North Western Winds

The Maverick Philosopher takes on a fascinating subject (well, to me, anyway): Does Ex nihilo nihil fit (nothing comes from nothing) contradict God creating the world ex nihilo ? Bill says no, and I'm inclined to agree: God creates out of himself: he creates out of materials that are internal to his own mental life. It is ANALOGOUS to the way we create objects of imagination. (I am not saying that God creates the world by imagining it.) When I construct an object in imagination, I operate upon materials that I myself provide. Thus I create a purple right triangle by combining the concept of being purple with the concept of being a right triangle. I can go on to create a purple cone by rotating the triangle though 360 degrees on the y-axis. The object imagined is wholly dependent on me the imaginer: if I leave off imagining it, it ceases to exist. I am the cause of its beginning to exist as well as the cause of its continuing to exist moment by moment. But the object imagined, as...

The Seamless Garment There is an interesting read to be had at First Things on the subject of the death penalty. Here are two passages that struck me as worthy of reflection: One hears so many bad, thoughtless, and even dangerous objections to the death penalty in the United States. That it is unconstitutionally “cruel and unusual,” for instance, though the Constitution itself mentions capital crimes. Or that the large number of prisoners removed from death row in recent years by commutation and technical legal appeal somehow prove that hundreds of innocent convicts are on the edge of state-sanctioned death. Or that opponents of abortion are hypocrites if they don’t simultaneously reject the execution of criminals. Why, I always wonder, does this never seem to cut in the opposite direction: If the issues are genuinely linked, then what about the people who oppose capital punishment while supporting legalized abortion? Aren’t they equally hypocritical, and for...

Eye halve a spelling chequer It came with my pea sea It plainly marques four my revue Miss steaks eye kin knot sea. Eye strike a key and type a word And weight four it two say Weather eye am wrong oar write It shows me strait a weigh As soon as a mist ache is maid It nose bee fore two long And eye can put the error rite It's rare lea ever wrong. Eye have run this poem threw it I am shore your pleased two no Its letter perfect awl the weigh My chequer tolled me sew Taken from Wicked Thoughts .

David Warren , one of those annoying converts, like yours truly: I love the Catechism not for its moments of poetry, however. Frankly, Shakespeare and the King James Version deliver more of that. I love it rather because the whole thing fits together. Large as it is, and larger for encompassing everything taught by Scripture and the long living experience of the Church, it is free of internal contradictions. And you may believe, with a "devil's advocate" mind like mine, I am always looking for them. Of course, the thing makes no sense at all if its premises are wrong. And the premise, that "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again", together with the premise that the Gospels give an essentially true and comprehensive view of the matter, is bigger than any book. It is only given such a mind-boggling leap of faith, that the question, "What do we then believe, in detail?" can no longer be avoided. ... Now, if you really want to know why ...

I was surprised to find a comment from Fr. O'Leary on NWW this morning. Then I realized that he seems to be placing his 'comment' into blogs that linked to his 'neocath' post. For those interested in following this discussion, here is Fr. O'Leary's comment and here is a link to Phil Blosser's blog, Musings of a Pernicious Papist . Blosser's other blogs are Philossophia Perrenis and Scripture and Catholic Tradition . My own brief comments follow. Phil Blosser has never as far as I know explained how his understanding of the resurrection differs from mine. However, he comes a little closer to concreteness in his latest. He says that I 're-interpret it, by classifying it an "eschatological" event, which means that it's relegated to the non-empirical, non-factual, non-historical realm of the noumenal "Christ of Faith." This leaves (me) free to deny that the Resurrection ever happened to the "Jesus of History.' I do...

And Jesus said unto them, “And whom do you say that I am?” He disciples replied, “You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the ontological foundation of the context of our very selfhood revealed.” And Jesus replied, “What?” Pontifications on Fr. O'Leary.

Faith in Evolution These recruiting posters are pretty cool, methinks. The comments thread is interesting as well. Hat Tip to The Holy Fool on this one. The Fool also offers his own take down of Fr. O'Leary here. Lots of 'neocaths' are jumping on this story. I don't expect a response from O'Leary, however, unless it comes in the form of a horrid generalization based on the worst bit of writing that comes his way. More likely, he will not deign the 'little people' worthy of his time, time that needs to be spend learning how to format text... There is also a terrific discussion about the nature of axioms going on. It starts at Waka Waka Waka (what an awesome name for a philosophy blog!) and continues at The Maverick Philosopher . Waka Waka writes: There is enough that is common to the reasoning of most human minds that it has been possible to create an abstract method - logic - for sequentially connecting truths. The key is that logic is public - on...

