Our experimental capacity, like our artistic impulse, arises from our delight in imitation. (Cp. Turnbull)
Liberalism is very poor at handling pluralism of values; its strength is reducing the destructiveness of mishandling pluralism, not avoiding mishandling. And effective handling of pluralisms arises from layered structures, like federalism, imperialism, etc.
the state as the means by which a stable private/public distinction is maintained (and thus the primary cause of its modality)
To fulfill his destiny, a man must find a way to be democrat, aristocrat, and king all at once.
the obligation to join the graces with virtue in terms of agreeableness, affability, propriety, courtesy, etc. (Kant)
-- elsewhere he alludes to Schiller on coupling virtue with grace when talking about decorum
duty : justice :: decorum : temperance
When we actually identify as something, we always do it for some specific purpose.
the liturgical commonwealth and the lay right of confraternity
A sense of humor protects from manipulation; it is not a flawless safeguard, but it has kept many people on the prudent side of things.
An account of sovereignty that makes it simply inconsistent with suzerainty/vassalage is already wrong.
In the love ascribed to God Himself, as when we say that God is Love, the things that are immediate consequences of love in us are eminent and intrinsic features of divine love: union, mutual indwelling, ecstasy, zeal, ready enjoyment, and activity.
The reformation of all Christendom is always beyond human power to accomplish.
Capital existed before capitalism and will exist after it.
the family as the natural place of business
The devil works by szalamitaktika.
All human law includes principles of natural laws that contribute to it; human law is not, and cannot be, pure positing without rational precondition.
music and almost-as-if-story
Modern liberal theory has a tendency to try to sever justice from its potential parts.
A meritorious cause requires a principal cause with respect to which it is constituted as meritorious cause.
Adam in his sin as the demeritorious cause of the gift of original justice
preservative vs. liberative salvation
One person may contribute to another's work by counsel, by command, by consent, or by protection. The Holy Virgin shares in the Incarnation, and all of its consequent works, by consent.
The penitent in the confessional is in the position of the Good Thief.
Solemnities in Lent remind us that there are many modes of penitence.
kinds of sacramentalia
(1) dispositive: prepare for sacrament
(2) commemorative: extend the sacrament by memory of it
(3) associate: facilitate the celebration or reception of the sacrament in an appropriate way
-- these are not mutually exclusive; holy water has all three functions
good : thing :: value : quality (Scheler)
Values are not relations but they are that in a good with respect to which a subject aware of the good is related to it as good. (Or we can substituate bad, although this is more complicated, since bad is always in good.)
valuer, valuative attention, value in good as object
value // significance
The intent in making and deciding law is generally to make it what it ought to be.
Determining what a fact is, is always held to the standard of how it ought to be determined.
'Harm' and 'benefit' always presuppose a broader account of functions and requirements.
The primary purpose of covenant is cooperative.
Literature functions as both surrogate experience and advice, so it can only improve us morally in the ways experience and advice can.
the causal complex of choice (cp. the Phaedo)
(1) intellect
(2) appearance of good
(3) choice (willing)
(4) actual good
We see from Plato's Gorgias that arguments can have allegorical as well as literal senses. (Indeed, one can find examples scattered throughout the Platonic corpus.)
Poorly conceived reforms open the door to new corruptions.
found evidence vs. gathered evidence vs. purified evidence
Few things are as good at binding the human race together as children are.
An atmosphere permeated with a call for reform appeals to men of ambition.
An inadequately appreciated feature of legal systems is how much of them is often devoted to creating problems as a trial of sincerity.
Justice is often most effectively pursued by indirect means.
the papal household (jural family) vs. the papal see (jural person)
Satisficing does not rule out optimizing; it rules out optimizing being required.
John 7:44-46 -- The Temple guards return to the priests and Pharisees not having seized him because nobody speaks like Jesus
Jn 7:50-51 -- Nicodemus points out that the Law does not condemn without a hearing
Jn 8:2-6 -- The Pharisees lay a trap to have a ground for accusation
Jn 8:7 -- "Let any who is without sin throw the first stone."
Jn 8:10-11 -- No one condemns the adulterous woman (no witnesses); "Go and sin no more."
