Aphorism XIV

I have never met an anti-dogmatist, but I have met people who are opposed to anyone other than themselves making ex cathedra statements.

The Solemnity of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ

"For a CHILD IS BORN to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace" (Isaias 9:6).

"For while all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course, Thy almighty Word leapt down from heaven from Thy royal throne, as a fierce conqueror into the midst of the land of destruction" (Wisdom 18:14-15).

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.... And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we saw His glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth" (John 1:1, 14).

On St. Thomas Aquinas, the soul and conception

A distinction between human life and the presence of a human soul is not philosophically tenable. Or at least not insofar as many who put it forward attempt to use St. Thomas Aquinas as support for their position.

It is true that St. Thomas, following the received embryology of his day, did not believe that the ensoulment of an immortal, rational soul happened until some few months after conception. What is never mentioned is that, given St. Thomas' understanding of the relationship between body and soul, this means that there was no human life until after the ensoulment of an immortal, rational soul.

The soul is the substantial form of the body. This means that the soul makes the body be the kind of being that it is and grants to it all the powers that it possesses. Now, a human being is a rational animal. This means that it possesses a rational soul, from which stem its powers of intellect and will. But, since the soul is the substantial form of the body, this rational soul is also the origin of a man's vegetative and animal powers, i.e. the powers of life, reproduction, growth, nutrition, sensation and local motion.

Now, in the received embryology of the day, the being in the womb after conception first possessed only a vegetative soul. Thus it possessed only the powers of vegetative life, nutrition, growth. After some development this vegetative soul was replaced by an animal soul. Thus the being no longer had simply vegetative life, but animal life. Thus, in addition to the powers of nutrition and growth it now began to develop the powers of sensation and local motion, as seen through the development of sense organs and limbs. Finally, when this animal development had reached a fitting stage, God would infuse the being with an immortal, rational soul. Animal life would now be replaced by human life, and the rational soul would be the origin not only of the powers of nutrition, growth, sensation and local motion, but also of the powers of intellect and will.

As this brief sketch hopefully makes clear, there was no human life before the infusion of an immortal, rational, human soul. For to have a human life is to be a human being, to be a human being is to be a rational animal, and to be a rational animal is have an immortal, rational soul.

Thus those who would use St. Thomas as cover for their pro-abortion positions demonstrate only that they know nothing of St. Thomas. For in St. Thomas there can only be human life were matter is informed by an immortal, rational soul. If it can be demonstrated that human life begins at conception, then, for St. Thomas, it would be demonstrated that a human soul is infused by God and present at the moment of conception. To say otherwise would be to imply a duality between body and soul that is entirely foreign to the thought of St. Thomas.

An interesting note: The Council of Vienna formally declared that "whoever shall obstinately presume in turn to assert, define, or hold that the rational or intellective soul is not the form of the human body in itself and essentially must be regarded as a heretic" (Denzinger, 30th ed., no. 481). The conclusion that can be drawn from this pronouncement and the brief philosophical sketch given above I will leave to the reader.

Aphorism XIII

Anyone who tells you the Gospel is about love is speaking the truth; but anyone who says the Gospel is about love and defines love simply as warm, fuzzy feelings is a fool or a liar and should be instructed, admonished or ignored as necessary.

Aphorism XII

Wisdom finds its end not in some proof, but in the Sanctus.

A Thanksgiving prayer.

"Or what hast thou that thou hast not received?" ~1 Corinthians 4:7

Nothing.

Lord, on this day when my country still in some way recognizes that You exist and that You are the source of all that is good, I offer to You a much belated and inadequate thanksgiving for all the gifts You have given me. I offer also my sorrow and repentance for those far too numerous times that I have squandered Your gifts.

I ask You, omnipotent and eternal God, to give me the grace to return to You what You have given to me a hundredfold. Let me not be like the wicked and slothful servant who returned no gain to his master. And yet Lord, I am a weak and foolish man. I am a wrathful man, a lustful man, a gluttonous man. I am limited by my nature and broken through the fall of mankind's first parents. I can do nothing pleasing to You, return nothing to You, without the help of Your grace. But I know, O Lord, that Thy grace is sufficient for me, for Your power is demonstrated most perfectly through my own infirmity. Help me to return to You all You have given to me and to pour out myself, even to the last, for the glory of Thy majesty and the salvation of souls.

I ask all this, Father, through Jesus Christ Thy Son our Lord, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.

