Aidan Nichols, The chalice of God: a systematic theology in outline (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 39.
Thus, there is no transcending the Sign God has himself become, the Sign who is God.
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
"the moment of the fathers is the moment of the constitutive reception of biblical revelation, which the later Church only excogitates and applies."
Aidan Nichols, The chalice of God: a systematic theology in outline (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 34, citing J. Ratzinger, "Importance of the Fathers for the structure of the faith," Principles of Catholic theology: building stones for a fundamental theology (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), 133-52.
From Torah to, in Christian interpretation, Christ (or "the outpouring of his Spirit on all flesh")
This is our God;
no other can be compared to him!
He found the whole way to knowledge,
and gave her to Jacob his servant
and to Israel whom he loved.
Afterward she appeared on earth
and lived among men.
οὗτος ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν, οὐ λογισθήσεται ἕτερος πρὸς αὐτόν.
ἐξεῦρεν πᾶσαν ὁδὸν ἐπιστήμης καὶ ἔδωκεν αὐτὴν Ιακωβ τῷ παιδὶ αὐτοῦ καὶ Ισραηλ τῷ ἠγαπημένῳ ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ·
μετὰ τοῦτο ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ὤφθη καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις συνανεστράφη.
Baruch 3:35-37, RSV (36-38, LXX). "She is the book of the commandments of God, and the law that endures for ever [(αὕτη ἡ βίβλος τῶν προσταγμάτων τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ὁ νόμος ὁ ὑπάρχων εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα)]" (4:1). So the "she" (πᾶσαν ὁδὸν) comes from the context and 4:1 (αὕτη) explicitly.
I was put onto this by Aidan Nichols, The chalice of God: a systematic theology in outline (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 34.
Monday, November 2, 2015
Sir Martin Rees on creatio ex nihilo and the Thomistic distinction between essence (essentia) and existence (esse)
"Cosmologists sometimes claim that the universe can arise 'from nothing'. But they should watch their language, especially when addressing philosophers. We've realized ever since Einstein that empty space can have a structure such that it can be warped and distorted. Even if shrunk to a 'point', it is latent with particles and forces — still a far richer construct than the philosopher's 'nothing'. Theorists may, some day, be able to write down fundamental equations governing physical reality. But physics can never explain what 'breathes fire' into the equations, and actualizes them in a real cosmos. The fundamental question of 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' remains the province of philosophers. And even they may be wiser to respond, with Ludwig Wittgenstein, that 'whereof one cannot speak, one must be silent'."Martin Rees, Just six numbers: the deep forces that shape the universe (New York: Basic Books, 2000 [1999]), 131. I was put onto this by Aidan Nichols, Chalice of God: a systematic theology in outline (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 20-21, and have not actually read the book by Rees.
Saturday, October 31, 2015
sana doctrina
"Though, in the wake of the classical German philosophers, I am committed to a high estimate of rationality (Vernunft), I do not consider the charge of 'dogmatism' an insult; I hold doctrine to be an intellectual intuition of the mind that anticipates the banquet of the Kingdom in the vision of God, and thus it is 'aretegenic,' or excellence promoting, since all such anticipation effects human transformation in the direction of salvation, which is enjoyment of the supreme Good."Aidan Nichols, Chalice of God: a systematic theology in outline (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012), 4.
Sunday, October 25, 2015
"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."
Hillary Clinton shaking hands with Shubhashish Mukherjee, Washington, D.C., 20 May 2004.
Hillary Clinton supposedly shaking hands with Osama Bin Laden (the photoshopped version).
I first consulted Snopes.com on 24 October 2015. By that point, Snopes had not found (or, at least, not posted) the original (assuming that it is the original). Not only that, but in the process of looking for it, I ran across a number of persons on the Web who were complaining of having been unable to find it. So I cropped the photoshopped version down to the right third, and dropped that into Google Images. Needlesss to say, I have not positively confirmed the authenticity of the first.
religious, but only artificially so
"There was once a time when the terms 'Christian,' 'atheist' and 'agnostic' meant something definite. If they are to continue to mean anything definite, then a fourth term must be invented for that large class of persons which includes Professor Whitehead. They are 'religious,' without holding to any religion; they are also 'scientific,' in that they believe devoutly in the latest theory of any and every particular science; and they must be cast out by any congregation of Christians, Buddhists, Brahmins, Jews, Mohammedans or Atheists."
T. S. Eliot, "The return of Foxy Grandpa" [1927], The New York Review of books 62, no. 15 (October 8, 2015), 31-32. From The complete prose of T. S. Eliot: the critical edition, vol. 3: Literature, politics, belief, 1927-1929, ed. Frances Dickey & Jennifer Formichelli (Faber & Faber; Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015). Eliot was probably right to consider this little review unsatisfactory.
T. S. Eliot, "The return of Foxy Grandpa" [1927], The New York Review of books 62, no. 15 (October 8, 2015), 31-32. From The complete prose of T. S. Eliot: the critical edition, vol. 3: Literature, politics, belief, 1927-1929, ed. Frances Dickey & Jennifer Formichelli (Faber & Faber; Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015). Eliot was probably right to consider this little review unsatisfactory.
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