MoMo, FaMo, MoFa, and FaFa By David Barash
Monday, September 12, 2011
Should I get a copy?
Rick Garnett recommends Josef Pieper's The Christian Idea of Man. A short introductory work that probably isn't as thorough as his essays on the cardinal virtues?
Zenit:
Papal Address to Engaged Couples
"Educate Yourselves Henceforth in the Liberty of Fidelity" [2011-09-12]
"Educate Yourselves Henceforth in the Liberty of Fidelity" [2011-09-12]
Papal Homily at Close of Eucharistic Congress
"A Eucharistic Spirituality Is a Real Antidote to Individualism" [2011-09-11]
"A Eucharistic Spirituality Is a Real Antidote to Individualism" [2011-09-11]
On the Virgin's "Fiat"
The Risen Christ Is the "Source of Hope and Comfort for Daily Life" [2011-09-11]
The Risen Christ Is the "Source of Hope and Comfort for Daily Life" [2011-09-11]
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Saturday, September 10, 2011
The Smithy: Henry of Ghent on Aquinas and Existence
Henry of Ghent: "The first way of understanding the participation of a creature in being is mistaken; it is not an understanding but a phantastical imagination. For the essence of a creature should not be imagined like the air indifferent to obscurity and luminosity, but like a certain ray in itself apt to subsist, produced by the sun, not by the necessity of nature but by free will."
Isn't it rather petty to complain that an analogy is a phantastical imagination rather than an understanding?
But does Aquinas think that existence and nature are two separate things? How can they be distinct without being separate in reality? How is "real" to be understood? After all, St. Thomas's and the Thomistic understanding of the real distinction is what is at issue...
Henry of Ghent: "The first way of understanding the participation of a creature in being is mistaken; it is not an understanding but a phantastical imagination. For the essence of a creature should not be imagined like the air indifferent to obscurity and luminosity, but like a certain ray in itself apt to subsist, produced by the sun, not by the necessity of nature but by free will."
Isn't it rather petty to complain that an analogy is a phantastical imagination rather than an understanding?
Thomas' image of the air's illumination is an image of one sort of thing being poured into another sort of thing to make it actual in a certain way, but for Henry (and, I might add, the Franciscan tradition in general along with him) existence can't be understood as a different sort of thing than the existing nature and added to it in order that it can be.
But does Aquinas think that existence and nature are two separate things? How can they be distinct without being separate in reality? How is "real" to be understood? After all, St. Thomas's and the Thomistic understanding of the real distinction is what is at issue...
Friday, September 09, 2011
Discussion of Peter Moskos's book on punishment
Public Discourse: Flogging: The Best Hope for Our Broken Prison System? by Stefan McDaniel
More on the book.
More on the book.
Thursday, September 08, 2011
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
Zenit: On Beauty as a Way to God
Art "Is Like a Door Opened to the Infinite"
Sandro Magister, Ratzinger's Favorite Bach Cantata
It is the one for the last Sunday of the Lutheran liturgical year, centered on the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. All the details of a personal memory of Pope Benedict, on the eve of his next voyage to Germany
Art "Is Like a Door Opened to the Infinite"
Sandro Magister, Ratzinger's Favorite Bach Cantata
It is the one for the last Sunday of the Lutheran liturgical year, centered on the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. All the details of a personal memory of Pope Benedict, on the eve of his next voyage to Germany
Monday, September 05, 2011
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