The New Testament writings "neither oppose nor juxtapose a new Scripture to the old; but to the one Scripture, i.e. to the Old Testament, they oppose the event that is Jesus Christ, inasmuch as he is the Spirit who explicates Scripture. . . . [Paul] opposes the Old Covenant and the New as gramma and pneuma, letter and spirit, and he calls the Lord by the name of [the] Spirit who causes [one] to comprehend the letter, or, rather, who is the sense of it, its living content (2 Cor 3:6-18)."
Joseph Ratzinger, as quoted by Henri de Lubac, as quoted by Tracey Rowland, in "Henri de Lubac et Saint Thomas d'Aquin: ouverture et structure en théologie," Revue des sciences religieuses 77, no. 2 (2003): 246. All of this contra Joachim of Fiore, who treated the New Testament as a second gramma merely, and was therefore obliged to hold out for something else wholly "spiritual".
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Ratzinger on "bourgeois Pelagianism" on the stats
"Contrary to the attitude that whatever appears to be wrong with the contemporary Church must be somehow the work of the Holy Spirit, even if it is not obvious how or why, Ratzinger has written that the criterion that Jeremiah laid down remains valid: 'the proclamation of empirical success is to be judged by empirical criteria and cannot rely on theology.'"
Tracey Rowland, "Variations on the theme of Christian hope in the work of Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI," Communio: international Catholic review 35:2 (Summer 2008): 209-210. Cited here is The Yes of Jesus Christ, pp. 41-51. The lines immediately preceding were, "Often bourgeois Pelagians react strongly against all criticisms of secularizing post-conciliar practices and the concerns of those who worry that there might be problems with the reception of the conciliar call for renewal and with popular interpretations of conciliar documents. When presented with statistical data about plummeting Mass attendance rates, the even smaller numbers going to Confession, and the rather large numbers cohabitating before marriage, contracepting and so on, the bourgeois Pelagians are likely to reply that the younger post-conciliar generations simply have different ways of expressing their spirituality. Against these kinds of reactions Ratzinger has spoken of the 'arrogance of apostasy which is a parody of faith and hope.' He has also drawn analogies between the attitudes of contemporary bourgeois Pelagians and those who imprisoned the prophet Jeremiah for his pessimism. He observes that in the time of Jeremiah 'the official optimism of the military, the nobility, the priesthood, and the establishment prophets demanded the conviction that God would protect his city and his temple. However, they were all wrong. They ignored all the evidence to the contrary and 'downgraded God to become the guarantee of human success and the justification for their irrationalism.' Contrary to the attitude that whatever appears to be wrong with the contemporary Church must be somehow the work of the Holy Spirit, even if it is not obvious how or why, Ratzinger has written that the criterion that Jeremiah laid down remains valid: 'the proclamation of empirical success is to be judged by empirical criteria and cannot rely on theology.'"
Tracey Rowland, "Variations on the theme of Christian hope in the work of Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI," Communio: international Catholic review 35:2 (Summer 2008): 209-210. Cited here is The Yes of Jesus Christ, pp. 41-51. The lines immediately preceding were, "Often bourgeois Pelagians react strongly against all criticisms of secularizing post-conciliar practices and the concerns of those who worry that there might be problems with the reception of the conciliar call for renewal and with popular interpretations of conciliar documents. When presented with statistical data about plummeting Mass attendance rates, the even smaller numbers going to Confession, and the rather large numbers cohabitating before marriage, contracepting and so on, the bourgeois Pelagians are likely to reply that the younger post-conciliar generations simply have different ways of expressing their spirituality. Against these kinds of reactions Ratzinger has spoken of the 'arrogance of apostasy which is a parody of faith and hope.' He has also drawn analogies between the attitudes of contemporary bourgeois Pelagians and those who imprisoned the prophet Jeremiah for his pessimism. He observes that in the time of Jeremiah 'the official optimism of the military, the nobility, the priesthood, and the establishment prophets demanded the conviction that God would protect his city and his temple. However, they were all wrong. They ignored all the evidence to the contrary and 'downgraded God to become the guarantee of human success and the justification for their irrationalism.' Contrary to the attitude that whatever appears to be wrong with the contemporary Church must be somehow the work of the Holy Spirit, even if it is not obvious how or why, Ratzinger has written that the criterion that Jeremiah laid down remains valid: 'the proclamation of empirical success is to be judged by empirical criteria and cannot rely on theology.'"