Update on my studies

I'm not sure if it has ever come up before, but I am a graduate student currently working on my licentiate in philosophy. All my course work is finished, so I have been writing my thesis. It's title: A Defense of God’s Freedom to Create in the Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas.

I just dropped my first draft in my director's mailbox today. Not counting front and end matter--the dedication, acknowledgments, table of contents, bibliography &c.--it clocks in at just under 150 pages. My director must now read it and suggest any changes. Once he has approved it, a reader will be found for it and I can schedule my final oral examination. Once it receives reader approval and I pass the oral exam, I will receive my licentiate and be licensed to teach philosophy in any pontifical university or major seminary.

I would appreciate any prayers that readers might spare for the successful completion of my studies. I would also appreciate prayers to aid me in discerning what to do after I graduate. At the moment it looks like a decision between finding work as a teacher or entering the seminary. I am currently leaning towards the latter.

The foolishness of values subjectivity

"At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life" (Planned Parenthood v. Casey).

If all values are purely subjective, then your life is only worth what I hold it to be worth. And if I hold it to be worth less than anything else, and I further believe that it is worth sacrificing your life to achieve something I value more, then you have no right to stop me. To do so would be to impose your meaning of human life on me, and my right to define human life for myself is at the heart of liberty. What are you, a fascist?

"Then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and reveling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom" (H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu").

Fhtagn, baby. The stars will soon be right. They must be. After all, we're almost there already.

Of course the best part of all thus bull plop is that it is self-refuting. If liberty means that I get to define life, the universe and everything, then that means I have every right to define them in such a way as to allow me to forcibly impose my definitions on others. Which in turn violates the right people have to define life, the universe and everything.

Do we actually pay Supreme Court justices? Because this is first year undergrad, intro to philosophy, "here's your F-" crap.

A bit on marriage basics

What is essential to marriage? It is essential to marriage that the couple, by being the kind of couple it is, is ordered towards having children. That is the basic essence of marriage.

A couple that consists of a man and a woman, by being the kind of couple that it is, is ordered towards having children. This is true even is this particular couple, consisting of this man and this woman, is not capable of having children due to age or infertility. It is even true if this man and this woman use contraception to prevent themselves from having children. The universal, i.e. being this type of couple, is essential. The particular, i.e. being this particular couple, is accidental.

A couple that consists of two men or two women is not ordered towards having children. This is true by virtue of being the kind of couples they are. Neither two men nor two women are capable of making a baby. This is not due to being this particular couple, but to being this type of couple. It is not accidental, it is essential. As such, neither two men nor two women are capable of marriage.

I hope that clears it up for everyone who tries to argue for same sex "marriage" by arguing that we do not make heterosexual couples prove they will not use contraception before the government considers them married. Such arguments are fallacious. They are examples of the fallacy of the accident.

Aphorism XI

Marxist argumentation: When logic and reality are against you, accuse your opponent of a pathology.

EDIT:

Or, to put in the terms of the Underpants Gnomes...

Argument Plan:

Phase 1: Accuse your opponent of a pathology.

Phase 2: ???

Phase 3: Victory!

See how simply it is?

Another post election thought

Morning prayer today has the following reading, which I will give from the Douay-Rheims translation:

Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. For which cause I please myself in my infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ. For when I am weak, then am I powerful (I Corinthians 12:9-10, emphasis added).

Something to contemplate, no? Quite often the public prayer of the Church will speak to one's life in a way that seems surprising for a standard cycle.

Gonna start a counter-revolution from my bed...

So, this post over at Mark Shea's blog got me thinking, "What do we conservatives really mean when we say, 'We need to return to those things which made America great: individual liberty and limited government'?"

Well, I don't know what everybody else means by them--though some seem to mean, "I can do what I want, and neither man nor law has the right to stop me!"--but I know what I mean by it. And what I mean by it has been shaped by my understanding of what our forefathers meant by it. (I would note that by "forefathers" I don't just mean the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the framers of the Constitution. I mean the everyday, ordinary sort of people. You know, the ones who actually made the Constitution law by their approval of it, the ones whose interpretation of the Constitution make for its real original intent?)