This is simply a beautiful post . Go and read it right now. Some years ago, within my thesis at Duke University, I wrote about the iconicity of language, meaning that language, especially Holy Scripture, functions in a manner similar to the Holy Icons. The Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council stated that “icons do with color what Scripture does with words.” I turned that succinct statement around to ask if Scripture does with words what icons do with color. It became the starting point for my thoughts on the iconicity of language. ... There exists the Gospel of St. John; therefore, God exists . I like St John's Gospel too. While you're at Pontifications , you may want to check out this gem on the subject of doubt . It brings to mind, shall we say, the dubious value of a hermeneutics of suspicion ... The withholding of assent that is the act of doubt can be done in two ways. First, as an exercise of the intellect, whereby the content of faith is examined by asking such qu...

In the comments to my post about The Bread of Life , I got some interesting questions. I'll attempt an answer here. Claire wrote: I am not of the Catholic faith so I may be misunderstanding this whole [transubstantiation] thing. I, too, came over from The Anchoress' site. From my understanding, the sacramental system of Roman Catholicism wasn't officially acknowledged until the Council of Florence in A.D. 1439. Is this correct? [see information on the Council's results ; the short answer is no] If so, then were Roman Catholics missing out for over 1000 years on some of the critically important grace-infusing sacraments that would be important for salvation? I have never heard of this theory and am curious as to where you heard it. Christians in Rome, before the conversion of the Empire, were persecuted, and often that persecution included the charge of cannibalism. That charge would have been much easier to avoid by denying the real presence but there is little ind...

I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with... For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. Ecclesiastes 1:12 I haven't read anything so ridiculous in a long time. I'll grant that Joseph S. O'Leary is a learned man; what he seems to lack is sense. O'Leary seems to resent anyone suggesting that the texts Vatican II produced do not have infinite meaning . Hence he has a thing about Popes (and all Authority, really). Hence his blog is not about Vatican II, but 'the spirit of...' , whatever that might be. His July ninth post is a work of snark to behold, so let the fisking begin! John Paul II thus bypassed and reached over the heads of the educated baby boomers, influenced by Vatican II , in order to address an audience who were a tabula rasa, and to communicate to them a world view that the Vat...

Simply a terrific essay here by Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. on the subject of complexity and faith : Catholicism cannot be and does not announce itself to be a religion that seeks simplicity and easy intelligibility at any cost. To be overly simple is to be neglectful of the distinctions that are actually used by the mind to understand things, in the fullness of what they are and mean. Nonetheless, Catholicism does not disdain simplicity. The famous Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds are designed to state the essence of what is held in the most spare and succinct ways. Yet, every word of this creedal simplicity was hammered out in controversy and contains within itself a whole historical and intellectual reflection that is not to be forgotten or ignored. Many theories of religion would maintain that no religion has an intelligible basis, that none manifest a coherent whole. Religion is therefore a series of "myths" or "ideologies" that explain things according to ...

Thanks to Happy Catholic and The Anchoress for linking to two of my recent posts. The discussion has been interesting and I will try to answer questions in a new post, but today is already a full day. Tomorrow looks much better. In the meantime, here are some links I have been sitting on for a while. I haven't been through it yet, but this PBS site about the travels of Peter and Paul looks like it might be interesting. This essay is a bit purple in places, but an interesting read nonetheless: Peter Kreeft on the subject of women as priests . Finally, there is a longish but very good essay at The New Pantagruel on " Understanding Traditionalist Conservatism ." Here's a snip to get to you going: to [Russel] Kirk and to the American traditionalists he inspired, liberals ultimately fail to understand the partiality of their principle. Their account of human nature excludes too much of what can be known, and is known, about the human good. Because their princi...

Plato's Theory of The Good is still relevant Copelston on Plato's Republic : In The Republic it is shown that the true philosopher seeks to know the essential nature of each thing. He is not concerned to know, for example, a multiplicity of beautiful things, but rather to discern the essence of beauty and the essence of goodness, which are embodied in varying degrees in particular beautiful things or particular good things. Non philosophers, who are taken up with the multiplicity of appearances that they do not attend to the essential nature and cannot distinguish, Eg. the essence of beauty from the many beautiful phenomena, are represented as having only opinion and as lacking in scientific knowledge. ... In The Republic ... Good is... compared to the sun, the light of which makes the objects of nature visible to all and so is, in a sense, the source of their worth and value and beauty. This comparison is, of course, but a comparison, and such should not be pressed: we are...

free enneagram test Type Five The Investigator The perceptive, cerebral type. Fives are alert, insightful, and curious. They are able to concentrate and focus on developing complex ideas and skills. Independent, innovative, and inventive, they can also become preoccupied with their thoughts and imaginary constructs. They become detached, yet high-strung and intense. They typically have problems with eccentricity, nihilism, and isolation. At their Best: visionary pioneers, often ahead of their time, and able to see the world in an entirely new way. I'n no nihilist, I'm not bothered much by isolation, and I'm not sure if I'm eccentric or not. Hat Tip: Moscow Metro .