Jn 8:17 -- Jesus points out that the law requires witnesses
Jn 8:20 -- Again no one seizes Jesus
Jn 8:31-34 -- "The truth will set you free... everyone who sins is a slave to sin."
Jn 8:39-41 -- Jesus points out that they are not doing as Abraham did.
Jn 8:58 -- "Before Abraham was, I am."
Jn 8:59 -- They try to stone Jesus.
---> Note that Jn 8:7 sets up for Jn 8:59, particularly since Jesus and the Pharisees keep wrangling about whether Jesus has witnesses for His claims, and then we get them having to defend themselves as not illegitimate (i.e., children of 'adulterous union').
---> With some rare exceptions that put it at the end of John, in the margin, or (in the Ferrar group) after Lk 2:38, all mss have the pericope adulterae in exactly this place; even if we assume it is interpolated, this is obviously the original location for the pericope.
---> Thus either (a) it is not interpolated or (b) it is interpolated but has the particular form it does precisely in order to be here.
causative pairs
electrify : to make electric
verify : to make true
show : to make see
teach : to make to learn
feed : to make to eat
raise : to make to rise
fell : to make to fall
lay : to make to lie
sench : to make to sink
quench : to make to quink (obs. = vanish)
Great music is like coming into an entirely new kind of experience.
Pardon and punishment are twins more alike than is often admitted.
An ambassador's role is to represent both the dignitas of the sender and the sender's existimatio for the one to whom the ambassador is sent.
the intrinsic embassy rights of the Church
the Church as missionary/evangelical
the Church as sign of eternal life
the Church as imbued with divine power
the Church as moral/penitential system
the Church as people of God
Church structure has repeatedly shown itself to be far more durable than civil structure.
kinds of opinion: take, vibe, attack, defense, half-question
liberty as a system of responsibilities, including responsibilities of judgment and of initiative
Feast of Unleavened Bread: Ordination
Feast of Harvest: Baptism
Feast of Ingathering: Confirmation
the human will as an effect of predestination (NB that thi sis will, the power, not particular willings)
The distinction between order of intention and order of execution is essential to the relation between means and end.
predestination of the human race vs predestination of human individual
the will as means to glory, which by its nature must be freely possessed and gratuitously possessed; thus the will must be free and capable of grace
In marriage each spouse becomes as it were the sacred vestment of the other.
An oath is an act of religion intrinsically tied to truth and religion.
An oath is not just a case of promising really hard.
The Church now must strive to be a sign of the New Jerusalem to come.
tradition // restoration ecology
habitate corridors as key element in the health of a small tradition
re-seeding and weed control
To speak truly and logically with a reasonable person who is seeking the truth and not be believed is the rhetorical gap; rhetoric is bridge-building for such gaps.
All divine attributes implicitly include all other divine attributes.
Within certain limits, polarization is a normal part of the oscillations of democratic society.
coordinate systems as classification systems
knowing vs seeming to recall
omnipresence and everlastingness as both symbols of divine eternity
Freedom of speech implies that there be some kind of context free for speaking.
The shift from pagan temple architecture to church architecture is primarily dominated by the need to bring the people, as a priestly people, into the enclosure. Thus we increase the enclosed space, we do not put a portico with pillars when you can bring that space within the walls, etc.
The modern era excels in an episodic style of architecture.
musical composition // computer program // liturgical rubric
misison: communication of the will of one person to another with intentional reference to some novel extrinsic effect
-- messengery
-- embassy and legation
-- prophetic mission
-- evangelic mission of the Church
-- apostolic mission
-- Petrine mission
-- visible and invisible missions of the Son and Spirit
-- angelic missions
The Trinitarian circumincession is the eminent ground of the indwelling of the Persons in us.
Justice is perhaps most commonly corrupted through the confusion of means and ends, although the confusion of object and intended consequences is another common form.
historiography as approach vs historiography as field of representations of past events
-- the latter is philosophically interesting: What counts as a past event (the notion is not purely chronological)? What constitutes a representation of it? How do representations relate to each other? What constitutes the representability of past events? What are the formal characterizations of the act of representing here? What are the objects and ends of such representings?
Probability axioms are not standards of likeliness but operationalizations of them.
Meriting is something that arises out of love as its precondition.
The Protestant Reformation is a counter-reformation to the reform movement of the Renaissance.