So, first let us discuss "individual liberty" and what conservatives should mean by it. I take my understanding of individual liberty from our forefathers, who seemed to take it from Micah 4:1-5. To paraphrase it all into one sentence, it is when every man walks in the name of the Lord, and sits under his vine, and his own fig tree, and there is nothing to make any afraid, or at least as close to this as is possible this side of the Parousia. "Liberty," then, is the product of a proper order--defended not just by law, but by religious conviction and virtue--that allows men to tend to their own families and such without the need for interference to make them do good or keep them from doing evil. There is no need for interference because virtuous men freely choose to live their lives this way.

Then what should conservatives mean by "limited government," you ask? It should mean that first you take care of your family, and your neighbors, and your congregation, and your coworkers, and your employees, and the other guys in the 4-H, and the other members of your fraternal order, and the guys on your softball team, and any of your countless other immediate and personal connections. You do it because you have real relationships with these people, and such relationships mean that you have duties to each other. If that isn't enough, then you turn to your town, or city, or municipality, or whatnot to pitched in. And if that still isn't enough, then you turn to your state. If that fails, then and only then do you turn to the federal government. And when it is necessary to turn to these more remote levels of government, you remember that the limitations on their power were set in place so they couldn't butt in where they weren't needed and make a mess of things. And, as such, you respect these limitations and, if modifying them is necessary, you do so prudently and through the proper legal process.

Now, the problem is that, with a few exceptions, few people use these terms this way anymore. And when we conservatives use them we are often misunderstood. So I would suggest perhaps modifying the terms a little. For example, I try never to speak simply of "liberty," but rather to speak of "ordered liberty," as did men such as Edmund Burke, George Washington and Russell Kirk, to name just a few. This calls immediately to mind the fact that true liberty cannot exist without the proper ordering of the soul and of society. And I try never to speak about "limited government" without discussing the principle of subsidiarity and federalism, which is the framework for the implementation of subsidiarity in the American political tradition.

Now, the election of 2008 makes it likely that conservatives are going to have very little influence in the corridors of power. So be it. Remember that this loss happened, at least in part, because the so-called "conservative" major party was far more right- to center-liberal than truly conservative. Make sure you let them know that. Speak out for virtue, for the priority of the local, the preeminence of the family and for all those things that true conservatives hold dear. And, more importantly, live these things in your life. If the culture is poison, then be the antidote. The counter-revolution doesn't start in the voting booth, or at the party committee meeting, or on the soapbox. It starts in our communities, in our homes, and in our hearts.

Today is Guy Fawkes Day

Today is Guy Fawkes day. It is the day a patriot and true son of the Church tried to bring down a tyrant.

Interestingly enough, it also the day William of Orange, the usurper, landed at Brixham. William was supported by the Whigs, who were traitors to their king and country. Their reasoning? James II and VII was Catholic.

Today, of all days, I find these fact amusing. But then again, I've always had a rather odd sense of humor.

Election '08

Earlier this week my father and I wondered why we hold elections on a Tuesday in the United States. After thinking about it, I have come to the conclusion that we hold elections on a Tuesday because the divine hand of providence has seen fit to have us vote on a day when the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary are prayed. I would humbly suggest that any of my readers who have not yet prayed the Rosary today do so.

For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.

EDITED TO ADD:

From The Ballad of the White Horse, by G.K. Chesterton:

"I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.

"Night shall be thrice night over you,
And heaven an iron cope.
Do you have joy without a cause,
Yea, faith without a hope?"

God and substance

In reading an article for my thesis, I came across an argument that goes something like this: We must avoid the two erroneous extremes of pantheism, i.e. of seeing the whole of creation as an accident of God, and Aristotelianism, i.e. seeing created beings as substances that exist in themselves without the need of a reference to a creator. I think that the second half of this statement is false. I do not believe that what the article describes as Aristotelianism is a problem, nor that it entails holding that substances do not need reference to their creator.

God is not in any of the categories. God is the cause of all being and as such is the cause of all the categories. Thus the category of substance does not entail no relationship to God as creator.

The category of substance is traditionally held to be those things that exist in themselves, while the other nine categories are accidents, i.e. those things that exists through another. It is important to realize that the categories are categories of created beings, all of which have their existence through participation in the divine esse. Thus we could truthfully say that the category of substance contains those beings who possess their limited and participated existence in themselves, while the categories of accidents contain those things that only possess their limited and participated existence through some other created things.

One need not jettison the categories to preserve God's necessary creation and sustenance of all things. One need only realize that the categories themselves are categories of created beings. That, as far as I can tell, is how St. Thomas understood it.