John 6 and First Corinthians A fellow Red Ensign blogger and blogging friend left a question on Rebecca's blog on the subject of why Catholics take the Eucharist to be not just a sign of God's presence, but also God's real presence. I started to give an answer there but quickly realized that Haloscan would not give me enough space to do it justice so I invited him and anyone else who's curious to come here. I have readers of all sorts, not all are Catholics by any means, so this is probably a common question. Here's Temujin's comment: Uh oh... an evil trolling Baptist comes to troll! Jesus also said "do this in remembrance of me". The point being that we are to remember him. Why would he tell us to remember him if he was physically present in the elements? Paul says further in Corinthians that everytime we drink the cup and eat the bread we proclaim the Lord's death until He comes (although my thoughts on the parousia are different than the...

The Maverick Philosopher hits one - in this case anti-religious bigot Sam Harris - out of the park. I've made arguments like this on NWW before but I consider it to be so important to an open and free society that I'm happy to include the conclusion of Bill Vacellia's post here. This is the gist of it: [Sam] Harris appears to be inferring a normative conclusion from a nonnormative premise. Thus, he appears to be moving from 1. Evidence is what makes a belief a belief about the world to 2. We may hold only those beliefs for which we have evidence. Now even if (1) is unproblematic, how does one validly infer the normative (2) from it? But there is a second way to read the above passage, and that is to take Harris to be reasoning from (1) to the nonnormative 2*. We can (are able to) hold only those beliefs for which we have evidence. On this reading we avoid the Is/Ought fallacy, but trade it in for something just as bad: a false conclusion. Surely, (2*) is false. Peopl...

Oh my! Via Amigo Boom .

But Daddy, I want it! Mark Peters asked about the ceremony on the St. Lawrence River yesterday, in which nine women were "ordained" as priest and deacons. I was going to comment on this even anyway, and my POV is pretty simple. These folks had themselves a little to-do on the river, during which they imitated priests. It's about as valid as the RCMP swearing ceremony I had in my backyard on the weekend, during which I gave myself the right to make a jackass of myself until the wee hours. It seemed to work quite well until the "real" RCMP showed up and shut the whole thing down, the dirty fascists. "We are worker priests," she said. "We will not be able to have parishes and that sort of thing because the church clearly forbids that, but we are doing our work in the world for humanity so we'll move forward with our work." The ordination was carried out by three of the women who were ordained in the European ceremony and later excommuni...

If you want to understand what motivates suicide bombers, watch the recent movie Downfall . Based on eyewitness accounts, it chronicles the final days inside Hitler's bunker. In a particularly harrowing scene, Joseph Goebbels and his wife are given the opportunity to have their six young children flee to safety. But Magda Goebbels refuses and instead drugs the kids to sleep. Then she inserts a cyanide capsule into each child's mouth and presses the jaws until the capsule breaks. When explaining why she won't allow her kids to escape, Mrs. Goebbels explains, "I can't bear to think of them growing up in a world without national socialism." That chilling opening makes a good point. Ideological hatred is not confined to one group or region of the world - although it may take different forms depending on the soil it finds itself in. Fareed Zakaria's article on ideological hatred at Newseek is worth a moment of your time, regardless of your views on the Iraq c...

Just a short note so no one thinks I've tripped over the sprinkler and injured myself. It's been pretty warm this weekend and I've been working in the yard lifting sod and placing cement pavers that are something like 50 lbs. each. There were only nine of them to do, but doing the job in the heat has left me pretty drained this weekend. Maybe I'm just wussy, I dunno. I'll probably be lifting more sod next weekend, as we want to create a bed beside the pavers. If I'm out of touch here then, you'll know why. On a different note, the driver of that garbage truck who died in the accident I posted about was not my friend from high school. There are still three kids out there who lost their Dad, so our thoughts and prayers go to them in what is likely to be a diffuicult time. On a different note still, my blogging friend Andrew has created a new way of following the posts of the ever growing (so it seems) number of bloggers in Canada.