christ, had by prophecy and Scripture more specific information about Him than the Gentiles.
Memory is not about storage and retrieval, which, to the extent they are involved, are a means, but about turning and returning oneself to what was.
The Church feeds by signs as well as by alms.
Natural rights are participations of rational creatures in divine authority, as providence for oneself and others.
The state is a conjoined, not a separate, instrument of civil society.
The modern world tries to dissolve everything into formless matter, in an attraction to a kind of false infinity.
Both the End in Itself and the Kingdom of Ends formulations require that maxims be judged by appropriateness and inappropriateness as well as universality; which is in fact recognized by Kant himself in his ethical discussions.
journalism as a sort of historical fiction, putting the reader into the event
The Devil tempted Christ with three temptations: to make bread from stones, to avoid death by the power of God and the angels, to receive the kingdoms of the world. Christ's miracles in His ministry are a rebuke of these three. Christ makes bread from bread; He dies to rise in power; and He does not receive the kingdoms of the world except by ascending to receive them from God. The reason for the difference is that the temptations are to do flashy things for His benefit, but Christ's ministry is to act for our benefit.
Zechariah 3:8 -- 'men symbolic of things to come'