Aquinas on the sin of Lucifer
"Without doubt the angel sinned by seeking to be as God. But this can be understood in two ways: first, by equality; secondly, by likeness. He could not seek to be as God in the first way, because by natural knowledge he knew that this was impossible, and there was no habit preceding his first sinful act, nor any passion fettering his knowing power, so as to lead him to choose what was impossible. . . . And even supposing it were possible, it would be against the natural desire, because there exists in everything the natural desire of preserving its own being, which would not be preserved were it to be changed into another nature. . . . But he desired to be like God in this respect,--by desiring, as his last end of happiness [(ut finem ultimum beatitudinis)] that which he could attain by the power of his own nature [(virtute suae naturae)], turning his desire away from supernatural happiness [(a beatitudine supernaturali)], which is attained by God's grace [(ex gratia Dei)]. Or, if desiring as his last end that likeness to God which is bestowed by grace, he sought to have it by the power of his own nature, and not from divine assistance according to God's ordering [(per virtutem suae naturae, non ex divino auxilio secundum Dei dispositionem)]."
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I.63.3.Resp., trans. FEDP. A rejection of what I take to be the popular claim, that Lucifer sought to be like God simpliciter. (Although Aquinas is really responding in the nuanced positive to the objections here, the question being "Whether the Devil desired to be as God".) I was put onto this by Ph. Vallin, "Henri de Lubac et Saint Thomas d'Aquin: ouverture et structure en théologie," Revue des sciences religieuses 77, no. 2 (2003): 221-222, who goes on to stress a point I am myself (perhaps overly) fond of making, that "the obstacle . . . of the transcendent heteronomy of salvation" is "an illusion, . . . as if the Being of God were a member of [and therefore a threat to the autonomy of the other members of (faisait nombre avec) the class] of autonomous being[s]" (222, where Suarez and Wolf, not Aquinas, are the culprits). "Saint Thomas finds already in Aristotle a correction of the principle that the idea of nature implies that of complete autonomy and loaths heteronomy". No, human nature is a "structure open" to the "opening structure" of divine revelation (225, 226). "the anthropology of the open structure" discovers its (undeniably cruciform) fulfillment in the "revelation of the trinitarian economy to which it is subordinated: 'before Abraham was, I AM'" (226: Abraham, "open structure"; YHWH, "opening structure"). For more on the sign of contradiction that this "opening structure" presents, go here: http://liberlocorumcommunium.blogspot.com/2008/12/corrective-on-aquinas-worth-heeding.html.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I.63.3.Resp., trans. FEDP. A rejection of what I take to be the popular claim, that Lucifer sought to be like God simpliciter. (Although Aquinas is really responding in the nuanced positive to the objections here, the question being "Whether the Devil desired to be as God".) I was put onto this by Ph. Vallin, "Henri de Lubac et Saint Thomas d'Aquin: ouverture et structure en théologie," Revue des sciences religieuses 77, no. 2 (2003): 221-222, who goes on to stress a point I am myself (perhaps overly) fond of making, that "the obstacle . . . of the transcendent heteronomy of salvation" is "an illusion, . . . as if the Being of God were a member of [and therefore a threat to the autonomy of the other members of (faisait nombre avec) the class] of autonomous being[s]" (222, where Suarez and Wolf, not Aquinas, are the culprits). "Saint Thomas finds already in Aristotle a correction of the principle that the idea of nature implies that of complete autonomy and loaths heteronomy". No, human nature is a "structure open" to the "opening structure" of divine revelation (225, 226). "the anthropology of the open structure" discovers its (undeniably cruciform) fulfillment in the "revelation of the trinitarian economy to which it is subordinated: 'before Abraham was, I AM'" (226: Abraham, "open structure"; YHWH, "opening structure"). For more on the sign of contradiction that this "opening structure" presents, go here: http://liberlocorumcommunium.blogspot.com/2008/12/corrective-on-aquinas-worth-heeding.html.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Ratzinger on "the public status of [the Church's] image of man"
"A society that turns what is specifically human into something purely private and defines itself in terms of a complete secularity (which moreover inevitably becomes a pseudo-religion and a new all-embracing system that enslaves people)--this kind of society will of its nature be sorrowful, a place of despair: it rests on a diminution of human dignity. A society whose public order is consistently determined by agnosticism is not a society that has become free but a society that has despaired, marked by the sorrow of man who is fleeing from God and in contradiction with himself. A Church that did not have the courage to underline the public status of its image of man would no longer be the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the city set on a hill."
