Sunday, August 21, 2011
Monday, August 15, 2011
Virtues
I am beginning a four week series this Thursday on the Four Cardinal Virtues. So I have been doing a little reading to get ready. It is good to read a little St. Thomas to clear away the cobwebs in the mind. When I read St. Thomas things make sense. When I get away from him I tend to rely on my feelings towards things, and you can't help but be influenced by the culture. The world tells us that many things are alright or even good for us when in fact they are bad for us. Or I begin to think according to my actions. I do something without thinking and then I cup with a reason for it. This is the reason conforming to the will. This is very bad and no way to approach the truth.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
From GK Chesterton
Reason itself is a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.
A fundamental teaching of Christianity is that God created the world ex nihilo, out of nothing. The world was brought into existence by the word of God. It was planned; it is reasonable. For this reason Christians believe the world can be understood. So it is perfectly natural for the Christian to undertake the work of science, that is to measure and seek to understand the world.
In opposition to this is the belief that the world has always existed, that is it was never created. This world view does not engage in the work of understanding the world because there is nothing to understand, there is no plan or order, because there is no word that creates the world.
This is why science flourished and made great gains in the Christian West. Yes, the ancient Greeks, Egyptians and Chinese achieved great things, but these discoveries came to an end, there was no development. Without an understanding of creation one ultimately must give up on the task of understanding the world.
Muslims, in order to preserve the transcendence of God, understand him as creating the world in every instance from his arbitrary will. For if we could understand the world too completely then we would have access to the plan of God, the Word of God. The Muslim rejects that Jesus is the Word of God and his incarnation. God cannot be that close to us. The Christian believing in the word of God believes in the natural law that exists in nature itself and is immutable. The natural law can also be understood by the human mind.
When the modern world rejected the world it did so in favor of reason over faith. But now the world is rejecting reason as well. There is no natural law, the world is only what we want it to be. The world is governed by the will and not by the reason. Because of this young people cannot understand the rejection of homosexual marriage. Because they have no concept of the world ordered by natural law. It is now ordered by whatever we want. The moral order has nothing to do with reason or the natural law. it has been reduced to whatever we feel like doing.
A fundamental teaching of Christianity is that God created the world ex nihilo, out of nothing. The world was brought into existence by the word of God. It was planned; it is reasonable. For this reason Christians believe the world can be understood. So it is perfectly natural for the Christian to undertake the work of science, that is to measure and seek to understand the world.
In opposition to this is the belief that the world has always existed, that is it was never created. This world view does not engage in the work of understanding the world because there is nothing to understand, there is no plan or order, because there is no word that creates the world.
This is why science flourished and made great gains in the Christian West. Yes, the ancient Greeks, Egyptians and Chinese achieved great things, but these discoveries came to an end, there was no development. Without an understanding of creation one ultimately must give up on the task of understanding the world.
Muslims, in order to preserve the transcendence of God, understand him as creating the world in every instance from his arbitrary will. For if we could understand the world too completely then we would have access to the plan of God, the Word of God. The Muslim rejects that Jesus is the Word of God and his incarnation. God cannot be that close to us. The Christian believing in the word of God believes in the natural law that exists in nature itself and is immutable. The natural law can also be understood by the human mind.
When the modern world rejected the world it did so in favor of reason over faith. But now the world is rejecting reason as well. There is no natural law, the world is only what we want it to be. The world is governed by the will and not by the reason. Because of this young people cannot understand the rejection of homosexual marriage. Because they have no concept of the world ordered by natural law. It is now ordered by whatever we want. The moral order has nothing to do with reason or the natural law. it has been reduced to whatever we feel like doing.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Month of Feasts
August is full of many good saints. Today we kick off with St. Alphonsus Ligouri. He founded the Redeptorists. He suffered many trial, setbacks, and betrayal by his brothers, but he always remained faithful. He teaches us to persevere if faith in the midst of obstacles and sorrow.
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