"It is therefore the worship of God alone that renders them superior [to the beasts], through which alone one is assisted to immortality."

"[It] is therefore the worship of God alone that renders them superior, through which alone one is assisted [(i.e. aspired)] to immortality" (Calvin, Institutes I.iii.3, trans. Perisho).

"the only thing, therefore, which makes them superior is the worship of God, through which alone they aspire to immortality" (Calvin, Institutes I.iii.3, trans. Beveridge).

"Therefore, it is worship of God alone that renders men higher than the brutes, and through it alone they aspire to immortality" (Calvin, Institutes I.iii.3, trans. Battles).

"Unum ergo esse Dei cultum, qui superiores ipsos reddat, per quem solum ad immortalitatem aspiratur."  Or, from 1539-1554,  "Unum ergo esse Dei cultum, qui superiores ipsos faciat, per quem solum ad immortalitatem aspiratur" (Calvin, Institutes I.iii.3; COS 3, 40, ll. 27-28).

     Contra Beveridge and Battles both, aspiratur is surely (?) a passive (not a deponent) singular.  Cf. Lewis & Short, s.v. aspiro I.A.2, "to be favorable to, to favor, assist (the figure taken from a fair breeze)".  So "through which alone one is aspired to [(ad-spir-ed)] immortality."  The McNeill edition trans. Battles notes that elsewhere in the Institutes it is said to be reason that distinguishes men from the beasts (vol. 1, p. 47n14).  But here it is worship (the cultus).

     Yet don't the beasts render God a cultus?

     Lexicon latinitatis medii aevi:  "1. tr., exciter (qqn.)—2. intr., conspirer."
     Mediae Latinitatis lexicon minus =Medieval Latin dictionary =Lexique latin médiéval =Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch, 2nd (2002) ed., ed. Niermeyer et al.:  "exciter—to incite—anstacheln."
     Oxford Latin dictionary:  "7 (intr.) "to give assistance (to), favour, aid."

"To be an atheist in the best modern sense, . . . and so to be a truly intellectually and emotionally fulfilled naturalist in philosophy, one must genuinely succeed in not believing in God...."

"To be an atheist in the best modern sense, . . . and so to be a truly intellectually and emotionally fulfilled naturalist in philosophy, one must genuinely succeed in not believing in God, with all the logical consequences such disbelief entails."

     David Bentley Hart, The experience of God:  being, consciousness, bliss (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2013), 32.  See also "The back page:  God, gods, and fairies," First things no. 234 (June/July 2013):  71 (72-71).  "The philosophical naturalist's view of reality is not one that merely fails to find some particular object within the world that the theist imagines can be descried there; it is a very particular representation of the nature of things, entailing a vast range of purely metaphysical commitments."

"Nature is so exact, it hurts exactly as much as it is worth".

"'Nature is so exact, it hurts exactly as much as it is worth, so in a way one relishes the pain. . . . If it didn’t matter, it wouldn’t matter'".

     Remark of bereaved friend to Julian Barnes, as quoted in Levels of life (London:  Jonathan Cape, 2013), as quoted by Joyce Carol Oates in "When we soar, we can also crash" (on the Web "Julian Barnes and the work of grief"), Times literary supplement no. 5744 (May 8, 2013):  5 (5-6).
     And because sacramental, even more.

"without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him."

The 1) existence and 2) providence of God are the first two things in which faith, to be saving, must believe.

"l’existence de Dieu et celle de sa providence constituent les deux premiers credibilia auxquels se ramène la nécessite de la foi salutaire."

     Jean-Pierre Torrell, “«Dieu conduit toutes choses vers leur fin»:  providence et gouvernement divin chez Thomas d’Aquin,” Nouvelles recherches thomasiennes, Bibliotheque thomiste 61, ed. L.-J. Bataillon, O.P, and A. Oliva, O.P. (Paris:  Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 2008), 75n2, citing Serge Thomas Bonino, O.P., “Introduction” to Thomas d’Aquin, De la vérité Question 2:  (La science en Dieu) (Fribourg, Suisse:  Editions Universitaires; Paris:  Editions du Cerf, 1996), 132-135 (43-134), who says that for St. Thomas, "all the articles of faith are implicitly contained in two major credibilia that every believer, no matter the theological age to which he belongs, is held to believe explicitly.  These two fundamental truths, which constitute therefore the heart of the Christian message, are those enunciated by the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, in a verse cited repeatedly by Saint Thomas", i.e. Heb 11:6.  "The entire Christian faith is thus as it were recapitulated in the belief in God and in a provident God.  These two credibilia are moreover inseparable, for, in the biblical perspective, a improvident God would not be truly God; and Saint Thomas himself stresses that the idea of God is intrinsically tied to that of a providence.  Thus, for Saint Thomas, all later developments of the object of faith are contained in germ in the faith in providence.  In particular, faith in providence includes 'everything that God dispenses in time for the salvation of men and which are the ways towards beatitude", for example, "faith in the redemptive Incarnation of the Word and in the entire supernatural order that flows therefrom.  The act of faith in divine providence embraces therefore all of the particular modalities that, in the course of time, 'the benevolent plan of God' (Eph 1:9, τὴν εὐδοκίαν αὐτοῦ), the history of salvation, assumes" (Bonino, 132-133, with many references).
     The passage above in a somewhat more literal translation:  "the existence of God and that of his providence constitute the two first credibilia to which the necessity of the faith [that is] salutary is led back."