Joseph Ratzinger, The Yes of Jesus Christ: spiritual exercises in faith, hope and love (New York: Crossroad, 1991), 41, as quoted by Tracey Rowland, "Variations on the theme of Christian hope in the worlk of Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI," Communio: international Catholic review 35, no. 2 (Summer 2008): 220.
Joseph Ratzinger, The Yes of Jesus Christ: spiritual exercises in faith, hope and love (New York: Crossroad, 1991), 41, as quoted by Tracey Rowland, "Variations on the theme of Christian hope in the worlk of Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI," Communio: international Catholic review 35, no. 2 (Summer 2008): 220.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Pope, with me in mind
"Some men's Wit is like a dark lanthorn, which serves their own turn and guides their own way: but is never known (according to the Scripture Phrase) either to shine forth before Men, or to glorify their Father in heaven."
Alexander Pope, "Thoughts on various subjects," LXXXI (Works of Mr. Alexander Pope, in prose (1741), II: 337), as quoted by Melvyn New, Richard Davies, and W. G. Day, in their Notes to The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, vol. 3 of the edition of Tristram Shandy in the Florida edition of the works of Laurence Sterne (Gainsville, FL: University Presses of Florida, 1984), 233. Still, I would settle for the company of Tristram's uncle Toby: "—What a conjucture was here lost!—My father in one of his best explanatory moods—in eager pursuit of a metaphysical point into the very regions, where clouds and thick darkness would soon have encompassed it about;—my uncle Toby in one of the finest dispositions for it in the world; his head like a smoke-jack;—the funnel unswept, and the ideas whirling round and round about in it, all obfuscated and darkened over with fuliginous matter!" (Laurence Sterne, The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent., III.18-19 (GBWW, 1st ed., 1952, vol. 36, p. 293)).
Alexander Pope, "Thoughts on various subjects," LXXXI (Works of Mr. Alexander Pope, in prose (1741), II: 337), as quoted by Melvyn New, Richard Davies, and W. G. Day, in their Notes to The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, vol. 3 of the edition of Tristram Shandy in the Florida edition of the works of Laurence Sterne (Gainsville, FL: University Presses of Florida, 1984), 233. Still, I would settle for the company of Tristram's uncle Toby: "—What a conjucture was here lost!—My father in one of his best explanatory moods—in eager pursuit of a metaphysical point into the very regions, where clouds and thick darkness would soon have encompassed it about;—my uncle Toby in one of the finest dispositions for it in the world; his head like a smoke-jack;—the funnel unswept, and the ideas whirling round and round about in it, all obfuscated and darkened over with fuliginous matter!" (Laurence Sterne, The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent., III.18-19 (GBWW, 1st ed., 1952, vol. 36, p. 293)).
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Getting right to the point
"Lord God, maker of heaven and earth and of all created things, you make your just ones holy and you justify sinners who confess your name. Hear us as we humbly pray to you: give us eternal joy with your saints."
Prayer after (the third) Psalm 150, Morning prayer, Sunday, Week II (Christian prayer, p. 783). I love the audacity here.
Prayer after (the third) Psalm 150, Morning prayer, Sunday, Week II (Christian prayer, p. 783). I love the audacity here.
The CCC on the Opus Dei
"Creation was fashioned with a view to the sabbath and therefore for the worship and adoration of God. Worship is inscribed in the order of creation. As the rule of St. Benedict says, nothing should take precedence over 'the work of God,' that is, solemn worship. This indicates the right order of human concerns."
Catechism of the Catholic Church #347. "Creatio intuitu sabbati effecta est et propterea intuitu cultus et adorationis Dei. Cultus est in creationis ordine inscriptus. «Nihil operi Dei praeponatur», dicit sancti Benedicti Regula, ita rectum sollicitudinum humanarum denotans ordinem."
Catechism of the Catholic Church #347. "Creatio intuitu sabbati effecta est et propterea intuitu cultus et adorationis Dei. Cultus est in creationis ordine inscriptus. «Nihil operi Dei praeponatur», dicit sancti Benedicti Regula, ita rectum sollicitudinum humanarum denotans ordinem."
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