Abortion and government

There are those who feel that it is acceptable to vote for a pro-abortion politician if their other positions appear to benefit the common good and help reduce the number of abortions. The problem with this position is that reducing the number of abortions, as important as this is, is not enough. If abortion could be completely eliminated in fact but was still legal, then the task is not finished. This is because the legality of abortion is itself an attack on the very foundations of the rule of law and the common good.

As Blessed Pope John XXIII taught in Mater et Magistra, "individual human beings are the foundation, the cause and the end of every social institution" (219). The legality of abortion is a direct assault on the foundation and purpose of the political community itself. The rule of law and the common good are meaningless concepts if innocent human beings are allowed to be legally murdered.

This teaching is reaffirmed and made even more explicit in Servant of God Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae: "Disregard for the right to life, precisely because it leads to the killing of the person whom society exists to serve, is what most directly conflicts with the possibility of achieving the common good" (72). One cannot truly work towards the common good by ignoring the legality of abortion. The legality of abortion necessarily undermines the common good.

A candidate who runs on a pro-abortion platform essentially states that he will not work towards the purpose of government, i.e. the common good. He renders his administration incapable of benefiting the common good in any way except accidentally. This is because the very nature his administration's position attacks the common good by enabling the legal attack on the lives of the unborn.

Any attempt to put forward a pro-abortion politician as an acceptable candidate fails. A candidate who promises to attack the very foundation and purpose of government, the good of life on which all the rest of the common good depends, can never be acceptable.

What intentions can and cannot do, part I

Suppose that law makers passed a law that demanded all $100 bills be printed in blue ink. But further suppose that those law makers, in passing this law, really intended that all $100 bills be printed in red ink. Would it be a false interpretation of the law to rule that printing $100 bills in blue ink was in keeping with the law, while printing $100 bills in red ink was a violation of the law? Do the intentions of the law makes force "blue" to mean red?

A letter to Senator Biden

I just came across this interview with Delaware Senator and Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden. (Hat tip: Mark Shea)

The interview ended thus: "To sum it up, as a Catholic, I'm a John XXIII guy, I'm not a Pope John Paul guy."

What follows is my letter to Senator Biden.

Dear Senator Biden,

I just read your interview with reporter Nicole Gaudiano, an interview apparently conducted on April 27, 2007, on delawareonline.com. The interview was posted on October 19, 2008, and the information given with it said that the second half of the interview, the half concerning the question of abortion, was being printed for the first time.

I noticed that you ended the interview by saying that you were "a John XXIII guy," so I thought I'd share the following two paragraphs from Blessed Pope John XXIII's encyclical letter "Mater et Magistra," which was concerned with Christianity and social progress:

"193. We must solemnly proclaim that human life is transmitted by means of the family, and the family is based upon a marriage which is one and indissoluble and, with respect to Christians, raised to the dignity of a sacrament. The transmission of human life is the result of a personal and conscious act, and, as such, is subject to the all-holy, inviolable and immutable laws of God, which no man may ignore or disobey. He is not therefore permitted to use certain ways and means which are allowable in the propagation of plant and animal life.

"194. Human life is sacred—all men must recognize that fact. From its very inception it reveals the creating hand of God. Those who violate His laws not only offend the divine majesty and degrade themselves and humanity, they also sap the vitality of the political community of which they are members."

I hope your deep respect for Blessed Pope John XXIII leads you to listen to his words and draw the obvious conclusions, conclusions reinforced by Servant of God Pope John Paul II in his encyclical letter "Evangelium Vitae."

In Christ,

Brendon

Edited to add: In the hopes of getting Senator Biden to actually read my letter, I have expanded upon it and mailed a copy to each of his three offices. After telling the Senator a bit about my own experience growing up as a Roman Catholic in Pennsylvania, I continued with the following:

I am telling you all this [about my background] so as to give you a better idea of the perspective behind this letter. I also hope to demonstrate that, however great the differences in our backgrounds, we also share at least a few commonalities.

I am writing to you because I just read your interview with reporter Nicole Gaudiano on delawareonline.com. This interview was apparently conducted on April 27, 2007. The interview was posted on October 19, 2008, and the information given with it said that the second half of the interview, the half concerning the question of abortion, was being printed for the first time.

I noticed that you ended the interview by saying that you were "a John XXIII guy." There is, of course, nothing necessarily wrong with this. People have different temperaments and different styles, and so it makes sense that we will all have different appreciations of certain Popes based upon how they present themselves. This is no more wrong than having a preference to devotion to St. Dominic over St. Francis of Assisi or vice versa.

