Divine love is the ultimate root of merit.
"Many of the Gentiles received revelations of Christ, as is clear from their predictions." Aquinas ST 2-2.2.7 ad 3
Note that Aquinas thinks Adam had foreknowledge of the Incarnation before the Fall (ST 2-2.2.7).
Christ's Passion (ST 3.48.6 ad 3)
(1) insofar as it is compared with His Godhead: efficient cause of salvation
(2) insofar as it is compared with will of His soul: meritorious cause of salvation
(3) insofar as it is considered in His flesh: acts by way of satisfaction
(4) insofar as we are freed from the servitude of guilt: acts by way of redemption
(5) insofar as we are reconciled with God: acts by way of sacrifice
Being reasonable is rarely boring.
Professionalism and efficiency sometimes go together and sometimes do not.
The principle of verification makes the most sense when working with artificially constructed formal systems; it's just that these do not exhaust the field at all.
three things pertaining to representing and signifying
(1) sending forth or production of species in a power by object or sign
(2) exercise of power as attending
(3) concurrence with power to elicit notice of the thing signified/represented
"Nemo enim sibi solus sufficit etiam Angelus." John of St. Thomas
Angels can know all that is proportionate and relevant to their understanding, for nothing impedes the knowability of such things with respect to angels; the angels communicated by ordering and proportioning their thoughts to each other.
subsidiarity in the protection of human rights
"Sacred doctrine is called 'divine' or 'theological' because it is from God, about God, and leading to God." Alexander of Hales
Tradition must be traditionalized.
psychopolis, cosmopolis, theopolis
Trinity: substance & relation
Incarnation: substance & quality
Eucharist: substance & quantity
Scotus: relatio as "respectus intrinsecus adveniens"; contrasts with sex principia as each "respectus extrinsecus adveniens"
The sign is related to the signified precisely insofar as the latter is manifestable to a cognitive power in some way.
The virtue of religion does not have God as a direct object, like charity, hope, or faith; it has worship as its direct object, and thus is of God indirectly inasmuch as worship itself, as orientation to God, has God as an object.
What is received in tradition must be converted into tradition.
Frege holds (Logik 144) that the work of art is actually a structure of ideas in the viewer/hearer/reader, and the external work merely as a means for producing it.
-- means as what brings a power to an end other than itself
-- The means consists properly in a relativity (relatio) to the end it serves, and loosely includes as well the ground of this relation in the thing that is the means. This relation in a natural means is a real relation and independent of cognition or appetition; the relation in an artificial means is a rational relation but constrained by ground and end.
-- The relation of the means to the power and to the end is a single relation of means to end as attainable by the power.
--The means as such is related to the power as subordinate end.
-- The means is measured by its end.
-- Acts are means in which the end is achieved; other things are means through which the end is achieved. (Something may be both, to different ends.)
"Praedicamentum habitus non potest cognosci sine praedicamento ubi, ut docet AVerroes in quinto Metaphysicae." Roger Bacon
"Habitus fundatur super relationem continentiae activae, sicut Ubit super relationem continentiae passivae." Capreolus
Robert Sanderson of Lincoln: the four final predicaments share the properties taht they do not have contraries nor do they admit properly of more or less.
Richard Wildman: Hume's argument that causal inference is so essential to human subsistence that it is not probable nature would trust it to "fallacious deductions of reason", should lead him to take it to be instinctive, not trusted to the slow and slowly developed process of habituation.
"Experiments are never contradictory, and, when they appear to be so, that appearance arises from inaccuracy of observation." Richard Wildman
"If a philosopher attempt to convince me with Yes, I am entitled to confute him with No."
"When we have once got the idea of something external, the rest is a mere series of causes and effects."
Everyone recognizes a well-managed house as a delight, but a well-managed house requires a great deal in order to come together, including features of the broader society.
natural, appointed, and customary means
"Time converts a beautiful object into a picturesque one." Uvedale Price
Macvicar: simple beauty as the symbolism of the sublime physical laws of nature, expressive beauty as the symbolism of vitale laws of nature
Macvicar suggests that the sublime leads to monotheism and the picturesque to polytheism.
love : justice :: joy : temperance :: peace : fortitude
We all have reasons to care about reasons.
Parfit's Moral Belief Formula: Acts are wrong unless we could rationally will it to be true that everyone believes such acts to be permitted.
-- This is closer to Kant than it looks, because it is related to the Kingdom of Ends formulation. Pace Parfit, it doesn't address the rarity objection, because for Kant maxims are what formally structure willing and to be permitted is to have kind of maxim that is permissible.
Parfit's Kantian Contractualist Formula: Everyone ought to follow the principles whose universal acceptance everyone could rationally will.
-- This is even closer to KoE. Kant, of course, would hold that this rules out Parfit's "Kantian Consequentialism"; there are no optimific principles everyone could rationally will to be universally accepted, only structural principles of reason itself.
Openness to context is intrinsic to every contingent being precisely as contingent.
extrinsic formal causes and the being-related of the intrinsic form
It is the intrinsic formal cause that grounds virtual causes: the formal cause as related to efficient (internal principle), to other forms (exemplar, object), to final (internal end).
We can make sense of a kind of 'extrinsic material cause' for both living things and fire (food and fuel) and also, derivatively from living things, artifacts (assembly pieces, repair parts).
utility/usefuleness as quasi-material or extrinsic material causation
life & intrinsic power of semiosis
life & self-semiosis
Unfair detriments matter more than unfair benefits; many benefits are only unfair wholly relative to unfair detriments.
serf, bordar, villein, husbandman, yeoman, gentleman, esquire, lord
PSR & Box introduction
Apostasy often arises from exhaustion in one's struggle with sin; not giving themselves refreshment and prudent respite, they burn themselves out and give up, and move to a position in which they can avoid that particular struggle in favor of more manageable ones.
All epistemological questions are causal questions.
People who want to be loved for what they are do not always know or understand what they are.
"pride cannot be vanquished without strength" Llull
models as exemplate exemplars, role models as exemplate exemplars
moved mover, exemplate exemplar, specified specifier, means-end
"There are people who create order; there are no rules that create order." Xunzi (youzhiren, wuzhifa)
"One who tries to correct the arrangements of the rules without understanding their meaning, even if he is broadly learned, is sure to create chaos when engaged in affairs."
reading as co-signifying
"For man and woman to dwell together in one home is the greatest of human relations." Mencius (5A2)
'I am so as to have naturally and to have forever' -- one English back-translation of a Chinese translation of Ex. 3:14
Augustine De Civ 9.16 on the gradations of nobility
The sea is deep to sailors without a ship.
Signs in association with signs make new signs.
"The ground is that by which one can understand why something is, and the cause is a thing that contains the ground of another in itself." Wolff
"A ground (condition, hypothesis) is that from which it can be cognized why something is." Baumgarten
Crucius on efficacious vs existential grounds
Christian liturgy can only be maintained properly by a kind of filial piety toward God.
to overcome oneself and turn toward liturgy
