Friday, June 14, 2019

Faith seeking understanding

"pedagogical disputations in schools [are] meant not for removing error but for instructing their hearers so that they might be led to understand the truth; . . . those investigating the root of truth and making known how what’s said is true must rely on [2] reasons; otherwise, if a teacher determines a question with bare [1] authorities, the hearer will indeed be assured that something is so, but he will acquire [(acquiret)] no science or understanding and will go away with an empty head."

     Thomas Aquinas, Quodlibet IV.ix.3.Resp., trans. Thérèsa Bonin (with the Latin), italics mine.  On "I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you," see, for example, The Big Apple.

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