The interview, however, did not leave me thinking that this was all you meant by your final comment. I fear that I received the impression that you were trying to play Blessed Pope John XXIII and Servant of God Pope John Paul II against each other so as to excuse your voting record on the question of abortion. This strikes me as an erroneous use of the thought of Blessed Pope John XXIII. To demonstrate why I believe this to be so, I thought that I would share the following two paragraphs from Blessed Pope John XXIII's encyclical letter Mater et Magistra, which was concerned with Christianity and social progress:

193. We must solemnly proclaim that human life is transmitted by means of the family, and the family is based upon a marriage which is one and indissoluble and, with respect to Christians, raised to the dignity of a sacrament. The transmission of human life is the result of a personal and conscious act, and, as such, is subject to the all-holy, inviolable and immutable laws of God, which no man may ignore or disobey. He is not therefore permitted to use certain ways and means which are allowable in the propagation of plant and animal life.

194. Human life is sacred—all men must recognize that fact. From its very inception it reveals the creating hand of God. Those who violate His laws not only offend the divine majesty and degrade themselves and humanity, they also sap the vitality of the political community of which they are members.

I hope your deep respect for Blessed Pope John XXIII leads you to listen to his words and draw the obvious conclusions, the same conclusions reinforced by Servant of God Pope John Paul II in his encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae.

There is a good chance that you will soon be the Vice President-elect of the United States of America. This would make you the second most influential political leader in our country. Such a position of authority is a heavy responsibility. Please remember the words of our Lord: "And unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required: and to whom they have committed much, of him they will demand the more."

I will also be sending a copy of this letter to your offices in Wilmington and Milford in the hopes that this will increase the chances of you reading it personally. Thank you for your time. Know that I will endeavor to keep you in my prayers.

In Christ,

Brendon

Some notes on abortion, phil. of nature, logic, &c.

A soul is the form of a living being. A form is that which causes a particular being to be the type of being it is. A particular being is a being that is whole in itself and distinct from all other particular beings.

Is the being that comes into existence at conception a particular being? Yes. It is a distinct being that is whole in itself, not a part of another being. If this were false, then any and every part of the being that comes into existence at conception would be a part of the pregnant woman. Thus, pregnant woman would eventually be two headed, four armed, four legged &c. Some of them would even be hermaphrodites. This is absurd. Thus, the being that comes into existence at conception is a particular being.

What type of being is this particular being? It is human. It is a being that posses a full human genome. Science can tell us that.

If what exists after conception is a particular human being, then it has a human form. And since human beings are living things, this is the same as saying that it has a human soul.

----

The "being" in "human being" means being per se, i.e. being that is whole and distinct in itself. A thumb does not posses this type of being. It is not whole and distinct in itself. Rather, it is a part that belongs to another being, a being that is whole and distinct in itself.

----

Form and matter are the two concomitant principles of physical beings. Form is that which makes a being be this type of being. Matter is what makes a being be this particular being. If you agree that there are individual beings, but that individual being share common types or natures, then you have all you need to hold the existence of form and matter. And since a soul is simply the form of a living being, you have all you need to hold the existence of soul.

There is nothing in this definition that requires any theological belief. There is nothing that requires a person to hold that any soul is spiritual and will survive the death of the form/matter composite being whose existence it informs. Indeed, Aristotle is not always clear on where he stands in this regard. Many believe that the textural evidence shows that Aristotle himself did not believe in the immortality of the human soul.

Nothing here requires faith. All that is required is the ability to recognize that many individual physical beings share the same type or nature. Biology does this whenever it divides living beings into Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species.

----

taxonomy: Biology. the science dealing with the description, identification, naming, and classification of organisms.

More "wymynpriest" nonsense

Read this article from the Associated Press.

"It has also raised fears that women might abandon the Roman Catholic Church for other branches of Christianity that allow female priesthood."

The only other “branches of Christianity” that have real priests are the various Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches. None of those ordain women to the priesthood either.

I’m assuming the article is referring to various Protestant denominations that "ordain" their ministers, some of which are even called "priests." If that is what is being referred to, then it seems these women care more about that special feeling one gets from a public ceremony and being allowed to wear special clothes than they do about the ontological reality of ordination. Which justs goes to show that it would be wrong to ordain them even if women could be ordained.