"Spirituality" is not very often "life according to the Spirit" for St. Thomas

"one can consider as assured the following conclusions:

     "1. One meets again quite unmistakably in Thomas two of the three senses [of spiritualitas] isolated by the earlier investigations [mentioned in footnotes 1 ff.]:  the philosophical sense, frequently attested, according to which spiritualitas is opposed to corporeitas or to materialitas; [and] the juridical sense, comparatively rare, according to which the term is found employed in [the] context of simony or of spiritual kinship.

     "2. The properly religious sense of «life according to the Spirit» is present in him, but in no way dominant [(mais de façon non majoritaire)].  Most often it retains its tie to the first philosophical sense and only an attentive reading permits [one] to determine whether it is a question of a spiritualitas gratiae or [only] a spiritualitas by [virtue of a] simple separation from materialitas.
     "3. This ambivalent use [of the term] is especially evident in the domain of continence (virginity and marriage), and it is [in that domain] that one finds it used the most.  [Yet] even there it stands most often not for the state of «spirituality» made possible by the terrestrial practice of continence, but rather for the spirituality in glory that is the recompense for it."

     Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., "«spiritualitas» chez Saint Thomas d'Aquin:  contribution à l'histoire d'un mot," in Recherches thomasiennes:  études revues et augmentées, Bibliothèque thomiste 52, ed. L.-J. Bataillon, O.P. (Paris:  Libraire Philosophique J. Vrin, 2000), 323-324 (315-234) =Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 73 (1989):  583 (575-584).  Conclusions 4 and 5 have to do with 4) the extent to which spiritualitas is in the early Thomas a loan word merely, and 5) the decline in his usage of it after 1260.  An Addendum to the article as published in the Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques considers his use of the adjective spiritualis, which is much less ambiguously indicative of "the life in charity and the exercise of the virtues" (524).

Marx on communism

"The Rheinische Zeitung, which cannot concede the theoretical reality of communist ideas even in their present form, and can even less wish or consider possible their practical realization, will submit these ideas to a thorough criticism. If the Augsburg paper demanded and wanted more than slick phrases, it would see that writings such as those of Leroux, Considerant, and above all Proudhon's penetrating work, can be criticized, not through superficial notions of the moment, but only after long and deep study. We consider such 'theoretical' works the more seriously as we do not agree with the Augsburg paper, which finds the 'reality' of communist ideas not in Plato but in some obscure acquaintance who, not without some merit in some branches of scientific research, gave up the entire fortune that was at his disposal at the time and polished his confederates' dishes and boots, according to the will of Father Enfantin. We are firmly convinced that it is not the practical Attempt, but rather the theoretical application of communist ideas, that constitutes the real danger; for practical attempts, even those on a large scale, can be answered with cannon as soon as they become dangerous, but ideas, which conquer our intelligence, which overcome the outlook that reason has riveted to our conscience, are chains from which we cannot tear ourselves away without tearing our hearts; they are demons that man can overcome only by submitting to them."

     Karl Marx, "[Communism and the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung]," Rheinische Zeitung, 16 October 1842, just five years before the composition of the Communist manifesto.  Trans.  Original here.  "The Rhineland News, Marx argued, would not concede communism any 'theoretical reality,' much less any effort at 'practical realization.'  He found the theory much more ominous than the practice.  The 'intellectual implementation' of communist ideas would be the 'genuine danger,' for such ideas could 'defeat our intelligence, conquer our sentiments. . . ."  To meet that danger, he proposed a careful study of the works of prominent communists, for the purpose of engaging in a 'fundamental criticism of their ideas.'  By contrast, 'practical attempts [to introduce communism], even attempts en masse, can be answered with cannons'" (Jonathan Sperber, Karl Marx:  a nineteenth-century life (New York:  Liveright Publishing Company, 2013 ), 99, on a tip from John Gray, "The real Karl Marx," The New York review of books 60, no. 8 (May 9, 2013):  38 (38-40)).
     What is more, "In a speech to the Cologne Democratic Society in August 1848, Marx rejected revolutionary dictatorship by a single class as 'nonsense'—an opinion so strikingly at odds with the views Marx had expressed only six months earlier in the Communist Manifesto that later Marxist-Leninist editors of his speeches mistakenly refused to accept its authenticity—and over twenty years later, at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, Marx also dismissed any notion of a Paris Commune as 'nonsense'" (Gray, 38).

"Public opinion does not change this fast in free societies. Either opinion is not changing as fast as it appears to be, or society is not as free."

"Public opinion does not change this fast in free societies. Either opinion is not changing as fast as it appears to be, or society is not as free."

     Christopher Caldwell, 2013.

"the most absolute monarchs in Europe cannot prevent certain opinions [(pensées)] hostile to their authority from circulating in secret throughout their dominions and even in their courts.  It is not so in America; as long as the majority is still undecided, discussion is carried on [(on parle)]; but as soon as its decision is irrevocably pronounced, everyone is silent [(chacun se tait)], and the friends as well as the opponents of the measure unite in assenting to its propriety. . . .
     "The authority of a king is physical [(matérielle)] and controls the actions of men without subduing their will.  But the majority possesses a power that is physical and moral [(matérielle et morale)] at the same time, which acts upon the will as much as upon the actions and represses not only all contest but all controversy [(le fait et le désir de faire)].
     "I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion [(indépendance d'esprit et de véritable libérté de discussion)] as in America."

     Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America I.xv =vol. II, chap. vii, sec. 5, p. 142 in the 12th ed. of 1848 ("Unlimited power of the majority in America, and its consequences"), trans. Reeve, Bowen, & Bradley.  Cf. "I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world [(Je veux imaginer sous quels traits nouveaux le despotisme pourrait se produire dans le monde)]" (II.iv.6; Pleiade, p. 836).

"freedom of opinion does not exist in America."

     Ibid., p. 265.

     Cf. this passage.