Rorate Caeli: New Secretary General of International Theological Commission
Saint Thomas and the historical method

The Smithy: New Doctor and A Ramble on Ockham, Scholarship, and Other Matters

Chief tells Pope: we must revive soul of Europe

And how, exactly, is this going to be accomplished? Another empty ecumenical gesture? Are Jews going to pray for Christians to be better Christians?

He called on Christians and Jews to open a "new chapter" in their relationship: "If Europe loses the Judeo-Christian heritage that gave it its historic identity and its greatest achievements in literature, art, music, education, politics, and economics, it will lose its identity and its greatness.

One might have thought that the claim of a "Judeo-Christian" identity or culture was limited to Americans. Christianity is rooted in Judaism but that is not the same as the Judaism that came into being through the rejection of Christ.

Affirmative Action in the Church?

Given how feminized the Church and hierarchy are already, is this such a wise move?

Rome Reports: Pope to canonize and name Hildegard of Bingen as Doctor of the Church



How influential has she been on theology?

Rorate Caeli

James Chastek: Philosophies of Nature, Old and Modern

Thomistica.net: Christ and Spirituality in St. Thomas Aquinas: A New Book by Fr. Torrell

Switzerland’s newest bishop ready to evangelize

Zenit: Prelate's Address on the Holy See as Member of the International Organization for Migration


"The Ethical Implications of the Current Situation Seem to Require a Renewed Discussion"

Rorate Caeli: Msgr. Gherardini: Vatican II is not a super-dogma
The importance and the limits of the authentic Magisterium

The Smithy: Scotus' Razor

MoJ: Review of Taylor & Maclure, "Secularism and Freedom of Conscience"

Journal en continu - Séquences choisies - Ordination de Charles Morerod

Related:
Sandro Magister, Theologians, Apologists. What the New Bishops Have To Be

Edward Feser on Frank Pastore (link via his blog) - mp3

The Smithy: Robert Prentice and Illuminationism

MoJ: Koritansky ed., "The Philosophy of Punishment and the History of Political Thought"

(Koritansky's book on Aquinas)

Christopher Kaczor - Pro-Life Aristotle

Tota pulchra es Maria by Durufle performed by Vox Reflexa

Rorate Caeli: The words of Monsignor Ocáriz and Conciliar innovations

Zenit: Papal Address to International Theological Commission
"A Truly Catholic Theology ... Is Necessary Today More Than Ever"

James Chastek, On what can be meant by “there is no morality without God”

The clearest way to show this is to give the various arguments that have actually been used to prove the claim there can be no morality or moral action without God.


1.) Morality is rational, but the existence of God is a necessary practical postulate for rational morality. (Kant)


2.) Human nature is wounded, by which we mean incapable of acting morally without some exterior supernatural aid. (St. Paul, interpretation 1)


3.) Human nature is called to live with a being whose existence exceeds what it can discovered by its own rational power, therefore human nature cannot achieve what it is called to unless this being reveals itself to him. But moral action consists in achieving that which one is called to do, in the sense of perfecting ones nature. (St. Paul, interpretation 2)


4.) Morality requires keeping the weak-minded in line. But one cannot keep the weak minded in line without scaring them with the idea of divine things. (A common opinion of the Roman consuls who killed the Christians)


5.) Justice, the form of the virtues, is nothing but gazing upon the good itself, that is, the philosophical gazing on the divine absolute. (Plato)


6.) The action of anything is its way of trying to become as much like God as possible, and morality is human action (Aristotle)


7.) Of itself, nature is meaningless. But morality of itself is not meaningless. Therefore morality is from a supernatural source, and whatever is from a supernatural source is from God (William Lane Craig)


8.) Of itself, nature is meaningful. But the meaningfulness of artifacts must be reduced to some intelligent being, therefore the meaningfulness of nature must be reduced to an intelligent being. But morality is meaningful action.


9.) Morality is partaking in justice itself, good itself, etc. But God is subsistent justice itself, goodness itself, etc. (Neo-Platonism, sympathetic with Thomism)


10.) Here are the most celebrated atheist regimes. Almost all of them are moral monsters.


11.) Moral action is doing what the herd does. But the herd of Western civilization is founded on belief in God and has not yet given itself a new foundation (suggested by Nietzsche, but not him exactly)


12.) Moral action must satisfy natural desires. But man has a natural desire for God.


13.) Moral action requires knowing what you were made for and what your purpose is. But only your maker and creator knows what your purpose is, and you were specially made and created by God.


So that’s a baker’s dozen, in no particular order. All of them have enjoyed widespread popularity for one reason or another, either by being preacher’s enthymemes or by being the thoughts of a major school or popular thinker. Yet only one of them is a divine command theory (7) and it is not even the paradigm case of the divine command theory (which we find, as Brandon has been saying for years and deserves to be listened to, in William Warburton) There is, in fact, a “default setting” in the Western mind to tie morality to the divine, but divine command theory is only one attempt to articulate this default setting. And so the desire of the Western man’s psyche (and, as Wilkins suggests, this might be a more universal desire) to tie his morality to the divine seems less like a theory and more like a universal sense that articulates itself imperfectly in many different theories.

and

Morality consists in doing ones conscience, conscience is the voice of God (Newman and Frankl)