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"In modern parlance, we hear the quotation marks if we say that objects under gravity 'know' where to go, and think of the verb as metaphorical. For Aquinas, too, such a use of 'know' would be unusual. But the extension of meaning would go beyond metaphor. The world itself, for Aquinas, exhibits an ordered series of harmonious structures, repeating on different levels and in different aspects: he calls their relation analogy. If you insisted that to recapitulate in language an analogy between crystals and minds was to equivocate, Aquinas would reply with a distinction: some equivocations mislead; this equivocation is strictly appropriate. Refuse to admit it, and you are blocking the light, the light by which things are enlightening the mind. That is the light of reason, of ratio, of appropriate proportion or structure in the world and in us.
"For Aquinas, all kinds of knowledge—especially Aristotelian scientia—depend on sources of light, on smaller revelations. First principles are manifestations of forms in the world, joining in one that which idiom divides, namely the form that inheres indifferently in minds and things. Each Aristotelian science is thus originated and individuated by its formal rationale or light. If you understand frogs, then you get light from frogs that gives rise to frog science in human minds. If you understand frogs, that also shows that frogs manifest frog-light, the first principles of frog, that give rise also to followable frog-structure in frogs themselves. That is also science, the science in frogs. The science in frogs gives light, and the science of frogs appears in the light. The more you attend to the first principles of frogs, the better science you have. The more you attend to frog-light, the more scientific your discipline is. The more something is revealed, therefore, the more scientific it is. Theology is no exception to that rule. Theology exemplifies that rule. Theology is for that reason not science by disciplinary extension; theology is science par excellence."
Eugene F. Rogers, Jr., "Thomas Aquinas on knowing and coming to know: the beatific vision and learning from contingency," in Creation and the God of Abraham, ed. David B. Burrell, Carlo Cogliati, Janet M. Soskice, and William R. Stoeger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 248-249 (238-258). For Rogers' comments on the true "distinction between the science that is sacred doctrine [(which, 'at least in this life, . . . is a science without scientists' (255))] and the sciences that are natural," see pp. 254 ff. (1) "Knowing," or Aristotelian epagoge (insight), is characteristic of "only God and the blessed in heaven" (238 ff., 256; "Aquinas recognizes that there is something so teleological about epagoge that it is not quite human" (241), and "troubles and disrupts Aristotle's commitments to teleology at several turns" (240)). Here below we have only (2) "coming to know," or the gradual but systematic exploitation of the contingency unattended to by Aristotle. "Retroduction, or contriving experiment, is [Thomistic] ethics applied to matter: it tests the character of things" (244). Etc. Aquinas as a thoroughly modern scientist. Brilliant. A tour de force. Worthy of a third or fourth read.
"Laws are the explananda; they are the questions, not the answers."
Ernan McMullin, The inference that makes science, The Aquinas Lecture, 1992 (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1992), 90.
"The paschal vigil is not the fulfillment of the triduum in the sense of a 'final' celebration: it is a commencement. . . .
"—The liturgy of the paschal fire: relatively late in its current form ([of a] fire kindled [out] in front of the church), it was in [its] origins a rite of the lucernarium, [an] ancient gesture inherited from that moment in domestic life when one lit the lamps in the house before nightfall. In keeping with the Jewish manner of reckoning the day from evening to evening, this rite of the candlestick marked the entry into the new day. Hence the importance of this entry in the paschal celebration: Lent began with ashes, this liturgy of the fire opens the heart of the assembly to the newness of the Resurrection. The communication of fire to each of the faithful, the procession, and the acclamation of the Exsultet come and stamp their seal on this irruption of the paschal newness into the heart of the night."
Daniel Bourgeois "«Les images liturgiques sont des images folles»: essai sur la structure du triduum paschal," Communio: revue catholique internationale 35, nos. 1-2 (janvier-avril 2010): 117 (103-118).
"Oxford's Turl Street" was "famously (if ironically) said to emulate the Church of England's movement from the 'High' (Street) to the 'Broad' (Street) while bypassing 'Jesus' (College)."
Markus Bockmuehl, "Bible versus theology: is 'theological interpretation' the answer?", Nova et vetera: the English edition of the international theological journal 9, no. 1 (Winter 2011): 44n32 (27-47).
"But against that could then rightly be voiced the objection that is always to be heard: I can just as well pray in the forest, in the freedom of nature. Certainly, anyone can. But if it were only a matter of that, then the initiative in prayer would lie entirely with us; then God would be a mental hypothesis—whether he answers, whether he can answer or wants to, would remain open. The Eucharist means, God has answered: The Eucharist is God as an answer, as an answering presence. Now the initiative no longer lies with us, in the God-man relationship, but with him, and it now becomes really serious. That is why, in the sphere of eucharistic adoration, prayer attains a new level; now it is two-way, and so now it really is a serious business. Indeed, it is now not just two-way, but all-inclusive: whenever we pray in the eucharistic presence, we are never alone. Then the whole of the Church, which celebrates the Eucharist, is praying with us. Then we are praying within the sphere of God's gracious hearing, because we are praying within the sphere of death and resurrection, that is, where the real petition in all our petitions has been heard: the petition for the victory over death; the petition for the love that is stronger than death."
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, "The presence of the Lord in the sacrament" (1978), in God is near us: the Eucharist, the heart of life, ed. Stephan Otto Horn and Vinzenz Pfnür, trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2003), 90-91 (74-93). This goes to the heart of all authentically Christian prayer. All prayer, insofar as it is Christian, is built on the confidence that "God has answered," and the Real Presence is the most concretely sacramental form of "God as answer" that we have in this life.
"Only by proclaiming the gospel it has faithfully maintained can the church be truly apostolic."
Douglas M. Koskela, "'But who laid hands on him?' Apostolicity and Methodist ecclesiology," Pro ecclesia 20, no. 1 (Winter 2011): 41 (28-42), italics mine. This sentence stresses two of the "three primary ideas" the concept of apostolicity "has been employed to convey": "continuity with the historical and visible church, the integrity of the church's life and witness, and the calling of the church to proclaim the gospel in word and deed" (29, italics original).
"The union of physical and spiritual praxis was possible for ancient Indians and remains a real goal for many contemporary yogis. This sort of combination is affirmed by an old joke about a Jesuit priest who, when his bishop forbade priests to smoke while meditating, dutifully agreed but argued that surely there would be no objection if he occasionally meditated while he was smoking. That one can, however, choose merely to smoke or merely to meditate is denied both by Christians of the Reverend R. Albert Mohler ilk and by Hindus of the Hindu American Foundation ilk, both of whom insist that yoga is only and always a religious system."
Wendy Doniger, "Assume the position" (a largely enthusiastic review of Yoga body: the origins of modern posture practice, by Mark Singleton, and a fine summary of the extremely complex history of "yoga"), Times literary supplement no. 5631 (March 4, 2011), 11 (10-11).
"In modern parlance, we hear the quotation marks if we say that objects under gravity 'know' where to go, and think of the verb as metaphorical. For Aquinas, too, such a use of 'know' would be unusual. But the extension of meaning would go beyond metaphor. The world itself, for Aquinas, exhibits an ordered series of harmonious structures, repeating on different levels and in different aspects: he calls their relation analogy. If you insisted that to recapitulate in language an analogy between crystals and minds was to equivocate, Aquinas would reply with a distinction: some equivocations mislead; this equivocation is strictly appropriate. Refuse to admit it, and you are blocking the light, the light by which things are enlightening the mind. That is the light of reason, of ratio, of appropriate proportion or structure in the world and in us.