A strong emphasis on the Scriptural text tends to diversify theology along educational lines, since it is not possible to read a text wholly in abstraction from the particular modes of education that shape one's reading in general.
meritorious cause // semiotic cause, but with respect to a mode of love more than a cognitive power
If it is true that there is no church without a bishop, there would have to be a bishop for the whole Church on earth.
legislative body names
(1) speaking (parliament)
(2) thinking (duma)
(3) assembling (assembly, congress)
(4) people (diet)
(5) social status (estates)
Enumeration of rights always runs the risk of reducing rather than increasing the protection of rights.
Individual rights should not be treated as if they were a kind of intangible private property.
One of the main purposes of punishment is to make the unpunished grateful that they followed the law, by making clear that it was definitely the right thing to do. (This is also a major point at which states and governments are tempted to overuse punishment.)
Descartes's view of immortality (based on basic substance dualism)
(1) external: Decay or death of body does not imply decay or death of soul and we cannot see any other causes that could destroy the soul (if God doesn't).
(2) internal: No substance at all annihilates by nature; bodies perish through accidental compositions, but the soul is "pure substance".
(3) revealed: God himself has revealed to us that god -- the only cause that has the absolute power to annihilate the soul -- will not destroy the soul.
strategies people use in dealing with other religions
(1) syncretism (usually driven by political motivations)
(2) allegorism (suggested by poetry)
(3) euhemerism (suggested by history)
(4) rejecting as outright lie
Themes of trickery and deceit pervade the Gylfaginning.
Anathemas give bishops and priests authority to address and resist claims with the backing of the Church.
Legislatures qua representatives of the people tend to come to prominence due to problems arising from continuity of government.
In the end, it is the fate of all human beings to be crucified, whether physically or spiritually, whether willingly or unwillingly.
R. Yehuda b. Pazi (Y. Yevamot 2:4) says that Lv 18 (on forbidden relationships) and Lv 19 (on sanctification) are linked to indicate that holiness is linked to keeping distance from forbidden relationships.
Neither being worse off nor being badly off are in themselves harm.
Claims that morality serves the biological function of cooperation run into the obvious problem that morality does not seem to increase cooperation. It seems, in fact, to increase dispute. (It does, however, also increase and improve what can be achieved by cooperation.)
language, statutes, and music as instruments of objective causation
The doctrine of the Trinity gives one a higher standpoint from which to understand each divine attribute.
Who fails to follow the law virtuously fails to follow it properly.
The true measure of state capacity is what can be accomplished without the last resort of police or military coercion, which is what you use when more extensive, stable, and efficient means have failed.
Intercession of saints is grounded in part in the fact that the saints reign together with Christ.
The most fundamental principle of planning out a reform is to recognize that it will probably be implemented badly.
Monarchical and aristocratic luxury is a way of placing others under obligation to oneself.
the political prudence and the military prudence of the Church (ST 2-2.50.4)
For us and for God, Christ came from God.
God wills God for all.
1 Cor 12:4-6
charismata: particular graces
diakoniai: offices/ministries
energemata: particular tasks
Gn 1:26, 11:7 possibilities
(1) figurative plurality
-- (a) of deliberation
-- (b) of majesty
(2) literal plurality
-- (a) of persons in God
-- (b) of persons other than god (heavenly court)
While 2b would work well with 11:7, it fits poorly with 1:26 given that creation is a divine distinctive. While 1:26 could be 1a, 11:7 seems not to be deliberative. Thus 1b and 2a seem the surest possibilities; but plural of majesty is not a universal of language.
Is 6:3 possibilities
(1) the triple holy is merely emphatic
(2) to God is to be attributed a threefold or triple holiness in some way
The context seems to be linked to Jesus by Jn 12:37-41; to the Spirit in Acts 28:25-27.
The actual world is every possible world, but only as possible.
'if he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen [outside the City of God] and the publican [complicit with the oppressor]'
"One does not so much require knowledge in witnesses as honesty and good faith." Francis de Sales
"When Our Lord imposes a name upon men he always bestows some particular grace according to the name which he gives them."
ministry of Peter // patriarchate of Abraham [Is 51:1-3]
'It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us' is a startling thing to say; the Holy Spirit gets primacy but the apostles are given authority with Him.
